VideoScribe Whiteboard Animation Software Review

For the past couple of years, I have been searching for the best whiteboard animation software, and I have actually tried a few whiteboard animation programs, but the ones I have tried lack the feature that I want for a whiteboard animation maker. It was only a few weeks ago when I tried to search again for a whiteboard animation software and this time, I think I already found what I have been looking for in a doodle animation software, and this I found in VideoScribe so I made this VideoScribe review and basic walkthrough to help people who are also looking for a whiteboard animation software.

What is VideoScribe?

Videoscribe is a whiteboard animation tool that allows you to create an explainer type videos that is much better than Powerpoint, it also provides you the flexibility to add lots of different items to a whiteboard canvas, move around the canvas, add voice overs, add soundtracks, then you can create videos that use various animations and drawing effects to take your audience through your story or your message in a really visual and engaging way. You can go to their website and download the free trial or you can upgrade to the pro version.

VideoScribe Walkthrough

Once you’ve got the VideoScribe doodle animation software installed and running, you’ll come to VideoScribe login screen and you need to enter your email address and your password that you used when you signed up and just click the Log In button at the lower right corner.

After you signed in, it will take you to the project screen where you can see all your saved scribes (if there’s any, it’s going to be blank if you still have not created a scribe).

Here you can create folders to organize your projects and you can also save your scribes online which I will also talk about later in this review, but what we’re going to do for now is I will walk you through in creating your first scribe, and you can do this by clicking the first rectangle in the project screen (the one with the “plus” icon).

VideoScribe Canvas

Once you clicked that rectangle, it will bring you to the main edit screen, where you will see the following:

1. At the top is the tool bar
2. At the bottom, you will see the timeline
3. In the middle you will see the canvas area

The white canvas is actually like a huge whiteboard area, and it actually stretches in all direction, and what you actually see here is just a small portion of it. What you can do with this is you can add your elements into it, you can move around as you need to as you develop your scribe.

Adding VideoScribe Elements

Now that we’re done with introducing you to the parts of VideoScribe, I will now show you how to add some elements into this whiteboard style animation software, such as images and text elements and how you can position and manipulate these elements on the canvas area.

Adding an Image Element

You can see at the top toolbar a group of icons, and the first icon there is for adding your image. If you click on that, it will give you several images that you can put on your canvas

For adding an image element to your VideoScribe project, you can do the following:

1. Search for an image using the search bar
2. You can select an image from your recently used images
3. You also have an option to import images either by browsing from your computer or by looking at the web.

Now, I want to show you the image library, and you can access it by clicking the this building icon (see the image below)

What’s nice about this doodle software is that it has a huge library full of all sorts of images, so you don’t actually have to create your own images and what you can do is just go straight to the library and start using these images on your project, and the good thing about this is that the images are well organized, and sorted per folder depending on the image category, so you’re going to have an idea where you’ll going to see the image that you need.

I just also want to remind you that some of the folder images can only be accessed when you are online, and these folders are actually easy to see because there is the text “(ONLINE)” attached at the end of the folder name.

What you can do here is you can go to any of these folders and browse through all the images to see what you can find, and if you see an image you like, you can right-click on it and you can click on preview, and here you will see the preview on how exactly the image is going to be drawn. It’s actually so amazing because this VideoScribe doodle animation software knows how to draw all of these images, and a hand will come in draw the image for you.

Once you have already found the image you like and already saw it’s preview, just click on it and it will then be added straight into the canvas area, and once the image is already on the canvas, you can click and drag the image to position it, also, you can use the buttons on the corners of the image to resize, and if you click and hold at the center of the image, you will be able to rotate the image.

Now that you have placed an image into the canvas, you can see now at the bottom timeline area our first event. On the left portion of the element, you can see the thumbnail of the image, and on the right portion, you can see what type of event the element has (in this example, it is a “DRAW” event), and by default, VideoScribe actually draws each element introduced to the canvas.

Below that, you can see a time measured in seconds, and this is actually the time it takes for VideoScribe to draw the image. What you can do here is you can increase the drawing time by clicking on the “+” button, and decrease the drawing time by clicking the “-“ button.

What you can also do here is you can click the “paper-like” icon, and it will take you to the image properties

And here you can see several options on how you can control on how the image will look and how it’s going to be animated in the canvas.

1. You can see at the top the different animation methods (DRAW, MOVE IN, MORPH), and at the moment, my image is using the DRAW method by default.
2. Below the animation methods are various options that you can use to change the brush effect, color effect, rotate the image, flip the image, and give transparency to the image.
3. Below these options is the timings area (ANIMATE – PAUSE – TRANSITION). The ANIMATE time is actually the same that we are looking at earlier at the timeline area.
4. Once you’re already happy with your settings, all you have to do is click on the check button to accept all the changes that you’ve made.

Adding a Text Element

Now that we’re done with the image, let’s now proceed on adding a text element

Just beside the image icon in the toolbar, you will see the text icon.

and if you click on that, a pop up text entry field will appear and you can immediately type in the text you want.

Here you can also do the following:

1. Select the font type for your text element
2. Choose the font color you want for your text element
3. After you’re finished typing your text, just click on the check icon and your text will come into the canvas

And just like the image element, you can drag the text element anywhere in the canvas, as well as resize and rotate it.

If you look now at the timeline at the bottom of the screen, the text element is now also there, and just like the image element, you can also change the animation speed of your text element right at the timeline area.

