Forcing Fusion Compositon Aspect Ratio

Hello:

I have my projects and timelines set up for UHD. However, there are instances where I need to create a timeline that is in vertical format. However, any new fusion composition I create, takes on UHD aspect ratio. How can I change the aspect ratio of the Fusion composition for vertical format?

Thank you in advance.

Don Barar

Hello:

I have my projects and timelines set up for UHD. However, there are instances where I need to create a timeline that is in vertical format. However, any new fusion composition I create, takes on UHD aspect ratio. How can I change the aspect ratio of the Fusion composition for vertical format?

Thank you in advance.

Don Barar

Fusion does not have native resolution per se, or aspect ratio so you can adopt it at any time to anything you need. for most of the generator nodes it uses reference resolution you set up in the Fusion settings. UHD aspect ratio is 16:9, usually defined as 3840 x 2160 pixels, and if you change it to be 2160 x 3840 pixels, you will have vertical format from it. But if you don't, it doesn't matter, you can change composition to any resolution you want inside almost all of the nodes.

Usually background input determinants the resolution on which the foreground elements will be merged. You can change this manually, but that is default behaviour. If for example your fusion settings are set to 3840 x 2160 pixels, all the generator nodes, from background node, to fast noise etc, will use that as reference, and you can change it per node basis if you need to. Whatever your final merge node is, it will adopt the background element input as canvas size. Just keep that in mind.

Another approach you might take is to create whatever your timeline is in the edit page, say vertical format, and simply convert your clip or clips to fusion composition by right clicking on it in your edit page. Than when you go to fusion page, it will inherit all the resolution and everything from edit page. Otherwise any media you pull in from media pull into fusion will adopt the resolution of the clip in the media pull, skipping over edit page, and if you create something in fusion from scratch it will use reference resolution set in your fusion page settings. Like I said, you can change this node by node basis if you like, but that is the default behavior to keep in mind.

Hi KS:

The behavior I am seeing is odd. I have a project with format settings of UHD landscape. In this project I have a timeline where I changed the settings to a format as FHD portrait. For this timeline, I created a Fusion composition for a closing sequence. So that I could use this composition again, I exported the Fusion composition.

I then created a new project that was UHD landscape. In this project I created a timeline with the format set to FHD portrait. I then tried the following:

1) Created a new Fusion composition where the project settings were UHD landscape. Of course, when I created a new Fusion composition, it showed as landscape. I then placed this composition on the FHD portrait timeline and imported the closing Fusion composition. Everything was out of alignment. Hence, I deleted both the timeline and the project.
2) Changed the master project settings to UHD portrait. Created a new FHD timeline. And, because the master settings were portrait, so was the timeline. I then created a new Fusion composition. As expected, this composition took on the portrait aspect ratio. From here, I was able to import the previous saved Fusion composition and everything was in the correct place.

Is this correct behavior? It seems odd to me that I must change the master project settings to be able to import the previous Fusion composition to get it to appear correctly within the frame and not have to make any adjustments.

BTW. I should add I am working with DRS Beta 19.2 operating within MacOS 14.4.1. This behavior is not something new to DRS 19. I have had this issue going back to at least DRS 17.

Don

Is this correct behavior? It seems odd to me that I must change the master project settings to be able to import the previous Fusion composition to get it to appear correctly within the frame and not have to make any adjustments.

BTW. I should add I am working with DRS Beta 19.2 operating within MacOS 14.4.1. This behavior is not something new to DRS 19. I have had this issue going back to at least DRS 17.

Don

Like I've mentioned in previous post, Fusion works independent on the edit page or even project settings, but it does respect some input from them. Project settings will inform fusion reference resolution, but this can be changed in both Fusion page settings and per node basis, because Fusion is designed to be essentially resolution agnostic. This is intended and well though out behaviour that if you are used to way Fusion works, is what you want. If you come from edit page in resolve or color page and never worked with Fusion it may seem strange. It is not a new behaviour, you are correct. it is indeed to work this way and that is a good thing.

First to understand is that Fusion was an independent software and not part of resolve. When it was bought and added to resolve, not all integration works as seamlessly and each version this is changing, but some fundamentals are probably not going to change anytime soon, because there are good reasons for it.

Fusion can do a lot of things, and I know it common to think of it for many resolve users as basically just a fancy title editor in resolve, its much more than that, which means that a) clips in fusion can come from all over the place and often that means skipping edit page alltogeather. Weather that is from media pool, using drag and drop from disk, loader node or generated inside the fusion page itself. To manage all that and not be limited by potentially many different aspect ratios and resolutions, both in 3D and 2D space Fusion is as I've mentioned resolution agnostic, so to keep it all flexible. Once you understand how to deal with concept of resolution in Fusion its easy to manage it while staying flexible.

