Solid Color with Mask

Hi there,

how can I make a Solid Color on a Video Track with a hole in it. Since there´s no masking on the edit page I wonder how I can get for example a simple rectangular frame around my picture. And no... I can´t do it via an Alpha Output on the Color Page because the solid color will not be shown there.

( No masking possibilities is what me holds back from editing in Resolve. I do a lot picture in picture stuff an this is pain in the ass when you always have to go to color tab...)

Greetz,

Tobias

Stack two white solids - composite "add" and resize smaller the top one and then composite "subtract" the bottom one. Place your stills underneath the stack.

You will have a black border, but you won't be able to colorize it. Probably not the best solution, but if you don't need color in the frame it will give you border.

Thanks, but this is not really a solution.

I struggle with this problem every time I try to use Resolve for editing. I mean - masking in Premiere is crap... but at least you got somthing fast for layouting.

I agree absolutely that this should be easy to do from Edit, with masking abilities. I hope in future they start to leverage the Fusion integration further, as I am sure it would be possible to start bringing Fusion masks, and other tools, directly into Edit. It's already been done with Text+, to some extent at least.

Here's two ways three ways to achieve this today, with not too much work:

Method 1: Fusion comp on an Adjustment Clip.

Pros: Allows using any mask shape, including complex ones. Could use gradients or more complex surround colouring. Can then be extended in a myriad of other ways.

Cons: Requires going back and forth between Edit and Fusion, and might take a moment longer to set up than Method 2. Though it'll still only take a couple of minutes, and can then be copied between timelines.

1. Drag an Adjustment Clip to a layer above the layers you want surrounded
2. Right-click on it, and Open In Fusion page.
3. Add a Background node, set to the appropriate colour or gradient.
4. With the Background node still selected, add a Rectangle node, which will auto connect the rectangle to the Background. Adjust the Rectangle mask in the Viewer, and in its Inspector choose Invert Mask.
5. Drag the output of the Background node over the output of MediaIn1, which will automatically create a merge node, combining them and sending them to MediaOut1.

Your final composition should look like this:


And here's an example of what that looks like for me on the Edit page:


It would actually be possible to save this as a template, which could provide an effect which exposed the Background Colour and the Rectangle width/height/centre controls to Edit . That would allow you to drag it onto any Timeline and have it work immediately, and be fully controlled from Edit. It would basically operate like an OFX effect at that point. When I have some time I'll see if I can knock that up and link it here.

Speaking of OFX effects..

Method Two: OFX effect: Blanking Fill

Pros: Can be done entirely on Edit
Cons: Can only do a basic rectangular frame. Might require Studio version? Not sure on that.

So if you literally just need a coloured rectangular surround of arbitrary size, instead of going to Fusion you could just use the Blanking Fill OFX effect:




The downside of this method is that you are limited to filling in a rectangular shape from the edges; it couldn't ever create a circular cut-out, for example. But in your example of a 'simple rectangular frame', it works fine, and is fully managed from Edit.

Method 3 - Fusion Mask on the Clip itself

If you only need this for a single clip, there's another Fusion method, a bit quicker than Method 1 and which allows controlling the background colour from the Edit page:

1. Open the clip in question in Fusion
2. With MediaIn1 selected, add a Rectangle mask, and adjust its size appropriately. Don't invert it.

Layout:


3. On Edit, put a Solid Color below the clip, like this:


The Solid Color now shows through the hole cut by the Fusion comp.

This shares the advantage of method 1 that you can also now use any complex mask shape in Fusion; you're not limited to simple rectangles.

And it shares the benefit of method 2, that it can now be (partially) modified from Edit: at least the solid colour can now be modified from Edit. And if you wanted a gradient, you could use the Four Color Gradient effect, or whatever other Generator you wanted.

The downside is it only applies to one clip at a time, and it's more of a pain to copy it to other clips.

If you did have a whole timeline worth of clips you wanted to apply this to, you could make a Compound Clip out of them, then apply the simple Fusion comp to the Compound, and it would apply to all at once. Or nest one timeline in another, and place the Fusion comp in the outer timeline.

In this respect method 1 with the Adjustment Clip has the advantage of easily applying across the whole timeline, and being easier to copy between timelines; but it has the downside of requiring that you provide the background colour in Fusion itself.

Thanks man! Meanwhile I figured out a workaround myself too.

I took a random clip with the legnth of the timeline. Then put a white Background in it on Fusion Tab. Then I made a inverted rectangular mask on Color Tab with an Alpha Output... This helped in my special case of - A WHITE FRAME AROUND THE PICTURE -

Thx, Tobias

If you've got it working, great!

But for the future: if you're going to use Fusion you may as well do the masking in Fusion as well