Overlay types
What can you add to a clip?
Five kinds of overlay, all in the Overlays panel of the editor.
GIFs
Search GIPHY from inside the editor, or pick from trending. Results are filtered to PG-13.
Twitch emotes
Your channel emotes and Twitch global emotes, animated ones included. Needs your Twitch account connected.
Text
Your own words in a choice of fonts and colours, with an outline or a coloured pill behind them.
Social callouts
A "Follow @yourhandle" pill in Twitch, YouTube, TikTok or Instagram colours.
Your images
Upload a PNG, JPG, WebP or GIF. Boltis keeps a copy so it is still there at export.
The workflow
How do you add a GIF to a Twitch clip?
- 1Open the clip in the Boltis editor and move the playhead to the moment you want.
- 2Open Overlays, search GIPHY on the GIFs tab, and click a GIF. It is added at the playhead.
- 3Drag it into position on the preview, and drag the corners to resize it.
- 4Drag its ends on the timeline to set when it appears and disappears.
- 5Pick an entrance and exit animation if you want one, then export.
Animation
Can overlays be animated?
Yes. Every overlay can have an entrance and an exit, chosen separately. With no animation it simply appears and disappears on its start and end times.
| Animation | What it does |
|---|---|
| Fade | Fades in, fades out |
| Pop | Scales up from small with a slight overshoot |
| Rise up | Slides up into place |
| Slide from right | Slides in from the right edge |
| Spin in | Spins and grows into place |
The exit finishes exactly on the end time you set, so trimming an overlay to the frame still means what it says. The editor preview plays the animation the same way the export renders it.
Layers
How do you control which overlay is on top?
Overlays stack in the order listed in the panel, with the top of the list at the front. Move any overlay forward or backward, and the preview, the timeline and the export all follow the same order.
- Bring forward or send backward one layer at a time
- Select an overlay in the list to edit its animation
- Delete one without touching the rest
Presets
Can you put the same overlay on every clip?
Yes. Overlays can be saved in a preset along with your layout and caption style. Every clip that preset formats gets them, including clips queued by a hotkey while you stream. A social callout or a channel logo is the obvious use.
The one thing a preset cannot do is time an overlay to a moment, because it does not know when the moment is. Preset overlays stay on screen for the whole clip. For a reaction GIF on the punchline, place it in the editor.