Blackmagic Forum

Normally when you convert text clip to the compound clip
- the text background changes to black, so you can't see
the underlying track, unless you change mode from Normal
to Add or something else.

Now, since yesterday, when I convert text to compound clip
the text background remain transparent. Why ?

I have restarted DM, created new projects, used different
source clips, but no luck.

How can I get it back to the default behaviour ?

Anybody ?

Hey Piotr

It may be a matter of perspective, but I think for most workflows, a Compound Clip should retain the alpha channel of the contained clips, not 'default' to solid black.

If you need to force a solid color background to your Compound Clips simply add a Solid Color generator behind the clips in your compound ... or if it's Text only, just change the Layout > Background >Alpha property to 1.0 in your Text clip. That should do it.

Regarding why it's suddenly changed behaviour for you, I think it has something to do with the contents of the Compound Clip ... if it contains a single Text item it works as it should (retaining the alpha), but if you add a second Text item (or any item), the Compound Clip loses its alpha channel and reverts to solid black. Hopefully one day that will be fixed.

Hope it helps
Andy

Hi Andy,

thank you for your comprehensive answer.

It definitely make sense that compound clip should retain
alpha channel. I was thrown off by the fact that most
youtube tutorials for text tracking repeats the same drill
- converti text to a compound clip
- "you will see text bgd _turns_black_"
- change Composite Mode from Normal to Add
- now you can see the underlying clip

The thing is that it really worked exactly like that, but
then it changed. Everything same, but when converted
the text to the compound clip - no more black backround
in Normal mode.

It is not that I can not live with it. It is that my curiosity
can't get over it =)