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Sequencer Requests Wiki Cleanup

Proposal:

  • Boil down features such that a brief summary is presented with a clickable sub-wiki link. This would facilitate scanning as well as making further explanations / discussions easier as they would reside in a separate wiki link on their relevant 'Discussion' page. Example format:
Title Brief Two To Six Word Title
Summary A single sentence that summarizes your feature request.
Link AStandardWikiLink
Status Where relevant, developer comments and / or status updates. Remove this row from the table when no comments are offered yet.
  • Execute the "edited mercilessly" from the warning below the wiki input box. This would include removing obsolete and old information to the attic that Peter has already established. In particular - remove the "Done in SVN" section as this is more or less on the features list. Remove old posts from 2k6 and 2k7 with advice from Peter on what has been implemented etc.
  • Remove the commentary / comparison portions in accordance with the above goal of making this page easier to scan at a glance. These should, assuming author interest, be distilled into the above format as a concise feature request.

TODO

Alphabetize and finish the table section. Sort into Approved, Declined, and New.

New Sequencer Requests


Title Import Multiple Files
Summary The ability to select and import more than a single source file.
Link NoLinkYet


Title More 'N' Key Information
Summary More info in the "N" key panel source/format, replace, framerate, duration, lock, set start, startofs, endofs, startstill, endstill.
Link NoLinkYet


Title Adapation of Aspect Ratios
Summary Strips should be able to adapt to different screen formats such as 16:9 and 4:3 with relevant letterboxing / padding.
Link NoLinkYet


Title Replace imbuf-Scaler
Summary The imbuf-Scaler is very slow. It should be replaced with ppmqscale-code.
Link NoLinkYet


Title Input Geometry on Status Bar
Summary Strips should show their input geometry on the status bar.
Link NoLinkYet

Approved Sequencer Requests


Title Diet ffmpeg Library
Summary ffmpeg should only include sensible codecs, not frivolous ones such as QuakeII.
Link NoLinkYet


Title Add Quicktime Support to Audio(HD) Input
Summary Add Quicktime support to Audio(HD) track input.
Link NoLinkYet


Title Add ffmpeg-output to Audio(RAM)-Tracks Input
Summary Add ffmpeg-output input to Audio(RAM)-Tracks thereby merging audio input drivers.
Link NoLinkYet


Title Unify Blender's Soundsystem
Summary Repair a bad mixture of SDL / OpenAL by choosing a single library and doing things properly.
Link NoLinkYet


Title Add Theora Video and Vorbis Audio Support
Summary Add FFMPEG-output to theora video and vorbis audio in ogg and ogm container formats.
Link NoLinkYet


Miscellaneous Commentary

  • It is at present very confusing to see, which strip is currently the output strip. In case you don't know: If there is an effect strip present, we take the upper most visible non-audio strip. If there is no effect strip present, we use the lowest strip. This is really confusing. intrr suggested just making every movie or metastrip, that is not input of an effect strip implicitly alpha-over. The strip-IPO is the global ALPHA-value. Additionally one must add the ability to mute a video strip, so that it can be used as a storyboard-strip explicitly. The whole idea of this is, that the sequence editor works more intuitively like the gimp (or even consistent with it's own audio strips!), which also layers all available strips on top of each other. Most people most likely won't notice, since they use at least one effect strip anyways, which will render the same result. If you have speed concerns: I have already a way, that makes this run as fast as the current sequencer. (Peter)
What does this mean? How do we get it into a feature format? Sobotka 05:47, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Approved

Usability

Scratchboard

Input / Output

  • Audio-Output: Add a basic audio mixing console, that has bare necessities for audio mixdown. Basically include the postfish [1] source into Blender. It seems rather ridiculous right now, that we can do HD-video editing, but do all our sound mixing in 16bit stereo... (Peter)
  • Grab DV and render to DV devices (and AV/C). (Always out of space...) (anders_gud)
Don't think, that belongs into Blender. Always wondered, why the heck I should fire up a video editor for capture, when there are nice commandline utilities (dvconnect) e.g. Nevertheless: I don't mind, if someone comes up with some python-GUI for those utilities...] (Peter)
Some editors (myself included) prefer to watch the entire DV tape in fast forward, marking the clips that are wanted. Then have the computer go back and capture the clips while we do something else. This way only the needed clips are captured. Plus then if this capture data is saved, the entire sequence could be reconstructed from just the project data. The computer could prompt the user for each dv tape during the restore process. (tbcpp)

