Tips and Techniques
From VFXPedia
Contents
This section is designed to provide a series of handy little insights into how to properly perform certain compositing tasks as well as shortcuts and advice. Please visit this page often as it will be updated on a regular basis.
Also, be sure to look through the dozens of original Tips & Tricks pages on the eyeon website. Many of these are useful time-saving tips, and others provide invaluable introductions to common tools.
More tips as well as scripts and macros have been gathered by Gringo over at the "Fusion User Goodies" thread on the pigsfly forum.
Anatomical Travelogue's R&D pages also list some neat and quick Fusion tips.
New: Quick Tips
Here is an invaluable list of quick tips and shortcuts, taken from Fusion 6.0's new console tip feature. Feel free to add your own!
See also a personal collection of Eyeon Fusion tips and tricks by Gregory Chalenko
3D
(Last Updated: Feb 18, 2009)
You want to import 3D objects on a frame-by-frame basis? Here's how it works in Fusion 5:
This assumes you have a sequence of FBX or OBJ like "MyMesh0000.obj, MyMesh0001.obj, etc.
and want to have MyMesh0000 at frame 0 and MyMesh0001 at frame 1 of your composition.
Add an FBXMesh3D to your scene and load any of the meshes.
Adjust the material of the mesh in the FBXMesh's Material tab.
Once this is done to suit your needs, add an animation to the materials by right-clicking on any of the color sliders
and selecting "Animate MaterialsStdInputs group".
This step is important, because else every time a new mesh is loaded (i.e. on every frame) all color values would be reset.
Now for the trick.
Go to the FBXMesh's Scripting tab and in the FrameRenderScript add the lines
MyPadding=4 --set the padding of your sequence MyFrameNum=string.format("%0"..MyPadding.."d", time) --derive the framenumber from the current time in padded format ImportFile="Comp:\\OBJ_SEQUENCE\\MyMesh"..MyFrameNum..".obj"
Most likely you would have to tweak the path to your needs.
That's it.
Enjoy.
(Last Updated: July 9, 2007)
You want to scale your ImagePlanes according to the size of the image feeding them? Easy to do.
Just add a simple Expression to your ImagePlane's Scale saying "Input.Width/720". Assuming your reference size is a PAL image, all other imageplanes will scale according to that size. Check out the comp: SE_3Im_Size
(Last Updated: March 9, 2006)
In this video tutorial, our eyeon demo artist takes you thru the motions of creating a really interesting particle explosion with some explosive results.
Download video here.
(Last Updated: March 9, 2006)
This video tutorial covers the use of primitive 3D shapes to produce some high end motion graphics effects.
Download video here.
(Last Updated: March 9, 2006)
This video tutorial covers some advanced principles in 3D tracking. It shows you how to map a window on to the provided boujou track example.
Download video here.
(Last Updated: January 6, 2010)
This tip show how to derive the location of a 2D feature in 3D space by "triangulating" from two different frames of a camera path. It basically uses the Locator3D backwards.
A world position pass stores the XYZ coordinates of a rendered pixel as RGB floating point values. This data may help you place cards and other objects at the right position in 3D space or select and mask areas of a rendered scene for color corrections and relighting. There are threads on PigsFly discussing the visualization as a particle system, position and normal relighting macros to extract an area as a mask, relighting comps by Pingking and how to get XYZ data from a rendered z-Pass.
You can render a world pass using Fusion's 3D space by assigning a special material to your geometry. The Displace 3D tool allows you to displace a plane using an XYZ pass.
Fusion 6.2 has introduced native support for a world position pass.
If you want to render an image with overscan you also have to modify your scene's Camera3D. Since overscan settings aren't exported along with camera data from 3D applications, this is also necessary for cameras you've imported via .fbx or .ma files. The solution is to increase the film back's width and height by the factor necessary to account for extra pixels on each side. This annotated comp explains the process.
Fusion 7 introduces options to the Renderer3D that allow you to render overscan - either inside the image area or as overscan DoD
If you want to render an object's shadow (or all shadows in a scene), use a ReplaceMaterial to make everything white (diffuse, no speculars). Render it with a separate Renderer3D and multiply it with your beauty rendering. -- xmare on pigsfly
Conversion Utilities
(Last Updated: January 23, 2006)
A sample flow and instructions for interlacing your fielded footage.
More here.
(Last Updated: January 24, 2006)
Are you a beginner to Fusion or DFX+? This tip outlines the process and basics of panning and/or zooming a large image for video. Handy for focusing on particular areas of large maps or photographs.
More here.
(Last Updated: January 24, 2006)
As the world becomes more of an international market, we often find ourselves exporting our work to other countries with different formats and specs. This week we will concentrate on the process of converting one format to another.
More here.
