User Manual

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Methods of saving and reusing groups:
To save a group: Right-click a group and choose Settings > Save As from the
contextual menu.
To reuse a group: Drag it from your computer’s file browser directly into the Node
Editor. This creates a new group node in the node tree with all the same nodes as the
group you saved.
To load the settings from a saved group to another group with the same nodes:
Right-click a group in the Node Editor and choose Settings > Load from the
contextual menu.
In Fusion Studio, you can also save and reuse groups from the Bins window:
To save a group: Drag the group rom the Node Editor into the opened Bin window.
A dialog will appear to name the group setting file and the location where it should be
saved on disk. The .settings file will be saved in the specified location and placed in
the bins for easy access in the future.
Macros
Some effects aren’t built with one tool, but with an entire series of operations, sometimes in
complex branches with interconnected parameter controls. Fusion provides many individual
effects nodes for you to work with but gives users the ability to repackage them in different
combinations as self-contained “bundles” that are either macros or groups. These “bundles
have several advantages:
They reduce visual clutter in your node tree.
They ensure proper user interaction by allowing you to restrict which controls from
each node of the macro are available to the user.
They improve productivity by allowing artists to quickly leverage solutions to
common compositing challenges and creative adjustments that have already been built
and saved.
Macros and groups are functionally similar, but they differ slightly in how they’re created and
presented to the user. Groups can be thought of as a quick way of organizing a composition by
reducing the visual complexity of a node tree. Macros, on the other hand, take longer to create
because of how customizable they are, but they’re easier to reuse in other comps.
Creating Macros
While macros let you save complex functions for future use in very customized ways, they’re
actually pretty easy to create.
To make a macro from nodes in the Node Editor:
1 Select the nodes you want to include in the macro you’re creating. Because the
macro you’re creating will be for a specific purpose, the nodes you select should be
connected together to produce a particular output from a specific set of inputs.
TIP: If you want to control the order in which each node’s controls will appear
in the macro youre creating, Command-click each node in the order in which
you want it to appear.
Chapter – 57 Node Groups, Macros, and Fusion Templates 1112