Red Giant Universe

Overview

Universe is the plugin collection editors reach for when a cut needs to look like somebody made a decision about it. Well over two hundred transitions and effects, all accelerated on the graphics card so they preview in real time rather than forcing a render, installed into whichever editors and compositors are on the machine.

The transition set is the half that gets used daily. Glitch, warp, shear, camera style whip pans, light leaks, film burns, channel offsets, tile and grid breaks, and a set of clean geometric wipes for work that needs restraint. Every one is a plugin with parameters rather than a baked clip, so duration, direction, intensity and colour are adjustable per use and keyframable if a shot needs a specific timing.

The effect side is broader. Glow and light processors including anamorphic streaks and optical diffusion, blur and distortion including chromatic aberration and lens simulation, retro looks covering film grain, halftone, scan lines and colour degradation, generators for backgrounds, grids, gradients and light rays, text and title tools with beveled and extruded output, and a set of practical utilities for chroma keying, denoising, sharpening and colour correction.

The point of a collection rather than individual plugins is consistency. Everything shares an interface layout, everything is accelerated the same way, presets carry across from one host to another, and an effect built in the compositor behaves identically when applied in the editor. The installer detects every supported host on the machine and installs into all of them from one pass.

Key Features

• Over two hundred transitions and effects accelerated on the graphics card
• Real time preview without rendering on supported hardware
• Transition set covering glitch, warp, whip pan, light leak, film burn and geometric wipes
• Glow and light processors including anamorphic streaks and optical diffusion
• Blur, distortion, chromatic aberration and lens simulation effects
• Retro look set with film grain, halftone, scan lines and colour degradation
• Generators for backgrounds, grids, gradients, light rays and particles
• Text and title tools with beveled and extruded output
• Practical utilities for keying, denoising, sharpening and colour correction
• One installer detecting and installing into every supported host on the machine

What Changed in This Build

• New transitions and effects added across the glitch and light categories
• Faster rendering on the current generation of graphics hardware
• Preset browser rebuilt with searching across the whole collection
• Improved consistency of results between host applications

System Requirements

Processor	Intel or AMD 64-bit with AVX2
Memory	8 GB minimum, 16 GB recommended
Graphics	GPU with 4 GB VRAM and current drivers, required for acceleration
Storage	6 GB free
Host	A supported editor or compositor already installed

Release Details

Full title	Red Giant Universe
Version string	2026.0.1
Publisher	Maxon
Category	Video Editing
Licence	Full collection, no term limit
Platform	Windows 10 and 11, 64-bit
Interface language	English interface
Archive size	1.86 GB
Mirrors	4 active, all reporting online
Listed	refreshed 4 weeks ago, checked again 40 minutes ago

Installation Notes

• Install your host applications first, the installer only offers hosts it can find on the machine.
• Update your graphics driver before first use, the acceleration path is driver sensitive and a stale driver looks like a broken plugin.
• If a host does not see the plugins after install, check that it is scanning the plugin folder the installer chose rather than reinstalling.

Before You Start

Read the notes above before running setup. Most of the problems people write in about are covered there, and almost all of them come down to an older version of the same software still being installed, a graphics driver that predates the release, or a security suite quarantining part of the package mid install.

There is no archive password on this or any other entry in the library. If something you downloaded elsewhere claims to come from here and asks for one, it did not come from here. Nothing on this site is behind a survey, a shortener or a countdown either.

If the entry does not match what the page describes, say so on the contact page and include the version string from the release details table. Reports naming a specific version get checked first because the checker can reproduce them straight away.

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