Blackmagic Design Fusion is one of most useful and robust high-end digital visual effects Compositing and Motion Graphics software. It is used widely for movies, broadcast, commercials, television and other mediums of Media and Entertainment industries.
IBC 2014 will be remembered as a turning point in the history of International Animation and VFX world. Blackmagic Design announced acquisition of eyeon Software, Inc. and hence BMD added the leading post production and visual effects software in its arsenal of broadcast and video production tools. It was very smart move as eyeon Fusion had created a niche market in the arena of powerful visual effects. This take over is one of their biggest milestones of BMD.
Actually, BMD repeated the history. Earlier they had acquired DaVinci Resolve which was very much expensive but with tangled user interface and workflow. They removed all the negative aspects of it and now it is one the most advanced packages which can achieve non linear editing (NLE), visual effects and compositing all in one with award winning color grading tool.
Continuing the legacy of constant progression, BMD released Fusion 8.2 for Linux, Mac and Windows on 13th September, 2016.
Many of the world’s leading VFX houses have Blackmagic Design Fusion in their post production pipeline. The robust node based architecture with performance driven industry standard tools makes it the cutting edge software for visual effects artists. The intuitive workflow allows the artist to customize it based on various client requirements and remain productive on diversified projects. Let it be broadcast, feature film, television, corporate or personal; Fusion handles it all with ease.
Above mentioned details are just to give you the head start. Check out detailed top 10 reasons why Blackmagic Design Fusion should be in your VFX pipeline.
1) Blackmagic Design Fusion free edition is commercial output ready!!
Sounds like Mackenna’s Gold, ain’t it?
It’s true. BMD’s Fusion free edition is heavily loaded with all necessary tools to solve most complex production shots. So, the artist in you doesn’t have to go down in debt. It also prevents the software piracy. You can download it from the official web site. Just fill up a simple form and it’s yours. The software download link is as follows:
https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/fusion
It supports wide varieties of file formats, codecs and can render up to Ultra HD output (3840 x 2160). The native tools are of industry standard, so you don’t need third party plug-ins to run the show. It is a huge post production suite to generate real time output for movies, TV series, commercials, motion graphics and various other broadcast formats.
This level of gigantic features echoes the core vision of Grant Petty, CEO of Blackmagic Design. Grant takes care of all the complex technical details in their production of video cameras and softwares, so the artist can concentrate completely on the aesthetic and creative aspect of the project. Check out Grant Petty himself at the booth of BMD in NAB 2015.
2) Custom Techniques for Power Users:
This is the playground of Nerds.
When client expectations goes beyond the boundaries (and it surely goes!), the programmers and coders inside the creative artist comes into the picture.
Like Hulk says I’m Always Angry, so are the Fusion Power Users.
Rather than tapping the customer care, they go dirty with custom or native techniques. It is mostly like to occur when VFX shooting goes without proper VFX supervisor or it is done under hasty decisions.
- There are times when the cutting edge and sophisticated chroma removal tools like Primatte, Ultra Keyer, Difference Keyer, Chroma Keyer, Luma Keyer don’t work. By this time, Custom Keying comes handy via Channel Boolean and Custom Tool. It can swap the R, G, B channels to create desired channel combination. It leads to pull out the bad key along with the help of Garbage Matte.
- Multi-channel compositing : When you need much more advanced control on the channel operations, you can customize it via Custom Tool. This goes deep inside the individual color channel and tweaks the native properties to derive mathematical output.
- It supports Python and Lua languages. Which one to use is depends on your requirement. Both can create rock solid architecture by integrating their libraries with Fusion API. Check out the technical link for of comparison – Lua Versus Python.
- Expressions comes handy for repetitive operations.
- Alembic, Obj, FBX files are very well integrated with Fusion’s 2D and 3D native tools. It gives the great advantage to finish work on faster lines.
3) No Data Loss:
So, you gets a non technical but cash rich client who wants a compositing output with inputs like these:
- main live action footage of 6K resolution in .r3d format shooted by RED Dragon in 100 fps
- footage for sky replacement in .mp4 format full HD resolution by 60 fps
- background matte painting image in .tiff format of 4K resolution
- stock footage of clouds in half HD resolution by 24 fps
- CG render in OpenEXR format with different color space, resolution and fps
Don’t bang your head to teach the client. Have a cup of coffee and relax, because you have Fusion’s 32-bit float processing architecture. It generates resolution independent and seamless compositing environment. The robust tools can handle such variations inside Fusion directly without converting them first in some third party applications. Well, but naturally, if the source footage itself is pixeleted or it needs to resize 2X /3X for the final output then you can’t blame Fusion for that.
Fusion’s floating point architecture had open wide possibilities for creative shooting rather than technical shooting within fixed boundaries.
You had given yourself a jump start. Follow these links for the entire series of Fusion.
Top 10 Reasons why Blackmagic Design Fusion should be in your VFX Pipeline – Part 2