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Build an overlay template

An overlay template is a named layout of text, images and metadata tags. You design it once in the overlay template editor, and any reel can use it: the tags fill themselves from whichever shot sits under the overlay, so one template labels every clip on a reel with that clip's own project, client and role.

Before you start

  • Templates belong to Shotwork, not to a reel or a shot list. Every reel can use every template, and editing a template changes it everywhere it is already in use.
  • Background Shot… needs ffmpeg. Without it the button is disabled and you design against an empty frame instead of real footage.

Steps

  1. Choose File › Overlay Templates….
  2. Click New. The canvas clears and the template is called Untitled Template.
  3. Click Rename… and give it a name. The name is what the Features tab and the template band show, so pick something you will recognize on a strip.
  4. Drag a tile from the palette below the canvas onto the frame.
  5. Drag the item where you want it. It snaps to the nearest free anchor while the pointer is within twelve pixels of one, and sits wherever you drop it outside that.
  6. Scroll the wheel over the item to size it. Text and tags change font size, images and logos change scale.
  7. Click Save.
An item dragged across the top row, snapping to each anchor it passes, then a logo selected and sized with the wheel

The palette

Each tile drops one item onto the frame. A zone holds one item at a time.

Tile Puts on the frame Where its content comes from
Text A line you type The Text box, the same for every shot
Image… A picture A file you choose, fixed in the template
Logo… A picture A logo you choose from the logo pool, fixed in the template
Client Logo A picture The overlaid shot's own Client / Studio logo, looked up per shot
<Project>, <Client / Studio>, <Year>, <Role>, <Assets>, <Notes> A line of text The matching field of the overlaid shot, read per shot

The first three are fixed: whatever you type or choose is what renders, on every clip. The last two are tags, and they are the reason a single template can label a whole reel.

How a tag fills itself

A tag item stores a field name, never a value. Nothing is decided until the overlay is drawn over a particular clip, and then Shotwork reads that clip's shot and prints what it finds.

On the editor's canvas there is no shot yet, so a tag draws its own name in angle brackets: <Role> stands where the role will go. Load a background shot and the placeholders are replaced by that shot's real metadata, which is the closest thing to seeing the finished frame.

The shot's field is The tag prints
Filled in The value
Empty Nothing at all, and its zone is simply left empty
Not in that shot list's field schema Nothing at all
On a restricted shot, and identifying Nothing at all

Empty is not an error and not a gap in the layout. The item disappears and the rest of the template renders unchanged, which is what makes one template safe to point at a reel of unevenly filled shots.

Warning

A restricted shot prints no project, no client, no notes and no client logo, whatever the template asks for. The flag beats the template every time, so a reel of restricted work cannot leak a client name through an overlay.

The tags on offer follow the fields your shot lists actually use, plus Notes, which every shot has. Add a field through a preset and its tag appears in the palette.

Moving, sizing and fixing

Select an item by clicking it. Selected Item on the right then shows only the settings that apply to it: Text, Font, Size and Color for text and tags, Scale for images and logos, and Offset X and Offset Y for everything.

Do this To
Drag an item Move it, snapping to free anchors
Arrow keys Nudge it one pixel
Shift and arrow keys Nudge it ten pixels
Scroll the wheel over it Size it
Alt and middle-drag Size it by dragging
Right-click it Remove Item
Ctrl+Z, Ctrl+Y Undo, redo

Undo covers everything on the canvas and folds one drag, or one run of typing, into a single step. It lasts as long as the editor is open.

Show zone outlines draws the grid so you can see what you are aiming at. It is a design aid only and never renders.

Design against real footage

Background Shot… picks a shot from your library and puts one real frame behind the canvas. The tags resolve against that shot at the same time, so a lower third built this way is checked against real text length and a real busy background rather than against <Client / Studio> on gray.

Clear takes the frame away and puts the <Field> placeholders back.

What happens

Save writes the template to Shotwork's own application data, one file per template. It is available to every reel from then on, and appears as a tile on the Features tab of any open reel.

Rename… saves under the new name and follows the rename into every reel that referenced the old one, open tabs included, so a rename never orphans an overlay.

Delete removes the template. Reels that pointed at it keep the name they were given and simply draw no overlay for it, so deleting a template in use empties those clips rather than breaking the reel.

Where the numbers live

Positions are resolution independent. A template records the zone an item is anchored to and an offset from that anchor as a fraction of frame width and height. Font sizes are pixels against a 1920x1080 reference frame that the renderer scales uniformly, so the same template is correct at any output size.

The grid offers thirteen anchors: the centers of the nine rule-of-thirds cells and the four interior intersections. An item can sit anywhere, not only on an anchor. Outside the snap radius Shotwork stores the nearest free anchor plus the leftover offset.

The canvas paints through the same renderer the export uses, so what you design is what gets composited.