Simon Ubsdell created an excellent tutorial on creating a better depth blur in Fusion. I did a slight modification to make it suit my purposes. Now and then I get approached to provide an example (as I left a comment under his video), so to make things easier I thought I’d make it available as a download.
The key change I made is that the custom tool now allows you to easily set the focus point and the depth of field (see sliders on the Controls tab of the Custom Tool). I didn’t re-create Simon’s colour correction etc, but these can of course be added.
If you’ve got any questions about this, drop me an email (ablackbirdcalledsue@gmail.com)
Hey all – here’s a bunch of templates I worked on recently. These are all based on the recent tutorial I did on Spinning Text (see below). If you want to know how it all works, please check it out!
Now, before you hit that download link… you may have noticed the “buy me a coffee” link on the right… 🙂 I had been thinking about starting to charge for some of my downloads, but decided against it and opted instead for this more “optional structure” 😉
The other day I watched the excellent series “Suits”. If you haven’t watched that yet….you’re missing out on something! Anyways, I was quite impressed with the intro to the series. At first sight it may seem deceptively simple, but when analyzing it, you will notice there’s a lot of clever stuff going on. I was inspired by it and tried to re-create some of it in Fusion. Unfortunately, as opposed to After Effects, a few basic tools are missing from the standard arsenal: a block resolve and a simple way to create a grid. Sure, there are ways to accomplish it (there always are!), but I thought it would be good to create something re-usable that works in a straightforward way.
So, here we are: I created 2 tools to help you with all types of cross dissolves and grid creations. Now, I’m not proficient in creating Fuses, so these are all created using standard nodes (but with a fairly heavy use of expressions), turned into easy-to-use macros. Downside is that the speed (especially the Block Dissolve) leaves a bit to be desired!
BLOCK RESOLVE TOOL
The block-y parts of the intro? That’d be a Block Dissolve type tool. I created something to make things easier.
The block resolve tool essentially creates a matte that you can pipe into a merge node (as the mask). Underneath the hood it actually uses a 2D Particle System (with some heavy use of the pCustom tool!). Whilst very flexible, the downside is that it can be slow at times. You can specify the number of rows and columns (i.e. “block size), duration, color and even direction. In the latter case, you can also specify a “spread”. Out of the box it works left-to-right, but by simply adding a transform you can of course mirror it. There are presets built-in (s1-s6, via the standard GUI).
GRID MAKER
Yeh, but, there’s this nice grid? So, there is: just pipe in an instance of the “Grid Maker” and you are on your way.
The grid tool creates a…. grid. Funnily enough. You can specify image size, rows, columns, thickness, and various other things. Very straightforward to use. This macro actually makes use of a 3D Plane set to wireframe, an erode/dilate node and a camera. Note that this one requires OpenGL.
INSTALLING
Download the file from here (click the text below, not the download button)
Locate the ZIP File on our computer. It will contain 3 files:
Block_Dissolve_V10.setting (the Block Resolve Macro)
Grid_Maker_V4.setting (the Grid Maker Macro)
example comp.comp (a simple example comp for Fusion or Davinci Resolve 15)
First install the macros as per below, then open the example comp in either Fusion (my recommendation) or in Resolve. I will tell you more about how to use it in Resolve in the upcoming tutorial!
You will need to copy these “settings” files (macros) to your macros folder. On my Windows 10 installation this is at:
Hey all – some new free goodies: a custom text scrambler (text+ node with a bunch of additional fields and expressions). This allows you to do a lot more than the build-in Textscramble modifier. Note that if you don’t have the required fonts installed, the comps will throw up an error. I’m making use of:
– Consolas
– Courier New
– LCD 14
LCD 14 can be downloaded here:
http://www.1001fonts.com/lcd-font.html
In general, one main tip is to use a Monospaced font!!
So…. Trying out something new. With the integration of Fusion into Resolve, I thought (as did many others so it seems…) it would be interesting to do some more basic effects, especially ones that could be of interest to video editors. In this tutorial, I’m basically walking you through a basic Posterize Time/Strobing type effect. Of course, this *was* possible in Resolve, but only in a roundabout way or with the help of 3rd party plugins. In this tutorial, we’ll make use of the Fusion Timestretcher node, which makes it very easy indeed.
I then proceed by adding some grungy text elements, doing some tracking, and presto…done.
Have a look at the tutorial below. However, if you’re in a hurry, the summary of the posterize time effect is:
Add a Timestretcher node inbetween media in and out. Right click the Source Time element, and click expression. Then type the following expression:
floor(time/7)*7
It’s as simple as that. Change the 7 to a number of your liking. the higher the number the choppier it will get. So, for instance, if you use 10, it will only update the frame once in 10 frames.
I put together a little demo on something I’ve been working on: an easy or at least easier) way to animate cubes. Animate, as in: rolling cubes over a surface. You may have noticed that standard rotation doesn’t quite work out, and also that the rotation order becomes hugely important. My method doesn’t alleviate all issues, but does certainly make it easier to put some cool rolling cube animations together. If there’s enough interest (leave a comment here or on Youtube), I’ll make a template available and will do a short tutorial.
I have been experimenting a bit with the Fastnoise tool lately to create some(what) believable electric-type effects. It started out as a 2D experiment, but then I thought it would be more interesting/challenging to create it in 3D. I think the end-result is pretty cool, but who am I?? If you have got any questions, let me know! And please, do let me know if you create something with this/with the techniques utilised.
Check out the video below for a quick explanation of the project file:
Project File (please click title, not the download button)
Note that this template/project file is provided “as is,” and you use it at your own risk.
No warranties are provided.
Under no circumstances shall the author be liable for direct, indirect, special, incidental, or consequential damages resulting from the use, misuse, or inability to use this template.
