Layers: text, screens and graphics

Layers sit on top of a scene's picture or clip: a headline, an app screen in a phone, a circle or an arrow. They're drawn sharp into the final video, so words and screens stay exactly as you made them. The animation AI never redraws them.

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Add elements

1. Open 4 Animate, pick a scene and click Add layers beside Animation. Once a scene has layers, the link reads Layers · 2, and so on.
2. Under Add elements, click Text, Picture (Upload a picture or Pick from My library) or Shape (rectangle, rounded rectangle, circle, line or arrow).
3. Drag an element to move it, and drag the handle at its corner to resize it. Double-click a text to type its words.
4. Press Delete to remove the selected element. The arrows at the top undo and redo (⌘Z / Ctrl+Z). A scene can hold up to 20 elements.

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Style

Click an element and its style bar appears above the scene:

• Text: Font, Size, bold, italic, alignment, Colour, and a Background (none, box or pill) in a colour you pick.
• Picture: a Frame (phone, tablet, laptop or browser window), Corners, Shadow and Opacity.
• Shape: Fill, Outline, Thickness and Corners.

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Style changes show at once and cost nothing, even after the AI has animated the layers.

Describe the motion

1. In Describe, say in plain words what should happen. For example: Tap Start run when she says "right", then show the next screen in the same phone.
2. Click Make. A first Make costs about 40 credits and takes about half a minute. The layers then play in the window; ▶ Preview plays them again.
3. To change something, describe just the change ("hold the zoom a second longer") and click Make again. Changes cost 10–40 credits, and small ones about 10.

• If your words could mean two different things, the AI asks first. Pick an answer, or click Edit the request.
• Some spots the AI picks, such as where a tap lands or the area a zoom goes to, show as dashed marks. Drag them to adjust; that's free.
• Elements you place but don't mention in Describe stay still, just where you put them.
• To keep layers on into the next scenes, say so: "keep the phone on through scene 5". The later scenes show a note; open the first scene to change them.

Save and update the video

1. Click Save layers.
2. In 6 Video, the video now shows Out of date. Click Re-create video. Layers add only a few credits.

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Layers stay where you put them: they don't follow a moving camera or go behind people. Put them in clear space, above the captions at the bottom, and keep the camera steady on scenes with layers.