Remotion best practices

You are a Remotion expert. All animations must be frame-driven via useCurrentFrame(). CSS transitions and Tailwind animation classes are FORBIDDEN in Remotion, they will not render correctly.

When to use

• Building programmatic videos with React
• Creating animated intros, demos, promo videos
• Generating data-driven video content
• Working with captions, charts, or text animations

Core Pattern

Every Remotion component follows this structure:

import { useCurrentFrame, useVideoConfig, interpolate, spring } from "remotion";

export const MyScene: React.FC = () => {
  const frame = useCurrentFrame();
  const { fps, width, height } = useVideoConfig();

  const opacity = interpolate(frame, [0, 1.5 * fps], [0, 1], {
    extrapolateRight: "clamp",
  });

  const scale = spring({ frame, fps, config: { damping: 12 } });

  return (
    <div style={{ opacity, transform: `scale(${scale})` }}>
      Content here
    </div>
  );
};

Always use seconds * fps, never raw frame numbers:

// BAD
const opacity = interpolate(frame, [0, 45], [0, 1]);

// GOOD
const opacity = interpolate(frame, [0, 1.5 * fps], [0, 1]);

Composition Setup

// src/Root.tsx
import { Composition } from "remotion";
import { MyVideo, MyVideoProps } from "./MyVideo";

export const RemotionRoot = () => (
  <Composition
    id="MyVideo"
    component={MyVideo}
    durationInFrames={30 * 30} // 30s at 30fps
    fps={30}
    width={1920}
    height={1080}
    defaultProps={{ title: "Demo" } satisfies MyVideoProps}
  />
);

Use type for props (not interface) to ensure defaultProps type safety.

Sequencing Scenes

import { Sequence } from "remotion";

export const MyVideo: React.FC = () => (
  <>
    <Sequence from={0} durationInFrames={150}>
      <Intro />
    </Sequence>
    <Sequence from={150} durationInFrames={240}>
      <MainContent />
    </Sequence>
    <Sequence from={390} durationInFrames={150}>
      <Outro />
    </Sequence>
  </>
);

Inside each <Sequence>, useCurrentFrame() resets to 0. Design components to start at frame 0.

Animation Patterns

Spring (natural motion, 0 to 1):

const scale = spring({ frame, fps, config: { mass: 1, damping: 10, stiffness: 100 } });

Interpolate (map frame range to value range):

import { interpolate, Easing } from "remotion";

const translateY = interpolate(frame, [0, 2 * fps], [50, 0], {
  extrapolateRight: "clamp",
  easing: Easing.out(Easing.cubic),
});

Staggered items:

{items.map((item, i) => {
  const delay = i * 5; // 5 frame stagger
  const progress = spring({ frame: frame - delay, fps });
  return (
    <div key={i} style={{ opacity: progress, transform: `translateY(${(1 - progress) * 20}px)` }}>
      {item}
    </div>
  );
})}

Audio

import { Audio, interpolate } from "remotion";
import { staticFile } from "remotion";

<Audio
  src={staticFile("music.mp3")}
  startFrom={30}           // trim start (frames)
  endAt={300}              // trim end (frames)
  volume={(f) =>
    interpolate(f, [0, 30], [0, 1], { extrapolateRight: "clamp" })
  }
/>

Assets

Always use staticFile() for local assets in public/:

// BAD
<Img src="/logo.png" />

// GOOD
import { staticFile } from "remotion";
<Img src={staticFile("logo.png")} />

For Google Fonts:

import { loadFont } from "@remotion/google-fonts/Inter";
const { fontFamily } = loadFont();

Anti-patterns

BAD:

// CSS transition (won't render in video)
<div style={{ transition: "opacity 0.3s" }}>

// Tailwind animate class (won't render)
<div className="animate-bounce">

// Raw frame numbers (unreadable)
const x = interpolate(frame, [0, 90], [0, 100]);

// useEffect for animation (breaks determinism)
useEffect(() => { setOpacity(1); }, []);

GOOD:

// Frame-driven opacity
const opacity = interpolate(frame, [0, 3 * fps], [0, 1], {
  extrapolateRight: "clamp",
});

// Spring for natural motion
const scale = spring({ frame, fps });

// All state derived from frame, never useState for animation

Rendering

# Preview
npx remotion preview

# Render to MP4
npx remotion render MyVideo out/video.mp4

# Render specific frames
npx remotion render MyVideo --frames=0-150 out/preview.mp4

# Render as GIF
npx remotion render MyVideo out/video.gif --image-format=png

Deep Dive References

For detailed patterns, load the relevant rule file:

Topic	File
Compositions, stills, folders	rules/compositions.md
Interpolation and springs	rules/timing.md
Scene transitions	rules/transitions.md
Text animations	rules/text-animations.md
Captions and subtitles	rules/subtitles.md
Charts and data viz	rules/charts.md
3D with Three.js	rules/3d.md
Video embedding	rules/videos.md
Audio and sound	rules/audio.md
Parametrizable videos (Zod)	rules/parameters.md
TailwindCSS setup	rules/tailwind.md
Maps (Mapbox)	rules/maps.md
Transparent video export	rules/transparent-videos.md