Keying
Sooner or later, you'll have to key something like this: Whether it's a motion-blurred red flag, a pink dress or a defocused fruit cocktail in front of green screen. The problem is the fringe that remains after you have pulled the key which is hard to kill using regular color correction tools.
For a collection of keying techniques and algorithms that are not specific to any software package, see [1].
There are lots of threads on PigsFly dealing with different keyers and plugins, custom macros and tracking markers.
Miscellaneous
(Last Updated: January 24, 2006)
When dealing with semi-transparent layers in Fusion, there are two ways to deal with them. In this tip I explain how, and more importantly, why you need the additive/subtractive slider in the merge tool.
More here.
When you add or multiply several CGI-passes you need to make sure they are unpremultiplied to prevent black borders in your composite. See this PigsFly thread for an annotated comp by Karahana.
(Last Updated: March 29, 2006)
Using the Krokodove "Probe" tool you can automatically control when Motion Blur turns on and off.
More here.
(Last Updated: March 29, 2006)
Using the cache to disk option in a large flow can dramatically increase performance of a project inside Fusion.
More here.
(Last Updated: March 29, 2005)
Sooner or later we all come across this one, we need to simulate some heat waves. Whether it is for a 3D animation, or just an early morning shoot where the road wasn't hot enough yet, you've got to add some visual distortion.
More here.
(Last Updated: March 29, 2006)
A basic level tip showing how to use the FromImage modifier to automatically select gradient colors from a portion of another image.
More here.
Here's a simple tip for Photoshop users, to allow zooming in & out of display views by using just the mousewheel (instead of the default Ctrl+mousewheel). Type the following into the Console view:
comp:SetPrefs("Comp.Views.Left.CtrlWheelZoom", false)
Use "Right" instead of "Left" if you prefer, or do both. Then, rightclick on the view & choose Settings/Save Defaults, to make that the default for future views. Note that this setting is saved with the comp, so older saved comps will still require the Ctrl key, unless you enter that line & save them again.
You can load the whole clip then trim it to the desired frame using Loader's Trim In/Out controls, but an easy way to do this is to hold down the Shift key while dragging the frame(s) from a file Explorer window into the flow view. If you run an old version of Fusion, where this doesn't work yet, shift-drag the frame(s) from the explorer into the bins. This will add an icon for each frame, which can be dragged onto the flow to create a Loader that's ready-trimmed for use.
See the Trimming tip for an alternate method.
You know how you can select a Loader (or Saver or a clip in the Bin or even a diskcached tool) and Fusion will pop up some controls to let you play and scrub the clip? Well, with Loaders and Bin clips, you can use those same controls to trim the clip too.
Just scrub to the desired frame and use the scrub bar's right-click menu to set it as the new in point or out point. Not only will playback now be limited to the trimmed region, but while "Sync trim settings" is enabled in the context menu, the Loader or Bin clip will also be trimmed to match.
You can also hold down the Ctrl key and drag the scrub bar to set the trim region, or ctrl+drag from the in or out points to further trim or extend the clip. You can even scrub to a frame and ctrl+click to set the trim region to just that frame.
Here's an example comp that tries to deflicker a sequence by using a probe modifier and a custom tool. This technique obviously only works for global brightness changes but if you restrict the probe modifier to a certain area, it can be used to match the flickering for set extensions. The expressions in the custom tool only work in linear gamma space, where changes in global luminance can be achieved by scaling (multiplying) the RGB values accordingly. Download Deflicker.comp.
Type this into the console to clear the file browser's history of recently-used directories:
fusion:SetPrefs("Global.FileReq.History", {})
Masks
This tip describes a simple method for bypassing Fusion's anti-aliasing to produce a mask with jagged edges. This technique would also work with creator tools like Text.
Text
This tip demonstrates an intool script for the Text tool that will display 1 line from an external text file every 'x' frames.
Paint/Roto/Wire Removal
To create a mask of the area that was affected by the paint tool, instead of using a Difference Key or duplicating the whole paint node, insert a Channel Boolean before the paint tool that sets the alpha channel to black. Now all your paint strokes will be "recorded" to the alpha channel. For this trick to work with the clone brush, the clone source has to be set to a node that has a solid alpha channel, for example the node preceding the Channel Boolean if you want to clone from the current image itself.
If you have a matchmoved camera track of a shot, you can use it to remove objects by projecting clean plates onto cards. See this PigsFly thread for an annotated comp by Eric Westphal that takes it one step further by using a second camera to create an undistorted (or unwrapped) clean plate that makes painting easier. It can also facilitate rotoscoping if you animate your polylines on a stabilized/undistorted image. There's a YouTube video about the process.
