Tutorial 01 — Beginner
Installing Captyne in After Effects
Get Captyne running in your After Effects installation in under five minutes. Covers the installer, license activation, and verifying the panel loads correctly.
- Download the Captyne installer (.exe)
- Run as administrator and follow the setup wizard
- Open After Effects → Window → Extensions → Captyne
- Enter your beta key to activate
- Panel loads and displays version badge
Tutorial 02 — Beginner
Your First Captioned Video
The full end-to-end workflow from opening a composition with audio to exporting a video with fully animated caption layers. Completed in under 10 minutes.
- Open a composition with audio or video
- Click Transcribe Audio in the Captyne panel
- Review the word-level transcript for errors
- Select a caption preset style
- Click Generate Captions — layers are created instantly
- Preview and export as normal
Tutorial 03 — Beginner
Using the Word Editor
The interactive word editor is where you fix AI transcription errors, control line breaks, and mark emphasis words before generating any layers.
- After transcription, the word editor displays all words as clickable tokens
- Click any word to rename it — fix proper nouns and technical terms here
- Select adjacent words and click Merge to combine them into a single token
- Click a word and toggle Emphasis to mark it for a stronger animation
- Set Max Words Per Line to control caption line breaks
- Watch the live preview update as you make changes
Tutorial 04 — Intermediate
Marker-Driven Timing: Full Control Without Keyframes
Every animated caption layer Captyne generates is driven by markers. This tutorial explains how the marker system works and how to use it to fine-tune animation timing on any word.
- After generation, select any word layer in the timeline
- Locate the IN_END and OUT_START markers on the layer
- Drag IN_END left or right to change when the in-animation completes
- Drag OUT_START to control when the exit animation begins
- For effect presets with mid-animation points, adjust the MID marker
- All effects update in real time — no keyframe editing required
Tutorial 05 — Intermediate
Creating Your Own Caption Preset
Build a reusable caption animation style using any After Effects effects — including third-party plugins. Save it as a preset that generates correctly in any project.
- Open the Preset Creator in the Captyne panel
- Start from a blank template or modify an existing preset
- Add any After Effects effects to the word layer template
- Use the spatial expression system to make effects adapt per-word
- Set up IN, MID, and OUT marker trigger points
- Name and save your preset — it appears in the main preset list
Tutorial 06 — Intermediate
Multi-Level Caption Control: Master, Group, and Word Nulls
Captyne generates a three-level null hierarchy that lets you reposition and transform your captions at any scale without breaking animations.
- After generation, find the CAPTYNE_MASTER null at the top of your layer stack
- Move CAPTYNE_MASTER to reposition all captions simultaneously
- Find individual CAPTYNE_GROUP nulls to move specific caption lines
- Select individual word layers for fine-grained position control
- Scale or rotate at any level — effects follow the hierarchy
- Use master null expressions to animate the whole caption system
Tutorial 07 — Advanced
Using Third-Party Plugins in Caption Presets
Captyne presets support any After Effects plugin installed on your system. This tutorial covers how to use Deep Glow, Optical Flares, and other popular plugins inside a caption preset that generates correctly.
- Open the Preset Creator with a plugin-based effect in mind
- Apply your third-party plugin to the word layer template
- Configure the effect's position parameters to use Captyne's spatial expressions
- These expressions automatically adapt the effect to each word's bounding box
- Test by previewing with words of different lengths
- Save the preset — it requires the plugin to be installed on any machine that uses it
Tutorial 08 — Advanced
Captioning Long-Form Content Efficiently
Tips and workflow strategies for using Captyne on videos longer than 10 minutes — managing layer counts, reviewing long transcripts efficiently, and keeping render times manageable.
- Split long compositions into segments before captioning
- Use keyboard shortcuts in the word editor to review long transcripts quickly
- Generate captions in segments and nest into a master composition
- Use the master null to position all segment captions consistently
- Pre-render caption segments to reduce timeline complexity
- Export SRT alongside the video for platforms that support external captions
Tutorial 09 — Advanced
Creating Presets with Dynamic Marker Controls
Build a preset where every animation phase — in, hold, mid, and out — is driven entirely by markers. No hardcoded frame numbers. Timing adapts automatically to every word Captyne generates.
- Understand the four markers: IN_START, IN_END, MID, OUT_START, OUT_END
- Use marker.key("IN_END").time in expressions instead of raw frame numbers
- Build opacity and scale animations driven by normalized 0→ marker progress
- Add an optional MID marker effect (sweep, glow, pulse) during the hold phase
- Use sourceRectAtTime() to make effects adapt to each word's actual pixel width
- Test with short, medium, and long words before saving