How to get a 32 bit comp

I'm a bit puzzled by the way Fusion Studio handles color bit depth. I'm working on a comp with smoke and colors, and therefore I want the highest possible bit depth. If you're familiar with the smoke template in the bins, I have all of those nodes 5 times in the comp.

In the preferences for both Fusion and this comp, I have bit depth set to 32 bit. Now, in After Effects, you set the bit depth in the comp settings and that's it. It doesn't matter if you bring in footage that is lower than that, it will stay at 32 bits.

But in Fusion it gets more complicated, because as far as I've read in the manual (granted, not all of it because I would have to dedicate months to that), it seems to me that everything before the saver has to be set to 32 bits if I want a 32 bit output. But that means going through each and every node, except that in this case, I did that, and I still see float16 above the right viewer which is showing the saver.

So is there a more efficient way of just setting everything to the bit depth that you need and get done with it, without going through lots of nodes and tabs?

Ultimately whatever you use as a background decides the bit depth (and image dimensions). The preferences set the default behavior, that "source nodes" like Background use unless you set a specific bit depth for them.

Fusion allows you to control bit depth per node or almost all node. Certainly nodes that are important for specifying bit depth in your node tree. Just check the settings in your nodes. You have 8 and 16 bit integer and you have 16 and 32 bit float.

You can also use node specifically designed for converting or assigning bit depth. I think its called Change Depth. Whatever your project settings are is more a reference if I'm not mistaken as is resolution, so that generator nodes like Background node etc, have a reference. But you are not limited per project, you can work on node per node basis.

In Fusion, background input is the one that takes the primacy over foreground input. So if you set your background input to a particular depth and resolution it will be the dominant one. I would not try to make Fusion work like After Effects, but instead learn to use Fusion as it was designed to be used. Its much better to work that way. Otherwise you will likley get frustrated because its not After Effects, and instead of getting the benefits of what it is, you will get frustrations for what is not meant to be. There is a lot more freedom in Fusion or node based systems but you have to adopt yourself to its way not try to adopt it to be layer based. In terms of bit depth, unlike layer based systems nodes are not nearly as linear so you can do it in most places in node tree,

Ultimately whatever you use as a background decides the bit depth (and image dimensions). The preferences set the default behavior, that "source nodes" like Background use unless you set a specific bit depth for them.

In Fusion, background input is the one that takes the primacy over foreground input. So if you set your background input to a particular depth and resolution it will be the dominant one.

That's a design choice made per output. It's not enforced in any manner at all in Fusion. A tool can promote/demote the datatype freely.

Ultimately whatever you use as a background decides the bit depth (and image dimensions). The preferences set the default behavior, that "source nodes" like Background use unless you set a specific bit depth for them.

In Fusion, background input is the one that takes the primacy over foreground input. So if you set your background input to a particular depth and resolution it will be the dominant one.

That's a design choice made per output. It's not enforced in any manner at all in Fusion. A tool can promote/demote the datatype freely.

Yes. Its not enforced, its simply takes primacy. You can override it, but if you don't do so specifically, it will default to background settings.

I would not try to make Fusion work like After Effects, but instead learn to use Fusion as it was designed to be used. Its much better to work that way. Otherwise you will likley get frustrated because its not After Effects, and instead of getting the benefits of what it is, you will get frustrations for what is not meant to be. There is a lot more freedom in Fusion or node based systems but you have to adopt yourself to its way not try to adopt it to be layer based. In terms of bit depth, unlike layer based systems nodes are not nearly as linear so you can do it in most places in node tree,

Agreed, but that's not what I'm trying to do. I simply said that as a reference to what I know, which is AE and Motion, both of which have a comp setting when it comes to the usual stuff, dimensions, bit depth, etc.

I see the benefits of using Fusion for many things where nodes are much better to work with than layers in AE, where you need to precomp the hell out of everything, but I've also encountered situations where nodes seem to be a rather overly complicated way of doing things. But part of it is that I still don't know Fusion as well as AE, I'll recognize that.

That being said, the method to simply preview a comp in Fusion is just terrible. I mean, as far as I was told, you right click on the saver node, go to "Choose/Play preview on" and then choose left or right view as you wish. Then you get the same dialog you get when you press Render, and press Start Render. In After Effects you just press the space bar, it starts rendering to RAM, and when it filled it up, it plays. Much simpler. Motion has another shortcut, but same thing.

