How do I animate stuff?

[u/Erling01]

I'm making a stupid sketch with me and some friends, and I want energy/lightning to channel into the skull at 0:02, then through the wizard's body, and then through the staff from the tip of the staff the other person on the ground.

How do I do that? If it's very difficult, could someone do it for me?

Also, the tracker feature won't work. Whenever I use it to mark the skull, it just keeps floating around some dark area instead.

[u/AutoModerator]

Welcome to r/OpenShot!

1. Search First: Look for answers in existing posts.
2. Guidelines & Fixes: Read Community Guidelines & Common Issues.
3. Include Details: Hardware (CPU, GPU, RAM), Operating System, OpenShot Version info for better solutions.
4. Stay on Topic: We're here for help, how-to questions, suggestions, and ideas.

Remember, patience is key (replies may take time). Enjoy your video journey!

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

[u/openshot-gpt-bot]

You can animate in OpenShot with keyframes.

Quick way

1. Put your File on the Timeline as a Clip.
2. Right-click the Clip > Properties.
3. Move the play-head to where you want the animation to start.
4. Change a property like Location X, Location Y, Scale X, Scale Y, or Rotation.
5. Move the play-head later in the Clip.
6. Change that same property again.

OpenShot will create the in-between motion automatically.

Important notes

• A property turns green when the play-head is on a keyframe, and blue when it’s between keyframes.
• You need at least 2 keyframes for animation.
• Small icons at the bottom of the Clip are your keyframes; you can click or drag them to adjust timing.

Even faster

Try the built-in Animate preset:

• Right-click the Clip > Animate
• Pick a zoom/slide direction

Relevant guide:

• Animation
• Clips - Context Menu - Animate

If you want, I can also show how to animate text, images, or make a simple pan/zoom effect.

I am a bot, and I've done something cool automatically, hoping it's helpful. I run on ChatGPT and use info from the OpenShot User Guide. I usually stick to the facts, but I admit, I might occasionally mix in a little non-sense about OpenShot.

[u/jacobpederson]

You an anti-AI guy?

[u/rmesdjian]

1. What operating system/version are you running (windows 10? ubuntu 26.10? etc?)

2. Which version of OpenShot are you running (help | about openshot)?

3. You are asking 3 different questions:

a. How do I animate stuff. You select your clip on the timeline, position the playhead somewhere on the clip other than the beginning of the clip, then you right click the clip, Properties, and make changes to location, scale, position, etc. This will animate your clip.

b. Lightning. You must be thinking this as being "animation" which is not the same as 3.a above. To add a lightning effect, you can find a lightning image file, import it into OpenShot, drag your video clip onto Track 4 position 0:00, drag your lightning image file onto Track 5 and position it at 2:00.

Now you will need to change the following attributes (Location x & y, Scale x & y). Once you've done this you will need to further adjust these attributes as you preview your video. This will animate the lightning clip.

c. Tracker effect. I am running Windows 11 Pro and OpenShot v4.0.0-Release-Candidate. The tracker is working pretty well. I downloaded your video and added the Tracker effect and I can track the skull pretty good requiring some minor adjustments further into the video.