Blackmagic Design’s latest DaVinci Resolve 19.1 release packs a punch for VFX artists, editors, and colorists, offering enhanced multicam editing, updated audio controls, and new visual effects tools. Professionals working in post-production, from VFX-heavy compositing to game cutscenes, can expect more precision and flexibility in workflows that demand control and efficiency. Here’s a rundown of the new features.
Fusion Gains New Effects and USD Export
The Fusion page benefits from several visual updates, including new effects generators. Users can now swiftly create background effects like stage curtains, star fields, and gradient or radial lines. These additions allow VFX artists to set scenes or transitions without building custom assets from scratch.
Fusion’s title templates have also expanded, offering options like glass, rainbow, and gradient outlines for varied title aesthetics. Professionals handling interlaced footage will notice Fusion now honors upper and lower field dominance settings, preserving interlace integrity throughout the VFX pipeline. Perhaps most notable, though, is Fusion’s new USD export functionality. Compositions can now be exported as USD (Universal Scene Description) assets, capturing all geometry, lighting, and cameras within a scene. This feature caters to studios integrating USD pipelines, particularly relevant for teams utilizing hybrid production workflows or advanced 3D compositing.
New Color Grading Tools
Color grading in Resolve 19.1 now includes a feature to copy the active node stack layer from one timeline clip to others—allowing colorists to streamline grading across multiple clips. DaVinci Resolve Mini Panel users also gain an easier way to edit custom curve control points, thanks to a new setting directly on the panel. The enhanced node management aims to speed up grading adjustments for shots requiring similar looks.
Improved Audio Controls in Editing and Fairlight
In the edit page, Resolve 19.1 introduces a dedicated trim slider within the audio inspector. Now, editors can balance individual audio channels directly from source clips, making multichannel audio management simpler and quicker. This slider allows independent or collective channel adjustments—a welcome addition for those balancing complex sound environments. New menu actions also facilitate swift selection of the nearest in, out, or roll edit points, streamlining common edit functions. Additionally, audio ducking has been expanded, allowing selection of multiple tracks to serve as ducking triggers for nuanced audio layering.
Fairlight users will appreciate improved control over track management. Audio tracks can now be duplicated or disabled via the track header’s context menu. Duplicated tracks mirror all media, settings, and automation of the original, giving audio engineers more flexibility in sound experimentation. Track and bus reordering is now easier, thanks to drag-and-drop functionality in the mixer. Visual waveform overlays now appear for both active and adjacent clips during trimming, enhancing precision when cutting or adjusting audio transitions.
DaVinci Resolve Studio’s Advanced Features
Resolve Studio 19.1 brings a suite of professional-grade updates, including object mask caching improvements. When editing clips with the object mask node applied, edits made earlier in the clip’s chain are now retained, ensuring consistency. Studio users also gain support for spatial photos and videos, allowing editing, color grading, and effects to be applied for viewing on devices like the Apple Vision Pro. This expansion into spatial media caters to the growing demand for immersive content in post-production.
The update also addresses job management in the render queue, allowing users to reorder jobs via drag-and-drop. Priorities shift often in post-production, and this new feature reflects real-world workflow needs. Another addition is the support for encoding in 10-bit H.265 Main10 format on Windows, yielding higher-quality renders for final delivery. File synchronization has also been streamlined; users can now sync bins from file folders automatically, a small but meaningful feature for maintaining organized projects.
Fact Check for Production Use
As with any new release, production artists should evaluate DaVinci Resolve 19.1’s features for compatibility and stability within their pipelines. The DaVinci Resolve 19.1 update is available as a free download here.
