An Open Letter to BMD regarding Fusions Future

Just posting here to say I'm waiting too for an clear answer. Fusion standalone is an important tool for many workflows. Please BMD tell us what the plan is!

Just posting here to say I'm waiting too for an clear answer. Fusion standalone is an important tool for many workflows. Please BMD tell us what the plan is!

Don't hold your breath... I think a number of folk have been waiting for the answer to that question for quite some time.

The fact that the Fusion 9 Studio dongle now also activates Resolve 15 Studio is perhaps the clearest indication we have that BMD now considers Fusion to be part of Resolve and that perhaps the stand-alone version of Resolve has reached "end of life" from a development perspective.

If the Resolve version of Fusion was as fast/capable/reliable as the stand-alone version then this would be acceptable - but it's not. This leaves "serious" Fusion users in a difficult position. Do we cross our fingers and wait for the day when Fusion in Resolve *is* as good (or better) than stand-alone Fusion? Or do we look elsewhere for compositor/VFX software?

From where I stand, Fusion Studio stand-alone is still working well for me and there aren't any "must-have" features that would cause me to change software at this stage. I'll sit around and watch what happens with Resolve's Fusion in the meantime. However, I do understand that there are some who need bug-fixes and who feel that stand-alone Fusion will lose its edge if it's not going to be further updated from this point.

I dont think that bmd would purposely keep the fusion base in the dark if they did not geniuenly belive they have something jaw dropping to show.

Ricardo

I dont think that bmd would purposely keep the fusion base in the dark if they did not geniuenly belive they have something jaw dropping to show.

Ricardo

What? How about they are keeping the Fusion base in the dark because there is nothing to show? What's more likely?

Fusion Studio is a very good product as it is (just unstable imo), but I just can't get my head around what they are doing. I am an ex software engineer and to me this has all the hall marks of an upper management decision that has been pushed through by some ego that won't back down. Getting very frustrated with BMD, have to be one of the worst companies I have dealt with customer support wise, so unresponsive be it cameras, hardware or software. I've stopped recommending their products to clients and colleagues as I can't in all honesty rely on them doing the right thing.

To me it looks like Fu was consumed to fill the feature creep needs of Resolve and I'd put my two cents on a bet that next major Resolve version will have an Effects tab instead of Fusion. Because for Resolve, name Fusion has no meaning and tie to what that tab is meant for. And that Effects tab will probably be the tombstone of Fu standalone.

Killing off Fusion will unfortunately (and eventually) lead Fusion Standalone users straight into The Foundrys hands. We rely on a workflow that Resolve is architecturally incompatible with.

For Fu users, the cost of loosing Fusion Standalone is 4-6k, as that is the cost of a single Nuke seat. Eventually people who rely on the context Fusion Standalone provides will have to transition to the ONLY AVAILABLE COMPOSITING OPTION which unfortunately is Nuke.

Grant's idea of democratising technology is great, but in this case it fails miserably and not only creates a vacuum for core Fusion users but it also strengthens the very thing he supposedly disagrees with. Major venture capital companies that bleed users dry by providing extortionate pricing on stale products.

Killing Fusion Standalone means The Foundry won.........again....

If BMD wanted to shake up the industry completely, how about open sourcing Fusion Standalone ?

I am new to Davinci Resolve and have been using it for only about 2 months extensively,

Would you mind posting your thoughts in the Resolve forum as well? We're reasonably sure nobody from BMD reads this one. You're exactly the audience that Blackmagic thinks they're helping. A voice from someone who isn't a 15-year Fusion veteran may ironically be more persuasive.

I tried although I'm not a Resolve user:

viewtopic.php?f=21&t=82662

Hear hear. Fusion in resolve is great for small tasks. At least when it doesn't crash.

But even for me who is a casual compositor at best, there's no way Fusion inside resolve makes sense for bigger vfx comps. Even if it was stable. It's just way to much of a cumbersome resource hog, and the interface in it's current form is just awful.

What is the point of having it, if it's not really useful for serious work?

As far as stability goes, both Resolve and Fusion used to be solid. The last few years have been an ongoing beta experience (whether or not the release is branded as such), with some bugs lingering for years.

If nothing else, it hurts BM's brand, so I can't really understand why things have panned out this way.

Still hoping for better news though...

@Kel Philm: As an ex-software engineer, you could start in contributing to http://www.natron.fr

I think Fusion is dead. Accept it.
We can use it maybe 2 more years then they will even kill the download link.
Fusion in Resolve is like Photoshop in Word.

Remember what Apple did to Shake: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shake_(software)
What Autodesk did to Softimage: https://www.autodesk.com/products/softimage/overview
What GoPro did to Kolor: http://www.kolor.com/

There are a lot of people interested in money, nothing more, profit is all what counts....
Welcome to the 21st century of sucking out all resources to speed up the race towards the end....

I think BMD does their Fusion customer-base a real disservice by not letting us know either way. If Fusion is "end of life" then many current users will need to start making plans to migrate to another platform. If it is not "end of life" then I suspect most will stay loyal, so long as the next update (bug fixes at least) isn't too far away.

Come on BMD, do you value your customers or will existing Fusion Studio users be ignored in the rush to attract more customers to Resolve?

I know BMD is aware of these threads because they can't have missed recent cries for comment in the Resolve support forum and we've seen BMD names popping up in blue since then but they only comment on other issues.

Don't we (Fusion 9 users) feel special (NOT)

I think BMD does their Fusion customer-base a real disservice by not letting us know either way. If Fusion is "end of life" then many current users will need to start making plans to migrate to another platform. If it is not "end of life" then I suspect most will stay loyal, so long as the next update (bug fixes at least) isn't too far away.

