The big surprise following Blackmagic’s DaVinci Resolve 21 announcement was that the free-to-use video editor now supports photo editing. That’s right, stills photographers can access the coveted software’s color grading tools, favored by Hollywood productions. But of course, that’s just the tip of the proverbial iceberg, with a whole roster of video-centric upgrades to boot.
Unsurprisingly, AI-powered tools feature heavily in this year’s update, with none perhaps as bold as AI Face Age Transformer and AI Face Reshaper. The former allows you to “de-age” faces, while the latter allows you to reshape them. It wasn’t all that long ago (circa 2016) that Robert Downey Jr and Johnny Depp were de-aged in Captain America: Civil War and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, respectively, which certainly puts this tech into perspective.
AI Blemish Removal rounds off the face-tweaking tools, but they’re not the only AI additions. AI IntelliSearch allows creators to “instantly” find the content they’re looking for, with the intelligent search tool allowing you to find people, objects, and even key words in dialogue. AI CineFocus is a particularly interesting addition, with the ability to alter the perceived depth of field of a scene, going so far as to add bokeh and simulate rack focusing.
AI Speech Generator generates voiceover from text and can even replicate your own voice with just a 10-second sample, while AI SlateID can automatically add metadata that it extracts from a clapperboard used in footage. The final two AI-powered tool additions are AI UltraSharpen and AI Motion Deblur, used to sharpen footage and remove motion-blur artifacts, respectively.
And that’s not all. DaVinci Resolve’s visual effects page, Fusion, gets over 70 new graphics via the new Krokodove toolset. Fusion also links with Fairlight’s audio engine (Resolve’s integrated audio post-production software), which allows for automatic animation based on audio analysis for audio-driven animation (a boon for music video or social media editors). Fairlight also gets folders to collapse or expand audio tracks in a boost to track management.
DaVinci Resolve 21 also boasts big virtual reality updates, with Fusion adding spherical Panomap rotation said to provide more intuitive pitch, tilt, pan, yaw and roll, alongside ILPD retargeting data “for more advanced stereoscopic media handling and compositing.” In addition, Foveated rendering, designed to mimic the human eye’s rendering to reduce GPU processing will now be supported for Apple Immersive workflows. Meta Quest and YouTube presets will also be supported.
Another major workflow update is native support for OGraf HTML graphics and Lottie animations, allowing for files to be dragged directly into the media pool, treated like fully-rendered animations – alpha channels recognized.
Keyframing has also been treated to a few updates, including new ease animations, simultaneous adjustments to multiple clips, as well as a four-point Bézier curve. Another key update is MultiMaster trim passes. This allows you to produce multiple HDR and SDR trim deliverables from one timeline, without having to keep duplicating the timelines.
The news has dropped just days before content professionals descend on Las Vegas for the annual NAB Show. And if you’re lucky enough to be visiting ‘Sin City’, DaVinci Resolve 21 will be demonstrated at the Blackmagic Design booth (#N2502). If you can’t make NAB, you can download the DaVinci Resolve 21 public beta and try it out for yourself now.
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