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An Introduction to Visual Effects Compositing
When mutants attack or aliens land spaceships on Earth, filmmakers turn to visual effects artists to make those shots reality. You can use visual effects to create images that cannot be realized with live-action production. Anything that’s too difficult, too dangerous, or even too expensive to capture with a camera, you can create with visual effects compositing.
DaVinci Resolve has the full Fusion visual effects and motion graphics toolset built in, which makes it possible for you to create feature film-quality effects without switching between software applications!
While you can create simple visual effects in the edit page, you’ll find more advanced tools for building sophisticated, photorealistic effects in the Fusion page. It features a flow graph-style interface, known as a node tree, designed specifically for visual effects and motion graphics work.
As you read through the following lesson, you’ll begin to understand the many tasks you might choose to perform using Fusion’s complete 3D workspace and over 250 compositing and visual effects tools. Best of all, it’s now part of DaVinci Resolve, so you can switch from editing, color grading, and audio post-production to visual effects and motion graphics with a single click!
Compositing What Is Visual Effects Compositing?
Compositing is the process of combining two or more images to make a unique, new image. But it’s not just about combining images. You can composite many different elements such as video clips, animations, text, mattes, particles, and graphics. Sometimes these elements are called layers because they are layered on top of each other to produce the new image.
Many tasks fall under the umbrella of visual effects. Just as with color and audio postproduction, visual effects are a huge and exciting part of the creative filmmaking process. Depending on the type of work you do, you may need to learn some or all of the skills needed to create a finished visual effects shot. Smaller productions often require you to build shots from start to finish, whereas larger studios may have specialized artists dedicated to tasks such as rotoscoping, 3D, particles, lighting, and so on.
Even when you are hired as an editor or a colorist, you will often be asked to produce smaller effects. Like all aspects of post-production, learning the tools and techniques requires practice. Understanding the technology behind the tools will improve your problem-solving skills and efficiency.
As industry deadlines tend to grow shorter, editors and colorists who know how to finish shots quickly and efficiently are in the highest demand. Learning the basics of Fusion visual effects in DaVinci Resolve—along with color correction and audio post-production— will make you a more valuable artist and open up more job opportunities.
Getting Started with Visual Effects
Visual effects were once a luxury reserved only for big-budget feature films. With the power of Fusion built into DaVinci Resolve, you can add feature film-quality visual effects to any program without a massive budget.
If you think visual effects are only about creating aliens, spaceships, and explosions, you are missing out on the many smaller effects that can improve any project. In fact, most visual effects consist of corrective effects, clean-up work, or inserting subtle hidden effects such as sky and window replacements. These effects don’t take long to do and can improve everything from poorly framed B-Roll to dull gray skies.
Adding Elements
Weather is unpredictable, and when the story calls for snow, you need snow! That’s why creating elements such as snow, rain, fog, and even lightning are essential skills of the visual effects artist. You can use the particle system in Fusion to create realistic weather elements that move, fall, and drift naturally.
Sometimes it’s just too dangerous to do things on a real set. For example, smoke, flying debris, and fire are always dangerous when actors and an entire crew are involved. In many cases, these elements can be shot separately, and you can composite them in later as a safer yet realistic-looking alternative.
Animals and Kids
The unpredictable nature of working with animals and children can slow each shooting day to a crawl. Being able to divide and conquer a shot by splitting it up and shooting animals separately from main action can ensure that you get the shot completed without schedule overruns. Through seamless compositing, you can combine each section of a frame to create a realistic split-screen composite that looks like one take.
Sky Replacement
A perfect sunset or a bright blue sky with puffy clouds are great backdrops for any scene, but weather is out of your control. When everyone is on set, the equipment is rented, and the clock is ticking, you’ve got to get the shot even when the weather isn’t cooperating. That’s where the (extremely common) art of sky replacement comes in. Fusion’s keyers, rotoscoping tools, tracking, and 3D compositing can remove ugly gray skies or salvage overexposed skies. Add in some Fast Noise or volumetric effects and that clear blue sky can include beautiful dramatic clouds that weren’t there during the shoot With the 3D controls in Fusion, you also can simulate the light direction, atmospheric haze, and realistic parallax camera movement—all elements that can make the difference between a believable sky replacement and a cheap, artificial fake.
