Stop Re-Tracking Magic Masks in Davinci Resolve!

Discover an essential DaVinci Resolve Studio workflow to keep your Magic Masks tracked!

Magic masks are perfect and easy to use for selective color grades, text behind subject and background replacements, etc. However, their track data is EASILY lost.

This tutorial will show you how to prevent tracking data loss and speed up your workflow. Learn step-by-step how to lock in your magic mask, create external matte, and make sure that mask's timing aligns perfectly with the initial clip.

This game-changing tip will save you time, disk space, and frustration. Never re-track again!

Timestamps:

00:00 Intro
00:19 Major Flaw of Magic Mask
01:19 Setting Up Your Magic Mask
01:38 Rendering Out the Magic Mask
02:39 Important Step to Align Mask and Clip Properly
03:11 Connecting the Rendered Mask
03:42 Using mask for Color Grading
04:05 Outputting the Mask with Transparency
04:44 Benefits

[Tekkerue]

I made a request on the Resolve forum a while back asking for an option to export magic mask data to a file/location of our choosing and import it back in. The thread is called "Magic Mask Data Export/Import" so for anyone who is on the forum, give this thread a bump and let BMD know we want this. While there are workarounds, being able to save/load the data directly from the Magic Mask would be the best.

[Jexposition]

okay this is insanely helpful and i have no idea why i didnt think about this, love when ppl think out the box to find simple and seemingly obvious solutions.

[celestepalm]

Thanks so much for showing another way around magic mask! It's a royal pain to have to keep re-tracking it to get a clean mask on non-people objects- no matter which setting you choose. You got a new sub here.

[TheSpeedReels]

Man this kept driving me crazy for almost half a year before i gave up and finally decided to use magic mask in the fusion tab which i encourage everyone to do so

[mechtakrad]

Bro you're genius! You saved my life, holy moly! ❤🔥

[JohnUntivero]

I have a similar workflow, but one that can be used if the clip is moved (in/out points).

Open it in Fusion instead of Color. Use the magic mask there and output that to a saver node.
Then add a loader node and output that to a new media out.

You can then add a new input alpha in the color tab and it’ll directly use the loader.

If you have multiple masks (e.g. person 1 and person 2) you can add more media out in fusion, and add more input alpha in the color tab.

If the clip is moved, you’d only need to go to the fusion tab and regenerate savers.


MediaIn 1 -> MediaOut1

MediaIn 1 -> MagicMask 1 -> Saver1

Loader1 -> MediaIn 2

[tired_linh]

This saved me lots of time. I can reedit the clip without having to retrack. Definitely a must do.

[Deatarus]

This is very useful, thank you! There are so many other ways to use the alpha matte created too.

[StephenBillVideoEditing]

Exactly what I was looking for, though I think you could've stated the problem more earlier in the video and worded the title a little bit tighter and clearer, you only showed the MAIN PROBLEM around 50s into the intro, but nonetheless, this solves my issue.
Thanks Nick! You get my sub!

Rooting for your channel's success in the very near future!

EDIT:

Additionally you should've tested your solution at the end by splitting both layers, show & give closure to the fix of the problem that you mentioned.

[MoviesXB]

Excellent! What a great idea and very well explained! Thank you very much.

[comradesXcosmos]

ive been rendering my masked clips w/alpha channel in apple 4444, and i thought this was a glitch in the program. glad to know this is how davinci works for everyone. not glad its happening but glad for the solidarity of frustration in the comunity

[philippkowalski]

this also made me wonder when I first switched from other tools ... 'hey, where's my Magic Mask??' ... thanks for sharing this, it really helps a lot.

[lenonfernandes]

Thank you very much! Magic Mask was frustating but now it doesn't need to be.

[pianosfilipem]

Please the render cache for magic mask is so big. Changing cache format does not help. What to do

[arizonarealestatewithdonbarar]

Hi Nick, Thank you for putting this together. I am working in DRS 19.1.1 with MacOS 15.1.1. I have followed your process exactly. However, the mask is offset to the clip. I have not changed the length of the clip on which the mask the was created. In fact, the mask is the identical length clip from which it was developed.The only thing I can determine what might be incorrect is that the clip being used to develop the mask is a partial of the entire clip. What can I do to correct this? Don

[christianmcnally]

Why the heck is it so hard?? Why isn't there a button that says "lock this node" and it just locks out there?? Why would they even assume that i want it to change??

[AntoineRotureau]

A simpler alternative can be export the tracked piece without background, using GoPro CineForm codec with the option "export alpha", and then simply use this as a media, am I right ?

[lansemedya]

Hello !

Great tutorial, thank you for that. But I did not understand why the sequence of masking clip and background clip is not matching. Can anyone help?

[KontrolStyle]

This makes me happy that is't not JUST happening to me. Sometimes it works, other times NOPE. you hit play and it gives you blackness.. edit: more steps of course, that's how it'll work. ty for a workaround. cheers

[phil_helix]

Hey guys, can anyone tell me why my magic mask acts like it literally forgot the rendered files for an effect either via fusion or in the color tab once I save and come back to the file?