Setting Expectations

Making your own templates can be easy or tough, depending on your skill level, and what you want to create.

So before we dive into this article, I wanted to check this is the right one for you.

Easy - Brand Matching (Colors and Fonts)

If you want captions to match your channel/brand, Like changing the default font and colours, this is easy 🎉.

Check out this page 👇 on brand matching

Advanced - Custom Animations

If you want to GO CRAZY and create really unique and stunning captions. Then you’re in the right place.

You’ll first need some experience with Fusion, like:

• Advanced Key-framing
• Fusion’s layout
• Modifiers

We’ll discuss the above and show you what you need to know, but fair warning, if Fusion is overwhelming for you, then this article probably will be as well.

If you haven’t done stuff in Fusion, I highly recommend you watch these videos first 🙂

How To Create Your Own Templates

Snap Captions uses the text+ node with specific modifiers to create word by word animations. So we recommend starting with one of our pre-made templates that already has these modifiers.

IMPORTANT - Technical Information

While we’re giving you full creative control over your captions, there are a few technical rules to follow to ensure everything works smoothly in Snap Captions 2.

1: Don’t change modifier names

Snap Captions looks for modifiers with these exact names, to apply the timing of word by word animations.

In_Animation (Follower 1) - This is for all Word By Word In Animations

Out_Animation (Follower 2) - This is to cancel all In animations (limited to color changes)

Emphasis_Styling (Character Level Styling 1) - This is used to adjust color for certain Shading Elements

2: Snap Captions 2 Standard Element Layout

For Snap Caption 2 templates, we follow a set structure for element usage. In the future, SC2 will include built-in color controls, and maintaining this structure now ensures a smooth transition when those updates arrive.

The Standard Shading Elements Of A Snap Captions

Element 1 - Main Color

Element 2 - Outline

Element 3 - Drop Shadow

Element 4 - Background

Element 5 - Glow

Element 6,7 & 8 - freeform to do what ever you want!! - just note, every element you add, adds a more processing power.

3: Disable Elements Not Being Used

Captioning isn’t just about beautiful, eye catching animated text. It’s an effect done in bulk. So smooth playback and performance is paramount for 90% of use case.

If you’re not including an element in your template, like a drop shadow or background, then it’s important to disable them.

4 : Don’t Use A BackGround node To Control Custom Colors

Often times, when people first start designing captions, they’ll run into a challenge.

Having Easy Control Over Gradient Colors.

Some tools like the Character Level Styling don’t offer this, so we think:

And it’s a common workaround, and gets great results when creating “Title Effects” but these don’t work for “Caption Effects”. Here’s Why:

• Colors aren’t attached to the words position

Notice how the red changes as the word moves.

• You could (but shouldn’t) use expressions to change position with the word. But this isn’t approved because:
• Each expression increases processing time dramatically
• Background nodes can introduce clipping issue (effect not being seen at the edge of a screen)
• There’s better options.

Simply Put - This workaround gets the job done now, but makes applying the actual template a little bit more tedious and less efficient. Which is NOT GOOD with captions, where you need to apply this affect all the time over many videos.

5: Create Efficient Animations

To help make your caption animations as efficient as possible, there are things we can do, which produce the exact same result, but take a HUGE load off computers.

And what we’re talking about is “objects”, if you’re familiar with coding, you’ll know what objects are about.

What is an object?

In the context of this article, when we refer to an object, we mean “an individual thing that is animated”.

So an object can be a:

• Node
• Sentence
• Word
• Character
• Color
• Red Channel
• Green Channel
• Blue Channel
• Alpha Channel

In fact, you can tell Resolve, how to animate by the Sentence/Word/Character by going to:

• Open a text+ node
• Go to transform settings
• Choose from the dropdown.

Why is this important?

Every object you add, to your template to make it animate-able requires your computer to do more MATHS. Too much maths, and you get bad playback performance. Here’s an example:

Let’s say we want to have our words slide into screen like this:

Animating By Character (BAD)

Here you can see I’ve animated the words to move up the screen with:

• Transform to set Characters
• Keyframed the offset

And it looks fine, but it isn’t

What’s wrong?

Because we’ve set the transform to ‘Characters’, Fusion is treating each character as a single object.

Here you can see with “Hello World” there are 11 characters. So there’s 11 objects.

This means, Fusion is calculating the position for 11 CHARACTERS, EACH FRAME.

BUT, If we create the template like this:

Now here, you can see I’ve created the exact same effect, EXCEPT:

• I’ve changed the transform from Characters → Words.

So now, we only have two objects, simply meaning:

Instead of calculating 11 objects position each frame. Fusion is calculating 2 object positions per frame.

That’s LESS THAN 5x the maths!!

BUT THERE’S MORE

But text+ nodes contain more than just “Characters” or “Words” per object.

This template I showed you had two elements enabled:

• A main text color
• A drop shadow

So I actually lied before, there isn’t 11 objects in that template. There was 22!!

Character amount x Elements = total objects

11 x2 = 22

Take-Away Lesson

The biggest lesson here is about being efficient with a users processing power.

• Keep object count low – The fewer objects Resolve has to calculate per frame, the smoother playback will be.
• Disable unused elements – Extra effects like drop shadows, glows, and gradients add unnecessary processing load if not needed.
• Animate by words, not characters – It looks the same but runs significantly faster.

If you plan your animations smartly, your captions will not only look great but also play back smoothly, keeping workflows fast.

If you want to create your custom animations and do more than change the styling of your caption, this part is for you. As mentioned above, this version of Snap Captions uses a special text+ node to create word by word animations. So we recommend starting with our base template and build your own from it.

