Overlays

Overlays let you tell your story on top of the map. Until now your video showed the journey — with overlays it can also add titles, photos, videos, live numbers, and graphics that appear and animate as the route plays. This is what makes a video feel like it was made by a professional studio.

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What you can add

You place these anywhere on the frame, and they appear at the moment you choose on the timeline.

Adding an overlay

Open the Overlays tab and press Add Overlay to bring up the quick-add menu — or just press O from anywhere in the editor — then pick what you want to add. You can also start from a ready-made preset or a saved template and drop a finished design straight onto your video.

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Every overlay you add gets its own block on the timeline, so you decide exactly when it appears and how long it stays on screen.

Editing an overlay

Select any overlay to open its settings. Whatever the type, the panel is organised into the same three tabs:

• Content – the settings unique to that overlay. This tab is named for what you're editing — Text, Image, Number, Shape, or Icon — and it's where you change the words, swap a photo, choose what a number counts, and so on.
• Style – the look: colors, backgrounds, outlines, shadows, and one-tap style presets.
• Animation – how the overlay animates on and off screen.

You can also duplicate an overlay to reuse it, or delete it (select it and press Delete). The sections below cover the Content tab for each type; Style and Animation work the same way across all of them.

Text

Text is the most common overlay — a title for your adventure, a label for a place, or a caption that sets the scene.

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You can style text to match your video:

• Choose from a large library of fonts.
• Set the color and size.
• Add a background behind the text (a solid box, a rounded pill, or an outline) so it stays readable over any map.
• Adjust spacing between letters and lines for a polished look.

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Photos and videos

Bring in the moments behind the route. Add a photo or a short video clip, position it on the frame, and it appears right when that part of the journey plays. It's the perfect way to connect the map to the real experience — show the view from the top, the meal at the halfway point, or the finish line.

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You can upload your media in the Library, then place it as an overlay.

Once a photo or video is on the frame, its Content tab gives you a few extra controls:

• Change Image / Video – swap the media without recreating the overlay or losing its position.
• Aspect ratio – lock the media to a fixed ratio (16:9, 4:3, 9:16, 3:4, or 1:1) so resizing always keeps its proportions, or turn the lock off for a free transform.
• Zoom – push in on the media to reframe what's visible inside the box.
• Pin on Map – anchor the overlay to a spot on the map so it travels with that location as the camera moves, instead of staying fixed on the screen.

Animated numbers

Numbers bring your stats to life. Instead of a plain figure, a number counts up as the route plays:

• Distance ticking up kilometer by kilometer
• Elevation climbing as you ascend
• Time counting in real hours, minutes, and seconds

You can add a label before or after (like "km" or "elevation"), and choose how quickly it spins up. It's a small touch that makes a big impression.

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Shapes

Add shapes — badges, arrows, brush strokes, underlines — to draw the eye to what matters. Many can animate themselves on, like a line that draws in or an underline that sweeps across.

Icons

Icons give you a clean, simple symbol to mark or decorate the frame. Overlays come with their own built-in set of icons — pick one and style its size, rotation, and color to match your video.

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Animations

Every overlay can animate as it appears and disappears — this is what makes overlays feel alive. There's a big collection of styles to choose from: gentle fades and pops, blurs, typewriter effects, wipes, flips, and more. You can also add a subtle, continuous motion while an element is on screen (like a slow zoom on a photo) for that cinematic touch.

Pick an animation and watch a live preview right in the editor, so you can find the feel you want without guessing.

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Presets: start from a polished design

Don't want to design from scratch? AvoMap includes a library of ready-made presets — professionally designed titles, photo layouts, number pills, badges, and complete intro and outro compositions. One click drops a finished design onto your video, ready to tweak.

Every overlay type comes with its own set of quick presets — for example, ready-styled titles for text:

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There are also complete intro and outro designs to open and close your film:

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Positioning and alignment

Placing overlays is easy and precise:

• Drag an overlay anywhere on the frame.
• Resize and rotate it with the handles.
• Snap to helpful guides so things line up neatly.
• Use quick align buttons to center or position an overlay on the frame in one click.
• Prefer numbers? Set an exact width, height, X and Y position, rotation, and layer order in the panel for pixel-perfect placement — layer order controls which overlay sits in front when they overlap.

Grouping overlays

Select two or more overlays and Group them ( G ) so they behave as a single unit — they move, resize, and animate together and stay perfectly aligned. It's ideal for pieces that belong together, like a photo with its caption or a title-and-subtitle pair.

On the timeline a group appears as a parent block with its overlays nested beneath it, so you can see everything it contains at a glance. Open the group to fine-tune any single overlay inside, and Ungroup at any time — the same G toggles it — to split it back into separate, independent overlays.

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Reusable templates

Groups become really powerful when you save them as templates. A template bundles a set of overlays — a lower third, a photo-and-caption card, a full intro or outro — into one reusable design you can drop into any video in a single tap. It's how you keep every video on-brand and visually consistent.

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To create one, select the overlays you want, choose Save as template, and give it a name (a description is optional). It's added to your template library and becomes available in every project from then on.

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Tips

• Less is more. A clear title and one or two highlights beat a cluttered screen.
• Start with a preset, then swap in your own words, colors, and photos.
• Give each overlay room to breathe — let it finish animating in before the next one arrives.
• Group what belongs together so a photo and its caption stay aligned as you move them.
• Save a template for the looks you reuse — lower thirds, intros, outros — to stay on-brand across every video.