
You can find this in the output settings of the render queue. When you add the composition to the render queue, you’ll also need to ensure that you export the image sequence with RGB + Alpha. It’s important to use an image format that supports fully variable alpha channels like TIFF or PNG. I’m using After Effects, but any animation tool that can export an image sequence will do. We’ll need source material with an alpha channel. Encoding HEVC in the terminal with avconvertĬreating a composition with an alpha channel.
Creating a composition with an alpha channel. This is a relatively involved process, so I’ll break it down into a number of steps. HEVC is unsupported in Chrome, Firefox, Opera and Edge – so we’ll have to fall back to VP9 which has had alpha channel support since 2013. For HEVC with alpha channel, users will need iOS 13 and macOS Catalina. How do we use this today? We’ll need to use a video codec called HEVC, the successor to H264 that delivers the same performance at 50% of the file size.Īs for browser support, HEVC is only supported in Safari on iOS 11 and macOS High Sierra. I can think of many other good use cases for games, interactive videos and animations. It’s now possible to achieve green screen effects just using CSS and a video. Videos on the web with an alpha channel open up many possibilities. Safari now even supports video inside the img tag. Think full page background videos, cinemagraphs, explainer graphics and so on. Video is used everywhere, and it’s slowly becoming part of the fabric of web design. We’re well into the second decade of widespread video on the web. You can use this library directly in Finder, on the command line with avconvert or via Compressor. HEVC encoding uses the AVFoundation library – updated in 2019 with alpha channel support.
Update June ’20: HEVC encoding is supported in Catalina directly. Tuesday 15 October, 2019 (updated: Thursday 4 June, 2020) HEVC encoding on macOS Catalina now supports encoding an alpha channel, enabling many creative options on the web and inside apps. How to make HEVC, H265 and VP9 videos with an alpha channel for the web | Kit Cross Kit Cross Home About How to make HEVC, H265 and VP9 videos with an alpha channel for the web