I'm not looking to spend a ton of cash, I just want something that works.
I want to overlay an image over a scene, and have the image move while
in the scene. You know, basic visual effects. Does anyone know of a decent program?
(free is preferred, but shareware and the like are fine)
please don't say windows movie maker
Unfortunately, the only programs I know of on Windows that can do this as the complicated packages that cost $$$ like Vegas.
There is a Linux program (free of course) called Kdenlive but I'm not sure if it has the features you require. Not to mention it requires installing Linux, which may not be the best option for you
I'd recommend checking out
Jahshaka. My dad downloaded it ages ago to see how it was but we never really used it much. However from what I can see it's got a nice range of features not unlike professional programs, and should be able to do what you want.
Unfortunately the biggest downside is the lack of official documentation, so you'll probably have to spend some time figuring out how everything works. There are some video tutorials (YouTube user linked on the download page) though so hopefully they should help you get started.
By the way, from the looks of it development is pretty much at a halt and although the website says "jahshaka 3.0*" nice and clearly, 2.0 is the latest version you can download.
I believe Coral (or is it Corel?) do a good free one. It hasn't got a ton of options but it's good enough for most things.
The trial for Adobe Premiere Pro should be good for this. There's also the freeware option known as
LightWorks, though I find Adobe's software easier to use. You can also use
Blender 3D as a Video Editing program, even though it's mostly known for it's 3D rendering/polysculpting abilities. It's actually a pretty amazing video editor.
I'm using Adobe Cloud. 30 bucks, and you get legal copies of all of Adobe's newest software before the rest of the world does, so that could also work out for you.
I used to use Windows Movie Maker for my stuff, but since it's been freezing my computer like a prick (and doesn't support animated gifs), I got Sony Vegas Portable 10 and cracked it. It works like a charm, it's small enough to fit my flash drive and once you understand how it works, you can make movies pretty quickly. I still need to figure out how to avoid the audio from getting cut at the end.
As for a legal free program, I don't know so I'd see the above suggestions