Pro Tracking Tips for DaVinci Resolve Fusion

[@Filmeng]

This may be the best Resolve tutorial I’ve ever watched!! INCREDIBLE amount of information, applied to a real-life scenario rather than an easy, textbook case study. Thank you for explaining SO many things, so perfectly!!! 🏆🥇👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

[@CreativeVideoTips]

Wow, thanks!

[@TransformXRED]

For the last part, there is an easier way. On the fusion page, add 2 mediaout nodes. The first one connected to the text, the second one to the background. On the color page, you can add a second input and each of them will get one of the mediaout node from fusion. So you can color grade each part separately, from the same fusion comp

[@CreativeVideoTips]

Great point and tip. I had forgotten about this method so I'm glad you brought it up. I will include in a future tutorial about using fusion mattes. Cheers.

[@thedronetravelers]

I feel a little ignorant saying this since I've been with Davinci Resolve since ver. 15, but out of all the Fusion tutorials that I've watched, you are literally the first who showed me the light on the top-down workflow. Geez, bravo, and thank you, thank you! I'm so used to layers in Photoshop (and virtually everywhere else) working top-down, and this was such a subtle tweak that moved mountains. Sorry for the rant, but I've subscribed and am ecstatic to peruse the rest of your tutorials. Thanks, man!

[@filmmaking2444]

best point trracker tut ever! thank you. Really looking foward seeing more compositing content

[@CreativeVideoTips]

I don't know about that, but thank you so much! Lots more Fusion stuff coming alongside my general workflow stuff this year.

[@DonEdward]

These tutorials are thorough, in-depth, and most of all USEFUL! Great work, Chadwick! Great Channel! Surely one of the best!

[@CreativeVideoTips]

Much appreciated!

[@chrisburks7292]

That was brilliant thanks Chad. Not too fast and not too slow. Very informative

[@CreativeVideoTips]

Thanks so much for the kind words.

[@andybroadbentphotography5024]

only watched a little so far but what I like is it really seems like he's a working pro compared to a lot of tutorials on YT that seem like they have just watched a tutorial themself and re recorded in their style so don't know the source material as well

[@AlexKovshovik]

This is the most comprehensive and most valuable tracking tutorial on Davinci Resolve I've seen yet! I was able to track a guy on a mountain bike crossing the frame behind a line of trees - amazing! I'm bookmarking this video ❤

[@Vianavfx]

Gradient extrapolation wow ! And me splitting polyline into xypath and looping and prelooping all the time. What a time saver! The clear option on Channel booleans is also a very nice tip . I used to slap a transparent background on it, but this is neater and probably faster since you don’t need to type the source resolution. Thanks for the all nice tips.

[@CreativeVideoTips]

Glad it helped! Ah yes transparent backgrounds are another useful trick. Thanks for being here.

[@syfina]

Absolutely fantastic tracking tutorial, simple and to the point. Love the simplicity of your tracking workflow and really nice to see someone address the edge tracking problem with the gradient extrapolation. Also first time Ive seen a solution to the color correction issue. Casey Faris might be funnier but your more to the point with less faff :D

[@CreativeVideoTips]

Awesome, thank you! And yes Casey is certainly a funny dude, super smart too! I'm hoping to follow through on some tutorials I feel are missing on youtube for finishing real life shots and workflow challenges.

[@theblacktruth]

Man, this video was so dense with tips that go way beyond tracking but for moving around in Fusion in general. Bravo!

[@HikingWithCooper]

I love that Channel Booleans are your favorite node. As long as I've been doing this, I shouldn't have learned as much as I just did. Thanks Chadwick!

[@CreativeVideoTips]

Great to hear! It means we are all growing creatively. I have to be honest, I'm still exploring all the use cases for the compositing math you can do with booleans alone but that's why its a fun one.

[@fredstork]

Excellent value even for us who thought we knew how to do it!

[@CreativeVideoTips]

Hi Fred! I'm glad to know it was worthwhile sharing.

[@ericbelluche9503]

There are so many new things that I learned in this tutorial. Thank you for expanding my understanding of Fusion and DR. I quickly joined your Cutting Club, and look forward to more great content... as well as following you step by step with your shared media files.

