Pixel Dissolve — effect skill for transitions

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A dithered dissolve: B appears pixel by pixel in random noise instead of a smooth fade.

What it does

Built on Dither Dissolve by Kapish Dima (remocn), MIT. The write-up and recipes below are varg's.

Speckles of the new shot spread over the old one like digital noise until it is gone.

When: Retro, glitchy or game-styled edits; a lo-fi alternative to a cross dissolve.

Watch out: Small output sizes: below 720p the noise looks like a compression error.

Timing: 0.5–0.8 s.

Also called: Noise dissolve, Dither dissolve

In FFmpeg

Both inputs need the same size, frame rate, timebase, SAR and pixel format (settb=AVTB fixes the timebase error that fps alone leaves). offset is where the transition starts on the first clip's timeline (its length minus the overlap).

ffmpeg -i a.mp4 -i b.mp4 -filter_complex \
 "[0:v]fps=30,scale=1920:1080,setsar=1,settb=AVTB,format=yuv420p[a];[1:v]fps=30,scale=1920:1080,setsar=1,settb=AVTB,format=yuv420p[b];\
  [a][b]xfade=transition=dissolve:duration=0.5:offset=4.5[v];[0:a][1:a]acrossfade=d=0.5[a]" \
 -map "[v]" -map "[a]" out.mp4

In HyperFrames

npx hyperframes add ordered-dither-pass for a Bayer dither, or halftone-dissolve.

Ready-made components

Where this comes from

Use when

Not for

Install

Example output

https://s3.varg.ai/how-to/previews/3b78844da138/take-xfade-pixel-dissolve.mp4 — dissolve between two shots, with the timeline strip of the edit. Footage: Tears of Steel (2012), (CC) Blender Foundation | mango.blender.org, CC BY 3.0; Charge (2022), Blender Studio | studio.blender.org, CC BY 4.0. (credit: Rendered by varg · Tears of Steel (2012) + Charge (2022))

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