Reference compositions are profoundly messed up

I finished up two compositions in Fusion, which I started from the timeline as reference compositions.

Upon going back to the timeline after the second one, the visual result was bafflingly wrong. I went back to the Fusion page to find it wrong there too.

First, most of the image was missing. This turned out to be because the Media In node now wasn't connected to anything. Nothing had changed on my filesystem. Now the Media In's "Clip Name" field was just blank. Not only that, but there's no apparent way to connect a file to a Media In. WTF?

Second, the entire composition had been downgraded to timeline resolution. I created it as a reference composition, to avoid exactly that. The footage is 6K, and initially that's what Fusion showed. It also created the default Background node at the correct resolution. But now all of that had been reduced to the 2K timeline res.

I looked at the first composition, and there too the Media In's clip name had disappeared, and it sourced nothing.

OK, this just happened again, and these are the steps:

1. In a timeline, select two overlapping video events in the timeline that are just straight clips (no compound clips or anything). Make sure one of the clips is higher resolution than the timeline. My timeline was 2K and the clip 6K.

2. Right-click and create a reference composition. Do a bunch of work in it? I did some keying, made a bunch of ellipses to serve as a garbage matte to block out tracking markers, and did a corner-pin.

3. When you're done, go back to the timeline to see if it looks right in-place. Yes? Good. Now select the comp in the timeline and do a Copy.

4. Switch to a higher-resolution timeline and paste. Now the Fusion comp is royally messed up.

The Media In clip link is now gone, so obviously one of your images is.
The resolution of the comp is messed up. Whereas the original, automatically-created background generator used to be the full clip resolution (in my case 6K), it is now the resolution of the timeline you pasted into.

Interestingly, the first time this happened my garbage matte was messed up because all of my polygon renderers reduced their resolution to the pasted-into timeline res. This time they remain at 6K, despite the background generator being reduced to 4K.

Remember that this is a "reference" composition and is not supposed to derive its resolution from any timeline. Yet here we see otherwise, even if you open the comp directly from the bin with a right-click and "show on Fusion page."

By the way, the reason I was copying and pasting into a higher-res timeline is because I need to render out just the composite elements at high resolution, to hand off to someone for laying into a timeline. Because there's no apparent way to render directly out of Fusion, I guess I have to create a high-res timeline, paste all the Fusion comps in there, and then render that out.

Its a bit hard to follow your workflow, but I smell something fishy. Especially your steps three and four. You link and unlink to a reference, you don't copy. Somewhere in there you did something to create the problem.

By the way, you render out of fusion with a saver node. I suggest you consult the manual for rules about using reference compositions.

Reference Manual for resolve Studio 19.1 - Fusion Fundamentals | Chapter 65 Getting Clips into Fusion

Referenced comps can be linked to other clips in any timeline by selecting the referenced comp, then right-clicking the target clip and selecting “Link to Referenced Composition.” Any changes you make are applied across all connected clips because they are all “referred” or “linked” to the same composition.

If you are manually copy and pasting elements, than you don't need reference composition. And resolution of the clip is maintained by default, unless you create fusion clip or compound clip first.

Referenced Composition Behaviors and Rules

There are some additional behaviors and rules to be aware of when using referenced compositions.

- Referenced compositions maintain the original source resolution of your clips.
- When selecting multiple clips, ensure that the clips have some overlap with the top selected clip. Without this overlap, the context menu action to create a referenced composition across layers is not available.
- When creating a project composition from multiple overlapping clips, a single composition associated with the top selected clip is created.
- The referenced composition features additional Media In nodes (one per track). Media In 1 refers to the top selected clip. Subsequent Media In nodes reference timeline tracks (layers) below the top clip.
- Removing a timeline clip will not remove the associated composition.
- When you edit the contents in a referenced composition’s track, the corresponding Media In refreshes to automatically to show the new clips, edits, effects, and transitions.

NOTE: Clips of differing frame rates or clips with speed changes are not supported in referenced compositions.



MrAlexTech - There’s a BETTER way! The best DaVinci Resolve 19 Feature you totally missed

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Team 2 Films - How to Use REFERENCED Compositions - And other NEW Resolve 19 Fusion Features (Reference Comps)

Thanks for the extensive reply. I appreciate it.

