Morph, Draw-On and Vector Animation

Vector artwork (SVG illustrations, icons and shapes) can do things a photo can’t: it can turn smoothly into another shape, be drawn on stroke by stroke, and be re-inked in a hand-drawn style. This article covers the Morph panel, drawing artwork on, the Hand-drawn style and recolouring. None of these use AI credits.

Morph a shape into other shapes

A morph turns one piece of artwork into another, and then another, in a smooth sequence. An icon can become a circle, a star can become a heart, a logo can become your product’s outline.

1. Select one SVG or shape on the canvas. (Morph works on SVG artwork and shapes, not on photos, text or characters)
2. Click Morph in its toolbar
3. Under Add a shape, pick where the next shape comes from:
   • Shapes: Circle, Square, Rounded, Triangle, Diamond, Hexagon, Star, Heart, Plus and Arrow. These take on your artwork’s own colour
   • Library: search the elements library with Search shapes
   • Page: another SVG or shape already on this scene
   • Uploads: an SVG you have uploaded. Click the upload button (Upload an SVG) to add a new one
4. Click a shape to add it. A preview at the top of the panel plays the sequence
5. Add more shapes the same way, then press Space to play the scene

The Sequence list shows the order the artwork morphs in. It always starts with Original artwork, your item as it looked before, followed by each shape you added.

Edit the sequence

• Move earlier / Move later (the arrows on a shape) change the order
• The bin (Delete) removes a shape from the sequence
• Remove morph removes the whole sequence, and the item goes back to its own artwork
• The On switch at the top of the panel turns the morph off without deleting it
• Blend colours fades between the shapes’ colours as they morph. Turn it off to keep the starting colour during each morph; the next shape’s colour appears once it is fully formed
• Default step sets how long the morph to each newly added shape takes, in milliseconds

Change the timing

A morph’s timing lives on the timeline, just like any other animation. Once a sequence has a shape to morph into, it appears as an animation on the item’s Animations row, with diamonds marking the moments each shape is reached.

• Drag a diamond to change when that shape is reached
• Click a diamond to move the playhead to it and see that shape on the canvas
• For finer control, open the Advanced keyframe timeline and use the Shape track. See Keyframes, Motion Paths and Camera Moves

When you add the first shape, the morph from your artwork to that shape and back repeats to fill the time the item is on screen. Each shape you add after that is placed at the end of the morph, one Default step after its last diamond.

Caution

Because the first shape’s repeats already fill the item’s time, a shape you add later can land after the item has left the screen. If a shape never shows up when you play, make the item’s bar longer, or move that shape’s keyframe earlier in the Shape track of the advanced keyframe timeline.

Draw artwork onto the scene

To make vector art appear as if it is being drawn, give it the Draw entrance effect:

1. Select the artwork and click Effects in its toolbar
2. On the on Enter tab, click Draw
3. Pick a drawing hand and tool, or No hand to have the lines draw themselves
4. Drag the effect’s edge on the item’s timeline bar to make the drawing faster or slower

Draw also works on text (it writes the letters on) and on photos and video, where you can choose a Brush or Trace style. For the full set of hands and tools, and for whiteboard-style projects, see Whiteboard Videos.

Give vector art a hand-drawn look

The Hand-drawn style redraws vector artwork as if it were sketched by hand, in any editor mode.

1. Select an SVG, a shape, a character or a chart
2. Open More Tools in its toolbar (Ctrl+Shift+D, or Cmd+Shift+D on a Mac) and click Hand-drawn
3. Switch the style on and pick a preset, then fine-tune it with the controls below

Photos, video and text keep their own look. The presets and every control are described in Whiteboard Videos.

Tip

Combine the two: a hand-drawn illustration with the Draw effect looks like it is being sketched live.

Recolour SVG artwork

Select a single SVG and its colours appear as swatches in the toolbar. Click a swatch to change that colour everywhere it is used in the artwork. See Backgrounds and Colors for the colour picker.

Combine with other animation

A morphing or hand-drawn item can still have entrance and exit effects, such as Fade in and Pop out. See Entrance, Exit and Looping Effects.

A hand-drawn item can also take any animation from the Animations panel. A morph, though, lives on the item’s Animations row, and two animations can’t overlap on that row, so another animation only fits where the morph leaves the row free.

Troubleshooting

There’s no Morph button. Select exactly one item, and make sure it is an SVG or a shape. Photos, text, characters and groups can’t morph.

“That artwork has no shapes to morph”. The artwork you picked has no outlines Glintia can use. Pick a different shape.

“Pick an SVG file”. The Uploads tab only accepts SVG files.

“Shape added, but it could not be saved to your uploads”. The shape is in your sequence, but it wasn’t added to your uploads library. You can keep working; upload the file again later if you want to reuse it.

Related articles

• Whiteboard Videos
• Entrance, Exit and Looping Effects
• Keyframes, Motion Paths and Camera Moves
• Elements, Stock Media, GIFs and Emojis
• The Timeline