How can I render an animation where we can see through a mesh similar to 'in front'? Basically, I've created an animation of an apple tree growing. During part of the animation I want to be able to see the roots growing under the 'ground' mesh in my scene. The effect should look similar to the 'in front' property in Viewport Display. Is there a simple way to achieve this? Thank you in advance.
Here is one way you can do this.

First, set the camera type to Orthographic and make sure the X Rotation = 90 so that it is looking straight forward. You can play with the Orthographic Scale to zoom in and out.



Second, add a Geometry Node to your ground shader and connect that to a Separate XYZ node. Take the Y from the node and connect it to the Alpha of your shader.
You can plug the output to the first input of a Math node set to add to move where the cut-off happens by changing the second value.


Hope that helps!