How to Draw a Driving Route on an Animated Map

Step-by-step guide

1. 1

   Frame your trip on a slide

   Move the map so the start and the destination are both on screen. The Route tool works on the selected slide, and the toolbar only appears once the Storyboard has a slide, so click Start Manually first if the Studio is empty. The slide you add the route to decides when it appears in the video.

   

2. 2

   Click the Route tool

   Click Route in the toolbar. A short route appears at the center of the map with a blue start handle and a red destination handle, and a small bar opens beside it with a To box, the travel mode and a color. Click More to open the route's settings on the right. New routes start in Direct mode, which draws a straight line with an arrowhead.

   

3. 3

   Choose a travel mode

   Under Travel Mode pick Direct, Air, Car, Moto, Train, Sea, Bike, Walk or File. Car follows real roads, and the panel says so under the buttons. Moto, Bike and Walk follow roads, bike-friendly paths and footpaths, Train follows land corridors, and Sea follows open water and avoids land. Air draws a flight path with a plane at the end, for legs across an ocean. File draws a route from an uploaded GPX, KML or GeoJSON file and is a Pro option. For a driving route, pick Car.

   

4. 4

   Set the start and destination

   You can type the places or drag the handles. At the top of the route's settings are Start Point and Destination: type a place in each Search city or place box and click a result. Or drag the blue start handle and the red destination handle on the map. A Car route redraws along the roads as soon as you let go of a handle. Dragging closes the settings panel, so click one of the route's handles to reopen it. Pick on map beside each box lets you click a spot on a small globe instead.

   

5. 5

   Style the line

   On the Style tab, under Line, choose the line color, drag Opacity, set Width from 1 to 10 px and switch White outline on or off. The Vehicle section (Arrowhead on Direct routes) holds the colour of the vehicle or arrowhead, not the line. Car, Moto, Train, Sea and Bike routes also have a Style switch there with 3D, Flat and Badge, which changes the vehicle that travels along the line.

   

6. 6

   Choose how it appears

   Open the Timing tab and find Animation. Effect has Draw Path, where the line draws itself from start to end, and Fade In. Duration sets how long the effect takes and Delay waits before it starts. The animation begins when the video reaches the slide the route was added on, so a route added on the first slide draws as soon as the video starts. Add the route on a later slide to have it draw when the video gets there.

   

7. 7

   Add a second slide and preview

   Move the map to where you want the video to go next, click + at the end of the Storyboard to add a second slide, then click Play Preview. The route draws itself as the video starts and the camera moves on to the second slide. The route stays on screen for later slides. To end it, select the route and, on the Timing tab, under On screen, set Disappears at to a later slide, and Seconds after for an exact moment. In the Timeline you can also drag the handle at the end of its line.