Matte Nodes

Matte Nodes Common Controls

Nodes that handle matte operations share a number of identical controls in the Inspector. This section describes controls that are common among matte nodes.

Matte Nodes Settings Tab

The Settings tab in the Inspector can be found on every tool in the Matte category. The controls are consistent and work the same way for each tool.

Blend
The Blend control is used to blend between the tool’s original image input and the tool’s final modified output image. When the blend value is 0.0, the outgoing image is identical to the incoming image. Usually, this causes the tool to skip processing entirely, copying the input straight to the output.

Process When Blend Is 0.0
The tool is processed even when the input value is zero. This can be useful if this node is scripted to trigger another task, but the value is set to 0.0.

Red/Green/Blue/Alpha Channel Selector
These four buttons are used to limit the effect of the tool to specified color channels. This filter is often applied after the tool has been processed.

For example, if the Red button on a Blur tool is deselected, the blur is first applied to the image, and then the red channel from the original input is copied back over the red channel of the result.

There are some exceptions, such as tools where deselecting these channels causes the tool to skip processing that channel entirely. In that case, there are a set of RGBA buttons on the Controls tab in the tool. The buttons in the Settings and the Controls tabs are identical.

Apply Mask Inverted
Enabling the Apply Mask Inverted option inverts the complete mask channel for the tool. The mask channel is the combined result of all masks connected to or generated in a node.

Multiply by Mask
Selecting this option causes the RGB values of the masked image to be multiplied by the mask channel’s values. This causes all pixels of the image not included in the mask (i.e., set to 0) to become black/ transparent.

Use Object/Use Material (Checkboxes)
Some 3D software can render to file formats that support additional channels. Notably, the EXR file format supports Object ID and Material ID channels, which can be used as a mask for the effect. These checkboxes determine whether the channels are used, if present. The specific Material ID or Object ID affected is chosen using the next set of controls.

Correct Edges
This checkbox appears only when the Use Object or Use Material checkboxes are selected. It toggles the method used to deal with overlapping edges of objects in a multi-object image. When enabled, the Coverage and Background Color channels are used to separate and improve the effect around the edge of the object. If this option disabled (or no Coverage or Background Color channels are available), aliasing may occur on the edge of the mask.

Object ID/Material ID (Sliders)
Use these sliders to select which ID is used to create a mask from the object or material channels of an image. Use the Sample button in the same way as the Color Picker: to grab IDs from the image displayed in the view. The image or sequence must have been rendered from a 3D software package with those channels included.

Clipping Mode
This option determines how edges are handled when performing domain of definition rendering. This is profoundly important when blurring the matte, which may require samples from portions of the image outside the current domain.

• Frame: The default option is Frame, which automatically sets the node’s domain of definition to use the full frame of the image, effectively ignoring the current domain of definition. If the upstream DoD is smaller than the frame, the remaining area in the frame is treated as black/transparent.
• Domain: Setting this option to Domain respects the upstream domain of definition when applying the node’s effect. This can have adverse clipping effects in situations where the node employs a large filter.
• None: Setting this option to None does not perform any source image clipping at all. This means that any data required to process the node’s effect that would normally be outside the upstream DoD is treated as black/transparent.

Use GPU
The Use GPU menu has three settings. Setting the menu to Disable turns off GPU hardware-accelerated rendering. Enabled uses the GPU hardware for rendering the node. Auto uses a capable GPU if one is available, and falls back to software rendering when a capable GPU is not available

Hide Incoming Connections
Enabling this checkbox can hide connection lines from incoming nodes, making a node tree appear cleaner and easier to read. When enabled, empty fields for each input on a node are displayed in the Inspector. Dragging a connected node from the node tree into the field hides that incoming connection line as long as the node is not selected in the node tree. When the node is selected in the node tree, the line reappears.

Comments
The Comments field is used to add notes to a tool. Click in the empty field and type the text. When a note is added to a tool, a small red square appears in the lower-left corner of the node when the full tile is displayed, or a small text bubble icon appears on the right when nodes are collapsed. To see the note in the Node Editor, hold the mouse pointer over the node to display the tooltip.

Scripts
Three Scripting fields are available on every tool in Fusion from the Settings tab. They each contain edit boxes used to add scripts that process when the tool is rendering. For more details on scripting nodes, please consult the Fusion scripting documentation.

About the Author

Justin Robinson is a Certified DaVinci Resolve, Fusion & Fairlight instructor who is known for simplifying concepts and techniques for anyone looking to learn any aspect of the video post-production workflow. Justin is the founder of JayAreTV, a training and premade asset website offering affordable and accessible video post-production education. You can follow Justin on Twitter at @JayAreTV YouTube at JayAreTV or Facebook at MrJayAreTV