High-End Compositing, 3D Animation and Motion Graphics Software - for FREE? November 12 2014, 0 Comments

Yep. Blackmagic Design has done it again.

Just like they did with Davinci Resolve (when they bought it a few years ago) they have now released Fusion 7 in two versions... a Free download and a paid ($995) Studio download.

What is Fusion you ask?

From the Blackmagic site...

Fusion is the world’s most advanced compositing software for visual effects artists, broadcast and motion graphic designers and 3D animators. With over 25 years of development, Fusion has been used on over 1000 major Hollywood blockbuster feature films! Fusion features an easy and powerful node based interface so you can construct complex effects simply by connecting various types of processing together. That’s super easy and extremely fast! You get a massive range of features and effects included, so you can create exciting broadcast graphics, television commercials, dramatic title sequences and even major feature film visual effects!

In other words, it's pretty good software. And, did we mention it's FREE? 

The paid version does have some advantages, and VFX houses will likely be interested in that, but for most freelancers or small post-houses the free version will work perfectly. The main limitations are the free version will only output UHD (is that a limitation?) and you can't use 3rd party plugins or do networking rendering, etc.

We use Davinci Resolve on a pretty much daily basis, so it will be interesting to see if Fusion will become the same type of workhorse. The only drawback for some is that it is currently Windows only, but Blackmagic says they are working on a Mac version.  This won't affect most VFX houses though as it seems the majority of them already use PC workstations. However, lots of post-houses and freelancers we know are Mac-based. 

But nonetheless, this is great news for (indie) filmmaking in general and we look forward to seeing how this all plays out.