Essential Graphics

Expose layer properties to the Essential Graphics Panel for creating Motion Graphics Templates (.mogrt).

Overview

Essential Graphics lets you create templates with editable properties that can be modified in Premiere Pro or other apps. Compdown supports adding properties to the panel and reading them back during export.

Basic usage

Add an essentialGraphics array to a composition:

compositions:
  - name: Lower Third
    layers:
      - name: title
        type: text
        text: "Breaking News"
      - name: bar
        type: solid
        color: FF0000

    essentialGraphics:
      - title.text
      - title.transform.position
      - bar.transform.opacity

Two forms

Simple form (string)

Just the property path. Uses the path as the display name:

essentialGraphics:
  - title.text
  - title.transform.position

Expanded form (object)

Customize the display name and options:

essentialGraphics:
  - property: title.text
    name: "Headline"
  - property: title.transform.position
    name: "Title Position"

Schema

Property	Type	Required	Description
property	string	yes	Property path
name	string	no	Custom display name
encodePathInName	boolean	no	Enable round-trip encoding (default: true)

Property paths

Format: layerName.propertyPath

Transform properties

Path	Property
layer.transform.position	Position
layer.transform.scale	Scale
layer.transform.rotation	Rotation
layer.transform.opacity	Opacity
layer.transform.anchorPoint	Anchor Point

Text properties

Path	Property
layer.text	Source text

Effect properties

Path	Property
layer.effects.EffectName.PropertyName	Effect property

essentialGraphics:
  - property: bar.effects.Gaussian Blur.Blurriness
    name: "Blur Amount"

Round-trip support

By default, Compdown encodes the property path in the controller name:

Display Name [path:layer.transform.position]

This allows exported YAML to include the full property path, enabling workflows like:

1. Create comp from YAML with Essential Graphics
2. Modify in Premiere
3. Export back to YAML with paths preserved

Disabling path encoding

For cleaner names in Premiere (at the cost of round-trip):

essentialGraphics:
  - property: title.text
    name: "Headline"
    encodePathInName: false  # Name will be just "Headline"

Complete example

compositions:
  - name: Title Card Template
    width: 1920
    height: 1080
    duration: 5
    layers:
      - name: title
        type: text
        text: "Main Title"
        fontSize: 72
        fillColor: FFFFFF
        transform:
          position: [960, 400]

      - name: subtitle
        type: text
        text: "Subtitle goes here"
        fontSize: 36
        fillColor: CCCCCC
        transform:
          position: [960, 500]

      - name: background
        type: solid
        color: 1a1a2e
        effects:
          - name: Gaussian Blur
            properties:
              Blurriness: 0

    essentialGraphics:
      - property: title.text
        name: "Main Title"
      - property: subtitle.text
        name: "Subtitle"
      - property: title.transform.position
        name: "Title Position"
      - property: background.effects.Gaussian Blur.Blurriness
        name: "Background Blur"

Limitations

WARNING

• Not all properties can be added to Essential Graphics. Compdown checks canAddToMotionGraphicsTemplate() and silently skips unsupported properties.
• Custom names (addToMotionGraphicsTemplateAs()) require After Effects CC 2019 (16.1) or later.
• Legacy Essential Graphics entries created manually export as name-only objects without property paths.