What Is GRIDS for DaVinci Resolve?

Summary

GRIDS in DaVinci Resolve is a $10.00 pack of high-resolution grid backgrounds and overlays that you bring into the Media Pool and cut onto a video track on the Edit page. Resolve composites upward, so a grid on V1 with your subject on V2 gives you a background; a grid on the track above with Inspector > Composite Mode set gives you an overlay. Reframe under Inspector > Transform, recolour on the Color page.

What Is GRIDS?

GRIDS is a pack of carefully-crafted grid backgrounds and overlays designed for YouTube videos and presentations. High-resolution designs, built to lift production quality, and they work across video editing and image editing software.

  • What you get — grid backgrounds and overlays.
  • How it behaves in Resolve — as media in the Media Pool. No LUT folder, no OpenFX plugin, no Project Settings to touch.
  • Compatibility — works across video editing and image editing software. Resolve's free version handles all of the workflow below; nothing here requires Studio.
  • Price — $10.00.

Worth stressing the Studio point: composite modes, Transform, the Fusion page and the Color page are all in the free build. A grid background is one of the few production-value upgrades that costs you nothing beyond the pack itself.

How GRIDS Works in DaVinci Resolve

  1. Bring the designs in — File > Import > Media, or drag them into the Media Pool on the Media or Edit page. Put them in their own bin (right-click in the Media Pool > Add Bin) so they stay separate from your rushes.
  2. Understand the track order — on the Edit page, Resolve composites from the bottom up. V1 sits underneath, V2 covers it, V3 covers that. A background belongs on V1; an overlay belongs above whatever it is treating.
  3. Cut it onto the timeline — drag the grid to V1 and move your existing edit up to V2 for a background use. For an overlay, drop it on the track directly above your shot and trim it to match.
  4. Set the composite mode for overlay use — select the clip, open the Inspector, and under Composite choose a Composite Mode. Screen drops the blacks and keeps light lines; Multiply drops the whites and keeps dark lines; Overlay and Soft Light follow the contrast underneath. Pull Opacity to roughly 10–25%.
  5. Frame it — still in the Inspector, open Transform and adjust Zoom, Position and Rotation Angle. Use Cropping below it if you want a section of the grid rather than a scaled-up version of the whole thing.
  6. Extend it across the shot — drag the clip's out point, or copy and paste it end to end. Right-click > Change Clip Speed lets you slow a moving asset down so it covers more timeline without repeating.
  7. Add your titles — Effects > Toolbox > Titles, dragged to a track above the grid. Text+ gives you the most control and is the one to use if you are going to animate it in Fusion.

Animating a Grid in Fusion

The Edit page will slide and scale a grid, but if you want the background to actually move — a slow drift, a parallax pass, a grid that reacts to your titles — that belongs on the Fusion page.

  1. Add a Fusion composition — from Effects > Toolbox > Effects, drag a Fusion Composition onto V1, or select an existing grid clip and click the Fusion tab to open that clip's node graph.
  2. Bring the grid in — drag the design from the Media Pool into the node graph. It arrives as a MediaIn node.
  3. Add a Transform node — select MediaIn and press Shift+Space, then search for Transform. Keyframe its Center to drift the grid. Keep the move slow; backgrounds should be felt, not watched.
  4. Layer with Merge — a Merge node combines a background input and a foreground input, and its Apply Mode dropdown carries the same Screen, Multiply and Overlay options as the Edit page. This is where you stack two grids for parallax.
  5. Send it back out — connect the last node to MediaOut and return to the Edit page. The clip now carries the animation with it.

If you want the grid to loop forever without a visible join, move it by exactly one cell width over your loop length and set the keyframe interpolation to linear. Any easing at the loop point will show.

Recolouring on the Color Page

Resolve's Color page is the strongest recolouring tool of any editor here, and a grid clip gets its own node tree like anything else on the timeline.

  • Global shift — click the grid clip in the thumbnail timeline, then push the Color Wheels. Gain moves the light lines, Lift moves the dark field.
  • Hue vs Hue — open the Curves panel and switch to Hue vs Hue. Sample the grid's colour with the picker and drag the control point to rotate it to your brand hue without touching anything else.
  • Qualifier for one element — if the design has two colours and you only want to change one, use the Qualifier to isolate it, then correct on a serial node downstream.
  • Adjustment clip for the whole look — Effects > Toolbox > Effects > Adjustment Clip on a track above everything, if you want the grid and the footage to share one final pass.

Grade the grid clip itself where you can. A correction on an adjustment clip above the whole stack will drag your footage along with the grid, which is almost never what you want.

Layout and Safe Areas

  • Turn on the safe area — click the options menu on the timeline viewer and enable Safe Area. Keep captions inside the inner box; YouTube's progress bar, timestamp and end-screen cards will cover the outer edges.
  • Compound long backgrounds — select the repeated grid clips, right-click and choose New Compound Clip. One object to move, trim and grade instead of a dozen.
  • Check the frame at phone size — shrink the viewer until it is thumbnail-sized. If the grid turns to noise, the cells are too small; scale up slightly.
  • Do not stack composite modes — one grid with one composite mode reads as design. Three grids with three modes reads as an accident.

Conclusion

Resolve gives you two clean routes: the Edit page for a static background — V1, Inspector > Transform, Composite Mode if it is on top — and Fusion for anything that needs to move. Recolour on the Color page with Hue vs Hue so the grid matches the rest of your channel rather than sitting on top of it.

GRIDS is $10.00 for high-resolution grid backgrounds and overlays that work across video editing and image editing software, free Resolve included. Geometry plus something organic is a reliable pairing — LIQUID covers the organic half, and this walkthrough on light leaks and film burns shows the layering approach.

FAQ

Q: How do I install GRIDS in DaVinci Resolve?
A: There is nothing to install. Import the designs into the Media Pool with File > Import > Media and cut them onto a video track. No LUT folder, no OpenFX plugin.

Q: Which track should the grid go on?
A: V1 for a background, since Resolve composites from the bottom up. A track above your footage for an overlay, with a Composite Mode set in the Inspector.

Q: Where is the blend mode in Resolve?
A: Inspector > Composite > Composite Mode, with Opacity directly beneath it. In Fusion the equivalent is the Merge node's Apply Mode.

Q: Do I need Resolve Studio?
A: No. Composite modes, Transform, the Fusion page and the Color page are all available in the free version.

Q: How do I animate the grid?
A: Open the clip on the Fusion page, add a Transform node after MediaIn, and keyframe its Center. Move it by exactly one cell over the loop length with linear interpolation for an invisible loop.

Q: How do I change the grid's colour?
A: On the Color page, grade the grid clip directly — Color Wheels for a global shift, or Curves > Hue vs Hue to rotate just the grid's hue toward your brand colour.