Quick tips

• Auto Save
  • Auto save (live save) is on by default and you might want to turn it off.
  • DaVinci Resolve > Preferences > Project Save and Load > Save Settings > Live save
• Bookmarks
  • You can add bookmarks with Ctrl + D
  • Underlays can also function as bookmarks
  • Also in 3 dot menu

Viewers

There are two viewers. To send a node to the viewer select the clip and press 1 to send it to the first viwer or press 2 to send it to the other. Theese two viewers are two separate viewers (not source & timeline like in the edit page).

Shortcuts

3D

As far as I know there is still not possible to configure the 3D navigation controls which would be nice. So for the moment I guess i will use this

Misc

Menu (Top left)

• Zoom
• Wipe view
  • wipe between two node
• Subview
  • Metadata
  • Color inspector
  • …

Menu (Top right)

• ROI (Region of interest)
• Color (solo channel)
• LUT
• Single Viewer
• Menu
  • Show controls show hide viewer node handles (Cmd K)
  • Checker underlay show alpha or solid bg
  • …

Timeline

Shortcuts

Tips

• RAM Preview Range
  • Ctrl + LMB click and drag in the timeslider to set
  • timeslider RMB click > Aute Render Ranger to reset

Nodegraph

Shortcuts

Nodes

• Text+
  • To add shading elements, like outline, dropshadow etc
    • Add a Text+ node
    • In the text field, add some text
    • Switch to the Shading tab
    • In the shading elements menu, select 2
    • Click the enable checkbox
    • Edit the properties to what you need
    • Give it a decriptive name, so that you know what it does when you revisit the node.
• Underlay
  • A named group box used to organize the graph
  • The underlay will also appear in the bookmarks menu

Tips

Composite

• Over & Add
  • You can use a Merge or Channel Booleans node to do composites.
  • In a merge node, if you use the Normal apply mode and set the Alpha Gain to 0 you get an Add operation.
  • You can also use a Channel Booleans node to do an Add operation
  • over_add_comp

    Ctrl-C

    Examples of how you can use merge and channel boolean to do an over and add comp. Also how you can use channel boolean to copy the alpha of one node to another.

Alpha

• Combine Alpha with RGB
  • Matte Control
    • Create a Matte Control node
    • Connect the node with the RGB data to the Background (orange)
    • Connect the node with the Alpha data to the Foreground (green)
    • Set Matte Control > Matte > Combine : Combine Alpha
    • Set Post Multiply Image : Enabled (At the bottom of the Matte Control node)
  • Channel Booleans
    • You can also do this with a channel boolean, but it requires a little more setup
    • Create a Channel Booleans node
    • Connect the node with the RGB data to the Background (orange)
    • Connect the node with the Alpha data to the Foreground (green)
    • Set the To Red, To Green, To Blue to Do Nothing
    • Make sure To Alpha is set to Alpha FG
    • Create an Alpha Multiply node and connect the output of the Channel Booleans to the Input (orange)
  • combine_alpha_with_rgb

    Ctrl-C

    Example of how you can use a Matte Control and a channel boolean to copy the alpha to an rgb stream
• Mask to color page
  You might want to output a mask from a fusion comp and use that in the color page. Here is how you do that.
  • Add an additional Media Out node.
    • By default a fusion comp has a media out node. This is the node that ouputs the image data to the other pages in resolve.
    • If we want to output masks (or color data for that matter) we can do this by adding more media out nodes.
    • Note! if we copy/paste existing media out nodes we need to manually set the index of the media node so that all our out nodes have a unique sequential index
  • Create a mask (and ellipse node or whatever that we can use to output an alpha channel)
    • Connect the alpha channel to the output
    • Note! you can also connect rgb values to this outputm, so that we can feed RGBA data to the color page using this modei out.
  • Switch to the color page
    • RMB click the nodegraph > Add Source
    • Add a corrector to the nodegraph.
    • From the newly added source node drag and connect to the mask (blue) input of the corrector node.
    • Since we only output a mask (through our second media out) we will use the rgb data from the original source.
      • Drag from the first source and connect to the rgb (green) input of the corrector node.
      • As mentioned before if we had RGBA data comming from our second source we could use that aswell
    • To Mix the 2 data streams add a Layer Mixer
      • RMB click > Add Node > Layer Mixer.
    • Drag from the first corrector and release on the layer mixers first input
    • Drag frokm the second corrector and release on the layer mixers second input
      • Note! if we had more streams we would like to add we can add more media outs and sources and drag and release on the layer mixer node (more input pins will apear)
    • Note! we can add an Alpha Output and connect a mask to this. This mask will then be used in the timeline.

