Maxon Studio’s guiding principle is to help you go from nothing to stunning in only a few clicks. The heart of this process revolves around making capsules easy to find, acquire, access, and use, and this happens across two primary interfaces: the Discover, Edit, and Create pages.
The Discover Page (shown above) houses a gallery of capsule previews along with various ways to filter, apply, and learn more about those capsules.
The Edit Page provides access to the capsule creator’s choice parameters — a “best of” controls collection, if you will. Often, one Studio capsule parameter will map to one tool parameter in the host app (e.g., a Glow control in Studio would link to an Intensity control in Maxon’s Universe Glow plugin within After Effects). However, capsule creators can opt to link multiple parameters to one editing control and so craft a “master” control for attributes even across multiple tools and project layers.
Take another look at an earlier illustration.
We made this composition from two capsules: one background, which we replicated into a second instance, and a motion graphics capsule comprised of 13 layers (shown below).
You’ll notice how we removed some of the opaque background elements to reveal our background gradients, changed the circle’s color, and replaced the text. Respectively, this was a matter of deleting a few layers in AE and then using Studio’s editing controls to change the Circle color and Text Line contents (shown earlier). All told, it took about a minute to get what we wanted.
Studio's Create page lets you take existing capsules, effects, layers, comps, and other project elements to craft and iterate your own custom capsules — and them share them with others! The ability to tailor new capsules to your own needs just makes Studio-centric project streamlining that much better.
Remember: Think of capsules as customizable building blocks that allow you to make a practically infinite range of project types and permutations.
Maxon Studio ships with hundreds of capsules, and there are plenty more where those came from. If you’re looking at a Discover gallery two or three thumbnails wide, you can see how managing hundreds of capsules might become…unwieldy. Fortunately, Studio comes with various avenues for whittling down a copious capsule collection to those few candidates you actually covet.
At the highest level, Studio divides capsules into various categories, such as Text, Motion Graphics, and Backgrounds. If you know you want a Background, for instance, simply click that category and only capsules tagged as Background will appear in the Discover gallery. These categories then divide into subcategories, as with the Text category having subcategories like Call Outs and Infographics.
Alternatively, you can use the Search bar to identify descriptive tags or their similar equivalents, then sort capsules by these terms. Or go a slightly different direction with filtering capsules by recency, download status, or other criteria.
Studio includes an Apply Options control accessible via the pull-down icon to the right of the Search bar. Here, you'll see options for Original Size, Fill Frame, Fit to Width, and Fit to Height. By default, capsules apply at their original 16:9 horizontal (landscape) or 9:16 vertical (portrait/social) formats unless you select one of these other Fill/Fit options. Your Apply Options selection will apply in every subsequent instance of that capsule until you pick a different setting.
Original Size (see below, left) applies the capsule at the default ratio (Transform > Scale: 100, 100%) established by the capsule designer. The other Apply Options choices use different default values. Fill Frame (right), for example, adjusts the width and height to match the size of your composition. This can cause the capsule to stretch or compress when applying a capsule of one orientation with a comp of a different orientation.
Studio also lets you sort the Discover gallery by capsule orientation (i.e., portrait, landscape, or either). In the example below, with Vertical selected, only portrait-type capsules display.
See our Tips & Tricks page for more on ideas on manipulating these Orientation settings in your comp.
Again, Studio offers many ways for you to manage and employ your capsule collection with maximum ease and efficiency. Keep reading to learn the details on how to weave these abilities into your Studio workflow.