Graphics too difficult to make

I've bitched about this before and doing it again won't help. But my friends and I had a contest today... we pulled a key in After Effects adding graphics... then we did the same thing in Resolve. The key was better in Resolve but graphics in Resolve is a complete nightmare. They keep adding stuff nobody needs and completely ignore how bad their method of doing graphics is.

What do you mean by "graphics in Resolve"?

What do you mean, what do I mean? Making graphics, you know, words flying around and doing whatever you want them to do. Font. Words. Sentences. Making words in Resolve is like 10 times more convoluted than it is in After Effects. And I know at least a dozen editors that refuse to use Resolve for "word making". Why pull your hair out when it's simple in AE.

They keep adding stuff nobody needs and completely ignore how bad their method of doing graphics is.

Maybe you just need training?

https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/produc ... ning#books

Hello,
In my humble opinion, for simple motion design (flying words, typos, precise kerning etc.), AE is the most easy to learn and use, because of layers and experience (Illustrator, inDesign, Acrobat, fonts).
But since more than five years, I doesn't AE use anymore (but I pay for the Adobe licence : photoshop, lightroom, inDesign, Illustrator…). Because:
– fusion is inside Resolve and I can navigate easely from editing to compositing to coloring to mixing with a real color space mastering.
– fusion is a real 3D software with great camera tracking and many other plus
– fusion is a node editor (need training)
But if, for some work, I feel AE is more useful, I would use it without complaining
Jacques

Why pull your hair out when it's simple in AE.

Yes, why ? Did you answer this question ?
Because I never use AE so this question never occurred to me, but if your answer is "no need bother using Fusion then ?", why not simply follow your conclusions ? (real question)

Why pull your hair out when it's simple in AE.

Yes, why ?

This thread is a rant, not a question.

Anyway, "graphics" is different, i.e., not the same on all the programs. I'm not an expert on graphics on many other software, not even on Resolve/Fusion. But I guess the people who know how to do "graphics" on Fusion would be as frustrated with layer based "graphics" as you are with Fusion.

I think to get something out of this you could make a specific example, what was difficult and how you would like it to work, instead of generalizing a vague issue you are having.

I suppose Blackmagic is concentrating on developing features and fixing bugs that their most important clients and target groups want and need, or what they think they want and need. A regular user like us doesn't have the same information they do so it's easy to demand what we think is more important. But it's not our company is it.

(Please note that this was for the opening message)

Apple's Motion makes this really easy, compared to that even AEFX is convoluted.
We regularly use it for simple motion graphics, while Fusion standalone is pretty usable for serious compositing, but, admittedly, overly complex for simple tasks.

Other than a user moaning about something not working as he likes, do you actually have constructive criticism or need?

Do I have constructive criticism? Yeah! Make the program better!

And to the person who says Fusion is better because it uses nodes...
my challenge to you, anytime. You on Fusion, me on After Effects and we both have to build the same graphic.
Don't take this personal, but I'll blow you out of the water. I'll be eating lunch and you'll still be making your graphic!
LOL!!

That's exactly what I thought : stick to AE, you seem happy there... Why bother giving "instructions" to transform another piece of app you don't master obviously ?

Do I have constructive criticism? Yeah! Make the program better!

And to the person who says Fusion is better because it uses nodes... my challenge to you, anytime. You on Fusion, me on After Effects and we both have to build the same graphic. Don't take this personal, but I'll blow you out of the water. I'll be eating lunch and you'll still be making your graphic! LOL!!

You ain't worth the time, kid. The attitude you display belongs in some other forum. You are not hear to learn or educated, but to moan about something you already decided not to like.

DNA Animation - After Effects vs DaVinci Resolve Fusion. Nodes vs Layers.

How to Do 20 Things in Fusion That You Used to Do in After Effects

15 Tricks for Fusion (for After Effects Users)

You on Fusion, me on After Effects

That's the wrong comparison.

YOU on AE vs YOU on Fusion (but only after you become as proficient in Fusion as you are in AE).

That comparison eliminates the variables of skill and tests the actual programs. That comparison is what is shown in the Casey Ferris and Cezar Farius videos.

Jim... you are correct. I'm just blow'n off steam and I'm amused. I still hate Fusion for graphics. It's great for stuff like painting on frames and tracking. But when it comes to pure graphics - it's ridiculously convoluted. Yes, could I get better at it... but why should I bother when I can tear through AE like a wizard. And then importing that into Resolve is a breeze. But again, I get your point.

