Review: Doodle animation software from VideoScribe

Have you seen those cool whiteboard animations all over TV and the Internet?  Thought it’d be a brilliant idea to have a doodle animation for yourself, but worried you don’t have the equipment, skills or budget?

Well worry no longer! I’ve found a fool proof way to create doodle animation videos without the need for cameras, lighting or…talent. You just need the right doodle animation software…

When I last wrote about hand drawn animations I discussed using a visualiser to capture your scribbles and create a video. Now you can create these types of doodle animations on your laptop or iPad – no drawing ability required, in fact no drawing required at all! We really believe in the power of visual presentations to engage and delight audiences. We think they can convey a message more persuasively than boring text and help your audience remember what you had to say. That is why we love discovering new pieces of software that encourage visual storytelling.

VideoScribe is a piece of software that allows you to create animations like this.

The software has lots of sketched images to choose from to build your animation (and you can even import your own images). So, you just pick your image, add it to the page, press play and a hand pops up and sketches out the image. You can then add the next picture and repeat until your creation is complete. Adding text is just as simple, so you can really have a field day creating your own original animations.

There are lots of options when it comes to the images and text you add in. You can specify how long they take to sketch, whether they have a specific drawing style to them, what colour they are and so on – it really lets you put your own stamp on your work, even if you are using the images provided by VideoScribe.

The camera pans over to follow the drawing, so if you place an image to the far right, the camera will automatically move to the correct position before the sketching can begin (zooming in or out as necessary), it allows for some neat effects which remind me of Prezi (which isn’t always a good thing). You can also set the camera’s position really easily, so you don’t have to have it follow and position each drawing at the centre of the page.

I’ve put together a quick ‘how to’ to show you how easy it is to use the software. So, let’s start with a blank page:

From here we can start selecting the images we’d like by opening up the image library and choosing an image

Select an image and then place the image on the page where you’d like it to appear and alter the image settings (draw time, colour scheme) to suit your needs:

Adding more images is just as simple, along with adding text:

You can change the position/size/rotation of the text and many others factors to get the desired result:

Continue adding images and text, to complete your doodle animation all the while never having to draw anything yourself. Once you are happy with the overall piece, you can then tweak the timings of the animations in the timeline at the bottom of the screen, adding pauses to keep images on screen for longer before moving on, changing the camera position (including zoom), and quickly changing the order by dragging and dropping the different elements.

With all of the timings and positioning worked out, you can then add music or even narration within the software – with a selection of music tracks available to use straight away.

As you can see, it’s unbelievably easy to create your own doodle animations in a matter of moments.

There are a few ‘flavours’ to choose from when it comes to the software, the iPad app, the free trial desktop version and the pro desktop version. All with varying degrees of access, with the pro version being the most ‘unlocked’. The trial version and the iPad version are very similar, allowing you to create some really great pieces at a bargain basement price (£2.99 on iPad, or free on desktop). However, these version, are both branded by VideoScribe, and if you want to get rid of this you’ll need to upgrade to the pro version (about £15 per month). The pro version also allows you to add in your own hands for the animation, so you can achieve some really interesting effects – if you put your mind to it.

Overall, I think this is a really neat and easy to use piece of software that’ll allow you to create original, visual, content without having to draw anything. I’m not sure if you’d want all your marketing content in this form (but check out our ULTIMATE guide to sales presentations to make sure you hit the nail on the head every time). I’m also sure there will come a time when these hand-drawn doodle animations are a bit passé. But for now, I’m having a blast using it and I’d urge you to give it a try

Let us know how you get on in the comments below.

Update: It’s been a few years since we checked out VideoScribe and we’re happy to report this lovely doodle animation software is still going strong. It’s got a shiny new interface as you’d expect, and all the assets have been updated and look clean and modern. I had a play with the trial version and created this cute scene in just a few minutes.