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F16: Let's improve the user interface ;-)

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Joe Laffey

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Re: F16: Let's improve the user interface ;-)

PostThu May 30, 2019 1:11 am

I don’t think I ever used the pass thru button except by mistake... I just use control-P

I hate the new right click to toggle ping-pong (which I still like to call “Rock-n-roll” .., bonus if you can name the app that used that term). I frequently switch among ping pong, loop, and play once. I like ping pong for general use, and then loop to proof shots (as it’s more like you are watching them in situ).

But I can live with the new mode switch there. I’d really prefer three buttons or I should just make a key shortcut.
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Frank Engel

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Re: F16: Let's improve the user interface ;-)

PostThu May 30, 2019 9:20 am

Some of the issues could be improved on simply by getting floating frames to actually work correctly.

Some examples of problems they currently have:
  • The "Tools" view is blank
  • The "Help" view doesn't even draw
  • If the "Console" view appears with tabs it does not adjust its position to account for the presence of the tabs (the tabs cover up part of the view)
  • The "View Layout" submenu is missing from the context menu in the Console view
  • There does not appear to be any way to rename the tabs in the floating windows; for some types of views this is fine but names like "Tabbed View" may not always be sufficiently helpful if you have more than one...


Even just fixing existing functionality in the UI would make a bit of a difference... not enough of a difference, but it would be a start.
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Chad Capeland

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Re: F16: Let's improve the user interface ;-)

PostThu May 30, 2019 1:08 pm

Frank Engel wrote:Even just fixing existing functionality in the UI would make a bit of a difference... not enough of a difference, but it would be a start.


But that's the mentality I don't understand. It's like you're a plumber and you have a work van and a moped and you can't use the moped for work because it isn't practical. The solution isn't to add windshield wipers and a roof rack to the moped.
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Kel Philm

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Re: F16: Let's improve the user interface ;-)

PostFri May 31, 2019 6:33 am

50cc-Disabled-Tricycle-Vehicle-with-Roof-Rack.jpg
50cc-Disabled-Tricycle-Vehicle-with-Roof-Rack.jpg (17.34 KiB) Viewed 17675 times
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Joe Laffey

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Re: F16: Let's improve the user interface ;-)

PostFri May 31, 2019 3:50 pm

Kel Philm wrote:
50cc-Disabled-Tricycle-Vehicle-with-Roof-Rack.jpg


Hey! The Beverly Hills Walmart has those!
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Kristof Indeherberge

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Re: F16: Let's improve the user interface ;-)

PostThu Jun 13, 2019 6:26 pm

Bryan Ray wrote:
Sjur Pollen wrote:what would people want to improve in the F9 interface?

Customizable node shapes, allowing greater semantic meaning to tiles in the Flow.


Yup, would love to have that too. Again, just look at Houdini.
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Kristof Indeherberge

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Re: F16: Let's improve the user interface ;-)

PostTue Jul 30, 2019 9:19 pm

So an (incomplete) View toolbar has reappeared--yeah!!!! Don't remember seeing the A/B in the first beta, but maybe I'm wrong.

Anyway, the toolbar belongs at the bottom of the Viewer and not at the top. It should be close to the node network you're building. It's just not practical like this.
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Ricardo Urbano

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Re: F16: Let's improve the user interface ;-)

PostWed Jul 31, 2019 9:33 am

I think that the interface should remain as in Fusion 9. It has no sense to try to unify Resolve with Fusion interface. When something works, why change it?
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Frank Engel

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Re: F16: Let's improve the user interface ;-)

PostWed Jul 31, 2019 11:38 am

Ricardo Urbano wrote:I think that the interface should remain as in Fusion 9. It has no sense to try to unify Resolve with Fusion interface. When something works, why change it?


Two major reasons I can think of:
  • They are probably working toward a common code base so that they don't need to maintain as much source code which is different between the embedded version of Fusion (within Resolve) and the standalone version.
  • Training materials. If the two versions have different UIs they need to maintain two full sets of training materials, where if they use a common UI, only the differences between them need to be accounted for.