Performance/Cosmetic Fixes
Correcting or improving an actor’s not-quite-perfect performance can avoid the need for expensive reshoots. This common compositing task is rarely noticed by an audience and can be simple to do, depending on the required fix. For instance, a detail often missed during shooting (but painfully obvious in the screening room) is when an actor portraying a dead body involuntarily moves his eyes. Compositing closed eyes from one frame over an entire shot is a skill that can save the shot and be repurposed for many similar fixes. The removal of scars, tattoos, or uneven tan lines all use similar techniques and can be performed using Fusion’s planar tracker, paint tools, and rotoscoping.
Changing Locations
Production budgets always limit where and when you can shoot a scene, but simple environmental enhancements can disguise those limits and change the feel of an entire scene. Such effects can consist of replacing windows in a moving car because you couldn’t close Times Square to shoot your scene, or “moving” the ground-floor apartment location you could afford to a penthouse view. These are common tasks for the visual effects artist and can be very quick fixes for editors and colorists to perform.
Wire Removal
Visual effects are also used to add realism to already dangerous stunts. Getting performers to fly across the screen either from explosive force or supernatural powers often requires safety harnesses and wire rigs. You can hide those rigs and wires using Fusion’s simple clone tools and tracking, a task that editors and colorists can take on in a pinch when the visual effects artists are busy with larger composites. Plus, the wire removal skills you use in Fusion techniques can also apply to removing lighting stands, telephone wires, and unsightly antennas.
Set Extensions
You can take environment enhancements to the next level to create entire set extensions that visually transport your audience to a specific location (while keeping your production safe at home on a sound stage.) Instead of shipping the whole cast and crew to the Himalayan foothills, you can replace the background of your shots with temples and mountains and snow. For period pieces or science fiction, such effects can save enormous amounts of time and money because you don’t have to build massive sets. You just construct set fragments around your actors and place green screens in the surroundings. Using the Fusion page during post-production, you can track the camera movement and replace the greenscreen with 3D extensions to your set.
Motion Graphics
Motion graphics, or motion design, is all about animating graphic elements. It’s the marriage of visual effects, animation, and graphic design with the goal of presenting onscreen information. Because information in some form is the objective, text often plays a primary role in almost every motion design project. The Fusion page includes both 2D and 3D typography tools along with creative paint, Bézier-shape drawing tools, and incredibly deep spline animation controls. They enable you to create engaging animated designs that communicate, educate, and entertain.
Learning to See
If you want to create high-quality visual effects, you need to be very conscious of how the world appears around you. Visual effects must look and feel real, or your audience will stop believing. The skill to observe the surrounding world in painstaking detail is just as important as mastering the technical and artistic side of visual effects. To become a skillful visual effects artist, you must start noticing how light, perspective, and depth appear in the real world, and then bring those observations into your composites. If all the elements that make up a composite are meant to be in the same location, then you must make sure that light hits them all from the same direction. Simulating relative sizes, parallax motion, and depth to a real-world level of detail is essential to the realism of an effects shot. As you begin creating visual effects, start small. The Fusion page is very deep and incredibly powerful. The beauty of having Fusion built into DaVinci Resolve is that you can jump into creating visual effects with one click; try something out to see if it will work, and then, depending on your skill and the time available, either pass it off to your visual effects artists or finish it yourself. Visual effects compositing is about a combination of tools rather than any single filter effect. It takes time, patience, and experience to do well, but it’s an incredibly exciting activity that you can learn through experimentation and practice. Eventually, you’ll create the most thrilling cinematic moments imaginable. As Walt Disney said, “It’s kind of fun to do the impossible.”
Creating Effects in Fusion
The Fusion page in DaVinci Resolve offers advanced visual effects and motion graphics tools, integrated directly into your timeline. This node-based compositing interface is a powerful alternative to traditional layer-based software, providing more efficiency for intricate shots.
Understanding the Fusion Interface
The Fusion interface is different from other pages in DaVinci Resolve. It consists of:
Toolbar: For adding commonly used effects or tools.
Viewers: Two viewers at the top of the screen.
Inspector Panel: Located on the right side.