Referenced comps can be linked to other clips in any timeline by selecting the referenced comp, then right-clicking the target clip and selecting “Link to Referenced Composition.” Any changes you make are applied across all connected clips because they are all “referred” or “linked” to the same composition.

What if there is no "other clip?" For example, in my situation I could find no way to render out a high-resolution version of my comp, except to create a high-resolution timeline and paste the Fusion comp into it. It was an empty timeline, so there was nothing in there to link to the composition. What other solution is there in this case?

I was given this project with the edit mostly complete, but needing effects. The timelines are 2K. Therefore, to get the clip and timing information into the comp with full-resolution sources, I select the timeline events as described in the doc you cited above and create a reference comp with them. This appears to work (the comp starts as 6K), but the results come back into the timeline with some really odd problems. I can't catalog them all right now.

Anyway, doing the above action creates a Fusion clip in the 2K timeline. So if you can't copy it into a higher-resolution timeline to render a higher-resolution composite, what are you supposed to do?

What if there is no "other clip?" For example, in my situation I could find no way to render out a high-resolution version of my comp, except to create a high-resolution timeline and paste the Fusion comp into it. It was an empty timeline, so there was nothing in there to link to the composition. What other solution is there in this case?

If you want to render out the content of the fusion composition, you can use saver tool to save out an image sequence directly from fusion or if you are using fusion studio it any other format. But fusion and resolve are not bound to a particular resolution and as long as you set up your composition and timeline correctly, you can change resolution as much as you like and render directly or create a duplicate of the timeline. Not quite sure how does that link to reference compositions, pun intended.

You would use reference composition to create essentially a dynamic template which can be native fusion effects or native fusion effect mixed with clips, either does you have on the timeline or those you drag into fusion composition from media pool. How you change resolution as you work is up to you, since all the tools are there. After all that is one of the benefits of the coordinates system in fusion and to extent in resolve. 0.5 in 720p is proportionally scaled to be 0.5 in 8K.

I was given this project with the edit mostly complete, but needing effects. The timelines are 2K. Therefore, to get the clip and timing information into the comp with full-resolution sources, I select the timeline events as described in the doc you cited above and create a reference comp with them. This appears to work (the comp starts as 6K), but the results come back into the timeline with some really odd problems. I can't catalog them all right now.

What I'm not sure I understand is the use of reference composition when you talk about resolution. If you just need to work on some files, open them in fusion and they will be at source resolution while in fusion where you can perform your tasks, and after that if you scale up timeline to match the source resolution or leave it at lower resolution, it won't matter, since effects will be applied to source resolution in fusion. Unless you deliberately change resolution in fusion itself.

Transform tool for example scales the clips in fusion, but does not alter the source resolution of the file. And it concatenates. so you can chain them and not lose original quality or resolution. Other tools, that do change resolution of the original clips are, crop, scale, resize and letterbox. But since its nodal system in fusion, you can still work before them using transform tools and only resize at the end if you need to. It depends on what you want to do, but tools are there.

Fusion reference composition makes sense if you are trying to sync multiple clips with the same effects. At which point you do your work normally, you just need to link and unlike clips to a particular reference in the media pool. You can have multiple references.

Say you wanted split screen effect with timer or something. You could apply that to one set of clips as reference. And when you apply it to another set of clips, new clips will replace the old ones, but split screen and timer will remain. Linked. So if you change any of the linked references. they all update.

So you make your split screen, side by side videos with time code text + effect for example.

You use that as reference. And you link the reference to another timeline with another podcast with two people talking for time-code and split screen effect. But than at some point you want to remove time-code and add timer for the counting down end of podcast and each podcast is differnt lenght. Well you can update reference and all will update, and change from time code to timer, with for example differnt color font or style.

But clips themselves and timer could be specific to clips on which you apply it to and timeline. Leading to dynamic change of some elements, based on specific clips, and dynamic change and synchronization of other elements based on reference you made.

