Edit Page: Still no Ease Out/Ease In Position keyframes?

A 3D movement has 4 dimensions, position and time. It is challenging to make that real simple and easy to control with curve graphs. Fusion has a path/time curve - but its not really simple to use. Let's hope BM comes up with something ingenious.

That ingenious way is to do it like everyone else, including Fusion, has been doing for decades: each parameter has separate value-time curve. 3D position has 3 parameters, one for each dimension. So do euler rotations. Quaternions have four... If it is good enough in hollywood to make these big dinosaurs and robots move in cinema it is good enough to animate a flying layer of video.

It is usually made easier for user by moving the curve handles automatically to some position which makes interpolation appear smooth when user sets a keyframe to be smooth or auto or whatever name the software at hand uses. Ease in/out simply means that one side of keyframe looks at previous/next keyframe with its handle and another handle is scaled so that curve is smooth between the keyframes. How to calculate bezier handle positions for parametric smoothing is an area researched to death.

Posting another example of the downright non-working way Resolve implements easing.

I have a text layer over video footage that I am easing from the bottom up into position.

Easing that doesn't work

easing.jpg (77.88 KiB) Viewed 4555 times

You can see (or barely see as thin dark blue lines on a black background don't always work for clarity) that there is easing applied to the start keyframe and ending keyframes.

But to my eyes, there ain't no easing going on at all!

BMD, I beg of you. Please please please figure out how to fix this big huge glaring issue that has been present since the beginning of time!!

Everyone that this affects, keep posting on this thread new examples or comments so that it keeps popping up to the top of the list. The more chatter there is on this topic the better chance we have of getting it seen to.

Same issue on my Mac

I have been requesting a fix for this bug for over ten years!

To me the solution to this problem seems simple. At least, simple to describe and imagine; whether simple to implement, I don't know.

Fusion has a fantastic Spline Editor. Fusion is integrated in Resolve. Resolve should use Fusion's Spline Editor!

So, the user would set keyframes via the Inspector as now. And the keyframes shown directly on the video layer could also remain as a simple visualisation. But somewhere, either on the layer or in the Inspector or both, should be a button to "Open Spline Editor" (or call it "Keyframe Editor" if it needs a simpler name for Resolve.)

This would open Fusion's Spline Editor in a floating frame - something Resolve is already capable of doing today (albeit currently hidden from the user). It would look something like this:


This would allow precise and sophisticated control of keyframes, far beyond what is currently possible in Resolve. I realise there'd be some work involved in making this work for Resolve, but the fundamental technology and UI already exist and are proven to work well, so I do hope it will one day be fully utilised across the software.

Actually If I'm being optimistic, I'd wonder if in fact this is why these basic keyframe bugs have existed in Resolve for so long: because it's on the roadmap to re-do the whole system, using Fusion's technology. Resolve 15 saw the introduction of Fusion in Resolve; Resolve 16 saw the unification of the Resolve and Fusion UIs (for better or worse). Could Resolve 17 see the power of Fusion more fully integrated into and utilised in Resolve?

I don't know about you but if they told us that was the plan I'd be a heck of a lot happier. Just knowing that this is on their radar and that they are working on bringing a new UI for it in version X would go a long way with me.

The silence is deafening......

I don't know about you but if they told us that was the plan I'd be a heck of a lot happier. Just knowing that this is on their radar and that they are working on bringing a new UI for it in version X would go a long way with me.

The silence is deafening......

Yeah.

I do understand why a company might want to keep quiet, because development plans can and do change, problems can occur at any time, and as soon as you've declared you're going to do X, everyone expects X, and probably X+2 as well.

But many companies publish roadmaps and keep public issue/bug trackers, and BMD's complete silence is not a good look. A single line such as "We're aware of the issue and hope to address it in the future" wouldn't pin them to any firm promise, but would go a long way to mitigate the concerns and annoyance of users. As you say, people are a lot more understanding when they know where they stand.

Especially with a really important and fundamental problem like this. It's not a good look for an NLE to not be able to do keyframe easing, and for the issue to persist for such a long time.

To me the solution to this problem seems simple.

Mine is simpler, I think.

Forget splines on the Edit page. They work fine on Fusion.

