Duplicate Compound Clip - Why Change Original??

In the timeline I duplicated a compound clip. Obviously the reason for duplicating it is to save time and reuse some components of the original compound clip. So I spent several hours adjusting the duplicate compound clip. To my horror I discover that the duplicate clip changes have changed the original compound clip! This seems so counter-intuitive!! Why in the world would anyone want to duplicate a compound clip and NOT have it be an independent clip where I can edit it WITHOUT changing the original from which I duplicated it? Isn't the purpose of duplicating a compound clip to have it be a new element that I can edit alone without changing the original? These types of things happen to me all the time with DR. It just seems to be counter-intuitive all the time!! What am I missing? Is there some reason the default mode isn't to duplicated a compound clip and have it be a separate element so changes don't impact the original clip?

This can be very useful. For example, you have a graphic element that you use several times in your timeline. Now you want to make a small adjustment to this element for all instances in the timeline.

Your mistake was to duplicate the compound clip in the timeline - this just creates a new reference to that exact compound clip. If you want a second version of this compound clip that you can make changes to without affecting the original compound clip, create a duplicate in the bin.

These types of things happen to me all the time with DR. It just seems to be counter-intuitive all the time!! What am I missing?

DaVinci Resolve is an application that is used by many professionals who need many complex functions for their daily work and therefore cannot be used like iMovie, for example, where everything is self-explanatory. Video editor or colorist or motion graphics designer are real professions for which you have to do at least 3 years of apprenticeship and then you are still a beginner.

I can only recommend everyone to take a look at the training materials provided by BMD.
https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/produc ... ning#books

Please don't misunderstand, this is not directed against you. I think anyone who wants to be creative should be able to use DaVinci - but perhaps with the idea in mind that the program must also meet professional requirements.

Yeah, must just be me. I've used After Effects and other editors for over 30 years. I love complicated features that enable me to do fx when needed. I find AE far more intuitive and easy to use. I am trying to help a friend with his Davinci project. I believe a software should aid creativity, not hinder it. I believe a user should only have to reference a manual when absolutely necessary. And if a user can't search and find the right answer, you can either blame the user, or design the software better.

Not interested in a debate. Davinci wasted 3 hours of my time for no good reason. Blame me if you wish. Or make a better software. Duplicated compound clips should not be linked unless the user selects such a feature. I see tons of people searching to solve this problem, so apparently I am not the only one that finds this an unnecessary problem.

I've used After Effects and other editors for over 30 years.

Then you surely know how nested compositions behave in After Effects...
It's exactly the same. If you duplicate it in the composition, it's just a reference.
If you duplicate it in the project window, you create an individual composition.

Resolve convolutes things by using different objects to accomplish the same outcome.

What's the difference between a Compound Clip and a Sequence? I don't care if there is some technical reason they had to make it different. Performatively, it's the same outcome. You shouldn't need a Compound clip at all. You should be able to just nest a Sequence. It's just one more unnecessary gotcha to keep track of.

A nested comp in Ae is called a Pre-Comp and is just a regular composition that Ae has named "Precomp" for the newbies. Once you know what you're doing you just rename them to what ever you want anyways. To accurately recreate the process, there would be a "Create Nested Sequence From Selected Clips" option in the right-click menu. That would add a new sequence to the Bin the main sequence is located.

I'm not saying that Blade3d shouldn't have understood what a Compound Clip is, just that it's not consistent behavior with the rest of the program. Specifically and most frustratingly a Fusion Comp. When you duplicate a Fusion Comp, not a clip with Fusion, it makes a new Fusion Comp that is completely independent of the one it came from. This is and always has been the exact opposite of how it should work. A Fusion comp SHOULD behave exactly like the Compound Clip. It should relate back to the Bin Master Fusion Comp. Not to a specific timeline element. By making the Compound Clip act as a Master Sequence and the Fusion Comp be an independent "Effect" each time, you've confused the user as to how media is created. This is also true of Clips with Fusion on them. Each is independent but in reality, if you've added Fusion to a clip it is no longer a clip but a Fusion comp with Media added. There should be an option on creation to create a master clip in the Bin that can be used in multiple locations and when changed will affect all the uses in various Sequences.

That's why a Compound Clip is so frustrating. It's the only thing that behaves correctly in the order of operations for an editing system. You make media(whether that's in another app or in Resolve) and add it to the Bin. From the Bin, you then distribute that media. The media in sequences should follow the bin not become independent in the various sequences. It becomes a chore to track down the various iterations through out the various sequences. How would a new user, or one coming back to to an existing project, know where to look for all the various elements?

Very well said, Ben. I hope BlackMagic is listening.


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Thanks, I hope they are too.

What the heck? Thanks for posting this - I can't believe I've never noticed the inconsistent behavior with timeline copies of compound clips vs fusion comps. I know in Resolve 19 that they have a new reference fusion comp mechanism but why the heck there is this inconsistency, I don't know. I can understand why a duplicate compound works the way it does given that it points to a named item in the bin but shouldn't that also apply to a duplicate fusion comp? Better still, duplicate should have two flavours - one duplicate reference and the other duplicate copy (which would be an independent element).

Anyway, Ben said it best. The fact that there is a difference really threw me and I've been using Resolve for quite a long time (obviously not with timeline duplicates of compound clips, though). Wow.

You shouldn't need a Compound clip at all. You should be able to just nest a Sequence. It's just one more unnecessary gotcha to keep track of.

I think technically it's a timeline object - they even have the same setting in the
edit menu: "Decompose Compound Clips on Edit".
It should be made clearer that a Compound Clip is treated like a nested timeline
or maybe it should just be called "(Nested) Timeline", then misunderstandings could be avoided.

I guess the problem with fusion clips is that things like titles and some effects are treated like them internally and have to remain individual in the timeline.

I be an Avid Liquid user for many Years and I’ve always used 'containers' (compounds), and when these were duplicated on the same timeline, they would be independent. In Resolve iI often forget the procedure of copying to the BIN and then placing it on the timeline, but that’s the least of my problems.

Right now, I have a timeline in FHD, full of compounds containing various clips and Fusion work. Once the work was done, I duplicated the timeline because I needed to create a vertical version. So, I started modifying some shots, repositioning titles, effects, etc. on the duplicated timeline.

After an hour of editing the surprise! (I hadn’t thought of it before)... The original source timeline also got modified!

So now what? Do I have to duplicate the entire project just to work on the vertical version? That would be absurd, right? I’ve looked in the settings, searched online, but there seems to be no answer.

Sure, in some projects this feature is useful, but for me, not having it would be much more practical and I’d waste a lot less time.

Flavio

What if you export the timeline as DRT first, import it in new bin; does that create the proper non-linked duplicates in order to make the vertical titles, etc.?

How did I not think of that before? Yes, from a quick test it seems to work. I saved the TML with a different name and imported it. I modified some texts, fusion effects inside the compounds, etc. It's a workaround they could implement directly by maybe adding a FLAG where it asks whether to keep the link or not.

Thank's Ben

Glad that worked. Sometimes I feel that half of using Resolve is finding/figuring out work-arounds.

I wish they would have an NDA alpha/pre-alpha release (into the hands of established editors) well before public beta. If so, perhaps a lot of these quirks could be polished before public release.


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Even in After Effects you have to run a special script somebody created to do the same thing. I think it's called True Comp Duplicator. It's really the only way to duplicate the main comp and all nested comps into a new folder so that you don't have to replace all the nested comps by hand with duplicate precomps.