Overlays

Overlays are layers drawn above whatever scene is on Program. They stay put when you cut between scenes, which is what makes them different from a source inside a scene.

Open the Overlays panel on the left of the Broadcast tab. Each overlay has its own on/off switch.

Categories

Design it yourself

Create your own in the gallery asks which category the design is for and, for Scripture, whether it is an in-scene panel or an overlay, then offers two ways to make it: Design it yourself or Generate with AI. The category decides where the design shows once saved: its gallery group, and for a scripture panel or a countdown, the Style list of that source.

The designer opens over the Broadcast tab on a ready layout for the category, which you reshape:

• Add text, a box, a circle, a line or a picture. Drag to move; pull a corner or an edge to resize (hold Shift to keep proportions); turn with the handle above the element. Guides snap to the centre, the safe area and the other elements; hold Alt to move freely. Arrow keys nudge (Shift for 10 px).
• Text is: what you type here, a field the operator fills in when they use the design, or live data. Scripture designs can show the verse on screen and its reference; note designs the note sentence and heading; countdown designs the time remaining and the timer label; any design the wall clock. A text box can shrink to fit, wrap, or stay on one line.
• Look, Text, Animation, Position cover colour and opacity, corners, shadow and outline; the bundled fonts, size, weight, alignment; how each element enters (fade, rise, slide, pop, wipe), when, and whether it pulses or bobs afterwards; exact position and rotation. Build in order makes every layer enter a little after the one below it, and Preview plays the entrance.
• Layers lists everything in paint order: drag to reorder, double-click to rename, hide while editing, lock against dragging.

Undo and redo cover every step. Save design puts it in the gallery under its category, marked Designed, and offers to show it on Program or use it as the panel style at once. A designed tile's menu has Edit design… to reopen it. Designs made with AI stay as they are and are not opened in the designer.

Placing a lower third

Lower thirds are positioned on their own stage. Drag the block to where you want it in frame. Use the safe area guides on the Preview monitor to check it will not be cropped on a TV.

Tip: Keep lower thirds inside the title-safe guide. Broadcast displays and social platforms crop the edges differently, and text near the bottom of frame is the first thing to go.

Scripture overlays

There are two shapes, and the difference matters:

• Scripture panel (sp- styles) sits inside the scene, sized like a slide. Good when the verse is the point.
• Scripture lower third (sc- styles) is a band across the bottom. Good when the camera is the point and the verse is supporting it.

The lower third comes in two forms, and you choose: add the Scripture Lower Third source to a scene, where it belongs to that scene and is placed in its editor, or add it from the Overlays panel's + menu (Scripture Lower Third…), where it is a layer with a toggle that rides above every scene until switched off, like a speaker's lower third. Both wear the same styles, and the layer's dialog also lists your custom scripture designs, so a design you made or generated can be the bar; applying a Scripture › Lower Third template in the gallery restyles both.

Both follow Present automatically. Whatever the operator displays in Present appears here. Nobody needs to touch Broadcast during the sermon.

Editing fields live

Overlay fields can be edited while the overlay is on air. Change a name, update a score, correct a spelling, the change appears immediately without toggling the overlay off and on.

Graphics overlays

Graphics builds a free-form overlay: arrange images, text, countdowns or live scripture over the live preview, drag and resize each block, and save the arrangement. Toggle it on and it stays above whatever scene is on Program.

Use From file… in the editor to drop an image or video straight from disk onto the overlay — a sponsor logo, a QR code, a bumper — without creating a source first. If you remove it again before saving, or cancel the dialog, nothing is left behind in your source list.

Custom overlays

Create your own in the gallery asks which category the design is for, so it lands where it will be used, and then offers two ways to make it.

Design it yourself

The designer opens in its own window and starts from a ready layout for the category you picked: a plate with a name and a role for a lower third, a card with the verse for scripture, digits and a label for a countdown, and so on. Start from switches to a blank canvas.

Add puts a text, box, circle, line or picture on the canvas. Drag to move, pull a corner or an edge to resize (hold Shift to keep the shape), and turn with the handle above the selection. Elements snap to the centre and edges of the frame, to the title-safe area and to each other, with guides as they land. Arrow keys nudge (Shift for ten pixels), ⌘D duplicates, Delete removes, ⌘Z and ⇧⌘Z undo and redo.