Right click on the keyframe in the Inspector, select one of four options, it works!

Very simple.

We had this in one of the 16 betas. Then someone complained that still didn't work with splines, and it got broke again.

Yes, everything works great in fusion. Fine, but we shouldn't have to create a custom comp to do a simple title mograph. You don't have to do an entire AE comp for a simple mograph title in premiere. Why here?

Mine is simpler, I think.

Forget splines on the Edit page. They work fine on Fusion.

Right click on the keyframe in the Inspector, select one of four options, it works!

Very simple.

Yes that's simpler. And it'd be much better than we have now, and the bare minimum that I feel software like this should have. But I think they could do better than that, and the key thing is that I don't think it would be much more work.

Once the timeline supports bezier keyframes, it's surely a small step to support handles, and another small step from there to have it visualised in the Fusion Spline Editor, which already exists in the software and is stable, well tested, documented, and has a number of excellent usability features, like auto looping, the Shape Box, and more.

On top of which this would add some badly-needed consistency between the pages. Right now there's literally four separate keyframe systems across four different pages: Edit, Fusion, Color, Fairlight all having slightly different systems and very different UIs for automation. Unifying the UI for Edit and Fusion keyframes would be one step to improving that and reducing confusion and learning overhead. Plus if they did it right it should also allow copying splines in-between Fusion and Edit, which is bound to come in useful.

Yes, everything works great in fusion. Fine, but we shouldn't have to create a custom comp to do a simple title mograph. You don't have to do an entire AE comp for a simple mograph title in premiere. Why here?

Yeah I agree. I've had this come up a lot working on my first Resolve + Fusion project: situations where it feels I can almost do what I want in Edit, but not quite, so I need to add another Fusion composition and then spend a lot of time going back and forth between the two pages.

I love Fusion and greatly enjoy using it. But for simple tasks it shouldn't be necessary to create a Fusion comp for everything. Going into Fusion takes you away from the timeline you've been editing and are now very familiar with, and it takes you away from your audio and audio waveforms, which has been a constant gripe for me. I often want to time things to audio, and as a result find myself going back and forth between Edit and Fusion literally dozens of times an hour. It doesn't make for a smooth and speedy editing process.

My hopes for future versions is that the Fusion integration becomes even tighter. The spline editor on the Edit page is one example, and it could go much further: more Fusion nodes like Text+ nodes that can be added directly from Edit; the ability to go into any Fusion comp and right-click on any node and "Export Controls to Edit", adding its controls to the Edit page's inspector - as is already possible with pre-built macro-based Fusion generators, but available dynamically on any node in any comp. And more I could list, but this is OT for this thread so I'll save that for another post

My hopes for future versions is that the Fusion integration becomes even tighter.

What I think you're arguing for is one enormous interface, which might suit folks who do "everything". But what about the rest?

I gather the Cut page was created for people for whom Edit is needlessly complex. If they add all that Fusion stuff to Edit, then what? A new Edit page, for narrative editors who don't want the distractions of Fusion, which they don't touch from one year to the next?

I don't know what the answer is. Maybe all-brain ur-software is the future. But it's too easy to imagine some kind of Microsoft mush. And then of course people begging for disintegration ("why can't we have a lite version")?

What I think you're arguing for is one enormous interface, which might suit folks who do "everything". But what about the rest?

Well, I didn't say that. I'm not the biggest fan of the page system, but I don't anticipate BMD will ever do away with it, and I'm fine working within it for the most part.

It's totally fine to have separated pages for separated tasks when those tasks are separate. However in my mind that does not preclude enabling situations when they are not so tightly delineated.

I gather the Cut page was created for people for whom Edit is needlessly complex. If they add all that Fusion stuff to Edit, then what? A new Edit page, for narrative editors who don't want the distractions of Fusion, which they don't touch from one year to the next?

I don't know what the answer is. Maybe all-brain ur-software is the future. But it's too easy to imagine some kind of Microsoft mush. And then of course people begging for disintegration ("why can't we have a lite version")?

I don't really follow as to what kind of interface you're picturing? Because I can't see how any of the integrations I described would bloat or confuse the interface at all.

