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Task Guide: Keying Footage and Packaging a Documentary Lower-Third Template

These guides describe the documented upstream workflow. XiMotion integration and installers are still in development; Alpha is free. Availability in a XiKey release has not yet been verified.

Scenario

You are finishing an environmental hydrology documentary where studio interviews were shot in front of a green screen. You need to pull a clean chroma key, track a handheld river plate to anchor a floating water-level gauge graphic, build an animated speaker lower-third with a text range animator, and package the lower-third in the Essential Graphics panel as a reusable .ectemplate and Lottie JSON.

Step-by-Step Workflow

1. Pull a Clean Green-Screen Key and Track the River Plate

  1. Place the interview clip above the river background plate in the Timeline.
  2. Open Effect ▸ Keying and apply Color Key / Keying, followed by Spill Suppressor and Simple Choker (Matte) to remove green edge reflection around the speaker's hair.
  3. Select the background river plate, open the Tracker panel (Window ▸ Tracker), track the bridge pier marker forward across the clip, and apply the track data to a target Null (River Gauge Anchor) so your graphic depth callout follows the tracked pier; inspect and correct drift.

2. Animate the Speaker Title with a Text Range Animator

  1. Select the Type Tool and type the hydrologist's name and station title on two text layers.
  2. Expand the text layer in the Timeline and add a Text Range Animator for Position and Opacity.
  3. Set the Range Selector unit to Words (Square shape, Offset -100% to +100% over 24 frames) so each word slides up cleanly from behind an Alpha Track Matte bar.

3. Package as an Essential Graphics Template and Export Lottie

  1. Open the Essential Graphics panel, select your lower-third composition as the Primary composition, and expose Speaker Name Source Text, Role Source Text, and Accent Bar Color as editable controller properties.
  2. Click Export Motion Graphics Template to save an open .ectemplate file for editors across the documentary team, or choose File ▸ Export ▸ Lottie to export a Lottie JSON animation for the companion interactive web report.

Lottie cannot preserve every effect, camera or footage layer. Export only supported lower-third elements, review warnings and test in the intended player. A motion template is not an Adobe MOGRT compatibility promise.

Sources

Upstream version checked on 2026-10-14.