pixijs-blend-modes

Set container.blendMode to composite display objects with GPU blend equations (standard modes) or filter-based advanced modes. Blend-mode transitions break render batches, so group like-mode siblings together.

Quick Start

const light = new Sprite(await Assets.load("light.png"));
light.blendMode = "add";
app.stage.addChild(light);

const shadow = new Sprite(await Assets.load("shadow.png"));
shadow.blendMode = "multiply";
app.stage.addChild(shadow);

import "pixi.js/advanced-blend-modes";
const overlay = new Sprite(await Assets.load("overlay.png"));
overlay.blendMode = "color-burn";
app.stage.addChild(overlay);

Related skills: pixijs-filters (advanced modes use the filter pipeline), pixijs-performance (batching with blend modes), pixijs-color (color manipulation).

Core Patterns

Standard blend modes

Standard modes are built in and use GPU blend equations directly:

import { Sprite } from "pixi.js";

sprite.blendMode = "normal"; // standard alpha compositing (effective default at root)
sprite.blendMode = "add"; // additive (lighten, glow effects)
sprite.blendMode = "multiply"; // multiply (darken, shadow effects)
sprite.blendMode = "screen"; // screen (lighten, dodge effects)
sprite.blendMode = "erase"; // erase pixels from render target
sprite.blendMode = "none"; // no blending, overwrites destination
sprite.blendMode = "inherit"; // inherit from parent (this is the actual default value)
sprite.blendMode = "min"; // keeps minimum of source and destination (WebGL2+ only)
sprite.blendMode = "max"; // keeps maximum of source and destination (WebGL2+ only)

These are hardware-accelerated and cheap. They do not require filters.

Advanced blend modes

Advanced modes require an explicit import to register the extensions. On the WebGL renderer they also require useBackBuffer: true at init time, or PixiJS logs a warning and the blend silently falls back:

import "pixi.js/advanced-blend-modes";
import { Application, Sprite, Assets } from "pixi.js";

const app = new Application();
await app.init({ useBackBuffer: true }); // required for advanced modes on WebGL

const texture = await Assets.load("overlay.png");
const overlay = new Sprite(texture);
overlay.blendMode = "color-burn";