Getting started with Reactor

#1

Installing Reactor Visually
Installing Reactor for Fusion Manually
Using Reactor Content on a Fusion Render Node
- Fusion Render Node Preference File
Uninstalling Reactor Manually
Creating the AllData Folder

Installing Reactor Visually

Download the Reactor Installer Script here

The Reactor-Installer.lua script makes it quick and easy to set up Reactor inside of Fusion or Resolve.

Step 1. Drag the Reactor-Installer.lua script from a folder on your desktop into the Fusion Standalone Console tab, or the Resolve Fusion page "Nodes" view. Alternatively, you could paste the Reactor Installer Lua script code into the Fusion Console tab text input field manually and the installer script will be run.

: Reactor is ready to instal!; reactor-installer-ready-to-install.png (30.29 KiB) Viewed 12337 times

Step 2. Click the "Install and Relaunch" button. After a few seconds the Reactor Installer progress bar will appear and the installation will proceed.

: Reactor for Fusion progress window; reactor-installer-complete.png (18.76 KiB) Viewed 12337 times

A Reactor.fu file will be downloaded from the Reactor GitLab repository and is saved to the Fusion user prefs location at Config:/Reactor.fu. Also being written is a new AllData:Reactor:/System/Reactor.cfg file that is used to control what repositories are used with Reactor.

When the installer finishes, Fusion will restart automatically and the Reactor Package Manager will be displayed.

: The Reactor for Fusion Package Manager

Installing Reactor for Fusion Manually

If you are a studio system admin/pipeline TD and need more control over the Reactor install process you can manually download files from the GitLab repo and install the tool by yourself.

Step 1. To install Reactor, download Reactor.fu and place it in your Fusion Config:/ directory.

Windows Config:/ Installation Path:

%appdata%\Blackmagic Design\Fusion\Config\Reactor.fu

Mac Config:/ Installation Path:

$HOME/Library/Application Support/Blackmagic Design/Fusion/Config/Reactor.fu

Linux Config:/ Installation Path:

$HOME/.fusion/BlackmagicDesign/Fusion/Config/Reactor.fu

Note: $HOME represents your current user account's home folder.

Step 2. The next time Fusion is launched a new "Reactor" menu will be added. Selecting the Reactor > Open Reactor... menu item will open the "Fusion Reactor" Package Manager window.

: Reactor menu; reactor-menu.png (32.81 KiB) Viewed 15680 times

! Note: Since Resolve 15 does not support the use of a .fu file for creating menu entries, it is recommended that Reactor for Resolve be installed only by the automated Lua installer script. This is due to the fact there are more files to copy in place so a manual installation would be more complex to describe and support.

Using Reactor Content on a Fusion Render Node

You can use your Reactor installed content on your render nodes so they have the exact same fuses and plugins installed as your Fusion Studio based workstations have.

This is done by opening the Fusion Render Node's preferences up and setting your PathMaps to match what you have configured on your own workstation's Fusion Studio PathMap preferences so they are 1:1 identical.

: Render Node Settings Taskbar Menu; taskbar-render-node-settings.png (74.73 KiB) Viewed 12332 times

This means you should re-create the Fusion Studio style PathMap settings like this on each of your render nodes:

: Fusion Render Node Preferences

User PathMap Entry

From:

Reactor:

To:

C:\ProgramData\Blackmagic Design\Fusion\Reactor\

If you have moved Reactor to a new installation location on your network share you would change the "To" section entry to point to that custom location you have placed the files at. This would be the folder you have set in your "REACTOR_INSTALL_PATHMAP" environment variable.

