Work with Motion Graphics templates

The Essential Graphics panel allows you to build custom controls for motion graphics and share them as Motion Graphics templates via Creative Cloud Libraries or as local files. Essential Graphics panel works as a bucket in which you can add different controls, modify them, and then pack them as shareable Motion Graphics templates. A new workspace for working with the Essential Graphics panel in After Effects, named Essential Graphics, is available from the workspace bar. You can access the workspace from the Window > Workspace.

The Essential Graphics panel in After Effects can be used in four main ways:

• As a control surface within After Effects: Use the Essential Graphics panel as a control surface for your compositions. Drag parameters from your timeline into the Essential Graphics panel to create shortcuts for the elements in your composition that you change often.
  
• To create Primary Properties that work as primary controls that allow you to modify the effect and layer properties of a composition when it is nested in another composition.
• To export Motion Graphics templates (.mogrt): Encapsulate your After Effects project into a Motion Graphics template that can be edited directly in Premiere Pro. All the source images, videos, and pre-comps necessary to maintain your design are packaged in the template. Only the controls you expose are available for customization in Premiere Pro, which allows you to retain creative control of your design.
• To group controls, control font properties, and add controls for CSV and TSV spreadsheet data sources to a Motion Graphics template. You can access the groups with the Add Formatting menu in the Essential Graphics panel. The Add Comment command can be accessed from this menu.

Creating Motion Graphics templates in After Effects

Working with Essential Graphics panel

Compositions in Essential Graphics panel

In the Essential Graphics panel, use the Primary drop-down to select a composition in your project to start building a Motion Graphics template.

To open a composition in the Essential Graphics panel in After Effects, do any of the following:

• To open the current composition, select Composition > Open in Essential Graphics.
• To open a particular composition, right-click a composition in the Project panel, and select Open in Essential Graphics.
• To open any composition in your project, select the Primary menu in the Essential Graphics panel.

Primary composition

The Primary composition is the current composition in the Essential Graphics panel. You can add supported properties from the Primary composition to the panel. You can also add properties from the compositions that are in the hierarchy of the primary composition.

Properties from a composition that is not in the hierarchy of the primary composition are considered unrelated properties. When you add unrelated properties to the Essential Graphics panel, a warning message is displayed. The properties are still added to the panel, but are highlighted in red and have no effect when exported as a Motion Graphics template. 

To use unrelated properties, nest the composition containing the properties into the primary composition or the hierarchy.

Add and modify controls

Add controls

You can add supported properties from any effect or any layer property group such as - Transform, Masks, and Material Options.

Types of supported controls:

• Check box
• Color
• Numerical slider (a single-value numerical property), such as Transform > Opacity or the Slider Control expression control effect
• Source text
• 2D point properties, such as Transform > Anchor Point, Transform > Position, and the Point Control expression control effect
• 2D scale properties, such as Transform > Scale
• Angle properties, such as Transform > Rotate and the Angle Control expression control effect

To add a control, drag single or multiple selected properties from the timeline into the Essential Graphics panel.

You can also use the Add Property to Essential Graphics panel command to add properties to the Essential Graphics panel from either the Timeline or Effect Controls panels. Use any of the following steps to add properties:

• Select a property in the Timeline panel, then select Animation > Add Property to Essential Graphics.
• Right-click a property in the Timeline or Effect Controls panel, then select Add Property to Essential Graphics from the menu.

You can also assign a keyboard shortcut to the Add Property to Essential Graphics panel command. See Visual Keyboard Shortcut Editor.

View supported properties

If you want to only view the properties supported by the Essential Graphics panel, select the Solo Supported Properties button in the panel. The button filters the properties and displays the supported properties in the timeline.

Modify controls

You can use the Essential Graphics panel to customize controls in the following ways:

• Rename a control: To rename a control, select the name field of the control and enter a new name, or drag and highlight the current name and enter a new name.
• Reveal source properties: To reveal the source properties of a control in the timeline, right-click the control name and choose Reveal in Timeline from the context menu. The reveal option opens the related composition even if it is closed.
• Reorder the controls: To reorder the controls, drag them up or down in the panel.

The controls that you add to the Essential Graphics panel are linked to the source properties. Changing the value of a control also changes the value of the properties in the composition. For example, if you change the Opacity to 50% in the panel, the value of Opacity in the composition also changes to 50%.

The composition values are simultaneously updated as you slide the value of numerical controls in the panel. To disable the live update feature, hold Option (macOS) or Alt (Windows) as you slide.

Create groups of controls

You can group controls in the Essential Graphics panel for better navigation and reduce clutter. This is helpful when you add long lists of editable controls or the primary properties of nested compositions to the panel.

