Bend It targets a familiar pain: you want bend, taper, twist, or shear, but you do not want to build a whole 3D scene just to get there. The macro applies those deformation modes to a 2D source, using a mesh-based approach and controls that aim to feel closer to a 3D deformer than a plain 2D warp.
The macro includes bend, taper, twist, and shear modes, and it can process horizontal and vertical deformation in sequence with a user-defined order. It also adds transform controls for both the mesh and the texture, so you can animate deformation and placement without rebuilding the setup.
If you live in Compositing and you keep re-inventing the same rig every month, this sits right in the spot where you normally lose an afternoon.
Mesh density you can animate, not babysit
Bend It exposes mesh subdivision controls that scale with the deformation amount. A minimum subdivision level applies when deformation sits at zero, and the macro ramps toward a maximum as horizontal or vertical deformation approaches its extremes.
The macro also offers a render mode that can show mesh, texture, or both, which helps when you need to diagnose jagged edges or wobble in the texture mapping. The mesh subdivision note comes with a practical warning: shear does not benefit much from higher polygon counts unless you specifically want the wireframe look. About one third into setup tinkering, you will probably start calling this a wrokflow improvement. That is allowed. Just do not say it near a supervisor.
Factors, edges, and a sneaky tiling trick
Bend It includes factor controls that can scale back transformations made in the main controls. Sliding factors down can effectively reset deformation and transforms, which makes for quick animation beats and quick sanity checks. The macro also separates factor locking across mesh and texture if you want independent control.
There is also a practical trick for partial tiling: reduce texture scale and increase mesh scale by the same amount to get an area with repeated texture detail. Edge controls become relevant in that case, because they only make sense when texture scale drops below 1.0. This macro leans into the idea that you should be able to steer both the deformation and the sampling behavior without building a separate rig. If you like compact rigs, you will still need self-control. The settings count is not small.
Lighting and material options, if you insist
Bend It can run with optional direct and ambient lighting, plus basic bump and reflection support. It also includes controls to drive bump, reflection, and specular behavior using a single map, with toggles for inverting individual channels. When you only render the mesh, a diffuse color can be used to set mesh color without enabling lighting.
There is also a direct light widget meant to help visualize light direction. The macro recommends turning it off before final rendering, unless you enjoy explaining UI overlays in finals. The macro uses an orthographic camera. That keeps the tool aligned with 2D results, but it also means depth of field does not function in this setup.
Requirements, quirks, and the stuff that bites at 2 am
Bend It requires Fusion 19.1+, because it uses the Switch node. The Switch tool in DaVinci Resolve 19.1 supports multiple inputs, with a slider that adds up to nine and a Number of Inputs field that can be typed higher.
The macro notes a few known issues and workarounds. The viewer may occasionally show a black frame, but playback or touching settings tends to refresh it, and renders are not described as affected. Motion blur reportedly refused to work on frame zero in one setup, tied to how camera scale checks source ratio on that first frame. A workaround used a Time Speed node with a negative one-frame delay, and a later version changes that approach.
There is also a hard warning: adding an expression to the AA Filter Type setting on a Renderer3D node caused Fusion to crash and could corrupt the comp file. If you take one lesson from this: do not stress-test your production file with experimental expressions five minutes before delivery.
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