[@CreativeVideoTips]

Heck yes! Thanks so much for being one of the first members Eric. Please let me know if you run into technical issues getting files, the website stuff is new to me. I'm planning to add a new video clip or clips to follow along with each month, as well as other simple tools I develop throughout the year.

[@ericbelluche9503]

@@CreativeVideoTips It was a very smooth experience, Chadwick… and I got a lot out of the lesson. Following you step by step with the project files really helped me understand better… much more than just watching you. I’m excited to learn more in this way. Thank you!!

[@Playerdue]

Great tutorial! It's fantastic having Fusion inside Resolve, I still must adapt to all the quirks and differences compared to Nuke (I'm a VFX comp for the movies), but potentially it can be used for any VFX job too!

[@oje101]

Just wanna say thank you. You are really good at making tutorials, very informative and well made. Thx again

[@piotr.widziszewski]

You are an INCREDIBLE TEACHER! 😊

[@CreativeVideoTips]

that means a lot - thank you - it's great to hear that this helped you out

[@davehackney4171]

You set an exceptionally high bar for Resolve tutorials. Excellent work as always. Thank you.

[@CreativeVideoTips]

Many thanks!

[@TheBoofhead]

dude...I just love the way you teach, I came here for one thing but the principles you teach along the way spill over to other principles that will be utilized. I learned way more than I expected and made me appreciative enough to send you a comment like and subscribe which is not normal for me - thank you for your effort and not doing what other people do "Oh its so easy just yadda yadda yadda" and skipping out other stuff that helps us succeed

[@ayoubthegreat]

Thank you for the color grade option. I was looking for this solution for so long. Info for others to find this video : how to separate fusion effect from the clip without affecting the color grade on the effects.

[@RonaldKasper]

Hi! The separation of the fusion graphics is interesting but I think I have an easier approach: I just add a fusion comp above the normal footage and add a media-in node which is set to „background“. That way it blends in the video layer below and you can create your trackings, add tracked text and the underlying footage can be colorgraded complete independently from the fusion comp.

[@CreativeVideoTips]

Hi Ronald - this is a great solution as long as you are not changing resolutions. The issue I have run into is when the media-in is set to background it pulls the timeline resolution, so if its changed later - tracks won't hold to the correct location or scale.

[@RonaldKasper]

@@CreativeVideoTips Ah, I see. Yes you‘re right, then your solution is much better in that case. Thanks for your reply!

[@MrWinstonSmith]

Informative, but also relaxing. Half watching while washing the dishes. Just very chill.

[@Gedaly]

I had never used gradient extrapolation before. Great tip!

[@danieltob6738]

Whoaaaa, Your tutorials blow my mind about the possibilities within DaVinci, time after time! Thanks for your work and I'm looking forward to see what I can learn next!

[@CreativeVideoTips]

Happy to hear that they have been inspiring. I feel the same way each day I open up the app and get to work.

[@TransformXRED]

These types of tutorials are the best! Because they are based on real situations. And it's the first time I see gradient extrapolation beign used in a tutorial... I wish I knew about it years ago lol. I always struggled with tracking going out of the frame. I figured it was normal to have to finish the tracking manually.

[@CreativeVideoTips]

Awesome, thanks for the encouragement. I've noticed if you follow a stock video clip for all the training sometimes its not realistic to actual shots that are more challenging, so I'm hoping to show solutions to the common problems in real life shots as much as possible this year.

[@tshansen]

I would love to see you spin some magic on the Magic Mask tool. I tend to always ruin the tracking when I do anything with the magic mask after it's done tracking. No I have to magic mask, open in new timeline, export and import the new clip with a see trough background. Keep up the great work. Cheers 🇳🇴

[@CreativeVideoTips]

Noted! I have some thoughts on this for sure. Also in how and why person mask vs object mask work differently. For now - Bernd Klem has an excellent demo on VFX Study here on KZbin that I would take a look at. He is a wizard.

[@haroldmorganTulsa]

This knocked it out of the park. Fabulous.

[@VolkanKayan]

Çok Teşekkür Ederim. İzleyiciler Hakkında Önemli Bir Video Olarak Kaydettim.

[@the_headlesschicken]

As always, very useful tips specially the Channel Booleans & Gradient Extrapolation. Thanks!

[@CreativeVideoTips]

Thank you!

