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Blackmagic acquires Fusion
When testing the editing capabilities on R11 I was underwhelmed, but I did feel a serious potential for Resolve to grow into a complete high-end finishing station for FCP X with some decent final editing capabilities included. Both applications not only look very similar, they also work remarkably well together. The only element lacking in this chain was compositing. It looks like BM will be filling this gap…
– Ronny
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20 Replies
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That’s BIG news!
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I wonder if we’ll see a Mac version of Fusion by next year.
Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
I think that would be the least we should expect. Given BM’s tradition they will make the application cross-platform, then integrate the technology into Resolve. I would very much welcome a fully seamless approach a la Smoke, where you select clips in the timeline to open them in a powerful node-based compositing engine.
– Ronny
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[Oliver Peters] “I wonder if we’ll see a Mac version of Fusion by next year.”
That timeframe would be a sign of heavy BMD investment, as the Fusion UI is highly dependent on some very old Windows code. The Linux version of Fusion runs on top of WINE.
A few random thoughts:
Fusion shows enormous potential. It’s a nice application and I just bought a license myself a couple months ago. I assume that this expenditure I made indicates a pending BMD price drop. You’re welcome (or not, see below).
BMD offering a product that cuts, conforms, composites and colors (the four Cs) puts enormous pressure on Smoke, just as NUKE STUDIO is turning up the heat on Flame. How will Autodesk respond?
Whether this increases or decreases competition remains to be seen. I hope that BMD charges at least something for this — not to keep other users out of the market, but to keep other developers in it.
Just as every editor is now a colorist, every editor will now also be a compositor. The positive flipside of this is that the freelance talent pool for Fusion will grow enormously.
There’s tremendous potential for workflow innovation, bringing compositing and color together.
I don’t think this will affect institutional NUKE usage any time soon, unless BMD pours enormous resources into Fusion’s extensibility and developer documentation.
What happens with Eyeon Connection for Media Composer? Fusion was used to extend Media Composer, but does this partnership still make sense now that Fusion is sold by a competitor?
If (when?) BMD buys Avid, it will be for Pro Tools, not Media Composer. Audio is the next piece of the puzzle. See my question above about whether this increases or decreases competition.
Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive | RenderBreak [blog] | Profile [LinkedIn] -
I would love to see how Adobe reacts as well. This could be the tip of the iceberg. Ya mean I don’t need to subscribe to get high-end tools for my studio? 🙂
camera operator | editor | production assistant
Remember kids, tracks are you friends when you charge by the hour. Track Tetris, game on!
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[David Mathis] “I would love to see how Adobe reacts as well. This could be the tip of the iceberg. Ya mean I don’t need to subscribe to get high-end tools for my studio? :-)”
Indeed — but I do think that BMD’s portfolio overlaps way more with Autodesk’s M&E Creative Finishing tools than it does with Adobe’s Creative Cloud.
I also think that subscription software is in part a response to the trend of ridiculously low-priced software such as provided by Apple and BMD — a new way to try to price expensive specialist software competitively/affordably, while still being able to sustain development.
Apple and BMD lowering the price and perceived value of software is good competition in the short term that can make the industry better — but if they lower the price and perceived value beyond the point where pure software companies can be competitive, it is a long-term danger to our industry. This would possibly require a cycle of existing competitors leaving the market, the disruptors becoming complacent, and new competitors arising to disrupt them by competing on quality and responsiveness. It’ll all work out in the end, but there’d be pain in the middle.
The developers who write the tools we use to make our livings must also make theirs. Be careful what you wish for here!
Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive | RenderBreak [blog] | Profile [LinkedIn] -
The second part of my post was a tongue and cheek response but you do have a very valid point here. As much as I am against a subscription only model a business often needs to take a risk of losing some of customers yet be bold in order to survive. It is just the nature of the beast. Sometimes it works sometimes it does not. Very interested in what your point of view is and you made a very valid argument.
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This is very exciting news, though I doubt there will be a Mac version anytime soon. Walter’s wise caveats aside (which I completely agree with), I think this could be a very good thing, as BMD is looking to expand support and engineering resources for Fusion (see Grant Petty’s video off the BMD homepage at about the 22 min. mark). I think a wider user base (newly added Mac users) could give Autodesk and The Foundry some much needed pressure to delight the market (assuming Resolve continues to evolve its editing capabilities). I’m really interested to see what integration will look like between Resolve and Fusion.