Of course you can make these references that live in media pool and have them ready for other projects so you can just link or unlike clips to differnt references. Or apply different references with differnt effects to differnt clips and still have sync for only some of the clips but not all.

Its very powerful if you get into it. And if you combine it with all the other customization and macros and all other stuff, modifiers, scripts and everything, you can leverage awesome power of it all and still keep your flexibility. But its not for complete beginners, of course, it requires some level of skills it needs to understand how it works and where its best used.

Anyway, doing the above action creates a Fusion clip in the 2K timeline. So if you can't copy it into a higher-resolution timeline to render a higher-resolution composite, what are you supposed to do?

You should think of resolution as relative. 2K timeline is something you can change to any other K as you work. Same is with fusion. There are few reasonable caveats, but those are part of fundamentals of using these applications and their tools, so I'm not sure how much you know or don't know.

Watch some of the clips I shared, and if you want to still use reference compositions because you want to sync up multiple clips, than it should make sense. If you don't need to sync up clips, use fusion normally. Fusion will work with the source resolution of the clips and you can either change working resolution of your timeline, you can change output resolution independently if you want to, or you can work on duplicates of your timeline for multiple deliveries.

Manual is full of specific details in regards to all of this. Its the nesting, compound clips, fusion clips and
nested timelines etc, that might get you into trouble, since they have more limitations, but fortunately they are not needed and I would only use them if I'm comfortable going downstream in a workflow, with no need to change resolution etc. Because nesting in resolve, trades flexibility for conformity. Not always a bad thing, but if you are planing to change things like resolution, I would suggest you use other tools, not nesting because too many get into trouble.

Otherwise , resolution change is typically very straightforward and easy. Aspect ratio change is a bit tricky but it can be set up to work dynamically as well. But if only thing you need is resolution change, that should be as easy as changing resolution of timeline in the settings as you work.

If you just need to work on some files, open them in fusion

That's no good, because then I don't have the In & Out points in the source media. Remember that the editor has trimmed and positioned the material exactly as needed in the timeline.

And, something that has been emphasized repeatedly, is that if you make a traditional "Fusion clip" from events in your timeline, the Fusion composition will be at the timeline's resolution. "Reference compositions" are presented as the solution for that, since they will use the source material at native resolution. That's why we're talking about reference compositions: They are apparently the only ones that preserve native resolution.

Otherwise, how do you take timing and clip information from a timeline and get that into Fusion in a resolution-independent manner (at the native resolution of the source material)?

And, a related question: What is the point of the Source drop-down on the Media In node in Fusion? You can select "Timeline" or "Media Pool." I have never seen this produce any effect. Why doesn't selecting "Media Pool" bring the clip in at its native resolution? What else would that choice even mean?

That's no good, because then I don't have the In & Out points in the source media. Remember that the editor has trimmed and positioned the material exactly as needed in the timeline.

Than open them in fusion. It will be at source resolution using source files. The end.

And, something that has been emphasized repeatedly, is that if you make a traditional "Fusion clip" from events in your timeline, the Fusion composition will be at the timeline's resolution. "Reference compositions" are presented as the solution for that, since they will use the source material at native resolution. That's why we're talking about reference compositions: They are apparently the only ones that preserve native resolution.

No. Fusion automatically opens media from the media pool at the source resolution. It cannot directly open files from the timeline.

To work around this, you need to create a Fusion clip or a compound clip. This automatically duplicates the clip in the media pool, allowing Fusion to open this "container" and forcing it to work at the timeline resolution.

The only things that transfer to Fusion otherwise are "Super Scale" (if applied to the source media in the Clip Attributes or the Timeline Inspector) and lens correction adjusted in the Inspector panel. Super Scale applied in the Timeline Settings output tab is an exception; this lets you work at one resolution and output files with Super Scale applied during rendering.

Resolution, color grade, and transform functions are ignored in Fusion.

Reference compositions serve a different purpose than what you described. Their primary function is to act as a proxy for syncing other clips.

Otherwise, how do you take timing and clip information from a timeline and get that into Fusion in a resolution-independent manner (at the native resolution of the source material)?