Misc

• Graph Build Direction
  • You can choose in which direction to build the graph. Default is horizontal, but you can set it to Houdini/Nuke vertical style. RMB click the nodegraph > Options > Build Flow Vertically
• Insert node
  • To insert a node between to connected nodes, hold Shift and drag the node ontop of the connection.
• Remove node
  • To Remove a node and from the flow hold Shift and click or drag the node away.
• List of inputs
  • To get a list of the inputs of a node LMB click the “output square” of a node and hold Alt when releasing on the destination node. This will popup a list of the available inputs.
• Node Thumbnails
  • RMB click in the nodegraph > Force All Tile Pictures
  • RMB click in the nodegraph > Show Thumbnails
  • If the thumbnails are still not showing up:
    • Make sure that you are viewing the last node in the chain
    • select all nodes press Ctrl + P two times to bypass/enable the nodes to force the thumbnail to update.
• Merge nodes quickly
  • One quick way to merge a node over another is to drag the Output (square) connector and release it over the Output connector of the node you wish to merge over.

Modifier

With a modifier you can dynamically drive animation. There are various modifier types.

• Probe
  • A Probe modifier lets us “probe” a node´s pixel data at a specific 2d position. We can then use this data to drive another parameter of a nother node.
  • Example:
    • In the inspector RMB click the parameter you want to drive > Modify With > Probe
    • Switch to the modifier tab
    • From the nodegraph, drag the mnode that you wiish to sample and release it in the Image To Probe text field.
    • Select which channel to prove and the position
    • In the value tab (on the maofifer tab) we can adjust input/output ranges of the probe operation
  • modifier_probe

    Ctrl-C

    Example of how you can use a probe modifier to drive a parameter

Macro

• Create a Fusion Macro from selected Nodes
  • Select nodes
    • Select the nodes that you wish to include in the macro
    • Note! The order that you select the nodes will be the order they appear in the Macro Editor, and in the resulting macro.
    • Note!
      • A macro needs an output, it looks like resole vill use the “last” merge node as the default output (this can be changed in the Macro Editor). The nodes that are used as output will have a red color in the macro editor.
      • To change which output to use click the output checkbox.
  • Create Macro
    • RMB Click > Macro > Create Macro
  • Macro name
    • Give the macro a name
  • Output(s)
    • Make sure that the macro uses the output that you want. The text on the node with an output will be marked red.
  • Input(s)
    • The macro can optionally have inputs. If you need to use a mask in the Macro you can enable the EffectMask checkbox. You can do the same for other inputs.
  • Expose Parameters
    • Choose whoch parameters to expose by clicking the checkbox on the left side.
    • Defaults (the defaults will be set to the value the parameter had when the macro was created)
      • Note that you can set the default
      • You can slso set min/max
  • Save
    • In the top menu of the macro editor > File > Save
      • This will open up the save directory for the fusion macros
      • give the macro a name and click save (It eill use the Macro Name as the defaukt file name)
    • You will not give a confirmation message when the macro is saved, but you can close the Macro Editor.

