What are the changes in Fusion 5?
Download this PDF document  to read about the major changes from Digital Fusion 4 to Fusion 5. Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader.
What are the changes in DFX+ 5?
Download this PDF document to read about the major changes from DFX+ 4 to DFX+ 5. Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader.
What are the differences between Fusion 5.00 and 5.01?
Download this PDF document to read about the major changes from DFX+ 4 to DFX+ 5. Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader.
What are the differences between Fusion and DFX+?
Download this Microsoft Word document to read about the major differences between DFX+5 and Fusion 5.
How do the bins work?
Download this PDF document  to read about the Bins & Collaborative Workflow. Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader.
What file formats does Fusion support?
To view the supported file types for the various Products in the Digital Fusion product line please visit our Products section and choose which version of our software you are interested in, or look directly at the Supported Formats  page.
How much does Fusion cost?
You can find our current pricing under the 'Buying' menu on the top navigation menu, or by following this link
What kind of computer should I buy to run Fusion?
Fusion runs on Linux and Windows.
Available under subscription, this gives the option to run Fusion on multiple distributions of Linux and on Windows in 64-bit or 32-bit configurations. Fusion’s Unified Platform System is universally compatible across operating systems, and facilities can choose what pipeline set-up works While running Fusion on Linux, pipelines and technical directors can take advantage of the following:
1. New installers that support all Linux versions, including Fedora, Redhat, Centos and Suse
2. Headless render node for render farms
3. Mixed operating system configurations
4. Native Hybrid CPU/GPU hardware setups
5. Universal plug-in support
This is a native development for all Intel and AMD x86 CPU's and Nvidia, AMD/ATI GPU computer systems on Linux. The Unified Platform System brings cross platform compatibility for mixed OS environments with the broadest support of plug-ins, services, peripherals and network infrastructure.
Windows NT 4
Windows 2000
Windows XP
Windows XP 64 bit
All versions of Windows Vista 32 bit
All versions of Windows Vista 64 bit
Please note that some versions of Vista do not include support for multiple processors. Some versions of Vista 64 bit have larger amounts of RAM supported. Please visit Microsoft for additional details
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-vista/compare-editions/default.aspx
We highly recommend a multiprocessor computer for use with Fusion, due to the tremendous benefit you can obtain from Fusion's highly tuned multi-threaded architecture.
If you intend to work with video resolutions only, then you can probably get away with 256MB of ram for most tasks, though we would highly recommend 512MB. If you intend to deal with film resolution images you should consider a minimum of 1GB of RAM. You will probably end up wanting more. Can you use less RAM? Certainly, but the less RAM you have the more likely you are to start hitting the disk based virtual ram during complex composites and effects. This will impact heavily on your performance, both interactively and while rendering. When the swap file is in use, 90% of your CPU power will simply be wasted. With the current RAM prices on the market we definitely recommend as much as you can afford on your machine.
Fusion 5 is now a 2D/3D application, and there is an advantage gained from an Open GL accelerator card. 3D software packages like XSI, Maya, Max and LightWave also rely on the graphics card performance.
Choose a card with at least 128MB of RAM, one that is capable of a minimum resolution of 1280x1024. Fusion's ability to playback images from RAM will benefit enormously from an PCI-E based video card as well.
Get the biggest, most beautiful monitor you can get your hands on. This is the only part of your computer that you will end up having to look at day-in day out, and the better the quality, the easier it will be on your eyes. Keep in mind, this is the one part of your computer that retains it's value from year to year. I still use the monitor I purchased 7 years ago on my home system. It makes sense to invest a good chunk of your computer buying budget here.
Skimp on your monitor, and I guarantee you will regret it later.
You are going to want a lot of hard drive space. Like closets, you can never have too much hard drive space. As an example of what I mean, consider 30 seconds of animation stored as a sequence of 32 bit tga's (with alpha channel) That would take slightly over 1.2GB of space in an uncompressed form.
The faster your drives, the better your Fusion performance will be. This is particularly true if you are working with scanned film resolution images.
A single medium resolution Cineon file can easily consume 12MB of hard drive space per frame. If you plan to work with full resolution film images, buy SCSI AV rated hard drives. (30 seconds of 2K Academy Film, 9 Gigabytes!)
This is by no means a comprehensive list of what you should be looking for in a system, because every persons needs will be different, but it should at least get you started. There is really no substitute for a knowledgable dealer who is willing to spend some time with you to determine your exact needs. You usually pay more than you might at the average store advertised in your local computer paper, but you will save a bundle in the long run.
Are there any plans for a Linux version of Fusion?
eyeon Software introduced the Linux version of Fusion to the Soho, London market in February, 2006. It is anticipated that the Fusion Linux beta program will begin mid 2006.
Please stay tuned for further announcements concerning other platforms and operating systems.
NOTE: We regret to inform you that eyeon Software will most likely not be pursuing a Palm OS version of Fusion. We apologize to all those pocket compositors out there.
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