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Haunted Shadow Surge — an agentic cinematic transformation built from my original footage. I used the AI editing agent to assemble and refine the sequence, building an escalating shadow effect that grows from subtle atmospheric movement into a dramatic supernatural reveal.
The goal was to show how a simple scene can evolve through an editable agent-driven workflow while keeping the original cinematic mood and storytelling intact.
invideo Editor is free to try.
#invideocontrachallenge #invideoeditor #AgenticEffects #1286CRAFT
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Time Machine: One Morning Across Three Eras
I built a custom Time Machine effect that transforms the same morning across 1905, 2026, and 2080
I wanted to show how our surroundings and technology may change over time while the small human rituals we carry with us remain familiar
Using invideo Editor’s timeline agent, I created a custom shader with an editable Year control: aged film grain and sepia for 1905, a clean natural look for 2026, and cyan holographic scanlines for 2080
The agent also built the bar transitions between eras directly on the timeline. I refined the timing, adjusted the shader controls, and fixed the closing titles inside invideo Editor
The first video is the final result. The second shows the process, from importing the clips and directing the agent to testing the Year control
@invideo.io @invideo.creators
#invideocontrachallenge #invideoeditor
Portal Cuts: Every Transition Opens Through Something Real
Primary effect: Bring your own effect – Shape-Matched Portal Transitions (custom shaders + alpha-matte shapes)
Five cuts in this train journey open through something that's actually in the shot: a train door, a rushing locomotive, a tunnel mouth, the arches of the Nine Arches Bridge, and the side of a moving train. The next clip plays inside that shape, then the camera pushes straight through into the new scene.
Built in invideo Editor using invideo's MCP connection with Claude. Claude read my timeline, captured frames, measured each shape and wrote every transition as a custom GLSL shader with editable controls, directly on my invideo timeline. No rotoscoping, no tracking, no other editor.
PROCESS NOTE
Starting footage: 7 vertical clips of train journeys (door view of the ocean, coast road from the window, beach railway, tunnel, Nine Arches Bridge, palm-side train, tea estate) plus a Pixabay music track, uploaded to invideo Editor.
What I asked the agent: I connected invideo's MCP server to Claude and directed it cut by cut: "turn the inside of this door into a portal", "use the real shape of the tunnel hole, not a rectangle", "open all the arch gaps under the bridge", "make the train body the portal, not the sky", "add the same effect to the locomotive". For each one it captured timeline frames, measured the shape and wrote a custom shader transition on the cut: the next clip appears inside the shape, plays, then the camera pushes through. Moving shapes (the approaching locomotive, the drone drift on the bridge) are keyframed, not tracked.
What I refined: I removed the warm glow on the tunnel, rejected versions that didn't look right (a sky cut-out and a floor-drop portal) and had them rebuilt, re-ordered the edit to open on the door shot, swapped in a new clip, and adjusted edge softness, push-through timing and scale using the controls the agent created. After exporting the final MP4 from invideo, I upscaled it with Topaz Astra 2.
LINKS
invideo timeline: https://invideo.io/share/Portal-Cuts-invideo-a2gooqayNEE
Instagram post: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DeThWD-SydB/?exln=cDlvNzBucmpvaWps
@invideo.io #invideocontrachallenge #invideoeditor
invideo Editor is free to try.
🎬 Behind the scenes: here's how I built these portal transitions 👇
1️⃣ Uploaded my train clips and music to invideo Editor.
2️⃣ Connected invideo's MCP server to Claude, so it could read and edit my timeline directly.
3️⃣ Directed it cut by cut: "turn this door into a portal",...
PASS-BY WIPE: he never leaves the centre of the frame, but every time something crosses the lens, he's in a new city.
Primary effect: Bring your own effect: Pass-By Wipe (custom GLSL shader transition, shapes + motion blur, no rotoscoping, no tracking)
THE IDEA
I started from a 3-second fashion clip I couldn't stop rewatching. A man walks past London townhouses, and the background hard-cuts every 0.2–0.4s, always on his footfall, while he stays locked in the same spot in the frame. Then it drops to a close-up of his shoes, and the pavement keeps changing under each step.
I wanted to push that "stride lock" one step further: what if his ride changed too? Bicycle → skateboard → hoverboard → longboard → walking, every switch seamless.