> Fusion Spline Editor used in Edit :
Bezier keyframes are needed in Edit, I think we all agree on that? So why not use a proven interface to implement that, one that already exists, is tested and documented, and will already be familiar to some percentage of existing and future users. As opposed to adding yet another new interface that likely looks and operates slightly differently from all the others.

It doesn't even have to be thought of as the "Fusion Spline Editor" - it's a just a curve editor that understands Bezier handles, which is what Edit is sorely lacking at the moment. And as I mentioned in my first post, it doesn't have to be the only way to manage keyframes; there'd still be Inspector diamonds, which could also support simple smoothing operations as per Jim's suggestion, and there'd still be the simplified curve visible in the layer. What I propose is for the option to also pop-out a full-fat editor to float on top, for more advanced use-cases, and when doing so to re-use code that already exists and has worked well for years (decades?)

> More Fusion nodes in Edit :
This would just be some extra items in the Effects menu; don't need them, don't use them.

> The ability to export the controls of any Fusion node into Edit :
This wouldn't even be visible in the UI unless you go into Fusion and find the proposed right-click option, at which point it adds another control to the Inspector menu. And as mentioned, this is a feature that already exists in Resolve, both in the form of the Text+ control and user-created, static Generators.

What I'd like is to extend this to be available dynamically on any node, via a new right-click context menu or similar option, available on nodes in the Fusion UI. I am confident this would be really easy to implement, and it would be a vast benefit to many Fusion-based workflows, where it would significantly reduce the number of page switches required when doing things like timing Fusion effects to audio. And again it would have no effect at all on users who weren't already using Fusion. If you weren't using Fusion you wouldn't see a single thing different to today.

As for the other integrations I had in mind: I wasn't going to talk about that in this thread, but since you're discussing it here's one possibility: I could see it being very useful to allow the editing of existing Fusion compositions directly from Edit. On Edit, provide the ability to activate on a Fusion composition a small floating frame showing the composition flow. This would appear immediately, floating right there on the Edit page, allowing modifying the composition, and with the Fusion nodes displaying their controls either in a separate Inspector within the new frame, or in the main Edit page Inspector where they'd temporarily replace the Edit page controls while the Fusion frame was focused.

When working with simple Fusion comps this could provide a very quick and easy way to tweak them without leaving Edit, removing much of the need for constantly switching pages. It would not be intended for in-depth Fusion work, but when doing quick changes to existing nodes and their structure it would be much faster than going back and forth between Edit and Fusion.

And the technology to do it exists in Resolve right now; most of it at least. For the fun of it, here's a demonstration of what that could very easily look like:

Nice mock-up huh? Except.. it's not a mock-up. No Photoshop or video editing was used in the making of that. That's actually Resolve displaying a functional Fusion flow and Tools in a floating frame on the Edit page. Achieved by saving a layout in Fusion Studio and then loading it in Resolve. Resolve doesn't expect there to be random floating frames around, so it doesn't close them when you go back to Edit, and they keep working for the comp you had open when you opened that frame.

Of course it's not completely usable today. Hotkeys don't work inside the Fusion frame when it's on Edit, and it's currently a little limited because there's no way to view individual nodes in the viewer. But the fact that it works at all, and only took me 10 minutes of messing about to get going, says to me that a proper implementation would be quite possible, and probably fairly easily for BMD.

So this is the sort of stuff I'd like to see, and which I feel confident would be fairly easy to implement. And, again, none of this needs to bloat the UI or affect anyone who doesn't want to use the features. Make them available only with definite UI actions. Make them configurable, and even disabled by default if you like. It doesn't have to affect non-Fusion users in the slightest, but for those who do use Fusion it could reduce a lot of needless page switching, and greatly streamline the process. And maybe it'd even encourage some people to use Fusion effects who weren't previously.

All these years and we are yet to see a functioning keyframe editor
Sometimes I'm a bit sad that I canceled my subscription to CC.

> The ability to export the controls of any Fusion node into Edit :
This wouldn't even be visible in the UI unless you go into Fusion and find the proposed right-click option, at which point it adds another control to the Inspector menu. And as mentioned, this is a feature that already exists in Resolve, both in the form of the Text+ control and user-created, static Generators.

