Break footage like glass. Fracture is a real 3D shatter: aim the hit, set how hard it lands, then watch the pieces bend the light, spin, and rain down. Keyframe the break yourself, or pick a preset and let it play.
The short version
Drag Fracture onto a clip and your video breaks apart like a dropped pane of glass. You decide where the hit lands, how hard it lands, and how the pieces behave: how many shards, how tightly they cluster around the strike, how far they scatter, how they tumble. Every piece is real glass, so it bends the footage behind it, catches light along its cut edges, and can extrude into a solid 3D slab with real thickness.
The break plays over time. Keyframe a single slider from whole to fully shattered, or flip on Auto Animate and let the whole thing run on its own. Nine presets cover the common looks, from a window cracking to a full blast toward the camera, and four glass styles set the material in one click. This manual walks the lot: install, the inspector top to bottom, every control, the presets, and a few tips for a clean break.
First run
From download to a clean export. Here is the whole path.
The first row of the inspector is Licensing. It shows whether you are on the trial or fully licensed. While you are on the trial it carries a Buy button that takes you to checkout, plus a Help button that opens this manual. Once you are licensed the watermark is gone and the row just confirms it.
On the timeline
Fracture is a clip effect, so it works on the clip you drop it on. Three moves and you are breaking glass.
You drive the same break one of two ways. Keyframe Fracture Progress when you want to land the shatter on a specific beat, hold it mid-break, or run it in reverse. Auto Animate when you just want it to go: it plays the whole break on its own using the Animation controls, no keyframes at all. Pick whichever fits the edit.
The fracture pattern is random but repeatable. If a particular break crosses a face or lands somewhere awkward, nudge Seed for a brand-new pattern with all your other settings intact. Free do-overs until it looks right.
The layout
Everything lives in one inspector, and it reads top to bottom in a few blocks: the break itself at the top, then Break, Look, Motion, and Animation. Final Cut's own Mix slider sits at the very bottom.
The Fracture inspector. Here it is set to the Spider-Web Impact look, mid-build, with Auto Animate on.
Every control
In inspector order, top to bottom. The Preset and Glass Style popups each get their own section further down, since they set a whole batch of these in one click.
The spine of the whole effect. It runs the break from start to finish, and it is the slider you keyframe when you want to drive the shatter by hand. Leave it at 0 for a whole, untouched frame; push it to 100 and the pieces have all flown out.
The footage is whole, not a crack in sight.
The pieces have flown out, the break is done.
Prefer hands-off? Turn on Auto Animate and leave Progress alone.
Where the break starts. Drag the crosshair in the viewer to place it. The cracks spider out from here and the crushed core sits right on it, so put it on whatever takes the hit.
How hard the shards fly out from the impact.
A gentle hit, pieces barely leave the frame.
A violent blast, glass everywhere.
Re-rolls the fracture pattern. Every value is a different arrangement of pieces with the same settings, so if a break lands wrong, nudge this for a fresh one.
The shape of the break, before any pieces move. Radial throws cracks outward from the impact. Uniform breaks the whole frame evenly. Spider-web rings the impact with a web of cracks. Grid dices it into rows and columns, like safety glass.
How many pieces the frame breaks into.
A few big chunks.
Hundreds of small pieces.
Packs more, smaller pieces near the impact and leaves bigger ones at the edges, the way real glass breaks finest where it was hit.
Pieces sized evenly across the frame.
Dense and fine right at the strike.
Randomizes how far and wide the pieces spread as they fly.
A tidy, even break.
Pieces flung everywhere.
How much each shard tumbles as it flies.
No tumble, pieces stay flat.
Fast, wild tumble.
A pulverized, powdered-glass zone right at the impact point. The spot that took the hit does not crack so much as get ground to dust.
A clean break, no powder.
A powdered core at the strike.
How much each shard bends the footage behind it, the way looking through tilted glass warps what is past it.
Flat, no bend.
Shards warp the footage hard.
Takes the glass from clear to frosted.
Clear glass.
Fully frosted, milky pieces.
The color the footage takes on as it passes through the glass. Leave it white for clear glass, or tint it for stained, smoked, or colored shards.
Splits light into a prismatic rainbow along the cut edges, the way a real shard throws color where it is thinnest.
No color split.
Rainbow edges.
Lights up the cut edges so the breaks read as sharp glass rather than flat cutouts.
Dark cut edges.
Bright, lit edges.
Extrudes each shard into a solid 3D slab. This is the control that turns flat shapes into real glass with depth, and it is what makes the tumble read.
Flat panes.
Solid 3D glass slabs.
The angle of the blast, as a dial. On its own it does nothing visible until you raise Direction Amount, which is what gives it a direction to push toward.
How much the pieces favor the Direction angle over an even, radial blast.
A pure radial burst, every which way.
All pieces blown one way, like wind.
Smears the fast-moving shards along their path. The faster a piece is going, the more it streaks.
Crisp shards.
Fast pieces smear.
Pulls the pieces down so they sag and rain like real falling glass instead of hanging in the air.
Pieces float, weightless.
They rain straight down.
Pushes the shatter into or out of the screen along the camera axis. It is bipolar, so the center is flat and each side does the opposite.
Shards recede into the screen and shrink away.
Shards fly toward the camera and grow.
Make it play
There are two ways to play the same shatter. Keyframe Fracture Progress by hand, or turn on Auto Animate and let these controls run it for you. Auto Animate is the fast path: no keyframes, it just goes.
If you want the shatter to land on an exact frame, hold mid-break, or run backward, leave Auto Animate off and keyframe Fracture Progress instead. Auto Animate takes the wheel from Progress while it is on, so reach for one or the other, not the two together.
