Cover image via

You don’t really have to break your phone. Shatter the fourth wall in After Effects with this easy-to-follow tutorial.

Cover image via Shutterstock.

Over the past year, Instagram has received criticism for the increase in adverts that appear in the feed — and in the “stories” function that debuted in 2016. Recently, while browsing stories, I saw an advert, but it very quickly caught my attention for creative reasons. The ad was for British mobile phone service O2, and I was about to skip it until a fantastic effect appeared mid-scene. The ad was promoting some sort of insurance policy (I think, I wasn’t paying too much attention to the ad itself) for those who are prone to dropping their phones. When the in-ad characters dropped their phones, the entire screen would crack. As a result, the video footage would displace where the “screen” was cracked.

While the technique has limited use in narrative drama (maybe it has a place in the found footage genre), there are plenty of cool applications for this effect in music videos, adverts, and online content. Let’s have a look at how you can achieve this effect in Adobe After Effects.

I opened After Effects on my 15 inch macbook pro, and the only part of the application window I can see the very bottom. I can't work in it, and I can't even find the options to resize the window. Nobody says that After Effects is an easy software to learn, this is especially true when you’re ready to export your first screenshot. You’ve probably made the mistake of clicking the snapshot button (camera icon) only to find that your screenshot is nowhere to be found on your computer.

This will come in handy when keying out the screen in post, and it will allow you to move objects over the screen without disrupting the screen replacement. Keep all 4 corners visible — When you get to the motion tracking portion of this tutorial, the screen replacement will be much easier if you have four corners to track in After Effects. How to Make Split Screen Video with After Effects? Launch the After Effects on your Windows or Mac computer, then bring in the footage then add a few elements and use them to see the location of the footage. Once you have imported the image, create a new composition and rename it accordingly. I had the same black screen issue, tried all sort of different things but it didn't work till I downgraded my after effects 2020 to 2019 and now I have no issues. For my 2020 after effects, the black screen would appear on some projects files and won't appear on some project files.

I had a basic idea how to pull off the effect: a shattered glass texture, the displacement map effect, and a change in the blend mode for the texture layer. However, I kept running into a problem wherein the whole image was reacting in a way I did not want. The glass texture was affecting areas of the image where the cracks weren’t appearing, even when I would change the displacement map behavior setting.

Thankfully, YouTuber Trey Trimble had produced a video covering a similar effect, and I was able to see where the error was occurring. The glass texture was a square JPEG file, and the displacement map was working to the edges of the square, rather than the cracks itself. The fix was to mask the cracked texture to appear more angular.

To produce the effect, you will need a cracked glass screen texture, and thankfully you can find hundreds of textures online, just make sure to check the licensing terms — here’s a starting point.

The Method

Import your glass texture into Photoshop — you can also perform this task in After Effects, but I prefer the ease of Photoshop — and select the pen tool. Now create an angular mask around some of the jagged edges of the glass texture.

Once you have a mask that you are happy with, save the file as a PNG, and in After Effects, import the newly created PNG glass file and the footage you want to affect. Bring both files into the timeline, and place the PNG file above your phone footage. You now need to change the blend mode — Lighten or Screen are great modes to use. The mode you pick will depend on the look you wish to achieve; in the example, I’m using screen.

This looks pretty good already. If time were limited and this was only going to be a still image, I’d perhaps stop here. But as this is video, we need to affect the moving footage with the displaced glass, and we can do that with the displacement map in the effects panel. When you’ve applied the displacement map effect to the video footage, we need to change a few settings.

After Effects Screen Comps Reflective

• We want the displacement map layer to be the cracked glass texture.
• Use for horizontal displacement = luminance.
• Use for vertical displacement = luminance.
• Displacement map behavior = stretch map to fit.

In the image below, you can see that if you don’t change the behavior of the map, it affects areas of the image where the glass texture shouldn’t be.

Finally, to displace part of the footage within the cracked area, you want to increase the horizontal and vertical displacement settings. There’s no correct number for this; it will depend on the look you are aiming for. You want to make the cracked part of the screen slightly off from the original media as seen in the still below.

Using the method above, here’s the before and after on a different clip.

Of course, from this perspective, in comparison to the original advert, it would be the phone’s camera lens that is cracked — not the screen. But ultimately the creative options with this effect are endless, and that’s the fun part.

Looking for more articles about the fourth wall and After Effects? Check these out.

