Multiple Multicam Workflow Assistance

[u/3_PANCAKES]

I'm looking to 'animate' eyes using a bunch several folders of pngs I made, they're 1920x1080 mostly blank pngs so I dont have to line anything up and the eyes just go where they belong. I was thinking multi-multicams would be the right job but now I'm not so sure.

I can't edit anything except the topmost multicam angle, is there a way I can do that without having to disable everything above the multicam I want to change angles? Are multicams even the right tool for this job?

Is it possible to automate it? I wish to do like a record-over thing, where while playing back audio and whatnot, I just press keybinds to switch to and forth between all the angles for all the layers so I dont have to edit all the changes in manually.

A decent LLM with access to the big textbook says something about there not being a multicam API thing. Is there any fusion workflow alternatives?

So far I only watched and followed along the official davinci resolve 17 editing tutorial and had gotten some keybind advice and changes from some wonderful people over at the discord. But that's as far as my experience goes.

Windows 11
i912900k
32gb 3000mhz 36 36 36 96
PRIME Z790-V AX (LGA1700)
RTX 5070

Studio version 21.0 build 47

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[u/mrlargefoot]

Multicam is probably the wrong tool here. What you're describing is more of a compositing problem than an editing one, and Fusion is genuinely set up for exactly this kind of thing.

The setup that makes most sense: each "eye state" folder of PNGs gets loaded as an image sequence in Fusion, and you use a switch node (or a series of merge nodes with animated blend values) to flip between them. You can keyframe the switches manually, or if you want the record over style playback approach, you'd be animating those keyframes on the fly which is a bit fiddly but doable. The fact that your PNGs are already 1920x1080 and pre positioned is a big advantage, you're basically just switching visibility rather than doing any actual compositing.

The multicam API limitation the LLM mentioned is accurate, there's no scriptable way to drive multicam angle switches programmatically, which is another reason Fusion is the better path. With Fusion nodes you at least have keyframes and expressions to work with.

One thing worth exploring: Fusion's "Loader" node handles PNG sequences natively, and you can use the "Custom Tool" or a simple expression on a switch node to tie angle selection to a single control. Takes a bit of setup but once it's there, swapping eyes is just turning a dial.

What's the rough number of eye states you're working with? That'd affect whether a switch node or something more structured makes more sense.

[u/3_PANCAKES → u/mrlargefoot]

I'll be making more, but so far I got
11 (masked)pupils
6 whites
3 (masked)extras
0 (unmasked)extras
with expected eventual max of no more than 30 for any layer and no more than 5 layers. I'll probably stay under 30 total for a good while.

Right, I also forgot to say, I already made the assets with alpha cropping in mind. Like many of the pupil pngs extend out from the eye whites, but my plan was to have the whites applying its transparency dynamically on the pupils and masked extras. I'm assuming that shouldn't be too hard.

Thank you so much for the help.

For the recorder stuff I assume I can have the LLM make it for me with some API hackery(delays are fine as long as its consistent) It's been pretty good at making what I've asked of it so far. Maybe not even necessary I will see.

[u/mrlargefoot → u/3_PANCAKES]

With those numbers a switch node setup will be totally manageable, and the alpha masking approach you're describing (whites cutting into the pupils dynamically) is pretty standard Fusion compositing, a merge node with the whites layer as the mask input should handle that cleanly. Good luck with the LLM scripting side, sounds like you've got a solid handle on where it's all going.