Making Davinci and Fusion simpler

plugins...don't scale correctly

Be sure to set Display Scaling in Windows to 100%.

I have a 4k Benq monitor 3840x2160
text scaling 200% I guess this is the problem but going 100% makes everything so tiny you would need a loupe and using a lower resolution makes everything unsharp. So right now until those plugins makers or Blackmagic solve the scaling issue I cannot use any of those unfortunately.

As you can see All the plugins are super tiny and don't scale correctly inside Davinci

Which screen resolution has been specified in Windows Control Panel?

Damn it. I wrote a whole long post and accidentally closed the window so I lost the whole thing *sigh*

I'll summarize.

About Fusion titles

I think a lot of the disconnect we're having here is that you don't really have experience compositing. As you said, you're a beginner. You also said you don't have experience in other compositing software yet your framing it as if Fusion is uniquely complicated compared to other compositing software. You don't have that frame of reference.

Compositing is complicated.

When you're complaining that Fusion titles are 20 nodes and you have to dig through them to change a key-frame, that's comparatively user friendly.

The most obvious comparison to Fusion titles I can think of is Essential Graphics in Adobe's Creative Cloud. They're motion graphics templates made in After Effects that you can drag into Premiere and modify using parameters that were set up in After Effects. If they're lacking a control for something you want to change or if there's overall something you want to change, it's not as easy as Right Click > Open in After Effects. Instead you have to open After Effects, navigate to either

C:\Users\[your user]\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Essential Graphics

or

/Users/[your user]/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Common

then find the template you want to modify, then extract it. If it was made in an older version of AE then you'll need to allow them to make a copy of that in the update AE format. What you'll be greeted with is



Those four layers that I highlighted are precomps. Any keyframes for this would be to move the whole composition, not it's individual parts. To get to those parts, you double click one to open up that composition. Where you'll see this.



Maybe you want to move part of the shield so it hides a specific part of the background. Well now you can't see that background. Unfortunately, you can't. All you can do is open them up side by side, like this so you can go back and forth between them to compare.



Then you need to add that whatever parameter you want to add in the Essential Graphics panel, save it as an Essential Graphic and then bring it into Premiere Pro again. I would say that what you had to go through to manual change some key frames was probably pretty simple compare to that whole process.

Now to be fair to Essential Graphics, they have exactly what you want. They have sliders for ease-in, ease-out, and animation speed. Something like that can be added to Fusion but that doesn't mean Fusion, as a whole, is too complicated for what it was designed for. It just means that the way people interface with Fusion titles could be a little better. It's an interchangeability problem.


About the Object Removal issue.

First off, there is no motion graphics/compositing equivalent to LUTs.

Secondly, your reason for going into Fusion was because the Object Removal tool in the Color page didn't work for you. Because the Color page doesn't have any features that would allow you to do something like without having a node specifically designed to do that, you went into the Fusion page because it can do more. When it didn't have a built-in object removal node, you complained that it's too difficult and should work like the Color page which has an Object Removal tool that didn't work for you.

See the problem there? You're claiming that Fusion is flawed and difficult because it doesn't work more like the Color page which couldn't do what you wanted. You really just want that one node in the Color page to work better.

About my experience in After Effects

My point I was trying to make was that my experience to After Effects didn't matter. After Effects isn't node-based, it's layer-based. The most I had every done in After Effects was essentially a title with maybe seven layers with most of them being assets made in Photoshop. What I did in Fusion was miles ahead of the most complicated thing I ever made in After Effects. The reason for this is that I found Fusion to way more straight forward and manageable than I ever found AE to be.

As it relates to the plug-in discussion, one of things people like about After Effects is the amount of plug-ins made for it. I don't think many people would disagree that it's more reliant on plug-ins than things like Nuke or Fusion. I remember there was a while were it was difficult for me to find After Effects tutorials where they didn't suggest buying a plug-in and many even had purchasing a plug-in as a prerequisite.

About the rain plug-in example

I should have just said "What if you looked for rain plug-in and one didn't exist?" You wouldn't have the option to use a plug-in. You'd have to just learn to use the program or not have rain.

Even if Fusion did add a simple option to make rain, they wouldn't do it as it's own node anyway. They would make it as a template just like they already did for falling leaves, snow, smoke, bubbles, etc. because it wouldn't make sense to make a specific node that just works in the same way as a 10 node tree especially when the template allows people learn how to do their own effects.

going 100% makes everything so tiny

Then you need a physically larger monitor.

I recommend 32" as a minimum for 2160 resolution. (I use one myself.)

Then you need a physically larger monitor.

I recommend 32" as a minimum for 2160 resolution. (I use one myself.)

If they can fix the DPI scaling for VST plugins, that would be better though. We can't always assume that larger monitors are an option. If someone needs to work on something away from home and they're working on a Surface Pro for example, that screen is going to need DPI scaling unless they're Legolas.