To create a group, select the Add Formatting menu in the lower-left corner of the Essential Graphics panel, then select Add Group.

To add a control to a group, drag it over the group name.

Font controls

When you add a text layer to the Essential Graphics panel, you can modify and control the font family, font style, size, and faux styles of that layer in a Motion Graphics template. 

Add font property controls to the panel:

Add comments in Essential Graphics panel

To add comments, select the Add Comment button at the bottom of the Essential Graphics panel. You can add multiple comments, rename them, and reorder them. You can also undo and redo adding comments, reorder them, and remove them if necessary.

• To rename, select the name field of the comment and enter a new name. 
• To reorder, drag the comment up or down the panel.

To delete a comment, select the comment and press Backspace or Delete.

Export as Motion Graphics templates

Name the template

To name or rename your Motion Graphics template, select the name field of the template, and enter a new name.

Set poster frame for the template

You can set the poster frame for your template. The poster frame is used as the thumbnail image for your template in Creative Cloud libraries and the Essential Graphics panel in Premiere Pro.

To set the poster frame:

Export a template

To export your composition as a Motion Graphics template:

Open Motion Graphics templates as a project

To edit your After Effects Motion Graphics template (.mogrt files), you can open them in After Effects as a Project file. After you edit the template, re-export it as a .mogrt file.

To open a Motion Graphics template as a project:

You can also modify a Motion Graphics template used in a sequence in Premiere Pro 12.1:

Work with data-driven Motion Graphics templates

Data-driven Motion Graphics templates allow you to quickly and accurately customize bar charts, line graphs, and more, without manual entry or deep knowledge of motion graphics.

With this feature, you can add controls for CSV (comma-separated value) and TSV (tab-separated value) spreadsheet data to the Essential Graphics panel. When you export these Motion Graphics templates with data controls to Premiere Pro, you can modify or replace them in Premiere Pro.

Another use is that the data controls in the Essential Graphics panel can work as a data browser or editor for CSV or TSV data layers in your composition without exporting it as a template. When you add a composition with spreadsheet data to the panel, the panel displays all the related data which is editable. If you are working with a nested composition, the data controls are not accessible as primary properties of that composition.

You can modify the following properties for spreadsheet data in the Essential Graphics panel:

• Spreadsheet Properties: Select Edit Properties to the right of the data group to modify the following:
  • Data property type: Choose the data type for the values in each column. Use this to change how the spreadsheet values are represented in Premiere Pro. An After Effects author sets the type for each column in After Effects. In Premiere Pro, the type translates as either a text string, a hot text slider for numbers, or a hexadecimal value for color (for example, #EE0473).
  • Minimum Rows: In Premiere Pro, you can modify the number of rows used in the Motion Graphics template. Set the minimum number of rows allowed.
• Rows: In Premiere Pro, you can modify the number of rows used in the Motion Graphics template. Set the maximum number of rows allowed.
• Data properties:
  • Column names: Modify the column names that display in the Motion Graphics template.
  • Data values: Modify the value of a spreadsheet cell. To choose the row that you edit, change the Row menu at the top of the Data values group.

For more information on how to use these templates in Premiere Pro, see Work with data-driven Motion Graphics templates.

Basics of Essential Properties

Essential Properties work as primary controls that allow you to access layer and effect properties of a composition when it is nested in another composition. This can be time-saving when you build complex animations across multiple nested compositions as you don't have to open separate precompositions to view their properties. Essential Properties can override their original values and keyframes, which allows you to reuse the same composition as multiple instances with different values. The source composition remains the same, your edits only create instances that you can render after editing your comp.

For detailed information, see Work with Essential Properties to create Motion Graphics templates.

Use expressions to create dropdown menus in the Essential Graphics panel

When you author a Motion Graphics template, it is common to keep the MOGRT flexible for editors using them in Premiere Pro by giving sliders and checkboxes to customize properties. However, for more complex workflows with multiple options, using sliders or checkboxes is not always intuitive, and is time-consuming. You can use the Dropdown Menu Control which is especially helpful for authors of Motion Graphics Templates and editors in Premiere Pro as the menu makes it easier to have more control options and a simpler experience to adjust parameters.

For detailed information, see Use expressions to create Dropdown menu in the Essential Graphics panel.

For more information on how it works in Premiere Pro, see Use Motion Graphics templates in Premiere Pro.

Create MOGRTs with replaceable media and replace media in Essential Properties

When working in the Essential Graphics panel, allow Premiere Pro editors to replace media, such as logos, videos, and other content within Motion Graphics templates. When working within After Effects, change out videos and images with Essential Properties to create rapid iterations on your composites. For more information, see Replace images and videos in Motion Graphics templates and Essential Properties.