Soft-Edge Wipe — effect skill for transitions

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A wipe with a wide, feathered edge so the two shots blend along a gradient. Variants: smoothleft/right/up/down.

What it does

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

A blurred band moves across the frame, mixing A and B inside it.

When: When a hard wipe is too graphic but a dissolve is too slow: travel, landscapes, lifestyle b-roll.

Watch out: Using it between two busy shots: the blend band turns to mush.

Timing: 0.6–1 s.

Also called: Gradient wipe, Feather wipe

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=smoothleft:duration=0.5:offset=4.5[v];[0:a][1:a]acrossfade=d=0.5[a]" \
 -map "[v]" -map "[a]" out.mp4

In HyperFrames

Mask the incoming clip with an animated linear-gradient: maskImage: linear-gradient(90deg, #000 40%, transparent 60%) and tween the mask position.

In CapCut

Transitions → Basic → Gradient wipe.

Ready-made components

Where this comes from

Use when

Not for

Install

Example output

https://s3.varg.ai/how-to/previews/4a6dc1e4a246/take-xfade-smooth-wipe.mp4 — smoothleft between two shots, with the timeline strip of the edit. Footage: Coffee Run (2020), Blender Studio | studio.blender.org, CC BY 4.0; Cosmos Laundromat (2015), (CC) Blender Foundation | gooseberry.blender.org, CC BY 4.0. (credit: Rendered by varg · Coffee Run (2020) + Cosmos Laundromat (2015))

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Run the generation on varg

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