My monitor is 32"" Maybe a 42"" would work better but right now no budget for another monitor. At some point Blackmagic might "resolve" this issue.

going 100% makes everything so tiny

Then you need a physically larger monitor.

I recommend 32" as a minimum for 2160 resolution. (I use one myself.)

I might revisit the course I followed in Lowepost. I have a subscription there and it is really a great resource for Resolve .

But I still find there is lots of margin to see important overhauls in Fusion to make it more friendly to "non experts" And that I think is the end point of any software maker....attract as many users as possible and the magic bullet is always a compromise between price , power and ease. Price not an issue as we all know. Power I think that the industry standard program is Nuke. Let's see how Fusion and Fairlight develop in the next years. With the track record of Blackmagic only good things are in front of us.

Damn it. I wrote a whole long post and accidentally closed the window so I lost the whole thing *sigh*

I'll summarize.

TLDR: FWIW, and getting back to the OP's initial point. I AGREE with him that Fusion could be made simpler to use and that BM would do well to do so (and maybe they are while they integrate Fusion into Resolve, I don't know).

What I mean by this is many people out there are making templates, etc. because newbies/rookies/casual users (like me, even though I've been using Resolve for over 3 years now) don't know how to do it themselves.

I'm NOT suggesting BM go make a number of templates. I AM suggesting that maybe some of the tools could be simplified.

I'll take using the particle generator as an example since it was mentioned in a previous post in this thread. I recently took my first stab at a "Thanos" dissolve using the particle generator. And while it worked, NONE of it was anywhere remotely near "intuitive".

I had two rectangle mask nodes, background nodes, the particle emitter, various particle modifiers, the particle renderer, and associated merge nodes. I was following a tutorial video on YouTube and still had to "experiment" (add/subtract stuff until it worked and I don't understand WHY I had to do the things I did) to get it to even output in mediaout window AND do something like what I was looking for. I can look at it now and understand what the node tree is doing, but I don't understand why it took so many nodes/steps to make it work.

All this to do something that I believe could be done with many fewer nodes that would satisfy MOST users. And done in a much more straightforward way. Simplifying this so smaller users could add some "bling" to their simpler and/or smaller, but time/cost sensitive projects (time is money...).

The point I'm trying to make is that BM has opened up Resolve to those of us who AREN'T "industry professionals" (i.e. people who make their living solely using this software). Because of this, I don't think that it is unreasonable to ask that BM make using Fusion tools a bit easier (more approachable) to use. And I think that this simplification would also help those "industry professionals" as well.

Sure template makers might lose some money. And I DO feel for them. But small users, like myself, don't have the money to spend on them to do something that should be relatively straight foward... even if I'd like to be able to make a living using Resolve sometime in the future.

And, to be clear, I'm NOT suggesting that it be changed so that current experts have to relearn the software from scratch. I'm also NOT suggesting BM make a "Resolve Lite". The changes could be additional/simplified nodes, and some UI improvements.

Anyway, my $.02...

Scott

I can look at it now and understand what the node tree is doing, but I don't understand why it took so many nodes/steps to make it work.

All this to do something that I believe could be done with many fewer nodes that would satisfy MOST users. And done in a much more straightforward way. Simplifying this so smaller users could add some "bling" to their simpler and/or smaller, but time/cost sensitive projects (time is money...).

If you believe it could have been done with few nodes then could you explained what that simplified node tree would look like?

The thing with nodes is that they're pretty much as simple as the can be in most cases. They mimic simple programming functions in that they take some inputs, do a thing, and return the result. The simplicity of each node is exactly what makes them powerful and versatile. The more complex you make them, the less useful they may be.

I agree with what Mark is trying to say. Fusion can be thought of as a bunch of basic building blocks for image processing. It is up to user to know what one wants to do to image. Basic blocks can always be arranged to groups, macros, templates and whatnot to make it easier for end user to understand. This is where places like Reactor, template stores etc come to play, you can just take a piece, slap it on your footage and get more ”bling”, as a LUT would do for example. But constructing a good LUT from scratch (like some sophisticated film emulation for example) is not trivial and whichever way you look at it, can’t be made easy for beginners.

Another side of the coin is reorganizing the logic, functionality or UI of some tool though. This is where imho a lot of work can be done for Fusion because it makes some basic stuff ridiculously hard. One example is reference frame related issues for trackers. Why on earth so I need a separate external tool to set a reference frame? It is as if edit page needed someone’s python script to cut a clip in half.

One example is reference frame related issues for trackers. Why on earth so I need a separate external tool to set a reference frame? It is as if edit page needed someone’s python script to cut a clip in half.

What do you mean? What external tool is needed for the trackers?

TrackerPlus. Point tracker does not allow changing its reference frame after the fact, it uses the frame where you start tracking.

I'm the OP that started this suggestion thread back nearly 2 years ago, and I was rather amused that this thread surfaced again in the last few days.

As I reflect on the last 2 years, I started Davinci just when version 15 came out, and version 15 was when Fusion was first incorporated in Davinci.