Node Editor: The most significant section, located at the bottom, where all the tools and components for building visual effects are implemented.
Nodes in Fusion work like a flowchart, connecting to each other to represent a signal path. Every composition starts with a MediaIn1 node and ends with a MediaOut1 node.
Exercise: Getting Familiar with Fusion
Exercise: Getting Familiar with Fusion
In this exercise, we’ll explore the Fusion page by adding a film title and a sepia-tone color correction.
Open Project Archive:
Open DaVinci Resolve.
Right-click in the Project Manager and choose "Restore Project Archive".
Navigate to the R18 Beginner Guide Lessons folder and open Lesson 8.
Select the Hot_Milk.dra folder and choose "Open".
Open Project:
Double-click the Hot_Milk project to open it.
Reset UI Layout:
Navigate to the edit page.
From the main menu bar, choose Workspace > Reset UI Layout.
Prepare Timeline:
Ensure the timeline BMD_Fusion_01 is open.
Move the playhead to the beginning of the first clip.
Access Fusion Page:
Click the Fusion page button or press Shift-5 on the keyboard.
Node Editor Basics:
Pan the node tree into the center of the panel by holding the middle mouse button and dragging.
If you don’t have a middle mouse button, hold Ctrl+Shift (Windows) or Command+Shift (macOS) and click-and-drag to pan the node graph.
Exploring the Node-Based Workflow
Exploring the Node-Based Workflow
Play the Timeline:
Press Play on the transport controls or press the Spacebar. Notice that there is no timeline or playhead scrolling in the Fusion page.
Use the time ruler between the viewers and the node graph for time navigation, measured in frames.
Cache Frames for Smoother Playback:
Drag the playhead slowly through the render range from the first yellow line to the second yellow line.
A green line will appear in the lower region of the time ruler, indicating that the frame has been cached into RAM for faster playback.
You can assign more or less RAM for Fusion RAM playback in the Preferences panel, taken from the total amount assigned to DaVinci Resolve.
By mastering the Fusion page and its node-based workflow, you'll be equipped with an expansive toolkit for creating professional-level visual effects and motion graphics within your editing projects.
Adding the First Effect
In this exercise, you’ll learn to add a sepia-colored filter and text to a clip using the Fusion page in DaVinci Resolve. This will demonstrate the efficiency of node-based workflows for visual effects and motion graphics.
Steps to Add Sepia-Colored Filter and Text
Open the Project:
Open DaVinci Resolve.
Right-click in the Project Manager and choose Restore Project Archive.
Navigate to the R18 Beginner Guide Lessons folder, open Lesson 8, select Hot_Milk.dra, and choose Open.
Double-click the Hot_Milk project to open it.
Prepare Timeline:
Ensure the timeline BMD_Fusion_01 is open.
Move the playhead to the beginning of the first clip.
Click the Fusion page button or press Shift-5 on the keyboard.
Rename MediaIn1 Node:
Select the MediaIn1 node in the Node graph.
Right-click the node, choose Rename, and name it ACTOR.
View the Actor Node:
Press 1 on the keyboard to view the Actor node in the left viewer.
Add Color Corrector Node:
Ensure the Actor node is selected.
Press the Color Corrector tool button on the toolbar.
Select the ColorCorrector1 node.
In the Inspector, drag the color wheel towards orange to apply a sepia tone.
Add Text+ Node:
Find the Text+ tool on the toolbar and drag it onto an empty portion of the Node graph, to the upper right of the Color Corrector node.
Select the Text1 node and press 1 to load it into the left viewer.
Customize Text:
In the Inspector, type CHAIN GANG in the text panel.
Adjust the Size slider to 0.3.
Lower the Line Spacing slider to 0.6.
Click the white color swatch to reveal the color picker and adjust the color to around Red: 200, Green: 200, Blue: 200 for better visibility.
Add Merge Node:
Hover over the connection between ColorCorrector1 and MediaOut1, click and drag to disconnect the Color Corrector from the MediaOut node.
Add a Merge node from the toolbar and place it in the gap.
Connect the output of ColorCorrector1 (gray square) to the background input of Merge1 (yellow triangle).