The panel on the right shows what the selected element can do:

• Content. For a text, Text is decides where the words come from: something you type here, a field the operator fills in when the overlay is used (a name, a title), or live data the app fills for you: the verse on screen and its reference for scripture, the note sentence and heading for notes, the time remaining and label for a countdown, the wall clock anywhere. For a picture, choose a file or make it a field the operator attaches.
• Look. Colour and opacity; corners for boxes and pictures, rounded together or, unlinked, one by one; shadow and outline.
• Text. Font (the faces RheoCast ships, so they render offline), size, weight, italic, all caps, alignment, and whether the text shrinks to fit its box, wraps, or stays on one line.
• Animation. How the element enters (fade, rise, slide, pop, wipe), after how long, and how long it takes, plus a pulse or bob once it has settled. With nothing selected, Build in order staggers every element by layer order, and Enters with sets the entrance of the whole overlay. Preview plays it on the canvas.
• Position. Exact size, position and rotation, with a reset for rotation.

The layers list on the left is the paint order: drag to reorder, rename, hide while editing, or lock in place.

Save design stores it and returns you to the gallery on its category. A lower third, note, announcement, title card, lyric or social design becomes a template you apply like any other; a scripture panel becomes a style in the Scripture source's Style picker; a countdown design becomes a style in the countdown's list. A design made here can always be reopened with Edit design… on its tile, and exported or imported like any custom overlay.

Generate with AI

Generate with AI builds a prompt describing the fields your chosen category uses. Paste it into an AI model, paste the SVG it returns back into RheoCast, and the app sanitises it, previews it through the real renderer, and saves it as a reusable template.

Custom overlays behave exactly like built-in ones afterwards, including live field editing.

Note: Only the drawing is generated. RheoCast strips anything in the SVG that is not drawing instructions before it renders.

Custom scripture templates are live

When you create a design in the Scripture category, by either route, the first choice is what it is:

• In-scene panel. A card you place and size in a scene, beside a camera or full screen. It becomes a style for Scripture sources, listed next to Classic, Minimal and Bordered in the gallery's In-Scene Panel group and in each Scripture source's Style picker. The design's whole canvas is the card, and the app scales it into the box keeping its 16:9 shape, so a taller or wider box leaves clear bands rather than stretching the design. A panel's extras, such as a logo, are set with Edit and apply in the gallery. Between verses a custom panel draws nothing, and Present's word highlights are not drawn on it.
• Overlay. A lower third or floating card drawn over the whole program frame, toggled from the Overlays panel.

The prompt RheoCast writes changes with the choice, so the AI designs a card to fill a box in one case and an overlay anchored in the frame in the other.

A custom overlay you build in the Scripture category is not a graphic with fields to type. It is fed by the service: once it is on air, it shows whatever verse Present is displaying, wrapped to the lines the design offers, and nothing at all while no verse is up. The verse and reference never appear in its fields editor; only extras the design added, such as a logo, do.

For that to work the design must carry the tokens the app fills. The prompt RheoCast writes for you asks the AI for exactly this, so paste it as given:

• {{verse}} is the whole verse, in one text element that declares its area with data-max-width and data-max-height. The app wraps and sets the verse inside that area at the largest size that fits, the way the stock panel does: a short verse comes out bigger than the design's font size, a long one smaller on more lines, so the taller the area, the bigger a verse can be. Only a verse that will not fit even at the smallest size trails off with an ellipsis. Lines are centred in the area unless the design pins them with data-valign. Older designs that mark the area out with {{text}}, {{text2}} and so on keep working the same way.
• {{reference}} gives "John 3:16 — KJV". A design that styles the parts separately can use {{ref}}, {{book}}, {{chapter}}, {{verses}} and {{translation}} instead.
• The design must not contain any actual verse words or a real reference, only the tokens. If the AI writes a verse into the artwork anyway, ask it to replace the words with the tokens.
• A design with only a reference badge and no verse lines is live too: it follows the reference Present is showing while the verse itself stays in your Scripture source.

The gallery preview shows the design with a real sample verse wrapped into its lines, which is what it will look like on air.

Announcements

The ticker scrolls a line along the bottom of frame, useful for a rolling notice during worship. The banner is static and better for a single message you want read.

Both are overlays rather than scene sources, so they persist while you cut between cameras.

If your church plans its services in ChurchCast, announcement and title-card layers can be created from the plan, and a lower third or a custom field can be filled from the team on duty: see Service Plans.