10 BEST NEW non-AI Features in DaVinci Resolve 20
Keyframe Editor
A new keyframe and keyframe curve editor is now available on the Cut and Edit pages. The keyframe editor can be accessed from the Keyframes button on the top left toolbar. Use the two icons on the top left to switch between keyframe curves and parameters. The keyframe editor automatically shows the currently selected clip or the current clip under the playhead when no clip is selected.
You can also expose the keyframe tray on the edit page timeline by selecting the keyframe icon on the main timeline toolbar. This keyframe tray shows all the keyframes of the currently selected clip on the timeline.
This new keyframe parameter and curve editor is convenient to not feel like you must use the Fusion page for more precise animations.
Vertical Video Viewers
This version of DaVinci Resolve now supports optimized layouts for vertical timelines and projects.
When you open a vertical timeline or project, click the new icon on the right side of the screen near the volume DIM button. This will expand the timeline viewer to fill the full top-to-bottom screen space.
On the color page, the image is already filled out without the need to hit the new expand button.
While I can’t say I love vertical videos, I certainly love that we can make better use of our screens to edit those social aspect ratio videos.
Open in Timeline with Source Viewer
You can now work on two timelines at the same time using the two viewer setup in the Edit page. Right-click on a timeline in the media pool and select Open in Timeline with Source Viewer. You can continue to switch timelines in the timeline viewer by double clicking or from the dropdown menu.
A new blue playhead indicates you are marking a source side timeline. In fact, this new feature also allows you to view a single source clip in the new blue timeline as well! This means for long clips, you can easily load those in the source timeline view for more easily navigating and marking in and out points to then 3-point edit to your right side (orange playhead) creative timeline.
The Q shortcut key will toggle the source and record (left and right side) viewers.
The most useful way to use this feature is for pulling selects and incorporating a selects timeline to an editing timeline. In fact the source tape function is also available on the edit page now, so you could start with source tape to pull selects on one timeline and use source timeline to go from there.
I LOVE THIS NEW FEATURE!!
Opened Compound Clips Playhead Frame Matches
Support for matching playhead position in compound clip opened from the timeline. This has been requested for a long time, and I’m so glad that Blackmagic Design has listened to it and made it happen.
Voiceover Recording Cut & Edit Pages
The cut and edit pages now support voiceover recording directly on the timeline. This makes recording voice over so simple.
On the cut page, click the mic (Voiceover) icon on the bottom left of the viewer to reveal the voiceover palette with Cue, Record, and Stop controls and quick access to voice isolation, dialog leveling, and stereo fixer tools. By default, a dedicated voiceover audio track is added at the bottom of the timeline. You can also load a script and specify on-screen display options from the prompter popup, and set input, track, monitoring and countdown from the settings popup.
On the edit page, you can access “Record Voiceover…” from the Timeline application menu. The Record Voiceover dialog has controls to record, adjust levels, and specify a filename, input, and audio track. Leave the audio track to Auto to pick (or add) a matching empty audio track. Use the [...] options menu to enable countdown, switch to stereo, or hide dialog controls.
Text+ and MultiText Tool
Built on Text+, the MultiText tool gives you greater flexibility to add and format multiple text layers within a single tool, allowing different styles of text. It introduces a Text List and a slight rearrangement of controls, prioritizing functionality based on editors’ needs.
The Text List serves as a master panel, displaying all created text layers. The list and controls remain available across Inspector tabs, allowing quick access to tweak both text and its properties at any time. Directly below the Text List, the Add Text buttons offer three commonly used layout types: Point, Text, and Circle, making it effortless to add your preferred input style.
When Text Box is selected, the newly added Wrap to Text Box and Clip to Text Box checkboxes can be found under Layout tab.
You'll also find a new Page tab, which allows you to add a custom-colored background behind the text layers.
The Wrap to Text Box and Clip to Text Box features are two additions that come with the Text Box.
With the Wrap to Text Box feature, your text will automatically continue on the next line when it reaches the edge of the text box.
Enabling the Clip to Text Box function ensures that any text extending beyond the text box's boundaries is visually cut off, preventing overflow while keeping the excess content intact.
Font Filters are also a new feature!
You can now explicitly limit the font options shown for your text elements. Under Preferences, User, Editing, enable Display Only Specific Fonts, and select a font filter file. A font filter file is any UTF-8 text file that lists one entry per line and uses a combination of explicit font names or text with asterisk wildcards to match multiple fonts.
Edit Photoshop PSDs to Timeline Layers
Editors can now right-click a PSD clip on the timeline and split PSD layers in place over multiple tracks. DaVinci Resolve 20 reads and splits rasterized flattened layers.
Fusion Vector Warp Smart Vectors
Vector warping toolset for image patching and cleanup.
You can use the Smart Vector Warping 2D imaging toolset to map and warp a reference frame to all the other frames in the sequence. This is useful in face replacements, digital makeup, sign replacements, etc, to track and warp assets in tandem with the background.
The new toolset can work on live footage in the “stabilized” mode called unwarp, or do a simple freeze frame match move style of cleanup using the generate and warp operation.
The tool does need motion vectors to work, so the first step is to create those with an optical flow-node. I pipe the optical flow-node to a saver and then reload the footage back into DaVinci Resolve Fusion for better performance since optical flow is very slow to generate. It’s worth mentioning since you will export an EXR sequence in this workflow to convert to linear first.
Resolve FX Warper
The Resolve FX Warp plugin has a new curves mode in addition to the existing points mode. In the curves mode, you can click on the viewer to add points for a polygon and click and drag to create spline points that can be used to warp the image.
The tool can work on the color page or in Fusion! This is a great new option besides the traditional grid warp for manipulating pixels and a great beauty cleanup tool.
Quick Export User Presets
Quick Export dialog with custom user preset listings and list view. For the first time in several years, we can create custom compression delivery presets accessible with the quick export command and button from the edit page.
Resolve 20 goes one step further by allowing you to assign a custom icon to each preset, making them visually appealing and recognizable.