To add to the confusion, when it finishes rendering the preview, it stays there at frame 0 in the viewer you chose, even after you press the play button and you see the playhead move from left to right, but nothing happens. Oh! You have to right click on the viewer you chose, and choose Play. When you're done, you have to right click again and choose Remove Preview. It is the most bizarre previewing system I have ever encountered in any software in three decades of working with video software.

It's a weird thing because in many aspects, Fusion seems like a very advanced software that beats AE and Motion hands down, but in others like this it seems really dated. It's like Resolve, it seems like an NLE that is way more advanced than Premiere and FCPX, but then in those two you can easily save a preset for a filter that you loaded and changed, and in Resolve you can't. You should simply right click on the name of the FX in the inspector and a menu should popup where you can choose "Save preset as" and call it a day. Now bring in all the hateful comments.

Agreed, but that's not what I'm trying to do. I simply said that as a reference to what I know, which is AE and Motion, both of which have a comp setting when it comes to the usual stuff, dimensions, bit depth, etc.

In my personal experience I've seen people struggle with Fusion mostly because they try to make it behave like After Effects or Motion as it were. Or even Nuke guys trying to make it like Nuke. Which by itself is not unreasonable since that where they came from, but I would simply suggest one tries to make most of fusion by working with fusion not against it. It can be quite rewarding. Its a great program. Lot of great solutions, just may not be what people are used to, until someone shows them.

I see the benefits of using Fusion for many things where nodes are much better to work with than layers in AE, where you need to precomp the hell out of everything, but I've also encountered situations where nodes seem to be a rather overly complicated way of doing things. But part of it is that I still don't know Fusion as well as AE, I'll recognize that.

I understand what you mean. I came from Photoshop so at first I tried to make it work like Photoshop and it was frustrating, but once I understood how Fusion works, it has become I would agree harder to set up a comp, but once you do, it more than make up for it, be allowing many ways to avoid the very same problem layers have at the beginning, and becomes a issue later.

There are however many built in ways in Fusion to speed up many repetitive tasks. Templates for comps . Groups for various mini comps inside a large one. Also you can make macros and you can save any tool to use whatever settings you like as default. Really helpful. There are tones of little helpers from keyboard shortcuts to various interface shortcuts that can really speed things up. Give it a chance.

That being said, the method to simply preview a comp in Fusion is just terrible. I mean, as far as I was told, you right click on the saver node, go to "Choose/Play preview on" and then choose left or right view as you wish. Then you get the same dialog you get when you press Render, and press Start Render. In After Effects you just press the space bar, it starts rendering to RAM, and when it filled it up, it plays. Much simpler. Motion has another shortcut, but same thing.

To add to the confusion, when it finishes rendering the preview, it stays there at frame 0 in the viewer you chose, even after you press the play button and you see the playhead move from left to right, but nothing happens. Oh! You have to right click on the viewer you chose, and choose Play. When you're done, you have to right click again and choose Remove Preview. It is the most bizarre previewing system I have ever encountered in any software in three decades of working with video software.

Well, that sounds very strange to me. I use Fusion page in Resolve mostly, but I imagine its the same thing. You can preview what you are doing at any time by pressing play or space-bar as you would expect. You can preview it in proxy mode or high quality or low quality mode at any time. You can click on any node and have it cash to disk to speed up the parts of the comps you are done with so you don't have to cash it. You can preview it in both or one viewer, depending on what you want to see it. Just one node or more . You can preview with split A/B filter as well. You can preview easily any channel or switch between alpha or any other mode. There are so many ways to preview what you want at any point and any node. So what you say seems really strange. Like you are using it wrong or something.

It's a weird thing because in many aspects, Fusion seems like a very advanced software that beats AE and Motion hands down, but in others like this it seems really dated. It's like Resolve, it seems like an NLE that is way more advanced than Premiere and FCPX, but then in those two you can easily save a preset for a filter that you loaded and changed, and in Resolve you can't. You should simply right click on the name of the FX in the inspector and a menu should popup where you can choose "Save preset as" and call it a day. Now bring in all the hateful comments.

