Video Sequence Editor - News & Add-ons

It works in 4.1.

1 Like

I am talking about the video preview window, not the timeline. I am using 4.2 I will take a look at it.

Yeah, i mean the video preview as well. I just tried in 4.2 and it works.

image

Just open the toolbar, or use the menu.

Are you using the Tweak tool?

1 Like

VSE News: Aras P has made a PR for adding outline and other goodies to text strips: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/pulls/121478

1 Like

Do we have this natively? say what?!

I don’t know what post you’re referring to. The surround UI never made it through. I might have it as an add-on. I can’t remember.
Snu included a VU-Meter in VSEQF. There is no noise reduction implemented, but an EQ. The hope was that more audio modifiers could be included, but the road was so bumpy for the contributor, so he gave up.

The Audacity round-trip add-on should still be working, if you set it up with an Audacity fork from before they implemented telemetry in it.

1 Like

It does not work, I can’t grab anything to tweak at all

Edit: it looks like it does not work in the “Sequencer & Preview” mode.

image

1 Like

They wanted to remove Sequencer & Preview because of this: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/issues/92584
But several people from the community disagreed, so now they just cripple it by not applying “new” features like toolbar and channel headers to it, without any good reason.

2 Likes

Thanks for the info, that makes sense. I did not think that there would have been a divergence, I am glad I tested with the preview only mode.

There is a stack exchange for Blender related questions. That’s a good place to get and give support.

1 Like

Does anyone know if we will get the Nvidia NVENC codec or other GPU accelerated codecs in Blender?

NVENC is fast but CPU codecs have much much better quality. it’s very noticeable.

i would like to see HEVC support though.

1 Like

Yeah the speed is my issue, long sequencer projects take a long time to render.

Is there n add-on that would let me move a strip with its animation keys? I can move the strips fine but the keys always stay where they are so I need to manually all the keys manually after moving the strips. That really slows done editing.

2 Likes

Some so called low-hanging-fruits:

UI:

  • The Preview is missing a proper right-click menu.
  • The VSE right click menu could need a clean-up.
  • In Preview, it’s strange to add transform values via the Strip menu, and you remove them via the Image menu.
  • Fix the EQ UI.
  • As it is not very intuitive to do file operations like import/export/rendering from a View menu, a Sequence menu could be introduced to expose these functions, and it could also hold functions for the Sequence in general like Refresh, Prefetch and Proxy settings or there should be a dedicated Sequence tab in the Sidebar.
  • Add one File Browser for Import of all file types and one File Browser for all export options (with the render settings exposed/mirrored in the sidebar).
  • Expose(as an option) Res, FPS in the statusbar (so Properties do not need to be a part of the Video Editing workspace Tab (The workspace also comes with a Rendering tab))
    There are operators in the Menu missing the Wait-for-input functionality (check bug-reports).
  • The modifiers do not have drag and drop rearranging yet.
  • Rework Frame Overlay UI, so users will understand that it is for comparison viewing (which now servers a purpose after the scope speed-ups).
  • Expose Metadata for all files in the Preview Metadata sidebar.
  • Add a Sample mouse cursor for the Sample tool in the Preview.
  • Consider if short-cut from the Sequencer could also work in the Preview context. Ex. Focus the preview with ctrl+space and play, adding markers or adding splits could be useful for marking up while looking trough footage.
  • Expose the import options in the embedded Video Editing File Browser.

Proxy:

  • Clean out all the not-working/non-used ways to attempt to optimize playback.
  • As default setting, save proxy files in date-named folders in: AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\4.2\datafiles\ So, a function to clean up all proxies stored here, can be implemented with ease. Imo, rn it’s a mess with proxy-files stored all over.

Shortcuts & Editing operators:

  • On industry standard keys and simple to implement editing operators: https://docs.google.com/document/u/1/d/e/2PACX-1vTNx-Ed8XN7UCmKGoWFk_PbEep9YOTArnuyqtk1fHukf2H3-_U4TGm4IXPANGDp22lxBv0dt5_s2Xwi/pub
  • Set Preview Range to Strips (NLA already got a short-cut for this)
  • Set Range to Strips (missing a shortcut – I’m using this all the time)
  • Make build Move/Extend from Current Frame out of the current operators (maybe as Macro?), so it’ll support functions like Snapping, and weed out all the weird stuff going on with it.
  • The Expand mode is missing a lot of Insert™ functionality.
  • Expand the Preview During Transform to kick in in many more edit modes, ex. the Blade tool is very difficult to use without a preview, or when Slipping/Sliding strips it could also be useful.
  • Add option to import multiple images as multiple image strips(rn the become an image sequence despite different naming schemes and resolutions) needed for ex. importing multiple images for slideshows with a duration of ex 100 frames.
  • Fix Add Transition to strips in the same channel: https://archive.blender.org/developer/differential/0010/0010207/index.html

Text Strip:

  • Add a new template to the String widget which allows line-break entry (for the Text strips) – rn is it using Search-template bc it updates for each character.
  • Add Text-block selector to Text strips.
  • Make the max number of characters for Text strips higher than 512 characters.
4 Likes

Some notes on colorgrading UX:
On Color Grading UI/UX: With all the work of Aras, it is now possible to do decent color grading (10/12 bit + fast scopes), maybe it is time to consider the color grading UX?
As it is right now, does users need to change Display Mode in the Preview header to view a scope, so opening all scopes, the user will have to open one Preview for each scope type(4 in total, and 8, if scopes are needed for a Reference Preview too). Maybe exposing all scopes in the sidebar under a scopes tab like the Image editor would make them more accessible (and in consistency with Image editor)?
However, with the sidebar now locked to the right side (previously you could flip it the left side), you’ll have previews separated by the sidebar. How to deal with that? An additional Preview just showing the scopes on the left side of a reference Preview? Or combined with split screen using Frame Overlay?
Also, the Frame Overlay in the Preview sidebar function for doing Comparison View could need an improved UI, as it is, my guess is that no users knows what it is even good for with that naming, though when color grading is a very useful tool.
Previously, I’ve tried to make it more industry standard: https://archive.blender.org/developer/D10503, but it could be improved even more. Looking at it now, is the dashed reference frame indicator invisible in the timeline over strips, as it has the same saturation level as the strips do have now. Also, it seems strange that the Frame Overlay On/Off and the Overlay Region are global settings and not local for each Preview.
Anyway, trying to explore the VSE for color grading workflow will properly give more ideas for UX improvements and maybe even lead the path for a Color Grading workspace tab in the Video Editing template?

4 Likes

Have you seen this addon https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEbRjN1Hwmo&t=1s

Potentially a game changer for the VSE if polished.

3 Likes

So cool! Thanks for sharing. I’ll see to try it when I can.

1 Like

Its great, because now i can colorgrade with the advanced addons I already had in the compositor.

1 Like