[@rano12321]

Great tut dude. Some very nice and handy tips there as well.

[@CreativeVideoTips]

Glad it helped

[@christianblinde]

Great stuff. If you could something similar to other trackers, like even the camera tracker, that would be great. The best thing is to show when things go wrong. Perfect source footage without problems rarely exist in real live. Love it.

[@FrankPloegman]

Thank you for this explanation, Chadwick! In the past I made 2 or 3 videos where I used tracking. Admittedly these were quite complicated with sports players moving quickly and obscuring the tracked player, but I thought the tracking process error prone and time consuming due to required manual adjustments. The end result was also imperfect. Your tips will hopefully make the next video much smoother and better.

[@CreativeVideoTips]

That gets me pumped to hear you're excited to keep at it with a better result on the next one.

[@MediaRain1842]

More content, please! Keep up the good work.

[@movie-trailer19]

Stunningly. I am pleased with the completeness and parsing together with the results of the color correction. This is an important point and should always be considered with nuances. Many do not do this, and then are at a loss how to fix it. Everything is clear here

[@CraysonMcBride]

I have been needing this tutorial…. Thank you!!!!!!

[@martinclay7557]

Excellent tutorial, The Booleans trick was the cherry on the top Thanks Chadwick.

[@CreativeVideoTips]

Thanks Martin!

[@alex__film]

Finally some explained how to track something more or less complex! Thank you so much for this, great tutorial! Last tip is also awesome, never tried the Boolean node! 👍

[@CreativeVideoTips]

Thank you for watching. Sometimes the demos need to be short and simple but they aren't realistic to common shots. I hope to fill the gap with some of the more complicated fixes this year.

[@SirPsycho414]

Great video! The channel bouleans tip is super nifty. Gotta keep those comps on the edit page.

[@karliu.703]

My English is not that good, but I would like to thank you very much for this tutorial, it answered some important questions for me at once. By the way, Davinci Resolve is a great program!! best regards,Karl👌👍👍👍

[@svengiebel9345]

A wonderful Tutorial! Thank you for the information (damned, why didn't I know these details?), the pace with which you present it and the overall relaxed way of sharing your knowledge.

[@oriangel7317]

made it so simple! thank you!

[@arnoldsnodgrass2953]

Very good tutorial with lots of useful detail and tips. Thanks.

[@CreativeVideoTips]

You are welcome!

[@denisdion6847]

Fantastic tutorial. Thank you.

[@gerki_fpv]

Thank you for this really good tutorial!

[@tarask9971]

I like that Fusion is part of Davinci Resolve and you don't need to jump to another program to add some effects, but I hate Fusion itself because it's so complicated (((( So hard to remember everything. How to connect nodes between each other etc. It's much simpler in After Effects, but since I've already switched to Davinci, I have to struggle every time I need to make some effects done( But thank you for a lesson. Very clear from your side, no water, straight to the point

[@CreativeVideoTips]

Love this comment and believe me, I understand the feeling about how Fusion feels complicated. I'm primarily an editor and until 2 years ago, I completely avoided the fusion page so I have some ideas to share that will hopefully be relatable to the basics of 2d compositing which can go very far.

[@PydiMaster]

This Tutorial ist amazing. You helped me alot. Thx

[@CreativeVideoTips]

@@PydiMaster you are amazing. Thanks for the kind feedback.

[@Ashrafaliasif_]

seriously such a good content.

[@YouCanFixIt]

Monster information thank you for the tutorial.......

[@hellophina]

Very informative. Thanks👍

[@CirTap]

very, VERY well explained! Subbed!

[@dougdina]

That really is a great video. However, I have been struggling with the order of operations concept. In other words, you can’t see Color Page changes in Fusion. It frustrates me that you need to have 2 clips just so that the text isn’t color corrected. I totally understand why but it bothers me that we have to jump around from clip to clip and from Fusion to Color pages. Another possible approach to improve the contrast in Fusion would be to immediately add a CST as the first node, then add a reverse before media out. You make great videos.

[@UraFlight]

Best tutorial I have ever watched. Do you have a tutorial about planar tracker ?

[@CreativeVideoTips]

My most recent video doesn’t go crazy in depth on it, but it does touch on planar tracking. Feel free to check it out.