As I mentioned previously, all you need to do is open the clip in Fusion. That's it. It will be the source clip at its original resolution. It will be processed in Fusion according to your desired method, then sent to the Color page and back to the Edit page. This will be as if you had worked on the actual source clip from the Media Pool. All in and out points, transformations, and color grading will be applied after the Fusion processing. This is how Fusion within Resolve is designed to function, allowing you to achieve this workflow.

Fusion clips attempt to enforce the timeline resolution, which may be useful in certain situations, but I generally find them unnecessary. There are almost always better methods available. Reference compositions, on the other hand, serve as proxy references for synchronizing Fusion edits across multiple clips.

And, a related question: What is the point of the Source drop-down on the Media In node in Fusion? You can select "Timeline" or "Media Pool." I have never seen this produce any effect. Why doesn't selecting "Media Pool" bring the clip in at its native resolution? What else would that choice even mean?

There are three main ways to bring clips into the Fusion page.

First, you can use a MediaIn node when you open a clip from the timeline. Second, you can use a MediaIn node when you drag and drop a clip directly from the Media Pool into the Fusion page. Third, you can use a Loader node to load an image sequence from your disk, bypassing the Media Pool.

Correspondingly, there is a Saver node to save an image sequence from Fusion, independently from the rest of Resolve.

When you open a clip from the timeline in Fusion, the clip will appear as a MediaIn node with four options: Media Pool, Timeline, Background, and Layers.

In this case, the Media Pool and Timeline options will be the same. They will reference the clip from the timeline, so Fusion knows which clip it is, and will only carry over Super Scale and Lens Correction settings. All other adjustments will be ignored, and the clip will be sourced from the Media Pool at its original resolution without any adjustments.

The Background option is essentially a composite image of whatever is below the currently open clip in the timeline. At timeline resolution.

If there is nothing below it, you will see black. If there are other clips on the tracks below it, you will see them. It is a composite image of what is below the currently opened clip in Fusion and is used like scratch audio to preview where you might place your graphics. This way, you don't have to open the Edit page for preview purposes, if you happened to find yourself in situation where you would need it.

It does not work with actual clips, and many people make the mistake of trying to use it as if it were a clip from the timeline. It is not. It is simply a temporary, cached composite image. Much like scratch audio, if you scrub too quickly back and forth, or if you use effects in Fusion that rely on accessing source media, it will either fail or glitch. It is only used for previewing.

The Layers option is for PSD files and their layers.

Another type of MediaIn node is created when you drag and drop a clip from the Media Pool. Here, you still have the same Media Pool, Timeline, and Background options. However, now you have the option to trim media and perform similar actions as you would with a Loader node. The Background option works the same, but the Timeline and Media Pool options will differ depending on the footage.

The Media Pool option sources directly from the Media Pool. The Timeline option will use the clip from the timeline at that specific point in time, along with any Lens Correction and Super Scale settings. Even if you drag and drop something that is not on the timeline, the moment you switch to timeline for source media it will be whatever it is on the timeline at that point in time. Switching back to media pool and it will be clip you drag and dropped.

In first MediaIn method I mentioned when opening clip from timeline, choosing between Media Pool and Timeline yielded the same results because they were identical. Now, they are different.

The Loader node functions similarly, but it only works with image sequences. Otherwise, the Saver and Loader nodes in Fusion Studio (standalone) can handle everything.

There is also the option to choose extra layers with Fusion clips. If you create a Fusion clip by converting a stack of tracks or layers in the Edit page to a Fusion clip, a duplicate Fusion clip is created in the Media Pool, which is what Fusion opens at the timeline's resolution because it is a form of nested timeline. The Fusion clip will also try to convert layered tracks to MediaIn nodes connected to a Background node to mimic the original order of the tracks.

However, this order can be changed in three ways: either by changing the order of the MediaIn nodes in the Fusion page, by opening the Fusion clip itself as a nested timeline and reordering the tracks inside it, including adding new tracks, or by changing the layer numbers inside the MediaIn nodes, which allows you to access different tracks within the Fusion clip itself.

We had Fusion clip option for a while, but in Resolve 19 they added a newer way of applying Fusion composites to your clips called a “Referenced Composition.” This method allows you to reuse your work across multiple clips or even timelines.