This. Pretty much exactly like macros except live.

[
And the technology to do it exists in Resolve right now; most of it at least. For the fun of it, here's a demonstration of what that could very easily look like:

Nice mock-up huh? Except.. it's not a mock-up. No Photoshop or video editing was used in the making of that. That's actually Resolve displaying a functional Fusion flow and Tools in a floating frame on the Edit page. Achieved by saving a layout in Fusion Studio and then loading it in Resolve. Resolve doesn't expect there to be random floating frames around, so it doesn't close them when you go back to Edit, and they keep working for the comp you had open when you opened that frame.

That's pretty cool but I can't help but think that that specific task is better done in the Color page. It has the ability to mask, blur, and keyframe each clip within the context of the timeline and even apply the same node trees to multiple clips throughout the timeline.

Myself I like to both:
1. A simple way where you just say Ease In-Out and you get an automatic result that looks good.
2. But I prefer having custom curves. Sometimes I want very fine control of alpha fade and I really do not want to go into fusion FX unless I have to since the workflow is much slower.

For me this is one of my top wishes to have fixed.
Cheers,
Andreas

Can anyone currently working in v17 shed some light on whether these curves or easing functions have been addressed in any way?

I can't move to v17 as yet as I am working on a production.

I ran into a scenario that involved me fighting working with the curves/keyframe windows and what would have taken me 10 minutes in AE took me an hour in DR and I still didn't get the results that I was looking for in the end.

Yeah, I could have gone over to Fusion and done stuff in there but honestly, my brain can't wrap itself around Fusion to save my life. I'm only just competent enough in AE and I get layers (coming from Pshop world) before I get nodes. But there's now also the whole Fusion comp clip nightmare that just adds another layer of complexity I don't have a year to devote to unravelling.

So, v17? Have they touched the keyframe editor in any way yet?

Please say they have and it's a whole world better {fingers crossed}.

PS. I discovered (to my dismay) that there is no keyframe editor for text+ write on property. All keyframe adjustments HAVE to be done through the inspector slider.

There is a thread about it in v17 subforum: viewtopic.php?f=36&t=125640

I find that Position Easing still requires Fusion, even in 17.

Please can we have at least have the option in 17 to set a default transition/movement curve in Project Settings that includes a smooth s-curve as one of the options, thereby avoid having to create Fusion Clips and edit keyframe splines. As a newbie coming from Blender, their default s-curve transitions and movements look far smoother and allow quick, non-jarring effects.

Hi all, I'm super confused and very frustrated.

I just spent over 2 hours trying to do the most basic zoom/position move on some footage, and it seems literally impossible.

1. At first I tried the main edit page, using keyframes in the transform tab of the video item, but there's literally no option for smoothing out position keyframes. There are ease buttons for "zoom_x" and "zoom_y" but the same buttons do not appear for position keyframes. Why? This is my first question.

2. Then I tried the fusion tab. I don't use fusion, so I'm way out of my comfort zone here, but I do understand the basics. However, when zooming here, my footage is auto-cropped. I don't know why, and I can't find any way around this. I've tried all of the Scaling options and project settings, and nothing I do works. Can anyone help with this?

3. Then I tried the color tab, where I discovered that there are THREE different sizing options: sizing, input sizing, and output sizing. First of all, only output sizing seems to respond to keyframes. 2nd of all, I can find no options for easing here either. Any help here?

Davinci - color sizing input output keyframes no ease options.jpg (155.74 KiB) Viewed 3033 times

So it's now 2022. 2022!!! People have been complaining about this lack of very basic functionality on this post since 2018. That's almost 4 years. I was so hype about DR back in 2019, and now it makes me want to pull my hair out each time that I use it! And there are oodles of small issues like this. And things seem to be getting worse, not better.

Am I alone here? When I first started using resolve, I said to myself, "well yes it has some major issues, but since it's free, I'll endure those for now. Once they are resolved, then I'll buy the studio version." But now I'm actively searching for a complete alternative. A few months ago I had to go back to Premiere to do something very basic (similar issue to this one). I haven't used Premiere in years, and it was still just as awful as I remember.

