Learn to create zoom animations in Descript's new timeline by adding a Custom animation, placing keyframes five seconds apart, and adjusting layer size between them. The example zooms from 1920×1080 to 2831×1592. Fine-tune timing and easing to sync motion with on-screen action.
Forward slash ("/")
Five seconds apart (default)
Start: 1920×1080; Zoomed: 2831×1592
Today you're going to learn how to create zooms in descript. I'm going to show you this on the new timeline. If you don't have the new timeline or don't know what I'm talking about, check out the video linked up here. Once you're switched over to the new timeline, let's jump into descript. Okay, I'm inside of my descript project and I'm going to find where I want to create a zoom. So I'm going to. Let me just play this real quick. This is a demo of zooms. I'm going to show you how you can take something like this. Zoom in. Okay, so I want to start my zoom right where I frame my hands like that. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to make a new scene right at that frame where I want to start my zoom. So let's say it's right here. And I'm going to put my playhead where I want to start that zoom. I'll hit slash forward slash to create a new scene. So notice I have scene two and scene one, and there's also a slash here on my transcript, as well as a vertical gray line right where I created that new scene. Okay, so click at the start of that scene and then click on the layer that you want to apply the zoom. In this case, I only have one layer, but maybe you have multiple layers or you want to apply the zoom to a title. For now, let's just say this is your script layer that you're applying the zoom. So you click on it and under the animation heading, click the plus button. I always recommend do custom. You're welcome to do zoom and pan or zoom in, but for the most granular control, I always do custom. So click on that and now you'll see. Once again, this is the new timeline. So if you're not on the new timeline, it's going to look a little bit different. But on the new timeline, we have two diamonds that just appeared and they're five seconds apart. So I have the first diamond right where my playhead is, and the second diamond is five seconds later over here. So this is telling me that whatever layout my video has at that first diamond is how it's gonna look. And then whatever layout it has at that second diamond is what's going to happen. It's going to shift between the layout from the diamond number one to diamond number two. So if that's a zoom in, in this case, that's what's going to happen. So I'm going to select on diamond number two and I'm going to slide it until my hands are back. So right there, where my hands are back and stopped. So right about there is where I'm going to leave my second diamond. So this is now about a two second animation. And what I'm going to do is make it bigger and actually let me. And I'm gonna stop right there about a second after my first diamond. So these are about a second apart and it's right where my hands stopped. I brought my hands back in the image. And what I'm gonna do is with that second diamond selected, I'm gonna make the image bigger like this and I can also reposition it. And now if I click on the first diamond again, it's back at the original layout, which is in this case a width of 1920 by 1080. And my second diamond is 2831 by 1592. So watch what happens when I play this. I'm putting my playhead just a little bit behind where the animation starts and I'm going to click play like this.
Zoom in.
So there we go. That is our zoom in. Now if I skip forward a little bit, right where my hands start moving forward, I'm doing a zoom out. So I'm gonna repeat the process. I'm gonna click on the frame again. I'm gonna scroll down where it says animations. I'm gonna hit the plus sign and I'm gonna hit custom. And now you can see there's another diamond added where my playhead is. Scroll over a little bit using shift and my scroll wheel to scroll right on my timeline. And I can see the second diamond five seconds later, which is a little bit too far. I'm going to scoot this forward until I see where my hands are together. So right about there, my hands stop. And what I'm going to do is I'm going to leave my first keyframe, the first diamond, exactly where it is, where the width was 2831. But I'm going to take my second diamond by clicking on it. And I'm going to make this one 1920. I clicked inside of the width box and I'm typing in 1920. And now you can see, since I repositioned it, it's a little bit off center. So I'm going to simply click on it and drag it back until it's centered and it snaps into place there. So now it's centered and let's see how it looks. I'm gonna bring my Playhead back just about a second so I can watch it. I'm gonna hit spacebar to play it and zoom out. And then. So there we go. Now let's watch both of those zooms together. I'm going all the way back like this. Zoom in and zoom out. Now I'm gonna show you the zoom again on a layer that's not my script layer. And so I'm gonna add a GIF to this project. And I'm gonna just go forward a little bit until right there, where I'm framing my hands, I'm gonna add a gif. So I'm gonna go into my media bin, I'm gonna go to GIFs, and I'm gonna say, well, man was already typed in there, so let's just pick. Let's just pick that. Whatever, it doesn't matter. And now you can see this layer, this blue layer here, that is my gif. And it's looping, so it fills that entire scene. And I'm just going to resize it by making it a little bit smaller. And I'm going to put it right here so it looks like it's inside of my hands. Like I'm demonstrating. There might even be a GIF up here. And it's going to do. And then right there, where I start expanding my hands, that's where I want to start my animation. So I'm just inching forward a little bit and it's gonna be like, right there. So I'm gonna click on that gif. I'm gonna click on that layer again. You'll. You need to have the layer selected in order to let Descript know which layer you're applying this to. And so I'm gonna hit the plus button. I'm gonna hit custom. And once again, there are my diamonds. I'm gonna bring the second diamond over until I see my hands expanded, which is right there. And now with that second diamond selected, I'm going to expand this GIF so that it stays in line with my hands. And I'm going to back up a couple seconds and let's play that. And it's going to zoom in and.
Then it's going to zoom.
And then I'm going to do a zoom out. So where my hands start to close together, I'm gonna click on the layer again. I'm gonna go to plus animation custom. I'm gonna bring the second diamond closer and I think about there and make it smaller at the second diamond. And let's back up and see how it looks up Here. And it's gonna zoom in, and then.
It'S gonna zoom out.
Okay. And it was a little bit delayed, so let me. Let's see what happened there. Okay, I'm gonna make it a little bit slower to go with my hands, and let's see how that looks.
And then it's gonna zoom out.
That's a little delayed, too. So you kind of gotta just dial things in. Just play around with the timing until it looks how you want it to.
And then it's gonna zoom out.
Make it start a second later.
And then it's gonna zoom out. And then it's gonna zoom out.
Okay, so now I got the animations synced how I want it to. There's one last setting that we can manipulate. When you have a layer selected, it shows you all of the animations that have been applied to that. In this case, there are two. So we have animation one and animation two. And if you click on this, the double diamonds icon, then it selects your diamonds on the timeline. If you select the one next to it, the dial the effect settings icon, then you see that we have one parameter we can change, and that is the ease parameter. By default, it is set to ease in and out. And I've done a video before on animations, so what all of these mean. But the easiest one to understand is linear. And that's where it moves at a steady speed from the start of the animation to the end of the animation. So let's see how it looks now. And it's going to do man. And.
And then it's gonna zoom out.
Okay, so that's the linear. And then let's try and ease in with this next one.
And then it's gonna zoom out.
So there's a bit of a delay. It starts slow, and then it gets faster with the ease in. But that is the final setting with animations is controlling the ease setting. So that is how to do zooms in. Descript.
