Detail
Amount of small-scale structure.
Higher detail adds complexity but can become visually busy.
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Fast Noise
Procedural noise and texture
Generates procedural noise for smoke, clouds, texture, distortion maps and animated backgrounds.
Fast Noise
DaVinci Resolve · Fusion
Fast Noise is one of Fusion’s most versatile procedural generators and does not require source footage.
Overview
What Fast Noise does
Fast Noise creates an infinitely reusable procedural texture. By changing scale, contrast, detail and seethe, the same node can become soft clouds, rough displacement, energy patterns, fog or animated background texture.
Its output becomes much more useful when combined with other nodes. Blur softens it, Color Corrector tints it, Displace uses it as a motion map, and masks isolate it into specific regions.
The key to convincing procedural texture is scale. Small noisy detail reads as digital grain; larger smooth structures can read as smoke, clouds or organic motion.
Mental model
Think of Fast Noise as a controllable procedural texture generator whose shape can evolve forever without a source clip.
Common uses
Smoke and fog textures
Animated backgrounds
Displacement maps
Energy patterns
Cloud-like motion
Organic matte generation
Flow anatomy
Inputs & outputs
The port structure shows how this node fits into a Fusion graph.
Generator node — no image input is required.
Fast Noise
Fusion node
Output
The processed result from this node.
Inspector
Important parameters
Start with these controls before reaching for more complicated workarounds.
Contrast
Separation between dark and bright noise values.
Useful for creating stronger mattes or more graphic texture.
Brightness
Overall luminance of the generated texture.
Often adjusted together with contrast.
Scale
Size of the noise pattern.
Large scale creates broad cloudy structures; small scale creates fine texture.
Seethe
Evolves the procedural noise over time.
Animate this for organic motion without moving the whole texture.
Seethe Rate
Automatic rate of procedural evolution.
Useful for continuous motion.
Discontinuous
Changes the character of the noise pattern.
Can make the texture sharper and less smoothly interpolated.
Invert
Inverts the current map, mask or selection.
Color
Sets the color.
Center / Angle
Sets the angle of the element.
Practical setup
A reliable workflow
- 1
Create Fast Noise.
- 2
Set the scale based on the visual size of the effect.
- 3
Adjust contrast and detail.
- 4
Animate Seethe for organic motion.
- 5
Color, blur, mask or use the result as a utility map.
Typical node chain
Fast Noise→
Color Corrector→
Merge→
MediaOut
Examples
Where this node fits in real work
Procedural smoke base
Large smooth noise is tinted and softened.
Fast NoiseColor CorrectorBlurMerge
Displacement map
Noise drives distortion in another branch.
Fast NoiseDisplace
Troubleshooting
Common mistakes
Using noise that is too fine for the intended effect.
Animating position when Seethe would create more natural evolution.
Pushing contrast so far that smoke-like texture becomes hard black-and-white blobs.
Production notes
Practical tips
Start with scale before tweaking every other parameter.
Use Seethe for organic evolution and Transform for directional travel.
For smoke, combine low contrast with blur and a carefully shaped mask.
Related nodes