Sorry for the rant. Like I said above, I am very frustrated. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

nope, you're not alone. This is me, still waiting for the "teething" issues to be fixed:

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anyway, to help you out in the color page, you could set the keyframe in the sizing "layer", then change the input sizing parameter. Make sure they are dynamic keyframes, else they don't animate. The node sizing is for any of the nodes/correctors you have. The output sizing is from the top of my head for the entire timeline. If you then rightclick on a keyframe, somewhere you'll see an option to change the keyframe interpolation. (forgot the exact name) you'll then get a popup window where you can set ease in/out.

for the fusion page, well there are a million ways to do it. the confusing part could be that your canvas will be the original resolution of the source clip in your timeline, and this could be different from how the edit page handles the scaling. Don't worry about that too much, it does make sense for many workflows. you could create a background node with the timeline resolution, merge the image on top of it, and transform/keyframe it from there.

If you need more help with that i'd be happy to help a little more

In the edit tab I've been unable to edit keyframes or move existing keyframes. I have a sold color that I've cropped in order to be a line. I've wanted it to be animated and come onto the screen. I've keyframed the crop and it is now animated, however, I want to ease in and out of the animation. When I click to see the keyframes in my timeline, I'm unable to make any adjustments at all. I've uploaded a photo for reference. You can see a straight line rather than any curve. This line does not display any keyframes. I also cannot click to line to create new keyframes.

Please help! I called BlackMagic but at this time are unable to determine what is happening here.

Fusion may be the better option here, Cameron.

Wow, I can't believe this issue goes so far back and still hasn't been fixed.

Please Blackmagic, fix position keyframe easing in the Edit page!

I don't care anymore about a new spline editor in the edit page or any new features (though that sounds awesome and I would not hate it). Literally just fix the thing that's broken. I'll live with how clunky the keyframing UI is in the Edit page, just please allow me to ease the position keyframes I make with those cute little buttons. They are right there! I press em and weird things happen! It's so sad!

Having to go into a full blown VFX software to do the most basic position keyframe and lose all context of my edit, music, pacing etc is NOT the answer. And anyone who is suggesting "That's what the Fusion Page is for" has quite simply already given up on a chance for happiness in this world, don't listen to them.

And anyone who is suggesting "That's what the Fusion Page is for" has quite simply already given up on a chance for happiness in this world, don't listen to them.

@camerongade You could create a compound clip with the solid color and animate the line in the color page. That's how I do those things for now...

I've come to figure out that it's not really easing on position keyframes that I myself was looking for but rather velocity control.

If you put easing on position keyframes you end up with an arc movement. A diagonal movement with ease/ease on the position keyframes will produce a 'S' movement.

What we (I think) are all looking for is simply to control the speed of the movement from point A to point B. That is velocity control. That is why AE has both keyframes for positions and velocity.

I made a post about this a little while ago.

viewtopic.php?f=33&t=159354

PS. You'll see my comment at the bottom regarding 'doing this in fusion'

I've come to figure out that it's not really easing on position keyframes that I myself was looking for but rather velocity control.

Velocity is one option as a user side concept. The underlying assumption of the linear motion from point A to point B is that x and y coords are coupled. Any easing or other futzing with the x and y component curves will break the coupling and produce curvy motion path. So my guess is that application of easing is done wrong in current implementation and changing position to its derivate which velocity is will not change the behavior. What straight motion needs is proper coupled easing of both x and y so that pivot point is always kept on line A-B. The same compensation mechanism is used for dynamic zooms.

is this still a thing in 18?

is this still a thing in 18?

I can't say, I don't touch beta as I've been stuck in a job with a bug and no support since I was on beta. Regardless if you're a paid studio user or not, there's no support.

is this still a thing in 18?

Yep :/

3. Then I tried the color tab, where I discovered that there are THREE different sizing options: sizing, input sizing, and output sizing. First of all, only output sizing seems to respond to keyframes. 2nd of all, I can find no options for easing here either. Any help here?

You can ease any dynamic keyframe on the color page, including sizing keyframes. Just right click on any dynamic keyframe that you want to ease and choose "change dynamic attributes"
The easing here does not have the wiggle problem of key framing on the edit page because the easing is on the full Pan + Tilt + Zoom combined rather than separately per each X Y Z parameter which is what causes the problem on the edit page.

