Maxon Studio's Create page allows you to build and customize capsules by selecting elements from an After Effects project. Think of those comps, layers, and parameters as building blocks from which you can craft your own capsules.
You expose parameters in Studio's Create page through a drag-and-drop interface, organize controls into groups, and link properties, all within a live, synchronized environment that updates with After Effects in real time. This streamlines the process of turning project components into reusable, shareable assets based on dynamic code and instructions rather than endlessly iterating project files.
Clicking the Create tab (circled above) reveals one, two, or three panels of the Create UI, depending on how wide you have Studio displayed. The leftmost panel begins with your capsule's thumbnail image (assuming you have already selected at least one capsule property; more on this soon) and allows you to supply some capsule metadata. The second panel helps organize your selected parameters into groups. The third focuses on any selected parameter's properties.
To be clear, Studio's Create functionality is not a system for building capsules from thin air. Rather, it is a system for building capsules from other capsules or Adobe After Effects projects. If you start a new AE project and proceed straight to the Create tab, expect to see something like this:
If you have an existing project with at least one layer, then you'll encounter a process similar to the following. First, Studio sees which composition is active and automatically selects that comp as the basis for your capsule. If you only have one composition on your timeline, then that automatically populates your Create process.
When you have multiple comps from which to choose, you can select a different comp within your project from which to pull your new capsule's parameters. However, you need to expose your target comp's panel. Consider this setup:
Even though we can see and highlight the Lower Third 15 layer, clicking the circular Refresh icon in the capsule creation pop-up does not point Studio at that layer. Instead, we have to double-click the layer in the timeline and then select the desired comp panel, as shown before. Then you can refresh and switch comps.
Let's keep working from the above example. After you click the Create Capsule button, the following setup will appear. (Remember, the exact appearance may change, depending on your Studio UI width.)
Notice that there are no parameters populating this setup yet. With nothing to encapsulate, there is no capsule. So far, all we see is a preview thumbnail of the comp.
As noted earlier, the Create page is comprised of three panels. Let's examine those in turn.
The thumbnail image is generated from your comp at the point when you begin creating the capsule. You can scrub along the timeline, and the thumbnail will remain unaffected. However, if you're not fond of the image, simply click the trashcan icon under the thumbnail box to delete it? Got a frame you'd prefer to use? Position the playhead in your comp accordingly and click the camera icon to replace the thumbnail with your current preview display.
Capsule Name, Creator Name, and About fields are self-explanatory. Capsule Type and Tags both offer metadata tags you can use for filtering content back in the Discover gallery.
If you compress Studio's width sufficiently, to the point that it reduces from three panels to two, the Capsule Information panel will vanish and suddenly respawn within the Properties panel (see below) as the Details tab.
The second Create panel is where you place and organize the parameters that comprise your capsule-to-be. For example, one layer within the Lower Thirds 15 capsule uses the Universe Gradient Ramp tool. After exposing the effect's attributes, we can single- or batch-select any number of parameters and drag them into the panel's default Group 1 area.
Dropping those parameters into the group results in the population of that group, as shown below. Studio carries over the control method for each parameter; i.e., check box controls retain their check boxes, sliders remain sliders, etc. The rightmost Properties panel fills with the properties for whichever parameter is selected.
You may find yourself dealing with multiple parameters sharing the same name. For example, you might drop several parameters from different layers, all named Color or Start Point. How can you tell which is which? Easy — rename them.
In the left image below, the little pencil icon next to the group name allows you to edit that group's label. You might find it makes sense to call your group something like Layer 6 or Colors. Additionally, the right image shows how, by clicking in the Properties panel's Control Name field, you can rename a parameter to something more descriptive.
Back in the Groups panel, notice how group and parameter names have icons appear while you mouse-over them. The up/down triangle icons let you bump that item one space so you can reorder them as you please. (You need multiple groups to move group positions. Clicking the Add New Group button accomplishes this.) The trashcan icon deletes that parameter or group.
One more icon awaits in the Groups panel. To the right of each group name, you'll find the Add Format Controls icon, which opens the Format Controls menu and its Format Elements and Blank Controls sections.
Format Elements options give you another way to organize your parameters. With comments and labels, you supply the text you'd like to appear in the Properties panel, as shown below. Observe how Group 2 now has one comment followed by a divider followed by two labels.
Blank Controls offer a way to place multiple parameters from several layers under the management of a single Studio control. To illustrate, let's look at the LOWER THIRDS text in our comp. Say we wanted to enlarge the graphic by 50 percent. One way to do this is by manually adjusting the Transform > Scale controls in each of several layers comprising that graphic. What a pain!
Alternatively, you could select Slider from the Add Format Controls button > Blank Controls menu. Doing so from a new, empty group places a slider control in the group, yielding something like this: (We subsequently added the values in the Properties fields.)
From here, you drag and drop the parameters you wish from your layer properties into the slider control's properties (rightmost panel), as shown by the bottom rectangle and arrow below. With all six of our Rotation controls for our lower-thirds graphic under the slider's umbrella, the entire graphic now rotates with a simple, single adjustment of this one control.
Let's take another example. Say we start with an existing background capsule based on beautiful, wavy blues and reds. But maybe red feels too confrontational today, and you want to change that to green. No problem.
Start by clicking the Add Format Controls icon, then select Blank Controls > Color. Assuming you've left the default control color as black, you should see something like the above arrangement.
Now, it's time to locate your desired color parameters from your comp's layer(s) and drag them into the Properties panel (shown above). Observe how the color chip now changes from black to red, picking up the color from our dragged parameters.
