Whether you use the free version of Resolve’s Fusion or standalone Fusion Studio, these expert tips reveal what this compositing platform can do for you

Compositing is essential to any professional VFX pipeline: used extensively even on features and television shows where effects are invisible to the naked eye.

Formerly developed by eyeon Software, Blackmagic Design’s Fusion is a node-based VFX and compositing tool that the industry has relied upon for decades. There was even a version of the software produced in partnership with Alias Wavefront in the late 90s. The latest iteration from Blackmagic Design is available as a free download as part of their NLE and colour correction software DaVinci Resolve, or as a standalone package - and it’s much more than just a professional compositor. From creating god rays to working with ACES and even generating rain particle FX, over the next few pages you’ll discover the best tools and techniques that have made their way into top Fusion experts’ workflows.

CONTRIBUTORS

Tom Hankins Founder & art director at Colorbleed Animation Studios www.colorbleed.nl

Allar Kaasik Senior VFX lecturer, Escape Studios, Pearson College London bit.ly/37WoAdT

Kenneth Turner CG supervisor at Lexhag VFX www.lexhag.co.uk

Matt Hoffman Owner, VFX supervisor, BluFire Studios www.blufirestudios.com

Adam Clark Owner, VFX supervisor/artist at Trick Digital www.trickdigital.com

Julius Worm Owner, compositor, FREIRAUM FX www.freiraumfx.com

Bryan Ray Compositor, Muse VFX www.musevfx.com

Nabil Matiben 3D generalist www.artstation.com/matberg

Shaina Holmes Owner at Flying Turtle Post www.flyingturtlepost.com Assistant professor, Syracuse University bit.ly/2YrVWho

Veikko Luukkonen Visual effects instructor, content creator at Phenomenal Creations bit.ly/2YvVrTs

Vi-Dan Tran Action designer for the Jackie Chan Stunt Team, film director www.youtube.com/user/T7pro

Jamie Dickinson Freelance colourist, finishing editor and trainer www.jamiedickinson.net

Graham Stott Creative lead, Moonraker VFX www.moonrakervfx.com

Colorbleed concept art from cinematic game trailer ‘Legend of Ikto’ created with Fusion

01 INSTALL THE REACTOR PLUGIN

Reactor is a free, open-source package manager that I would recommend for both Fusion and DaVinci Resolve users. It streamlines the installation, distribution and management of third-party content like scripts, fuses, macros, templates and titles. With Reactor, you can install these with a click of a button, rather than having to download, copy and edit individual files manually.

Download it at We Suck Less (www.steakunderwater.com/wesuckless/index.php). Tom Hankins, Colorbleed Animation Studios

02 USE TONEMAPPER FOR A FILM LOOK

One of the more interesting tools available in Fusion is called the ‘Tonemapper’. It’s something that we’ve used on virtually all our projects since its introduction.

By tone mapping using ‘filmic’ curve interpolations, you can create a far more realistic final look for your film. What basically happens under the hood is a Reinhard filter is combined with an S-Curve, giving an image contrast without blowing it out. The process gets rid of any unwanted oversaturated highlights, making final frames more pleasing to the human eye. I especially enjoy the way it handles skin tones, as seen below. Tom Hankins, Colorbleed Animation Studios

03 CREATE BETTER SLOW MOTION

A great workflow to slow down footage from either a camera or CGI render is the ‘optical flow’ node, in combination with a ‘time speed’ node.

When slowing down footage, you usually either get stuttering or a horrific blending of frames. With optical flow, intermediate frames are created. When plugged into a time speed node, these additionally generated frames give slow motion much smoother results.

What some people might not know, is that by using a ‘Copy Aux’ node you can convert the generated vectors from the ‘optical flow’ node to colour values for all sorts of crazy results. Tom Hankins, Colorbleed Animation Studios