Let’s first create a simple animation with 2 texts that appear “from left”.

As you can see the text is overlapping the white vertical line.

We need to add a mask to the text layers to make it look as if it’s running out of line.

Add a new rectangle shape and make sure that it covers the text and has the same X and Y position as the vertical line.

Right-click on the shape layer and select Mask. The mask will be applied to the first layer under the shape layer.

When an object is converted to a mask, it has a mask icon in the front of the layer name. You can add more layers under the same mask by simply dragging the layer to the mask group.

And now, thanks to the power of clipping mask, the text is running from the vertical line without overlapping it.

And there we have it! That’s how clipping masks work in BannerNow!

Visit our Knowledgebase page for more tutorials!

Notice each layer displays an icon indicating the type of content on the layer — such as a T for a type layer, or an image icon for an image layer.

To add a folder click on the icon as shown in the image below.

Folders make it easier for you to work with multiple layers when designing a complex banner template.

Drag layers inside the folder to arrange and reduce clutter in the Layers panel.

Use keyboard shortcuts to become more productive: link to hotkeys tutorial.

Guides/Rulers and the Grid help you position items precisely. Guides will appear as red lines floating over elements on the stage. You’ll be able to move and remove grids, which will not be visible on the exported banner.

The grid is useful especially when looking to lay out elements symmetrically. The grid will appear by default as nonprinting grey lines.

To show or hide the grid, choose View > Grid from the top menu. To specify grid style choose the spacing between gridlines.

Rulers

Rulers help you accurately place and measure objects. They appear at the top and left sides of the working space.

To show or hide rulers, choose View > Rulers.

Guides

Guides help you align text and graphic objects. To create a guide position the pointer on the left ruler for a vertical guide or on the top ruler for a horizontal guide and drag the guide into position.

To create a new guide go to View > Add Guideline and specify exactly where you want your new guide to appear.

Snap to Guidelines

Snapping helps with precise placement of elements on the stage. To activate the Snap feature go to View > Snap to Guidelines.

Remove Guidelines

Guidelines can be removed by dragging the guideline back to the ruler. Another way you can do this is by removing all guidelines from the View menu.

Whenever a new element is added to the stage it automatically receives the highest order number – meaning it will be placed above all other elements on the z-axis (if element A has a higher-order number than element B then A will cover up B). Layers can be used to control any elements’ order. To reorder layers drag them Up or Down using the mouse.

You can also reorder layers inside your folders.

We suggest you Preview your animation once finished reordering layers.

The Timeline is a very powerful feature of BannerNow. It gives you full control of your banner animation. Also, any time you add a new element on stage, a corresponding layer with transition is created on the timeline.

Use layers and folders (left side of the timeline) to arrange elements on the stage (the higher a layer is on the timeline, the higher the corresponding element appear on stage).

You can also assign names to layers for organization, and lock and hide corresponding elements as well.

Use transitions (right side of the timeline) to configure the Animation Effects of elements. Transitions consist of 3 parts/sections that can be configured: Appear Effect – how an element appears, Stay Effect – middle state, and Disappear Effect – how an element disappears.

Use the mouse to drag transitions on the timeline –  this will set a delay of animation for a particular element. You can also use the mouse (handlers between transition sections) to resize appear, stay and disappear parts of the transitions to set the duration of each animation section.

Use multiselect to move all the layers on your timeline to save time.

Zoom the Timeline from the view menu on the bottom-left of the Timeline.