[@UraFlight]

@@CreativeVideoTips Thank you for your reply.

[@GeisenFPV-zk9pi]

man you do such an amazing job at explaining the why behind the problem! I'm hoping maybe you could help me. I film FPV single shot fly thru home tours and I really want to add tracked text to different walls and areas in the house, but because the shots have fast and dynamic movements I can't get the text to stick. I have been trying to use the planar tracker

[@gingerbreadgirlprod]

Brilliant. Love it!

[@movie-trailer19]

I would like to see the use of PlanarTracker in conjunction with MagicMask to place text on a surface (in OVERLAY mode to demonstrate the texture of the surface) in the background behind the object

[@Serethi]

Oh my lord yes. Exactly what I need.

[@CreativeVideoTips]

Great to hear!

[@parttimepokerpro]

dang dude this video is super helpful. thanks again

[@CreativeVideoTips]

Thank you!

[@SimonStansfield]

Brilliant! Was gonna do this, but guess I will cross it of the list 😂

[@CreativeVideoTips]

You still should! You are brilliant Simon. There are so many angles and uses for tracking.

[@CreativeVideoTips]

00:00 Resolve Fusion Point Tracking Pro Tips 01:52 Fusion Point Tracking 06:05 Manual Move Track Point 07:21 Tracking Behind Objects 09:26 Gradient Extrapolation 11:04 Merge Text Callout 15:27 Separate Fusion Graphics Alpha

[@akikuro1725]

awesome! thank you!

[@CreativeVideoTips]

You're welcome!

[@AnsonofMars]

Awesome! Just what I was looking for! Do you know if there are any shortcuts to select all key frames before/after the cursor?

[@chadmillercolor]

Another great video Chadwick! Thank you! One question and thought .. Why use Color Cache Render Output and not Fusion Cache Render output at that stage? As fusion cache will encompass your source media and fusion comp.. As you directly went into the color page after enabling Color cache .. now each color adjustment requires a complete recache .. but as fusion cache is prior in the pipeline it would not require a forced recache and you could color freely .. I almost never use color render cache as I node cache heavy operations like Noise reduction, magic mask and depth map plates .. ect… Only once the grade is locked I might enable color cache if I need the extra juice for playback.

[@CreativeVideoTips]

thats a good point - it has been a habit for many years to use color cache since its the last in the chain - Fusion cache would have been a better choice here

[@Z23Studios]

Great video! 💯

[@CreativeVideoTips]

Thanks 💯

[@roarenmedia]

This is a baller video.

[@2424rocket]

Great tutorial… I just wanna know, how do you know all this shit? I like to call fusion, confusion, because it’s incredibly more complicated than after effects. But this is definitely one of the best tutorials about tracking I’ve seen. Would be interesting to do this exact same thing in after effects and see the difference.

[@CreativeVideoTips]

Thanks so much for the kind words. Haha, I just try to find smart people, learn from them and then share it. Half the time I just click around to see what stuff does. After Effects tracker works in a similar way, the obviously different thing is getting adjusted to a node setup instead of nested pre-comp layers.

[@tyesamson]

I'm interested in why you'd prefer duplicating the clip on the edit page rather than just creating a second media out on the fusion page? It seems crazy inefficient and would create a headache when you need to make changes to the track but maybe I'm missing something? Also when you're talking about the render cache you refer to fusion being down stream of the color page but it's up steam of the color page as the very next part of your video demonstrates!

[@jonathanperpich5676]

Chadwick, I absolutely love your videos. You present information in a very thorough manner which is easy to understand. Thank you. I purchased a Speed Editor and am having trouble with the jog/shuttle. When I have it on the Jog setting and I move to a specific frame, after I take my hand off the wheel, the cursor continues to move. Is there a fix for this? JP

[@CreativeVideoTips]

I really love you kind feedback. There isn't really a setting for holding the jog wheel after you let go, but it should stop when you take your hands of it. Or did you mean in shuttle mode? Shuttle should keep moving of course. I have a video coming up soon showing this action between shuttle and jog this week or next on the big keyboard. The key is to tap that middle finger on jog once you're shuttled to about the right spot.

[@Just_Samson]

Great vid but what happened to your audio. Seems a little off.