When you create a macro (by RMB Click > Macro > Create Macro) the default save directory will be: C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Roaming\Blackmagic Design\DaVinci Resolve\Support\Fusion\Macros
The macro will only be accessible with the RMB Click menu in Fusion. If you want to access the macro from the Effects panel you can do this:

• Macro/Template Folder
  • Fusion Page
    • Open the following folder: C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Roaming\Blackmagic Design\DaVinci Resolve\Support\Fusion\Templates\Fusion
    • Here you can crate a new folder and give it a name that you want
    • copy / paste the macro and restart fusion. You will find the macro in the effetcs tab.
  • Edit Page
    • follow the same steps as for the fusion page but use folder C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Roaming\Blackmagic Design\DaVinci Resolve\Support\Fusion\Templates\Edit instead.

Python

To create a macro node using python:

comp.DoAction('AddSetting', {'filename':'Macros:/My Macro.setting'})

Graph Editor (Spline)

If you press the Spline button in the top right menu bar you can view the graph editor.

Shortcuts

Tips

• Set Loop
  • Set some keyframes, select them, RMB > Set Loop > Loop
• Auto fit keyframes
  • If you RMB click in the spline editor > Scale you find some options on how the keyframes is framed in the view.
    • Auto-fit will move the keyframes alomng when the timeline is played
    • Manual will not move the spleine view when played
• Scale X and Y axis
  • By dragging in the top and left margin of the spline editor you can scale the axis
• Ease In/Ease Out
  • Press T
  • Select some keyframes
  • LMB press and drag in tge Ease In/Ease Out input fields.

Color space

• Render software
  • Make sure you have ACES setup in Houdini or the package you render from
    • Your OCIO environment variable is pointing to a config.ocio file
• Resolve
  • Open DaVince Resolve project settings
    • file > Project settings
    • or the cog icon bottom left corner
  • Color Management > Color Sapce and Transforms >
    • Color Science : ACEScc
    • ACES version : ACES 1.0.3
    • Aces Input Transform : ACEScg - CSC
    • Aces Output Transform : Rec.709
• Fusion
  • The steps above will setup ACES for the Resolve cut, edit, color & deliver page but if we jump into Fusion the default Fusion View LUT is not showing the correct image. If Have not yet found any info on how to set his up so that i works by default.
  • The image looks a little washed out, but it might be ok to work with. When we go back to the edit page the iamge will look correct. Obviusly the bset would be to have the correct view lut by default in fusion without haveing to mess to much with lut settings etc.
  • One thing that you camn du is to disable the view lut and add an ACES Transfrom node and set the version and transfrom as we did on the project settings.

Misc

Inspector & parameters

• Size Presets
  • If you RMB click on a parameter in the inspector with width & height you can choose from a list of size presets.
• Expression
  • To use an expression RMB click the parameter > Expression. A plus icon will appear below the parameter and you can AE pickwip the parameter to link. You can also manually enter an expression.
• Pin a parameter
  • If you want the parameters of a node to remain in the inspector when you click another node you can click the pin ison in the top of the nodes parameter pane.

Proxy

We can set the proxy resolution from the main menu. We can also disable the proxy mode by RMB clicking the playback controils and toggle the Proxymode from the menu.

• Playback > Proxy Mode >

  • Off
  • Half Resolution
  • Quarter Resolution

Variations

You can create multiple versions of a clip to try out different ideas. Click the Clips tab in the main menu bar. RMB click on the clip and choose Create New Composition from the popup menu.

Gotchas

• Rename
  • You can press F2 to rename.
    • If you have multiple nodes seleted, a rename popup will appeare for all selected nodes.
    • If you select and underlay, press F2 to rename the popup will appear for all nodes inside the underlay, and you can not escape out. a little weird.
  • Rename underlay
    • If you click and underlay and then rename, you will get promted for all node inside the underlay
    • This is simåly because when you click an underlay all nodes gets selected
    • To avoid this hold Alt when LMB clicking the underlay to select it. Only the underlay will be selected.

Misc

• Selection
  • If you LMB click a node it will be set as the active tool
  • If you Ctrl + LMB click a node if will just be selected (and not set as active tool)
  • If you want to select an underlay (and not its contained nodes) and not make it the active tool press Ctrl + Alt + LMB click

Setups