How to split screen with After Effects?

Adobe After Effects is a professional video effects maker and editor, which allows users to customize or create explosive, animated, etc. effects. for all kinds of videos. Undoubtedly, After Effects have gained great reputation among professional or advanced video editors, but if you're a beginner in video editing, or you're a novice of After Effects, then you might find this program is quite complex to operate.

So, today I'd like to show all of you how to make a split screen video in After Effects step by step.

The best part?

Well, you can find not only the detailed tutorial of using After Effects, but also a more easier to use alternative split screen video editor for your reference. You can compare them and pick up the easier one to create your own split-screen video.

Now, let's get started...

How to Make Split Screen Video with After Effects?

Step 1. Launch the After Effects on your Windows or Mac computer, then bring in the footage then add a few elements and use them to see the location of the footage. Once you have imported the image, create a new composition and rename it accordingly.

Step 2. Drag and drop the footages to the timeline, select the footages and precompose them. Here, you can give the precomposed footages a new name. Now, you can move all the attributes to the new composition.

Note: Repeat the precomposition process with all of the footages that you have on the timeline. Once you have precomposed all of the footages and you have all of them in the preview window, the next step is to create things that reveal the footage.

Step 3. Ensure that nothing is selected then double click on the rectangle and ensure it has a fill with the brightness of 10 percent. There is no stroke required so you can go to the rectangle path then look at the properties of its size then multiply 1920 by two and give it a height of ten.

Step 4. You can increase the properties a little bit to 3860 and it will be 20 pixels larger than being twice the width. You can then duplicate that path and on the second path, it will be 10 pixels x1080pixes x2 and it will increase the pixels by 20. The reason for doing that is so that the rectangle can be dragged all the way to the edge without having it stick over the edge so it has to be larger than what can possibly be needed.

Step 5. The next step is to create some solids by right clicking then selecting new > solid. You may have a yellow one, blue, red and black one. Put the back one at the bottom behind everything then stretch it up to be big.

Step 6. Take the solids and move them around into each rectangle, then drag the anchor point for the rectangle to be in the center. Grab the solids then increase the size so that they are larger than required.

Step 7. Take them all then pair them to the video layers accordingly. Start rendering it by animating keyframes. You can select keyframes interpretations to linear by right-clicking and selecting on keyframes. Make the footage come through by pulling the footage under all the rectangles.

Step 8. Select all of the footage and then come to toggle mode right below the timeline. You can also select alpha matte instead if you don't have the toggle. It means that each of the footage elements will reference the green or red solid to define where they are showing. You can make the settings as desired to suit your screen preference.

Obviously, making split-screen video on After Effects is not only time consuming but also very complex, especially when you're new in the video editing. Therefore, I also pick up an alternative to After Effects for your reference.

Filmora Video Editor - Best Alternative to After Effects

Filmora Video Editor is a professional yet reliable video editing software, which is specially designed for beginners and semi-professionals. Unlike Adobe After Effects, this program comes with user-intuitive interface and smart instructions, so that every users can use it to create an awesome video as easy as 1-2-3.

Now, let's check the detailed features of this powerful After Effects Alternative software:

After Effects Screen Saver

Filmora Video Editor

• 20+ splitting screen templates for your choice, so that you can create a split-screen video within few simple clicks.
• Provide users almost all editing features, including cutting, trimming, merging, overlaying, editing, etc.
• 1000+ video effects for you to improve the video performance with 1 simple click.
• Advanced editing skills like green screen, PIP, video stabilization, etc. enables you to customize a video as you like.
• ...

To make split screen video with Filmora Video Editor, you can directly choose the desired screen style from the built-in templates, and drag and drop the video to every section. Then, everything will be done by the program automatically. For detailed tutorials, you can click the below link to check 2 different ways to make a split screen video with Filmora Video Editor.

Comparison: Which One is Better?

Now, you've seen how to make a split screen in After Effects and its alternative software - Filmora Video Editor.

Then, which one are you ready to try?

Obviously, After Effects might be too complicated to use for beginners, but if you're an advanced user, and want to customize the splitting style according to different needs, then this program is better than Filmora Video Editor.

After Effects Screen Shake

On the contrary, if you're a beginner or you don't want to spend too much time on designing the screen splitting style, then Filmora Video Editor or Filmora Video Editor for Mac could be the best option for you.

Screen Replacement In After Effects