Mesh first, regrets later

Tangenten positions Puppet Pin Tool as a mesh deformation tool for the Fusion page inside DaVinci Resolve, built around a node you drop into a comp and feed with an image. The first stop is the mesh tab, where the plugin generates a triangulated mesh automatically.

Mesh generation follows the non-transparent pixels of the input, so cutouts with clean alpha give cleaner boundaries. The mesh can be adjusted with generation controls when the automatic result needs a nudge, including cases where you want tighter coverage around thin shapes or want to avoid clipping at edges. Everything else in Puppet Pin lives on top of the automatic mesh step. Pins grab vertices from that mesh, then move them around. Deformers move pins. Solvers push the rest of the vertices into place. Locators output motion data from the whole mess.

Pins: source, destination, and mseh wrestling

Pins in Puppet Pin have two positions. A source position defines where the pin grabs vertices from, and a destination position defines where those vertices get moved to.

The workflow starts in the pins tab. Adding a pin enables it and switches the viewer into source pin view so you can place it exactly where you want. After placing source pins, create controls switches the viewer into destination pin view and gives you per pin viewer controls you can drag to pose the subject.

For quick pose edits, this stays pleasantly direct: place pins on key body parts, generate controls, then pull and rotate until the silhouette behaves. The demo workflow uses four pins for a simple pose tweak, with pins on feet, hips, and neck to bend and tilt the figure.

Pin radius acts like the pin’s grip size. Increasing radius makes a pin grab and lock down more vertices, and it also enables rotation and expansion controls. Radius becomes essential once you want feet to stay planted or once secondary motion from other pins starts pushing things you intended to keep still.

Pins also include a render layer control that changes triangle render order. That makes it possible to decide which parts draw in front when pieces overlap after deformation, like choosing whether a tail renders in front of a body or behind it.

Keyframes and loops, because artists like sleep

Puppet Pin supports standard keyframing on pin controls, and the tutorial example builds a short loop by animating a neck pin across a 30 frames per second section. Two keyframes set the motion, then spline controls apply smoothing and a ping pong loop for a back and forth cycle.

This is the kind of tiny feature that saves real time. You can rough a loop from a still without opening another tool, without baking a bunch of transforms, and without manually copying and pasting keyframes to fake a cycle.

It also means Puppet Pin fits neatly into the existing Fusion animation muscle memory: set keyframes, shape curves, loop when needed, and keep moving. If you plan to drop it into a show, test the whole setup in your own comps before you trust it with client deadlines.

Deformers: follower, wave, and IK FK rigs

The deformers tab adds another layer, letting you build relationships between pins so you can animate less and get more motion for free. A follower deformer makes one or more pins follow a target pin. In the example setup, the hip pin follows the neck pin, with amplitude and delay controls creating softer secondary motion.

The post Tangenten Puppet Pin brings mesh warping to Resolve first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.