How to Add 2D Animation Overlays to Video Clips (Free Templates)

Have you ever seen these kinds of videos shared on social media or video-sharing platforms like YouTube, where lovely animations have been added to live scenes, making the original video clip much more exuberant and joyous? You may wonder, how exactly did these people manage to create such adorable videos which convey such contagious emotions? As a matter of fact, adding animated overlays to videos isn’t a hard job at all, and it’s free. Now, please read on to learn more.

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Best Video Editor to Add Animation to Videos without Watermarks

To add animations to live actions and YouTube videos for free, we highly recommend FilmForth video editor. FilmForth is completely free to use and easy to get started. It not only helps to create animation videos with ease, but it also supports users to trim videos, crop videos, merge videos, reverse videos, create pic-in-pic videos, etc. in simple clicks.

With a simple click on the download button below, you can install FilmForth on your Windows 10 or Windows 11 computer for free!

How to Add 2D Animated Overlays to Videos with FilmForth

Step 1. Create a Project in FilmForth

To add 2D animations to videos with FilmForth, make sure FilmForth is fully installed on your computer, launch FilmForth from Windows start menu, and hit New Project button in the program.

Step 2. Import Video Clips into FilmForth

Drag and drop the videos into the program or click ADD VIDEO/PHOTO CLIPS button to load two or more video clips to which you want to add animation overlays, and you’ll see them lined up in the timeline.

Step 3. Go to Picture in Picture

Hit the back button underneath to unselect the video clip, and hit Add Pic in Pic button from the lower operation panel. You can choose animation clips from your local storage or click Add GIFs/Stickers button for adding animated clips from our ready-made animation library.

Additionally, if you are looking for more 2D animation options for adding to your videos, consult the third part of this post to learn about the best place to download free 2D animation clips.

Step 4. Add 2D Animation to a Video

For example, as you can see from the screenshot, here I’ll add a Kiss You animated emoji to the happily swimming sea turtle, so I go to Stickers tab and click on the Kiss You animation, and you’ll see it’s been added on top of the video. You can drag the indication frame to move the animation or spin it.

Step 5. Export the Animation Video

Now the animation has been added to the video. When you’ve achieved a satisfactory result, hit the Save Video button from the lower-right corner to export the edited video clip.

Where to Get Animation Materials to Add to Videos

As mentioned in the tutorials, in the second part of the post, you can use your own and preferred animation clips to add to your videos, to make a unique animated video clip. And the following are the best websites that offer free and uncopyrighted animation clips for you to download and use. Check them out.

Pexel: A free stock video website that offers 10000+ best animation videos.

Videezy: A free video website that offers 9655 best animated video clip downloads for free from the Videezy community. Free Animated Stock Video Footage licensed under creative commons.

Pixabay: Pixabay is another free video website for 600+ free animated & animation Videos in HD and 4K video quality.

How to Create an Extraordinary Animation Video

There’s no secrete in creating awesome animated videos, even if you’re the most inexperienced user in terms of video editing and film production. With the correct tool and a creative mind, you can make something that is no less than a YouTuber’s or professional video editor’s work.

1. The story is king. The most basic idea of a successful video or content creation is to express your ideas in a digestible story. And it doesn’t take a writer to tell a good story, just make sure the story is concise and full of details, your video shall be fine.
2. Creativity next. When you have a good story in mind, then it’s time to touch up your footage. And that’s where video editing comes into play, which makes the scene more pleasing to the viewers. Awesome video editing techniques can be applied to use, such as Ken Burns effect and video transitions.
3. Animation last. Now that you have a well-edited video, then it’s about time we made it animated. From FilmForth, there’s a variety of cool or lovely animation templates for you to choose from and add to your video. The principle is to use fitting animation for different scenes and always watch out for overuse. Invite your friends to preview your video from the upper preview window and listen to what they have to say.

It’s not hard to make a good animation video, and I believe you can pull it off eventually. Good luck!

At last

Adding animations to video is a video editing skill that you definitely need to acquire for it having vast applicability such as adding emojis to family videos, adding moving animations to live actions, adding subscribe animations to YouTube videos, etc. Thus I really hope you have benefited from this guide and learned this skill, please share the post if so!