Titles & Shapes

Evidor can place two kinds of generated visual content on the timeline: titles (text) and shapes (vector graphics). Both are fully editable, animatable, and independent of any source media.

Adding a title

Click the font icon in the Project media toolbar, or use Add track → Title. Evidor places a 5-second title clip at the playhead on the topmost unlocked video track. If the playhead is over an existing clip on that track, the title is placed at the next free spot.

A new title starts with the text "Title" and default styling. The inspector switches to the Text section so you can immediately start editing.

Editing the text

The Content field at the top of the Text section is where the text lives. It is a multi-line text box, so you can type a line break with Enter to create multiple lines within the same title clip.

Below the content field, the styling controls are:

Font - one of the fonts installed on your system. Evidor lists the same fonts it uses for its own UI, plus the standard Windows fonts.
Weight - Regular, Semibold, Bold, or Black.
Size - 8 to 400 pixels. The value is in project pixels, so it scales correctly on export at any resolution.
Color - the fill color of the text.
Align - left, center, or right. This controls both the horizontal alignment within the text block and the anchor point of the block itself.
Tracking - letter spacing, from -20 to +50. Negative values tighten the letters, positive values spread them out.
Line height - the spacing between lines, as a multiple of the font size.

Background, outline, and shadow

Three optional effects can be layered around the text:

Background - a rounded rectangle behind the text. Enable it, then set its color, opacity, padding on the X and Y axes, and corner radius.
Outline - a stroke around each glyph. Enable it, then set the outline color and width in pixels.
Shadow - a drop shadow behind the text and outline. Enable it, then set the shadow color, blur radius, and X and Y offsets.

The draw order is background, then shadow, then outline, then fill. That means the shadow is drawn around the outline, which reads better on busy backgrounds.

Title animations

The Animation section of the inspector holds preset entrance and exit animations for a title clip.

For the in animation:

Fade in - opacity ramps from 0 to full.
Slide from left / right / bottom / top - the title moves in from the chosen edge.
Zoom in - the title scales up from 30% to 100% while fading in.
Spin in - the title rotates from -180 degrees to 0 while fading in.

The out animation has matching options: fade out, slide out to any edge, zoom out, spin out.

The Duration slider controls how long each animation takes. Both the in and out animations use the same duration. Animations are clamped so they never exceed half the clip's length, so a short title will get a short animation automatically.

Animations are applied on top of the clip's transform. If the title is also rotated or scaled manually, the animation combines with it.

Adding a shape

Use Add track → Shape, or the shapes icon in the Project media toolbar. A shape clip appears at the playhead, and the inspector switches to the Shape section.

Five kinds of shape are available:

Rectangle - with an adjustable corner radius.
Ellipse - always drawn centered within the shape's bounding box.
Triangle - points up by default.
Star - with a configurable number of points.
Line - a horizontal line, useful as a divider.

Each shape has the following controls:

Width and Height - as a percentage of the project frame.
Fill - the fill color.
Stroke - the outline color.
Stroke width - the outline thickness, 0 to 50 pixels. At 0, no outline is drawn.
Radius - corner radius, only for rectangles.
Points - number of points, only for stars.

Shapes use the same transform, animation, and effect stack as any other clip. You can keyframe a shape's position to make it slide across the screen, apply a blur to soften its edges, or use it as a mask for another clip by setting it as an inverted mask.

Shape animations

Below the shape properties there is a row of preset animation buttons:

Fade in - a keyframed opacity ramp over the first 0.5 seconds.
Pop in - a scale overshoot that settles at 100%.
Slide up - a keyframed position that moves the shape up into place.
Spin in - a keyframed rotation from -180 degrees to 0, with a matching opacity ramp.
Fade out - an opacity ramp out over the last 0.5 seconds.
Clear - removes all keyframes from the shape clip.

Preset animations create regular keyframes, so you can edit them afterwards in the Animation section. Move the keyframes around, change their values, or delete individual ones.

Adjustment layers

An adjustment layer is a special kind of clip that has no content of its own. Instead, whatever you apply to it also applies to every clip rendered below it, for the duration of the adjustment layer.

Add one from Add track → Adjustment layer. Place it above the clips you want to affect, then use the Color, Effects, or Composite sections of its inspector to shape the look. When it is selected, the preview shows the effect applied to everything below.

Adjustment layers are the fastest way to apply a consistent grade or look across a whole sequence, and because they are clips, you can trim them to only affect a specific range.

Compound clips and titles

Titles and shapes can both be included in a compound clip. This is useful if you want to group a title with the video it belongs to, so the whole thing can be moved and copied as a unit. See the Timeline & editing page for details on compound clips.