Compound Clips in DropZone Ignoring Transformations or Fit/Fill

Hello,

My question is - how do you get FCPX drop zones to see a compound clip with multiple clip dimensions as one user defined dimension? 

I've made a Motion5 template which slides in a picture-in-picture window over my main storyline. 

It's a drop zone masked by a simple rectangle shape. The drop zone is then resized to about 70% to make sure that main camera footage isn't cropped top/bottom.

In FCPX I drop a compound clip into this template, it usually contains three dimensions, our main camera, photos and drone footage. 

I'll list the dimension below, but only the main camera footage comes through correctly - anything else displayed in the picture-in-picture is also resized by 70% making the drone footage/photos to be much smaller than the main camera.

In the compound clip everything is resized to fill the screen, or uses spacial conform to fill the area - it all looks great. 

In After Effects it would be the 'contentiously rasterise' switch I'd turn off so it's seen as one 4096x1720 clip.

I've tried fill/none - playing with the sizes etc... nothing seems to translate to the main project. I've also tried to compound these clips further, but it doesn't help. 

The work around currently is to export the compound clip and reimport it back in - but that's not going to work in the long run.

Main FCPX Event - 5120x2880
Motion 5 DropZone Template - 5120x2880
Compound Clip - 4096x1720
Main Camera - 4096x1720
Drone Footage - 3840x2160

Thanks for any help.

I don't know the answer and I don't have the time to test anything but I would try 2 things out of my head:
If it's only a Picture in Picture and nothing else in Motion I would try to resize and keyframe the compound directly in FCP without going via the Motion template.
If that doesn't work or is not possible I would try to look at the settings of the group the Dropzone is in in Motion. Try flatten and 2d.
I maybe have some time to do a test later in the week.

Carsten Orlt wrote:

I don't know the answer and I don't have the time to test anything but I would try 2 things out of my head....

Thank you for the response Carsten,

Unfortunately there are other effects; so Motion is the answer for this one.

However just as a test I shrunk down the compound clip to 50%. The main camera footage is fine, but anything that has had transformations to re-frame or scale up, moves outside the compounds clips 'bounding box'.

So it sounds like compound clips are the culprit. Is there a 'flatten' compound clip of sorts when the project sees it as a single clip - similar to an imported video clip - as opposed to individually adjusted clips?

So it sounds like compound clips are the culprit. Is there a 'flatten' compound clip of sorts when the project sees it as a single clip - similar to an imported video clip - as opposed to individually adjusted clips?

No unfortunately there is no 'flatten compound' or flattening anything for that matter
Hopefully somebody else can help until I maybe have some time to test.

Hello, if you double-click the dropzone in the fcp viewer you can freely resize the footage. Doesn't this workflow work for your footage?

editDr0ideka wrote:

Hello, if you double-click the dropzone in the fcp viewer you can freely resize the footage. Doesn't this workflow work for your footage?

Thank you for the reply, but no it doesn't. 

The compound clip storyline is the main camera, and as b-roll we have images and drone footage. 

Any adjustments made to any clips, or if the images are keyframes to incorporate a slow zoom in - the drop zone ignores them all. 

Hi there,
Had a chance to do a test and replicated all your dimensions (used stills to do so).
I can confirm that using a compound inside the drop zone ignores the individual spatial settings of the clips inside of the compound and interprets them all as 'fill'. You can see that by double clicking on the drop zone as editdroika suggested (forgot about that).
I keep re-reading your post and must say that I don't understand all of what you're doing so hope this is of some help.

Thanks for checking it out. I'd be interested - and no rush - if you could have a go at testing for me...

You have a compound clip with a mixture of footage and stills. The stills are keyframed, so the have a slow ken-burns type zoom on them. 

In a project with a main storyline you have a generator that contains a drop zone.

If you drop that compound clip into the drop zone - are the stills still keyframed and still move?

They don't if you use keyframes
BUT
they do still move when you actually use the Ken Burns effect (via the Crop settings)

Sorry Have to make a correction:

All footage (regardless of its dimensions) inside the Compound reverts back to 'FIT' in relation to the Motion Template dimensions once you drop the compound into the Dropzone.

I previously thought it reverts back to 'Fill' which is incorrect.

Thank you - that's a great help.