Effects

  • "Bake" effect strip, to cache rendered results to file. Very usefull for complicated effect filter pipelines when the sequencer can't do in realtime anymore. (Peter)
I would think you can just render out the sequence to a file set as an intermediate tmp dir, and then read that back in as strip (Roger)
May work sometimes, sometimes it is too clumsy. Basically same reason why people think of a baking node inside the compositor. (Peter)
  • Audio effect strips: I don't want to copy ardour, but basic filters like compand / equalizer / declip should be there. Just include the postfish filters [2]. (Peter)
imho, you're talking a whole new app for that. (Roger)
That's why I said _basic_ filters, don't want to build whole new audio workstation, just want to have serious mixdown abilities. (Peter)
  • Compatibility with nodes - to make the nodes useful in sequencer(to make the effects in sequencer almost limitless), there could be made an sequencer intput and output node. A chain with these nodes could be than grouped and applied as an effect strip on a movie strip, or, if instead of sequencer movie an image input node was used, import a node-tree as a ready-for sequencer strip. Advantage- sharing of the code for nodes and plugins, which in fact are often supposed to do the same job. Other way to do that is make a way to use single nodes as effects?(pildanovak)
  • would be nice to have eg. transform, speed and other effects (when possible) also work with the alpha, so we can still use alpha-over modes without having to add an alpha over effect.

Usability

I am not sure if this is the correct place to post this, so please move it if it is not.

I would like to see a player in one of the windows for the video you are working on. Similar to microsofts editor. It seems very simple to use.

In one window you have the video, in another the player and in the bottom you have the tracks. Choosing to edit sound or video. In the player you may play the video and stop and cut it. In the video window the cutting shows as an added video, one up to the point of cutting, and one after that point.

They show as just a graphic of the first frame in that section.

The player controls the frames, where you are, how fast you zoom through, etc. So you cut to your hearts content, then grab a cut and drag it into the first 'box' of the video track.

You can insert other options, blending text etc between the boxes. Ok so it progresses in that order, then you do the same with the sound. Having the first frame show in each 'cut' graphic helps you know where you are.

You can make as many cuts as needed, even single frames.


This is really easy to use as a UI. Everything is so obvious. Just an idea. I think it would be great in blender.



  • I imported a long file and did a lot of cutting and sliding to get just the strips I wanted, all butted up against each other. Then I wanted to Alpha something over those clips, but the thing I was alpha-ing under overlapped several of the movie clips, so I had to do alpha unders from the overlay to each of the sub clips. So really if I have something in channel 4 and many clips in 5 and I do an alpha under from 4 to 5, then it should not matter which clip in 5 the thing in 4 is over timewise. Does this make any sense? OR be able to make a meta strip out of a bunch of clips that are just butted up against each other. (guitargeek)
Solution: Node Image input strip selectors make it easy to do this. See wiki on splicing. (Roger).
Hmm. If I understood him correctly, a metastrip should have easily done the trick. Or am I on the wrong track? (Peter)
  • Asset area in some way. I'd suggest simply making Sequence strips library objects. Then you can add them directly on the timeline and at the same time in an asset area. That makes it also possible to reuse finally edited metastrips on the timeline with reference counting. Still open for discussion. (Peter)
Agreed. (Roger)
  • Preview of movie frames directly on the timeline. Is done in most other video editors, but I personally do not see any sense in this behaviour (besides wasting CPU-time). What do you think? (Peter)
  • Preview of wave audio on the timeline for Audio (HD). Should be optional. On long timelines it is just crazy. Should always be done with seperate cache files. (Peter)
  • Some people suggested IPO-editing directly on the timeline for crossfading etc. Don't see any sense here. IPOs are nice. What do you think? (Peter)
Using the IPO window is all well and good, but when you are working with multiple tracks all fading in and out, it is nice to be able to see all the fades within the context of one another. An example of it put to use is a scene with two layers. One of still images and one of video with the video fading in and out to cut between the stills. It would be nice to see where the fades are on the strip itself to better place the stills than to have to take note of the frame numbers of the start and stop for each fade in a seperate IPO window. Maybe don't have IPO editing directly on the strip itself, but at least let us see the fade.(directedition)
You may be surprised: that is already possible in Blender 2.42... Just open more than one IPO-window and make the several IPO-windows sticky to the strips you are interested in. (Peter)
  • Further to the comments above, it may also be an option to overlaying multiple IPOs in the IPO window to represent the different, selected audio tracks. envisage this would look much the same as overlaying X, Y and Z IPOs during Object Animation.(Ammusionist)
This will basically break the logic of the interface. The IPOs are connected to strips. Why should I control the volume of strip A with the IPOs of strip B? (Leaving away IPO-drivers for a moment ;-) (Peter)
  • (Optional) audio output pegel meters in the preview window, that show a) volume pegels, b) power spectrum, c) precise direction of sound. (Peter)
  • "Lockgroup"-Button: Move these sequencer strips only together in a group. (Peter)
isn't that what meta-strips are for? (intrr)
it is sometimes too clumsy to meta, when you only wanted to make your movie strip in sync with it's corresponding audio track (Peter)
  • An option to view/playback/trim the selected strip in a "active strip" channel in the Image Preview without changing the current frame. (anders_gud)
  • The jumping timeline is still a problem for me (I like having the IPO, Sequencer and Timeline with "locked time" on.) Selecting an effect or audio with unset IPO makes the Sequencer window jump back to the default -5 to 105 frames. (anders_gud)
  • Compositor/Nodes support (feed seq through to render). (anders_gud, brecht, peter, sadly not Ton ;-)
Solution: render to tmp file sequence, use Image input node. (Roger)
NO, that is _not_ a solution! Please read the patch-tracker entry of Brecht here https://projects.blender.org/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=4920&group_id=9&atid=127 (Peter)
again: not sure, if this should be integral part of Blender.(Peter)
  • Image Preview that scales by factors other than two. (directedition)
  • Ability to zoom out further. (directedition)
Solution: Move the camera back and increase your distance cutoff limits (Roger)
He wants to zoom out the _timeline_ further, I assume. This is usefull and has nothing to do with the 3D-editor... (Peter)
  • Realtime playback of video and audio of strips that don't have any kind of special effect. (directedition)
Solution: Image input node; select vid file/set, set start and end frames under ANIM, thread to composit, press play. (Roger)
I really don't understand both of you. The sequencer does already realtime playback - at least for me. So what is the point? Or are we mixing this up with the (to come) asset management which should be able to play a selective strip from the asset area? (Peter)
Peter for asset management - it would be good if svn or cvs backends could be used/allowed. Maybe not too useful for small projects but is very useful for large scale projects. See this page for some links