[@CreativeVideoTips]

Thank you, it might be related to a new setup where I film the video in 24 and do the screens at 60. Hopefully its not too distracting.

[@johnmaciel]

are you using a tracker to follow your mouse with the yellow circle, and how you getting the zoom in pop ups within the yellow circle highlight lol, this is meta af, a tutorial for workflow within the tutorial LOL, great vid

[@SteveMartinUSA]

Good morning, and happy Sunday. I wonder how this process would be different by using the newer Intellitrack, and whether those tracks can be edited like this. I have a paddleboarder going through the rapids--off his board. The board is white, as is the white water. He's flipping over and over and he's way off in the distance so it would be super easy to lose the track. Somehow Itellitrack works but it's jittery so I can't really connect a callout that doesn't jump around...This drone is moving down the canyon so there's nothing else I can attach the centerpoint to--I have to attach to his board. Maybe it's better to not even use the track. I haven't tried Smart Reframe, but there are multiple swimmers and I don't want the focus in the distance for too long. This is my weekend project, and this track is definitely harder than the samples on youtube. Cheers brother.

[@nicniceproductions]

U rock!

[@danielsonderhoff5882]

❤ Very cool 🏆😻

[@ConnerJohn]

Great video! What is the app you are using in the top left of the toolbar that shows the strain on your gpu, ram, etc...?

[@CreativeVideoTips]

Thanks Connor - it is a mac app called istat menu

[@SouthwestFloridaBarrierI-pz4nq]

download didn't work for me on my mac. Not to worry, I appreciate your lessons.

[@SouthwestFloridaBarrierI-pz4nq]

got it, didn't scroll down far enough.

[@ApexArtistX]

can you do offset tracking if tracking goes offscreen use multiple single tracker nodes to combine it all

[@omarbrown2696]

Proper

[@GaryCunninghamyouareenough]

🤘🙏

[@mirzaangon]

Is there a way to smoothen the tracking data? like, only big movements will be used, not the small jittery movement I’m thinking of making an equivalent to “Smart Reframe” tool within Fusion.

[@flo-photo]

How did you get viewer to be half the screen. Can you do this in color for vertical videos?

[@CreativeVideoTips]

This is under workspaces, fusion - "Mid" is the layout type. Unfortunately it is just in the Fusion page.

[@sleepsoundly4728]

if there a way to add gradient extrapolation to just the beginning and not the end or vise versa? it works, but know when i want the tracker to stay in a place it keeps moving at the end

[@NeilHesterSkateboarding]

Great tutorial thanks ! Do you have an advanced tutorial workflow similar to this for Smart Reframe or Manual Reframing for example reframing a moving object to keep it in centre frame when editing 16:9 wdie footage to 9:16 vertical social media format? Smart Reframe is OK but often the tracking fails and goes off somewhere else so manual editing is required and i'd like to be able to to that with a faster workflow. Cheers Neil

[@CreativeVideoTips]

Hi Neil - this is an older one on smart reframe - kzbin.info/www/bejne/jJLTgXp7od2asJIsi=_QLpFQw32D7BFpIv However, you could use the point tracker (or the planar tracker) in fusion to lock off the xy position. For the planar tracker its called "steady". For the point tracker you choose match move, BG only. Then apply a transform to scale up in a node after, or on the edit page inspector controls. Good idea for a future tutorial.

[@NeilHesterSkateboarding]

@@CreativeVideoTips Thanks 👍 thanks how i'm doing it right now, the smart tracker is ok on the perfect shot but i often have to do manual editing of its keyframes both position and ease in/out to clean them up, especially in lower lighting situations where it cant see very distinguishing features.

[@smepable]

❤

[@2424rocket]

PS… I want that shirt you’re wearing. How do I get it?

[@CreativeVideoTips]

You can find it here: shop.editingplaybook.com

[@gu3197]

I am try to put blur on surface tracker but its not working , can anyone please tell me?

[@kamilgoerlich6080]

Where can I buy that shirt 😉

[@CreativeVideoTips]

You can find it here: shop.editingplaybook.com

[@timejolo]

крассафчег😀

[@EARN-750-DAILY_JOB_FOR_U]

"Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear-not absence of fear." -Mark Twain

[@EARN-750-DAILY_JOB_FOR_U]

"Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people." -Eleanor Roosevelt