NEW FORMAT · PEOPLE · OCTOBER 2026

AI video prompt: the ray edit people keep copying on CapCut

Try this prompt for a trending video style. This page describes the shot step by step and offers troubleshooting tips; no sample video is available yet.

The ray edit is the light pass CapCut edits keep coming back to. Hard parallel bands sweep across a shot. Dust hangs in the beam, and the subject is lit only at the edges. What sends people looking for it is that in CapCut the light is added, not filmed. A light-ray or god-rays effect is laid over the clip. It is set to Screen or Add, so the dark parts of the overlay drop out. A slow zoom underneath gives the bands something to move against. The effect that does it is often paid. The templates built on it all sit on the same audio, which is why every version looks the same.

Here the light is in the footage itself. Upload one photo and the prompt below sweeps the beams through the shot instead of over it. They cross in front of the subject, and dust catches inside them. The frame is already lit in the first second, because five seconds leaves no room for a build-up. There is no second layer to align and no blend mode to set. Nothing fades in on the wrong beat.

How the video should unfold

The frame opens already lit — three hard bands of light, dust inside them, everything else near-black.
The bands travel across the face in one slow pass, blooming where they cross the jaw and the shoulder.
The last band slides off frame and leaves a thin rim of light on the face, held still.

The full prompt

The person in the reference photo stands in a dark interior, seen from the chest up, angled slightly away from camera. Three hard parallel bands of light cut across the frame from the left, passing close in front of the subject, fine dust drifting inside each beam and the edges of the bands blown out to white. One continuous sweep: the bands travel slowly from left to right across the face, a soft glow blooms where each one crosses the jaw and the shoulder, and the last band clears the frame leaving a thin rim of light along the profile. Background stays near-black with nothing lit except the beams. Locked camera with a very slow push in, cool blue shadows against warm white light, fine grain. Keep the face, hair and clothing exact. No added text, lens flares, flicker or strobing.

Use this prompt →

Select “Use this prompt” to open the studio with the closest look selected and this text filled in. The text already refers to the subject in your photo, so nothing needs replacing.

Two ways to get this look

Question	In CapCut	On this page
What you start with	A clip you already shot	One photo
How the light gets in	An effect laid over the clip, set to Screen or Add, with a slow zoom underneath	The bands are in the shot and sweep on their own
The usual failure	The overlay lightens the whole frame and you pull it back by hand	The prompt says where the bands cross and what stays dark
What it costs	The ray effects are often part of a paid tier	One credit for five silent seconds, two with sound

What to upload

One clearly adult person, head and shoulders or chest up, shot in flat even light against a plain background. A photo that already has a hard band of light across it leaves nothing for the prompt to add — and a busy background gives the beams something else to light.

How to fix common issues

If the beams look like a sticker laid on top, ask for them to pass in front of the face. Add dust inside the beam. An overlay has no depth, and the depth is the whole effect.
If the face blows out to white, add “skin detail stays readable”. Then add “the bands cross the frame rather than the face”.
If the light flickers or strobes, say “one continuous sweep, constant brightness, no flicker”. Five seconds holds one pass and no more.
If the background turns into a wall of light, state “background stays near-black, the beams are the only light source”.

About this page

This page describes a format rather than a clip we filmed, so there is no sample video, and the prompt is our own writing rather than a verified prompt from the account that made the effect popular. SnapToClip makes five-second clips: one credit for silence, two with sound. The studio picks the model from how many photos you add and whether you ask for sound — one photo silent on Wan 2.2, one photo with sound on Kling 2.6, two on Seedance 1.5 Pro, three or four on Vidu Q4. Review each result before you post it, and only upload photos you have the right to use.