The options in pre 2.5 blender seemed to work but now I can’t seem to render to Quicktime anymore (even though options are there). It creates a .mov file but every frame is black.
I’m running Blender 2.57 RC on Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit and have QT Pro 7.0 installed. Lapttop is an i7 with 8Gb RAM and an Nvidia GT360M Graphics Card with the latest Nvidia driver.
So assuming QT is a bad option now, how does one render audio and video into a final file?
Cheers
David
I have never had success in rendering audio and video into a movie file on Windows. I always render to a frame sequence then add the audio in after effects. If you do searches on this forum you will find long winded posts about this. If you do not have after effects you can always pull down VirtualDUB. It will mux your audio and frame sequence together into whatever codec you happen to have installed on your system.
try this build:
works for me.
Hi Nico, but what actual settings (coombinations) do you use? Theres AVI, Ogg, H.264 then Qt under that etc, etc, etc… By the way that was a 32bit build. Is the 64bit build the issue?
Edit: Tried both 64 and 32 bit versions of the buidl you recommended using H.264 or Mpeg then QT and H.264 sub options both still produce Black Video output! No errors are generated in the Command window.
Atom, the problem with not being able to render Audio with Video is the inability to properly test Lip Sync. (Maybe this is why there is so mcuh crappy lip sync out there…)
Cheers
David
choose quicktime and click “change codec” for specific codec-settings. yes, QT only on 32bit builds.
After reviewing a few tutorials, I note that Quicktime is not an option in the Output options only a sub option for MPEG and H.264. Is this the problem? If others have QT as a primary option then why doesn’t my versions of blender?
Edit: OK - posted at the same time. Yes its there on the 32 bit version. Will it ever be available on the 64 bit version? If not, what is the best option for 64bit muxed Audio and Video output.
Cheers
David
You will actually be better off rendering out to image sequences in the long run anyway. The reason for this, is that you will lose some fidelity in the video through compression for the codec. This has been the case for a long time, and I myself was reluctant to do it, until I saw a drastic improvement in output quality, especially when using uncompressed formats like .tiff. Plus if you are rendering out a long sequence and you crash, you know where to pick up from and your animations is constantly saved along the way. Adding audio later and converting your image sequences into a movie format is a quick process and maintains a good deal of detail.
You can render to an image sequence as recommended (PNG format is economical for file size, and lossless), and then bring that into the VSE to mux with your (fully mixed) soundtrack. I haven’t tried yet in 2.57, but in 2.56beta I’ve used the MPEG output option with QT as the container and H.264 for a video codec, mp3 for audio compression. This resulted in a fairly large file because for some reason H.264 with QT only allows highest quality, but its not huge.
There are lots of other options via MPEG, like .avi & Xvid, but I find that VirtualDub does a better job for that format/codec choice, mainly because there are more options. If you want to do .avi with H.264, you can output from V-Dub as raw video (huge files!!) and then covert to H.264 with Handbrake (I’m not sure about V-Dub doing H.264 itself), or try one of the .avi/H.264 output options in Blender, via MPEG.
The 32bit/64bit limitation still applies to QT, though.
Thanks all. At the moment I’m only interested in quick options what work for tests and wips. I am aware that for the final I will be rendering to individual files and mixing audio elsewhere (Protools in my case since it came free with my audio hardware). But in the end one still has to join the audio to the video. The QT option is fine for 32bit but what options actually work for 64bit? (I’d rather not endlessly try every possible combination to see what actually works…)
Cheers
David
In 2.49b & earlier I used FFMPEG (same as MPEG in 2.5x) with the Xvid codec to do all my sync trials for Kata. I’d render an image sequence as Open GL (not full render, just what’s in the UI), bring it into the VSE where the music track was already placed, then play around with the trial animations until I settled on timing & editing. Output was to .avi container using the Xvid video codec and .mp3 audio codec. I used Virtual Dub for the player of the trial sequences – it’s a great utility to have if your platform supports it.
Editing picture to a sound track in the VSE was extremely helpful, let me play with many options and see the test results relatively fast, all in Blender other than the playback. Real-time playback with sync wasn’t and isn’t totally feasible yet, but the VSE rendered out the tests quick enough to suit.
I think this is a good workflow when you have physics sims as well – both cloth & hair for Kata. By getting the animation nailed in tests before baking any sims, it saved a lot of time overhead, I rarely had ot re-do any of the sim work, which was very good because the cloth required a great deal of hand-correction of collision errors.
Once the full renders are done & cut into the VSE, with all transitions in place, you can then output a final-edit image sequence for use in final muxing with whatever process you deem best.
Apart from advice to avoid Blender (I have no accesible options), I find that my muxing render often fails after several frames. Has anyone else noticed this strange behaviour. I have increased VSE memory and checked frame rates of source footage etc. Strangley the sequence used to render out with sound (DVD preset) but now refuses to render (initializing audio error).
I worked soooo long trying to get the edit right only to be shot in the foota at the end render stage… why can’t Blender just have a render button that works? Does muxing rally have to be so hard? Even one, just one bullet proof intermediate output codec (muxed) that I can transcode as required would be great.
i think i’ve only ever used Blender and Final Cut for rendering video and a final audio mix to a video file, but not being a student any more and having no money to buy Final Cut or After Effects, i got to looking at Linux-based OSS that could do something similar… i’ve been looking at Cinelerra, Kdenlive, etc. - i downloaded them but have hardly even played with them yet. can anyone say whether these’ll serve this purpose well? do codecs tend to be an issue the way they can be with Blender?
if so, maybe think about dual-booting a Linux OS, or running it on a VirtualBox?
Edit: saw that you said you’re looking for a simple solution for wip and test renders. i should learn to read better. 
so my suggestion may be too much work for something that simple. but it sounded like you’re looking for a muxing solution for a finished project anyway?..