Before writing anything I read the #invideocontrachallenge feed. About half the real entries are highlight trails or bar reveals, and nobody had used a foreground pass-by or a story with a Sri Lankan ending. So the plan was to own a new transition and give it a reason to exist.
The story: "Every Way Home." Kavi carries a brown-paper diamond parcel through Amsterdam, New York, Tokyo, Lisbon and London in one afternoon. His feet walk across every city's pavement and land on the sand at Galle Face Green, Colombo, at sunset. He tears the paper off. It's a kite. The film opens floating on a hoverboard and ends with a kite flying.
THE EFFECT
Because Kavi is stride-locked (same position in the frame, same ground line, sideways tracking camera in every shot), a transition never has to track him. A foreground object just has to cross the lens. The Pass-By Wipe sweeps a vertical object right to left, against the direction of travel, and everything it has already passed becomes the next shot. It has motion-blurred edges and a small parallax push. It's one shader with two presets:
Steel Pillar: New York → Tokyo (a riveted El-train column)
Yellow Tram: Lisbon → London (cream roof, dark windows, yellow body)
HOW I WORKED (Claude + the invideo MCP)
I directed the whole build from Claude, connected to invideo through invideo's MCP server. Every image, clip, sound and edit was made inside my invideo project and timeline; nothing was finished in another editor.
Plan first. Claude broke down the reference frame by frame (cut timings, framing, grade), read the challenge rules and the submissions feed, and wrote the full story and shot plan. It asked me about style, setting, transport order, length and music. Nothing was generated until I said GO.
Character lock. Nano Banana Pro made Kavi's character sheet (front, side, back, board stance) and a London test frame. I approved him before anything else was spent.
24 keyframes, all built on one "Lock Frame" rule: full body centred, feet on a ground line at 85% of frame height, camera at waist height, 50mm. I rejected and regenerated four stills (one wrong face, one hoverboard that grew wheels, two short boards that should have been longboards) and removed a real brand logo from a vending machine.
25 clips. Kling 3 Omni (first frame) for the tracking shots, and Seedance 2.5 (first + last frame) for two morphs: the bicycle shrinking into a skateboard, and the hoverboard glow rippling into longboard wheels.
Music: ElevenLabs instrumental at 120 BPM. I checked the waveform before cutting and the beats land exactly every 0.5s, so every cut sits on a 15-frame grid. Twelve ElevenLabs SFX are synced to the transitions.
The agent wrote the effects straight into the invideo timeline as custom shaders with exposed controls: the Pass-By Wipe transition and a Stride Lock Film Grade on an adjustment layer.
WHAT THE AGENT BUILT
Pass-By Wipe controls: object colour, object width, accent colour, motion blur, edge feather, direction, object style (pillar / tram / flat panel), shading, parallax push, flip vertical.
Stride Lock Film Grade controls: warmth, soft contrast, faded blacks, saturation, halation, film grain, vignette.
WHAT I REFINED
Pillar colour: #2f4a3c → #14241c → #1c3327. The first render looked pale mint. The cause was that invideo blends in linear light, so I had the shader convert sRGB → linear.
Tram came out upside down (the shader's y axis runs bottom to top). Fixed, and kept a "Flip vertical" control.
Pillar width 0.34 → 0.30, shading 0.8 → 1.0, so it reads as riveted steel instead of a flat bar.
Tram preset: width 0.95, motion blur 0.75, length 18 frames (pillar: 14).
Stride Push into the feet: the first zoom aimed at his torso. I keyframed zoom 1.0 → 2.4 together with position (x −230, y −690) so it lands on the sneakers and matches the feet sequence.
City labels were hidden under the video track. Fixed the track order and moved them top-left.
Grade: warmth 0.30, halation 0.22, grain 0.05, vignette 0.22.
BY THE NUMBERS
49 seconds · 16:9 · 1080p · 5 cities + Colombo · 5 ways to move + the wind · 24 keyframes · 25 clips · 2 AI morphs · 1 custom transition (2 presets) · 1 custom grade · 12 SFX · ~700 credits · every frame generated and edited in invideo
@invideo.io #invideocontrachallenge #invideoeditor
invideo Editor is free to try.