Connect the output of Text1 (gray square) to the foreground input of Merge1 (green triangle).
Connect the output of Merge1 (gray square) to the input of MediaOut1 (yellow triangle).
Adjust Node Positions:
Click and drag the Text1 node up and the MediaOut1 node to the right to create room in the flow.
Hold Shift and drag the ColorCorrector1 node to be placed between Text1 and Merge1.
Finalize Sepia Tone:
To tint both the Actor node and the Text1 node, hold Shift and drag the ColorCorrector1 node after the Merge1 node.
By following these steps, you’ll add a sepia-colored filter and text to a clip in DaVinci Resolve using the Fusion page. This demonstrates the flexibility and efficiency of node-based compositing, allowing for quick adjustments and experimentation with different looks.
Masking Effects
In this exercise, you’ll learn to use Fusion’s masking and blur tools to remove elements, such as posters, from a shot. This technique is useful for addressing legal issues or simply cleaning up a scene.
Steps to Remove Elements Using Fusion
Open the Project and Timeline:
Move into the edit page (Shift-4) and navigate to the media pool.
In the Timelines bin, open BMD_Fusion_02.
Place the timeline playhead over the top of the first clip in the timeline.
Enter the Fusion page (Shift-5).
Prepare the Node Tree:
Send the MediaIn1 node to the left viewer by selecting the node and pressing 1 on the keyboard.
Rename the node MediaIn1 by right-clicking on the node, selecting Rename, and labeling the node Band.
Add Blur Node:
Select the Band node.
Add a Blur node by clicking the Blur tool in the toolbar (last tool in the second group).
In the Inspector, with the Blur node selected, increase the Blur Size to a value of 12.
Add and Draw Polygon Mask:
Click and drag the Polygon node into the node graph above the Blur node (third tool in the fourth group in the toolbar).
Ensure that the Polygon node is selected and draw a shape around the U.S. GIRLS text in the lower left of the viewer by clicking to add shape points.
To complete the shape, click on the first point to close the spline.
Zoom and Pan in Viewer:
Zoom in on the viewer using one of the following methods:
Hold Ctrl (Windows) or Command (macOS) and use the scroll on a mouse or trackpad.
Press + or – on the keyboard.
Adjust the zoom level in the zoom panel (upper left of the viewer).
Pan around the image using one of the following methods:
Click the middle mouse button and drag the mouse.
Hold Ctrl-Shift (Windows) or Command-Shift (macOS) and click and drag with the mouse.
Connect Polygon Mask to Blur Node:
Connect the Polygon1 node to the Blur1 node by dragging the gray square output from the shape to the blue triangle input of the blur.
Disable Show Controls in the right viewer’s three-dot Options menu for better evaluation of the mask.
Soften Mask Edges:
Select the Polygon node in the flow.
Adjust the Soft Edge in the Inspector to a value of 0.002.
Reset the zoom levels by pressing Ctrl-F (Windows) or Command-F (macOS) or by selecting Fit in the zoom level panel.
Add a Second Polygon Mask:
Add a second Polygon node by clicking and dragging the tool from the toolbar.
Select the second Polygon node and draw a shape around the word Wa /ves in either viewer.
Attach the output of Polygon2 (gray square) to the mask input of Polygon1 (blue triangle).
Select Polygon2 and adjust the Soft Edge in the Inspector to 0.002.
Using multiple masks tied together on the same node allows for more efficient and effective compositing, reducing the number of nodes and improving system performance. This method showcases how Fusion’s node-based workflow can handle complex visual effects and adjustments seamlessly.
Adding Clips from the Media Pool
This exercise will guide you through replacing a poster in a video using Fusion's tools. You will use nodes to add, position, and blend the new poster seamlessly into the scene.
Steps to Replace a Poster Using Fusion
Add the Replacement Poster to the Node Graph:
Open the media pool in the upper left of Fusion and navigate to the Images bin.
Select Guitar.png and drag and drop the asset into the node panel.
Rename the node guitar by right-clicking on the node and selecting Rename.
Merge the New Poster with the Video:
Click and drag the guitar node output (gray square) to the output of the Blur node (gray square). This will automatically add a Merge node, placing the guitar in the foreground and the video in the background.