Also, the timeline dictates the order in which the events will happen or the order in which the elements will be introduced into the canvas, and the way this whiteboard animation software works is it’s going to build up layers so the elements like images and texts will appear on top of each other as you go through your project. If you want to reorder the elements in the timeline, just highlight the element you want in the timeline area, then click and drag it to the position you like.

Now that I’m done showing you the elements, what we can do now is to preview the project, and you can do this by clicking the preview button at the top right hand side of VideoScribe

P.S. if you’re creating a sales video, I suggest you to check Funnel Scripts for the inspiration.

Adding Sounds

Now, I want to show you how you can add voice overs and soundtracks to the projects of this doodle sketch software and we’ll start with voiceovers first.

Voiceovers

In adding voiceovers, there are actually various options that you can use and the first way which I also recommend is to record your voice over first, and you can actually do the recording right in VideoScribe or you can also use other recording tools that you want to record your voiceover then just import your recorded voiceover into VideoScribe, then when you already have your voiceover into VideoScribe, you can now build your scribe to fit in with your voiceover.

The other way is the opposite of the first, where you build your scribe first, then when you have already built your scribe, you just play it then you start recording your voiceover while you’re viewing your scribe.

To add a voice over, you just need to click the voiceover icon beside the soundtrack icon

One of the options to get your voiceover is to import it to VideoScribe. You can see below the option to either import your voiceover from the web or from your computer. If you go this method, the file needs to be an mp3 file or else, it will not be recognized by VideoScribe

The other option is to record it right inside of VideoScribe by clicking this.

If you use this, make sure that your computer or laptop is equipped with a microphone or else, this won’t work. To start VideoScribe to record, just click the record button

As soon as you do that, your scribe starts to be played and it will also start to record your voice as you go through. Once you’re already finished, just click the check button so that your voiceover recording will get stored to VideoScribe as part of the project.

You can now see now that the voiceover icon is highlighted, which means that we do now have a voiceover added to the project (see image below)

Adding Soundtrack

To add a soundtrack, just click the soundtrack icon located beside the text icon.

Clicking the soundtrack button pop ups a tab and again, here you also have the option to import a soundtrack either from the web or from your computer

aside from that, VideoScribe has a library packed with lots and lots of different soundtracks.

The soundtracks are actually categorized according to their tempo, as represented by a square dot mark that you can see at the right of the soundtrack, and the lesser the dots, the more calm the soundtrack is, and the more dots it has, the heavier the soundtrack is.

You can preview each soundtrack by pressing the play button of the soundtrack.

To select the soundtrack, just click your selected soundtrack and once you’re already happy with it, just press the check icon

Publishing Scribe

The next thing I want to show you is how you can publish your project, and you can do this by pressing the icon on the very top right of VideoScribe, which actually represents the publish button.

Once you click on that, a pop up will appear in Videoscribe and you can see at the bottom the various publishing options, including publishing to youtube, and what you can do is to click on any of the options, and once you do that, it will start to create the video for you

And that brings me to the end of my VideoScribe review and walkthrough, and all I can say is that this animation software is really easy to use, and based from my first-hand experience, I can say that VideoScribe is one of the best whiteboard animation software in the market today, and aside from that, the created video is really nice. You can see below a sample video that I made for my website WPisLife, using VideoScribe whiteboard animation software.

What I like about VideoScribe

VideoScribe is actually the doodle animation software that I was looking for for a very long time now. I have already tried some other whiteboard animation software like Explaindio and Easy Sketch Pro but those video animation software can’t do what VideoScribe can do and I have listed below some of the things that I like about VideoScribe

Ease of Use

VideoScribe is very simple, intuitive, and so easy to use, and the process is really not that complex compared to other whiteboard animation software that do the same thing

Pan and Zoom

This is actually the feature that I was looking for before, and it really makes the video engaging. I have already tried a couple of whiteboard animation software before, and in fact, I have bought one last year but the animation tool that I bought doesn’t have this feature so I was really a bit disappointed.

VideoScribe Library

VideoScribe comes with several libraries packed with lots of high quality images and soundtracks that actually make your life a bit easier because you don’t have to look for these elements somewhere else and its already right inside of VideoScribe

Things I don’t like about VideoScribe and some Wishlists

Although I really like this doodle animation software, there are still some things that are lacking, as well as some things that I don’t like about this product, and here they are:

Cannot Do Sketch to Video

This would actually be a good feature to be added to VideoScribe where you can add a video, which can be sketched before it gets to play. The software I bought actually have this feature and it would really be great if this feature can also be added to VideoScribe

Cannot Render to MP4

I just can’t believe that VideoScribe does not render the video to an mp4 format

Price is Steep for the Lifetime license

Getting a lifetime access is pretty steep, and can cost you an arm and a leg, though the good thing is VideoScribe has several pricing plans which are more affordable, but still, getting a lifetime license would be the best option but the price is really steep for me

Wrapping Up

And that wraps up my VideoScribe review. If you want to try this whiteboard animation maker, you can go their website and signup for a 7 day free trial by clicking the link below. And in case you decide to upgrade to the paid plans, the vendors provide a 14 day money back guarantee so if ever this software won’t meet your standards, you can request for a refund within that period and they will give your money back with no questions asked

Try VideoScribe 7-day Trial

Bonus!!!

If you buy thru my link, I will provide you 5 custom made sketched images that you can use with Videoscribe. To avail my exclusive bonus, just send your email together with your receipt at support@wpslife.com and your images (preferably PNG files) that you want to get sketched. Once your purchase is confirmed, I will start working on your images and once finished, you will receive the Videoscribe compatible sketch animation of your images in SVG format within 24-48 hours.