You would not rotoscop in color page, because its not suited for that and resoluting mask will not have antialiesd edges.
Fusion Page vs Color Page Mask
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Roto work in color page is more suitable for speed and assistance in limiting or localizing color grade. And if you use precise external mattes, they are usually loaded as external mattes, made in some other application , or you can send them from fusion page via media out nodes with corresponding index number and added source in the color page.
MediaOut node in fusion page will send usually your footage to color page. In color page this is source 1 and you can add MediaOut2 and export only mask from fusion and in color page you right click on the node area and you add new source. Which will be corresponding on index number of MediaOut nodes. This is quick way to send mattes from fusion to color page and not have to export them first.
If you wanted to roto in color page, and do it more or less manually... I suggest you open pdf manual from help menu and search for...
Chapter 146 - Keyframing in the Color Page
"The Color page has a dedicated Keyframe Editor, found at the right of the palette area, that you can use to animate grading changes from one frame to another. Because grading is a fundamentally different task than editing, the Color page Keyframe Editor operates somewhat differently from the Curve Editor in the Edit page."
By default in fusion when you add polygon or B-spline tools, they have auto keyframing turned on and are ready to be used for rotoscoping or shape animation. This is indicated by keyframe on the timeline ruler where you first were when you added the tool and its indicated by keyframes next to "right click for shape animation" text. If you open keyframe or spline editors you will also see keyframes.
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Generally speaking as you change shape of the mask it will add keyframes so you can work as you go along unless you turn off that animation which you can do to speed up rendering if you are not animating over time and just need one shape.
I suggest you read the section in the manual ...
Chapter 80 - Rotoscoping with Masks
"This chapter covers how to use masks to rotoscope, one of the most common tasks in compositing."
But generally the idea is that you don't keyframe every frame or change shape of the mask, you instead first track parts of the footage you want to roto, stabilize it, and apply roto shape to stabilized porition of the footage which will stay in place but only change shape as the subject moves, so you only have to update your roto shape when subject changes shape. and not have to chase it all over screen. This results if much less keyframes and in-between fusion will interpolate movement, and that results in easier root work and smoother results than doing it manualyl every frame . One you are done keyframeing you will need to re-introduce original motion to the mask., Basically match move operation.
This is also covered in the manual and its pretty standard practice so you can find various examples if you want to.
I perform to use B-splines over Polygon tool in most cases, so here are some useful shortcuts. Its one of those tools you definablly want to be using shortcuts for or it can be quite tedious.
If you hold the ALT key you can than move selected points around with a mouse and not be super precise where you click. This is the most useful and quickest way to work with splines.
Hold ALT key and use mouse to either move around selected points or if you have whole spline selected it will move it all, or if you have no points selected you can hold ALT and move your mouse close to any point and than move it. This is super quick way to reposition points or whole spline where you need to.
If you have whole of spline selected…
Hold X and move mouse to move spline along the X axis only, depending on where you mouse is at the time. And hold Y for the same thing along Y axis. Hold X or Y and move mouse up or down, left or right, depending on where you mouse is , it will prioritize that side of the spline.
Hold O or S and move your move with spline selected and you can resize it. One resizes it based on positing of the mouse and the other is more proportional.
Hold T and click somewhere with mouse and move it while holding T, and you can rotate the spline around the pivot point of your mouse.
In B-Splines select a corner point and drag mouse while holding W and you can adjust very precisely the curvature of the spline of that corner.
In Polygon splines, if you hold SHIFT while dragging a handle, the handle will not change angle, only length. And if you click on one side of the handle and hold CTRL than you can change just that half of the handle.
Selecting all points and choosing SHIFT + S or SHIFT + L changes between smooth and linear points and this also works for just some of the selected points and whole spline.
Selecting all points and choosing SHIFT + Arrow Keys, you move the roto spline by one frame in the direction of Arrow Keys.
If you select all points and use TAB you can cycle to go between points.
If you select all points and click DoublePoly button in the toolbar of the tool, than click TAB it will allow you to switch between single and double poly mode, quickly.
Moving keyframes in the keyframe editor - probably the easiest way is to do that kind of thing in keyframe editor.
While in the spline editor you can select the keyframes and use these shortcuts.
CTRL + ALT + Left or Right Arrow Keys
Alt + WinKey + Left or Right Arrow Keys
Shift + ALT + Left or Right Arrow Keys
Not sure how it is on the Mac.
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Ste-by-step is too much to cover in a single post since rotoscoping is its own thing. But if you are stuck wit specifics, ask and I'll try to answer.
Posted: Wed Jun 11, 2025 9:05 pm