In DaVinci Resolve Fusion, rotoscoping means animating one or more mask shapes to isolate a subject over time. Split independent motion into overlapping Polygon, B-Spline, or MultiPoly shapes, set a clean reference pose, build end and middle poses, then add keys only where interpolation fails. The fastest reliable matte usually uses fewer points, fewer shapes, and fewer keyframes than a dense frame-by-frame outline.
Choose the right rotoscoping method
| Method | Best use | Main limitation |
|---|---|---|
| Polygon | Hard or mixed edges that need direct Bézier control | Too many points and handles become slow to animate |
| B-Spline | Smooth organic curves with fewer control points | The curve is influenced by points rather than passing directly through each one |
| MultiPoly | Several named shapes for body parts or a complex holdout inside one node | Shape animation must be enabled before keyframing |
| Tracked or stabilized roto | Removing broad camera or rigid-object motion before manual shape work | Tracking does not understand anatomy or changing occlusion |
| Magic Mask | A fast AI-assisted first matte for a recognizable person or object | Studio-only and still needs edge, occlusion, and temporal QA |
Use a keyer for hair, transparency, and fine edge detail when the plate supports one. Use roto shapes for solid cores, garbage areas, holdouts, and edges you can define reliably. Blackmagic’s Fusion overview describes Bézier and B-Spline rotoscoping; the final July 2026 DaVinci Resolve 21 Reference Manual controls the mask, alpha, animation, MultiPoly, Roto Assist, and softness behavior used below.
Plan the matte before drawing
Watch the whole shot and write down what changes: frame entry and exit, pose reversals, hands crossing the torso, motion blur, hair movement, and foreground occlusions. Also decide what the matte is for. A rough local color correction does not need the same edge fidelity as a subject cutout placed over a bright contrasting background.
Pick a reference frame where the pose is readable and the important edges are sharp. Then divide the subject by independent motion:
- head and neck;
- torso or coat body;
- upper arm and forearm;
- hand when its silhouette matters;
- upper leg and lower leg;
- props, loose clothing, or hair as separate problem areas.
Overlap neighboring shapes slightly around joints. A small controlled overlap is easier to manage than a one-pixel gap opening between an upper arm and torso. Name every shape before the shot becomes crowded.
Manual rotoscoping step by step
1. Add the mask where it can do the intended job
First identify the input you're feeding. A blue Effect Mask on most Fusion tools limits that tool’s result to the mask. A mask connected directly to a MediaIn or Loader input can instead add an alpha channel; Blackmagic recommends drawing the closed shape while the mask is disconnected, then connecting it. MatteControl is the explicit choice when you need to combine, invert, or insert several mattes into an image stream.
This input distinction explains why an animated outline may appear to do nothing, blank the image, limit only an effect, or produce an unexpected small alpha. The current Resolve 21 mask workflow documents both MediaIn/Loader alpha and MatteControl setups. A recent Fusion community troubleshooting case is useful as a real symptom report, not as the controlling technical source.
2. Draw with the fewest points that hold the silhouette
Place points at real direction changes: jaw corner, shoulder, elbow, wrist, knee, heel. Let curve handles or B-Spline influence describe smooth sections between them. Don't distribute points evenly like fence posts. Every unnecessary point is another control that can chatter between frames.
Keep point order consistent and avoid crossing the spline. For soft organic areas, a B-Spline can describe a smooth arc with fewer points. For a hard prop or clothing corner, Polygon gives more direct control.
Resolve 21 also includes Roto Assist, which can snap newly drawn points to the nearest high-contrast edge. Multiple Points can add points along an edge, Distance sets the search range, and Reset removes the snap attribute. Treat it as drawing assistance, not an automatic finished matte: review point count, edge choice, and every interpolated pose.
Roto involves constant viewer navigation and frame stepping. Set up the commands you actually use, full-frame view, next/previous key, and tool search, before a long shot; the Resolve keyboard shortcuts guide explains how to verify and customize them without overwriting an existing layout.
