Doodaro editor guide: reveal time, hold, direction and camera (2026)

The Editor is where a still picture becomes a drawing. Every setting here changes how the pen moves, how long it takes, and what the viewer is looking at while the narrator speaks. This guide explains each control and how to set it.

Timing settings live per scene. Change one scene, render its preview, and nothing else is affected until you choose to apply the settings to all scenes.

The layout

• Center: the selected scene, with its latest preview if one exists.
• Left column: drawing settings for the selected scene.
• Bottom: the scene timeline. Click a scene to select it; drag to reorder; Timeline zoom widens it.
• Right: the Exports panel.

Every change to a setting needs a new render before you can see it. The Editor says so under each control.

Reveal time

Reveal time is how many seconds the pen draws. Range: 1 to 120.

The rule of thumb: the drawing should finish just before the narration does. If the line is 9 seconds, try a 7-to-8-second reveal. The viewer watches the picture come together while listening, and the finished picture lands with the end of the sentence.

Scene content	Reveal time
One pictogram or icon	2 to 4 s
A simple scene, one person, one prop	5 to 8 s
A detailed scene or a chart with labels	8 to 15 s
A grouped story scene with several ideas	15 to 40 s

Too short and the drawing looks like a flicker. Too long and the picture is still half-drawn when the narrator moves on. Preview one scene and adjust by a second or two at a time.

Hold time

Hold time is how long the finished picture stays after the reveal. Range: 0 to 30 seconds.

Use it to let a picture land. One or two seconds is normal. Longer holds make sense on a summary picture, a scripture reference, or a chart the viewer needs to read. Zero works when the next scene is a direct continuation.

Hold time adds to the export length, so across a long video it adds up: 20 scenes at a 4-second hold is 80 seconds of allowance per export. Trim holds before you trim scenes.

How scene length is decided

A scene lasts as long as the longer of two things: reveal plus hold, or the narration recording. If the recording is longer than reveal plus hold, the scene stretches to fit the recording, so speech is never cut. The Storyboard shows the resulting scene length on each card.

Reveal direction

Reveal direction sets the order strokes are drawn in:

• Natural follows the artwork’s own order. Use this by default.
• Left to right, Right to left, Top to bottom, Bottom to top sweep across the picture. Left to right suits timelines and reading order.
• From top left, From top right, From bottom left, From bottom right sweep diagonally.
• Center outward starts at the middle. Good when the subject is centered.
• Edges inward draws the surroundings first and the subject last.
• Choose a starting point shows the picture; click where the pen should begin.
• Random draws in a shuffled order. Shuffle drawing order picks a new one, and the Random sequence number lets you reproduce an order you liked.

Apply direction to all scenes copies the selected scene’s direction across the video.

The story camera

Grouped story scenes, such as the Sketch Note style’s independent story groups, have extra controls under Follow the story:

• Follow drawing turns on a camera that zooms to each group as it is drawn.
• Zoom amount from 1x to 2.5x sets how close it goes.
• Pause before pullback is the number of seconds the camera rests on the last group before returning to the full page.
• Ending pause holds the full page at the end.

With the camera off, the full page stays in view while the groups draw in their planned order. Turn the camera on for phone viewers, who cannot read a full sketch-note page at once, and off for a lesson where the whole board should stay visible.

Preview versus full render

There are two kinds of render:

	Scene preview	Full video
Button	Render scene	Render full video or Export video
Covers	The selected scene	Every scene with narration
Counts against minutes	No	Yes, the full length
Use it for	Checking timing and direction	The finished MP4

Work scene by scene with previews. When each scene looks right, export once. Render all is a shortcut that applies the selected scene’s drawing settings to every scene, saves, and renders the full video; use it when every scene should share the same timing and direction.

A notice in the Editor warns you if a scene’s script or voice changed after its recording was made. Go back to the Storyboard and regenerate that scene before exporting, or the export will use the old recording.

Formats

The Exports panel has a Format menu: Landscape 16:9, Portrait 9:16, Square 1:1. All three are on every plan and all export as MP4.

Pictures are planned for the format they were generated in, so a 16:9 picture exported as 9:16 will not fill the frame well. Decide the format before you generate images. If you need both a landscape and a vertical version, make the vertical one a separate project so its pictures are composed tall.

Exports and versions

Export video starts the full render. Finished renders appear in Export history with a version number and date and a Download button. Every version stays, so you can go back to an earlier cut. Each export counts its length against your monthly minutes.

Common timing problems

What you see	Cause	Fix
The picture is finished long before the narrator stops	Reveal too short	Raise reveal time toward the narration length
The narrator moves on while the pen is still drawing	Reveal too long	Lower reveal time by two or three seconds
The video feels breathless	Hold at 0 on every scene	Set 1 to 2 seconds of hold
A chart flashes past before anyone can read it	Hold too short on a dense scene	Raise hold on that scene only to 4 or 5 seconds
The drawing starts in an odd corner	Direction on Natural for a picture with a strong reading order	Set Left to right or Choose a starting point
Phone viewers cannot read a sketch-note page	Camera off	Turn on Follow drawing at 1.5x to 2x

A timing pass in five steps

1. Select scene 1. Set reveal time to about the narration length minus one second, hold to 1 or 2 seconds. Leave direction on Natural.
2. Render scene. Watch it. Adjust by one or two seconds if needed.
3. Move to the next scene and repeat. Change direction only where the picture reads better with a sweep.
4. On the last scene, add a longer hold (3 to 5 seconds) so the video does not end abruptly.
5. Pick the format, then Export video.

Most of the time the only setting you touch is reveal time. Get that right and the rest can stay on defaults.

Frequently asked questions

What is reveal time in Doodaro?

Reveal time is how many seconds the pen spends drawing the scene, from 1 to 120. Hold time is how long the finished picture stays on screen afterward, from 0 to 30 seconds. Together with the narration length they set the scene's duration.

How long should the reveal be?

Set it close to the narration length so the drawing finishes as the sentence ends. For a 9-second line, a 7-to-8-second reveal and a 1-to-2-second hold works well. Simple pictograms can be shorter; detailed scenes need longer or they look rushed.

What does reveal direction do?

It sets the order the strokes are drawn in: Natural follows the artwork, or you can force left to right, top to bottom, from a corner, from the center, from the edges, from a point you click, or a random order you can shuffle.

Does a scene preview use my minutes?

No. Rendering a single-scene preview in the Editor is free within your plan. Only the full export counts against your monthly minutes.

What is the story camera?

For grouped story scenes, Follow drawing zooms the camera to each drawing group as it is revealed, then returns to the full page after a pause you set. Zoom amount goes from 1x to 2.5x.

Which formats can I export?

Landscape 16:9, portrait 9:16 and square 1:1, all as MP4, on every plan. Pick the format before generating pictures when you can, because the scene layout is planned for it.