Z-Depth is one of the innovative functions, that we have available in Vegas Pro 21.
Take for example this picture
and imagine, that you want to place a text between the glas of water and the cup of tea. Yes, not in front of the total picture - that is something that we have been able to do up to now. But BETWEEN both objects.
Something, that looks like as shown here:
This is tricky - but it can be done with the new plugin together in the composite mode. It looks like as follows in the tracks:
choosing the composition mode and custom for the track with the text. You will find details in the new online-guidance, what is great.
But the tricky part in this example is to analyse and understand the depth profile - simply, because the difference in the depth profile between the glas of water and the tea cup are not so huge. This can be done with the visualisation buttom - and choosing depth. You can track with the mouse the depth position of both objects (and I found it easier to switch to normalized values in "mode"):
And if you see above, one distance is 0.5, and the other one is 0.6. Means, that you have to position the between 0.5 and 0.6 approximately.
In the "normalized values"-mode the furthest object will always assigned to be 0,000, and the nearest object will always assigend to be 1,000. That happens automatically if you switch to the normalized values mode.
To position the text you have to choose "Depth In" and "Depth Out" - and check the result by switching the visualisation back to "none". To adjust the figures it is helpfull to use the STRG+mouse wheel, and check the result in the preview (with best/full). In my case, I found the best results with following settings:
The "feather" function can help to make the boundaries smoother. However, the results may not be perfect by 100% - as it was mentioned elsewhere. However, I think they are great so far.
Be warned, that it may take some time until you have trained yourself to become familiar with this new function. But it is worthwile to spend some time here, the results were nice and the attention of your audience will be on the astonishing effect.
Have fun!
