Does anybody know whether the latest version for Blender can produce an AVI file which includes the WAV sound used in the sequence editor? (I tried a search but could not find an answer to this)
If it can, how does one go about it? Do you need to enable it somewhere?
At the moment I am still using VirtualDub to combine the Blender-generated AVI with the WAV, but then I inevitably end up with a MUCH larger file.
no, but you can load an audio file and hear it while you are scrubbing your video, to ensure they are in sync. see http://mediawiki.blender.org/index.php/Manual/Audio_Sequences
I use VirtualDub as well.
yes, a video with audio is going to be larger than a video. know its mostly for game engine, to spit out bang bang.
I believe the FFMPEG update will allow this. I’m looking forward to it myself!
I’m not sure whether I understand you RogerWickes. I read the link earlier, but in there it says that “You can mix Video and Audio later on with an external program”. That is what I am trying to avoid. I already have a separate WAV file.
I am having trouble with VirtualDub: it does not want to open the Blender-rendered jpeg AVI, so I can’t even get to the point of adding the WAV file to it.
Ammusionist, I thought the FFMPEG update for the Windows version was going to be in ver 2.43, but it isn’t (I’m using RC2 - unless I’m looking in the wrong place).
The question therefore remains: can it be done yet?
ok, i just tested virtualdub 1.7.0 with a avi-jpeg and it works fine; AnyMation, make sure you have released the input and output video and audio file from the blender player as well as any player you are using to view the final product, like divx or media player (xp).
In Blender, you can load an audio track into the VSE, click the little speaker on the timeline window header bar (next to the VCR buttons), and you will hear the audio when you scrub (play) the video. How to do this is in the link i gave above.
And if you regenerate the video in blender, you have to release it from virtual dub first or blender cant overwrite.
Thanks RogerWickes. I’ve done quite few VirtualDub mixes in the past - and never picked up the problem that I am having now. I’m using VD ver 1.6.17 -> I’ll try 1.17 now…
I have a suspicion that it may be the codecs in VirtualDub. Do I need to download codecs separately elsewhere or do I automatically get the latest ones that VD supports when I download VD?
I’m now also downloading the latest version of VLC because the video plays fine in Windows Media Player…
BTW, just to confirm: Blender therefore cannot yet include the audio file in the rendered output file - correct?
for 2.43 rc2 and before, correct.When mastering, audio is always added at the very last anyway, even as a separate file to the DVD burn, because you have an english stereo mix, an english 5.1 surround sound mix, a french stereo badly done overdub, boring director’s commentary, etc etc all as sound tracks.
I understand that for the casual user it is a pain to use an external program like virtual dub or windoze movie maker or apple’s iMovieHD, but they already exist and work well and like why spend the effort to reinvent the wheel and incorporate that functionality into Blender; we have a hard-enough time keeping up with just the image standards; FFMPEG is being worked on as we speak, so there’s YAST-WHAF (Yet Another STtandard We HAve to Follow)
Dealing with codecs sucks. I hate to be that explicit, but…yeah. search this site (all forums) for CODEC for help; it varies widely. AVI-JPEG has been around like forever so I doubt you need a new codec. Virtual Dub does not have any Codecs “in” it, it uses the ones on your system. However, that being said, when a video is played, the player queries each codec in your OS to ask “can you play this” and some bad codecs always say “yes” even though they can’t (see the VirtualDub site for this writeup) so you can in VirtualDub exclude bad codecs and find the one that is screwing you up (probably locking up or crashing the player) so you can avoid and/or remove it.
you can use linux and blender with ffmpeg integration, preferably compile your own, if you think it is too complex download one at graphicall.org or look for blender builds on google.
Hi,
final release of Blender 2.43 should support also music output thanks to FFMPEG support. Not only for Linux (this is possible from version 2.42) but also for Windows.
If you do not want to wait for final 2.43 release try this build on www.graphicall.org:
With this version of Blender you will be able to work with sound (even MP3) as well as conncet it to you renders directly in Blender. I have already tried it on Windows and it works great!!!
The pannel in matter is in Scene (F10) - Render buttons - Format, press FFMpeg and then you have very broad choice of your output setting concerning video and audio formats.
RogerWickes: I understand, but - once you’ve rendered your animation - it is very simple to just add the rendered version and the sound (whatever language) in the sequence editor and play it out as a brand new combined video+sound file. I agree that the “fancy” surround sound, stereo, 5.1 stuff etc. is probably outside Blender’s scope.
Also, thanks for the codec info.
greboide: I want to go over to Linux at some stage but I just have not had the time and I cannot take a productivity dip now to get my teeth into Linux.
JiriH: What you say is what I also read somewhere and understood to be the case. I am just slightly surprised that FFMPEG is not in RC2, which I am using.
The one thing I still need to understand about all these “other builds” is: which of them are “mainstream”, i.e. will definitely end up in an official Blender release and which of them won’t. I would prefer not using a build that contains functionality that I use but will not be supported in a next build…
I think the whole open source thing is like survival of the fittest. Some folks experiment, creating their own builds; if it adds value and gets traction, it finds its way to the top. Sort of like an athiest’s view of evolution; it just happens naturally without central planning or governance. If a programmer does something neat but does not want to test or work out the bugs, then either another programmer may pick up the idea and run with it, or it gets trampled under the feet of time.
Now you’ve got me mixed up: I thought open source meant two things (amongst others):
For windows with FFMpeg JMS’s build has had FFMPEG for the last few months … and presumably will continue.
As for a “mainstream” build, any of the builds (including JM’s) which is build from CVS (he updates his every other day or so), and doesn’t include extra patches or omitted features is probably going to be closet to the next official release.
That said, you can easily have multiple vresions of Blender on your machine. For most of the “custom builds”, it’s just a matter of dropping the executable from that build (which is usually the only thing in the build … i.e. no extra dll’s … scripts etc) into your current release directory after (of course) renaming the executable.
E.g. for awhile I had separate “sculpt mode” ,and “composite node” builds, until both those features were integrated into CVS and eventually to the production release.
You can keep up with what’s happening by reading the daily commit logs here:
http://projects.blender.org/pipermail/bf-blender-cvs/
The only caution you might want to exercise is to have seperate DATA direcories, where you keep the “official” and experimental versions of your files. Personally I don’t bother doing that, as in the past year or so that I’ve been using CVS there has only been one build that had a problem with corrupting files, specifically only armatures, and it was fixed immedialtely within hours of the bug being discovered.
Mike
ffmpeg does actually allow you to render audio with the image, i just need to find the right audio codec to use when making qt videos
Thanks a lot for the detail feedback, Mike_S