Opacity

What is it for?

• When you want to fade an entire image
• When you want to reduce the presence of an effect or helper image
• When you want to animate only the opacity with animation or CHOP nodes

Overview

Uniformly multiplies the opacity (alpha) of the entire image. It adjusts only the image's presence without changing its colors, making it useful for weakening effects, blending material before compositing, and fade-in / fade-out animation.

Usage tips

• The go-to fade setup is to promote opacity to an input pin 📌 and connect time_source plus a waveform / easing node. This creates appear and disappear animation (motion (Blink) + Opacity produces blinking).
• It is often inserted before blend to tune an asset: when a light effect is too strong, try 0.3–0.5.
• Use mask for partial transparency; this node applies uniformly to the whole image.

Related nodes

• blend — its opacity can also adjust transparency during compositing
• mask — control transparency by location
• reveal — reveal progressively with a progress map
• float_input — external opacity control

Notes

• Only alpha is adjusted; RGB is unchanged.
• 0.5 halves the original opacity.
• On an already translucent image, the value is multiplied by the existing opacity.
• This node does not use a mask image; it directly adjusts the source image's alpha.

Examples

1. Multiply an effect image by 0.4 to display it faintly
2. Connect Float Input to control opacity from outside
3. Place it before Reveal to keep the whole image faintly visible
4. Match the strength of assets before Blend