Also you can use saver and loader nodes to skip rest of Resolve alltogeather, and for many projects that are more complex than a title sequence this is actually faster way to work, because of rendering and convince. You may also be working in Fusion studio standalone, outside of resolve and continue working in Fusion page in resolve itself. Or you could be using fusion to export composition to other NLEs.

You could have many mini compositions and elements of a larger composition in the same fusion composition. For these reasons, resolution in Fusion is intended to remain a matter of user need and limiting it to project setting or timeline setting would be a great handicap to fusion users. And its not just resolution, its bit depth, gamut, gamma and whole whole other settings that can be as easily and flexibly adjusted in Fusion per node basis. This is important for technical conversions and reasons and also for creative reasons. To an extent this is also true for a frame rate, but not overall length of composition which is till something one has to adjusts in the edit page, unlike in Fusion studio standalone, where its not the case.

Also Fusion page manages cache and memory differently than rest of the resolve pages because it has different needs. That being said, there are needs for sometimes working as you do in edit page and wanting to simply continue working in fusion, maybe on a title sequence, as if it extension of the timeline in the edit page.

In that case as I've mentioned before, its good to understand how Fusion works with resolution and aspect ratio and color etc to get desired resolution. Its not hard to set up once you understand how it works.

My advice is to leave the project settings as you want your edit page to be. Use timeline resolution as you want it to be. When you create and work in fusion page, make changes either in the Fusion page settings for Fusion, where you can adjust reference resolution so you don't have to do it per node basis. But if you need to or want to you can always have your background elements in the resolution you want or need.

The following text is from the reference manual, and there is more on bit depth and other settings so if you are having trouble its worth checking it out.

Adding Fusion Composition Generators

The Generator category of the Edit page Effects Library has a Fusion Composition generator. It’s useful for creating an empty placeholder in the Timeline that you later want to work on in the Fusion page to create a more fully-featured Fusion composition.

Creating a Fusion Composition Clip in a Bin

You can create an empty Fusion Composition clip in any bin in the Media Pool without creating a Timeline. This method can be useful for creating motion graphics or titles when there is no Timeline or when you plan on using the clip in multiple Timelines.

There are various ways one can create a Fusion composition template that can be dynamically adjusted to fit different timeline, length, resolution etc, but that requires preparing the composition as dynamic template and makes sense if you are working on the same title or motion graphic sequence all the time.

Managing Resolution In Fusion

There is no formal resolution to a comp in Fusion. Even though opening Fusion > Fusion Settings in the Fusion page or Preferences in Fusion Studio allows you to set the Width and Height in the Frame Format panel, those settings only affect the size of Fusion-generated images, like the Background tool, Fast Noise, and Text+ tool. The actual resolution of your composition is initially determined by the source resolution of the input image. However, it can be modified at any time using a variety of operations and nodes.

For example, if you read in a full HD 1920 x 1080 resolution image, your comp starts at full HD 1920 x 1080 resolution. This is regardless of the Timeline resolution when you are using the Fusion page in DaVinci Resolve. The initial resolution of the Fusion comp is the size of the source media. Depending on how you combine images and the nodes you use, the output comp resolution can be maintained or modified.

The output of the Fusion page is placed back into the Edit page Timeline based on DaVinci Resolve’s Image Sizing setting. By default, DaVinci Resolve uses an image sizing setting called Scale to Fit. This means that even if the Fusion page outputs a
4K composition, it conforms to 1920 x 1080 if that is what the project or a particular Timeline is set to. Changing the image sizing setting in DaVinci Resolve’s Project Settings affects how Fusion compositions are integrated into the Edit page Timeline.

Changing the Resolution of a Clip

If your comp uses a single image, you can change the pixel output resolution in several ways. Three common tools that change the pixel resolution of a clip are the Resize, Scale, and Crop nodes. A fourth node, Letterbox, is less commonly used but also changes the pixel resolution of a clip.

These four nodes are located in the Transform category of the Effects library. Resize is also located in the toolbar.

— Crop: Sets the output resolution of the node using a combination of X and Y size along with X and Y offset to cut the frame down to the size you want. Crop removes pixels from the image, so if you later use a Transform node and try to move the image, those pixels are not available.

— Letterbox: Sets the output resolution of the node by adding horizontal or vertical black edges where necessary to format the frame size and aspect ratio.

— Resize: Sets the output resolution of the node using absolute pixels.

— Scale: Sets the output resolution of the node using a relative percentage of the current input image size.

To change resolution and reposition a frame without changing the pixel resolution of a clip, use the Transform node.


Compositing with Different-Resolution Clips

When you composite images with different resolutions using the Merge node, the image that’s connected to the orange background input determines the output resolution of the Merge node.

Often, it’s easiest to control the comp resolution right at the start by connecting a node with the desired output resolution you want to the orange background input on the Merge node. A Background node is often used in this situation because it consumes meager system resources.

