Good evening content creators of all kind!
I started writing down a story few days ago and, while i got used to all the coding bits (yay!), I’m having a little bit of trouble with backgrounds stuff. In particular I would love to know how to put layers on background objects.
I know that sounds vague so here’s an example that will make understanding what I’m going on about a lot easier!
Let’s use “INT. CLASSROOM BLACKBOARD - DAY” to make an example.
So, in the center of this background there’s the teacher desk. I’ve had characters walk into the scene and they all stand behind that desk, so my question is: is there a way to make characters stand in front of it or is it just part of the scene and can’t be changed?
Same question applies to “INT. CLASSROOM FRONT OL - DAY” I wanted to create an actual class of students listening to the lesson, but they were all standing on desks (which made it kinda awkward).
Thank you all for listening to my troubled self!
Hello,
Some backgrounds that have overlays built in, you would add the name of the background next to the background with the word “with” in between and then at layer # at the end. Example of the first one you mentioned:
INT. CLASSROOM BLACKBOARD - DAY with INT. CLASSROOM BLACKBOARD - DAY at layer #
Or you could code it like this (the way that I would code it):
INT. CLASSROOM BLACKBOARD - DAY with INT. CLASSROOM BLACKBOARD - DAY to 1.000 0 0 in zone 1 at layer 0
&zoom reset
&TEACHER spot 1.280 160 0 in zone 1 at layer -1
#The teacher is at layer -1, so it’ll be behind the overlay since I put the overlay of the podium at layer 0 and then for the people you want to walk in front of the podium, you’d place them at a higher layer than 0. You can layer the characters either by the example I did with the teacher which is adding it at the end of the spot direct or type &CHAR moves to layer #
The only issue with this overlay is that the front desk and podium aren’t separated so basically they’d end up walking on top of the front desk if they were in front of the podium anyway lol unless you had someone make you an overlay of the front desk and dis-attach it from the podium than you can have people walk in between.
As for the other background, you can do this:
INT. CLASSROOM FRONT OL - DAY with INT. CLASSROOM FRONT OL - DAY at layer #
OR
INT. CLASSROOM FRONT OL - DAY with INT. CLASSROOM FRONT OL - DAY to 1.000 0 0 at layer #
And then you just make sure to layer the students lower than the layer you set the overlay at. And higher if you want them in front of the desks.
Now the issue with this overlay is that it’s only an overlay of the front desks and not the back ones too but I’m pretty sure I’ve seen someone make overlays for this background in the art resources category.
So summing up, backgrounds with built in overlays:
INT/EXT. BACKGROUND NAME with INT/EXT. BACKGROUND NAME at layer #
OR
INT/EXT. BACKGROUND NAME with INT/EXT. BACKGROUND NAME to 1.000 0 0 at layer #
Hope that was somewhat helpful 
Thank you a lot!
After messing around for a bit and reaching the limits of sanity i actually managed to come up with a “homemade” solution which looks pretty weird so i’m definitely not gonna use it.
I’ll drop by the art topics to look for those classroom overlays you were talking about and see if I can fix the mess I made!
However I do actually think what i came up with MIGHT (and that’s a big might) actually work.
No problem, lol, ooO Well sounds intriguing, I’m curious what this homemade solution is 
I’m always open to learn new things so if that other solution does work… I’d be interested to hear about it 
and if you need any help, I’m around. Good luck and happy writing! 
No problem, I’ll show you what I did!
So, basically I tried pasting the DESK CLASS overlay onto the actual desks in order for them to “be covered” by the desk overlay. If you don’t look into the detail it looks pretty smooth but if the reader focus on checking if the scene is well built, then it looks like a brick house held together with glue D:
If you want to check out how it looks like I’m leaving the script thing right here. Try putting some characters around and you’ll see how messy it looks. It’s pretty funny tho.
INT. CLASSROOM FRONT OL - DAY with DESK CLASS
@overlay DESK CLASS_2 create from DESK CLASS
@overlay DESK CLASS_2 opacity 1
@overlay DESK CLASS shifts to 53 288 in zone 1
@overlay DESK CLASS scales to 0.475 0.475
@overlay DESK CLASS moves to layer 0
@overlay DESK CLASS_3 create from DESK CLASS
@overlay DESK CLASS_3 opacity 1
@overlay DESK CLASS_3 shifts to 22 376 in zone 2
@overlay DESK CLASS_3 scales to 0.335 0.335
@overlay DESK CLASS_3 moves to layer -3
@overlay DESK CLASS_4 create from DESK CLASS
@overlay DESK CLASS_4 opacity 1
@overlay DESK CLASS_4 shifts to 189 430 in zone 2
@overlay DESK CLASS_4 scales to 0.214 0.214
@overlay DESK_CLASS_4 moves to layer -5
@overlay DESK CLASS_5 create from DESK CLASS
@overlay DESK CLASS_5 opacity 1
@overlay DESK CLASS_5 shifts to 98 285 in zone 3
@overlay DESK CLASS_5 scales to 0.526 0.526
@overlay DESK_CLASS_5 moves to layer 3
@overlay DESK CLASS_6 create from DESK CLASS
@overlay DESK CLASS_6 opacity 1
@overlay DESK CLASS_6 shifts to 226 285 in zone 2
@overlay DESK CLASS_6 scales to 0.526 0.526
@overlay DESK_CLASS_6 moves to layer 3
@overlay DESK CLASS_7 create from DESK CLASS
@overlay DESK CLASS_7 opacity 1
@overlay DESK CLASS_7 shifts to 63 374 in zone 3
@overlay DESK CLASS_7 scales to 0.359 0.359
@overlay DESK CLASS_7 moves to layer -3
@overlay DESK CLASS_8 create from DESK CLASS
@overlay DESK CLASS_8 opacity 1
@overlay DESK CLASS_8 shifts to 317 286 in zone 2
@overlay DESK CLASS_8 scales to 0.486 0.486
@overlay DESK CLASS_8 moves to layer -3
Also in my story the classroom scene has just a pan from side to side and a really short dialogue, so that was why I said it MIGHT work, because it’s barely noticeable since it goes by pretty fast.
Have fun with this!
Meanwhile I’ll just wait for them to approve the classroom overlay i found in the art section
use & instead of @ at the overly commands so they will be on the scene right from the start in the right position.
Thanks, i didn’t know you could use that instead of @ for background stuff too.
However (maybe because it’s a pan) they were already on scene, it’s just weird that they look copied and pasted (because they are).
I’ll see if the overlay i found can actually fix it!
lol I see what you did there, that’s pretty clever. It was a nice try though. I’m glad you found some overlays to use, also if you didn’t know you don’t have to wait for your new overlays to be approved to use them. You just can’t publish your story until they’ve been approved but you can use them immediately after you’ve uploaded them to your writers portal.
Thank you again for helping people!
I used the new overlay for the desks, did a few cuts here and there and it’s perfect now.
Let’s hope the rest of the story will go on smoothly.
One last thing, is there a topic to find someone willing to proofread my story?
I’ve been reading it for thousands of times but i’ll keep going over the same mistakes thinking they are actually correct Q.Q
for proofreading there is section “feedback” I believe request for proofreading are also posted there.
This topic was automatically closed 30 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.