Defaults PathMap Entry

From:

UserPaths:

To:

UserData:;AllData:;Fusion:;Reactor:Deploy

The UserPaths: section is where you define the folders that hold your fusion user preferences. Each PathMap location you define here will have a full set of sub-folders created during Fusion or Fusion Render Node's startup for holding the custom addons you can use with Fusion like:

Bins
Brushes
Config
Defaults
Filters
Fuses
Guides
Layouts
Library
LUTs
Macros
Modules
Plugins
Scripts
Settings
Stamps

Optional Extra PathMap Entry

This extra setting can be configured on a render node if you want to be very thorough with your install. It is not strictly required but is a good idea to have for the future as this setting will become useful a few months from now when more Lua/Python scripted features and atoms are added to the toolset.

From:

Scripts:

To:

UserPaths:Scripts;Reactor:System/Scripts

Fusion Render Node Preference File

The Fusion Render Node preference file has the filename of RenderNode.prefs that is located on your system in this PathMap folder:

Profile:/

On Windows this works out to:

%AppData%\Blackmagic Design\Fusion\Profiles\Default\

On Linux this works out to:

$HOME/.fusion/BlackmagicDesign/Fusion/Profiles/Default/

On MacOS this works out to:

$HOME/Library/Application Support/Blackmagic Design/Fusion/Profiles/Default/

Uninstalling Reactor Manually

: The Reactor Pathmap Folder

Step 1. To uninstall Reactor from your system you need to remove the downloaded Reactor "atom" content by deleting the Reactor folder that is located in your shared Fusion AllData:/Reactor:/ folder.

The AllData:/Reactor:/ folder is located here:

Fusion Paths

Windows Reactor Path:

C:\ProgramData\Blackmagic Design\Fusion\Reactor\

Mac Reactor Path:

/Library/Application Support/Blackmagic Design/Fusion/Reactor/

Linux Reactor Path:

/var/BlackmagicDesign/Fusion/Reactor/

Reolve Paths

Windows Reactor Path:

C:\ProgramData\Blackmagic Design\DaVinci Resolve\Fusion\Reactor\

Mac Reactor Path:

/Library/Application Support/Blackmagic Design/DaVinci Resolve/Fusion/Reactor/

Linux Reactor Path:

/var/BlackmagicDesign/DaVinci Resolve/Fusion/Reactor/

Step 2. If you are using Fusion you should remove the Reactor.fu file from your Fusion user preferences Config:/ directory. This will stop the Reactor menu item from being added to Fusion.

Step 3. Open the Fusion Preferences window and switch to the "Global and Default Settings > PathMap" section.

: Uninstalling Pathmap Entries

In the "User" section of the PathMap view click on the entry for the "Reactor:" PathMap. Then press the Delete button.

Scroll up to the "Defaults" section and click on the "UserPaths:" entry. Edit the text in the "To" field and remove the words ";Reactor:Deploy". Be sure to keep the rest of the settings in textfield.

Scroll up in the "Defaults" section and click on the "Scripts:" entry. Edit the text in the "To" field and remove the words ";Reactor:System/Scripts". Be sure to keep the rest of the settings that are in textfield.

Step 4. Restart Fusion. Reactor will have been cleanly removed from your system.

Creating the AllData Folder

If you are on macOS and see AllData: PathMap folder permission errors in the Console tab or during the Reactor install process, it likely means you have deleted the AllData: folder at some point and need to manually re-create the directory. Fusion on macOS appears to lack the permissions required to regenerate that folder automatically.

The error messages would look like:

[Reactor Error] Disk permissions error when saving: /Library/Application Support/Blackmagic Design/Fusion/Reactor/System/Reactor.lua/

Here are the macOS terminal commands to re-create the AllData: Pathmap folder:

Code: [Select all] [Expand/Collapse] [Download] (FolderPermissions.txt)

# Re-create the Fusion 9.02 "AllData:" PathMap Folder on macOS:
 
# Make the folders
sudo mkdir -p "/Library/Application Support/Blackmagic Design/Fusion/"
 
# -------------------------------------------------------------------
 
# Change the "Blackmagic Design" folder's owner to root
sudo chown -R "root" "/Library/Application Support/Blackmagic Design/"
 
# Change the "Blackmagic Design" folder's group to wheel
sudo chgrp "wheel" "/Library/Application Support/Blackmagic Design/"
 
