Decompose (To Original)/Flatten: option to preserve FX

When we Render In Place, we have the option to choose which FX are included in the render. Any option not chosen will not render out, and will still be included as a live effect on the Render In Place clip.

I propose a similar option for Decompose To Original. This would be for situations where the user has done a Render In Place, then later applied a Color grade, Edit transforms, Fusion composition, OFX, etc. Having done so, they have no ability to Decompose to Original without losing their new effects. This is an issue affecting some users, as described in this post: Recover grade from old clip render.

I therefore propose that a menu like the following appears when a Decompose to Original is done:


This idea could also apply to all decompose/flatten operations. Eg if you decompose a Compound Clip, you get the option to move any FX placed on the Compound, to the decomposed clips. Likewise flattening a Multicam, etc.

The menu would grey out any options that don't exist on the Render In Place clip. So if this clip has no
Fusion Composition, "Preserve Fusion Composition" would be greyed out and non-selectable.

All options would be unticked by default. If the user ticks to preserve Video Effects, Fusion Composition, and/or Color Grading, then those effects on the Render In Place clip would still be applied after the Decompose To Original. In other words, it would copy the composition/grade/effects to the original clip.

What happens if the original clip (pre Render In Place) also had effects?

For example, the original clip had a Fusion composition, then the user did Render In Place, then they added a new composition on the Render In Place, then they did Decompose + "Preserve Fusion Composition":

In this scenario, it could simply abort the Decompose with an error "Can't preserve Fusion composition/Video Effect/Color grade as it would overwrite original". Then the user would have to deal with this manually, as they do now.

Or, a more advanced option, where the behaviour depends on what is duplicated:

Fusion composition:
Allow the preserve, but use composition versions to keep both the original and new compositions. If both comps had one version, then the new composition is now composition v2, and the original is now v1. If the original comp had version 1, 2, and 3, and Render In Place composition had versions 1 and 2, then after decompose + preserve, there would be 5 composition versions.

Color grade:
Same logic as for Fusion comp: append the current comp as additional versions on top of the versions from the decomposed grade.

Video Effects:
There's no versioning for Edit effects/OFX (unfortunately). So if the preserve was allowed, it would have to either error and abort, or simply overwrite.

In these scenarios, it should pop up a dialogue informing the user what happened. Eg "Decomposed Fusion composition is saved as composition version 1, preserved Render In Place composition is saved as composition version 2." In the Video Effects example, it would warn: "Preserved effects have overwritten effects from the original clip. Undo to revert."

+1

Edited the original idea so it also includes all decompose/flatten operations.

Just noting that a Compound Clip might contain multiple clip layers... preserving grades and effects on multi-layer comps might be handled with an Adjustment Clip.