What do you need to make an animated video?
A laptop or desktop with a recent web browser, and an idea for a conversation. You don’t need to draw, install anything or make an account: the characters, sets and voices are built in, and the film is rendered on your own computer. On a phone, the mobile editor at blabba.app/m does a shorter version of the same thing.
Step 1: Open the studio
Go to blabba.app/studio and agree to the terms. The studio opens on a blank scene with one character and one empty line, ready to type. Your work saves itself in the browser as you go.
Step 2: Cast your characters
In the Characters tab, press + character. Choose one of sixteen ready-made characters, or Design your own and set the skin, build, hair, clothes and accessories yourself. Then pick a voice by listening to it. Double-click any character on the stage later to change how they look.
Step 3: Type the dialogue
Back in the Story tab, type the first line into its card and pick who says it. Press Enter for the next line. Keep lines short and let characters interrupt each other: animated dialogue plays best when it sounds like people talking, not like an essay.
Press play at any point to hear it. Each voice is made on your computer the first time a line plays, and the mouths follow it. How that works is explained in lip sync animation.
Step 4: Add the acting
Type / anywhere in a line, or use the tool buttons above the script, to drop in a beat:
- Expressions: happy, angry, sad, surprised or neutral.
- Gestures: a wave, a shrug, a facepalm, a point at someone, folded arms, a thumbs-up and more.
- Looks: at another character, at the camera, or away.
- Pauses, for timing a joke.
- Walks, across the set, or on and off from the wings.
- Camera cuts, to a wide, a two-shot, a single or a close-up.
Each beat sits on the word where it happens, so there is no timeline to manage: move the beat in the sentence and it happens at a different moment.
Step 5: Choose the set and the camera
In the Backgrounds tab, pick one of nineteen sets, from an office to a pub, a plane or a rooftop. Drag characters on the stage to where they start. Then decide on the camera: with Auto camera on, Blabba cuts to whoever is speaking (every cut is shown, and any line can be yours); with it off, the film holds the wide shot unless you cut. Switch on Captions if the film will be watched with the sound off.
Step 6: Export the video
Press Export. The free Rough cut is a 540p MP4 with a small Blabba.app mark and a closing card, for personal use; it needs no account. Paid exports are clean, higher resolution and come with a commercial licence, from $2.49. The film is rendered on your computer and downloads when it is done.
How do you make animated videos for YouTube?
Make the film in the desktop studio, which exports 16:9 for ordinary YouTube videos, or in the mobile editor, which makes upright 9:16 videos for YouTube Shorts, Instagram Reels and TikTok. If the channel is monetised, you need a paid export: the free Rough cut is for non-commercial use only. See the pricing page.
Can you animate without drawing?
Yes. In Blabba you never draw a frame. The characters are drawn by code and act out what you write: they speak with lip sync, blink, breathe, turn to whoever is talking and walk where you send them. Your part is the writing, the casting and the timing.