You create a referenced composition on the Edit page by selecting a single clip, or a stack of clips, and then select “Create Referenced Composition” from the contextual menu. This generates a Fusion Referenced Composition in the Media Pool. You can enter the Fusion page to start compositing or double-click the Referenced Composition in the Media Pool to open it.

Referenced comps can be linked to other clips in any timeline by selecting the referenced comp, then right-clicking the target clip and selecting “Link to Referenced Composition.” Any changes you make are applied across all connected clips because they are all “referred” or “linked” to the same composition.

Referenced Compositions are an effective and secure way to keep your work backed up and organized, as they live in the Media Pool and will persist even if the original referenced clip is deleted from the timeline.

Resolution inside fusion is whatever you set it to, and merge your clips, with original resolution preserved. But unless you need to sync your adjustments across multiple clips, using regular fusion workflow is all you need.

[Peter Chamberlain]

What if you select the reference comp in the media pool and copy from there?

First off, thanks for taking the time to write up that lengthy reply. I appreciate it.

But it reflects a very limited view of what people do in a compositor. And there's some contradiction in there:

Fusion automatically opens media from the media pool at the source resolution. It cannot directly open files from the timeline.

But then:

There are three main ways to bring clips into the Fusion page. First, you can use a MediaIn node when you open a clip from the timeline.

The biggest reason to have Fusion integrated into Resolve is TIMING. For example, an editor just handed me a project where I have to put footage on a computer screen that somebody is watching, in a dolly shot. So the computer is in motion as we dolly toward it. Look:

FusionComp.png (833.47 KiB) Viewed 1193 times

I need to put the footage from the upper track onto the computer screen that's shown in the lower track, for a specific amount of time at a specific point in time, after tracking those dots on the computer screen and corner-pinning and keying the screen into place.

So the following is obviously not going to work:

...all you need to do is open the clip in Fusion. That's it. It will be the source clip at its original resolution. It will be processed in Fusion according to your desired method, then sent to the Color page and back to the Edit page. This will be as if you had worked on the actual source clip from the Media Pool. All in and out points, transformations, and color grading will be applied after the Fusion processing. This is how Fusion within Resolve is designed to function, allowing you to achieve this workflow.

There is no "the clip." There are TWO clips, and they must be opened together because their relationship in time must be maintained. And that is impossible to do at native resolution unless you use a "reference" composition. There is no "open in Fusion" available in the context menu when you have more than one timeline event selected. You can only create a Fusion clip, which degrades the entire thing to timeline resolution. Huge problem. What are we supposed to do about it?

All in and out points, transformations, and color grading will be applied after the Fusion processing. This is how Fusion within Resolve is designed to function, allowing you to achieve this workflow.

You can see from this example how absurd that idea is in many, many use cases. This is not going to work when you're tracking objects, keyframing things in relationship to each other, rotoscoping... This idea treats Fusion as if it's just a color corrector that you're slapping onto an entire clip, and then slicing that clip up into your timeline. That is seriously misguided and unrealistic.

If I were just going to "open a clip in Fusion" and start flailing away on it, why do I need the rest of Resolve? It totally defeats the purpose of this "integration," especially since the node views still aren't integrated, and there's no way to render a movie file directly out of Fusion.

Is this workflow hopelessly crippled, or am I missing something that makes it viable?

OK, after seeing your screenshot it seems that refernce compositions are profoundly useful and what is messed up is your workflow. As expected. If you insist on shooting yourself in the proverbial foot, you can still get away with it , but you have to pay the proverbial intersts.

When compositing in Fusion, either prepare your assets with the correct timecode before you start, or composite freely within Fusion from the beginning. It's a bad workflow to put compositing assets on different layers, resolutions, and timecodes and then try to composite them in Fusion later and retain all flexibility. This creates problems that could have been avoided. Now you have to worry about each clip being a different composition or losing the flexibility you had for conformity by converting it into something like a Fusion clip, at which point you lose source resolution. You could also try using a reference composition, which will work, but it's not needed if you do it correctly from the start, unless you want to sync clips in different compositions or timelines using the same reference.