3. Build key poses with divide and conquer
Close the shape on the reference frame. Standard Polygon and B-Spline shapes are ready for shape animation; changes on another frame create keyframes and interpolate between them. Move to the end of the required range and fit the silhouette, then go to the midpoint and correct it.
Play the two halves. Add another key only in the half that fails, then repeat. Blackmagic’s Resolve 20 practice project demonstrates this start–end–middle divide-and-conquer method; the final Resolve 21 manual notes that Polygon and B-Spline control points auto-animate and interpolate between shape keyframes in the current release.
4. Add keys at changes, not every frame
Useful keyframes usually sit at a change of direction, a pose extreme, a silhouette change, an occlusion boundary, or the start and end of heavy blur. If interpolation already follows the edge, leave it alone. Adding a key on every frame often creates tiny inconsistent corrections that read as edge vibration during playback.
5. Review the matte, then the composite
View the result as white foreground over black background to find holes, gaps, and temporal chatter. Then place it over the actual destination background. A matte can look clean in isolation yet reveal a dark halo over white or a bright fringe over black.
Use MultiPoly for complex subjects
MultiPoly stores several independent named shapes in one node. It is useful for a person, creature, vehicle, or any holdout that would otherwise produce a tangle of separate mask nodes. Create one shape per independently moving part and set its combine behavior deliberately.
Important: MultiPoly doesn't auto-enable shape animation the way Polygon and B-Spline masks do. Select the animation diamond beside Right-click here for shape animation at the bottom of the Inspector, or right-click the label and choose Animate, before changing shapes across time.
If the animation diamond, combine controls, or per-shape settings are hidden, select MultiPoly and reopen the Inspector rather than redrawing the mask. The DaVinci Resolve Inspector guide covers panel state and control discovery across pages.
During the rough pass, fit the main masses with minimal points. After the motion works, revisit keyframes and insert only the points needed for a difficult corner. In MultiPoly, use Modify Only when you want to move existing points without accidentally creating new ones.
Track broad motion before detailed roto
If the subject or camera translates, rotates, or scales significantly while the local shape changes are modest, remove the broad motion first. Track a rigid feature or plane, stabilize that view, animate the roto on the steadier image, then match-move the matte back with the original motion.
This is not a shortcut for every shot. It works when the tracking data describes the same rigid motion as the body part or object you're isolating. A tracker attached to the torso won't correctly animate a swinging forearm. Use tracking for the base movement and manual keys for deformation.
Keep the inverse transform and the re-applied transform paired. If the mask or image receives both tracked motion and a second Planar Transform, it can drift or move twice. The Fusion tracking guide covers reference frames, Planar Transform, occlusion masks, and drift checks in detail.
Handle occlusion as layers
When a hand crosses the torso, don't force one torso outline to describe both depths. Keep the torso matte stable and animate the hand or foreground object as a separate shape. When a subject passes behind a pole, create a foreground holdout for the pole and place it above the subject matte in the composite logic.
Stop automatic tracking at the last visible frame before an occlusion. Hold or keyframe through the hidden section, restart on a clean frame, and inspect the join. No tracker can infer pixels it can't see with production certainty.
If Studio is available, Magic Mask can create a fast first pass for the recognizable subject. Keep manual shapes for corrections and hard holdouts. Don't treat an AI matte as finished simply because the first frame looks good.
Refine edges only after motion is stable
Soft Edge
Match the plate’s focus and edge contrast. Hard props may need almost no softness; defocused clothing or hair needs more. One large global feather creates halos and eats detail. For non-uniform softness, convert the mask to a double polyline and move the outer shape farther from the inner shape only where that segment needs a wider falloff.
Motion blur
Fast movement spreads the photographed edge over several pixels. A razor-sharp matte around a blurred hand looks pasted on. Shape the matte to the photographed boundary and use a double polyline for local, non-uniform softness where motion blur widens the edge. If a separate element is match-moved, add motion blur from the transform that actually drives that element and compare direction and extent with the plate.