Regardless, the lack of flexibility in the current interface really needs to be fixed - I would argue it should be fixed for Resolve too, as while there are elements of the interfaces of each that could benefit the other, the general lack of flexibility in the Resolve UI is not something that should be mimicked by Fusion (or any other professional app for that matter).
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Chad Capeland

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Re: F16: Let's improve the user interface ;-)

PostWed Jul 31, 2019 3:29 pm

A potential stopgap would be to have a "special edition" that reverted the UI changes, but kept the API/SDK changes. We'd still have broken 3rd party tools (OpenCL isn't coming back) and a lot of outstanding bugs in 1st party tools, but at least that's the only issue users would have.

I have a production going on right now that we can't use 16 for because of bugs in the GUI that are not going to be fixed (quadbuffer and audio related). And for other productions we can't get enough testing done in 16 because the GUI is so detrimental to efficiency. A lot of our macros and plugins rely on GUI controls that don't even exist anymore and others that do not work as expected.

If we could run the old GUI with the new tools, we could at least justify converting the OpenCL tools to DCTL and building plugins for the new SDK. Furthermore, we could test the new internal image processing, scripting, and caching changes on actual production work.

Unfortunately, we're caught in the same trap that we were with Resolve 15, where the new Fusion GUI was the major barrier to testing and use.

Ideally, the GUI would have been feature locked and the underlying changes to the image processing code would have been priority and the new tools would have been given proper attention (did anyone notice the new tools? They have major issues, but no one is discussing them because they're such low priority). Then a followup release would have locked the tools and changes to the GUI would have been the priority. Doing everything concurrently was, in retrospect, too ambitious, but based on what we saw with the Resolve 15 development, potentially predictable.

Frank Engel wrote:If the two versions have different UIs they need to maintain two full sets of training materials, where if they use a common UI, only the differences between them need to be accounted for.


The problem is BMD says the GUI isn't complete and that changes are coming. So they either don't make training materials for 16, knowing they will be obsolete soon, or they have to redo them for each iteration of the GUI changes.

Or... They could make the training materials procedural through scripting and update them automatically for each GUI update or language. :roll:
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Bryan Ray

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Re: F16: Let's improve the user interface ;-)

PostThu Aug 01, 2019 12:38 am

Chad Capeland wrote:The problem is BMD says the GUI isn't complete and that changes are coming. So they either don't make training materials for 16, knowing they will be obsolete soon, or they have to redo them for each iteration of the GUI changes.


That's the problem I'm running into with my own book, too. I'm unwilling to continue writing at this point because I know that the UI will change, possibly drastically, in the (near?) future. So I'm in limbo at this point, not able to move forward, but also not willing to just cancel the project.
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Nikolas Saratsis

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Re: F16: Let's improve the user interface ;-)

PostThu Aug 01, 2019 12:31 pm

Just a side note from an absolut beginner:

I have spent at most 50 hours with Fusion 8 and 9, but I find the new interface rather confusing, especially the pictograms in light gray over dark gray.

Sadly, I've purchased recently a dongle for Resolve 16 which includes Fusion Studio 16, but not earlier versions. The recent Fusion dongle would have been a better choice, because from what I've heard, it includes Resolve 16 and Fusion 16, but also earlier versions of Fusion.
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Frank Engel

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Re: F16: Let's improve the user interface ;-)

PostThu Aug 01, 2019 12:54 pm

Nikolas Saratsis wrote:Sadly, I've purchased recently a dongle for Resolve 16 which includes Fusion Studio 16, but not earlier versions. The recent Fusion dongle would have been a better choice, because from what I've heard, it includes Resolve 16 and Fusion 16, but also earlier versions of Fusion.


