This template looks really cool.
Let's try it! Wait, what ? Oh, come on! One of the main reasons to build a good template
is to be able to reuse it in future projects. And while building macros
and templates is fairly straightforward, We've made some pretty
good video on that subject. People often run into issues when
it comes to using them into other projects, or sharing them with others. In this video I'm going to show you,
what is causing your nodes to turn red, and how to solve this by making your
macros and composition fully portable. Let's get started! To understand why your templates might fail, you must first understand how your
media files are handled inside DaVinci Resolve and Fusion studio. In DaVinci Resolve when you import a Media
inside your project, it is placed in the Media Pool. And a unique ID is automatically assigned to it. So whenever you add a clip or an image to
a timeline or a fusion composition, this ID will be the link to the element inside
the Media Pool, not the source file. Fusion studio on the other hand,
doesn't have media pool and all the media that you will use
inside a composition will be loaded with a direct link to the source file. Ok, let's take this composition as an example. It is a simple 3D animation that
was built inside this project. I can very easily add it to
any timeline with no issue. If I open it inside Fusion, you will see that this MediaIn is a direct
reference to the image inside the Media Pool. Renaming this image or moving
it to different bin is totally fine, as this image is linked to the composition,
using its unique Media ID, not the name But if I were to delete it , some part
of the composition would fall apart. Now I would like to bring this
composition to a new project and there's many ways to do it. I could export the whole composition, save those nodes as a setting file,
or build a proper Macro or a template. I could also export the whole bin that contains
not only the composition but also the image. Let's do that. In the media pool, I am going to right
click on the bin and choose Export Bin. Save it and start a new project. To import the bin, right click inside the
Media Pool and choose Import Bin. Double click on the composition and right
away we can see that something is wrong. Look at those nodes While the image is sitting right here inside
the Media Pool, the MediaIn is referencing to a Media ID that only exists
inside another project. But how do we fix this ? Well, we could of course replace the MediaIn
with a new one by dragging this image from the media pool, dropping it over
the MediaIn node and selecting Replace. That might be simple enough but it is very messy and
totally impractical in more complex compositions. And the solution is actually simple, because if the MediaIn is causing so
much trouble, when creating templates, we'll just get rid of it. Do not think that the MediaIn is rubbish, because this is a very handy tool,
allowing us to add effects to a timeline, without requiring
any external software. It was just not designed for templates. As we would in Fusion Studio, we will use the Loader tool to bring
assets inside the composition. DaVinci Resolve Loader is a lot simpler
than the one in Fusion Studio and the type of media that it
can handle is fairly limited. You can't load a video for example
and to add one inside your composition, you would have first to export
it as an .exr image sequence before the Loader can handle it. So select the MediaIn node, right click and choose replace. Go to IO and select Loader. Browse to your source file and click Ok. Now as long as your source file
isn't moved or renamed, your composition or template
can be used in any project. I like to rename my nodes to easily find them
and at a glance, know what's their job. To rename a node, type the [F2] key.
I'm going to name it "Logo". All this is great. If you are the kind of creator that is very
organized and like to keep a fixed library of assets, to work across multiple projects. Not so much, if you prefer
everything to be self-contained or would like to share a
template with someone else, as their directory structure is likely
to be very different than yours. This can be easily fixed by changing
where the Loader will look for the media, but first we need to build a
template out of this composition. I am going to quickly cover the process, but if you need to learn in detail
how to create a Macro or Template, we will have videos linked in the description. I am going to select all my
nodes except the MediaOut. Right click on a node,
open the Macro Editor And select everything, that I
want included in my template. Give it a name and save it inside
the Template\Edit\Generators folder. I am saving it to this folder, to be able to
apply the template directly on the timeline. While we're here, why not create a
custom thumbnail for our template. You can do this right from your
composition, by adding a Resize tool. This will receive an image from your final output and resize it to the proper resolution. As the design is fairly small, I am
also adding a Transform node to properly reframe it and
fill up the thumbnail. Select the resize node, change the Width resolution to 108 and
select the Keep Frame Aspect option to avoid the image to appear stretched. Now right click in the Viewer
and choose Save Image. Save it wherever you want for now. The template appears right away
inside the Fusion page Effects Library, under Templates and whatever
folder you might have chosen. Now to make your effect fully independent,
we need to edit our template. You will find tutorials showing
you to reopen the template, edit the Loader, rebuild the
whole macro inside the editor and save it again to override the original. This is not only messy. It can also be time consuming
and can wreak havoc inside a meticulously crafted template. It is by far, easier, cleaner and faster to
directly edit the template setting file. So right click on your effect
and choose Show Folder. This is a good time to make a copy of all your
media files and paste them inside this folder. Same for the thumbnail, that we also must
rename to exactly match the template. If like me you like to keep things organized,
you can even create any number of folders or subfolders to neatly place all your assets. Open the template setting file
inside your favorite text editor. I personally prefer using Atom with the
Lua package for all my scripting needs. Look for the loader by using the
search feature if necessary. One good reason to properly rename your nodes. and for the Filename parameter
and always between quotes, replace the file path by "Setting" ":" Whatever extra folder that you might
have created, followed by a / and the name of your media, with the extension. Type [Command]+[S] or [Ctrl]+[S]
to save and close the window. The template inside Fusion Effects
library is automatically updated, but for the thumbnail to show up or to be able to use this
effect inside the Edit page you sometimes have to restart DaVinci Resolve Now, if you want to pack this
template and media together inside a shareable and installable package, You must create a DRFX file. Which is nothing more than a zip
archive with the extension renamed to be handled by DaVinci Resolve. You just need to create the folder structure that matches wherever you saved your template. So, in this case edit\generators\ Making sure that you spell those folders correctly as DaVinci Resolve wouldn't
be able to map them otherwise. Copy your template, thumbnail
and media inside that folder and make an archive with a
software like 7zip, which is free, lightweight and multi-platform. Avoid using the built-in compressor, if possible, as it can sometimes cause a DRFX
file to not be accepted by Resolve I am setting the compression level to minimal and rename the extension from .zip to .drfx To avoid creating duplicates
when testing this bundle I am going to delete all the files
inside the Generators folder. Effectively removing them from the Effects Library. Now to install the bundle you can either
manually place it inside the template folder or even simpler, double click on it, to
prompt an install from DaVinci Resolve. It's that easy! Look at this nice thumbnail! Just by hovering it I can see
the template is working and if I want to test it,
I'll drag it to my timeline, play it... and if I want to change the image,
I can still access the Loader. In our next video I will show you how to build this kind of simple
3D animation inside Fusion. But for now, if you liked this video,
leave a thumbs up! and make sure to check our playlist
about VFX and DaVinci Resolve. And I'll see you, in the next video. See ya!
