Cracked Ice
Overlay translucent ice with branching fissures, cyan absorption, internal glints, and frost.
Add Cracked Ice
Open an image or build the source composition first. Put this effect after the content it should process in stack processing order. Choose Material → Damage → Cracked Ice in the effects picker, or search for Cracked Ice with Cmd/Ctrl + F. Select the new layer in Layers to open its Effect Panel.
Build the fissures
Set Scale, Density, Branching and Crack Width, then change Seed for another ice pattern.
Style the ice
Adjust Refraction and Relief for the surface, Frost for clouding, and Tint or Absorption for colour. Use Light Angle, Specular and Caustics for internal highlights.
Compare and finish
Toggle the layer eye to compare with the incoming composition. Use the Effect Panel footer for opacity and blend mode, or add a mask to limit the affected area. In Video or Live, use the function menu on a supported control to add keyframes or a driver.
Control reference
Show individual controls
| Control | What it does | Values and animation |
|---|---|---|
| Absorption | blue/cyan volume absorption through the ice | 0% to 100% Default: 32% Continuous keyframes |
| Ambient | minimum light level on shaded ice normals | 0 to 1 Default: 0.62 Continuous keyframes |
| Branching | amount of secondary branching cracks | 0% to 100% Default: 62% Continuous keyframes |
| Caustics | brightness of internal caustic glints | 0% to 100% Default: 50% Continuous keyframes |
| Density | coverage of the generated fissure network | 0% to 100% Default: 68% Continuous keyframes |
| Crack Width | width of the bright and dark fissure cores | 0 to 10 %; 1 to 256 px (typed input: 1 to 1000) Default: 0.18 % Continuous keyframes |
| Dispersion | RGB colour split through refracted ice normals | 0% to 100% Default: 22% Continuous keyframes |
| Frost | strength of the etched frosty surface veil | 0% to 100% Default: 42% Continuous keyframes |
| Ice Light Angle | direction of the key light over the ice surface | 0 to 360 Default: 132 Continuous keyframes |
| Refraction | how far ice normals bend the source image | 0 to 50 %; 0 to 256 px (typed input: 0 to 2000) Default: 0.75 % Continuous keyframes |
| Relief | height of the virtual ice plate normals | 0 to 1 Default: 0.66 Continuous keyframes |
| Scale | average size of the ice plate and fissure field | 0 to 100 %; 1 to 500 px (typed input: 1 to 2000) Default: 7 % Continuous keyframes |
| Specular | strength of glossy highlights along fissures | 0 to 1 Default: 0.46 Continuous keyframes |
| Tint | colour cast of the frosty ice absorption | RGBA colour (0 to 255 per channel) Default: RGBA (214, 244, 255, 255) Colour keyframes |
| Seed | change for a different random pattern | 0 to 9999 Default: 0 Discrete keyframes |