I'm actually in the same boat. You can still download and use the free version of Fusion 9, but for the Studio versions we are stuck with 16+, so hoping they do manage to fix the numerous issues with the current UI design.
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Pieter Van Houte

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Re: F16: Let's improve the user interface ;-)

PostThu Aug 01, 2019 4:04 pm

I have heard of people having exchanged their Resolve dongles for Fusion ones for the reason you're stating. Perhaps contact your retailer to see if they can help out?
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runbei

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Re: F16: Let's improve the user interface ;-)

PostMon Oct 28, 2019 10:57 pm

I'd be a thousand percent happier without the light-gray on dark-gray interface which is a huge usability gaffe. Please - let us have an option to choose a high-contrast UI color scheme.
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Bryan Ray

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Re: F16: Let's improve the user interface ;-)

PostTue Oct 29, 2019 4:35 pm

That, at least, is something you could hack into the UI if you have the time:

https://www.steakunderwater.com/wesuckl ... 394#p12394
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mitchfx

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Re: F16: Let's improve the user interface ;-)

PostWed Oct 30, 2019 6:37 pm

My initial list.

1. Many of the tools have duplicate/non-specific icons for mutiple settings tabs. The same "rmagic wand" icon is just repeated over and over, forcing you to click on the icon or hover or for the text tooltip to know what it is. This is example of why the old text based menus for such things makes SO much more sense. At least make icons that have some relevance to what the tab contains.

2. A lot of settings that used to be tabs are now dropdowns. Color Correct, for example, uses dropdowns for levels, r/g/b, high/mid/low now which requires a click, select and click again. This is much more futzing than the old way of just clicking on a single text button.

3. The new "click and drag value" in all numerical boxes is super annoying. I can't imagine ever wanting this behavior, and all it does is cause accidental changes to values. Now you have to click and wait or double click before editing using the keyboard. Once again, this just slows things down.

4. Too many view controls are now hidden or in the "..." dropdown menu. I really miss having the buttons to create masks (right click in view to create them always makes their center off origin), view controls, etc.

5. Overall there's a LOT of wasted real estate for menu bars and other UI elements. It looks like there's about 15% less space for views and node graph than before with no added functionality.

6. Where are the playback controls for previews now? I know you can use the mouse controls in the playback view, but I really miss having a UI to see what I'm doing. Maybe it's still there somewhere and I just don't know how to access it?
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Sander de Regt

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Re: F16: Let's improve the user interface ;-)

PostWed Oct 30, 2019 9:54 pm

I agree with you completely, Mitch. Very well put, all of them.
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JP Docherty

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Re: F16: Let's improve the user interface ;-)

PostThu Oct 31, 2019 7:21 am

Agree with all of the above. Having just forced myself to try using Fu16 studio on a project and giving up after 4 frustrating hours of cursing and aggro I REALLY agree with the above.

A few highlights - the lack of preview controls is as pointed out above is a real pain and another great step backwards, the spline editor now seems to show the value for a frame but not the frame number so if you want to change that you have to pick the spline knot and very carefully move it which is a nightmare, the blend option on most nodes is now buried under many more menu clicks etc etc.

But the strangest thing was this - the particular comp file I was working on had a lot of motion blurred transforms and was pretty heavy so fu9 studio was kicking up loads of GPU errors and crashing pretty often. I tried running it in fu16 studio - no GPU errors and the renders ran fine. Great thinks I, backwards compatibility. I started making changes in fu9 and rendering in fu16, not ideal but workable.

But at one point without thinking I added a blur node in fu16. Then the terrible UI got the better of me and I switched back to fu9. Bizarrely, the merge node just upstream from the blur node starting showing the bgd layer instead of the fgd. I detached the blur node, the merge worked correctly. I reattached, back to weirdness. And bear in mind this blur node was AFTER the merge. So I deleted the fu16 blur node and added a new fu9 one. It seemed to work but immediately the comp started crashing - fusion just winked out - every time I tried to preview the current final output frame.

Fortunately I had made a copy of the comp file before going into fu16 so I was pretty much ok. And while I don't expect full backwards compatibility with so many changes going on this one was pretty surprising.

