How to Use Filmit Studio in DaVinci Resolve (Full Walkthrough)

Every host handles plugins a little differently, and DaVinci Resolve is the one that surprises people most. If you have used our tools in After Effects or Premiere Pro, you are used to opening a panel from a Window or Extensions menu and finding everything inside it. Resolve does not work like that. The panel is a Workflow Integration, and the effects and transitions do not live in the panel at all. None of it is hard, it is just different, and once you know where things are you stop looking.

So this is the full first-run walkthrough for Resolve. I made it for anyone who has just installed the desktop app and wants to know exactly where to click. We will cover the Studio dashboard and the My Tools listing, opening the panel inside Resolve, signing in, running your tools from the sidebar, updates, the profile menu, and the part that catches almost everybody, which is applying Filmit effects and transitions natively through Resolve's own OpenFX library.

You can follow the whole thing without paying for anything. Downloading Filmit Studio is free and does not ask for a card, and there are a couple of free tools in there, so you can take this tour end to end before you decide about a subscription.

The Resolve integration installs itself during the Studio tour

Start with the desktop app. When you install Filmit Studio and walk through the studio tour, that tour installs the Filmit Studio integration for DaVinci Resolve for you. There is no second installer to hunt down, no folder to dig into, and nothing to copy into a Resolve scripts directory by hand. By the time the tour finishes, Resolve is ready to go.

That is deliberate. Resolve integrations have to sit in a specific place on disk, and that place is different on Mac and PC. A wrong path is the single most common reason a panel never appears, so we do it during setup instead of asking you to. One small thing: if Resolve was already open while Filmit Studio was installing, quit it and reopen it once, because Resolve looks for its integrations when it launches.

The desktop dashboard and the My Tools listing

Open Filmit Studio on your desktop and the first thing you see is your dashboard. Under that is the My Tools section, and inside My Tools there is a DaVinci Resolve listing. Everything we currently ship for Resolve is collected there, so you can browse the set, see what is already installed, and install anything you have not added yet.

It is worth spending a minute in that list on your first visit, for two reasons. First, so you know what you actually have available before you go looking for it in Resolve. Second, because the same subscription covers the plugin suite across After Effects, Premiere Pro, and DaVinci Resolve, plus the effects and transitions. Anything you install for Resolve here shows up in the panel sidebar the next time you open it.

Open the panel: Workspaces, Workflow Integrations, Filmit Studio

Now switch over to Resolve. The path is Workspaces, then Workflow Integrations, then Filmit Studio. That is the whole thing, and it is the same path for any Filmit panel you have installed.

This is the difference that matters most if you are coming from Adobe. In After Effects and Premiere Pro, our panel is a CEP extension and you open it from a Window or Extensions menu. In Resolve it is a Workflow Integration, so it lives under Workspaces and it behaves like a native Resolve integration once it is open. Learn Workspaces, Workflow Integrations, Filmit Studio and you will never have to go looking again.

Signing in from inside Resolve

Most people are already signed in at this point, because signing into the desktop app carries over into the panel. If for whatever reason you are not, you can sign in without leaving Resolve. The panel gives you sign in with Google or sign in with your Filmit account, the same two options you get on the desktop.

Once you are in, you land on the panel home screen. That is your base for everything else in this walkthrough.

The left sidebar is your tool list

Down the left side of the panel you will see the tools you have installed. Click one and it opens right there in the panel. In the walkthrough I open RoughCut straight from the sidebar, then jump over to Sourcer, and switching between them is a single click. JumpCut and Organizer sit in the same list.

Two habits worth picking up early:

• Collapse the sidebar when you are working. Click the sidebar toggle and it folds away, which hands you a lot more room inside the panel. This is not cosmetic. Docked panels in Resolve are not enormous, and a tool with a dense interface is much more comfortable with the sidebar out of the way.
• Treat each tool's settings as its own thing. Every tool has an individual settings panel tied to that tool. What you configure in one does not leak into another, so you can set each one up the way you want it and it stays that way.

