Before you start creating your animation, there are some quick decisions you should make for your scene to set the foundation for your project: how long your scene runs, what size it fills, and what sits behind it all.
Add a new artboard
Creating a new file automatically generates a blank artboard. To add new artboards to your file you can either:
Click the Add an artboard ▶️ button in the toolbar
Duplicate an existing artboard with:
⌘ C / Ctrl C to copy and ⌘ V / Ctrl V to paste
⌘ D / Ctrl D
Hold ⌥ / alt while dragging the artboard
💡 Tip: Jitter's infinite canvas let's you work on multiple artboards and scenes in one file, letting you to iterate faster, test ideas side by side, or keep different formats of your animations in one place.
Set your scene duration
This defines the length of your animation and export output. The default length is 4 seconds and the maximum is 120 seconds.
Choose a length that suits your project by hovering over the boundary between the white and grey areas of the timeline and dragging the arrow cursor to the right.
For more ways to adjust scene duration, see Change the scene duration.
Choose your artboard dimensions
Define this early on to match your target format. That might be a social square, widescreen video, vertical story, or something else. Open the Format dropdown menu to choose predefined dimensions, or set your dimensions manually in the Size property.
Set your background
Choose a solid color or gradient, or drop in a media asset to set your canvas background. Uncheck the background Fill property if you need a transparent background on export (only available on the Max plan).
Color animations can also be added to the background fill from the animation tab.