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In this step‑by‑step Fusion tutorial, we stabilize our footage to the deck with a Planar Tracker, and composite a static graphic so it looks printed into the board’s chipped paint. You’ll build a lighting‑aware matte, add realistic shadow interaction.

What you’ll learn

• Planar tracking and stabilize‑then‑composite workflow using the first frame to build the composte.

• Properly sizing and blending artwork with Merge and Transform, including opacity dialing for a natural fit

• Building a black‑and‑white texture matte from the stabilized plate with Color Corrector and Time Stretcher.

• Refining texture breakup with Paint’s Clone tool to reduce “too‑perfect” vector edges

• Extracting light and shadow interaction via desat/contrast + Luma Key (inverted) and re‑merging over the comp

• Edge realism with targeted Blur and saturation matching so the graphic sits in the plate

• Adding subtle, daylight‑appropriate film grain.

• Real‑time decision‑making with Play Preview caching and dual‑viewer playback

• Clean re‑apply of motion by inverting the Planar Tracker’s steady transform

• Final render setup with Saver and format options

Nodes and techniques covered

• Planar Tracker: track, steady time on first frame, invert steady transform to re‑apply motion

• Merge: blend, luminance masking, layered merges for shadows

• Color Corrector: desaturate, contrast lift to build mattes and match the plate

• Time Stretcher: freeze at frame 0 to create a stable matte

• Paint (Clone): distress uniform strokes and outlines

• Luma Key: isolate and control shadow passes, tweak low/high for sun‑to‑shade transitions

• Transform and Blur: placement, scale, edge softening

• Matte Control: isolate the artwork so the shadow pass only affects the graphic

• Play Preview: RAM‑cache nodes for realtime review

• Saver: EXR or ProRes settings and render workflow

Who it’s for

• Compositors and motion artists who want a fast, production‑oriented method to make decals and graphics sit believably on moving surfaces in Fusion Studio.

Prereqs

• Basic familiarity with Fusion’s node flow, viewers, and Merge operations

• Footage with a trackable planar region and a static decal/graphic