How to make gaming clips for TikTok

Start with a clip worth posting

The best TikTok clips are moments you did not plan. That is why an instant replay recorder suits short video so well: it keeps the last stretch of your game in memory, and you press a key after something happens. In Clippy that key is F8 by default, and the replay length is one minute unless you change it in Settings.

If you mostly clip quick plays, set up the second, shorter save key. It keeps only the last 15, 30 or 60 seconds, so you start with less to cut. Recording starts by itself when a game starts, so there is nothing to remember before a session.

Turn a widescreen clip into 9:16

TikTok, YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels are all vertical 9:16. Your game is widescreen, so something has to give. Clippy's vertical export offers two ways to handle it.

• Fill crops the picture so the game covers the whole phone screen. It looks big and bold, but the left and right edges of your screen are cut away. Use it when the action is in the middle: a crosshair, a car, a character.
• Blurred background keeps the whole widescreen frame in the middle and fills the space above and below with a blurred copy of the same picture. Use it when the edges matter: a minimap, a kill feed, a scoreboard.

Put your webcam in the frame

Viewers on short video platforms like to see a reaction. If you record your webcam with Clippy, the vertical export has layouts that put the camera in a panel above or below the game. That uses the empty space a vertical frame leaves anyway, so the gameplay stays large.

For a widescreen export, the camera shows as picture-in-picture instead. You can place it, size it, round its corners and mirror it in the editor. The camera is kept as a separate file beside the clip, so you decide per clip whether it appears at all. See recording gameplay with a webcam for the setup.

Add captions and text

Captions help anyone who scrolls with the sound off follow what you said. Clippy makes them on your own PC, so nothing is uploaded, and the word being spoken can be highlighted as it is said. Read them through before you export: you can fix any word the captions got wrong. The auto captions guide covers this in detail.

You can also put up to three text items on an export. One short line at the top that says what is about to happen gives people a reason to keep watching. Your own logo can go on as a watermark, placed and sized by dragging.

Keep it short and cut hard

Short video rewards clips that get to the point. Trim the start so the clip opens close to the action, and trim the end right after the payoff. If a moment needs build-up, mark it with chapters while you review, so you can jump between the parts and decide what stays.

Speed can help too. A slowed section at 0.5x or 0.25x shows exactly what happened in a close play, and 1.5x or 2x can hurry through a walk back to the fight. Use it on a small part of the clip rather than the whole thing.

1. Open the clip in Clippy's editor and trim the start and end.
2. Choose the vertical 9:16 export and pick fill or blurred background.
3. Pick a webcam layout if you recorded your camera.
4. Add captions and, if it helps, one line of text.
5. Export, then upload the file to TikTok, Shorts or Reels.

One file for TikTok, Shorts and Reels

Because all three platforms use the same 9:16 shape, one export covers all of them. Save the layout you like as an export preset, and the next clip takes a click instead of a dozen choices. Posting the same clip in three places is a simple way to find out where your audience is.

Questions

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