How to Record & Edit Gaming Videos for Beginners (FREE TOOL)

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In this article, I'll be explaining to you how to record and edit your gameplay and so much more using Powder, a free tool for gamers.

This is going to change the way that you create content and they've added tons of new features, making this the only tool you need to be able to post clips on social media, TikTok, YouTube Shorts, and so on. To be able to create your videos this way and this easily is pretty crazy. 

Getting Started

The first thing you're going to do is go to Powder.gg and download this for your PC.

You'll also be able to see here that Powder is now free for gamers!

Once you have this downloaded, you'll find a dashboard that looks just like the one below. 

The first options that you'll see are 'Start Recording' and 'Import a Video', but before we can deep-dive into how to use this to start recording and editing gaming content, we need to first set up our settings. 

Adjusting Your Storage Settings

In the bottom-left corner, select 'Settings'. 

Here, we need to select where we want our downloads to be saved and where we want our clips to be saved to. 

Then, for 'Storage Limit', I like to leave this set to '25%'. 

Next, we can move to the 'Recorder' settings. 

Adjusting Your Recorder Settings

This is the most important aspect of your settings if you don't stream. You can use Powder just to record the gameplay that you have on your PC. 

The first thing you're going to do is select where you want your recordings to be saved to. 

Then, you'll want to set up a hotkey to start and stop recording. 'Control + F8' is the option that is going to automatically come up here, but you can make this any hotkey that you'd like. I would encourage you to use a hotkey that you would not accidentally press so that you do not accidentally start/stop recording. 

Here, you'll also be able to get your microphone set up if you have one that you'll be utilizing. This could be a microphone or a headset, any audio device that you have connected and that you want to pick up your audio. 

As for 'Audio Input', you'll be able to select what you want this to be.

One great feature here is that you can use 'Screen Devices' to set which one of your screens you want to be recorded. This way, if you have two or three monitors, you can have just one of them recording as opposed to all of them. 

Let's say I have Powder on my left screen and I have my gameplay on my middle screen, which is what I want to record. I can set this to only record the middle screen. 

It's also crazy that you can use Powder for free and use this to record a 4k video. Under 'Recorder Quality', you can select '4k'. The native option for this is going to be whatever your monitor size is, whether that's 1080p or 720p. Just remember, the higher the quality, the bigger the files. 

Personally, I like to use 1080p as when I upload to YouTube or TikTok, 1080p is more than enough. 

Lastly, for the 'Frame Rate', I'll set this to '60'. 

Adjusting Your General Settings

In 'General Settings', you have the option to have Powder 'Start at Boot' which means that whenever you turn your computer on, Powder will automatically open.

I choose to have this turned off as I just open Powder whenever I'm ready to use it, but this is based entirely on your personal preference. 

Now, we're all done with settings and can move on to learning how to upload videos and stream using Powder. 

Uploading Videos to Powder

Before you start recording, I want you to select 'Import a Video'. This just shows you that you can upload other videos that you didn't record using Powder and still edit them here. 

If there's a video that you recorded on your console and you want to edit and share it on your computer, you can do that here.

You can also bring in links to your videos from your Twitch, YouTube, or your Kick streams in order to edit those here.

If you stream to Twitch or YouTube, I would encourage you to link these accounts to Powder so that it will automatically bring in that content for you. 

As you can see below, all of my Twitch streams are automatically uploaded to  Powder as soon as I'm done streaming. 

The same thing happens whenever I stream or upload videos to YouTube.

These will automatically be uploaded here. Once they are, they're ready to be edited, customized, and turned into clips using Powder. 

Recording Using Powder

Now, we can go ahead and look at what it's like to begin recording using Powder. 

If you go back to your dashboard, all you need to do to begin recording is press 'Start Recording'. This will also automatically save the recording whenever you press 'Stop Recording'. 

One of the greatest parts about using Powder, and what makes it so different from any other platform, is that when you're done recording, it will automatically begin to pick out the best moments and clips for you to be able to use for either a horizontal video or a vertical clip. 

Imagine that you've just finished a 2-3 hour stream. Now, you've got to sit there and go through all of that footage to look for and find the right moments to use for your content. No longer do you need to do that, because Powder will do it for you. 

You'll come in here, after you've finished recording, and select the game that you were playing in your livestream. There are tons of games to be able to choose from. 

By selecting the game, Powder knows what to look for when analyzing the video.  If the game isn't listed, you can put this as well and it will still analyze it. 

I'll select 'My game is not listed' and then click 'Analyze'. It's going to tell you that videos above ten minutes are optimal for the analysis, and you'll just click 'Analyze'. 

Once this finishes analyzing, it's going to list all of these clips that it has picked out on the left-hand side of the screen. 

Whether this is a stream or a recorded video, you'll have all of the clips that it pulls out listed here. 

For me, this had been a three-hour livestream and Powder was able to go in, comb through the three hours of footage, and pick out all of these moments for me to use. 

Searching for Specific Clips

Another great feature of Powder is that while you're recording or streaming there's a moment you know you'll want to find later, you can say "Clip it" or whatever word you want to say. You can search for that phrase to easily find the exact clip. 

For me, I'll search for "Clip" and it will pull up all of the moments where I said the word "Clip". 

You can also go ahead and edit these clips here to get rid of parts that don't include any action. You can easily make this edit by dragging the bar across the timeline to where you want the clip to begin or end. 

I was very quickly able to both find and edit this clip. 

On the timeline, you can also see other things that it has picked out. 

You can see where the people in my party on this stream got loud after one of my kills. It will also show your kills and victories directly on the timeline which saves you hours and hours of having to comb through the stream yourself. 

