Paste attributes: nothing happens

Hello,

I have an effect that I need to apply to very large number of clips (I'm doing stop motion animation, and every frame is separate). I have applied the effect in Fusion (Remove Noise1), and now want to apply it to all the other clips. I have watched about twenty tutorial videos, and they all say one or both of two things: copy the clip, and the select the clips you want affected the same way, then choose 'Paste Attributes' from the menu and apply. The other method is to create an 'adjustment clip' and put it on the track above all the clips you want affected, then paste the attributes to that. I have tried both these methods dozens of times, and they have no effect whatsoever. Simply: nothing happens.

The clip I have applied the effect to is labelled with the three-little-stars symbol, denoting that it has an effect applied to it. None of the other clips has this symbol. This includes the adjustment clip.

I had imagined that the fact that I have many 'smooth cut' transitions might be a factor, but clips without these also will not accept pasted attributes.

The track in the timeline is annoyingly tall. It is much taller than the images of the footage used. I have tried everything in my power to get it back to the normal height. Making it taller still is easy, but nothing seems to make it shorter. This is probably irrelevant, but I mention it in case it isn't. In the extra room below the footage, I see a rectangle of the same track colour, directly below one of the video transitions, with three white circles in it and a symbol for curves (I think - it looks like rope going around two pulleys). I have no idea how it got there, and nothing I have tried has got rid of it. Again, probably irrelevant, but one never knows.

I'm using version 19.1.3 build 7 on a brand new very fast PC with a particularly powerful graphics card.

Any ideas?

I would have brought the individual images in as an Image Sequence, so that it shows up as one clip in Resolve. (But you have to set that up before you import the media.)

In your situation, I would probably just export out a Cineform file and use that for further editing.

I think the question here is why isn’t Paste Attributes copying the Fusion effect.

Perhaps that attribute isn’t checked in the Paste Attributes dialog?

I’m not in front of Resolve right now so can’t test.

"Why doesn't it work?" is certainly a valid question. One that deserves an answer.

But I find the more important question to be "How can I get the job done?", so that's the perspective from which I answered.

Maybe answering Why will be quick and painless and provide an automatic answer to How. I don't know.

But if Why takes too long, maybe put it on the back burner and move on to How.

Yes, I suppose that rendering/exporting the whole sequence without the effect, then bringing in the rendered clip, and applying the effect to the imported clip is a decent work-around. I have a feeling that this problem is going to recur many times, though, so getting to the bottom of the mystery is preferred.

The sequence was shot on a video camera, not a still camera. I moved a bit, removed my hands, moved a bit more etc., then removed all the bits where my hands were in-shot, so the sequence is made up of lots of very short video clips rather than stills.

I tried with just the attributes I had altered ticked in the paste options menu, and then with all attributes, various in-between compromises. It made no difference.

Thanks for your replies.

Do you have FUSION EFFECTS selected when pasting the attributes?

If so, you might have found a bug and you can only try a workaround.

Yes, most definitely I do have Fusion Effects ticked. I have tried that on its own, that and all the others of its near kin, that and all video attributes, all attributes, and a few in-betweens. Oh well.

Yes, I very definitely have the Fusion attribute ticked. I've tried several combinations of attributes, including ALL of them.

What is a Cineform file? I've looked at the list of formats offered, and it isn't there. Do you mean 'Cineon'? That's on the list.

one thing I learnt with Resolve is that sometimes it loses the "focus" on things - you think you are actually copying and pasting an attribute but it's not doing it.

Make sure you click on the clip you want to copy from, copy, click on the clip you want to paste and paste. If you do other things in between, Resolve might move the selection "focus" onto something else. It'll still allow you to paste but it won't happen.

You don't have to export the sequence and back you can make a compound clip

Occasionally I see the paste attributes not working properly myself, but I never figured out why.

You can not "Paste Attributes" when the effect is created within Fusion. You can only "Paste" Fusion effects that are already macro'd on the edit page. Perhaps you'd do better to turning the entire sequence into a "Fusion Clip" and applying the effect in Fusion, downstream, following all instances.

