The Photopia Blog
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APRIL 1, By Photopia
Creating Custom Variants and Featured Settings with Photopia Director
Custom Variants and Featured Settings can be created for both Slide Styles and Transitions. They are created using the same process for both effect types, so let’s dive right in.
When creating Photopia Effects that have variations, you’ll need to be familiar with the following terms:
- Image and Show Aspect Ratio Variants
- Custom Variants
- Featured Settings
You can watch the video or read the transcript below it.
Aspect Ratio Variants
In Slide Styles Image Aspect Ratio Variants allow the style to adjust based on the image orientation added to the slide.
The creator of the Slide Style must specify these variations. Image orientation is set for each variant in the Variants tab. If your Style works with more than one image orientation without any modifications, select all appropriate image orientations. Photopia will automatically apply the correct variant based on the orientation of the image added to the slide.
Variants can also be made for different Show Aspect Ratios. You can test your variants in different Show Aspect Ratios by selecting them from the Drop Down menu above the preview window. If changes are needed, create a new variant. You don’t have to make variants for every Show Aspect Ratio, especially if you are making them for personal use and you rarely use more than one or two Show Aspect Ratios.
Custom Variants
Custom Variants can be nearly anything you can think of. These will be displayed as a dropdown menu in the Featured Settings Section of the Slide Style or Transition window. Each Style or Transition can have only one Custom Variant concept, and all of the custom variants should be related to that concept.
For example, this Slide Style has custom variants for Zoom In and Zoom Out.
When creating these variants, name each custom variant in the Description box in the Variants Tab. This is the word or phrase seen in the dropdown menu.
The general concept of the Custom Variant should be added in the Featured Settings tab as the Descriptive Label for your Custom Variant. This is the word or phrase that will be shown next to the dropdown menu.
Featured Settings
Featured Settings are somewhat different from Custom Variants. They allow creators to highlight specific customizable options for users. Any option with a gear icon can become a Featured Setting. These can include settings like Outline Color, enabling a Shadow, and color adjustments such as blur and opacity.
In the Essential Pan and Zoom Styles changing the background color was added as a featured setting. This was done by first selecting Colorize for the background layer, which turned it black and white. Then, a featured setting was added for the Mid Color by clicking on its gear icon.
In the Featured Setting window for Mid Color, we gave this setting a Name, a Description, and a Default Value. When a featured setting is applied the gear icon turns green.
To link multiple layers to the same featured setting, click a gear icon for another attribute, either on a different layer or on a different attribute on the same layer, and select the option to apply an existing featured setting. Linking Featured Settings this way only applies to layers in the same slide variant.
If you have multiple featured settings, you can change their list order using the up and down arrows in the Featured Settings Tab.
Transition Custom Variants are created in the same way:
- Create Unique Variants
- Name each Variant in the Variants Tab
- And give the overall Custom Variant a descriptive name
Featured Settings are also created the same way as they are in Slide Styles:
- Select a Gear Icon next to an attribute
- Configure the settings or link options in the Featured Settings Window
- And in the Featured Settings tab
As always, don’t forget to test your Custom Variants and Featured Settings in a show. If something doesn’t look right, go back to your effect Project and make any necessary adjustments.
