- Posts: 276
- Joined: Wed Aug 01, 2018 10:27 am
- Location: CH
- Real Name: Richard Klingler
The question would be if there are features in the Studio version of Fusion standalone that you need/want, and how valuable they would be to you.
The Studio-only features are:
Licensed ProRes encoding for Windows and Linux (not available in Resolve, and if you need ProRes well worth the price all on its own).
Remote rendering. If you have a render farm, Fusion Studio comes with unlimited render nodes. Resolve can't do distributed rendering at all yet. Note that ProRes rendering is not licensed for the render node—it's an interactive-only feature.
Plug-ins. Not sure where Resolve currently sits with regard to OFX nodes on the Fusion page, but it can't yet use native SDK plug-ins. Krokodove is another tool that's worth the $300 price tag all on its own, and yet it is itself free. Indicated's CustomShader 3D is another if you're a heavy user of Fusion's 3D system. On the OFX side, I'd also count ReelSmart Motion Blur, Frischluft LensCare, and NeatVideo noise reduction among my must-have plug-ins. Of course, all of those but Krokodove would be an additional expense on top of Fusion, unless you already have OFX licenses for one or more of them.
External scripting—execute Fusion scripts from your project management software or interact with other programs through scripting. The free version has full scripting support from the interactive session, so this would only be useful if you need to control Fusion from an outside process. Resolve technically has this, but its scripting API is still not as well documented or understood as Fusion standalone's.
Export formats larger than 3840x2160. Fusion Free can import and work in virtually unlimited resolution, but it can only save images up to UHD.
Camera and Planar trackers (also available in Resolve Studio, which you have).
Optical Flow. Now available in the free version of Resolve, but still restricted to Studio licenses of Fusion standalone. OF is something that is frequently pre-rendered, though, so even if you do need it, it might still make sense to just do it in Resolve and write your vectors out to EXR (watch out for the current channel output limitations, though!)
Spherical camera, VR, and stereoscopy. I believe all of this is Studio-only in both Resolve and Fusion. I have never tried any VR or stereo work in Resolve, but I'd hazard a guess that it's an area where Fusion standalone is superior, if for no other reason than it still has all the useful buttons visible in the Viewport and not hidden away behind a context menu.
Fusion Connect—a plug-in for Avid Media Composer to exchange data with Fusion. Probably superfluous in a pipeline containing Resolve.
The Bins player. I honestly can't even figure the thing out, so I don't know how much you'd be losing there! But Generation AM doesn't run on Linux, so if you need a relatively light-weight playback program, Studio Player may be the way to go.
The Bins server. A nice-to-have feature, but not one to get terribly excited over, in my opinion.
I think that about covers it.
Oh, and as a side benefit, a Fusion Studio dongle will also give you another seat of Resolve 15.