Skip to main content

Assets

Assets are files you upload to a channel to reuse, such as a logo, an intro clip, background music or a set of drawings. Open a channel and select the Assets tab.

Upload an asset​

  1. Select New asset.
  2. Enter a Name. Names must be unique within the channel.
  3. Choose the Kind: Image, Video, Audio, Drawing (SVG), 3D model or Font. The file picker then only offers files of that kind.
  4. Optionally add Tags, separated by commas, such as intro, brand.
  5. Under File, drop a file onto the box, or select it to choose one.
  6. Select Create. A bar shows the upload's progress.

If the name is already taken in the channel, the dialog says An asset named "…" already exists in this channel and keeps your file, so you can change the name and try again.

Drawings (SVG)​

A Drawing (SVG) is read when you upload it, so a file that can't be drawn is refused straight away, with the reason. Reelcraft reads paths, rectangles, circles, ellipses, lines and polygons, with their colours and the transforms of the groups they sit in, and draws them on screen line by line. Text, embedded images, gradients, filters and masks can't be drawn (convert text to outlines first), and files with scripts are refused. A drawing is limited to 60 shapes and 512 KB; merge shapes into fewer paths if it has more.

Fonts​

A Font is a .ttf, .otf, .woff or .woff2 file, up to 20 MB. Reelcraft checks it when you upload it, so a file that isn't a font is refused with Not a font file. For a TrueType or OpenType file it reads the font's family name (such as Brand Sans); a WOFF file is named after the asset. Words use the font when a plan names the asset by its name (see Compose Timeline), and the font travels with the timeline into the render and the editor's preview. Motion graphics can use them too: bind them to Generate Motion Graphic's assets. Only use fonts whose licence lets you embed them in videos.

Find an asset​

Each card shows a preview, the asset's kind, its size, its dimensions for images and video, the length of a video, and its tags.

Above the cards you can:

  • Search assets… by name;
  • show one kind only, or All types;
  • sort by Newest first, Name or Size.

Use an asset in a stage​

In a stage's inspector, bind a slot or a piece of context to asset, then pick the asset by name. See Connecting stages. For example, bind an intro clip into a Concatenate Video stage, or background music into a timeline.

When a run starts, it records which file each asset pointed to, so the run isn't affected by what you do to the asset afterwards.

The library​

Everything you upload forms the channel's library, together with a few assets that come built into Reelcraft: drawings (such as a lightbulb, a brain, arrows) and sound effects (a pop, a whoosh, a pencil scratch). Bind library in a stage's inspector to hand the stage a catalogue of them: each asset's name, kind, tags and length. You choose which kinds to list, which tags are needed, and whether to include the built-in ones.

This is how a video can use only what you uploaded: bind the library without the built-in assets to the stage that plans the video and to Compose Timeline. The planning model can pick only from the catalogue, and Compose Timeline refuses any id that isn't in it. To let a video mix uploaded and generated assets, give it both. See Layered videos.

When a run starts, it records which assets the library held, so uploading or deleting assets while it runs doesn't change what it sees.

Make a voice from a recording​

An audio or video file in the library has Make a VoiceStudio voice on its card. It saves the voice in VoiceStudio. A Generate Speech stage can then speak in it with a VoiceStudio engine that can clone voices (such as OmniVoice). The file can be up to 50 MB.

Delete an asset​

Select the bin on the asset's card and confirm.

  • The name is free again straight away, so you can upload a replacement with the same name.
  • Runs that already used the asset keep working.
  • A blueprint that still uses the deleted asset shows an error, and new runs of it won't start until you pick another asset.
  • The file is removed from storage in the background. By default that happens about 30 days later.
LUTs

The Assets tab mentions LUTs, and older channels may still list some. You can't upload new ones, because no stage uses them yet.