I built a post-processing transition pass that uses a noise-driven mask instead of a standard fade or wipe. The effect works by blending between two textures using a procedural-looking noise field, so the transition feels broken up, organic, and slightly glitchy rather than uniform. The mask is mirrored/tiled to avoid visible seams, and the transition edge is softened with an SDF-based shape so it has a controlled falloff instead of hard cutoff artifacts.
On top of that, the pass includes RGB channel separation and subtle vertical distortion, which makes the edge of the transition feel more alive. The amount of distortion changes with the transition progress, and the edge can be pushed further with per-channel offsets so the mask has a stronger chromatic split during the reveal. The result is a stylized noise-mask transition that works as a post-process effect over the full frame, rather than being tied to a single material.
Scroll down unitl you get to the mask section to see it!
Using a noise-driven mask instead of a standard linear fade makes the transition feel much more organic and visually interesting. The combination of procedural noise, SDF-based edge falloff, and RGB channel offsets gives it a very polished “glitch / digital dissolve” style.
I especially like that you implemented it as a post-processing pass rather than tying it to a specific material. That makes the effect far more flexible since it can be applied to the entire rendered frame through something like the EffectComposer pipeline in Three.js.
The mirrored/tiled mask approach is also a clever way to avoid visible seams while still keeping the noise pattern procedural. And adding progress-dependent distortion and chromatic offsets at the transition edge really helps sell the effect.
This kind of pass would work great for things like:
• scene transitions
• stylized UI reveals
• generative art visuals
• glitch-style video or gallery transitions
