Templater Editions and Licenses
Templater is currently available as three separate editions, each with a specific feature set. There are also several licensing options, including fixed, floating, and metered usage licenses.
Read our handy descriptions below to see which edition or combination of editions and licenses is right for your studio.
Templater Licensing Models
There are two types of Templater license keys, Standard (node-locked) and Floating. The license key type is set at the time of purchase. Each license key type corresponds to a different build of Templater. These keys are not interchangeable—if you purchase a Standard license key, you will not be able to activate a floating license build of Templater. Conversely, a floating license key cannot be activated in the standard license version of Templater. If you purchased the wrong key type, please contact support.
The Templater Standard license is a node-locked, or fixed, license. This means it is allocated to a specific computer. However, if you need to move the license to a different machine, you can manually deactivate the license and then reactivate it on another computer. This might be needed if you get a new computer, if you have personnel changes, or for other reasons. Deactivation and reactivation can be done from within Templater Preferences or from your Dataclay.com profile. The Standard License is sufficient for most users.
What is a Floating License?
A floating license is one that can move available activations between client machines easily and automatically. Templater can automatically lease a license from a pool of activations. Templater's floating license keys do not directly activate Templater—instead they activate our intermediate server software, Dataclay License Manager (DataclayLM), that you install and configure separately. You will then need to point the machines running Templater to the licensing server.
When After Effects quits, Templater's license is released and returned to the pool of activations. If the machine After Effects is running on is no longer available, DataclayLM will release the license after a user-configurable amount of time. The DataclayLM setup files are available at dataclay.com/downloads/license-manager/.
TIP This configuration is particularly useful when using virtual machines. In contrast, if you use a standard, node-locked license, every time you reboot or spin up a new virtual machine, Templater will need to be deactivated and reactivated manually.
Metered usage licensing supports a pay-as-you-go model for customized video outputs with Templater. It combines:
- A perpetual license for Templater Rig, allowing you to map data to dynamic elements in video comps and perform live previews using that data within those comps. Templater Rig licenses can be either Standard or Floating.
- A free QUE license, giving you access to the QUE Meter
- Ability to purchase QUE Credits when you're ready to output customized videos. Spot check, replicate, and render each consume one credit per output. Your QUE Credits balance is tracked by your QUE Meter and can be seen in both Templater and QUE at any time.
Templater Editions
Templater Rig allows you to prepare an After Effects project file for dynamic content, map data from a data source to your project file, and preview how dynamic elements change as information from your data source is processed.
TIPS Choose
Templater Rig when:
- You find that swapping content in your project file takes too much time.
- You want to prepare an After Effects project file to render with a different studio machine running Templater Pro or Templater Bot.
- You want to create an After Effects project compatible with Templater Pro to sell or distribute as a template.
- You want a perpetual license to combine with pay-as-you-go production using QUE Meter.
Templater Pro extends Templater Rig by offering desktop automation, allowing you to render or replicate batches of versioned compositions using data from your data source. You can prepare an After Effects project file for dynamic content, map data from a data source to your layers, preview, replicate, and render.
TIPS Choose
Templater Pro when:
- Your clients have a database of customer information, and they require a quick turnaround for many unique videos based on that data.
- Your studio has multiple artists who need to work concurrently on different variations of a master composition.
- You have purchased a Templater-compatible After Effects template and want to create many unique versions of it quickly based on data from a data source.
Templater Bot is a fully automated enterprise solution for custom video on demand. It works as an automated system. You can use it to check for incoming data periodically, pull new data in, and render video as a background process. Or you can use a command line interface to push data in to create new renders. Once your After Effects project is initially prepared, you can use Templater Bot to customize and render it without operating the After Effects user interface. Developers can create front end applications, such as web or mobile apps, that feed data into the Templater data source, offering a collaborative, custom video content creation solution.
TIPS Choose
Templater Bot when:
- You need an efficient way to create anywhere from 15 to 15,000 unique videos based on a data source.
- You want to automatically create a video based on web form input and run a script to upload it to a server.
- You want to integrate Templater into an existing automated production pipeline.
- You need to automatically run a script after every render job or after all render jobs are complete.
Table 1: Feature Comparison for Templater Editions
| Use a QUE Campaign as a Data Source |
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| Use a JSON-formatted Text File as Data Source |
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| Use a Google Sheets Document as Data Source |
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| Use a Tab-separated Value File as Data Source |
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| Use a Remote JSON URL Feed as a Data Source |
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| Local Footage References |
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| Cloud-based Footage References |
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| Apply Layout Rules |
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| Project-specific Batch Assets Presets |
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| Preview Compositions with Data |
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| Log Templater Activity to File |
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| Batch Replicate Compositions |
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| Batch Render Compositions |
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| Batch Render with Adobe Media Encoder |
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| Custom Output File Naming |
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| Switch AE Projects within the Data Source |
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| Run Shell Scripts while Templater Processes |
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| Command-line Interface Control |
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| Version AE Projects as a Background Process |
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| Process Extremely Large Data Sources |
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What is a Standard (Node-Locked) License?
