Different ways to add MP4 animations to your content

So you have a set of MP4 animations. Maybe you bought them from me, or downloaded them from some other websites.

These can be any kind of animations like: Particle FX, Abstract, 3D, etc..

Let’s say the animations come with a black background. How do you add these animations to your content? How to you make them blend in with your text, logos, images or videos?

On this page here I will show you several different ways you can add animations to your content using Camtasia.

NOTE: I made these instructions for Camtasia, but you can use these same concepts with any other video editor. The same concepts apply, just the menus and panel names might be different depending on which editor you use.

Ok let’s move on with the tutorials...

Option 1: Add your content on top of the animation

This is the easiest option. You simply add the animation as a bottom track and then add your content on top of it. Optionally you can also add a Behavior to your content to make it animate along with the animation.

Option 2: Add the animation on top of your content and change the opacity

What happens when you add the animation on top of your content? The animation has a black background, and if you add it as-is on top of your content it will just cover your content and you won’t be able to see anything under the animation.

A quick fix to make your content appear from under the animation is to change the Opacity of the animation to something between 10% - 50%.

Option 3: Add the animation on top of your content and “Remove Color”

This is the best way to blend the animations with your content because using this method you can partially see your content under the animation. In the example below the animation is on top of text, and you can partially see the text under it. It just looks more realistic this way.

How to do this in Camtasia...

Click and drag the “Remove Color” effect onto the animation

NOTE: If you’re using something other than Camtasia, this can be called something like “Chroma Key”, or “Keying”, or “Color difference key”, etc..

Use the Color Picker tool to sample the background color you want to remove

In this case the background color is black. This will remove all of the black color around the animation.

Adjust Tolerance and Softness

After you remove the black background, you might have some uneven edges around the areas where you removed the background. To smooth those out and make the animation blend into the scene better, adjust the Tolerance and Softness settings.

I personally got good results with these settings...

Tolerence: 0

Softness: 50-100

Final Steps: Add Glow

The Glow effect will make your animations more shiny and glowing. It’s a nice final touch to make your animation really pop.