Addendum to this recently concluded thread:

I'm creating a series of custom masks in an attempt to do an edge blend - well, corner blend really - between two rasters. A combination of orbital heads, ever-changing scenery and amount of content to be generated makes this something I would like to achieve in Catalyst rather than in After Effects, by dedicating Layer 4 specifically for masks.

What I've tried:
Creating still images with a large, smooth gradient as TIFF files with various combinations of true alpha transparency, white-black gradients with additional alpha, and straight (no alpha) white-black gradients.

What I've found:
TIFF with alpha transparency - doesn't show up in the server at all - blank pane.
TIFF white-black w additional alpha - shows up as black.
TIFF white-black, straight - Comes up fine in server as white-black. Color effects applied to it (best: "invert mask 2") work to an extent.

However: color effects drastically shorten and sharpen gradient. A gradient that takes 300 pixels in the orginal image to transition from full black to full white is condensed by the color effects to about 35-50 pixels, which is not sufficiently smooth or large for my corner blend.

In previous versions I used to create a gobo "movie" with a true alpha for this sort of thing. I was hoping to avoid that this time. Any ideas for achieving a smooth gradient with a still image?
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Jake Pinholster