How to Make a Style

Watch the overview, or read on for a step-by-step guide.

What’s a CucoStudio Style?

Instead of creating a one-off After Effects template that gets old quickly, a CucoStudio Style lets you build a reusable and flexible system.

Designers retain full control over visual identity. Writers and editors get a frictionless interface to create videos without needing to touch After Effects.

Key Concepts

A Style is made of shots — just After Effects compositions.

Each shot contains two key layers:

• Frame — where CucoStudio places visuals like images, videos, or GIFs.
• Text — for on-screen text.

When a story is turned into a video, CucoStudio picks the most fitting shots and fills them with content.

For more detail on these elements, see the Concepts page.

Get Started

There are two ways to begin:

Option A: Start from scratch

1. Open After Effects and create a single shot composition.
2. Add your Frame and Text layers.
3. Use the CucoStudio Toolbox script to test your shot in the app.
4. Once it works, expand by adding more shots.

Option B: Modify an existing Style

1. Visit the Styles page and download a published Style.
2. Open it in After Effects to see how it’s structured.
3. Modify the design however you like — just don’t rename or delete the Frame and Text layers or comp names.

Loading Your Style

When you’re happy with your first shot:

1. In After Effects, go to File > Dependencies > Collect Files.
2. Zip the collected project folder.
3. In CucoStudio, go to the Styles page and click Create Style.
4. Drop your zip file into the Project section.
5. Optionally, add a voice sample in the Voice Sample section (you can upload a file or record directly).
6. Click the + button to save your Style.

CucoStudio will render a preview video to confirm everything loaded correctly.

Adding Voice

CucoStudio has a built-in text-to-speech model that creates narrations from plain text. You can customize the voice by providing a sample with your desired tone.

Updating Your Style

Your Style can grow and evolve over time — add new shots, refine timing, or change the voice.

To update:

1. On the Styles page, find your Style and click Edit.
2. Upload a new project zip or voice sample.
3. Click the + button to save your changes.

Adding a Poster

Include a GIF in your Style’s zip and it will be used as an animated poster.

We’re constantly expanding what Styles can do — so your design system can evolve with it.

Your design is not a file. It’s a system.

If you are encountering any issue, join us on our discord, we are a very small team but we’ll make sure to help you out.