Shawn
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[Shawn Miller] “I’m really interested to see what integration will look like between Resolve and Fusion.”
Integration, yes. Merging, I can’t imagine even a little.
Although the list of things BMD has done that I wouldn’t have imagined is pretty long.
For one, the two products are from different companies. It takes a lot longer than you’d think to sort that sort of thing out. More important though, despite the fact that are some people who need multiple tasks, Media Composer is never going to have Pro Tools “inside,” any more than FCP had Motion “inside” or Premiere jas After Effects “inside.” Merging codebases is hard enough. Merging interfaces is impossible. You’d have to bury things so deep that a modal interface would be the only solution, at which point you sacrifice flexibility and efficiency on all kinds of levels.
I know that there’s a lot of excitement about anything free, and BMD’s aggression in general, but node-based compositing has nothing to do with motion graphics. Even if it works as your new greenscreen tool of choice, it’s not going to be useful for much of anything else related to mainstream non-keying After Effects work that editors are doing.
Not to diminish the excitement of this. Fusion has always deserved more attention than it has gotten, and more resources than eyeon has been able to put into it. No disrespect intended. Small companies have limits, and nobody is better at pushing those limits than BMD. If BMD invigorates node-based compositing the way that they did color grading with Resolve, then all bets are off…
….unless you’re betting on fusion or even Nuke as a realistic long-term alternative for motion graphics or most editors’ current approach to compositing and effects. In which case, I’ll happily take that bet, and I’ll spot you the points. Easy money. The reefs are rich with the bones of those who thought they could plunder the good ship After Effects, which indeed Fusion has never tried to do.
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[Tim Wilson] “[Shawn Miller] “I’m really interested to see what integration will look like between Resolve and Fusion.”
Integration, yes. Merging, I can’t imagine even a little.
Although the list of things BMD has done that I wouldn’t have imagined is pretty long.
For one, the two products are from different companies. It takes a lot longer than you’d think to sort that sort of thing out. More important though, despite the fact that are some people who need multiple tasks, Media Composer is never going to have Pro Tools “inside,” any more than FCP had Motion “inside” or Premiere jas After Effects “inside.” Merging codebases is hard enough. Merging interfaces is impossible. You’d have to bury things so deep that a modal interface would be the only solution, at which point you sacrifice flexibility and efficiency on all kinds of levels.”
Yes, I agree. I was thinking more along the lines of interchange. Something more akin to Cinema 4D/After Effects (pre-Cineware of course). 🙂
[Tim Wilson] “I know that there’s a lot of excitement about anything free, and BMD’s aggression in general, but node-based compositing has nothing to do with motion graphics. Even if it works as your new greenscreen tool of choice, it’s not going to be useful for much of anything else related to mainstream non-keying After Effects work that editors are doing.”
Yes, again I completely agree. I see Fusion/Resolve as (possibly) being better suited to finishing. I didn’t mean to suggest that Resolve could be a motion graphics front end to Fusion, the way Premiere is to AE. In fact, I almost wrote that Fusion is on one hand, WAY overpowered for the types of compositing tasks that most editors need, while probably being less than ideal as a motion graphics tool (at the same time).
[Tim Wilson] “….unless you’re betting on fusion or even Nuke as a realistic long-term alternative for motion graphics or most editors’ current approach to compositing and effects. In which case, I’ll happily take that bet, and I’ll spot you the points. Easy money. The reefs are rich with the bones of those who thought they could plunder the good ship After Effects, which indeed Fusion has never tried to do.”
Not for editors, no. For high-end MoGraph work, possibly. I’m referring to the kind of work where the lines between MoGraph and VFX are so blurred that even the most seasoned pros have a tough time telling which is which… maybe it’s time for a new catergory – MoFX, maybe? I’ve been saying for years that AE occupies an interestingly hard niche to compete in… that intersection between VFX and motion graphics where advanced animation, industrial strength project sizes, scripting and advanced compositing have to live in the same application. To your point, there hasn’t been a serious competitor to AE’S MoFX ™ capabilities since the fall of Commotion and Combustion, and it doesn’t look like there’s one on the horizon.
BTW, if you can find someone to take that bet, put me in for the price of a lifetime subscription to CC, because I agree with you. 🙂
Shawn
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