All language subtitles for 5 Biggest Concepts in Fusion - My BIG Beginner Tips for Compositing and GFX in DaVinci Resolve 17

Oh, hello. My name's Casey Farris.

I make videos on DaVinci Resolve here
on YouTube, and today we're talking about

my five biggest concepts for Fusion.

So if you're getting into fusion,

these are, like, really important things
to wrap your head around.

They will help everything be easier.

Let's jump in.

These are in no particular order because
they're all important concept number one.

Each node in fusion
essentially has one job.

I said this on a video

a little while ago and got some pushback,
but I don't understand why.

Because it is true.

Media in one has pretty much one job.

Import some media media out
has pretty much one job.

Put the media back in the timeline.

Something like a blur node has one job.

Blur stuff.

Right? A text node has one job.

Makes them text.

Now you can do
a lot of different things in each node,

but they're all sort of grouped together
in doing that one main thing, right?

So I can make text
or I could make text with a stroke, right?

But it's all kind of part of making text.

So really why this is helpful, I think, is
because if you're trying to figure out

how to do something in fusion, I feel like
sometimes we'll look around in one node

and say, okay, I have this making text,
why can't I run this media

in through my text and have it
put the text over my footage?

It's because if you want to do something
else major, like put something over

something else, you need another node.

This makes the footage.

This makes the text a merge node,
which is this icon right here.

I can just click it
once with my media in once selected.

This merge node has one job.

Put something over something else
and now we have our result.

So that's kind of the thing.

Even though a node can sort of
do multiple things.

For instance, this text node,

you can add shading element three,
which is basically a drop shadow, right?

Or you can add a shadow node
and get a similar result.

And that kind of stuff
like which you choose is really up to you.

But for the most part,

if you want to do something else
major, you're going to need another node.

Next big concept is that you can use
one node for multiple things.

So for instance,
if I want to have multiple copies of this

text, I could control C
double click off, control V

and connect this and then, you know,
move my text down, right?

But then if I have to go back
and change my text,

then I'd have to do that on both lines,
which might not be that big of a deal

for something like this.

But as things get more complicated,
that might be a little bit

a little bit bigger deal.

So remember, you can always take a node
and put it into multiple places

and have two copies of the same node,
and then you can instantly update it

because you only update one thing.

This is really nice.

If you're doing something
like drawing a mask,

because then you can mask multiple things
with one mask.

For instance,
I could make a mask around this rock

and I could mask my

text as well as my background.

In fact, if I go to the settings
tab of the inspector of whatever

I have selected, whatever I'm masking,
I can even invert this mask and do all

kinds of fancy things here, all with one
mask that I don't have to remake or copy.

Pretty neat.

Next big concept is what a mask does.

What a mask actually does is limit
what a node does.

A lot of the time we might think of a mask

as something that changes
the transparency of something.

So if I take like this surgical mask
and put it on my text, I can see, okay,

this makes it transparent

outside of the mask and it only shows up
inside of the mask right?

That seems to happen
for something like text.

And that's kind of how it works
if you mask a text node

and also get sort of the same result
if you mask emerge node very similar

things show up inside of the mask
and don't show up outside of the mask.

But the reason that mask controls
the transparency of either of those

is what it's really doing
is telling the node to do whatever it does

just inside of the mask and these nodes
happen to be make them text

and you're saying, okay, make some text,
but just inside of the mask,

which comes out as it's clear
outside of the mask and solid inside.

Same thing for the merge.

Put this text over
this footage is what the merge is doing,

but just do it inside of the mask
so you get sort of the same result.

But where I would get confused
is if you have something

like a blur node, right?

And you mask the blur,

what I often thought when I was starting
to learn fusion was that,

okay, I'm going to make this text
and I'm going to blur it

and I want all of that
only to show up in this circle.

And what actually happens

if we blur this is that it's only blurry
inside of the circle.

So this mask isn't
controlling the transparency anymore.

It's just controlling
where the blur happens.

It's limiting what that one node does.

So what would happen
is I'd string all these effects together

and I'd wonder why I couldn't, like,
cut it out,

because that's what I always wanted to do
with the mask was just cut something out.

Well, the answer,

if you want to do something like that, is
grab the map Control node.

You could also do this in the merge,
but sometimes you don't want to do this

in the merge.

Maybe you'll want to mask multiple things
before you merge them in different parts

of the comp or something.

You can take this map control node

and if you select it
and go up to the inspector,

there's a couple little options
under combine, combine alpha

and then down here,
click on post multiply image.

And now what this will do
if you take this ellipse mask

and I plug this into the map control
under the green foreground triangle,

then we have it
limiting to just inside of that mask,

which if we take this round,
that cuts everything out.

So that's a special way to use a mask.

But generally,

if you hook up a mask to a blue input,
it only limits what each node does.

Another major concept
that's really important to get your head

around with fusion
is that fusion will set the comp size

by default based on your first node
or your background node.

So this media in one,
this is setting the comp size.

So and you can see it up here 2048 by 864.

