react-native: Elevation does not animate when it is inside a view which animates its opacity (Android P)

My issue: https://github.com/react-navigation/react-navigation/issues/8676

On android, setting a view’s opacity will render artifacts when child views have elevation.

So I’ve investigated this issue and came to the conclusion, that this is an android intended behavior.

Background:

<View style={{opacity: 0.5}}>
	<View style={{elevation: 5, margin: 10, backgroundColor: 'red'}}>
<View>

To understand this issue we let’s dig into react code. Both views will get a BaseViewManager, which holds a reference to a ReactViewGroup.ReactViewGroup subclasses a ViewGroup and not an Android View (because it can have children). When setting a backgroundColor to a ReactViewGroup it creates a ReactViewBackgroundDrawable which subclasses a Drawable and sets it as background. The creation happens in getOrCreateReactViewBackground which composes any already existing background drawable (maybe images use this, in all my test cases the existing drawable was always null) with the new background using LayerDrawable.

Problem: Now when setting an alpha value (changing opacity) it will do this on the ReactViewGroup directly but not on the background drawable, which is why we have the artifact. As react-native per default set hasOverlappingRendering to false to save memory, this problem is an expected android performance optimization. It seems that some devices do not perform the optimization and I only experienced this when changing the alpha after the first render. See android docs for what this flag does.

In the screenshot below you can see the different parameters (plain android project in this repo, not react-native, although I used the same ReactViewBackgroundDrawable class from react-native which I just extracted and patched to get it running). There are 6 red 100x100 boxes that get the opacity set on their view or for testing purposes on their background drawable. Within a red box a yellow box is placed with elevation set to 10. In the first row, hasOverlappingRendering is disabled.

Repo: https://github.com/DomiR/react-native-opacity-issue So as you can see on both boxes on the right-hand side setting opacity only on the background is not enough, as all children will still have full opacity. Setting alpha both on the background and on the view itself will result in 0.25 opacity for the background. On the left-hand side is what we really want but we need to hasOverlappingRendering enabled like in the left bottom.

Solution: I don’t know if there is a solution that is good for everyone. As you can see from the screenshot we need to set hasOverlappingRendering but doing so per default is not performant (facebook blog entry).

Fortunately, we can set this flag using needsOffscreenAlphaCompositing as a view prop.

As @kmagiera mentioned that you should probably enable this only temporarily during animations. The react-native docs also mention using renderToHardwareTextureAndroid in combination.

PS: What also should work is setting the opacity value for all children as well.

Buy an iPhone and never get this issue again 😉

Thanks @DomiR , can confirm that setting needsOffscreenAlphaCompositing on the animated view seems to solve the issue.

Before:

After:

PR example.

Try to set opacity: 0.99 in styles, I don’t know why but it works for me

Even some of the simplest apps need to make use of fading an item with an elevation. This needs an (actual) workaround/fix ASAP.

Confirming this is still an issue on 0.62.2. This is really bad/alarming!

Still facing this issue, hopefully there will be a fix soon. Also happens with the react-navigation animation.

EDIT: @kelset

Just tested with version "react-native": "0.61.0-rc.3" and still facing this issue on Android P. Tested with a Samsung galaxy s8 as device.

Any updates?

Happens as well with Android 10

@Return-1 I can write you a pull request if you explain the issue. I can not reproduce it so I can not fix it.

You literally can see the issue in your example ?

I really want this issue fixed. It looks really weird when we animate a view with elevation.

Having the same issue here. Latest version React Native 0.61.5.

what about option “renderToHardwareTextureAndroid” for View?

Seriously guys, is anybody working on this ? It’s a major issue for a while now… (Though I admit the real problem here is Android’s shadows handling, but it impacts every UI developer everyday)

@radko93 issue is still there in latest versions I’m afraid. its also one that affects major packages like react navigation

having to tell clients that we should avoid using elevation and shadow properties on the UI because react native does not support it is a little embarrassing if I’m being honest : /

what i have not yet managed to determine is which devices it happens for, unfortunately it seems to be a big chunk of them

can not reproduce on API 28 with react native latest master branch. Please could you explain me the issue? Thanks.

For those who want a workaround for this. Use Androw (https://github.com/folofse/androw/tree/master/react-native-androw) or something similar to render shadows on Android instead of using elevation.

There are performance drawbacks within lists, but otherwise works pretty well

I experienced it a few times in different react-native version, also in react-native 63.0 What works for me is using react-native-shadow in such cases which creates fake SVG shadow 😎 Warning: it doesn’t look the same as a native shadow, but in my opinion pretty good. Maybe use an original one for iOS and react-native-shadow for Android

For example

          <BoxShadow
            setting={{
              border: 2,
              color: '#000',
              height: 400,
              opacity: 0.25,
              radius: 10,
              width: Dimensions.get('window').width - 40,
              x: 0,
              y: 3,
            }}
          >
            <View
              style={{
                flex: 1,
                paddingHorizontal: 40,
                paddingVertical: 30,
                backgroundColor: 'white',
                borderRadius: 10,
              }}
            >
                  // your content
            </View>
          </BoxShadow>

This is how it looks eventually on Android:

@RichardLindhout It’s not personal dude 😄 , look at it from a developer point of view

I’ve been running into the same issue for awhile now. Seems to be happening as well for 0.58.3.

@RichardLindhout i wish. unfortunately, Android has a 76% market share, and 10% of Android devices are running Android P. Elevation/shadows are an important part of Material Design, which the majority of native Android apps feature one way or another, so fixing this issue is pretty important.

I agree, I was just joking and I hope this issue will be resolved soon!

I’m also facing this issue. Does anyone know any workaround? Especially annoying when I’m trying to animate a box with several buttons inside it, the shadows appear before the buttons do.

I added a repo with react-native init that reproduces the issue https://github.com/ferrannp/react-native-elevation-animation-android-pie.

happening on 0.63.1

+1

Hi i’m experiencing this issue as well on Android Pie only (earlier versions are fine), any suggestions on work arounds?

@fabriziobertoglio1987 The child needs to have elevation.

<Animated.View style={{ opacity: animatedOpacityValue }}>
  <View style={{ width: 100, height: 100, backgroundColor: 'pink', elevation 5 }} />
</Animated.View>

This is the easiest way to reproduce

This isn’t just an Android 9 issue either, it also happens on 10.

@RichardLindhout i wish. unfortunately, Android has a 76% market share, and 10% of Android devices are running Android P. Elevation/shadows are an important part of Material Design, which the majority of native Android apps feature one way or another, so fixing this issue is pretty important.

This is a horrible experience. Does anybody have a work-around for this?

Facing the same problem here. Just to add to the ones expecting a solution. Can confirm that is also a problem on Android 10.

Facing same issue, not good that has not been solved for this long 😦

We replace opacity to border in android version, seems like this is only solution for now

I have the same problem. Any ideas where the problem originates from?

damn this is bad, never thought it would be like that , for now I can’t use elevation because it leave the shadow for a little while , when the opacity goes to 0

Also facing this issue, any solution?