DaVinci Resolve Fusion Basics for After Effects Users

if you're trying to replace after  effects with davinci resolve fusion   then you've come to the  right place let's get into it basically 99.99 of whatever you could do in  after effects can also be done in fusion it's   really powerful you can create composites and  animations it's got shape tools and 3d lighting   effects if you're not used to using nodes then at  first fusion's going to feel really complicated   but rest assured with a better time in practice  you get to the point where it just clicks anyone   can learn it and getting your head around nodes is  all you need to learn in order to make the switch so everything you would normally have as a layer  will now be contained within one or a few nodes   like this and that counts for things like effects  and masks too they all have their own individual   nodes but to give you a better idea of how this  works today i'm going to make an animated text   intro that looks like this super simple but  there's more than enough here for us to get   to grips with the basics of fusion so to get  started and resolve from our edit page we're   going to come up to our effects tab here we're  going to search for fusion composition and drag   that onto our timeline now what we did here was  essentially the same as creating a new composition   and after effects but instead of setting our  frame rate and dimensions on the composition   they're taken directly from our project  settings and resolve you can find these   if you go to file project settings and  then you click on the master settings tab   so with our clip selected we're then going to  jump into the fusion tab once you're in there   you'll see a single node called media out  the whole purpose of the media out node is   to bring everything you make and fusion back out  to the edit page you'll notice it's got a little   orange input here and whatever you feed into  this node is going to display on your timeline   and this will make much more sense once we  actually build something that feeds into this now when you first open up a new composition in  after effects it automatically gives you an alpha   layer background as a canvas to work on within  fusion though we need to set this up and so the   first thing we're going to do is click on this  icon here this is a background node i'm going to   click and drag this background node into the node  viewer and then i'm going to click on this little   output connector and i'm going to drag this into  the input of our media out node now black screen   is going to appear in the viewer here which is  exactly what you want this is our background   which defaults to black now with our background  node selected over here in the inspector panel   we can then start to select a color now if you  don't see this it's just cause you need to hit   this tab up here now this looks quite basic but  we actually have a ton of options here i'm going   to set up a linear gradient and if i click these  little arrows here i could start to adjust the   color for each side of the gradient i'm going  to go over this magenta red combo here for now now by clicking on these little handles here i  can even move the position of where the gradient   starts and ends so i'm going to move them up  to the corners here now there's a lot more   this little background node can do but i'll come  back to that in just a moment from our node viewer   this gives us an overview of what we've built so  far so we have this background generator node and   it's fed into our media out node which brings it  through to our edit page so next we need to add   other elements on top of this we're going to add  another background node here and this might seem   confusing but stick with me for now instead of  connecting this one up we're going to hit 1 on   our keyboard and then this is going to let us view  this node independently and the other viewer here   now i'm going to set up a little gradient  here with our second background node   this time using some blues but you'll notice  that it tells us under the node here which   viewer we're using to see this you can compare  this to the media out node which is using viewer   two and it doesn't really matter what one  you have on one and what one you have on two   they're interchangeable so we just have one or  two on the keyboard and it lets us independently   view whatever node we have selected and  yeah i understand after effects can do   this too but when you're working with nodes  this is a particularly useful tool to know so next i'm going to grab this little square  shape here this is a rectangle mask and a mask   if you're unfamiliar with it basically lets us  cut a shape out of whatever we're working on   it works the exact same way as a mask in after  effects and we're going to use this to create   our little spinning square now if we were to  create a new solid and after effects and then   use a mask to create a shape from that this is  basically the same approach we're using here   so i'm just going to grab the output of this mask  and connect it into our background node and then   easy as that we have a little rectangle  shape now i'm just going to adjust the   width setting and the inspector window here so  that we have a square instead of a rectangle   then i'll dial in a little bit of roundness to  the corners here i'm going to set the angle to 45   then lastly i'm also just going to name  our background layer here to square   just so we don't get that mixed up with our other  background node there's a lot you can do with   these mask nodes you can make them outlines only  you can have them drawn on and this is just one   of the many ways that you can go about creating  a shape and infusion you create a background node   and then you feed a mask into it the mask nodes  are very useful in fusion and there's lots of   different types but unlike in after effects where  they sit within the layer drop down in fusion   they work as their own node and they've got a  very easy way to identify them and that is by   the color of the connectors now this is really  important to remember blue connectors are masks   most nodes have inputs and outputs and the input  for a mask is separate from that and it's always   blue so this blue connection identifies that this  node is masking this one okay so we've got our   background set up and we've also got our shape set  up too how do we bring these together so that they   can both be fed into our media out node well for  that we're going to use this little guy here the   merge node now the merge node is the single most  important node that you will use in fusion you're   going to use it all the time and its function is  very very simple it has two inputs a background   input and a foreground input and it combines  these together and outputs them as one now the   background input is this standard yellowish orange  color and then the foreground is the green one so   if i take the output of our square node here and  i feed this into the foreground of our merge node   and then i disconnect our background from the  media out and feed this into the background of   our merge node then we've effectively joined these  together now with merge node selected if i then   press one on the keyboard i can check this in the  first viewer now to make sure it's come through to   the edit page i'm just going to connect the output  in the merge intermediate out as well by joining   multiple merge nodes together we can actually  start to layer things up in the same way that we   would normally do in after effects quick tip for  you if you click and drag a node into the chain   like this it will automatically add in and so i  can add another merge here which will allow us to   add a third layer on top of what we already have  here and i'm going to use this for our intro text   the text nodes are pretty straightforward they  let you