One appealing transition involves starting with the first scene, then rolling through with the second, then the first then the second. It almost looks like a ladder walking across the screen from side to side. These alternating scenes rapidly roll through and eventually slow down, settling on the second scene.

Using Checker Board, you can easily create many varieties of this transition.

Let’s start by taking a look at Checker Board.

Checker Board creates a grid of images, alternating between the two scenes. It flies the board away from the camera, revealing the first scene as a square on the checker board, then dives back into the second scene.

To turn Checker Board into a Rolling Ladder transition:

1. Keep the camera glued to the board so the images fill the frame completely – no flying away.
2. Set how many squares to travel across.
3. Select a start and end square.

To stay glued to the board, turn the Depth control to 0.

Depth Control

Now, decide how big you want the Grid to be. The larger the Grid, the greater the distance to travel from the source to destination panels (so the more frames in between).

Grid Control

Finally, set the start and end positions. This tells Checker Board where on the grid to start and where to end.

Position Controls

For example, to create a simple push that takes the scene from right to left, choose a grid size of 2, and set the start positions at bottom left and right.

Push Controls

This sets the “camera” to pan from left to right, resulting in a transition that pushes from right to left.

Rolling Transition

Then, to increase the number of frames, increase the Grid count.

You can also experiment with different Start and End positions. Note: once the start and end positions are not in line, you can get diagonal rolls!

Diagonal Wipe

Note: Sometimes the transition will create a diagonal roll even when you try to put the Start and End in line. This is because Checker Board has to find the closest Start and End squares to the first and second scenes. If they don’t line up, it borrows a neighbor. So, some experimentation may be required.