Working With Clip Items

Stamp Files

Stamp Files are low resolution, local proxies of footage (referred to as a clip) that Fusion uses to quickly play back the individual frames in an image sequence or movie.

Although there have been vast improvements in the interactive playback from disk, stamps remain extremely useful for quickly previewing clips stored on a network server, or for very large Cineon and DPX files.

To create a stamp file for a clip, right-click on the item in the bins and select Create Stamp from the context menu.

The status bar at the top of the Bins window shows Fusion's progress as it creates the stamp in the background. Other stamps can be queued as well.

It is possible to continue working with the composition while the stamps are created.

Stamp Playback

To play back a clip, press the right mouse button and select Play from the context menu.

Fusion plays the clip back in its image icon.

Scrubbing Footage

In addition to being able to play back the stamp, Fusion also offers the ability to scrub through a clip's frames in the bins. To scrub, right-click on the footage icon in the bin and drag the mouse left and right. The footage will appear in the left display view of the currently open composition. Dragging to the left will move back through the frames and dragging right scrubs forward.

If a composition is not currently open, the frames will not be able to display in the left view and nothing will happen.

Jog And Shuttle

Fusion can scrub in one of two modes. Jog works the same as the jog shuttle on VTRs, where the clip icon is the pause position. Right-click and drag to the right for forward jog and to the left for reverse jog.

Shuttle works the same way as a dial shuttle. Move the mouse to the right to scrub forward or move to the left to scrub back frame by frame.

To switch between Jog or Shuttle mode, select the desired option from the Scrub Mode submenu in the context menu.