How is fusion for longer material?

Hey all, first post - hopefully this isn't a FAQ or a faux-pas (I have searched but couldn't find a discussion on this). I'm currently using Premiere Pro as my main NLE, and Apple Motion for motion-graphics work (I know, it's a weird combo, but it's working for me!) I'm keen to move over to Resolve if I can manage it, but I have some use cases where I'm not sure it's going to be quite the right tool. Hoping for some advice.

I'm currently in the middle of a project where I'm using Apple Motion to make e-Learning videos. It's mostly fairly basic motion graphics stuff, but more complex/nuanced than you'd be able to do easily in an NLE, and it's nice to be able to do something more sophisticated if a section calls for it.

Motion's group/timeline paradigm works really well for this type of material. We just import the VO track (5-10 minutes in length), then just animate graphics and text on word-cue and build up the project from start to finish. I had initially considered breaking each video up into smaller Motion projects, but it's actually been incredibly convenient to have it all on the one timeline. If something comes up at 4:15 that's similar to 2:43 I can just copy the group/layers from earlier, paste it back in and then customise. At the end we render out to a MOV and import to Premiere Pro for finishing and export.

I totally get how flexible and powerful node-based compositing is, but I'm wondering if it's worth even trying to move across to Resolve/Fusion for the type of work that I'm describing. It seems like it's really designed for a "one shot at a time" approach, and I don't want to try to force it to do something it's not intended for.

Honestly, I'll probably at least switch to Resolve anyway - I can import rendered Motion sequences just like I currently do with PPRO. But I would love to be able to go all-in if could swing it.

So... is anybody doing this kind of thing using Fusion/Resolve? Or is there a better workflow that I haven't thought of?

Hey

I answer here because it happens that Motion is one of the last legacy Final Cut Studio app I've still been working on these days. Very shortly said, it's surrounded by Resolve, Fusion (studio), Mocha Pro, rarely Nuke or Blender; this to see the basement of my POV

You may indeed make what you do in Fusion, and maybe here in specifically in the Fusion tab of Resolve, to take advantage of both of them.
What could change would probably be the way you organize and save finished assets/projects. Macro, power bins and .settings can help you mimic the way you've been doing it up to now, but you know, as usual, you cannot keep everything the way you did and must accept to change your workflow at least a bit...

I don't use Motion the same way as you do so my opinion won't help further : I have a whole lot of graphics, sorted in categories (lower thirds, blablabla, blablabla, ...), and when I use some I export a PR4444 and import in Resolve. I hardly come back in Motion for the same project, because if I need several versions, I make them in the first place and always export.

Now, about roundtrips - because we've there just above... I'm personnally a lot into Fusion Studio, therefore the standalone app, BUT you may want to use the VFX Connect way, which shortly said is the old roundtrip way to go back and forth to Fusion Studio. You could make separated comp, relink them if needed (but carefully because it can be tricky), without the obligation of opening Resolve.
Or stay in Resolve of course.

To conclude, a quick word on the animation WF : I think Motion is a lot more handy to animate things. Behaviors, easy keyframing, everything's made to ease your workflow in Motion, where Fusion is a compositing app which can make it too ... but not made FOR it.
So you can do almost everything there, but if you're very used to Motion, you won't be as comfortable in Fusion to do the same animating stuff imho.
As I wrote above, Motion is the last app I kept to regularly work with it, so I think you'll find your way too...

Fusion can handle long material, but is really optimized for "shot at a time".

The node graph is not sensitive to time, so you composite everything together as if it is all happening at once, then animate things into and out of view as needed.

This means that if you have 300 things in the composite but only 10 visible at a time, you are still working with 300 things in front of you (and effectively more as you may have dozens of nodes per thing) and need to organize your node graph carefully to be able to find the 10 you are trying to work with.

Accordingly, I don't believe standalone Fusion would be the best choice for this, but Fusion inside of Resolve allows you to switch between the edit/cut pages and the Fusion page quickly enough that working "shot at a time" would be much more feasible than when using separate programs such as Motion and FCP, and your composites can be stacked on top of each other if needed, giving you additional flexibility to arrange them.

If you feel like you really must do the entire project within Fusion, I would recommend that you stick with Motion instead, as its organization will likely serve you better for this type of project. If you can break up the project into smaller logical parts, you could certainly try Fusion within Resolve and use multiple composites, switching back and forth, as it may or may not work out better for you.