Video sequencer problems

Support Animation and Rigging
1

Okay, after spending a few years on the BGE, I have decided to get to grips with animation, (with which I am a total noob.) As my first project, I am making a little plasma strand dance around on the edge of the sun before it explodes. I have had a few hair pulling moments and restarts, but, you know things are generally starting to come together.

So, I was trying to decide on whether to use the particle system or a halo material to generate a cloud of ejected star stuff and rendered out 150 frames in .png format, once using particles and once using halo material. This is where my problem starts…

I can get the images into the sequence editor and I actually managed to render both sequences into .avi jpeg format, however, while the video clip plays on the “VLC media player” with no problems, there is no image when I try to play the clips with either “windows media player” or “Irfan view”. Is this just bad/incompatible codecs and if so, how can I fix it?

Secondly, from looking at very old 2.49 tutorials, I am under the impression I should be able to get a preview of the frame or clip I am working with, but all I get is a black panel which occasionally becomes white as I click through the channels.

Has anybody any suggestions as to what is causing either problem?

Thanks in advance

Irvine

By the way, I am using Blender 2.66 on windows Xp

2

I can get the images into the sequence editor and I actually managed to render both sequences into .avi jpeg format,

So, do you have all the frames rendered out? Is there an image on it?

3

Well, yes and no.

There are images when I play the rendered .avi clips in the VLC player, but not when I try to play the same clips with either Irfan view or windows media player. And I cant get the sequencer preview panel to work with anything.

4

A quick update… Playing blindly with different formats and settings, I found that part of my problem seems to be the “AVI JPEG” format, which is only playable with the “VLC player” On the other hand, the “AVI Raw” format seems to be universally popular with “Quicktime”, “Irfan View”, “Windows media player” and the “VLC player”. So, if someone could please tell me how I can get the clips to show in Blenders “video sequencer” preview panel, I will be eternally grateful.