I’ve created a complicated intro which fades into my video content for one video using the Blender VSE, and it’s been working great.
However, I’m now working on a second video (in a new blend file) and want to stick the same intro in front of it and then change it slightly. How do I import the strips from the first blend file?
Redoing the entire intro from scratch each time isn’t an option, and rendering out the video and importing won’t work either, as I customize it each time (and I don’t want to lose image quality from re-encoding either).
Well the idea is to append the scene from that other blend file you’ve got (File–>Append, navigate to the blend file location, point to the blend file, enter its data structure, go to Scene, and click on the name of the scene which has the effect you’re after).
Sounds a bit complicated though and it’s probably gonna be super slow. I mean, how much time and effort have you put into making that fade? If it’s too much and if I were you, then I’d simple rename the original blend file, open it, and replace the old video strips with the new ones.
You can definitely reuse whatever you’ve created. It is even possible to substitute the video source file in your original blend file without the need to delete or re-import the strips!
If I append the scene, I can include the scene in the sequence with ‘add scene’ and select the appended scene, but that includes it as a green strip which I can’t edit. I can also browse the strips from the outliner, sequence section, but I don’t see a way to directly include it in the VSE for the first scene.
I’ve resorted to what you suggested, copy the whole blend file and importing the video content there. It’s a hassle, but seems the fastest of the options. I would have liked to be easily able to make standard complex video components and slot those in on top of a new video.
Good point @blendercomp, that is infact how we make templates at work for many of our broadcast projects (not in Blender). Sadly if you want to copy/paste from elsewhere in scene or intra scene then the keyframes for a strip may disappear too.
So your way seems the best solution, unless you need a bumper that will re-used often then a meta strip would be neccasary.
Sadly if you want to copy/paste from elsewhere in scene or intra scene then the keyframes for a strip may disappear too.
Haven’t tried it out yet in this context but with the new copy & paste node function between different blend files, it should be possible in theory to create any VFX setup involving the VSE2Compositor addon, save it as a generic template and copy n paste the node structure to a new file, substituting only the video sources. It might be interesting to pursue this to see how far one can take it in creating reusable templates for VFX/motion graphics/whatever.
The latest version of the script allows you to select a prefered node group upon send but they have to be present in the .blend you have open. Either from append or in the startup file?
Uh, believe it or not I hadn’t really noticed that! :0
But that’s not what I meant. Regardless of the addon, it’s now (and has been for a while) possible to copy the nodes from an blend file and paste them on another, literally speaking. So no need to append nodes and node groups anymore, simple copy n paste!
So I was thinking that if we could combine c&p functionality with this incredible addon many new possibilities emerge for making re-usable templates. But I haven’t had the time to try it out myself and see how far it can go.
I asked around recently about the possibility of an addon that could record/capture the contents of your Node screen and recreate it from a script. That avoids appending from elsewhere and makes it a bit more distributable I guess. But I never considered C&P from other iterations of Blender. Will it C&P a group node? I suppose the draw back is the lack of keyframes when you do this?
Uh, I just tested it between blend files and it gave me an “empty clipboard” error! :0
Copy & paste does work among scenes within the same blender file.
The funny thing is that I even remember a videotutorial about this new feature!!!
Maybe I just made it up!
Will continue searching and get back…
Doesn’t it demonstrate beyond reasonable doubt how to copy n paste nodes between different blend files?!
I remember it was very big news back then.
I only wonder why it didn’t work when I tested it though. Could be because I hadn’t grouped nodes or sth will check it out again.
Well that is between .blend files as you suggest, at least between first and default. And not between instances of Blender, it would have been cool to have a cook book open in another Blender instance to choose from visually. Haven’t tried yet…
Ok, now suppose you have many sequences set up in different files (for differents parts of a film) and now we need to put them together. Is that possible?
Like, combining each sequence on each file into a metastrip and then import all into a new file?
EDIT: Ah, ok! Now I got it!
File > Append > file > Scene
Change active Scene on Blender
Enter VSE, group all sequence in metastrip (optional) and just Ctrl+C
Change active Scene back
Enter VSE and Ctrl+V (and delete the imported scene, if want to)
