Blackmagic Forum

Hi all
I've been a huge fan and user of fusion since it was in beta in the nineties, so you would think I would know everything there is to know about it.

Sadly this isn't the case: (

I run my own animation company and, for my sins, I also teach now and then at university.

I'm currently writing a degree module that shows alternatives to Adobe products and Fusion is the obvious choice to replace After Effects.

My students asked me how to do the kind of things in Fusion that you can do in AE by using the information on motionscript.com by the brilliant Dan Ebberts but currently we didn't get very far. Can you suggest some resources for us to learn how to do the things Dan illustrates in AE, in Fusion? AE uses JavaScript but also has some addons of its own, such as referencing key frames and that is where we are falling down.

Thanks in advance for any assistance.

Matt

I don't know who Dan Ebberts is, and that link is dead.

It's hard to compare what AE does to Fusion, as they don't do it anywhere near the same, so many of those will become more of 'oh, i don't need to do that anymore' and the only way to get there is to learn fusion before going after AE features plugins/features etc...

Hi Rony

Thanks for responding. I know what you mean, they are two very different creatures, but very often they will be used for the same types of job, motion graphics, effects work, animation etc, so to be able to offer artists a way to quickly achieve the same results with a brand new piece of software (to them) is very valuable and encourages them to make the transition. The link is definitely still living, and it's got some interesting expressions on there, especially for animators and motion graphic artists, it's worth a look. Maybe it was down for maintenance when you tried it.

I asked Eric Westphal the same question and he suggested:

There are a couple of ways to introduce expressions in Fusion.
From easy to hard(ish) they are:
- Spline Editor:
This guy is unbelievably powerful and has a lot of modifieable presets
for animation curves. (RMB on keyframe(s) -> Ease -> Dialog

- Simple Expression:
Just type an equal-sign into any value field, or RMB-> Expression
you can do pretty nifty expressions in here for sure.

- Expression Modifier: RMB -> Modify With -> Expression
This offers a few more options in terms of parameters.

- CustomTool:
A Monster. Evaluate multiple expressions and connect the output to other values/tools.

- InTool Scripting:
Now we go into programming. Be aware though, that in this case Lua is the language of choice.

- General Scripting:
Of course you can write scripts in both Lua/Python to run over existing animations
and modify your animation splines

- Fuses:
Now we're talking.
Fuses are actual tools in Fusion, based on Lua code,
that can be edited and compiled on the fly during runtime.
Too tough for me, but good for nerds...

In any case you will have to slightly re-format the expression from that site
to match Fusion's syntax.

---- end of Eric's answer.

With this answer in mind, where are the best resources for learning to write scripts and fuses etc within Fusion?
Many thanks again

Matt

Your best bet would be the fuse/script/macro forum on we suck less
http://www.steakunderwater.com/wesuckle ... a2b29082e5

that is the first place I would go for resources. the guys there are hardcore and friendly.

Hi Rony,

good call, I've spoken with the guys there before and they are, as you say very friendly and know their stuff.

Just in case anyone else is wanting to know the same thing that I'm asking about, I found the scripting manual here

http://documents.blackmagicdesign.com/F ... Manual.pdf

thanks again for taking the time to respond.

cheers

Matt: )

Our new scripting manual for python and LUA are almost done!

Rony Soussan wrote:Our new scripting manual for python and LUA are almost done!

Sounds great!

Looking forward to seeing those: )

Hi Rony,

How are the scripting manuals coming along? Looking forward to checking them out.

Thanks,

-f

me too!