After reading your OP, this is the issue that I can surmise, since you mention creating the effect "In" Fusion.

TLDR: Paste Attributes does indeed work, for edit page related stuff

Thanks Beace88, that makes sense.

Occasionally I see the paste attributes not working properly myself, but I never figured out why.

Try what I mentioned. It used to drive me crazy because I saw the red square on the timeline and I thought the clip was still selected - it wasn’t.

Today, I have spend AGES adjusting all the various variables for chroma keying onto a clip. I now need to apply that work to two other very similar clips. It will NOT do it.

Someone here said that fusion effects don't copy across as attributes. Why then is there a tick box for them?

I see that the resizing and reframing alterations DID copy across.

If we cannot copy fusion effects from one clip to another, then surely this would be a very well-known fact about DaVinci. There must be a way. Indeed, I would imagine that it would be a strong contender for the single most commonly-asked question on this forum. There would be myriads of editors tearing their hair out over it. Fusion effect work can take many hours. Making us do the same effects over and over on multiple clips would octuple the work-load for many editors. There must be something we are missing here.

You can only "Paste" Fusion effects that are already macro'd on the edit page. Perhaps you'd do better to turning the entire sequence into a "Fusion Clip" and applying the effect in Fusion, downstream, following all instances.

I'm sure that this is well-meant advice, but I don't understand it. The system clearly seems to indicate that you can paste fusion attributes. What does "macro'd on the edit page" mean?

As for "Perhaps you'd do better to turning the entire sequence into a "Fusion Clip" and applying the effect in Fusion, downstream, following all instances", I think that you mean combine the various clips into one by editing them all adjacent to each other, selecting them all, then right-clicking them and selecting "New Fusion Clip..." from the menu, and then starting the whole fusion effect from scratch. I don't know what "following all instances" means. I tried combining them this way as a clip, and the first part of the single clip still has its chromakey effect working, but nothing has changed about the later parts.

Editors are constantly tweaking their work, and will never be able to plan ahead well enough to know which clips will in the future benefit from which identical effects. An ability to copy across an effect is needed.

Creating a single fusion clip of all the clips I want the effect applied to has resulted in a single clip that I can look at in Fusion, the start of which has the effect applied, but the effect does not show up on the node map at the bottom of the screen, so I cannot tweak any of the sliders from there.

Someone here said that fusion effects don't copy across as attributes. Why then is there a tick box for them?

I have a feeling it means those Fusion effects from the toolbox.

The moment you are in the Fusion tab and create something there, I believe that's unique to that clip. The alternative is the fusion composition on top of your clip - but I am not sure.

Sure sounds more like a bug or missing bit of functionality than the way they want it to work.

It's the current design, not a bug. As already noted, In the Edit page, Paste Atrributes >> Fusion Effects relates to Effects > Fusion Effects, not Fusion Compositions.

If you want to apply Fusion Compositions across multiple target clips then you do that in the Fusion page ie the same place you build such compositions. Specifically, enable Clips thumbnail reel in the Fusion page, select the clips to which you want the composition applied, then right click the clip that contains the composition you want to use and choose 'Apply Composition'. You'll get a warning that you're about to overwrite any and all compositions that might be already on the selected clips... if you click 'Overwrite; then that source composition will be applied to all the targeted clips.

You might want to make a copy of your timeline before you do it, just in case you overwrite the wrong thing and lose hours of previous comp work.

Missing bit of functionality then. Guess it’s a feature request but it sure sounds confusing to the user to have to understand this.

OP can you make the request in the Feature Requests forum?

Paste Attributes is overdue for an overhaul, there's lots about it that is less than ideal.
Who knows, maybe this happens now that the code base has supposedly been refactored? I won't be holding my breath while we wait though. ;)

I noticed that I cannot copy and paste attributes from one Text+ to other, even basic ones like position and zoom. Is it related to this issue?