If you had created the composite in Fusion from the beginning, you wouldn't have this problem. Everything would work correctly. Your current workflow is causing problems that you now have to solve in more difficult ways.

Regarding rendering elements at a higher resolution, you could have done that using render in place, different output settings, or from Fusion using a Saver node. All of these would have been better options.

Regardless, because the original workflow caused the problem, and I would use a different approach to prevent it, I attempted to recreate a similar situation using Ultra HD and 4K footage on a 2K timeline to address the existing issue. I also tried a green screen composite, mirroring your setup. Furthermore, I intentionally made it more complex by cutting and stitching the same clip in different places.

A workaround I used was to "render in place" the top clips at their original resolution. This essentially applies the correct trim and adds them to the media pool as separate clips. I used timeline markers, not clip markers, which set up the in and out points for reference. Then, I opened the bottom clip with the green screen in Fusion. I added the two rendered-in-place segments from the media pool by dragging and dropping them. Using the markers, it was fairly quick to place them in the correct positions, even though one longer clip was split and stitched into two sections. This made it match the timeline.

Keyframe editor can be used to do basic editing and with markers and spreadsheet view its easy to trim at precise locations if you need to. I would prefer to avoid this, by composting directly, but if you need to do it, this is probably the best way.

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As mentioned before, this setup isn't the best because it's basically doing the same work twice. This could be avoided by doing the compositing directly in Fusion. Putting clips on layers and than using fusion makes only sense if you are doing something simplistic and you use fusion clip or VFX connect. But for green screen work like in your screenshot, it would make most sense to simply open the green screen place in fusion and add screen replacement in fusion. Simple.

Alternatively you could have also used VFX connect which would do something similar to fusion clip with multiple layer, but allow to composite outside of resolve. Usually in fusion studio. But with some simple workarounds it can be worked on in other applications such as Nuke, Flame or After Effects. Fusion Studio is the most flexible option though that is most integrated. There are few caveats, but as with anything, you need a proper workflow to leverage its power.

For markers, another option is to use duration markers on the in and out points of clips, both within the clip itself and on the timeline. These markers work outside of Fusion and are helpful for making multiple subclips from a single clip. However, unlike in the Edit page, these duration markers don't create separate clips that can be used in Fusion. Despite this, duration markers can still be used on the timeline to quickly set in and out points with markers and to trim footage in keyframe editor of fusion page.

OK, after seeing your screenshot it seems that refernce compositions are profoundly useful and what is messed up is your workflow. As expected. If you insist on shooting yourself in the proverbial foot...

Nobody "insisted" on anything. This comment is pretty offensive, coming after your wholly unrealistic view on the tasks people do in a compositing package.

When compositing in Fusion, either prepare your assets with the correct timecode before you start, or composite freely within Fusion from the beginning

Again, this does not make sense. It's already been established why you don't "composite freely in Fusion" in a case like this, because you have to wait until editing decisions are made and you know exactly which frames from sources are actually used. Furthermore, "compositing freely" doesn't only negate the point of having Fusion integrated into Resolve, but it's actually hobbled by it.

And then "Prepare your assets with the correct timecode?" This has nothing to do with timecode. Timecode is what it is when you acquire your footage on set. And if I'm going to have to go through the entire editing timeline and write down the source timecode for every segment of every clip used in every compositing element, I'm sure as hell just going to do it in Nuke. That makes the "integration" with Fusion worse than useless; it's an active waste of customers' time and basically a fraud.

As for your "render in place" suggestion (and again I thank you for your time), this is essentially what I had to do. I changed the timeline to camera resolution (which I had to type in manually, because there are no 6K format presets and Resolve still doesn't have a proper "create timeline from clip"), and then solo each video track I was interested in and render each segment out separately, then put those all in their own timeline and open each as a Fusion clip.

I wasted a bunch of time learning Fusion, because I thought it'd be cool to have everything integrated and be able to send the project back to the editor with compositions she could adjust herself once I built them. Nope. "Disappointed" doesn't suffice to convey my feelings at having wasted a huge amount of time and actually having to sacrifice some shots in order to explore this shoddy and dysfunctional aggregation of products.