# Change the "Blackmagic Design" folder permissions to 755 / "drwxr-xr-x"
sudo chmod 755 "/Library/Application Support/Blackmagic Design/"
 
# -------------------------------------------------------------------
 
# Change the "Fusion" folder's group to admin
sudo chgrp -R "admin" "/Library/Application Support/Blackmagic Design/Fusion/"
 
# Change the "Fusion" folder permissions to 777 / "drwxrwxrwx"
sudo chmod 777 "/Library/Application Support/Blackmagic Design/Fusion/"
 
# -------------------------------------------------------------------
 
# List the folder contents and permissions
ls -laR "/Library/Application Support/Blackmagic Design"
 
# Open the Fusion Folder in a Finder browsing window
open "/Library/Application Support/Blackmagic Design/Fusion/"

ThierryBergeron · #2

Hi, I installed Reactor, but little snitch is bitching about an invalid code signature.

I just created a new rule and allowed it but it is the first time little snitch ever gave me a message like that.

YouTube · #3

ThierryBergeron wrote: ↑
Mon Jan 22, 2018 7:31 am
Hi, I installed Reactor, but little snitch is bitching about an invalid code signature.

I just created a new rule and allowed it but it is the first time little snitch ever gave me a message like that.

Hi Thierry.

Reactor uses the GitLab site to host the file downloads. You have to allow a connection to GitLab.com if you want to be able to download the atoms from the Reactor GitLab repository site which is located here:

https://gitlab.com/WeSuckLess/Reactor

The Reactor Installer is a plain text format Lua script. It has no signature since it is plain text and is not a compiled executable so it wouldn't ever be code signed. The Lua script uses the Fusion internal Lua scripting layer to make a cURL download request to the GitLab website to download files and sync Reactor atom packages.

Possibly the Fusion 9 Lua scripting layer's dylib library files are not digitally signed to the level of Little Snitch/MacOS X Gatekeeper's current expectation? Hard to know without seeing a Mac OS Console log with more details to work from.

If I had to guess with no insight it might be an error coming from one of these two Fusion built-in libraries that are used by Fusion's FuScript system?

Code: Select all

/Applications/Blackmagic Fusion 9/Fusion.app/Contents/MacOS/fusionscript.so
/Applications/Blackmagic Fusion 9/Fusion.app/Contents/MacOS/libfusionsystem.dylib

#4

I registered just to say thank you!!! Amazing stuff!

Where is the donation button?

kind regards
-Robert

edit: Found the Donation button!

#5

A wonderful addition and one that will certainly make some of the fancier tools and methods built by the various contributing luminaries much more accessible to a wider user base - great work.

I've finally had a moment to try it out and I've encountered a couple of problems - probably down to some issue with my environment or my own lack of knowledge but as it is meant to be pretty straight forward I thought I'd ask before rooting about to find the cause(s).

I used Pieter's installer as per the above, then restarted fu9.0.2 studio (win10) and installed a few scripts. Some of them I already had installed by the "normal" methods, which may be contributing to my problem.

Anyway - cryptomatte throws the followin errors on restart

: CrytomatteError.jpg (47.73 KiB) Viewed 15482 times

which would I guess point to an enviroment problem. Although I thought the reactor.fu config file that the install put into Users/%Username%/AppData/Roaming/Blackmagic Design/Fusion/Config was meant to set the necessary env variables.

Also, I installed MT_Multimerge through the reactor gui, which says it's now installed but I can't for the life of me find it anywhere. As a test I also installed Andrew's infamous barrel maker (I look forward eagerly to the eagle) as the gui says it should go to nearly the same place as MT_Multimerge - "Tools/Creator" whereas MT_Multimerge goes to "Tools/Composite".

