FUSION · NODE REFERENCE
PencilSketch
Contours, tone and animated sketch texture
Resolve FX Pencil Sketch turns an existing image into a color or grayscale drawing. Three separate groups control linework, tonal structure and procedural texture.
PencilSketch
Overview
What PencilSketch does
PencilSketch is an artistic Resolve FX, rather than a paper generator or a drawing system for an empty frame. It needs an image with readable forms. Blackmagic lists Pencil Sketch as a Studio effect; check its availability in your installation.
Sketch Stroke Controls derive linework from source detail. Sketch Tone Controls reshape the drawing’s tonal structure. Sketch Texture Controls add a separate texture. This order helps identify whether clutter comes from noisy contours, dense midtones or the overlaid texture.
The supplied capture shows Shadow Level, More Shadow, More Midtone and More Highlight. These are artistic tone controls, not Lift, Gamma and Gain with a guaranteed grading formula. Compare them one at a time on one chart; their values are not universal portrait or architecture presets.
Animate concerns the added texture. Disabling it does not freeze contours derived from moving footage: changing source pixels can still change the linework. Use a still source for a stable illustration; on video, assess contour motion separately from texture animation.
The supplied PNG shows the Inspector without Flow. Input/Output in the teaching graph identify the image path; exact wrapper socket labels require a native check. The local exercise uses a separate masked Merge, so the supplied diagrams do not depend on an unconfirmed PencilSketch mask input.
Review at delivery resolution and playback speed. Fine linework can look clean in a still and shimmer after resizing or compression. The settings below provide controlled starting points; the rendered result inside Resolve has not yet been verified here.
When to use it
A grayscale illustration from a still.
A color-sketch insert in a video.
Comparing stable and animated texture.
A local transition from photograph to sketch.
PencilSketch in context
Screenshots referenced by this article. Open an image to inspect it at full size.
Example for PencilSketch.
Original image