Templates overview

A Nubu template is a packaged After Effects project that Nubu can render at scale. The design stays exactly as your designer built it; a small schema file describes which parts campaign data may change.

The three building blocks#

• Template comps: the compositions Nubu renders as finished outputs. A template can carry several, for example a 1080x1920 story and a 1080x1080 feed post.
• Properties: individual layer values (a headline, a colour, a price) exposed as editable fields. Flows pipe campaign data into these.
• Footage: images, video and audio registered as swappable slots, so every render can use different media.

Everything else in the project is left untouched and renders exactly as designed.

The workflow#

1. Install Nubu Builder, the After Effects panel that manages the schema.
2. Add template comps to mark what gets rendered.
3. Add properties for every value campaign data should control.
4. Add footage for every image or clip that should be swappable.
5. Set defaults so the template renders correctly with no data.
6. Export the package and zip it.
7. Upload it to Nubu.

Package anatomy#

An exported package is one folder containing everything a render needs:

Your Template/
  Your Template.aep         The After Effects project
  Your Template.nubu.json   The schema: comps, properties and footage
  (Footage)/                Every registered media file, relinked
  (Fonts)/                  Fonts collected from the project
  examples/                 A rendered example per template comp
  thumbnail.jpeg            The cover image shown in Nubu

Zipped, this folder is exactly what the app's template upload expects.

Who builds templates#

Anyone comfortable in After Effects can build one; these guides assume working AE knowledge but nothing more. If you would rather not build your own, our team can turn your existing creative into templates for you. Get in touch.