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CleanShot 2022-09-23 at 11.20.54@2x.png (80.2 KiB) Viewed 2072 times

Blackmagic, if you're listening to us, here's a video that hopefully explains the issue and our frustrations pretty well. This is still a problem in DaVinci Resolve 19.

Please watch this video to understand what we're talking about:

I and many others would love it if this was prioritized a little bit higher as it's been 6 years since this thread was started and this issue is still not fixed.

And, you can't ease in/out the anchor point animation (posted another thread on this) - related issue to drive everyone bonkers

Blackmagic, if you're listening to us, here's a video that hopefully explains the issue and our frustrations pretty well. This is still a problem in DaVinci Resolve 19.
...

I and many others would love it if this was prioritized a little bit higher as it's been 6 years since this thread was started and this issue is still not fixed.

You can say that again. I found that a new, even more aggravating bug has manifested. If I do a straightforward push-in from wide to close using two keyframes (actually four: X and Y position, and X and Y Zoom factor), the linear move from position a to b is OK.

But as soon as I change the last keyframe to Ease in, the Zoom scaling becomes unconstrained, the Y value continuously increases more than the X value, the image gets "fatter" during the zoom, then returns to constrained, X = Y by the final keyframes.

However, the easing does seem to be working, but that's of little comfort.

Obviously, this and linear moves are a no-go. I have 200 stills to do moves for in a feature length documentary intended for PBS.

I've investigated other simple move options in the Color page (scaling), Dynamic Zoom, Transform effect, all of which have limitations or many steps to achieve the same result. I'm going to try to learn to do this in Fusion next.

...I have 200 stills to do moves for in a feature length documentary intended for PBS...

...I'm going to try to learn to do this in Fusion next.

If this sort of repetitive bulk requirement comes up often in your work then it will be well worth your while to invest some time learning Fusion. Not only is it far superior (IMHO) in terms of easing of animated effects, you can also create Fusion templates which you can use to easily apply the same effects to different clips.

Another angle on this is to use scripting, which lets you automate the creation of effects. Here's a thread that discusses scripting in which a lot of users have posted useful scripts for various purposes.

When you're in the throes of a project with a deadline and looking for the fastest way to solve a problem, learning a new way to do something can seem like a big waste of time. But boy, it sure pays off in the long run.

Here's what I do in Fusion to apply easing to a move/zoom effect:

1. Use a Transform Node to animate your effect by creating start and end keyframes for the centre and size parameters

2. Make sure the Transform node is the only thing selected in the node graph

3. Open up the "Spline" panel

4. Click the "..." menu in the upper-right corner of the spline panel and choose "Show only Selected Tool". This will get rid of everything else in the panel and make it much simpler to work with just the Transform node.

5. Click the "Center" parameter in the left pane of panel so that it shows a checkmark. Do the same for the "Size" parameter. This will show how both of these parameters vary over time (although the spline graph may not yet be positioned so that they're visible).

6. Click the "Zoom to Fit" icon - it's in the upper-right corner of the Spline panel, third from the right. This will move/scale the graph so that it encompasses all of the keyframes through all of the values for the two parameters that you've checkmarked.

And here's the secret:

7. Click-drag the mouse to draw a box around the start and end keyframes for both parameters and then press Shift+S (to "smooth" the lines). This will create an ease of both the size and position for the transform effect that results in a very nice linear motion. You can fiddle with the bezier curves for the keyframes, or press Shift+L ("Linear") to revert it back to its original form. But I find that the easing created by a simple Shift+S works very well on its own.

It's quite surprising that the Blackmagic Design team are unable to make keyframe easing work properly.
No other hardware or software I have used in my 40 years of editing has EVER had this problem.
It really IS time for BMD to get the basics right.

Stop all the AI nonsense until the simple things work, like all the other editing apps out there.
It's been 14 years of using workarounds & other apps to fix the ridiculous basic deficiencies in Resolve.

I don't usually have a hissy fit but I'm about to retire without BMD ever addressing the MOST BASIC flaws in Resolve. Years of user complaints has achieved nothing. This topic is six years old!

It has already been fixed according to release notes, multiple times over.