-
Deathly Spinning Beachballs and Compound Clips
I just wanted to share my experience this weekend in case it helps anyone. I had a timeline with one video clip on it, and then added 12 graphics (just little png images) stacked on top of that, building until all were onscreen. These were relatively small graphics and the machine handled all this nicely … This on a 2008 MacBook Pro.
Each of the graphics started at maybe 1/8th screen size then shrank down and ended up on two rows. Everything when fine, I added a title over all this, then added short dissolves at the end of each graphic, and then everything slowed to a crawl, and the dreaded spinning beachball of death came to visit and stayed. The project became unfunctional, FCPX unable to cope, and nothing I could do except repeated force quits worked.
Ultimately I just recreated the project, since I only had an hour of work in it, and duplicated it regularly so I could go back when I hit the beachball again. Everything went fine until I got to the point of adding dissolves to the graphics … got 8 or 9 added, each one turning the graphic into a single compound clip. At that point the beachball appeared and things were totally stuck again.
So I reverted to the duplicate project I had saved just before, and this time, since all the graphics dissolve out at the same point, combined them all into 1 compound clip with one dissolve on it, and that worked perfectly.
I don’t know if it was the number of compound clips or the fact they all dissolved out at the exact same time, but something to avoid. Hope this helps someone.
Best,
John -
7 Replies
-
I’ve had the same experience with stacked dissolves.
I now avoid them like the plague.
I suspect maybe X tries to calculate each dissolve, add a clip, and calculate that – add another clip and calculate that – or something similar.
“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor
-
Bill, if you substitute the dissolves with keyframed opacity changes, does the same thing occur?
Michael Garber
5th Wall – a post production company -
[Michael Garber] “Bill, if you substitute the dissolves with keyframed opacity changes, does the same thing occur?”
Don’t know Michael.
Typically this kind of thing happens at the end of a program when I’m working on stuff like maybe a multiple sponsor logo stacks for a charity race – something where clean design has to give way to screen time for those spending the money – and at that point, I always just want to “solve the darn problem” and get the job done.
So I typically don’t try it five ways to see what works best. I just grab the first solution I figure out and move on.
I’m interested in the compound clip, idea, tho and will test that out the next time I run into this. If that’s all it takes to go from intolerable renders to reasonable ones, then it’s a workflow change I could very easily live with!
“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor
-
As long as the dissolves all start on the same frame, then yeah, that’s probably the best. In any case, curious to hear how it works out for you on the next job.
Michael Garber
5th Wall – a post production company -
If I have time tomorrow I’ll try to copy the project, uncompound the 12 clips, and try first the transparency and then staggering the dissolves instead of stacking them. I was thinking of doing the transparency before realizing compounding them was the quickest and easiest solution in this case.
Best,
John -
Thanks, John.
This will be very helpful knowledge for many of us.
“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor
-
Day got busy, but I finally had a chance to experiment. I made dissolves on all 12 pngs with the opacity control and it worked perfectly, with very smooth playback and no beachball at all.
That’s all I tried, since it worked so well. So, again, based on what I’ve read here, too, compound clips seems to have some issues.
It would be nice to have a way to go back just a few steps when FCPX starts beachballing.
Best,
John
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up