add text in the same way that the text   tool does in after effects so i'll quickly set up  my phone here and connect it up to our merge node   and get it to size that i'm happy with now  let's say i wanted to add a drop shadow to this   if we're in after effects i just go to my effects  and presets tab search for shadow click and drag   this onto the actual text layer now within fusion  rather than adding the effect to the node we add   it in the chain after the node so if i come up to  our effects tab here and i just search for shadow   then i drag this in between our text and merge  node it will add a drop shadow to our text and   from the inspector window if i've got that  node selected i can adjust the detail of this   pretty easily i'm just going to bring this  back because it's a bit too strong just now   it's not just effects that are set up this way  something you'll find on every layer in after   effects is transform controls now in fusion we've  got a node for this and depending on where you put   it in the node tree that'll determine what you  want to move around so with my shadow selected   if i hit shift and spacebar this lets me do a  quick addition and the chain here before the   merge so i've searched for transform and hit ok  basically this is going to allow us to transform   anything that's coming into it which for now is  this text now i want this to zoom in so i'm going   to go to about frame 50 in our timeline here  and hit this little icon on the size parameter   i'm then going to move the playhead to frame 0  and give it a value of 0 so it zooms in like this and if you're used to after effects this will be  nothing new to you here we're basically keyframing   our animations keyframing and fusion really isn't  that different to how we keyframe in after effects   the main difference though is how  we move and adjust our keyframes and   for this we've got two tabs we're going to  use spline and keyframes the keyframes tab   looks like this and before you get excited  no these are not layers they look a bit like   layers but they're not this page just lets  us see where we've positioned our keyframes   the actual order of these has nothing to do with  the layering of our elements so you can see if i   open up this transform it lets us grab and move  about the keyframes just the same as it would on   our timeline and after effects now as you start to  build up more complex animations and fusion this   area can start to get very busy so recommendation  i would give you is to come up to these three dots   here and select show only selected tools this  means that as you navigate around your nodes   you could just click on them and then quickly  see the keyframes and if you command click a   second one it will highlight them both and  bring them side by side if you need that the spline tab lets us adjust the  speed and easing of our movements   basically the same thing as our  graph editor and after effects   so i'm going to use this just to make a  nice little overshoot animation like that now i made a whole tutorial about  easing functions and fusion so if   you're interested in learning a little bit  more about that then you can click the link   up here to watch that video now something  else that's helpful in the spline section   is this little button here it will automatically  resize your graph into your viewing window to   make it easy for you to see it at a glance but  with this text animation done next i'm going to   do a very similar thing with our square shape  by adding a transform node into the chain here   now this will let me control our shape size  position and rotation and i'm just going to   keyframe in the same animation again but this  time i'm going to add a bit of rotation to it now this is looking pretty good so far but if  you want to add motion blur to some of your nodes   you'll usually find that in settings tab on the  node itself so we've animated both our transform   nodes here so i could go in and turn on motion  blur and there's a bunch of controls that let me   control how detailed that is i can adjust the  shutter angle and things like that now just a   word of caution motion blur can be quite cpu  intensive so a good tip is just to add it to   the end after you've done all your movements so  something else you might use a lot of in after   effects is blending modes so just to polish off  a little animation here i have this little dust   overlay effect i want to add in between our shape  in the background now in after effects there's a   toggle on each layer to adjust this and this is  exactly the kind of thing that we would use the   screen blend for to do this in fusion i'll just  drag this in and then you'll notice it's brought   in as a little node called media n quickly rename  this to dust overlay now if i click and drag the   output of the dust overlay into the output of  the background node it will create a new merge   and automatically connect up both nodes it's a  handy little hack that i use all the time from   here if we click on the merge node we can adjust  the apply mode to screen to get the same effect   i'm going to bring the blend down  to 0.6 just to reduce it down a bit   something to keep in mind for the merge node is  that the controls in the inspector panel only   adjust what's coming into the foreground input the  background input just gets completely bypassed now   let's say you're happy with this text animation  but you don't really want any of the background   stuff going on you want to overlay this over some  footage in the edit page well that's easy to do   in fusion i'm just going to disconnect everything  from here on so disconnect our background nodes   the merge node and our dust overlay here and just  move these to the side for now then i'll create a   new background node i'll connect this one up to  the first merge and the yellow background input   now i'm going to keep it black because we need it  to be black for this to work and then i'm going   to dial back the alpha control to zero and that  creates a completely transparent layer and this   is really useful for things like lower thirds or  logo animations that you want to keep transparent   because from here you could just have it moved up  a layer and then bring whatever footage you want   underneath in the edit page really simple now  having fusion fully integrated as its own page   is really useful you could jump in and out  of there and just adjust things on the fly   but sometimes you may want to just start a  composition or just get started with an idea   you don't necessarily want to set up a whole  resolve project to do that what's cool though   is that there is a standalone version of fusion  and it's called fusion studio it works the exact   same way as fusion and resolve except rather than  linking everything up to a media out node you link   everything up to what's called a saver node and  then from there you can basically just render   it out as a prores file or a video file you're  choosing it's really powerful and you can use   that to save composition files that you can later  import into resolve there is a cost associated to   it but as i understand if you already have a copy  of davinci resolve studio then you automatically   get a license for fusion studio and you could just  download it as a standalone if you haven't already   bought davinci resolve studio you should seriously  consider it if you're switching away from adobe   then let me know in the comments or if you've  just got a question that you need answered i'd do   my best to answer everyone so just pop it in the  comments for me and i'll see you in the next one you

Channel: Ryan Osborne

Views: 91,398

Keywords: DaVinci Resolve Fusion, Fusion, Animation, DaVinci Resolve, After Effects, Switch away from adobe, Adobe Alternatives

Id: Wm2Y9ae7LNc

Length: 14min 20sec (860 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 30 2022