And that's really important to know
because sometimes that'll mess you up,

especially if you're doing something
like drawing a mask on something

and trying to use it for something else.

Like if I were to take this picture,
which is a totally different size

and aspect ratio and everything,

and merge this over our media in one,
I could totally do that.

How to transform node here,
Bring the size down,

then a mask that I put on this image

is going to be a lot different than a mask
that I put on this background image.

Even if I scale this up right
like this, let's say I grab a mask

and I start to draw this on my mountain
here and do a really, really great job.

Look what
happens when I try to actually connect it.

I take my mask
and I connect it to my media

into which is my mountain picture.

And look what happens.

It messes everything up.

It's so weird.

And the reason for that is because it's
drawing this mask on a 2048 by 864 comp

and then it's squeezing that comp
to try and fit this 4000 by 6000.

And it just doesn't work at all.

Now watch
what happens if we switch this around.

I disconnect our media in one,

grab our media into
and let's just put this in our merge.

There we go.

And now if I try and draw my mask,

it works out great because my mask again

is based on the sizing of our background
of our very first node here.

So that worked out fine.

And the reason they do this,
I'm assuming, is because you want to work

on the highest quality footage
any time that you're compositing right.

So if I have something like this
in my timeline

and I have this zoomed in here
and then I switch back over to Fusion,

it wants to work on the highest quality
footage it can,

so it opens up the original footage
in its full resolution

so that I can work with that.

And then it will apply the transform
and everything for the edit page.

So this is really frustrating
and kind of hard to work this way

and at least for me, chances are,
if I'm going to zoom this in on the edit,

I'm really only concerned with how
this part looks at this resolution.

Right?
So here's kind of the workaround for that.

If I'm going to do something like this,
what I'd like to do is go into fusion

and I'll make a background node.

And this background node over here
in our settings under image, I'm going

to uncheck auto resolution right here
and then set my width to 1928 to 1080.

And now I can use this background
as the first node.

And look at this.

It sets the settings for the comp
based on that background node.

And now any time
that I have something like this picture

and I want to make a mask,

I can draw the mask
and I do a really great job this time.

I can draw the mask right here.

Then when I connect it to something
like my merge that will mask that

perfectly and everything kind of works
how you think it would.

Now, if you connect this to your media
in one, it'll still get messed up

because it's applying that mask
and kind of trying to stretch it

to our original footage.

Still, you put that in emerge
and it will totally work out.

This is why pretty much any time
that I start a new comp,

I start with the background node,
because if you make a new fusion

composition like this,
it'll automatically set that background

node to your comp
settings 1920 by 1080 for me.

And now we kind of start with a clean
slate and everything's going to work.

How we think it'll work
and there's going to be no surprises.

Last big concept changing a fusion comp
that's happening in the timeline

is different than changing the fusion comp
that lives in the media pool.

For instance,
if I double click on this fusion comp

from my media pool, connect my background,
and let's put some text on it.

All right.

We've got our big
hello text on kind of a blue background.

Okay. We drag this into our timeline.

We have this blue background and it says
hello, Let's say we want to change this.

Oh, I don't want this to say hello.
So I hit Fusion, right?

Because I'm over the comp
in the timeline, switch

the fusion, go back here
and say hello to go back to the edit.

All right, great.

That is good.

And then later, years later,
I want to be like,

Oh yeah, I need to use that
hello to tattle again.

Oh, here it is right here.

Grab it, put it in here and look.

It just says hello again.

What is the deal with that?

Well, any time that you drag a fusion
up to your timeline

or duplicate a comp in your timeline,
it makes a new copy of it

and they're all independent
from each other.

So this one can say Hello three,
and that's what I'll say hello for.

And then this one still says hello.

So if you want to change something
about this that you might want to reuse

like, Oh, I actually want
all those backgrounds on purple,

you'll want to change it in the fusion
comp right here, we'll turn this purple.

And now none of these have turned purple,
but if I drag a new one, it's purple.

So a lot of people say, okay, well, what
if I want to change the source footage?

And I like I want everything to change.

Well, a way around
that is to drag this into the timeline.

Right click and say new compound clip

and we'll call this hello title

like that, and then we can reuse this
as much as we want.

I just hold alt and drag this out, right?

So these are all purple.

And then if we're to right
click open this in timeline

and then go into this fusion comp
and turn this background red,

go back to our timeline one by clicking
this little breadcrumb down here.

Now we have all of our titles Red,
because it's really

reusing the same timeline cup, right?

It's a little bit confusing.

I imagine
they're going to make a way to like

set this as a master comp
or something in the future,

but that's the way that you do it
right now.

And I don't know about you,
but most of the time,

if I'm going to make another copy

of something like a title,
I usually want to change it

without worrying
about changing everything.

But there you go.

There's five
major concepts inside of fusion.

If you guys like this, make sure to
let me know by hitting that like button.

Now if you want more concepts.

Well, I have some here in the queue,
so let me know in the comments

if that's what you want
and I'll make that video.

Speedy, quick, you know, speedy quick

for you for.