Back then, there were fewer YouTube tutorials on basic Fusion issues compared to now.

On reflection, if today's amount of tutorials had been available back then, maybe I would have had a faster uptake.

As it is, regarding the list of difficulties, I can say that 2 years later, I can readily do all of these almost second nature.

In versions 16 and 17, I've seen how BMD tried to provide simpler access of Fusion features, such as the Fusion layer in the Edit page - but since I'm familiar with the Fusion tab, I ignore those since they don't give as much control of the graphics I'm creating.

In summary, I think it was more a shortage of easy, beginner-level training materials.

Many thanks to all those tutors who have continuously created helpful YouTube tutorials, some of whom hang around this forum.

On a more sombre note, I wish to acknowledge the YouTuber - Heal My Tech - who produced a very rudimentary tutorial on how to draw simple shapes - back 2 years ago when there were hardly any tutorials even on such an elementary topic, which I found so useful as a rank beginner. I was sad to see his recent video that he suffered a stroke after his 2nd shot - so I wish him all the best for recovery.

TrackerPlus. Point tracker does not allow changing its reference frame after the fact, it uses the frame where you start tracking.

Ah yeah OK. The bug with "Select time" not working in the Tracker. I'd say that's more a bug than a fundamental UI design issue, but yes it is annoying.

There are some other tools tools with significant UI issues. For example the lack of any viewer controls for kerning in Text3D - requiring a workaround where the text is set up in a Text+ and the kerning then linked or copied to a Text3D.

In terms of overall UI design and discoverability, I would list:
- how much is hidden behind right-click menus, like we talked about the other day

- minimal tooltips, and little to no in-app help

- unintuitive UI aspects, like how UI sliders do not indicate the full possible range of a parameter - you can usually enter a higher/lower value than the slider indicates. This is something nearly every newbie fails to realise for a while. (I actually like that UI tools have two ranges, the normal/default range versus the full possible, but the UI really needs to indicate somehow that a greater range is possible.)

- similarly, most new users have a hard time noticing and/or understanding the "Right-click here for shape animation" controls for accessing keyframes for polygons, trackers, and other tools. This could be far clearer and more prominent

- fixed size text fields, which is especially exasperating for SimpleExpressions.

- lack of thought in the implementation of various features, like how the shortcut for the Spline Editor and Keyframes panels will open the panel, but not close it again, and when using the keyboard to type a value in the Inspector, focus goes automatically to the next field with no shortcut available to get out again - meaning I regularly hit space to try and play/pause, and wonder why nothing happens; in fact I've deleted the value in the next Inspector field because focus went there after I typed in a value in the Inspector.

- no keyboard customisation in Resolve's Fusion at all, and broken/incomplete in Fusion Studio

- minimal UI customisation compared to version 9, and competing products - this has improved a bit with the new layouts added in v17, but with no ability to create one's own layouts (at least not without delving into unsupported modification of the UI template code) it's still too limited

- the horrible macro creation / custom controls UI

- and more..

Maybe v18 will finally bring some attention to Fusion, which IMHO is looking and feeling rather unloved at the moment.

My 2 cents in this discussion. I fully agree that Fusion urgently needs a UI and Workflow overhaul. But not as most new users suggest. Sometimes it seems that what they want is for BMD to make a "free version" of After+Premiere...

Returning to the proposed question. I wasn't attracted to Davinci because of the Color Tab, but exactly because of the possibility of having a Node Base composer integrated in NLE. This is the big deal for me. But Fusion really sttoped in the 80's. Many node-based programs understand that, yes, nodes are the way forward! But that workflow has problems inherent in them. Example: connecting multiple nodes one by one. Modify several parameters simultaneously. Assets retime, etc...

Which in my opinion are the things that are really lacking in fusion. Yes I know that some of thoses "exist". But they are either too buggy or poorly implemented. For example: see how Houdini's node workflow is. You can select nodes, pull a connection, call any node and the software connects them, without needing to connect one by one, or create a node first. Automatic node organization works. It has a spreadsheet that makes it easy for you to see everything that's happening, quickly and easily. The Dopesheet (keyframe tab) of software such as Nuke, Flame, etc works! Etc etc etc...

These days we are highly dependent on the WSL guys. Who do an excellent job trying to find solutions. What I am very, very grateful for!!! But it gives me headache for not seeing that many scripts and fuses have not already been implemented by BMD itself!!!

So yes. Fusion has to remain Fusion, it just has to finally enter the 21st century

The Dopesheet (keyframe tab) of software such as Nuke, Flame, etc works! Etc etc etc...

Dope sheet in Nuke is crap, it works but it is functionally abysmally basic. I’d love Blender’s curve editor and dope sheet ideas implemented in both.

Dope sheet in Nuke is crap, it works but it is functionally abysmally basic

Yes, i agree. But it´s work! The only think that i can do in Keyframe without problems it´s move the keys along the timeline. Delete sometimes work, copy and paste sometimes work, etc, etc, etc...