Chapter 16: Imported Scenes
An imported scene is a read-only snapshot of a scene taken from another template and dropped into your own as a layer. It is how you reuse a finished intro, lower-third, or branded outro without rebuilding it — and without copying its media.
Replaces compositions. Earlier versions of FX Express had a “compositions” panel for reusable sub-scenes. That subsystem has been removed. Old templates still open — legacy composition data is dropped silently on load — and imported scenes are the supported way to reuse a design across templates.
How it works
Importing takes a snapshot: the scene’s elements, background, duration, and animations are deep-copied into your template under importedScenes, with fresh ids. Two consequences follow from that:
- Media is never copied. The snapshot keeps the media references exactly as the source template wrote them, and they resolve against the source template’s directory — including across projects. Nothing is downloaded at import time, so importing a heavy scene is instant.
- The snapshot is frozen. Editing the source template later does not change scenes you already imported, and you cannot edit a snapshot’s insides from your template. Re-import to pick up changes.
Because media stays where it was, deleting or moving the source template’s media breaks the imported layer’s images and video. Keep the source around.
Importing a scene
- Open the Media tab in the left sidebar.
- Click the + (Import) menu at the top of the panel and choose Import Scene….
- Browse to a template. Templates come from your UserFS tree and, for a project-backed template, from a flat listing of the project’s templates. Clicking a template only selects it; Open loads it.
- Pick one of its scenes from the thumbnail grid.
- Click Import.
The scene appears as a card in the Imported Scenes section of the Media tab, named <template name> / <scene name> by default.
Nested scene layers inside the source scene are stripped during import — one level of nesting only, so an import can never pull in a chain of other templates.
Placing an imported scene
Drag its card from the Media tab onto the canvas. It lands as a scene layer element at the drop point, 50% × 50% of the canvas by default.
You can place the same imported scene many times in the same template; each placement is an independent layer with its own position, size, and timing, all pointing at the one snapshot.
What you can do with a scene layer
A scene layer is an ordinary layer for everything outside it, and read-only inside. Select it and you get:
| Control | Where |
|---|---|
| Position, size, scale, anchor, rotation, opacity, blend mode | Transform section |
| In-time and duration | Timing section, or the Timeline |
| Appearance animation | Floating toolbar, or the Layer properties |
| Keyframes on transform properties | Timeline |
| Lock / hide | Floating toolbar, Layer menu |
| Effects | Layer ▸ Effects |
| Layer order | Layer ▸ Bring Forward / Send Backward |
What you cannot do: edit the elements inside the snapshot, retarget its variables, or double-click into it. The floating toolbar deliberately offers only the name, timing, appearance animation, and lock.
The snapshot plays on its own internal clock, scaled into the layer box, so animations inside it run as they did in the source scene.
Managing imported scenes
In the Media tab’s Imported Scenes section, hover a card for:
- Rename (pencil) — inline rename; use it when
Template / Scene 3isn’t descriptive enough. - Delete (trash) — asks for confirmation and tells you how many layers currently use the snapshot.
Deleting a snapshot that is still in use leaves its scene layers showing a dashed placeholder.
When to use an imported scene
Good fits
- A standard intro or outro shared by every video in a series.
- A branded lower-third designed once, imported into many templates.
- Borrowing one scene’s design from a template you already built, as a starting point for a layer.
Poor fits
- Content you still need to edit — import is one-way. Build it in the host template instead.
- A design that must track changes to its source. Snapshots do not update.
- Something used only once in the template it was designed in — just build it there.
Troubleshooting
The layer shows a dashed placeholder box. The snapshot it referenced was deleted from the Media tab. Re-import the scene and re-place the layer.
Images or video inside the layer are missing. The source template’s media moved or was deleted. The snapshot’s references still point at the source template’s directory. Restore the media, or re-import from a template whose media is intact.
The scene I want doesn’t show in the picker.
The picker lists .fxt templates from your UserFS tree and from the current project. If the template lives in a different project, open a template in that project and import from there, or copy the template across first.
I imported the wrong scene. Delete the card in the Media tab (it will tell you how many layers use it) and import again.