compound clips within compound clips

I've seen posts about the dangers of putting compound clips within other compound clips. I find myself doing this anyway because it helps when I'm working on animations - or other times I have different elements I need to group together. . I often will have animations that I'm moving on and off the screen from different directions. It's easier for me to make them compound clips so I can move them around. I haven't had any issues doing it and I can't remember the reasons not to. Am I setting myself up for problems and if so, are there better ways to group clips/elements together? thx

I don't often have CC's within CC's, although I have done it on occasion. If it's been working for you and you've seen no problems then you are probably fine doing it. I think one issue could be that if you are changing something in the parent CC's, then it might be harder to track changes that occur with nested CC's if you inadvertently modify it. I'm not aware of any software issue that isn't user created by doing this. I'm curious if other users have more info on this.

google for "Compounds Are Root of All Evil" and you find a few dozen hits with my name :lol:

Aside it's, in general, not true and I'm using CCs frequently for sure, the reasons for this more tongue-in-cheek meant statement are simple:

• Most/many/some CCs are not needed
Just look at many screenshots: compounds to 'nest' a stack of 'tracks' => people ignore FCPX' fundamental features, such as the magnetic tl, and emulate habitual workflows ...

• Trouble with parenting
ok, rtfm but who does? if you ignore the parenting or don't know how to make it independent, you're instantly lost

• extra: 'parenting' in Multicams
I use MCs (=special breed of compounds) weekly; add and edit in timeline; "oh, this part needs a lil' trim …" Kaboom, whole angle out of synch! Means, all previouslky edited clips in timeline of this angle are 'shifting' ... yepp, me stupid, my fail, but I count that on bad, bad compound ...

• Compounds = traffic jam
on playback of a CC, FCPX 'grabs' all involved clips - simultaneously. On a lame system as mine, it instantly goes into slideshow-mode for playback. ok, with a thunderbolt connected 10xSSD Raid5 no prob, but with my cheap spinning platters, or if someone works all-internal only, this could cause a project comes to an halt ...

If CCs work for you - great! And, with respondsible usage, CCs are easy, helpful and a must.

but, fundamentally .... "Compounds Are Root of All Evil" ... :woohoo: LOL!!

Thanks for your replies. The reason I have been so dependent on them in this project is that I have animated sequences that have lots of moving parts. In one sequence I have a few clips - three elements coming on screen from three directions which then leave the screen together, followed by two or three more elements also coming in from different directions, etc. I have a sequence of six or seven of these animations. Sometimes I need to work on the individual animations, sometimes I want to rearrange their order and sometimes I want to move the entire sequence.
I could just use secondary storylines, but they need to be contiguous and many of my animations overlap for timing reasons. So unless I'm missing something, I think I'm using the most logical method for what I'm doing and I haven't been bitten by it so far. Fingers crossed. thx

parkerhqj wrote: … animated sequences that have lots of moving parts. … Sometimes I need to work on the individual animations, sometimes I want to rearrange their order and sometimes I want to move the entire sequence. …

…never change a winning horse - but ever considered to switch to Motion?
Motion is meant for multi-layered compositions, and its many 'Behaviors' allow to animate even complex 'arrangements' with a few clicks; and without keyframing. What I like most: even projects with tons of tracks/elements are performed live, so I can adjust parameters (e.g. faster/slower, timing) while watching …

OK, a new app, new UI, new tricks to learn, but how you describe your project, perhaps, on the long run, the better tool to accomplish your needs.

I was afraid you were going to suggest that! I used Motion a few years ago when I needed more intensive graphics, etc. I haven't gone back to it because I didn't want to relearn it, but you're right - Motion makes more sense for this kind of work. I'll play around with it when I get the time (which will be ...?). Thanks.

I use compound clips a lot in most of my work. Most of the video2 I do are for online courses so there is a sameness to most of the completed videos. For instance I will compound clip a title sequence with transitions. If there are to be 30 videos that will use this title sequence then I parent each title CC so I can change just the name of the video. Also if I need to have an image and text box appear over the tape video then I will CC them so that the timing of them appear at the same time on the screen. I have not had any problems with CC since the update to the 10.2 version of FCPX.