http://mediawiki.blender.org/index.php/Competitive_Analysis/Digital_Asset_Management LetterRip 12:29, 5 December 2006 (CET)

I certainly don't get realtime playback with alt+A, and I have a Pentium Conroe and 1GB of ram. An audio certainly don't play. (directedition)
I've noticed this too (slow playback), I'll try it this weekend to make sure. This may be an issue with ffmpeg. I've heard it's dv playback performance is terrible. I'll research. (tbcpp)
  • Floating point precision fps. (Otomo) (Look at the following topic: http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?p=761250#post761250 )
  • Give the option to autodetect the fps of the imported video+audio in order to avoid that video track be longer than the audio track. (Otomo)
  • The Histogram/Luma/Chroma preview methods for the sequence editor are really nice- is there a way to generalize them to other image buffers (e.g. render result or viewer node) so we can benefit from them outside the sequence editor (Bassam)
  • Effects should get mouse events from the preview window, so that one can control the transform effect directly.

Other features (3D Scenes)

  • Explanation image (M Jack's requests)
  • Camera forcing for a 3Dscene-strip: The active scene camera is the default (empty) value. In a popupmenu it should be possible to select another existing camera "my2ndscenecamera". Deleting this one should cause the strip to fall back to the defaultvalue.
  • Resolution deriving: This strip-option should cause a 3Dscene-strip to render with the rendersize and -ratio of the sequencer-scene.(M jack)

2D animated story board

  • Storyboard sequence:Maybe we can add the storyboard image sequence as a import type. each storyboard in the sequence can be control as a single sequence,at the same time the storyboard sequence is the whole . and the overlay title is very helpful,maybe we can add a title panel for it.In the panel we can add the addon overlay information for the sequence or the image and we can control the information 's position on the image.andthen we can add a alone dialogue track for the dialogue title.(The overlay text contain the two types:the overlay information and the dialogue.The text node(see as the compsite node feature request list) will be used as a overlay title).We also need a powerful image browser to view the storyboard image.--Sumomofan 21 March 2007


Comparison to other NLEs

Here we should collect, what we like in other NLEs as a scratch board for new TODO items.

