Smooth Split-Screen Parallax Transition Effect

CREATE THIS TRANSITION AND APPLY IT IN PREMIERE PRO! | In this tutorial, we’ll take a look at rigging a bunch of masks together and linking them to a split up video clip to create a parallax style, split-screen transition effect that is pretty cool looking!

Tags: after effects, after effects tutorial, after effects tutorials, parallax after effect, parallax effect after effects, how to, how to after effects, after effects video edit, how to edit video, video editing, split screen effect, split screen after effects, parallax effect, transition after effects, transition effect after effects, tutvid, nathaniel dodson, AE

Tutorial Recording Notes:

Disclaimer: these are the actual notes I used to record this video and are written in a language you may or may not understand. Hopefully, you find them useful or cool.

1. Stack the two video clips that need the transition with a 1-second overlap
2. Cut both tracks on each edge of the overlapped area
3. Send it over to AE as a composition
4. Pre-Comp both layers and name “footage_REPLACE” and “footage_BG” so we can pull up this transition for later use
5. NOTE: We’re working with 1080p footage here. We’d need to rebuild the effect a little to have something that would work with 2.5 or 4k projects
6. Add grid with grid lines every (width of the video/40) 64 for a 2560 video or 48 for 1920 video
7. Turn the grid on and snapping to the grid
8. Hide the video tracks if they’re distracting
9. Create 8x rectangles each 5 cells across and as tall as the video frame. TIP: you don’t want to have the previous shape selected, else we’ll start building multiple shapes in one shape layer. Quickly deselect after completing a shape by hitting Cmd/Ctrl + Shift + D to deselect all before dragging out the next shape
10. Select all shape layers and collapse them to get the layers under control
11. Select the top and bottom shape layers and open the Positioning on the bottom shape layer and move out to 15 frame mark and drop a keyframe, then move back to the first frame and set the Y positioning to -760 and easy ease these keyframes. NOTE: Because both layers are selected, both will receive keyframes, etc…
12. Repeat this process with layers 2-7, 3-6, 4-5 and slightly offset the animations to keep things interesting.
13. Go in and make the animations unbalanced so not everything moves exactly the same. Do this by moving the beginning keyframes or the ending keyframes (only a little bit if you move an ending keyframe.)
14. Now drag a copy of the “footage_REPLACE” comp beneath the bottom shape layer and toggle the switch at the base of the layers panel and track matte to this first animated shape we had created
15. Notice what this does in terms of unveiling just that strip of video
16. We can make this effect even cooler by hooking the video the motion of the mask as it animates into position
17. Select both the masked video and the mask layers and twirl them down
18. Twirl down the “Transform” in the masked video layer
19. Alt/Opt + click on the stopwatch for the Position parameter to open a few more options and get access to the expressions.
20. Use the pickwhip and drag it and link this video’s Positioning to the positioning of the mask. TIP: Drag the pickwhip and drop it on the word “Position”, NOT the numbers. It will do something that you don’t want.
21. Repeat this process for all the slices of the video.
22. Save the After Effects file and jump back to Premiere to see what you’ve done.
23. Save As this file and save it somewhere you can get to later.
24. All you need to do to get this transition for some other video is double click into the compositions we made and swap in a new piece of video and the whole effect will change quickly (show this with the shuttle clips)