Introduction To Alpha Blending

Article by : Duane Bong

Introduction To Alpha Blending

Alpha blending is used in computer graphics to create the effect of transparency. This is useful in scenes that feature glass or liquid objects. It does this by combining a translucent foreground with a background colour to create an in-between blend. For animations, alpha blending can also be used to gradually fade one image into another.

Alpha Value Set To 0, 0.5 and 1

How Does Alpha Blending Work?

In computer graphics, an image uses 4 channels to define its colour. Three of these are the primary colour channels - red, green and blue. The fourth, known as the alpha channel, conveys information about the image抯 transparency. It specifies how foreground colours should be merged with those in the background when overlaid on top of each other.

The equation used in alpha blending is:

where [r,g,b] is the red, green, blue colour channels and alpha is the weighting factor.

In fact, it is from the weight factor, that alpha blending gets its name. The weighting factor is allowed to take any value from 0 to 1. When set to 0, the foreground is completely transparent. When it is set to 1, it becomes opaque and totally obscures the background. Any intermediate value creates a mixture of the two images.