Your first scene

A lower third — a name and a role on a plate, driven by data and animated on — from an empty document to a file the playout server can play. About fifteen minutes.

You will use every part of the window once. Each step links to the page that covers it in full; the Lower third guide goes further with the same graphic.

1. A new document

On the Start screen, choose New document, keep HD 1920 × 1080 and the frame rate your channel runs at — 50 in most of Europe, 60 or 59.94 in North America — and press Create.

2. The plate and the words

1. Press R for the rectangle, and drag a bar across the lower part of the artboard. When you let go, the tool goes back to select, and the bar is selected.
2. In the inspector's Fills and Strokes, click the swatch and choose a dark colour for the plate.
3. Press T and click on the plate: a text appears, saying Text, and it is selected. Type a name into the text row at the top of the inspector's Text section. Press T again, click below it, and give that one a role — "Political editor".

The inspector on the right always shows what is selected; the Hierarchy on the left lists everything on the artboard. Click a name there to select it.

3. Let the data fill it in

A graphic on air is filled in by the control system: the operator types a name, and the graphic shows it. What it can be given is its view model, in the Data panel.

1. In Data, the artboard already has a view model. Select its row and press S twice: two text properties. Name them name and role.
2. Select the name text. In the inspector's Text section, click the data glyph at the right of the text row and choose name. The row turns into a blue box that says where its words come from.
3. Do the same for the role text, with role.

Type into the property's value in the Data panel and the stage follows — that is what the control system will do on air.

4. Animate it on

1. Switch to Animate at the right of the top bar. The timeline opens along the bottom, and the red dot says auto-key is on.
2. With the playhead at frame 0, select the plate and move it off the left of the artboard. A key appears on its row.
3. Move the playhead to half a second (frame 25 at 50 fps), and move the plate back into place. A second key.
4. Press Space to play it.

To make it land rather than stop, select the first key and choose Back in the interpolation editor.

5. Check it, and export it

1. The preflight chip in the top bar counts anything that would go wrong on air. Click it and fix what it lists.
2. Save the document with Ctrl+S.
3. Choose File › Export .riv… (Ctrl+E) to write the file the playout server plays.

6. Send it to air

With a controller paired, File › Sync to controllers… sends the graphic straight to the control room, which asks each controller what would happen before anything changes.

Where next

• Lower third — the same graphic, done properly: a Animation States, a way out, and a colour from the data.
• The interface — every panel, section by section.
• From scene to air — what happens after the file leaves the editor.