Split: chop one picture into pieces that each show it again

Poster designers have an old trick: flatten a finished design, then blow it up, chop it and repeat it. One photo becomes a whole layout, and it still reads as one picture. The Split rig does that to any image, and animates it.

How it works

Each piece is a box with its own view of the full picture: its own zoom, shifted toward a focus point you choose. Every view zooms just enough to fill its box, so no piece ever runs off the edge of the photo and shows a black gap. The focus point stays whole, so the face, the product or the logo in your picture survives the chop.

Six arrangements

• Peek: strips of the picture beside a big crop of itself
• Cutout Zoom: the focus detail cut out and zoomed in place, with copies along the frame's long side
• Bands: rows or columns at different zooms
• Slip: slices pushed along their length
• Tiles: a grid where cells swap or blow up, while the focus cell stays put
• Repeat: the frame inside itself, again and again, toward the focus

How to use it

Open Rigs in the toolbar and add Split (under Objects). Upload your picture in its panel and drag the focus point onto what matters. Then choose an arrangement and play with pieces, size, zoom, spread, gap and border. Switching arrangement loads that arrangement's own starting numbers, so each one starts out looking right.

The dice roll new layouts and colours but keep your picture and focus. Every setting can be keyframed.

Ideas

• An event flyer: a grayscale photo as a Peek strip beside a big crop, with the headline in Big Type running over it.
• An album announcement: the cover art as Tiles, with cells swapping and blowing up.
• A portrait in Repeat, zooming into the eyes.