Import and Output
Media can be imported and output through Media In/Media Out and Loaders/Savers
Media In – Imports media by accessing the project’s Media Pool.
- Create a timeline using a clip or clips from the Media Pool
- In the Resolve Edit tab, select a clip from the timeline and choose “New Fusion Clip,” right click this Fusion Clip and select “Open In Timeline”
- Switch to Fusion tab and you will see your footage as a Media In node. A Media Out node is also automatically created.
- Dragging another clip from the Media Pool into the nodes window will create another Media In
Media Out – Outputs to the Resolve Color tab.
- A Media Out becomes the Source (the point before the first node) in the Color tab
- You can add additional Sources in Color to correspond with multiple Media Outs from Fusion. For example, See OUTPUTTING MATTES TO COLOR
Loader – Imports media by accessing your disk directly, bypassing Resolve’s media management
- A Loader must be used to bring image sequences, EXRs into Fusion
- Add a Loader node (Add Tool > I/O > Loader)
- Navigate to the file using Browse.
- Global in/Global Out – Where in the timeline the footage starts and ends
- Trim In/Trim Out – Set the first and last frames of the imported sequence
Saver – Renders to your disk
- Add a saver node (Add Tool > I/O > Saver)
- Set filename and location
- Saver will render as EXR sequence
You can use Loaders/Savers to create temporary renders that you import back into Fusion to work with or preview in your composition.
Nodes Basics
In Fusion nodes are used to manipulate and combine footage. You can add nodes by right clicking in your Nodes window > Add Tool, OR hit Shift+Command+Space to search for a tool by name.
Nodes have:
- Input and Output – Each node’s Output (gray square) connects to the following node’s Input (gold arrow)
- Effect Mask Input – Connect this to a node whose alpha channel you want to use as a mask/matte
Displaying In Viewers
In Fusion, media is displayed in Viewers. There are 2 by default and additional ones for additional monitors. Each viewer displays a specified node – showing how the composition looks at that point in the node flow. All viewers will display the same point in the timeline
Choose Viewer to display a specific node by:
- Select a node, hit 1,2,3… on your keyboard to select the corresponding viewer number
- Clicking on the circles under each node
- Dragging a node to a viewer
Viewer LUT – used to preview footage in a different color space, will not affect the output from Fusion
- Right click on a viewer > LUT to enable, choose, and edit the LUT
- Make sure to make any Color Space conversions with actual nodes NOT the Viewer LUT if you need to output with that conversion
Timeline & Playback
Timeline Window:
- Yellow marks indicate the in and out points that Fusion will playback
- White marks indicate keyframes
- Green line indicates what has been render cached
Caching refers to rendering the timeline or section of the timeline for smooth playback, by saving temporary render files to RAM or disk. This is like rendering in Premiere for smooth playback. There are a several settings that enable and control caching:
- Playback > Render Cache
- Smart: Davinci decides what to cache
- User: Cache’s area set by your in and out points
- Playback > Fusion Memory Cache: enables caching for Fusion
Proxy – You can also help ensure smooth playback with Proxies, playing at lower resolutions options:
- Playback > Proxy Mode: Options for half and quarter resolution
- Right clicking near your Timeline controls: Options to enable Proxy and Auto Proxy
- Auto Proxy: Playing back at a lower resolution preview while you are in the middle of adjusting an effect, position, scale, etc.
Keyframes
Nodes parameters have a button to add keyframe to their right.
Keyframe Window: View all nodes and their keyframes.
- Note that the stack of nodes is not like a stack of layers in AE, it is just a list of all your nodes
- You can adjust timing of keyframes here, moving them around, but do not have the deeper controls like in Spline
Spline Window: Allows you to see and edit animation curves (easing)
- You can manually adjust the curves of each keyframe OR…
- A quick way to do a standard Ease In or Out is to select a keyframe and hit F
Merge Basics
A Merge tool is used to combine two elements. This node has:
- Foreground Input (green arrow): Connect to the element you want to appear in front or on top
- Background Input (gold arrow): Connect to the element you want to appear behind or below
- Effect Mask Input (blue arrow): Connect to the element you want to use as a mask/matte for your Foreground Input.
- Under Merge Settings
- Size: Changes size of the foreground element (Rescaling the background requires a transform node preceding the Merge)
- Apply Mode: Blending modes
Operator: Options for how the background footage can be used as a matte for the foreground.
Masking Basics
To create a rectangle or ellipse shaped mask, simply create a Rectangle or Ellipse node and connect to the Effects Mask input (blue arrow) of the footage you wish to mask. You can adjust the dimensions and position in the node settings.
To create a custom mask shape, create a Polygon node and connect it to the Effects Mask input (blue arrow) of the footage you wish to maskl. Draw the shape of the mask in the Polygon node with the pen tool.
Note: Rotating these shapes might not be as intuitive, you click on the dotted circle in the middle of the shape and drag.
Animating the mask:
- Create keyframes by moving to different points in the timeline and moving one or more keyframes
- You can adjust the timing of the keyframes in the Keyframe Window or Spline Window.
Motion graphics Basics
NOTE: This section is intended to describe things that are not immediately obvious or intuitive to someone with an Adobe/After Effects background, rather than a comprehensive tutorial on motion graphics.
Lines and Shapes
Line (stroke): Create with Polygon node. Draw points with pen tool and set stroke thickness with the Border Width setting
Shape: There is a Rectangle and Ellipse node to create those shapes, custom shapes can be created with the Polygon node.
Transform
The above mentioned tools all have transform controls in their node settings, including position (“Center X and Y), scale, rotation.
You can also edit these characteristics by connecting your shape to a Transform node.
- This can function like parenting in AE.
- Transform multiple shapes by connecting them with a merge that plugs into a Transform.
Animating
Transform: values like position and scale can be keyframed within the node’s controls. See KEYFRAMES
Animating Shape Path
Unlike transform values you will not see a setting along the lines of “Path” paired with a keyframe icon to animate the actual shape. Instead this is done by:
- Simply moving from one point in the timeline to another and dragging the points of the path. This will create keyframes that you can view and edit.
- To set a keyframe without any change in shape, look for the option “Right-click here for shape animation” at the bottom of your shape’s node settings.
Type
Create text with the Text+ node
There are various controls within this node to adjust the appearance of the text.
There is a useful built in option to animate the text to Write On
Note that in the Transform tab, adjusting the Spacing for “Characters” and “Lines” is the same as/corresponds to settings in the Text tab for “Tracking” and “Line Spacing.” while Spacing> “Words” seems to be a unique control for the space between words.
Shading: There are some useful tools under the Shading tab:
- Shading Elements: Allows you to stack versions of your text with different appearances. For example this allows you to create text on top of a drop shadow, on top of a border (as in the above screenshot)
- Select Element: Enable and edit multiple elements
- Sort by: Decide whether these elements are stacked in numerical order or Z axis position
- Appearance: Whether your text appears as normal, as an outline, or as a filled or stroked box determined by the bounds of your characters, words, or lines.
- This box option seems really useful if you want to create rectangular mattes based on the size and shape of your text
- A drop shadow effect is created by setting the text to normal appearance and adjusting the softness and position offset.