Building a graphic with layers in Video by Zaweba
Graphics > Graphic with layers in Video by Zaweba builds one clip from text and shape layers, with alignment, even spacing and boxes that grow with text.
A single title is fine for a single line of text. As soon as you want a name, a role, a coloured bar and a logo shape all moving together, managing them as separate clips on separate tracks becomes fiddly. Video by Zaweba solves this with Graphics > Graphic with layers, which builds one clip out of any number of text and shape layers.
One clip, many layers
Choose Graphic with layers from the Graphics menu and you get a single clip on the timeline. Inside it you can add as many text and shape layers as you need. The Inspector shows a layer list where you show or hide each layer, change the order, set its opacity, add new layers and remove ones you don't want.
Because it's one clip, you move, trim and copy the whole graphic as a unit. Slide it along the timeline and everything stays together. Duplicate it for the next speaker and only the words need changing.
Boxes that grow with the words
The most useful trick here is pinning a shape round a text layer. Once pinned, the box grows with the words, so a short name gets a short bar and a long one gets a long bar, without you resizing anything. It's what makes a lower third or a label look properly designed rather than one size fits all.
This is also handy for social video captions or callouts where the wording changes from clip to clip. Build the design once, then just type.
Aligning and spacing
Lining things up by eye is slow and rarely quite right. The graphic tools let you align layers to the frame or to each other, so a column of text sits exactly flush, or a heading sits exactly centred. When you have three or more layers, you can give them even gaps, which is how you get a neat row of icons or a stack of evenly spaced lines.
Lower thirds, score boxes and chapter cards
Lower thirds with a name, a role and a coloured bar are the classic use. Title cards that combine a heading, a subheading and a decorative shape are another. Score boxes for a sports video, chapter cards for a tutorial, and opening captions for an interview all fit naturally.
Text styles work inside these graphics too. A text layer can take a style, so the fonts in your layered graphics stay in step with the rest of the titles in your film.
Saving and reusing your design
Once a layered graphic looks right, save it as your own template in the graphics templates browser. Templates can also be filled from a CSV file, one graphic per row, which turns a list of names into a set of finished lower thirds in one go.
Tips for clean results
Name your layers sensibly as you build them. When there are eight layers in the list, "Name", "Role" and "Bar" are much easier to work with than a row of identical defaults. It also matters for CSV templates, where a text layer named like a column heading takes that column's value.
Keep the layer count sensible. A graphic with a dozen layers is hard to edit later. If a design is getting complicated, ask whether it needs all of it on screen at once.
Finally, preview at full size. Alignment that looks right in a small preview can be a pixel or two out when the video plays full screen. Video by Zaweba redraws titles and shapes sharply when a clip is enlarged, so what you see there is what you'll get.
