> Is it normal for Boris 3D titles to be so sluggish when moving around in the canvas?<
Well, just a take a look at how long it takes to render the boris 3D movie if you did it separately from the timeline. Yes, 3D is very processor intensive and FCP may or may not be able to pump the 3D calls through OpenGL on the graphics card. I doubt it.
> I've got a couple of titles over a few layers of video with various filters and motion. <
And how do those look if you disable the Boris clip? Rendering is iterative and progressive. Each layer is fully calculated before the next one above it is processed. If you have lots of intensive effects, the time required to process it grows non-linearly, increasing with each level of complexity.
So you learn to anticipate what certain effects will look like and you disable some filters until the last tests are made. You learn to pre-render some clips and import them as self-contained movies so they are no longer processed. You learn to carefully choose where some effects are inserted. For instance, the drop shadow in LiveType is incredibly slow but the shadow in FCP is relatively fast. Don't apply shadows in LT unless you require the levels of control you have there and don't activate the shadow in FCP until you're ready for a full render run.
bogiesan