Tips and Techniques
From VFXpedia
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Contents
This section is designed to provide a series of handy little insights into how to properly perform certain compositing tasks as well as shortcuts and advice. Please visit this page often as it will be updated on a regular basis.
Also, be sure to look through the dozens of original Tips & Tricks pages on the eyeon website. Many of these are useful time-saving tips, and others provide invaluable introductions to common tools.
Tips for Fusion 4 & 5
Tips for Fusion 5
More tips as well as scripts and macros have been gathered by Gringo over at the "Fusion User Goodies" thread on the pigsfly forum.
New: Quick Tips
Here is an invaluable list of quick tips and shortcuts, taken from Fusion 6.0's new console tip feature. Feel free to add your own!
3D
(Last Updated: Feb 18, 2009)
You want to import 3D objects on a frame-by-frame basis? Here's how it works in Fusion 5:
This assumes you have a sequence of FBX or OBJ like "MyMesh0000.obj, MyMesh0001.obj, etc.
and want to have MyMesh0000 at frame 0 and MyMesh0001 at frame 1 of your composition.
Add an FBXMesh3D to your scene and load any of the meshes.
Adjust the material of the mesh in the FBXMesh's Material tab.
Once this is done to suit your needs, add an animation to the materials by right-clicking on any of the color sliders
and selecting "Animate MaterialsStdInputs group".
This step is important, because else every time a new mesh is loaded (i.e. on every frame) all color values would be reset.
Now for the trick.
Go to the FBXMesh's Scripting tab and in the FrameRenderScript add the lines
MyPadding=4 --set the padding of your sequence MyFrameNum=string.format("%0"..MyPadding.."d", time) --derive the framenumber from the current time in padded format ImportFile="Comp:\\OBJ_SEQUENCE\\MyMesh"..MyFrameNum..".obj"
Most likely you would have to tweak the path to your needs.
That's it.
Enjoy.
(Last Updated: July 9, 2007)
You want to scale your ImagePlanes according to the size of the image feeding them? Easy to do.
Just add a simple Expression to your ImagePlane's Scale saying "Input.Width/720". Assuming your reference size is a PAL image, all other imageplanes will scale according to that size. Check out the comp: SE_3Im_Size
(Last Updated: March 9, 2006)
In this video tutorial, our eyeon demo artist takes you thru the motions of creating a really interesting particle explosion with some explosive results.
Download video here.
(Last Updated: March 9, 2006)
This video tutorial covers the use of primitive 3D shapes to produce some high end motion graphics effects.
Download video here.
(Last Updated: March 9, 2006)
This video tutorial covers some advanced principles in 3D tracking. It shows you how to map a window on to the provided boujou track example.
Download video here.
(Last Updated: January 6, 2010)
This tip show how to derive the location of a 2D feature in 3D space by "triangulating" from two different frames of a camera path. It basically uses the Locator3D backwards.
Conversion Utilities
(Last Updated: January 23, 2006)
A sample flow and instructions for interlacing your fielded footage.
More here.
(Last Updated: January 24, 2006)
Are you a beginner to Fusion or DFX+? This tip outlines the process and basics of panning and/or zooming a large image for video. Handy for focusing on particular areas of large maps or photographs.
More here.
(Last Updated: January 24, 2006)
As the world becomes more of an international market, we often find ourselves exporting our work to other countries with different formats and specs. This week we will concentrate on the process of converting one format to another.
More here.
Miscellaneous
(Last Updated: March 5, 2009)
The custom tool in fusion is very versatile, you can use it to do expressions on a channel or per pixel level. In this case we'll grab the pixel values of one image and use it to displace another one.
More here.
(Last Updated: January 24, 2006)
When dealing with semi-transparent layers in Fusion, there are two ways to deal with them. In this tip I explain how, and more importantly, why you need the additive/subtractive slider in the merge tool.
More here.
(Last Updated: March 29, 2006)
Using the Krokodove "Probe" tool you can automatically control when Motion Blur turns on and off.
More here.
(Last Updated: March 29, 2006)
Using the cache to disk option in a large flow can dramatically increase performance of a project inside Fusion.
