Doodly

I bought this for my blogs first and then to fulfill clients’ requirements if it is needed fully. It is absolutely amazing. It is straightforward to use, and you can create professional-looking animated videos within minutes. It is great for explaining the concept of any service or product. I am still learning thanks to this app, and it has a lot more potential than you would think at first glance because of just how little tech know-how required!

Doodly is a great tool that takes advantage of creative, design-driven people. Though the capability to make a visual mind map has been patented by Doodly, their Basic Version is still quite budget friendly for those just starting out or are in need of a powerful diagramming app at work or school. Users can choose from seventy-seven preloaded templates and download whatever basic assets they want the software to use when presenting their doodles to others (Black & White Templates). However, there is also an option if you need some premade doodle templates or want something colorful (Rainbow Templates). Additionally, there are other templates available such as Business Templates and Training Templates that range up to more than $250 altogether!

You can illustrate videos really quick. It has a library of items you can use and that animation of the hand drawing while you have the audio commenting lets you create fewer scenes while delivering the audio content.

It has 2 versions: the standard and the premium. There's not much of a difference between the 2 just that it has more doodles to work with. But there are several doodles that are badly drawn or difficult to work with. I chose a doodle named "Amanda" and there are like 5 of these Amanda doodles that show her face as if she had a seizure with half of the face ok and an eye all twisted like if she were high.

The extra doodles you don't get with premium aren't that good. You aren't missing a thing.

You can't edit the sounds. You just have the chance to put them and that's it. No trimming, no volume.

The edit GUI let's you put items above the other, which is intended but you can't change the order of how are they drawn if you don't mess the layers and end up putting an item behind of another breaking the whole idea you were designing.

Finally, the preview won't let you start from a desired point, you need to start from the start every time you want to preview your work and you can't add markers to the timeline either.

The easiest way to create an explainer video. It has a tons of ready-made drawings that you can search for inside the software. Just select the one you want, and the tool will automatically make it as a drawing.

There are a huge amount of assets ready to use, but if you don't find what you're looking for, you can import your own and use the "edit" tool where you can place points on how the drawing hand will make that drawing appear in the video. Honestly, in my opinion, this is the best feature.

Using this, you can use whatever image you want and just tell it how to draw, and you'll have a nice explainer video, with custom drawings, that makes your video unique. This is a lengthier process than normal, since you have to teach the tool how the hand needs to move, but for me, it's better.

The options you have is how fast or slow you want the hand to draw the asset. You can also chose different hand styles, with a shirt, without a shirt, different pen types, and even cartoon hands!

Another great option is you can choose whatever background you want to use. The standard is white, but you can also switch to a blackboard, a greenboard, a glassboard and even CUSTOM - where you upload whatever background you want. This is great if you want it written over a video, or special slides. Again, I like custom the most, but make sure the assets you are using or uploading have transparency for best looking results.

There is rainbow add-on that gives you "colorful" assets, but it basically just gives the option to have those previous characters be filled with color. The color in these assets doesn't have a nice path for the hand to move when filling them up. It just goes to a standard fill, which isn't fancy at all, and looks un-natural to the rest of the drawing. To be honest, I don't even use this add-on and it seems like a lazy attempt to get more money.
There is also no way to mass-add assets that are made for doodly. Over time I got several assets that I've received as a bonus or reward through email, but I just got an archive with image files. Of course I can add these in, but they don't have the drawing paths included, so I would need to edit and configure the drawing paths manually. There are no specific software file types for these types of assets.
You can also buy assets from the marketplace, which I've never done, but I'd expect those to have the drawing paths included in the purchase.

I liked the principle of doodle software. I liked that the animations could theoretically be implemented by people of any skill level.

Though in theory the idea of using doodle-creation software is easy and user-friendly, in fact, to use the software WELL it takes a long time with a high learning curve and high time-on-task. No training, no templates, and little customer service lined up to big promises and unachievable examples.