Blackmagic Design has moved version 18.5 of its DaVinci Resolve and version 18.5 of its Fusion Studio out of public beta and into final release.
Back in April, during NAB 2023, Blackmagic Design unveiled version 18.5 of both its DaVinci Resolve and Fusion Studio, which went into public beta at the time. Now, final releases of those versions are in final release and shipping.
DaVinci Resolve 18.5—the company’s color-grading, color-correction, VFX, and audio post video-editing application, as well as the compositing/motion graphics software—is a substantial release, with AI tools among the many new features. These include major additions to the cut page editing toolset (with three new menus), text-based editing, AI dialog transcription, new Resolve FX that lets colorists add virtual lighting to a scene), enhanced Fusion tools including Universal Scene Descriptor support, and new Fairlight audio mix automation.
The company’s Fusion Studio 18.5 2D/3D compositing/motion graphics software also boasts support for Universal Scene Descriptor files for easier collaboration among VFX artists. USD data such as geometry, lighting, cameras, materials, and animation can be imported, and with the new USD tools, users can manipulate, relight, and render files using Hydra-based renderers such as Storm. The new multimerge tool lets users merge numerous media sources into a single multilayer stack, making it easier to create composites by merging clips, stills, or graphics using layers, and because each layer has its own controls, individual properties like position, size, and apply modes remain changeable.