I’m pretty new to Blender, I’ve had it for awhile but barely used it. I needed to edit a short video yesterday and tried to use Blender but it’s a very steep learning curve and I didn’t have time to invest in figuring out how to use it, although I spend about 30 minutes using a tutorial.
I think Blender is fantastic for animation but from someone with experience how is it with video editing after you’ve learned how to use it?
Is there something else you’d rather use?
I’m wanting an editor where I can add effects into the clip and do color correcting, all that jazz.
If you could send me a link of a video you’ve edited with Blender, that’d be great!
I don´t know about the video editor but the compositor is worth learning. That´s where you can do all the color correcting and effects stuff. It´s quite powerful in regards to some things like openEXR support and less powerful in other regards such as realtime preview. But all in all I´d say it´s useful to a certain degree.
Personally I want to look into Natron when I have time to do so. Until then I use the Blender Compositor. I use After Effects when I need to do certain things which are annoying with Blender.
Blender’s video editor is quite robust. It can do almost all your standard editing tasks, and it continues to improve and adopt new features. It is true that there is a learning curve but what’s great is that the things you learn while editing are largely applicable to Blender at large (hotkeys, color settings, modifiers, etc). So you learn blender at the same time, and incorporate 3d effects into your editing workflow. The best tutorials I found were by Mikeycal Meyers, here:
I made this video recently of a motorcycle trip with my dad, completely with blender (except for the timelapses themselves which I used microsoft’s ‘hyperlapse’ software for). You can get a small taste of what blender can do. (Please forgive the resolution at times: as I was experimenting with my action cam during the trip).
It’s a sequencer, not a video editor with the same functionality as other actual video editors.
Blender Video Sequence Editor (VSE) lacks audio editing, big list of predefined transitions/effects, subtitles and text editing (rudimentary in 2.76), better and adjustable encoding flags.
What is good about it is that VSE integrates with the other functionality in Blender and would be worth checking if you were already using it. Blender 3D scenes, camera tracker, compositor, masking can be used, but there are ways to get data from those to external application.
There are multiple free alternatives on Linux. Kdenlive has a lot of functionality. Don’t know about other platforms.
Oh c’mon! Given at least some experience with other video editors one could learn blenders VSE in a day literally. So there is realy not a big deal to chose is it worth it or not. It’s fast and it’s supports most formats and codecs, that’s all the info you need. For more complex stuff go to adobe, for more easier - microsoft movie maker.
I prefer above others to edit mov files my canon creates, its more stable (doesnt hang computer).
There are not a lot of standard effects… but on the other hand, with you blender skills you can create unique effects and those are nicer.
what i sometimes miss a bit is a way of zooming in into audio strips, to sync videa and audio taken by different devices (stage setups).
Together with virtualdub i make my movies, its a strong duo.
The interface is a bit clunky but it does the job. Since it’s Blender, you can use the compositing nodes for fancy effects, though the video editor has a few basic ones too. All the parameters can be animated with the dopesheet so you should be covered on most tasks. It’s not the VSE itself that’s anything special, it’s how it ties in with all the other tools Blender has available.
personally, I really like blenders video sequencer. and you can always use compositing nodes to do whatever the sequencer won’t do. check my signature for a guide to easily make a custom sequence wipe ( transition ) or other effect using compositing nodes…pretty sure you can’t do hat in just any application.
(edit) and just a note about the sequencer…you can do the same effect using only the video sequencer…it’s a little more complicated, but the point is, it can do more than is obvious at the onset. I used it this way before we had nodes.
I don’t know about “free” ones. Quite some time ago, I started using Final Cut Pro on my Mac, and I have stayed wth it.
Blender’s video editor has advanced considerably, and it certainly can do everything that needs be done. I think that a lot has to do with “what you become accustomed to,” because in any project you are going to be doing a lot of video editing!
If you just need to edit one thing, you can use Adobe Premiere CC for 30 days for free with full functionality. Should be enough time to edit something short.
Also Davinci Resolve lite is free, but will perhaps require you to install a lot of Microsoft libraries for the visual drivers. And I have had bad experiences rendering out the edit from Resolve. Also, no keyboard shortcut for subclips.
After being disappointed with a couple of open source video editors (specifically, their lack of stability), I started using Blender for video-editing a few years ago. Nothing fancy, just home videos or screen-casts of my two boys playing video games. Audio-syncing is still challenging for me (ie. two channels from the screen-casts synced with a voice channel from each of my sons). A lot of that is due to my ghetto audio hardware (two old MP3 players).
If you have a decent understanding of Blender, especially key-framing, you have a lot of control in the VSE. I’d like to see the VSE get some love, but not at the expense of robustness.
Hi guys, I have a question especially @@howtoblend you uploaded two videos to youtube and it seems that they get capped at 1080p60.
Have you or anyone uploaded any videos to youtube and been able to get the video processed up to 2k or higher? My videos edited with blender gets stuck at 1080p and won’t process up to 2k but uploading the raw video recorded with ffmpeg gets processed to 2k. Here’s a SO question with two video samples.
it’s primarily sold as a color corrector but in the more recent versions has a competent classic multi-track NLE integrated. the free version has a very reasonable resolution limit and lacks a few other high end features but is surprisingly feature-complete. i appreciate that it does not require always-online or tries to phone home or pops up reminders to purchase the big versions. while you’re on blackmagic’s site you might want to grab fusion as well. decent compositor, free. like resolve it comes in versions for windows, linux and mac.
using the new age stuff a la imovie and final cut pro X just gives me tantrums. resolve is alright!
DaVince resolve is your best bet, although it’s free, it’s quite powerful but it does require a more powerful machine. Lightworks seemed exciting however in my experience it never gave good performance. As others have mentioned Blender’s VSE is a “Sequence Editor” which is good for assembling but not in depth editing.
I don’t know if even the compositor is very well for color correction etc stuff. That’s because for example there is no cache node, so you have to recompose everything all the time when you edit even little of some value.
Also controls for nodes like curves are not very user friendly. Yes you can work with it, but it is not the easiest or most intuitive way to work.
I suggest you to use some real video editor, like premiere or after effects, which I’ve found very good for my workflow.
But also the reality is that if nobody uses the compositor, it probably will not get better, so it is good if some skilled passionate professionals does everything in Blender, I really respect that.
As for me, I use Apple’s Final Cut Pro, but … “that’s just me.”
If “free” is your primary concern, then I’d suggest that Blender’s built-in video editor … “clunky” though it from time to time seems to be … “is pretty damned good.”
Having said that: “don’t(!) overlook the ‘free’ tools that might be supplied with your computer!” On my Mac, there’s a free tool called iMovie that is very much “Final Cut Pro [not-so] Lite,” andGarageband which today is “Logic Pro X [not-so] Lite.”
My best suggestion to you is simply this: "Pick something, learn how to use it well (yes, “as far as it goes”), and use it to focus on your primary objective: “Film making!” :evilgrin:
(After all, countless classic movies were edited, completed, and shipped to theaters using … plastic film, razor blades, and cello-tape.)
