Metallic Shine Transition

A crossfade with a diagonal gradient shine band that sweeps across the frame. Looks like a metallic light reflection wiping between scenes.

Key Design Decision

Do NOT use clipPath for this transition. Earlier attempts used diagonal clip-path polygons to wipe one scene away while revealing the next. This consistently produced black slivers/gaps at the edges where the two clip regions didn't perfectly meet. The geometry is error-prone, especially with diagonal skew.

Instead, use a simple crossfade + shine overlay:

Exiting scene fades out via opacity
Entering scene fades in via opacity
A gradient shine band sweeps left-to-right on top of the entering scene

This is visually indistinguishable from a true wipe at quick speeds (0.4s) and has zero clipping artifacts.

Implementation

import React from "react";
import type {
  TransitionPresentation,
  TransitionPresentationComponentProps,
} from "@remotion/transitions";
import { interpolate } from "remotion";

const MetallicSwooshPresentation: React.FC<
  TransitionPresentationComponentProps<Record<string, never>>
> = ({ children, presentationDirection, presentationProgress }) => {
  const isEntering = presentationDirection === "entering";

  // Shine band position sweeps left to right
  const pos = interpolate(presentationProgress, [0, 1], [-20, 120]);

  // Simple crossfade: entering fades in, exiting fades out
  const opacity = isEntering
    ? interpolate(presentationProgress, [0, 0.4, 1], [0, 1, 1])
    : interpolate(presentationProgress, [0, 0.6, 1], [1, 1, 0]);

  return (
    <div style={{ position: "absolute", inset: 0, opacity }}>
      {children}
      {/* Metallic shine band — only on the entering scene */}
      {isEntering && (
        <div
          style={{
            position: "absolute",
            inset: 0,
            background: `linear-gradient(
              105deg,
              transparent ${pos - 14}%,
              rgba(255,255,255,0.0) ${pos - 9}%,
              rgba(255,255,255,0.15) ${pos - 5}%,
              rgba(200,218,240,0.5) ${pos - 2}%,
              rgba(255,255,255,0.85) ${pos}%,
              rgba(210,225,245,0.5) ${pos + 2}%,
              rgba(255,255,255,0.15) ${pos + 5}%,
              rgba(255,255,255,0.0) ${pos + 9}%,
              transparent ${pos + 14}%
            )`,
            pointerEvents: "none",
          }}
        />
      )}
    </div>
  );
};

export const metallicSwoosh = (): TransitionPresentation<Record<string, never>> => {
  return { component: MetallicSwooshPresentation, props: {} };
};

How it works

Crossfade timing is asymmetric — entering scene reaches full opacity at 40% progress, exiting scene starts fading at 60%. This overlap keeps the frame fully covered at all times.
Shine band is a multi-stop linear-gradient at 105deg (slight diagonal). The center is near-white (0.85 opacity), flanked by soft blue-tinted highlights (rgba(200,218,240)) that taper to transparent. This creates the metallic/chrome reflection look.
Sweep range is -20 to 120 so the band fully enters and exits the frame (not just 0-100 which would clip the gradient at edges).
Shine only on entering scene — putting it on both would double the intensity and look wrong.

Usage

import { metallicSwoosh } from "./transitions/MetallicSwoosh";

<TransitionSeries.Transition
  presentation={metallicSwoosh()}
  timing={linearTiming({ durationInFrames: 12 })} // 0.4s at 30fps
/>

Recommended speed

Works best at 0.4s (12 frames at 30fps). At this speed the crossfade is barely noticeable and the shine band is the dominant visual. Slower speeds (0.7s+) make the crossfade more obvious.

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