Chromatic Split — effect skill for transitions

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Red, green and blue channels pull apart around the cut, then snap back together on the new shot.

What it does

Built on Chromatic Aberration Wipe by HeyGen (HyperFrames), Apache-2.0. The write-up and recipes below are varg's.

Colour ghosts offset horizontally or radially for a few frames, with a slight zoom.

When: Fashion, music, tech promos; as a lighter alternative to a full glitch.

Watch out: Large offsets on text; keep the split brief.

Timing: 0.2–0.5 s; peak offset on the cut

Also called: RGB split, chromatic aberration transition, colour fringe, Rainbow Warp

In FFmpeg

Channel split ramping around a cut (rgbashift supports runtime enable; offsets are fixed per window, so stack 2 windows for a ramp):

ffmpeg -i a.mp4 -i b.mp4 -filter_complex \
"[0:v][1:v]concat=n=2:v=1:a=0,\
rgbashift=rh=-10:bh=10:enable='between(t,3.8,3.9)+between(t,4.1,4.2)',\
rgbashift=rh=-30:bh=30:gv=6:enable='between(t,3.9,4.1)'[v]" -map "[v]" out.mp4

In HyperFrames

Shader chromatic-split from @hyperframes/shader-transitions placed at the cut (t = 4 s):

<div id="s1" class="scene" style="background:#0a0a0a"><video src="a.mp4" muted playsinline></video></div>
<div id="s2" class="scene" style="background:#0a0a0a"><video src="b.mp4" muted playsinline></video></div>
<script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/@hyperframes/shader-transitions/dist/index.global.js"></script>
<script>
  const tl = HyperShader.init({ bgColor: "#0a0a0a", scenes: ["s1", "s2"],
    transitions: [{ time: 4, shader: "chromatic-split", duration: 0.5 }] });
  window.__timelines = window.__timelines || {}; window.__timelines["main"] = tl;
</script>

Each .scene needs an explicit background-color equal to bgColor. Or install the ready block: npx hyperframes add chromatic-radial-split. Slide variant: npx hyperframes add chromatic-aberration-wipe.

In Remotion

Custom presentation rendering three copies of children with mixBlendMode: 'screen', tinted R/G/B via CSS filters and offset by presentationProgress; or @remotion/effects/chromatic-aberration on a canvas-based <Video>.

In CapCut

Transitions tab → Glitch / Distortion → RGB Glitch, Rainbow Warp. Desktop: drag the tile onto the cut between two clips and set Duration in the right panel ("Apply to all" reuses it on every cut). Mobile: tap the small white square between clips, pick the transition, drag the duration slider, tap ✓. Tab labels and placement change between versions and regions. Or Effects → Video effects → an RGB split effect for a few frames.

Ready-made components

Where this comes from

Use when

Not for

Install

Example output

https://s3.varg.ai/how-to/previews/bb797e0e7e35/take-chromatic-split.mp4 — rgb-split between two shots, with the timeline strip of the edit. Footage: WING IT! (2023), Blender Studio | studio.blender.org, CC BY 4.0; Coffee Run (2020), Blender Studio | studio.blender.org, CC BY 4.0. (credit: Rendered by varg · WING IT! (2023) + Coffee Run (2020))

More transitions skills

Run the generation on varg

varg is one API key for the models these skills drive — Seedance 2.5, Kling 4, Veo 3.1, Wan 3, Nano Banana 2.1, GPT Image 2.5, ElevenLabs v4 and 200+ more — billed in credits, with a cost estimate before anything runs.