Plays the whole break automatically over the clip, start to finish, with no keyframes at all. Turn it on and Fracture drives Progress for you using the three controls below. Turn it off when you would rather keyframe Progress yourself.
How long the automatic break takes, end to end.
A quick snap.
A slow, drawn-out break.
A wait before the break kicks off, so the footage plays clean for a beat and then shatters. Handy for landing the hit on a sound or a cut.
The share of the time spent cracking and spidering before the snap into flying shards. Higher reads as a slow crack that finally lets go.
It snaps apart at once.
It cracks a long time first.
One click, full look
A preset is the whole break at once: pattern, piece count, force, glass, motion, the lot. Pick one from the Preset menu in the Break group and it sets everything and turns Auto Animate on, so it plays right away. Tweak any control afterward and the menu flips to Custom, which just means the look is now yours.
Grid · 420 tiny shards · matte · rains down
Safety-glass dicing: hundreds of small cubes that let go and rain straight down. A car window giving way.
Radial · a few big panes · clear · cracks first
A few big panes and a gentle hit that cracks first, then falls. The slow, believable one.
Spider-web · low force · tinted · crushed core
A web of cracks spidering out from a soft hit, with a crushed core right where it landed. Tinted glass.
Uniform · mid force · matte · windblown
A mid-force break with plenty of scatter and spin, blown to one side by a light directional wind. Matte glass.
Grid · chunky pieces · matte · heavy drop
Chunky, heavy pieces that drop fast and crush hard at the strike. More rock than glass.
Radial · huge force · clear · toward camera
A violent explosion: huge force, maximum scatter and spin, pieces pushed out toward the camera. Clear glass.
Radial · weightless · clear · pulls back
The pieces pull back and shrink into the screen instead of flying out, weightless. A reverse-shatter feel.
Radial · fast · clear · rushes the lens
Shards rush straight toward the lens, fast and close. Clear glass. Pair it with Motion Blur for the full effect.
Uniform · icy cells · icy · spins and falls
Splintered icy cells with a tumble that fall heavily. Icy glass, cold and frosted.
Selecting a preset sets every control and switches Auto Animate on. The moment you change any one of them, the menu flips to Custom. Nothing is lost, it just means you have moved off the factory look and the break is now your own.
Set the material
The break is the geometry. The glass is the material on top of it. Glass Style, in the Look group, sets the four material sliders (Refraction, Frost, Glass Tint, and Dispersion) in one click. Like the presets, editing any of those afterward flips the menu to Custom.
The default · light refraction
Neutral, lightly refractive glass. The default, and the one to start from when you are not sure.
Frosted · cool blue · heavy refraction
Frosted and cool-blue, with heavy refraction. Cold, milky, the look behind Ice Splinter.
Light green tint
A light green-tinted glass, like the edge of a real pane. Subtle color through every shard.
Low refraction · soft frost · warm
Low refraction with a soft frost and a slightly warm cast. Less glass, more stone or ceramic.
Glass Style only touches the material. Your Crack Pattern, piece count, force, and motion stay exactly as you left them, so you can flip from Clear to Icy to Matte and watch only the glass change while the break holds.
Getting a clean result
A handful of moves that make the difference between a sticker effect and real glass.
Lower the Force and raise Crack Phase. The frame sits there cracking for a beat before it lets go, and that pause is what reads as real glass instead of an instant pop.
Crank Gravity and your shards stop hanging in the air like they are posing for a photo. They sag, drop, and rain, the way broken glass actually behaves.
Thickness plus Refraction is what turns flat shapes into real glass. Thickness gives each piece a solid edge to tumble on, and Refraction makes it bend the footage behind it.
Keyframe Fracture Progress when the shatter has to hit a beat. Use Auto Animate when you just need a clean break fast and the exact timing does not matter.
Move the Impact Point onto whatever takes the blow and turn up Crush. A powdered core right on the strike reads as a real point of impact, not a generic break.
If a crack runs across a face or splits the wrong spot, do not fight it. Nudge Seed for a new pattern and keep everything else. Quick, free do-overs.
Cheat sheet
Every slider at a glance, from one end to the other.
| Control | Low end | High end |
|---|---|---|
| Fracture Progress | 0: the footage is whole | 100: the pieces have flown out |
| Force | low: a gentle hit | high: a violent blast |
| Shard Count | 20: a few big pieces | 400: hundreds of small ones |
| Clustering | 1: pieces sized evenly | 4: dense and fine at the strike |
| Scatter | 0: a tidy break | 1: pieces flung everywhere |
| Spin | 0: no tumble | 4: fast, wild tumble |
| Crush | 0: a clean break | 1: a powdered core |
| Refraction | 0: flat, no bend | 1: shards warp the footage |
| Frost | 0: clear glass | 1: fully frosted |
| Dispersion | 0: no color split | 1: rainbow edges |
| Edge Highlight | 0: dark cut edges | 1: bright, lit edges |
| Thickness | 0: flat panes | 60: solid 3D slabs |
| Direction Amount | 0: a radial burst | 1: blown one way like wind |
| Motion Blur | 0: crisp shards | 1: fast pieces smear |
| Gravity | 0: pieces float | 1500: they rain straight down |
| Depth Direction | −100: recede into the screen | 100: fly at the camera |
| Duration | 0.1: a quick snap | 6: a slow, drawn-out break |
| Crack Phase | 0: snaps apart at once | 0.6: cracks a long time first |
Before you install
Fracture is a Mac effect plugin. Here is what you need.
Get help
Trouble installing, animating, or unlocking Fracture? Reach out and we'll sort it.