Swirl Vortex — effect skill for transitions

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A twists into a spiral at the centre and unwinds as B.

What it does

Built on Swirl by sergey-kosarevsky (gl-transitions), MIT. The write-up and recipes below are varg's.

Pixels spin around the centre with increasing strength, then release onto the new shot.

When: Dream sequences, flashbacks, magic, playful kids' content.

Watch out: Faces at the centre of the swirl.

Timing: 0.5–1.8 s (CapCut Whirlpool 0.47 s, Swirl 1.8 s)

Also called: Whirlpool, Color Swirl, Swirl, Cartoon Swirl, Whirl, vortex

In FFmpeg

No swirl in xfade; use editly + GL Swirl (same name in 1.x), or render the swirl in Remotion/HyperFrames.

In HyperFrames

Shader swirl-vortex 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: "swirl-vortex", duration: 0.8 }] });
  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 swirl-vortex.

In Remotion

glTransition({name: 'Swirl'}), or remocn swirl-dissolve presentation.

In CapCut

Transitions tab → Distortion → Whirlpool, Color Swirl, Cartoon Swirl, Swirl, Whirl. 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.

Ready-made components

Where this comes from

Use when

Not for

Install

Example output

https://s3.varg.ai/how-to/previews/87ae65e0cee3/lib-gl-transitions-swirl.mp4 — Preview of the Swirl component that builds this take (credit: Rendered by varg from the library’s own code (GL Transitions · rendered by varg), https://gl-transitions.com/editor/Swirl)

More transitions skills

Run the generation on varg

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