When I look in Macros under the Fu9 add tool drop down I see a subdirectory called "Creator" with BarrelShape3D in it, so I assume that "Macros/Creator" is the "Tools/Creator" directory referred to in the reactor gui (which may in itself be a bit confusing for new users). But no corresponding "Macros/Composite" has been made by the MT_Multimerge install. And for the life of me I can't find it under any other menus.

As this great tool will be particularly helpful to less experienced users I'm assuming you want to make it as "plug and play" as possible so I'm posting here - again, probably all down to something I've done with my own installation some time in the past but maybe something that could be allowed for in the reactor install. Or have I screwed up the install somehow?

#6

RobertFreitag wrote: ↑
Tue Jan 23, 2018 3:21 am
I registered just to say thank you!!! Amazing stuff!

Keep on visiting this place. It is the coolest Fusion forum you could ever registered to.

#7

JPDoc wrote: ↑
Tue Jan 23, 2018 8:18 am

Anyway - cryptomatte throws the followin errors on restart

which would I guess point to an enviroment problem. Although I thought the reactor.fu config file that the install put into Users/%Username%/AppData/Roaming/Blackmagic Design/Fusion/Config was meant to set the necessary env variables.

It is a known issue since yesterday and top people are already trying to figure this out.

#8

JPDoc wrote: ↑
Tue Jan 23, 2018 8:18 am
Also, I installed MT_Multimerge through the reactor gui, which says it's now installed but I can't for the life of me find it anywhere.

Multi Merge is not a macro, so it is not forced to live in the Macros tool category. If you're using the Add Tool right-click menu or the Tools menu in the menu bar, then it's simply in the Composite category along with Merge and Dissolve. Or you can find it with Ctrl+Space by typing "Multi" or "MMg", and it should appear in the list.

: Untitled.png (11.11 KiB) Viewed 15471 times

#9

Thanks for the input - I guess there's a problem with the installer then. The reactor GUI definitely shows MT_Multimerge as installed but "Tools/Composite/" only shows Merge and Dissolve. It doesn't show up on the control/spacebar tool finder either.

Also, I do understand that Macros are Macros, but I still think my point about the reactor gui location displayed as "Tools/Creator" while actually being "Macros/Creator" is a tad confusing.

#10

Nope, there's an error in the Atom. I've submitted a fix. Please uninstall Multi Merge for now and reinstall when the update's been made. Thanks for the report!

update: The fix has been applied. If you update MT_MultiMerge, it should work now.

#11

Many thanks!

#12

The update has been comitted and should work as expected - please try again

#13

Just installed and all looks good - fantastic work! Nice to see that Steve R thinks the world of it as well . . .

#14

JPDoc wrote: ↑
Tue Jan 23, 2018 10:28 am
Also, I do understand that Macros are Macros, but I still think my point about the reactor gui location displayed as "Tools/Creator" while actually being "Macros/Creator" is a tad confusing.

Hi Paul,

This is by design. Essentially, a Fusion tool is a tool, no matter what the underlying structure of it is. It should not matter whether a tool is a Macro, or a Fuse, or a Plugin. What matters for the user is that ultimately they need to know where to look for the desired functionality. The Category field in Reactor serves to do just that, and results in the tree you see on the left hand side:

: The Reactor Tree; reactor-tree.png (13.74 KiB) Viewed 15392 times

Now, if you would like to find out where the tool lives on the disk, you look at the installed files in the Atom description window:

: Installed Files; reactor-installed-files.png (9.66 KiB) Viewed 15392 times

For finding the tools after install, the easiest thing to do is Shift-Space for the Add Tool dialog, where all of them show up in a long list and you can quickly search for them. I have that menu mapped to the TAB key, for easy switching between Fusion and that other one

#15

Thanks Pieter, I see the logic now. I guess that the prolbem with the MT_Multimerge atom led to me searching all over for it which probably added to my confusion.

As a trivial aside - I'm not sure what you meant by "CTRL-Shift for the Add Tool dialog". I right click in the flow are then select Add Tool which gives me the list - I just tried "CTRL-Shift" then right click then add tool and I get the same menu. Is there another one?