Position the Poster with Corner Positioner:
Select the guitar node in the node graph.
Open the Effects panel in the upper left of the interface.
Navigate to Tools > Warp > Corner Positioner.
Click the Corner Positioner node in the Tools palette and close the panel.
Adjust the Corner Positioner:
Select the Corner Positioner node and adjust the control points by clicking on any of the four anchors in either viewer or by adjusting the numeric values in the X and Y fields within the Inspector.
Blend the Poster with Brightness/Contrast Node:
Add a Brightness/Contrast node after the Corner Positioner node (fourth spot in the second group on the toolbar).
Adjust the Brightness/Contrast node in the Inspector:
Lower the Gain value to around 0.8.
Raise the Lift value to 0.03.
Drop the Saturation to around 0.80.
Enable Pre-Divide/Post-Multiply in the Inspector to limit the adjustments to the poster frame.
Replicate the Dog-Eared Edge (Optional):
Send the Band node to viewer 1.
Send the MediaOut1 node to viewer 2.
Add a Polygon tool to the node graph below the Merge node without patching it.
With the polygon selected, draw a mask around the dog-eared edge in the left viewer.
Connect the polygon output (gray square) to the Merge mask input (blue triangle).
In the Inspector, with the polygon selected, enable Invert.
Adding An Effect
Adding dynamic elements to your shots can significantly enhance the visual appeal. Here's how to add a camera shake effect using Fusion and apply it to multiple clips in DaVinci Resolve.
Steps to Add Camera Shake
Add the Camera Shake Node:
Select the Merge node in the node graph to ensure new nodes are placed after this point in the flow.
Press Shift-Spacebar on the keyboard to open the node search.
Type camera in the search field.
Select Camera Shake (third tool from the top) and add it to the node graph.
Adjust the Camera Shake:
Press Play to view the initial camera shake effect.
In the Inspector, adjust the Speed Scale to 0.1 and review the results.
If still too much movement, drop the Speed Scale to 0.05.
Review and Apply Effects to Additional Clips
Review in the Edit Page:
Press the Edit page button (Shift-4) and press play (Spacebar) to review the results of the Fusion composition.
Apply the Effect to Multiple Clips:
Place the playhead over the top of the first interview clip in the timeline (the band interview) and enter the Fusion page.
Click and drag to select all nodes in the composition, excluding the Band node and the MediaOut1 node.
Copy the selected nodes by selecting menu bar > Edit > Copy or pressing Ctrl-C (Windows) or Command-C (macOS).
Return to the edit page.
Move the playhead to the next interview clip and enter the Fusion page.
Paste the nodes into the node graph by selecting menu bar > Edit > Paste or pressing Ctrl-V (Windows) or Command-V (macOS).
Reconnect Nodes:
Disconnect MediaOut1 by hovering over the connection line, clicking, and dragging to break the connection when it turns blue.
Patch the MediaIn1 output (gray square) to the input of Blur1 (yellow triangle).
Patch the output of CameraShake1 (gray square) to the input of MediaOut1 (yellow triangle).
Repeat for Other Clips:
Move to the edit page and repeat the process for the third interview clip.
Click the Clips panel in the upper left of the Fusion page.
Select the last interview clip (shot 18) from this panel to move directly to the fourth interview clip.
Paste the nodes from the clipboard and connect them to the flow.
Adjust Asset Length in Keyframes
Open Keyframes Panel:
Open the Keyframes panel in the upper right of the Fusion page.
Extend Asset Duration:
Scroll down until you find the guitar track.
Extend the guitar asset duration by hovering over the right side of the time container and clicking and dragging to the right.
Tips and Encouragement
Show/Hide Controls: Temporarily hide mask shapes and control points in viewers by selecting the three-dot options menu and disabling Show Controls.
Master Simple Effects: Start with simple effects to get comfortable with Fusion's tools and node-based workflow.
Renderless Workflow: Take advantage of the renderless workflow in Fusion for real-time review and adjustments.
By following these steps, you can add dynamic camera shake to your shot, apply the effects to multiple clips, and ensure all elements stay visible throughout the entire clip duration. Fusion's node-based compositing provides flexibility and precision, making it a powerful tool for visual effects work.
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