There is also a Contact Support button in the panel, and it goes to us directly. That means you can report something from inside Resolve, mid-project, without opening a browser or hunting for an address. If a tool does something odd, use it right then while the details are still fresh.

Live tools and what is on the roadmap

Inside the panel you get two lists: your live tools and our roadmap. The live list is what runs in Resolve today, and in the walkthrough that includes RoughCut, JumpCut, Organizer, and Sourcer.

The roadmap section is where we show what is heading to Resolve next. More tools are on the roadmap and we are actively porting, so it is worth a look now and then rather than assuming that something you rely on in After Effects is never coming across. I would rather show you the queue than have you guess at it.

Updates: one update covers your tools

When there is an update to Filmit Studio, you find out in two places. The panel inside Resolve shows a notification, and the desktop app shows one as well. From the panel, click Open Studio App and the desktop app comes straight up so you can run the update from there.

The part people miss is what a single update covers. Updating Filmit Studio also updates your tools, including your DaVinci Resolve tools. You are not stepping through plugins one at a time. Run the update in the desktop app, restart Resolve so the panel reloads, and you are current across the board.

Effects and transitions live in Resolve's own Effects library

This is the section I most want to be clear about, because it is where the Resolve workflow diverges hardest from the Adobe hosts. Filmit effects and transitions for Resolve are not applied from the panel. They install as OpenFX plugins, which means you apply them natively, from Resolve's own Effects library, exactly the way you would apply any other Resolve effect.

The order of operations:

1. Minimize the Filmit Studio panel so you can see your timeline.
2. Open the Effects library in Resolve.
3. Click Filters. The Filmit effects are listed in there.
4. Drag the one you want onto a clip in your timeline. In the demo I drag the VHS effect onto a clip, and that is it, the effect is applied.
5. Adjust the parameters in the Inspector, the same as any other Resolve filter.

Transitions follow the same route with one obvious difference: a transition needs two clips. So instead of dropping it onto a single clip, you drop it on the cut between two clips. From there you drag its edges to set the duration, which is normal Resolve behavior.

We built them this way on purpose. Because they are real OpenFX plugins, they render through Resolve and they show up in the Inspector like anything else in your project, and the Filmit Studio panel does not even need to be open for you to use them. Native beats bolted on, especially in Resolve.

The profile menu

The last stop is your profile for the main Studio app, and it does what you would expect. From there you can:

• Sign out
• Manage your account
• Open the Studio app on your desktop
• Join our Discord
• Join our Reddit community
• Contact support

Discord is where we spend most of our time with customers. Feature requests, bug reports, and what we are building next all land there first, and it is the fastest way to get an answer out of us. You can find it at filmit.io/discord.

What it costs, and what you can try for free

Filmit Studio is a subscription, and it covers the plugin suite for After Effects, Premiere Pro, and DaVinci Resolve, plus the effects and transitions. There is a 7 day free trial that unlocks the suite, and the trial does require a card. Downloading Filmit Studio itself is free and needs no card at all, and there are a couple of free tools inside, so you can install the app, take this exact tour, and try things before you commit to anything. If you do subscribe, the code MAX10 takes 10% off. The details are at filmit.io/studio.

Quick recap

• Installation is handled for you. The studio tour in the desktop app installs the Resolve integration during setup.
• Open the panel from Workspaces, Workflow Integrations, Filmit Studio. In Resolve it is a Workflow Integration, not an Extensions-menu panel.
• Sign in wherever you are. The desktop sign in carries over, and you can sign in with Google or your account inside the Resolve panel if it did not.
• Run your tools from the left sidebar, collapse it for working room, and configure each tool in its own settings panel.
• Update once. Click Open Studio App from the panel, run the update, and your tools update with Studio.
• Apply effects and transitions in Resolve, not in the panel. Effects, then Filters, then drag onto a clip, or onto the cut between two clips for a transition.
• Support is one click away from inside the panel, and the profile menu gets you to Discord, Reddit, and your account.

That is the whole tour. If you get stuck at any point, hit Contact Support from inside the panel or come find us on Discord, and tell us what you want ported to Resolve next. We build a lot of what we build because someone asked.