What's so bizarre is the business logic. If BMD was collecting subscription revenue from us, then sure, string the users along with silence and hope they keep paying. But as-is they get the same amount of money from us, $0, if they do nothing or if they announce EOL.

Hmm... Let's start an escrow account. If concerned users paid in some amount, be it $10/mo or $100/mo but the funds were only released to BMD when they release Fusion 9.5 or 10.0 or whatever, then we could simulate the effect of subscriptions and put our money where our mouths are when we suggest that there is a market for RealFusion. Wonder if Kickstarter or Patreon allows something like that... Think GoFundMe, but with stretch goals and reward levels. If for no other reason than making a point about the level of interest vs the lack of communication.

How much is it worth to them if they are prepared to bin it? Maybe we could offer to buy it?

@Kel Philm: That is a great idea!

Asking them is like this:

Hi Helge,

Thank you for your email.

At this moment, we have not made any further announcements, and we do not comment on the future plans for our products.

If any information was available or changes had been announced, it would have been publicly announced like any of our other product releases, updates or news.

Please do not hesitate to contact us for any further reason.



Regards,
Alistair Davidson
Technical Support Consultant EMEA



I send this:

Subject: End Of Life
Enquiry: Hi, have a look at your forum, there is a lot of people talking really bad about you not saying anything about the future of Fusion.

Please, calm the storm and tell us something. We need to plan for the future. A quick info will help a lot of people out there.

Please!

How much is it worth to them if they are prepared to bin it? Maybe we could offer to buy it?

It isn't binned, it lives! In Resolve. So why would BMD sell out something they use and sell? It might be like a horror movie, but I think it has been made pretty clear that for BMD it is the way forward, future of democratized vfx so to speak.

Well it's pretty obvious what's going on as soon as you hit BMD front page right? What do you see? Hardware and incremental Resolve updates.

BMD is in business of selling prosumer (affordable) hardware and software is just there to support the hardware. Sole reason why they got Resolve in the first place. They have evolved Resolve into do-it-all-one-stop package cause they don't want you to go to Adobe for FCX for editing cause those can also do color in prosumer way as well so there is a good chance you will stop using Resolve altogether. Fusion is there to stop you from going to AE or Hitfilm or Smoke (arguably). Fairllight is there so they can sell you audio equipment but I have no clue who would ever use Fairlight inside Resolve for any kind of serious audio production over Nuendo or Pro Tools. But same question can be asked about Fusion inside Resolve. Answer to both questions is prosumers like small indy teams, one men bands, etc. Nothing wrong with it. They will not steal a lot users from Nuke Studio when it comes to VFX but they will satisfy whole bunch of people who really don't want to spend that much money on Nuke Studio.

My only hope is that they will eventually make Fusion portion of Resolve mainstream ready by giving prosumers something that has always been missing inside Fusion: finished solutions as a tool presets. Fusion is a powerful tool in VFX industry and while it makes a lot of sense for professional VFX artist to know how to connect the dots/nodes to get something out of pretty much nothing, small teams that will be using Resolve really don't need to create brushed metal shader from scratch or go through three nodes just to get proper blurred edges and some more to fill in edge lighting. Those are pure basics of compositing and they should really be there right out of the box. Let's not even start with the particles and hundreds of preset that could be there.

But yeah that's generally where they are going with pretty much every piece of software they have right now. Huge downside is that interface really can't soak all of that so you have commands spread across the icons on main windows, right click drop downs, menu drop downs, keyboard shortcuts, etc. so it becomes a mess, especially the Editing tab.

What’s this? Is it that hard to let Fusion live? Give it some little personal love?
It’s easy to give the slaves for free. That’s not personal.
I mean at least just try once. For Just one big F10. Then if that does not make enough money for you, you can always make it a tab for your best selling product. But nobody saw anything about what BM could do with it yet. We all waited for osx, Linux, then resolve versions for years but never saw BM version.

Now I wish that all the code is ready in the hands of that revolutionary company to do some revolutionary things.


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My only hope is that they will eventually make Fusion portion of Resolve mainstream ready by giving prosumers something that has always been missing inside Fusion: finished solutions as a tool presets.

They don't do that with anything else in Resolve right now. Like there's no presets for editing or color or sound.

My only hope is that they will eventually make Fusion portion of Resolve mainstream ready by giving prosumers something that has always been missing inside Fusion: finished solutions as a tool presets.

They don't do that with anything else in Resolve right now. Like there's no presets for editing or color or sound.

Things are moving in that direction. In Resolve we go built in LUTs, for Fusion there is now a long list of Fusion title presets.
It's a massive undertaking, let's cut them some slack. They capture the grass roots.

My only hope is that they will eventually make Fusion portion of Resolve mainstream ready by giving prosumers something that has always been missing inside Fusion: finished solutions as a tool presets.

They don't do that with anything else in Resolve right now. Like there's no presets for editing or color or sound.

Things are moving in that direction. In Resolve we go built in LUTs, for Fusion there is now a long list of Fusion title presets.
It's a massive undertaking, let's cut them some slack. They capture the grass roots.

I'm just refuting the idea that presets are needed at all. If BMD thought users were too stupid to work with they software, yeah, they might go that route. But BMD instead chooses to make documentation and training materials and let that get users up to speed on how to use the software.

Users can make presets, that's 100% accounted for today. BMD doesn't need to put any more effort into that, and if they did, it would only draw resources away from the things users can't do on their own.