Eyeon:Manual/Fusion 6/Introduction to Fusion

What is Fusion

eyeon Software's Fusion is a compositing program, or more accurately, software used to composite images. Look up the word composition in any dictionary and the most relevant definition would likely be "The combining of distinct parts or elements to form a whole".

Fusion is designed to combine images from many sources and compose them into a final whole. Modern media assembles a multitude of raw materials into the final product that we see in film, television or via the internet. Virtual sets are blended with live action material. Computer generated actors fill in where live stuntmen can't. With each passing year the real and virtual parts of production become more tightly intertwined.

So the job of the compositing artist is to take all of the discreet elements and layers that make up a shot, and turn them into a single image that respects the goals and artistic vision of the production. To achieve this, the artist draws on techniques as diverse as color correction, greenscreen replacement, tracking, particles, blur and glow effects.

Fusion draws on more than 20 years in visual effects post production, providing a complete toolkit for addressing any compositing challenge.

Some Key Features

In addition to providing in excess of 200 tools for image processing, Fusion also provides a large number of features to improve an artists effectiveness and efficiency . The following is a summary of some of the key features provided by Fusion.

• Region of Interest and Domain of Definition renderer with the interactive responsiveness of a full frame based renderer

• Concatenated transformations preserve image sharpness

• Offscreen pixels are preserved through infinite canvas provided by Domain of Definition

• Complete toolset for compositing in 2D and 3D simultaneously

• Reads and writes more than 100 production file formats

• Resolution Independent

• Comprehensive HDRI and floating point color support

• Automation through either Python or eyeonScript (Lua) programming languages

• ASCII based project format for easy integration with asset management

• RAM and disk based caching systems

• Strongly multithreaded native 64 bit application takes full advantage of modern hardware

• GPU accelerated 3D rendering and display

• Real time color calibration through all common 2D and 3D look up table formats.

• Network rendering not just of final projects but for previews and disk caches.

• Background and clustered network rendering directly to RAM and disk based caches

• Bins server provides facility wide access to frequently used tools, macros and settings

• Runs under both Windows and Linux

• Macro system for repackaging many tools into one simplified but powerful tool

• Easy to use and well documented SDK