Moral of the story - if you're going to dip your toe into fu16 in spite of the UI (perhaps to take advantage of the stabler GPU handling, as I did) make sure you make a copy of your current comp files first!
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Pieter Van Houte

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Re: F16: Let's improve the user interface ;-)

PostThu Oct 31, 2019 1:38 pm

That weird Blur node behaviour may go away when disabling GPU rendering for it. I ran into something very similar (it's been reported but the more reports the better).

Also one thing to keep in mind about Blur nodes in Fu16 is that Fu16 oddly added a separate Fast Gaussian Blur mode which is not available in Fu9 but they also made it the default. When copying that back to Fu9 it will not fail, but depending on your setup your renders will come out all wonky and it's TERRIBLE to troubleshoot.

This doesn't go for just Blur nodes by the way, but anything that has softness settings like masks for example.
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Chad Capeland

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Re: F16: Let's improve the user interface ;-)

PostThu Oct 31, 2019 7:46 pm

Pieter Van Houte wrote: oddly added a separate Fast Gaussian Blur mode


And it's completely undocumented. So there's no explanation of why this useless mode even exists.

To the BMD team: just remove it. Or add documentation that explains why it exists (and is the default).
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DimaFedotov

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Re: F16: Let's improve the user interface ;-)

PostThu Oct 31, 2019 10:36 pm

In fusion 16, the work area decreased by 20% compared to version 9. Buttons and various toolbars now occupy more than 40% of the screen space. There is simply no place for a complex tree of nodes and a picture at a time. Please, you can make any interface you want. But nothing serious can be done by looking at the screen through the loophole. except with 2 monitors, but I have one.
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djfaktor

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Re: F16: Let's improve the user interface ;-)

PostSun Jan 19, 2020 8:17 pm

year 2020 the interface still stinks, I think they don't care about user opinions ...
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Chad Capeland

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Re: F16: Let's improve the user interface ;-)

PostMon Jan 20, 2020 9:03 pm

DimaFedotov wrote:except with 2 monitors


It doesn't really support 2 monitors, though, as far as I can tell. Any floating view I put on the second monitor doesn't allow inputs, so it's not very useful.
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Kel Philm

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Re: F16: Let's improve the user interface ;-)

PostMon Jan 20, 2020 10:41 pm

If you haven't seen this before here is a script I created that allows a more useful setup for Dual Monitors. I attach it to a hotkey as it doesn't save with the comp and resets to the old setup when reloaded. But its insane that this has not been addressed yet.

Code: Select all
s = fusion:GetPrefs('Global.SubFrame')[1]

dump(s[1])


_Viewers =  {{ __flags = 256, RatioX = 0.5, RatioY = 1, ID = 'Viewer1' }, { ID = 'Viewer2',  __flags = 256, RatioX = 0.5 }, RatioX = 1, RatioY = 0.72, Columns = 2 }
_Time = {__flags = 256, FixedY =83, Flat = true, ID = 'Time'}
_Left =  { _Viewers , _Time, RatioX = 1, RatioY = 1, Rows = 2 }

_Effects = { __flags = 256, PixelX = 320, RatioY = 1, ID = 'Effects' }
_Nodes = { __flags = 256, RatioY = 1, ID = 'Nodes' }
_Inspector = { __flags = 256, PixelX = 440, RatioY = 1, ID = 'Inspector' }
--_Inspector = { __flags = 256, FixedX = 440, RatioY = 1, ID = 'Inspector' }
_Right =  { _Effects, _Nodes, _Inspector, RatioX = 1, RatioY = 1, Columns = 3 }

nl = { _Left , _Right, Columns = 2, RatioX = 1, RatioY = 1 }

s.ViewInfo.LayoutStrip.Show = false
s.ViewInfo.ActionStrip.Show = false
s.ViewInfo.Spline.Show = false
s.ViewInfo.Keyframes.Show = false

s.Views.Nodes.ViewList.TimelineView='TimelineView'
s.Views.Nodes.ViewList.SplineView='SplineView'

s.Layout = nl

dump(s[1])

fusion:SetPrefs('Global:SubFrame', s)

dump(fusion:GetPrefs('Global:SubFrame')[1])
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Marcin