Tips which can help you avoid staying another night at the office remaking a poor rotoscoping from scratch
Particles
Particles just disappear when they intersect the clipping plane of the camera. This causes a visible pop in the image which can be distracting. This tip demonstrates how the pCustom tool can be used to create a soft clip region for the camera, by fading out the particles before they reach the clipping plane.
(Starting with Fusion 6, you can use the built-in SoftClip tool to achieve this effect not only with particles but also with geometry.)
Using the CoordinateTransform modifier and a Particle Custom tool is one way to make particles to follow along a path in Fusion. This YouTube video explains how. Download the original comp here or an alternative solution using the Duplicate Fuse. See also another solution here: Particles Follow a Path
How to soften particle regions used for emission or defining the forces in space
Stereoscopic
This example setup demonstrates how to use a world position pass to displace a single beauty rendering and film it with a stereo rig.
This comp demonstrates how to fix (or at least improve) vertical misalignment of stereo images without the help of plugins.
Fusion 6.3 added support for stereo metadata in images to override the stereo mode that is selected in the viewers. You can add this data using the Set Metadata fuse, for example:
Stereo = { Method = "hstack", Swap = "true", Offset = {10, 0} }
Or you can set these preferences using comp:SetPrefs():
Comp.Views.<left>.Stereo.OffsetX.Stack Comp.Views.<left>.Stereo.OffsetY.Stack
The offset specifies how many pixels an image will be shifted in the viewers. This may become necessary if your footage was shot with parallel cameras where the horizon ends up on the screen plane, but you want to push everything back for easier viewing while you're working on the images. The stereo combiner tool will also add metadata to the output that indicates the stacking direction (vertical or horizontal).
Warping
(Last Updated: March 29, 2006)
The grid warp tool is a very powerful feature in Fusion 5, and in this case we'll begin with using it to digitally extend a building. This is a great example to get you used to the basic features and functions of the Grid Warp.
More here.
(Last Updated: March 5, 2009)
The custom tool in fusion is very versatile, you can use it to do expressions on a channel or per pixel level. In this case we'll grab the pixel values of one image and use it to displace another one.
Workflow
Extending a tracked path beyond the range where the tracked object is visible
What to do if your tracking is interrupted due to the tracking feature leaving the frame or being obstructed by foreground objects and there is no possibility to continue the tracking process with another feature.
Analyzing a complete sequence brightness
Sometimes you need to work out how luminance changes through a sequence and which frame is the brightest to synchronize your animation or color correction with the footage. It's especially useful if there are explosions, flashes or lightnings in the sequence or it's a time-lapse footage. The measured data can also be used for deflickering. Another purpose is checking whether any unwanted black or white clipping has occurred.
How to work properly gamma-wise
(Last Updated: May 12, 2008)
An article about understanding and using gamma-correction.
Pre-Grading / Final Grading Order
Should we ever apply final grading directly to the plates before we composite everything?
How to put together a set of 3D-passes
Final color grading of an entire TV-spot or a film sequence in Fusion
How to put together a set of 3D-passes
How to put together a set of render elements generated by V-Ray to get an equivalent of the combined rendering result (Beauty)
Importing and Exporting
Fusion can import and export data in a lot of ways, allowing it to play nicely with other software in your pipeline. Many import/export functions are already implemented in Fusion, some require 3rd party scripts that can be found in the scripting section. This page will give you a quick overview.
Blurring an Area Within Contrasty Edges
The way to blur a part of the image enclosed into contrasty edges keeping the edges intact and avoiding the blurred spill from them.
Simple DOD workaround
Every now and then I've seen people requesting some 'Domain Of Definition' capability in Fusion (before version 6.0), which means you can select a tiny portion of an image to work on which is then reinserted in the original. Thinking of it some more I came up with what I think is a simple workaround to this problem, using just a couple of connected crops... Elegant enough, I feel, to be actually useful!
- Simply pipe whatever large image you have in the PipeRouter on the left, put anything you want between the DOD and UNDOD tools and check the result...
Natural Phenomena Simulation
Smoke
Short tips on creating realistic smoke
Fireworks
Short tips on creating realistic fireworks
Sparks
Short tips on creating realistic sparks
Snow
Short tips on creating realistic snow
Translucency
Simulating the translucency effect on thin surfaces like cloth, paper or petals
Tips for Scripts
You can find some tips for working with scripts here.
Tips for Macros
Some tricks when working with macros are here.
Tips for Skins
You can customize Fusion's GUI using skins (Preferences -> Appearance section). The skins that ship with Fusion are located in Skins folder inside Fusion's program directory. Fuskin files are really just zip files that you can extract to look inside. If you create your own skin, you can just create a subdirectory in the Skins folder instead of zipping and updating a .fuskin file all the time. It is recommended to restart Fusion after changing the skin so every icon and color gets refreshed properly.
A tutorial on how to create or edit a skin can be found in the Skins section.