Sizing Between DaVinci Resolve Pages

The order of sizing operations between DaVinci Resolve pages is a bit more nuanced. It’s important to understand which sizing operations happen in the Fusion page, and which happen after, so you know which effects alter the image that’s input to the Fusion page, and which effects alter the page’s output. For example, lens correction, while not strictly sizing, is nonetheless an effect that changes how the image begins in your Fusion composition. However, the Edit or Cut page stabilization function is an effect that comes after the Fusion page, so it does not appear in the composition you’re creating.

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Sizing with Compound and Fusion Clips

Another way to modify the resolution before clips get handed off from the Edit page to the Fusion page is to create a compound clip or a Fusion clip. Both compound clips and Fusion clips change the working resolution of the individual clips to match the Timeline resolution. For instance, if two 4K clips are stacked one on top of the other in an HD timeline, creating a compound or Fusion clip resizes

the clips to HD. The full resolution of the individual 4K clips is not available in Fusion and is therefore handed off to the Color page at the rescaled size. To maintain the full resolution of source clips, bring only one clip into the Fusion page from the Edit or Cut page Timeline, and then bring other clips into the Fusion composition using the Media Pool. Of course, if your clips are full HD and your timeline is full HD, then creating a Fusion clip or compound clip does not affect the resolution.

Hi KS:

Thank you for the detailed responses. Your information was very helpful and improved my understanding.

Don

Hi KS:

Thank you for the detailed responses. Your information was very helpful and improved my understanding.

Don

No problem.

Just a s point of reference and from experience point of view, I just finished a small project that had mixture of native resolutions and color spaces. All went as excepted and not problems. Maybe someone will read this later and benefit from it

Two photos in sRGB with different resolutions.
One Full HD rec709 video file
One UHD Slog2 video file
And some Fusion native text 3D effects.

I imported everything in Fusion page. Used Color Space Transform node for each of the files and converted from their native color space to linear for gamma and Davinci Wide Gamut.

This linearizes all of the files into what is native for Fusion, linear space and workflow and than all I had to do is use a viewer lut to preview everything as if it was Rec709, otherwise in linear space, all images and video appear darker.

Basically you work in linear space and conform all to linear space in Fusion node area, and in the viwers you preview it as rec709. That way, fusion gets linear files and all the fusion tools expect files to be linear to work their best, and you compensate for what would otherwise be dark image by using viwer lut just to preview everything in color space that is most comfortable for the eyes making it easy to work.

Before all the nodes were sent to color page, I just use one node at the end, color space transform node and go from linear in this case to Davinci wide Gamut and that conforms it all to color page, ready to be graded and in color page I just used another color space transform to Rec709.

As for resolution differences, as I've mentioned before, the easiest way is to bring any resolution you want into fusion and than I just use background node which automatically when it is created will be as are the settings for resolution in the fusion preferences. For me its Full HD.

Basically I just create background node which is automatically than FullHD and I hook that up into merge node as background input (orange) and anything of any resolution I put as foreground input (green) does not matter, since merge node respects the background input for resolution. That way I always have what I want, in this case Full HD and anything merged on top in going to stay in that frame. I can than use resize node or transform node or whatever for the foreground element and make it fit.

Anyway, even a complex set of bit depths, resolutions and color spaces, is not a problem if understand what to do, and how to best approach it. Its probably not intuitive for someone who is not used to it, but its relatively easy once you get used to it.

There is also color managed semi automatic approach in resolve where all files are linearized in fusion page automatically but you have to tell fusion what the original source color space is, usually by right clicking in the media tab and assigning what it is. I prefer to work in a more manual way, because I feel I have more control at any point in the process.

Anyway, maybe someone will read this later and benefit from it. I'll just leave a link to COLOR MANAGEMENT IN DAVINCI RESOLVE for those who want to expand on it.

https://mononodes.com/color-management- ... i-resolve/

I usually create a Background generator at dimensions I need and use that as a base for everything downstream.

I usually create a Background generator at dimensions I need and use that as a base for everything downstream.

Yes. Pretty much.

I tend to use Background node for that and for anything downstream that I need to conform to output resolution, like various imported graphics at odd dimensions or similar things. Also handy is the time when I need to use resize node, which actually changes resolution, sometimes its nice to speed things up when graphics is too large for what I need, and as long as reference resolution is set in the fusion settings, resize node, background node all automatically are created at that res. Makes things speedy to work with.

Background node set to transparency with alpha down to zero is also handy for paint node operations when paint node needs something to give it canvas size, while at the same time I don't want to paint to be over everything, just in its own patch. After that I usually throw in auto domain to constraint fusion to rendering just the small portion where paint was used.

I found an easy solution to force correct video resolution is to right click on time line and go to clip attributes click on custom and type correct resolution. My old video was on bluray and when I took it off it was a funky resolution so I corrected it.