Understanding the Base Template

Before we start creating custom animations, let’s first break down how the base template works.

If you open the base template in fusion, you will see that there are modifiers for:

• In Animations
• Out Animations
• Emphasis

These modifiers allow us to keyframe In and Out animations to get customized looks, and add Emphasis to whatever element we want.

Active Elements in the Base Template

The template has all of the five elements activated, each serving a specific purpose.

• Element 1 – Main Color
• Element 2 – Outline (Emphasized via the Emphasis Modifier)
• Element 3 – Black Shadow
• Element 4 – Background (Animated via the InAnimation and OutAnimation modifiers)
• Element 5 – Glow (Emphasized via the Emphasis Modifier)

In Animation – How It Works

The In Animation Modifier controls how words appear on screen.

⚠️ Important: Do not remove the timing keyframes! They enable word-by-word animation timing, which is useful for previewing your effects.

• The animation is created by keyframing the Element 4 (Background) Size X/Y.
• Keyframe Values:
• Frame 1 → 0
• Frame 0 → 0.8
• Frame 2 → 1.1
• Frame 5 → 0.95
• Frame 7 → 1.0

• The keyframes have been adjusted in the Spline tab for a more dynamic, bouncy animation.

OutAnimation – How It Works

The OutAnimation Modifier helps reset effects when transitioning between words.

⚠️ Important: Do not remove the timing keyframes! They enable word-by-word animation timing, which is useful for previewing your effects.

• OutAnimations cancels out the previous word’s background before the next word appears.

• For the base template, to make Element 4 disappear after the InAnimation kicks in, Element 4 (Background) Opacity is keyframed.
• Keyframe Values:
• Frame 1 → 1 (Fully Visible)
• Frame 0 → 0 (Invisible)

Emphasis – How It Works

The Emphasis Modifier allows certain elements within your captions to change color based on emphasis settings.

When emphasis is applied to a word in Snap Captions, these elements change color based on the emphasis color you picked.

• By default, the base template includes two elements that are set up for emphasis:
• Element 2 – Outline 
• Element 5 – Glow

Snap Captions needs to know which elements should be emphasized. This is done by adding a simple code in the Settings → Comments section:

To emphasize Element 2 & 5, this simple code was put in:

E5 = E

E2 = E

Customizing the Base Template

Now that we understand how the base template was set up, we can move on to creating our custom template by:

• Removing the existing animations
• Disabling elements we won’t use
• Adding custom animations

Step 01 - Removing the existing animations

Removing the In Animation

• Go to InAnimation and find the keyframed element (Element 4 - Background).
• Double-click on the X and Y values to remove all keyframes.

How it’s going to look:

Removing the Out Animation

• Go to OutAnimation and find Element 4 - Opacity keyframes.
• Double-click on Opacity to clear the keyframes.
• This completely removes the background animation.

How it’s going to look:

Removing the Emphasis

• Go to the Emphasis Modifier → Settings tab.
• Delete any text inside the Comments field.
• This removes any elements assigned to the Emphasis effect.

Step 02 - Disabling the Elements We Don’t Use

• Since we won’t be using Element 4 (Background) or Element 5 (Glow) for animation or styling in our custom animation, we can go ahead and disable them.

• Go to Tools → Shading and uncheck Element 4 & 5.

Step 03 - Adding Custom Animations

For our custom animation, let’s say that we want a simple pop-in animation with the emphasis applied to Element 1 (Main Color).

First, let’s work on the pop in animation:

• Click on the InAnimation modifier.
• Open the Transform tab.
• Switch the transform from characters to words.
• Keyframe Size X Y (Example shows 0 at frame 0, 1.0 at frame 3)

We now have a word by word pop in animation of our own!

Now…

This is a great place to change the colors of your elements and font to get the style/branding that you want. At this point, we want to be able to see how our final product is going to look like.

• Change the colors of the elements and font however you like in Tools → Template

Now, we want to apply the emphasis on Element 1 (Main Color):

• You can highlight a word and change the color of the element you want to emphasize in EmphasisStyling to preview how it is going to look.

• If you’re happy with the Elements you have chosen, switch over to the Settings tab.
• We need to signal which elements we are using for Emphasis to Snap Captions
• In the Comments, type down which elements are emphasized as shown

• Lastly, go to the Text tab and click Clear Selected Character Styling

Adding Gradients To Captions

If you want to use gradients in your Text+ templates without manually adjusting them for emphasis or other color changes, you’ll need to apply them in a specific way.

Why Do We Apply Gradients This Way?

• Snap Captions uses the Character Level Styling Modifier to let you change word colors dynamically.
• BUT – Character Level Styling doesn’t support gradients (Resolve limitation).
• So – Any elements you want to be emphasizable must be a solid color.
• BUT – Sometimes, you want a gradient that can still change dynamically.

How to Add a Gradient That Works

To get around this limitation, we apply gradients using a separate element.

Before

After

• Element 1 is the base text - we’ll leave it alone

• Go to an unused element (we recommend using Element 6, 7 or 8)

• Set up your gradient by adjusting the color points.

• Select the center point and turn down the Alpha and the colors to create transparency.

• Set the priority to be above every other element

Now, you’re going to have a semi-transparent layer over all the other elements, making everything have a gradient!

Saving Your Caption

Once you’re happy with your adjustments, follow these steps to save your caption as a reusable template:

1. Rename Your Caption

• Go to the Edit page
• Open the Inspector → File → Name
• Enter a new name for your caption

2. Save It to Snap Captions

• In the Edit page, drag the clip into the Snap Captions folder
• It will now appear in the dropdown menu with your other templates the next time you run Snap Captions