Set opacity of layer

RV
1

I’m trying to arrange an RV session that includes the animatic as a picture-in-picture in the top right corner of the main image.

But I want the opacity of the animatic to be at 50% and can’t figure out how to set alpha channel/fade a layer in RV. Has anyone done this and can shed some light?

2

Any information on this? is it even possible to do this in RV?

3

Hi,

The only way I know of to change the opacity in RV (except for rendering the source with a different Alpha value) is using a Sequence.

Sequences have now a inputOpacities property: here in the manual

So a way to change the opacity for a given source would be (in python)

opacity_sequence = commands.newNode("RVSequence")
commands.setNodeInputs(opacity_sequence, ["sourceGroup000000"])
commands.setFloatProperty(f"{opacity_sequence}.composite.inputOpacities", [0.5], True)

or if you want a full RVSequenceGroup that is visible in the session manager:

opacity_sequence = commands.newNode("RVSequenceGroup")
commands.setNodeInputs(opacity_sequence, ["sourceGroup000000"])
commands.setFloatProperty(f"{opacity_sequence}_sequence.composite.inputOpacities", [0.5], True)

Full version of what was initally asked:

from rv import commands

# source examples (find real source or add source yourself)
source_node = "sourceGroup000000"
background_source = "sourceGroup000001"

alpha_value = 0.5

opacity_sequence = commands.newNode("RVSequence")
commands.setNodeInputs(opacity_sequence, [source_node])
commands.setFloatProperty(f"{opacity_sequence}.composite.inputOpacities", [alpha_value], True)

# Add to layout
layout = commands.newNode("RVLayoutGroup")
commands.setNodeInputs(layout, [opacity_sequence, background_source])
commands.setStringProperty(f"{layout}.layout.mode", ["static"], False)

# Make background fullsize
commands.setFloatProperty(f"{layout}_t_{background_source}.transform.translate", [0.0, 0.0,], False)
commands.setFloatProperty(f"{layout}_t_{background_source}.transform.scale", [1.0, 1.0,], False)

# Place "floating" opacity sequence (adjust as needed)
commands.setFloatProperty(f"{layout}_t_{opacity_sequence}.transform.translate", [0.5, 0.25], False)
commands.setFloatProperty(f"{layout}_t_{opacity_sequence}.transform.scale", [0.3, 0.3], False)

commands.setViewNode(layout)

Hope this helps :slight_smile:

The input opacities property is quite new (april of 2025), so make sure you are running a relatively recent version of RV.

Cheers, Mirco