ColorMap

ColorMap is part of the Krokodove set integrated into DaVinci Resolve 21. Blackmagic describes mapping a texture into one or more flat colors with either manual selection or automatic detection. It is not a conventional Lift/Gamma/Gain grade or a LUT conversion.

Three tasks are separate: Controls chooses the mapping source and destination palette, Position changes placement and random variation, and Overlay adds an extra treatment. Do not conflate these groups with controls on independent Fusion Background or Merge nodes.

Start with one MediaIn and record a non-randomized reference frame. Five original Inspector screenshots establish the visible fields, but none shows physical Flow sockets. Lesson connector names are explicitly editorial pending verification inside Resolve.

Map Type has two visible choices, UV and External. The archived Inspector has External selected. An external map is an image carrying map data; it is not interchangeable with a binary spatial Effect Mask.

Map Aspect belongs to Controls mapping. Size Absolute, Size Relative, Size Multiplier and Size Minimum belong to Position. Test them in isolation on a grid because similarly named size controls do not necessarily imply the same algorithm.

Output Type offers Mapped Colors and Left.Right.Top.Bottom to R.G.B.A. The exact second label is confirmed by the saved dropdown. It is a technical output mode; the screenshots alone do not define its numeric channel mapping formula.

Manual exposes Color 1, Color 2 and Color 3 with Number of colors at three. Replace the three identical white baseline swatches with distinct colors to make the mapping response observable.

Automatic color detection is mentioned in the official Krokodove description, but the Automatic button appears subdued in the archived capture. Do not assume that it is always available for any Map Type, input combination or Resolve edition.

The captured Tolerance is approximately 0.01. Small changes can significantly alter coverage, so adjust cautiously while comparing boundaries and source colors close to the chosen palette.

Other Pixels offers Keep, Global Map and Clear. This controls areas outside the selected mapping. Under Clear, inspect Alpha directly because a black area in the Viewer is not proof of transparency.

Manual Color 1…N swatches expose Red, Green, Blue and Alpha. Each swatch Alpha is a destination-color property; it neither supplies a spatial matte nor acts as Merge.Blend.

Enabled Pre-Divide / Post-Multiply is helpful with premultiplied semitransparent sources. Check title and logo edges on dark and bright backgrounds to diagnose unintended fringes.

Position includes base Size and Angle controls plus Random Seed, Randomize on Color, Randomize on Position, Offset X/Y, Angle and Scale. Lock the seed and change one value at a time instead of treating randomized placement as tracked motion.

The Position capture shows Randomize on Color enabled and Randomize on Position disabled. These are screenshot states, not universal recommendations; input animation may produce different temporal patterns.

Overlay is its own tab. Do Overlay is unchecked in the saved state, even though Overlay=0.3 and Overlay Edge=2 are visible. Exposed numeric values do not prove an inactive effect is already being applied.

For targeted recoloring, separate three mechanisms: ColorMap color matching, per-swatch Alpha, and spatial Effect Mask. If ColorMap mask sockets are unverified, apply a trustworthy downstream Merge.EffectMask.

Useful applications include limited poster-like palettes, mapped graphic areas, procedural decoration, UV-versus-External comparisons and visualization-oriented treatments. It is not a guaranteed semantic object segmenter or an automatic keyer.

QA requires multiple frames, RGB/Alpha channel inspection and delivery scopes. Test unconfirmed control states in the installed Resolve 21; these verified editorial diagrams are not importable .comp files and do not constitute native render certification.