Tutorials Motion

Titles and Motion Graphics: Where Resolve Is Worse

By Infinite Creation · Intermediate · ~11 min

The Problem

Every other page in this series describes a change. This one describes a loss. If your work leans on Essential Graphics templates, on a live relationship with After Effects, or on buying motion graphics packs, the move to Resolve costs you something real and no amount of enthusiasm about the Color page makes up for it. This page sets out exactly what the gap is, because finding out mid-job is expensive and finding out now is free.

Method

Understand the three title tools, because they are not tiers

Resolve offers a simple Text generator, Text+, and Fusion Titles. They are not a beginner, intermediate and advanced sequence. The simple Text generator supports rich text, which means a single body of text can have selected parts styled differently. Text+ is the more powerful generator, built on the Fusion title tools, with considerably more control over styling, rendering and animation. Fusion Titles are pre-built templates assembled in Fusion.

Learn the limitation that catches everyone

The manual states it directly: Text+ does not support rich text, and all title text shares a single style. So the more powerful generator is the one that cannot style one word differently from the rest. A lower third with the name bold and the role light is trivial in Premiere and, in Text+, requires two separate text elements. This is the single most common surprise in the first week of titling in Resolve.

Accept that Essential Graphics has no equivalent

There is no .mogrt system, no equivalent of the template library, and no way to receive a template from a designer and have a producer fill in the fields without touching the design. Fusion Titles are the nearest thing and are a different proposition: they are templates in the sense of a starting point, not in the sense of a packaged, parameterised asset.

Rebuild your recurring titles once, properly

The practical answer for most working editors is to build the three or four titles you actually use over and over, as Fusion compositions saved to the Effects library, and stop looking for a template marketplace. That is a day of work that pays back over a year. It is also genuinely better than the Premiere equivalent once done, because the result is yours and parameterised how you want it.

Price the gap before you promise anything

If a client relationship depends on turning around branded graphics quickly from supplied templates, that workflow does not transfer. Either keep Premiere or After Effects for that strand of work, or rebuild the templates in Fusion and charge for it once. Pretending the gap is not there is how a migration becomes a missed deadline.

What the Method Assumes

An honest inventory of how much of your current work is graphics led
Resolve installed, to try the title generators against a real job

Gotchas

Two stacked Text+ elements are the standard answer to the single style limitation. It is not elegant and it is what experienced Resolve editors do.
Save your rebuilt titles to the Effects library immediately. A Fusion composition that lives in one project has not been rebuilt. It has been postponed.
The simple Text generator is the right choice more often than people expect, precisely because it supports rich text.

Knowledge Base

Reference Notes

Where the gap comes from, and what the working answer is.

Why there is no template marketplace

Essential Graphics works because a .mogrt packages a design with a defined set of editable fields, which makes it safe to hand to someone who will not open the design. Resolve has no equivalent container. Fusion compositions can be saved and reused, but they are the design rather than a parameterised wrapper around it, so handing one to a producer hands them the whole thing. That difference, rather than any shortage of features, is why a template economy grew around one and not the other.

The two element workaround, and why it is not a hack

Because Text+ applies one style to all of its text, a lower third with a bold name above a light role is built as two Text+ elements rather than one. This reads as a workaround and is closer to how a compositor would build it anyway: two objects with independent animation, independent timing and independent styling. It is more work to set up once and more flexible afterwards, which is a fair summary of the whole Fusion trade.

Where This Fits

Titles are one part of the edit, and Video Production Fundamentals covers the edit's place between capture and delivery.

FAQ

Q: Can I import .mogrt files?
A: No. There is no equivalent system and no import path. Templates have to be rebuilt.

Q: Is Fusion a replacement for After Effects?
A: For compositing inside your edit, largely yes. For the template ecosystem, the plugin market and the volume of available learning material, no.

Q: Which title tool should I default to?
A: The simple Text generator when you need mixed styling in one block, Text+ when you need control over animation and rendering and the whole title shares a style.

Vocabulary

Text generator Resolve’s simple title tool. It supports rich text, so selected parts of one body of text can be styled differently, such as a bold name above a light role. That makes it the right choice more often than its plain name suggests.

Text+ The advanced title generator in Resolve, built on the Fusion title tools, with more control over styling, rendering and animation. It does not support rich text, so all of its text shares a single style, and mixed styling needs two stacked elements.

Fusion Titles Pre-built title templates assembled in Fusion and offered alongside the Text and Text+ generators. They are a starting point you open and change, not a packaged asset with editable fields, which makes them the nearest thing Resolve has to Essential Graphics.

Essential Graphics The Premiere system for templated motion graphics, where a .mogrt packages a design with a defined set of editable fields. A producer can fill those fields without touching the design. Resolve has no equivalent system and no way to import a .mogrt.

Sources

The limitations described here are stated in the vendor manual, read directly. Checked 2026-09-11.

Blackmagic Design, DaVinci Resolve 21 Reference Manual. Read 2026-09-11. Page 1223, Titles, Generators, and Stills, describes the Text generator as supporting rich text, where a single body of text shares one set of rich text controls that let selected parts be styled differently. It describes Text+ as not supporting rich text, as an advanced title generator based on the title generation tools on the Fusion page with significantly more options for styling, rendering and animating, but states that all title text shares a single style. Fusion Titles are described as a variety of pre-built title templates assembled in Fusion.