You can do much, much, much more than what you just said. But that is the thing. You are trying to do what you are used to, and missing so many amazing other ways to do it ,that are far more flexible and powerful.

Too much to cover here, and maybe get off topic, but trust me. Whatever you think presets in After Effects are , is just something you are used to. But resolve and fusion are far more flexible and scalable in that area.

Reminds me of a video I saw the other day.

Tricky Little Things in DaVinci Resolve - Ep 3

Cheers!

That being said, the method to simply preview a comp in Fusion is just terrible. I mean, as far as I was told, you right click on the saver node, go to "Choose/Play preview on" and then choose left or right view as you wish. Then you get the same dialog you get when you press Render, and press Start Render. In After Effects you just press the space bar, it starts rendering to RAM, and when it filled it up, it plays. Much simpler. Motion has another shortcut, but same thing.

To add to the confusion, when it finishes rendering the preview, it stays there at frame 0 in the viewer you chose, even after you press the play button and you see the playhead move from left to right, but nothing happens. Oh! You have to right click on the viewer you chose, and choose Play. When you're done, you have to right click again and choose Remove Preview. It is the most bizarre previewing system I have ever encountered in any software in three decades of working with video software.

Well, that sounds very strange to me. I use Fusion page in Resolve mostly, but I imagine its the same thing. You can preview what you are doing at any time by pressing play or space-bar as you would expect. You can preview it in proxy mode or high quality or low quality mode at any time. You can click on any node and have it cash to disk to speed up the parts of the comps you are done with so you don't have to cash it. You can preview it in both or one viewer, depending on what you want to see it. Just one node or more . You can preview with split A/B filter as well. You can preview easily any channel or switch between alpha or any other mode. There are so many ways to preview what you want at any point and any node. So what you say seems really strange. Like you are using it wrong or something.

Well, I'm just going by what Sander replied when I asked precisely about that: https://forum.blackmagicdesign.com/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=199145

Of course you can play as it is, but what I was referring to was the way to do a RAM preview, or a disk preview in an easy way. When you hit play in Fusion, it doesn't render to RAM or disk, so if the node flow is a little too heavy for the machine and can't play in real time, then it will play slow, in less than real time. In AE there's an option to render to RAM before playing, and in Motion there's the same thing. Even in Resolve, while it's not a RAM preview, if you leave the Cache in smart mode, you wait a few seconds and it starts rendering so you can play in real time. In the Edit page, that's when the red line turns to blue. And in Fusion inside Resolve, the comp gets rendered to preview if you're in the Edit page, and I think there's a way to automatically set it to cache.

In Fusion it's either that, or the background render menu item, which is about the closest thing to a RAM preview I can get and similar to Resolve's smart render. I guess I'll just have to get used to it.

Don't get me wrong, it's not like I'm trying to decide whether to keep working in AE or Fusion. I haven't paid the damn Adobe CC sub since 2020, when I use those programs it's only because I work for a company that provides it to me in a machine they provide, because my Mac Studio doesn't have a single Adobe program and it will stay that way. My old PC has Adobe CS6 because I own it, and it has Encore, which is a very decent Blu-ray authoring program and CS6 was the last version that had it.

I'm sick of the entire creative industry using Adobe software just because everybody in the industry uses Adobe software. It's a vicious circle that I'm sick and tired of. I started using Premiere and Photoshop in 1998 and AE in 1999. They have barely changed since then. They just keep slapping features on top of them, which are mediocre compared to the same feature in most other software that compares. On top of that, Premiere gets buggier with each passing month, and the other two are just as buggy and slow as they always were, no matter how fast is your machine.

There's plenty of great software out there to replace pretty much every popular Adobe program, people just need to wake up and use it. Resolve and Fusion feel like having fun, Premiere and AE feel like work that you don't look forward to do.

Peace out.

That being said, the method to simply preview a comp in Fusion is just terrible. I mean, as far as I was told, you right click on the saver node, go to "Choose/Play preview on" and then choose left or right view as you wish.

????????

Just select the node you want to preview (can be the Saver if you want the output of the comp) and press the 1 key on the keyboard for the left viewer or the 2 key for the right viewer. Press space bar to play (the viewer will follow the playhead).