Red Giant Universe
Version 2026.0.1 · Maxon · Windows 10 / 11 (64-bit) · ranked #211 in the library
A single install that drops well over a hundred GPU accelerated transitions, glows, glitches and text tools into every host on the machine, so the look you want is a preset away instead of a weekend of node building.
Read the installation section below before you start. The order of the steps matters on this release.
About this release
Overview
Universe is a plugin collection rather than an application. Install it once and the effects appear inside Premiere Pro, After Effects, Final Cut, Media Composer, Resolve, Vegas and the rest of the supported hosts, each one presented with the parameter layout that host expects. The whole library is GPU accelerated, which is the practical difference between scrubbing a timeline with six effects stacked on it and waiting for a green bar to crawl.
The library splits into a few working groups. Transitions cover everything from clean push and wipe geometry through to the heavier chromatic and glitch treatments that carry a cut in a music video. Effects handle glow, chromatic aberration, film grain, halation, retro CRT and VHS emulation, holographic and knoll style light work, and a set of stylised looks that behave like graded treatments rather than filters. Generators and text tools cover animated titles, kerning aware type on a path, and the terminal and code style typography that shows up in title sequences.
Everything is preset driven with a live thumbnail browser, and every preset is a starting point rather than a locked look. Open the parameters and you get the full control set underneath, so a preset glow becomes your glow in about four adjustments. Presets you build can be saved back into the browser and carried between hosts, which matters when a series is cut in one application and finished in another.
What it does
Feature breakdown
Well over a hundred tools in one install
Transitions, effects, generators and text tools, all installed together and all available in every supported host without separate licence handling per plugin.
GPU accelerated across the board
Effects render on the graphics card rather than the processor, so stacking several on a clip still plays back at something close to real time on a timeline.
Preset browser with live thumbnails
Hover a preset and it animates against your own footage rather than a stock clip, which is far quicker than applying and undoing to audition looks.
Glitch, retro and film emulation set
Chromatic aberration, VHS dropout, CRT scanlines, holographic separation, film grain and halation, all with enough parameters to dial them from subtle to destroyed.
Text and typography tools
Animated type generators including terminal style reveals, kerning controls, type on a path, and layout options that survive a change of frame size.
Consistent parameters between hosts
The same effect exposes the same controls whether you opened it in a timeline editor or a compositor, so a look built in one place is rebuilt in another in minutes.
Changed in this build
Version 2026.0.1
- Preset browser rebuilt with faster thumbnail generation and a search field that matches on tags as well as names.
- New set of light leak and halation tools with physically weighted falloff options.
- Glitch tools gained a seed control so a randomised look can be reproduced exactly on a second clip.
- Improved GPU memory handling on cards with 8 GB or less when several effects are stacked.
- Host support extended to the current release of every supported editor and compositor.
Installation
Follow these in order
- Close every host application before starting. The installer writes into their plugin folders and will not touch a running one.
- Extract the archive to a folder on a drive with a few gigabytes free.
- Pause real time protection while the activation step runs.
- Run the installer as administrator and tick the hosts you want the plugins registered in.
- Let it finish, then apply the included activation before opening anything.
- Launch one host, confirm the Universe category appears in the effects list, then restore protection.
Release notes
From whoever packed it
- The installer detects hosts by their registry entries. Install your editor first, then Universe, or the plugins will not appear.
- No background licensing service is installed and nothing runs at startup.
- Projects made with these effects need the plugins present on any other machine that opens them, otherwise the effect layers come in offline.
System requirements
Minimum and recommended
| Operating system | Windows 10 version 21H2 or Windows 11, 64-bit only |
|---|---|
| Processor | Any modern multicore Intel or AMD processor |
| Memory | 8 GB minimum, 16 GB recommended when running inside a compositor |
| Graphics | GPU with 2 GB VRAM and OpenGL 4.0 support, 6 GB recommended for 4K work |
| Storage | 6 GB of free space for the full library |
Questions about this release
Answered before you ask
- Does it work in Resolve as well as Premiere?
- Yes. The OFX build covers Resolve and the other OFX hosts, and it is installed by the same setup.
- Will it slow down my timeline?
- Effects render on the GPU, so the impact is far lower than software based plugins. Stacking six or seven on one clip on an older card is where you start to notice it.
- Are presets shared between hosts?
- Custom presets are written to a shared folder, so anything you save shows up in every host on the same machine.
Download
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