This is all just one aspect of everything you can do using Powder. 

Editing Your Clips

Now, let's say that I've selected the clips that I want to utilize and need to make them look how I want them to look. 

I'll select the second clip from where I had searched "Clip". 

The first thing that I'm going to do is make it a little bit shorter to cut out the beginning and end where there's no action. If you want to be able to see more of the video, you can zoom out on the timeline and it will show you a longer segment of the clip. 

Once I have this shortened to my liking, I'll select 'Save Clip' and it will take just a moment to save it for me. When this is done, we can go ahead and edit the clip. 

Vertical Clips

Currently, this clip is horizontal, but what if I want it to be vertical for TikTok, YouTube Shorts, or Instagram Reels? All you need to do to change the aspect ratio is click where it says '9:16' on the top-right of the clip. 

This will change it to be a vertical, 16:9 clip. Now, we can change the actual layout of the vertical clip to look how we want. To do this, press 'Edit Layout' in the top-right corner. 

For me, I already have a template created so when I press the 9:16 button, it will automatically adjust itself to my template. The beautiful thing about this is that you only have to set up your template once and then every single time, it will edit it to fit that template for you. 

Creating Your Vertical Template

If you're not sure what part of the clip to utilize or how to add all of these layers, Powder has quite a few pre-made templates that you can use based on the game that you're playing. They're also always adding more templates for additional games that you can use rather than having to make your own template. If you find one of these that you like, feel free to use that, if not, you can always make your own. 

To create your own layout, you'll want to start by adding 'Layers'. To do this, press 'Add Layer'. Personally, I'm playing Call of Duty, so my layers and clips will be showing elements from this game in particular. 

This first one is going to be your gameplay. You'll want this to be in the center of the clip so that you can see the most action possible once it's in the vertical aspect ratio.

Next, we'll add the second layer and you'll want this to maybe show yourself. Once you drag this over to where you are on the screen, you'll simply size this down on the vertical view on the right-hand side. 

For the third layer, we'll show the mini-map. This is something that you're going to want your viewers to be able to see. Same as before, you'll just adjust the size of this on the vertical view. 

Then, you can decide if you want to add your gun as a fourth layer or not. 

Once you have all of your layers, you'll select 'Save As'. 

Now, every time that I'm playing Call of Duty, these are the elements that I'm going to want. On the horizontal view, I'll always be on the bottom-left side, the mini-map will be on the top-left side, my gameplay will be in the middle, and my gun will be on the bottom-right side. These won't change. 

I'll title this save "Main COD Template" and then hit 'Save'. 

This is another great part. Let's say that Powder found 50 clips for you to use. You might be thinking, "Man, I can't do this to all 50 clips." All you have to do is select 'Apply to the Whole Session' and Powder will apply this same layout to every single clip. 

You can see above that by clicking that one button, this clip that I have not edited now has the correct vertical template. 

This setting alone will save hours of your time and we're not even done.

Joining and Editing Multiple Clips

Let's say for example that you've got two clips that you like and want to use. We'll go ahead and save these clips- you've edited them and have them how you want them. Once you have these clips saved, it's going to bring them to the 'Clips' section. 

This is where all of the clips from each of my videos can be found. On the clips page, you can select multiple clips from the same or various days and then select 'Create New Project'. This will then give you the option to 'Export Vertical' or 'Export Horizontal'.

I'll choose two clips today and select 'Create New Project' and it will bring you into the editor. This will be the same exact tool as the editor that we were using before. When you're in here, you'll really be able to customize this to your liking. 

If I wanted, I could leave these two clips as is or I could adjust them, make some tweaks, or even add in more clips if I want. 

Exporting Your Project

Now, when you're done editing these clips, you'll have the option to export them as a horizontal video for YouTube or as a vertical video for TikTok, Instagram, or YouTube Shorts. 

Especially with TikTok, sometimes people are watching these without sound or you can't really hear what someone is saying. With Powder, they give you the option to add captions. I can press 'Captions' on the left-hand side and then select 'Generate Captions' and it will analyze the video again and create the captions. 

Again, you can see that I'm really not doing too much lifting here. As a streamer and a gaming content creator, the biggest thing you want to do is create as much content as you possibly can, as easily as you can. This is exactly what Powder is allowing you to do. 

As I mentioned before, Powder is free for gamers and it is a tool that you will absolutely want to utilize. 

Once Powder is done generating your captions, you can decide whether or not you want to use these or not by toggling the button at the top. I can also go in and customize the wording or spelling in case the captions are slightly wrong. It's not always going to be 100% perfect, but it's still saving you lots of time and making it really easy. 

Now that I have my captions, I can begin to look over them. As I adjust these, you can see them changing and appearing over the top of my gameplay. 

I think that this is something extremely powerful about Powder. 

You can also have it reset or regenerate the captions if you feel that you need to. 

Sooner or later, you'll be able to have certain layouts or structures to be able to utilize.

For now, let's just say that I have this exactly where I want it to be and that I want this to be a YouTube video with captions. I'll click 'Export Montage' in the top-right corner and go ahead and save this. This is going to download and save to my computer. Then, all I need to do is upload the video to YouTube or I can use the vertical version to upload it to TikTok, YouTube Shorts, or Instagram Reels. 

You can see that this is an incredibly powerful tool to use to record your content, edit your streams, grab clips, and grow your social media. Definitely go ahead and try Powder out and get started using it. 

Then, watch this video here where I explain to you how you can grow your channel and start streaming with only 10 hours of time a week to go full-time in one year.