Add layers to a composition

In this project, we're going to build a stylized title graphic by using several different methods of adding layers into our composition.

To start, let's go down to the Timeline.

Click in the panel, and make sure it's active.

And then press the Spacebar to see what we've got.

And, I really like the first part of this video clip, but I'm not a fan of the second part; I'd like to cut to another clip.

So, I'll press the Spacebar to stop playback.

And I'll position my Current Time Indicator to where I'd like the next clip to appear which is going to be Frame 0:00:03:10.

So, to add another video source, I'm going to go up to the Project panel and open the Video Sources folder.

And double click on the video file ending in the number 791.

That opens the file in the Footage panel.

To make the view larger, I'll press Shift /.

And then I'll go ahead and press the Spacebar to preview this video clip.

It's a beautiful shot from behind the wave, and I like this, so I'll press the Spacebar to stop playback.

And notice this panel has its own Current Time Indicator.

So, let's position that to the first frame we'd like to appear in this clip.

So, I'd like to use this frame as the first frame which is 0:00:02:12 frame.

Then I'll click this left most button here to set the In point for this layer.

Then we can perform an overlay edit by clicking this right most button here.

And you'll notice now the In point of that clip was added to the Current Time Indicator here in the Timeline and we've successfully performed our first edit.

And we've added a video clip in the Timeline.

Let's go ahead and position the video clip underneath of the text.

Now to add more visual interest to the text, let's add a graphic.

Let's go to the Project panel and open the Illustrator Graphics folder.

And click and drag on the 'Waves.ai' file.

And drag it directly into the Composition panel.

So, we can not only add it to the Timeline, but also visually position it in the scene.

Go ahead and let go of the 'Waves.ai' directly over top of the text.

Now they're a little too small, So, press S on your keyboard to open the Scale parameter in the Timeline And change that value up to a setting of 700 pt.

These waves are jagged because we need to enable Continuously Rasterize.

And that'll keep all these Illustrator CC layers nice and sharp.

So, make sure that switch is enabled in the Timeline.

And then click on the Illustrator CC layer and position it a little more directly over the type.

Now to add more interest to these waves, let's add an effect.

Make sure Layer 1 is selected in the Timeline and go up to the Effect panel.

We can go down to Distort, and let's choose CC Flo Motion.

To see what this is doing, let's hover over the amount value for Amount 2 and click and drag to increase that value.

And I'll actually set it to a value somewhere around 40.0.

41.0 to be exact.

And here, notice visually there are little crosshairs which we can click on and reposition that distortion.

And I kind of like how it looks right here, so I'll just leave it right here.

And let's blend the waves back into the scene.

First, I'll click on Layer 1 and position it below our text layer.

Then I'll press T to open the Opacity.

And set its settings down to a value of 30%.

Now let's add one more layer to our project using yet another method.

Rather than going up under the Layer menu and choosing New, let's add it directly out of the Tool bar.

But before I do that, we need to make sure that there are no layers selected in the Timeline.

So, I'll go down to the bottom of the Timeline, and click in the empty area here to make sure nothing is selected.

So, let's go up to our Shape Creation tools.

I'll click and hold and make sure that I choose the Rectangle tool.

Then I'll come over to the right side here, and I want there to be a Fill, but no Stroke.

So, I'll go to the Stroke area and hold down Alt on Windows or Option on the Mac.

And keep clicking until I get the No symbol.

Then for the Fill I'll go ahead and click once and choose kind of a nice bright blue sort of teal color.

And then click OK.

To add this layer, all we have to do is just double click on the shape.

And that'll automatically add it the same size as the composition.

So, let's go ahead and position this layer just above our video layers.

And to blend it into the scene, we'll Toggle Switches / Modes.

And change the Blend mode from Normal to Soft Light.

Now we have a stylized graphic that we've created by using several different methods to add layers to our composition.