I'm pretty, pretty good with Fusion and would say, high level at After Effects. Having done the skill to skill challenge with myself, it's very obvious that Ae can destroy Fusion for most 2D work. The shape tools in Ae are a couple generations ahead of Fusion's. The type tools in Fusion are alright but have some glaringly obvious problems. Two that come to mind are center based transforms per character using a follower and the bounding box of each letter being too big and overlapping with other characters if the sizes are too different. The other thing that makes Ae a beast compared to Fusion/Resolve is keyboard shortcuts. You can run Ae quickly because you aren't hunting the program with your mouse. Then there's things like alignment and snapping. What's crazy is that the text tool on the edit page actually has snapping in it but Fu doesn't.
Ae falls short with 3D integration and using things like depth maps and passes. But for your social media/Tik Tok 2d text and graphics? Not even close. Sure you can get there in Fusion but it's comparing the speed to get there that is so far and away Ae. I don't think there are many professional motion graphics people who are using Fusion. I don't think they will until the obvious things change. But at the speed BM pays attention to Fusion, that will be a never.

Every editor who thinks that they've got a good handle on graphics in Resolve just hasn't been asked to do the same level of work that is needed in motion graphics.

Maybe the next version of Resolve will have a major amount of work done to the Fusion page. I'd really like that. It would make things easier. Until then, Ae is king of the motion world by a long way.

To the original poster, get Reactor. There are things that will help in there and if you want to know how to add things like keyboard short cuts to transform, rotation, scale and opacity keyframes let me know. I made scripts to to that. Also made a script to replicate the "0" key to auto create a disk cache and render to make previews tolerable. Instead of now where it's a right click, search, bring up the window and select pre-render. Slow. Slow. Slow.

Edit*
Or, just to throw out the LOWEST hanging fruit...
Moving more than one selected object at a time in the viewer. Or hell, anywhere. I would love to give Peter and the team a list of features that are lacking. Not kinda be nice but lacking. Badly.

when it comes to pure graphics - it's ridiculously convoluted.

Well, the two posted videos demonstrate otherwise.

why should I bother when I can tear through AE like a wizard.

Because once you are better at Fusion, you'll tear through it even faster than you could in AE and you can stop paying Adobe every month.

I only started using Fusion inside Resolve recently, so I don't know how much better or worse it is for motion graphics than AE. I've used AE since 1999 so I know it quite well.

I would say that by now I hate AE because it suffers from the same problems most Adobe software does, however, to a lesser extent. Premiere is unbearable to work with, half the time it stalls for no reason even working with proxies, and there are all kinds of weird happenings.

Most Adobe software is ancient, with features thrown on top of them to sell the subscription, but I'm so fed up with the GUIs and bugs that I can't stand them anymore. I don't pay for CC, I use it when I have a job that leaves me no choice and it's paid for by the company, not me.

But while I don't have a lot of experience with Fusion, in my short experience with it, what I see as the main problem is the keyframing. I like the nodes, it's an interesting mode of working that I hadn't seen before, and I'm going to learn them as much as possible, but the keyframing area, with those really thin keyframe indicators that are barely visible, doesn't really invite me to work with them. I can't even imagine what must be like to animate a complex scene.

Unless I'm missing something, can those be turned into the usual shape for keyframes (sorry, the name doesn't come to me now, but it's the square rotated 45º). I don't know, they're just too weird.

Adding to the weirdness is the fact that mouse wheel modifiers are totally different between Resolve and Fusion. I mean, I think they started out as separate programs, and there's still a standalone Fusion, but Fusion has the mouse wheel modifiers that make sense, while Resolve doesn't.

The Command key in macOS (I haven't used Resolve in Windows but I assume the Control key has the same function, as everything that is a shortcut with the Cmd key in Macs is with the CTRL key in Windows), when pressed and the mouse wheel moved, zooms in and out the timeline. Doing the same but with the Shift key causes the timeline to scroll to the left or right.

Well, Fusion has this behavior at least for the Keyframes area, although for the program or monitor area it's only for the Cmd key to zoom in and out. **** doesn't do anything. Also in the keyframes area pressing Alt causes the same effect as the Shift key, horizontal scrolling. But nothing in the program area. But OK, at least inside the keyframes area, you can work with the standard mouse wheel modifiers.

Except that if you go back and forth between the Fusion and Edit pages, then in the Edit page you need to reprogram your brain to use a totally different modifier set, where the Alt key is the zoom in and out, and the Cmd key is the horizontal scroll one. And the Shift key is the one to make tracks shorter or higher vertically.

So it's a world of confusion. Between the almost invisible keyframes and the mouse wheel modifier chaos, it seems to me that doing motion graphics in Fusion might be a little hard.

So my choice for that is Apple Motion. I paid $50 for it in 2016 and had free upgrades ever since. And it has a keyframing interface that is similar enough to AE, but better. Also, unlike AE, it has groups where you can put several clips and generators and apply transforms and effects to the whole group. No need to precomp to death like AE.

Maybe if Blackmagic set the wheel modifiers in the Edit Page and Color page (I still haven't used the Cut page as I find the Edit one easier), to the same ones as in the Fusion page, then working in Fusion would be easier.

