Animating anything with keyframes in Video by Zaweba
Any slider with a stopwatch in Video by Zaweba can be keyframed, from position and opacity to effects, masks and volume, with eases and Bezier handles.
Animation in a video editor comes down to one idea. You tell the app what a setting should be at one moment and what it should be at another, and it works out everything in between. Those moments are keyframes, and in Video by Zaweba almost every setting can have them.
What can be animated
Look for the stopwatch. Any slider with a stopwatch beside it can be animated. That covers a lot of ground: position, scale, width and height, rotation, crop and opacity; colour values; every effect setting; every mask setting; 3D values; shape size; and sound volume and pan.
In practice that means you can slide a picture across the frame, zoom slowly into a photo, fade a title in and out, change a grade during a shot, make a blur grow, move a mask to follow something, rotate a 3D layer, and fade music down under a voice, all with the same method.
Adding and moving between keys
Move the playhead to where the change should start. Click the diamond button beside the setting to add a key at the playhead. Move the playhead to where the change should end, change the value, and make sure a key sits there too. Play it back, and the setting moves smoothly from one to the other.
The diamond button also removes a key at the playhead if one is there. Arrow buttons beside it jump to the previous and next keys, so you can step between them to check or adjust each one.
Eases
How a value moves between keys matters as much as the values themselves. Video by Zaweba offers smooth, linear, ease in, ease out and hold.
Linear moves at a constant rate. It suits mechanical motion and some effects, but on position it often looks stiff, starting and stopping abruptly.
Smooth eases the change at both ends, so motion starts gently and settles gently. It is the natural choice for most movement.
Ease in and ease out ease one end only. Ease out is good for something arriving and settling into place; ease in suits something gathering pace as it leaves.
Hold keeps the value fixed until the next key, then jumps. Use it for sudden changes, like a title switching colour on a beat.
Bezier keys have handles, which let you shape the curve yourself. Drag them to make a move accelerate or slow down exactly as you want. For detailed control, the keyframe graph shows these curves directly.
Keys can be copied and pasted. Animate a title flying in once, then paste those keys onto the next title so they match. Build a slow zoom on one photo and paste it onto every photo in a slideshow. Consistency across a film is much easier when you reuse keys instead of setting them up again.
Jobs to try first
A slow push in on a still photo. Two keys on scale, a small increase over several seconds, with a smooth ease. It brings stills to life.
A title fade. Two keys on opacity at the start, two at the end. Simple and clean.
A picture in picture slide. Keys on position to move a small picture in from the edge of the frame, with ease out so it lands softly.
A volume dip. Keys on a music clip's volume, lowering it while someone speaks and raising it after.
Common keyframing slips
Too many keys is the common one. Smooth motion usually needs two or three keys, not ten. Extra keys make movement wobbly and are hard to adjust.
Forgetting the stopwatch is another. Changing a value without keys changes it for the whole clip. If you meant to animate it, add a key first.
Leaving every move linear is the third. Most motion looks better with eases, so try smooth before settling on linear.
Where to go next
Once keyframes make sense, Video by Zaweba has several other ways to work with them: the keyframe graph for shaping curves, rubber bands on the timeline for quick adjustments, and the motion path on the preview for moving pictures by dragging points. They all edit the same keys, so pick whichever suits the job.
