Layouting with Overlaps/Blending

Hi,

I’m looking for ways to layout a bunch of elements. The LayoutTOP and the automatic layout from containers seem to have no options for handling intentional overlaps. Would be nice to also define the Blendmode for the Overlaps.

A “reliable” way is to use the FitTOP and position every element and comp the various fits together. But I just figured that may be very tedious if there are a lot of different elements.

Any suggestions on how I should handle this, when I plan to layout a lot of elements?

Layout that can be achieved by LayoutTOP/Containers

Mockup of a layout I'd like to achieve

If my description is to vague, here is a screenshot of what im working on. The different FitTOPs are Comp’ed together with the screen blend mode.

Example of working but insufficient Layouting | LayoutingExample.toe (4.4 KB)

Depending on your blending mode requirements and any post-process work, you may be better served using a COMP-based layout (set the Background TOP parameter of each container to your input textures and use the Depth Layer parameter to order the composition). Downside is that you need to convert back to TOP (OP Viewer TOP) if you need to do any post-processing or similar.

Alternatively, you can use a Render-based approach in which you compose rectangular gometries together, textured with a Constant MAT pointing to your source textures (with blending enabled). Use an ortographic camera for a regular 2D composition.

Both options can be very performant and waste less GPU memory than stacking enlarged TOPs together, but offer less flexibility regarding blending modes.

Another solution I use for composing multiple image, for the purpose of moving images on 3D mapping is to construct a GLSL Top.
I made it to use a film I made grouping and syncing 9 video in one 4K, my glsl top devide the film in 9 images and use uniform input to scale and move the films on the texture.
Very easy to manage and very light in processing.
Here is the TOX comming directly from the past… The mire can be whatever format, the film is normaly 4K with alpha for transparency and the mesures are in pixel for the position.
There is no blending but you can easely change glsl to add it to the device.
Feel free to use and tweek it.
glslCrop.tox (3.3 KB)

There is also the multimix component in the palette

Many ways to Rome : You could use the Kantan Mapper Component to even get detailled control about the blending curve on the edges, although setup may be a bit tedious.