No matter how impressive any given capsule might be, odds are you’ll want to customize it for your particular needs. The Edit Page is where that process happens.
When you click into the Edit Page and select a capsule, you can either alter parameter values in the Controls Panel or select that capsule on the AE timeline, as shown above. (Note how our text capsule has become our project’s top visible layer, Thus, any visible content in that layer will hide content in the layers below it. As shown in the Core Concepts section of this guide, you may need to delete some elements to expose the underlying layer(s), depending on your capsule type and contents.) Digging directly into a capsule’s layers can provide the greatest amount of granularity, but it also takes the most time. Consider the following comparison.
Say you want to control an element's opacity and set when it should fade into the comp. You could simply put the timeline playhead where you want the fade-in to begin, set the parameter to 0.00 (as shown below), scoot the playhead to where the fade-in will finish, then set the parameter to 100.
That’s a lot quicker and easier than controlling the same process the conventional way, via excavating the desired control from within the layer stack.
Circling back to the Applied Capsules Panel, you’ll notice that each capsule entry features a “three dots” menu icon. Clicking this brings up a menu of seven options: Apply New Instance, Duplicate Instance, Rename Instance, Revert to Default, Delete Instance, View Capsule Details, Save As Preset, and Select Preset.
Let’s see what happens when we select Apply New Instance. Below, you see our project with its three layers.
When we click Apply New Instance for our Lower Third 04 capsule, the next image results. Observe how the new instance, noted with a 1 at the end of its title in the Applied Capsules Panel, creates a new visible layer at the top of the timeline layer stack. Because this instance does not include the changes made to our prior Lower Third 04 instance, none of our position, color, and text changes carry over. Instead, the capsule’s defaults all apply. (In contrast, Duplicate Instance carries your changes forward into the new instance.)
This approach can be useful for experimenting with, well, instances of a layer. You might try different color schemes, keyframe timing, or anything else, and simply turn layer visibilities on and off to compare them. If you need to dig into the instance’s layers and effects, double-click its timeline layer to create a new tab for that layer.
Rename Instance does just what it says, highlighting the second line of your capsule's name for you to customize. The first line remains unchanged so you have a textual way to reference the original capsule on which your instance is based. This becomes more useful as your Applied Capsules list grows more populated.
Revert to Default changes the capsule instance back to that capsule's original settings. Note that if you accidentally select this, don't panic. A Cmd/Ctrl+Z undo command will un-revert your reversion.
Delete Instance removes that instance from the Applied Capsules list.
Next, we have the View Capsule Details option. Selecting this replaces the Applied Capsules Panel with the Profile Panel (detailed earlier), like so:
Fun fact: See that little white icon in the lower-right corner of the selected capsule thumbnail? Clicking that also brings up the View Capsule Details information, in case you feel like saving a click or two.
Studio's preset options get a bit more detailed and deserve their own subsection. A preset is very much like a capsule instance, except presets are saved as separate files in their own Maxon Studio drive folder (see below). This makes them easy to share with other Studio users in your organization.
Let's begin with a capsule, such as the Looped Colorful Gradient 43 background. We change some of its colors, like so:
From here, we click on the three dots icon and select Save As Preset from the twirl-down menu.
Studio pops up a window for providing a custom name to the preset. As you see below, we opted for "Psychedelic Oil."
A pop-up message says the preset has been saved. But...where is it? A glance at the Applied Capsules list only shows our single Looped Colorful Gradient 43 capsule. The answer is in the Details pane, which, again, you can access either my the capsule's three-dots pull-down or its little white corner icon.
Let's pause for a second to make a point. Presets are subordinate to capsules. You might think of presets as children to the capsule parent. One capsule can spawn any number of presets.
That said, you'll now see why it makes sense for presets to be organized in a collapsible Presets section within the capsule's Details pane. In fact, we'll further make the point by selecting Revert to Default for our capsule and then examining the Details.
What happens if you save your project, exit After Effects, and then return to your Edit page? You can either revisit the Details pane or use Select Preset from the capsule's pull-down.
When you do this, any existing capsule parameter values are overwritten by the preset's values within the Edit page. (You'll find that the default values remain intact in the Discover page's browser.)
When you mouse-over your preset's thumbnail, three familiar icons appear, starting with a three-dots icon in the top-right corner. This offers three options: Rename Preset, Move to Trash, and Show in Folder, which opens a file explorer window to your Studio's Presets folder.
In the bottom-right corner sits the selection icon. Click this to apply your preset's values to the applied parent capsule. For example, if you're in the Edit page and have done a host of experimental value changes to your capsule, clicking this icon immediately reverts all capsule values to those of the preset.
Finally, the little plus symbol icon applies the preset's parameter values to the parent capsule.
As we discuss later in this guide's Tips, Tricks & Extras page, some Maxon Studio capsules include placeholders. These capsules come pre-designed with their own visual shenanigans. All that's missing is your footage to slot into those placeholders.
Our Tips, Tricks & Extras coverage shows you how to work with placeholders from the timeline. However, for capsules that support the feature, Studio also includes a Placeholder module in the Controls Panel. Within the Placeholder group is the Add Footage tool.
As the button says, just click to browse/import your chosen clip, or drag and drop the clip from your file explorer onto the Add Footage tool. Your footage will occupy all of the placeholder locations at once. (You can replace these individually with the steps we describe in Tips, Tricks & Extras.)
Since Glassy Overlay 2 is a bit psychedelic, we opted to illustrate with a mushroom clip we had on file. Just note that the amanita muscaria mushrooms shown are poisonous and not psychedelic. Always VFX responsibly.
In addition to dragging a clip onto the Add Footage tool from a file browser, you can drag and drop a clip onto Add Footage straight from your timeline or your Project asset collection.
