Adding animations to elements

Animations bring your graphics to life. Instead of a title or graphic appearing and disappearing abruptly, animations let it glide, fade, or zoom into place — giving your video a more polished and intentional feel. In PublishFi, you can add entrance and exit animations to any design element directly from the Inspector panel.

What can be animated

Animations apply to design elements on the timeline — things like titles, lower thirds, call-outs, overlays, and other graphics you have added from the design library. Video clips themselves do not use the animation system described here.

How to add an animation

1. Click on a design element in the timeline or in the Layers panel to select it.
2. The Inspector panel opens in the right sidebar, showing the properties for that element.
3. Scroll down to the Animation section.
4. Click the animation dropdown and choose the animation you want to apply.

The animation takes effect immediately in the preview. You can change it at any time by returning to the Inspector and selecting a different option.

Available animations

PublishFi includes the following animation options:

• None — No animation. The element appears and disappears instantly.
• Fade In — The element gradually appears from transparent to fully visible.
• Fade Out — The element gradually disappears from fully visible to transparent.
• Slide Left — The element enters from the right side and slides into its final position, or exits to the left.
• Slide Right — The element enters from the left side and slides into its final position, or exits to the right.
• Slide Up — The element enters from below and slides upward into position, or exits upward.
• Slide Down — The element enters from above and slides downward into position, or exits downward.
• Zoom In — The element begins small and scales up to its full size as it appears.
• Zoom Out — The element scales down from its full size as it exits.

Choosing entrance vs. exit animations

The animation you apply controls the behavior at both the start and the end of the clip's duration on the timeline:

• An entrance animation (Fade In, Slide Right, Zoom In, etc.) plays when the clip first appears.
• An exit animation (Fade Out, Slide Left, Zoom Out, etc.) plays as the clip reaches its end.

You apply a single animation per element. If you want a lower third to both fade in at the start and fade out at the end, for example, you would apply Fade In — exit behavior matching that style will follow naturally based on the clip duration.

Tip: Combining a subtle entrance animation with a matching exit animation on a lower third is one of the simplest ways to make a video feel more professionally produced. A Fade In at the beginning and a corresponding fade at the end keeps the graphic feeling smooth without distracting the viewer from the main content.