Finally, click on the color chip in the Groups panel, select the new target color for those parameters, and click OK. Now, your single color parameter controls all of the capsule's formerly red tones.
The idea is deceptively simple: A placeholder is a Studio capsule element that reserves space in a group for a capsule element you may develop or implement later. If that seems clear as mud, let's clarify things with an example.
In the setup below, we have a new AE project featuring a single comp comprised of two solid layers, one red and one blue. The red layer will serve as a simple frame while the blue will be our placeholder for what will ultimately be a video clip. Why use the placeholder? Because we want to take advantage of Studio's capabilities, but capsules cannot store assets like video footage. Hence the need for placeholders, which can be saved in capsules to make that future substitution more convenient.
In Maxon Studio, we dip into the Create page and create a new capsule based on Comp 1. In this example, we apply a stock Studio background capsule, add another solid (red) layer atop it (this red area will become our placeholder), click the Create page's New button, then click the Create Capsule button from the following pop-up box.
With a blank Group 1 before us, we click through the Add Format Controls icon, select Placeholder, then drag our red solid layer into the Placeholder parameters.
Now, we have our placeholder established, but we still need to save our newly constructed capsule. So, we click the Create button and supply a Capsule Name and Capsule Category in the pop-up, if desired.
Once the capsule save completes, we can find it either within the Create Capsules gallery or back in the Discover gallery (albeit with a little filtering, as shown below).
At this point, we might step away, have some lunch, take a vacation, then want to pick up where we left off. No problem. We start a new AE project, create a new composition, then apply our just-made capsule to the comp. We also know it's time to make use of that placeholder, so we bring a video clip into the project assets. That puts us here, ready to click the capsule's Edit button:
Now, we're in Studio's Edit page. From here, we just drag our video asset over and drop it into the parameters space for our red layer within Group 1.
And voilà! There's our magnificent macaque, all smiles at a Studio placeholder put to good use.
To restate the point for clarity, this is but one way to use placeholders, simply to get your creativity moving. You could just as easily replace that element with another comp, a special effect, image, or video. Placeholders are a way to capture your creative vision and prevent future repetitive work.
Once you put the final touches on your capsule, it's time to save it. Click the Create button at the bottom of the Properties panel (see below). Studio will offer a pop-up window in which you can confirm your capsule name and category. Note that all your created capsules are stored locally.
Curious about where to put these new categories to work? In the Create page, they're just to the right of your Filter and Orientation icons (which work just like the same functions in the Discover page).
Clicking a category on this bar activates it to behave like a filter. Clicking on our Absolutely Done custom category will turn that button's text blue. You can activate as many of these category filters as you please to better control your capsule results.
So, you've worked your capsule creation magic, and your colleague says, "That's amazing! Can you send me that?" Of course you can. Here's how:
From the Discover page, access the export icon from the details area, just under the capsule thumbnail. From the Create page, work from the thumbnail's three-dots menu.
Both methods are shown above, and both yield a success message with a Take Me There button that spawns a file explorer screen. (This will happen automatically if you have Open location on complete checked in your Settings; see below.) Your capsules will default to exporting to the local folder designated in your Settings.
All capsule exports compress into folders stored within ZIP files. Whether you send one capsule or batch select multiple capsules for a single export, the outcome will still be one ZIP per export operation.
Note the Export Presets with Capsule menu in the Settings. The options are Always, Ask on export, or Never. Most users will want to leave this on Always, but your specific needs may vary depending on your capsule workflows.
Now, what about your anxiously waiting colleague? First, you send that ZIP file. On the receiving end, your colleague will extract the desired files or folder(s) from that ZIP and save them locally.
From there, look to the right of the Create page's find bar and click the import icon (shown below). Select Files or Folders, and the capsules will immediately add into the Studio gallery.
As with standard Studio capsules, you can modify your custom capsules by clicking the Modify button either in the gallery thumbnail or from the capsule's details panel.
If Studio detects that your pending capsule modification is not based on an original project file, then you only receive the Apply Instance in New Comp option in the resulting pop-up.
Clicking Modify Capsule instigates AE's new composition pop-up box. The new comp begins with the capsule as the only layer in a new Comp 2 (or whatever you name it). From here, you may add more effects, assets, or anything else, and those in turn can provide the building blocks to expand on your capsule modification.
If you have the original project file and click Modify, the pop-up looks a bit different.
Now you have the option to turn your modification into a New Capsule, which is based on your original project file, or Apply Instance in New Comp. If you click the latter, then click Modify Capsule and create the resulting new comp, your capsule copy shows up in a new comp, ready to be finalized and saved.
Studio's Create page is a stellar way to take either Maxon's own capsules or capsules from third parties and quickly adapt them into new capsules that suit your needs and vision. That said, there are two current ways in which Studio and After Effects are not in complete harmony.
The first, as noted earlier, is that capsules do not retain project assets, such as images, video footage, or object files (as of this writing). Capsules do retain the layers on which those assets reside, though.
The second is a lack of specific parameter support in some effects — specifically the Sources, Masks, and Effects & Masks selection found in effects that support those options (see below). Every other parameter within the effect works with Studio capsules just fine; it's only those three options in that one pull-down menu. Studio supports third-party plugins, 3D renderers, shape layers, solids, layer properties, frame rate, resolution, on and on, even the source layer selection on the same effect layer line. Source selection is the exception. After Effects does not make that function available in this context.
If you'd like to see all these new Create page concepts in action, get ready to be impressed. The Maxon Red Giant channel has some excellent Studio content, including this tutorial on creating carousel presets. Be sure to follow the channel for the latest ideas and how-to walk-throughs!
