How to check the transparency survived the download and not just the export
Ask Vizard Agent to download the delivered file back from its own link and check the alpha channel there, rather than checking the file it just rendered. Transparency can be lost at four separate points: the encoder, the container, the upload and the delivery link. Only the last of those is what the recipient actually opens.
What do you type into Vizard Agent?
Ask Vizard Agent about the received file rather than the produced one. It's a small difference in wording and it's the whole job: the render itself is almost never where transparency gets lost. Say where the overlay is going too, because a web page, an editing timeline and a messaging app don't all survive the same container.
Prompt
What does Vizard Agent actually do?
"The transparency is gone" is one symptom with four possible causes, so Vizard Agent narrows it down hop by hop. If the muxer's output has alpha and the compressed file doesn't, compression is to blame. If neither has it, the problem is upstream. Checking only the final file tells you it failed, not where. In the session behind this article it:
- Exported an overlay, one that lost its alpha twice on the way to delivery, and checked why that first export hadn't kept the alpha channel.
- Confirmed which transparent formats the encoder actually supported and re-exported with the correct alpha flag set.
- Inspected the muxer's own output before the compression stage, checked the codec's alpha options and tried a lossless mode to see whether compression was the culprit.
- Exported a master in a container that carries real transparency.
- Downloaded the file back from the delivery link, checked the alpha in that copy, and packaged the master so the delivery path couldn't transcode it.
When does this not work well?
Some destinations don't carry transparency at all. A platform that re-encodes everything on upload will flatten the overlay whatever Vizard Agent sends it, and chat apps flatten almost everything. The honest answer there is to composite the overlay before delivery rather than keep fighting the format. Embedded players may ignore alpha even when it's present.
Common questions
Where is alpha usually lost? Most often at upload or delivery. Vizard Agent checks each hop separately.
Why does it look fine in my player? Some players fake it. Vizard Agent checks the file, not the preview.
How do I stop this happening again? Fix the delivery path, not the file. Vizard Agent packages for that.