More here.
(Last Updated: March 29, 2005)
Sooner or later we all come across this one, we need to simulate some heat waves. Whether it is for a 3D animation, or just an early morning shoot where the road wasn't hot enough yet, you've got to add some visual distortion.
More here.
(Last Updated: March 29, 2006)
A basic level tip showing how to use the FromImage modifier to automatically select gradient colors from a portion of another image.
More here.
Here's a simple tip for Photoshop users, to allow zooming in & out of display views by using just the mousewheel (instead of the default Ctrl+mousewheel). Type the following into the Console view:
comp:SetPrefs("Comp.Views.Left.CtrlWheelZoom", false)
Use "Right" instead of "Left" if you prefer, or do both. Then, rightclick on the view & choose Settings/Save Defaults, to make that the default for future views. Note that this setting is saved with the comp, so older saved comps will still require the Ctrl key, unless you enter that line & save them again.
You can load the whole clip then trim it to the desired frame using Loader's Trim In/Out controls, but an easy way to do this is to hold down the Shift key while dragging the frame(s) from a file Explorer window into the Bin. This will add an icon for each frame, which can be dragged onto the flow to create a Loader that's ready-trimmed for use.
See the Trimming tip for an alternate method.
You know how you can select a Loader (or Saver or a clip in the Bin or even a diskcached tool) and Fusion will pop up some controls to let you play and scrub the clip? Well, with Loaders and Bin clips, you can use those same controls to trim the clip too.
Just scrub to the desired frame and use the scrub bar's right-click menu to set it as the new in point or out point. Not only will playback now be limited to the trimmed region, but while "Sync trim settings" is enabled in the context menu, the Loader or Bin clip will also be trimmed to match.
You can also hold down the Ctrl key and drag the scrub bar to set the trim region, or ctrl+drag from the in or out points to further trim or extend the clip. You can even scrub to a frame and ctrl+click to set the trim region to just that frame.
Masks
This tip describes a simple method for bypassing Fusion's anti-aliasing to produce a mask with jagged edges. This technique would also work with creator tools like Text.
Text
This tip demonstrates an intool script for the Text tool that will display 1 line from an external text file every 'x' frames.
Warping
(Last Updated: March 29, 2006)
The grid warp tool is a very powerful feature in Fusion 5, and in this case we'll begin with using it to digitally extend a building. This is a great example to get you used to the basic features and functions of the Grid Warp.
More here.
Particles
Particles just disappear when they intersect the clipping plane of the camera. This causes a visible pop in the image which can be distracting. This tip demonstrates how the pCustom tool can be used to create a soft clip region for the camera, by fading out the particles before they reach the clipping plane.
Workflow
Extending a tracked path beyond the range where the tracked object is visible
What to do if your tracking is interrupted due to the tracking feature leaving the frame or being obstructed by foreground objects and there is no possibility to continue the tracking process with another feature.
Analyzing a complete sequence brightness
Sometimes you need to work out how luminance changes through a sequence and which frame is the brightest to synchronize your animation or color correction with the footage. It's especially useful if there are explosions, flashes or lightnings in the sequence or it's a time-lapse footage. The measured data can also be used for deflickering. Another purpose is checking whether any unwanted black or white clipping has occurred.
How to work properly gamma-wise
(Last Updated: May 12, 2008)
An article about understanding and using gamma-correction.
Pre-Grading / Final Grading Order
Should we ever apply final grading directly to the plates before we composite everything?
Simple DOD workaround
Every now and then I've seen people requesting some 'Domain Of Definition' capability in Fusion (before version 6.0), which means you can select a tiny portion of an image to work on which is then reinserted in the original. Thinking of it some more I came up with what I think is a simple workaround to this problem, using just a couple of connected crops... Elegant enough, I feel, to be actually useful!
- Simply pipe whatever large image you have in the PipeRouter on the left, put anything you want between the DOD and UNDOD tools and check the result...
Tips for Scripts
You can find some tips for working with scripts here.
Tips for Macros
Some tricks when working with macros are here.
