Technique for layering

Teacherman1955

How do I create a video containg video and still shots where the still objects are in front of and behind the video object such as an elephant standing in a clearing with trees in front of and behind it. Or maybe a Godzillarising up behind a line of buildings?

borate

Each track is a layer. Higher tracks take precedence over lower.

So if there's a background on track one, and a PNG (transparent) file on track two, the background will show through the transparent area.

Add another image with transparency on track three and track one and two will show through its transparent area, as in this example...

The result...

Areas of the image or video can be made transparent by scaling them smaller, or masking. Or even chromakeying (green screen) if there is high contrast between the wanted and unwanted areas. Here, the Happy Face was a PNG and the boy had a white background that was chromakeyed out. Click ? (top-right) for HELP.

[deleted]

How to do it with images...

Obtain images of background, foreground, and elephant.
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Place the background clip/image on Track 1
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Place the elephant image on Video Track 2
Use the Mask effect (Add Effect Mask) to create a mask around the Elephant image.
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Untick the Mask Inside box and add a transparency effect to make the background to the elephant transparent. feather the mask to ensure a smooth edge.
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As you have this image on Video Track 2, and placed above the background image, the sequence preview will show the elephant set against the background image....
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Place the foreground image on Video Track 3 and in a similar way as with the elephant add a mask with transparency to remove the upper part of the image. Monitor the mask outline using dual displays (Options) Use the feathering control to blur the mask outline.
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Being on a higher Track it will appear in front of the elephant which will appear in front of the background...
Although this example is basic using images it can be done with video clips but involves much more work. The background can be video but animating masks to video for the "middle" clip can be very involved. A lot depends on how the "object" is moving but in any event will require the use of keyframes.

Hopefully this will give you some ideas to try out.

Nat