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Re: F16: Let's improve the user interface ;-)

PostMon May 11, 2020 9:22 am

[From my point of view, the most expected element is menu scaling. The level of 100% and 200% is insufficient for example, would be necessary. 125%, 150%, 175% ... etc. For the monitor 32 "100% is too low and the 200% is too high ... The same applies to the UI Resolve - where no scaling at all ...
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Adrian Mcyorian

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Re: F16: Let's improve the user interface ;-)

PostFri Sep 25, 2020 9:25 am

Vladimir LaFortune wrote:All you got to do is this to see what's wrong and what should be done
yeah that's right, everything wrong about Da Vinci Resolve and now fusion is that terrible implementation of space in the UI.Too much empty and wasted space.

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System specs:
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RAM: 32GB
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Travis Schmiesing

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Re: F16: Let's improve the user interface ;-)

PostFri Sep 25, 2020 10:04 pm

I'm probably one of the few on this board who think the new interface's general aesthetics are quite sophisticated and pleasing to look at. Way better than the Nuke's interface, which to me, seems like a nerdy geek-tech application from the oughts.

The biggest complaint I have is the large unnecessary toolbar and timeline directly in the center of my screen center taking up space. If BMD could make this collapsable or have an option to turn it off, I would mostly be happy.

The timeline was much better at the bottom of the screen, where it is not my direct line of sight.
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Bryan Ray

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Re: F16: Let's improve the user interface ;-)

PostSat Sep 26, 2020 3:07 am

The aesthetic isn't the problem. Many of us don't care if it looks pretty/modern/sleek or not, and we can adjust to the layout changes. The problem is that it's substantially less usable than Fusion 9's UI. And also unfinished. I'm 95% sure that I'm losing the battle on icons vs text, but at the very least the icon set needs to be finished.

(Off-the-wall suggestion: Script the creation of temp icons that are just images of the old text labels. At least then we'll be able to tell the difference between the tabs on the numerous tools that haven't got a full icon set.)
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Sjur Pollen

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Re: F16: Let's improve the user interface ;-)

PostTue Apr 19, 2022 9:24 am

Well... The 18 beta is here. Here's still hoping the user interface may one day be as useful as it was in version 9.

I'd like to suggest including a "legacy mode" for the interface, where one will be able to switch to an "old" style interface (hopefully also for the fusion tab in resolve). Because that old one was *objectively* better in so many ways (which have been listed again and again i this and other threads). I'm hoping to one day be able to uncross my fingers ;-)
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Chad Capeland

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Re: F16: Let's improve the user interface ;-)

PostTue Apr 19, 2022 1:49 pm

Sjur Pollen wrote:Well... The 18 beta is here. Here's still hoping the user interface may one day be as useful as it was in version 9.

I'd like to suggest including a "legacy mode" for the interface,


Ironically, that was a feature of the old interface. There was an option to use older skins. In Fusion 6 you could choose to change to the Fusion 5 or Fusion 4 skins, for instance. It was a per-user preference, and you could even design your own skin. Like if you wanted the labels to be above the slider instead of below it, you could just change the skin.

The "blue" and "not blue" interfaces in Fusion, post BMD acquisition, use the same system, they just removed all the useful stuff and added the completely useless "blue" cast to your UI.
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Dhaylen

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Re: F16: Let's improve the user interface ;-)

PostTue Apr 19, 2022 2:07 pm

Sjur Pollen wrote:Well... The 18 beta is here. Here's still hoping the user interface may one day be as useful as it was in version 9.

I'd like to suggest including a "legacy mode" for the interface, where one will be able to switch to an "old" style interface (hopefully also for the fusion tab in resolve). Because that old one was *objectively* better in so many ways (which have been listed again and again i this and other threads). I'm hoping to one day be able to uncross my fingers ;-)


Go to the Resolve suggest forum so they can see it.
I just suggested they take the Color update in 18 (which is 100% Fusion features) and put it in the Fusion tab. (or at least let us work in Color and get that roto in a second then switch over to Fusion)
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