I would like to add something quick, after working for a day in Fusion in a 3D space from camera tracking, I'm not looking forward to do it again. Mostly because of the bizarre navigation in the 3D grid. Orbiting is one of the most common things an artist does when working in 3D, so it has to be the least complicated mouse operation possible.

Alt/Option and pressing the mouse wheel to orbit? Who thought that was a good way to do that? It puzzles me that so many 3D programs orbit with the mouse wheel, but if that wasn't bad enough, Fusion had to add the Alt/Option key to that. Why? At least Blender has an option where you can orbit pressing Cmd and the left mouse button.

No artist in the world wants to have to press the mouse wheel all the time to work. Or the right button. Everything that is a constant operation has to be accomplished with the left mouse button. Look up the Lightwave and Modo mouse modifiers, they're both the same since Modo was made by Lightwave people, and I can't remember them right now, but it was a combination of Cmd, Alt and Shift along with the left mouse button that gave you many different ways to navigate the scene. No mouse wheel button, and right button for what it's supposed to be, to display associated menus.

I think it comes from the fact that Fusion was originally created in the times of the wild west when it came to 3D. Back in the 90's when Alias Wavefront, 3DS Max, Discreet were all making magic there was hardware to support the software. The two major ones were the actual 3 button mouse with no scroll wheel and a Wacom tablet.
If you worked a compositing box back then, it used a huge 12x16 Wacom tablet.

I still use a huge Wacom tablet and when you map the middle click to the lower side button and right click to the top side button, all of these programs are super easy to use and fly around. Same thing with Maya. I usually have to do a little option dance for a few seconds to see if I'm scrubbing around it orbiting but it's a quick adjustment.

They just need to give an option to remap the movements to Maya. It's the industry standard and even Blender adhears to it.
Add it to the easy to fix for big gains list.

bentheanimator....
Ahhh...you are someone who gets it.! Thanks for posting...now I know I'm not crazy! .

And After Effects has become blazing faster than it was just 6 months ago. And Premiere can now play Red footage...though color grading it is a nightmare compared to Resolve.

I live in Las Vegas so I'll be at NAB...so far no hint at Resolve 19. I'm sad. I was hoping. But then they're not gonna give me what I want the most and that's to be able to move panels around. AND... you can't use a shortcut keystroke to add video to the timeline WITHOUT audio. Yikes!

I think it comes from the fact that Fusion was originally created in the times of the wild west when it came to 3D. Back in the 90's when Alias Wavefront, 3DS Max, Discreet were all making magic there was hardware to support the software. The two major ones were the actual 3 button mouse with no scroll wheel and a Wacom tablet.
If you worked a compositing box back then, it used a huge 12x16 Wacom tablet.

I still use a huge Wacom tablet and when you map the middle click to the lower side button and right click to the top side button, all of these programs are super easy to use and fly around. Same thing with Maya. I usually have to do a little option dance for a few seconds to see if I'm scrubbing around it orbiting but it's a quick adjustment.

All that is fine, but it doesn't mean that because it was that way back in the 90's it should still be that way. Even if all the mice in the 90's didn't have a wheel (and I remember most of them had), that's no excuse for having such an awkward way of using the mouse to navigate a 3D scene.

Even if we go back to that decade, Lightwave was another 3D software and unless they changed the modifiers later, they were all a combination of Cmd/CTRL, Alt and Shift with the LMB. I never had a better way of navigating a 3D scene than when using Modo, which is the same as Lightwave when it comes to that, or at least used to be. Blender is not bad once you change some settings, but Modo beats it by far.

Why not give the user the option? Is it that hard to change the code in Fusion to let the user use Cmd/CTRL and LMB to orbit, and other combinations all with LMB to make life easier to us users?

The biggest criticisms about Resolve right now are the lack of bug fixes and QOL improvements. Things like more keyboard shortcuts, modifying 3D control layouts are all part of the same list in my book. Just found a new one last night of you use pSpawn and or a displacement map into a 3D shape, it breaks pRender caching. That was fun to find.

I really like Resolve and Fusion. It makes me more critical of the software because I can see how good it real can be with just a bit more polish in the right areas.

I run Houdini, Maya and Nuke and can see what some of the more clunky parts of Fusion are supposed to work like, maybe they will have a big Fusion push this year. Since it's like half their potential user base, it would be helpful for them to acknowledge that.

To end positively, check out fuAlign(Google it). It brings in one of the most missed part of Ae. You can piece meal a bunch of improvements if you spend some time. The community at steak underwater has been great.

To end positively, check out fuAlign(Google it). It brings in one of the most missed part of Ae. You can piece meal a bunch of improvements if you spend some time. The community at steak underwater has been great.

Let a hobbit explain fuAlign:

And there is a great plugin for motion design in Fusion called Motion Sweet:

https://www.youtube.com/@XSession/videos