Combine modes
Use add/merge for shapes that build the solid subject and subtract for holes or excluded regions. Check the order when overlaps behave unexpectedly. Clear names such as Torso, Arm_FG, and Coat_Hole make missing pieces much easier to trace than Polygon7.
Hair and transparency
Roto the solid core of the head and shoulders. Preserve flyaway hair with a keyer, Magic Mask, or a separate edge matte when possible. Drawing each strand is slow and rarely temporally stable.
Resolve Free vs Studio for rotoscoping
DaVinci Resolve Free includes Fusion’s Polygon, B-Spline, MultiPoly, keyframing, classic point tracking, planar tracking, Merge, and Matte Control tools. That is enough for a complete manual roto workflow.
Magic Mask requires DaVinci Resolve Studio. Blackmagic’s Resolve Studio page confirms the edition boundary. It can reduce first-pass labor on people and recognizable objects, but it does not remove the need to check every cut, edge, occlusion, and motion-blurred frame. Use the Fusion hub to place the manual roto workflow inside a complete node-based composite.
Rotoscoping troubleshooting
The edge chatters
Remove unnecessary points and keyframes. Return to the first meaningful deviation, fix that pose, and let interpolation carry more frames. Watch at normal speed instead of correcting harmless single-frame texture.
A limb disappears or a gap opens
Split the limb into its own shape and overlap it slightly with the torso or neighboring segment. Check the shape’s combine mode, animation state, and active frame range.
The MultiPoly shape does not animate
Enable the shape-animation diamond at the bottom of the Inspector. Then create distinct poses on different frames and confirm key indicators appear.
The mask is tiny or offset
Check image resolution, Domain of Definition, and whether a Transform, resize, or tracked operation occurs before or after the mask. Masks live in the coordinate space of the node they affect. Moving a Merge across a transform can change that space.
The matte works in Fusion but fails after an edit
Check the clip’s Global In/Out, source timing, retime, and Fusion composition range. A slip, trim, or copied mask on a different-resolution clip can separate existing shape keys from the intended frames.
Final roto QA checklist
- Scrub the matte in black and white for holes and shape pops.
- Watch the full shot at normal speed for chatter.
- Check every occlusion, frame entry, frame exit, and direction change.
- Inspect hard, soft, blurred, and transparent edges against the final background.
- Confirm the matte is connected to the intended node or alpha operation.
- Render a short test and inspect it outside the interactive Fusion viewer.
Roto makes more sense after node and tracking basics; the DaVinci Resolve tutorial roadmap keeps those Fusion skills in a practical order.
Rotoscoping in Fusion FAQ
What is rotoscoping in DaVinci Resolve?
Rotoscoping is the animation of masks or mattes over time to isolate a subject for compositing, correction, removal, replacement, or foreground holdout work.
Should I use Polygon, B-Spline, or MultiPoly?
Use Polygon for direct Bézier control, B-Spline for smooth organic curves with fewer points, and MultiPoly when one complex subject needs several named independent shapes in a single node.
How many mask points should I use?
Use the fewest points that describe real changes in curvature. Place them at joints and silhouette corners, then let curves handle the sections between them.
Do I need to keyframe every frame?
No. Build start, end, and middle poses, then add keys only where interpolation fails. Every-frame corrections are appropriate only for genuinely unpredictable motion or brief difficult sections.
Can I rotoscope in DaVinci Resolve Free?
Yes. Resolve Free includes the core manual masks, MultiPoly, keyframing, and tracking tools needed for rotoscoping. Magic Mask requires Studio.
Why does a Polygon mask not make the background transparent?
A blue Effect Mask on most Fusion tools limits that tool’s effect. A mask connected directly to MediaIn or Loader can add alpha, while MatteControl provides an explicit branch for combining or inverting mattes. Check the node and input type before rebuilding the shape.
Related guides
- Fusion in DaVinci Resolve: the hub: the rest of the Fusion cluster.
- DaVinci Resolve Fusion Tutorial for Beginners: start here if Merge nodes are still new.
- DaVinci Resolve Delta Keyer: when a green screen can replace hand-drawn roto.
