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The toolbar, located underneath the Time Ruler, contains buttons that let you quickly add commonly used nodes to the Node Editor. Clicking any of these buttons adds that node after the currently selected node in the node tree, or adds an unconnected instance of that node if no nodes are selected. The Toolbar can be customized and saved for specific tasks.
The toolbar has buttons for adding commonly used nodes to the Node Editor.
The default toolbar is divided into sections that group commonly used nodes together. As you hover the pointer over any button, a tooltip shows you that node’s name.
— Loader/Saver nodes (Fusion Studio Only): The Loader node is the primary node used to select and load clips from the hard drive. The Saver node is used to write or render your composition to disk.
— Generator/Title/Paint nodes: The Background and FastNoise generators are commonly used to create all kinds of effects, and the Title generator is obviously a ubiquitous tool, as is Paint.
— Color/Blur nodes: ColorCorrector, ColorCurves, HueCurves, and BrightnessContrast are the four most commonly used color adjustment nodes, while the Blur node is ubiquitous.
— Compositing/Transform nodes: The Merge node is the primary node used to composite one image against another. ChannelBooleans and MatteControl are both essential for reassigning channels from one node to another. Resize alters the resolution of the image, permanently altering the available resolution, while Transform applies pan/tilt/rotate/zoom effects in a resolution- independent fashion that traces back to the original resolution available to the source image.
— Mask nodes: Rectangle, Ellipse, Polygon, and BSpline mask nodes let you create shapes to use for rotoscoping, creating garbage masks, or other uses.
— Particle system nodes: Three particle nodes let you create complete particle systems when you click them from left to right. pEmitter emits particles in 3D space, while pMerge lets you merge multiple emitters and particle effects to create more complex systems. pRender renders a 2D result that can be composited against other 2D images.
— 3D nodes: Seven 3D nodes let you build sophisticated 3D scenes. These nodes auto attach to one another to create a quick 3D template when you click from left to right. ImagePlane3D lets you connect 2D stills and movies for compositing into 3D scenes. Shape3D lets you create geometric primitives of different kinds. Text3D lets you build 3D text objects. Merge3D lets you composite multiple 3D image planes, primitive shapes, and 3D text together to create complex scenes, while Camera3D lets you frame the scene in whatever ways you like. SpotLight lets you light the scenes in different ways and Renderer3D renders the final scene and outputs 2D images and auxiliary channels that can be used to composite 3D output against other 2D layers.
When you’re first learning to use Fusion, these nodes are really all you need to build most common composites. Once you’ve become a more advanced user, you’ll still find that these are truly the most common operations you’ll use.