Avid

Sony Vegas previously Sonic Foundry

  • loading image sequences as strips - reads automatically how many pictures are there in same sequence, in Blender you have to select all the images, then works similar.
  • very intuitive interface-especially making crossfades by onlydragging files over each other,no question on cutting a strip,...
  • works incredibly fast - how do they do it? Has fast preview, going through video, fast thumbnail generation. I know Vegas makes some temporary files, which maybe enable this...Today you cannot see the difference so much on new machines, but on a 500 mhz processor it's really visible.
Hmm, that was one of the features, that I definitely _liked_ about Blender. Nevertheless: I have been already told, that preview editing and working with EDL-files is mandatory in professional environments... To make it short: will include a feature, to import video strips at lower resolution maybe even directly from tape. (Peter)
It would be great to have some kind of proxy system, where a clip can have multiple sources. I already had this problem when I was editing my reel in Blender, my footage was at 1024x576 and that's what I wanted to produce the final video at, but my computer isn't fast enough to play that back in real time. So the only way around it for me, was the hellish procedure of saving out half-res versions of each strip, importing them into Blender and editing them, then switching over at the end when I wanted to render the final video. It was terrible!
It would have been much easier if each clip could have a high-res and low-res version defined, then a global 'display type' setting for the entire sequence that you could use to switch between low res and high res. That would still be really cumbersome, taking lots of unnecessary manual labour to make all the separate high and low res clips, so even better would for the computer to do it - i.e. select a bunch of clips and use a 'make low-res proxies' command, which would then generate (by scaling down copies) and link up low-res proxies for each selected clip. --Matt Ebb
  • Envelopes - could be like effect IPO's drawn over the strips?So you can see where is which key.
You can already simulate that behaviour by making an IPO-window sticky to it's effect strip and switching it to "IPO frame lock"-mode. (Making the IPO-window lock time to other windows.) Previewing it is maybe nevertheless a nice idea. (Peter)

-- Vilem Novak, aka pildanovak on elysiun or Blender forums

  • I am in love with Vegas because of it's ability to do 5.1 surround sound so nicely. The interface for the sound position is scalable, I can use a joystick, and the whole project can be exported as an ac3. IMHO, Blender should have surround sound support and the ability to have sounds come out of objects in a scene so we can do crazy stuff like "sound particles".

Adobe Premiere

  • My favorite thing about Premiere is the toolbar which provides so many different way to tweak a a single strip, connected strips, or all the strips in the sequence. A secondary feature to these tools is an accompanying preview that shows either (1)the frame of the edge you're pulling (2)the ending frame of one, the beginning of another next to each other while sliding touching edges. (3)the beginning and ending frame of a clip while you slide around the frames without changing the clip's length. The list goes on and on. (Bmud)
  • Imported media is not distorted in any way to fit the aspect ratio of the project. There are a few other slight things as well, for instance..
- scaling or moving "numeric inputs" can be locked together( to translate something ).
- There is also an option to show "safe frame" margins in the video preview window.
(Raschko)

Final Cut Pro

  • Media bin and the ability to set in points and out points. In Blender, you can just move the arrows on the ends of the video, but if you want to extract a 5 minute scene from a 2 hour movie, that's a lot of arrow moving. (directedition) You could just cut the strip ( move frame pointer to desired point and press 'k') in half and delete the tail piece. I do it in ULEAD ;) But being able to have an exact point would be advantageous. (javawocky)
I agree here, we need some better cutting features. Maybe this will have to come after asset management though. (tbcpp)
  • The scroll bar and how it lets you select the zoom by dragging the ends. (directedition)

Cinelerra

  • Cinelerra has a nice feature for multi-channel audio. You are presented with a circle in which you can place your audio tracks and you can click and drag each channel within the circle to determine its position. I know blender isn't an audio editor, but it is a nice feature. Example Image (directedition)
    • Cinelerra does actually contain an audio editor... I think it started as an audio editor and then he added video later. M.e 11:43, 18 May 2007 (CEST)
  • For Cinelerra see [3] and [4]. There are two versions, original and community out on release. You want the community version.
  • Cinelerra renders once. One builds up an Edit Decision List (EDL) and then this is rendered at the end.
    • The EDL consists of a sequence of segements, frames n1 to n2 from clip #1, then frames n3 to n4 from clip #2, then frames n5 to n6 from clip #1, etc.
    • the EDL editor facilitates operations such as selecting a sequence of frames from a clip and inserting them into the EDL timeline, splitting a segment, adjusting a segment, automatically moving subsequent segments along when a segment is created/inserted/deleted/resized.
    • Cinelerra supports many video formats and tries to minimise conversions. If a clip is directly placed into the output, then only one conversion is required for those frames. Other frames that have an effect applied may require multiple conversions, but only for those frames.
    • Cinelerra uses its own EDL format, but there is an industry-standard free format out there (I think) to permit interchange between tools.
    • Cinelerra makes it easy to view both clips and the EDL. There are several viewing windows so the user can scud through a clip and select in- and out-points for pasting into the EDL.
    • Segments can be video, audio or both. When the video is moved (eg when another segment is inserted earlier) the audio is moved in synchronisation (well, unless Cinelerra is having a bad day).
  • Cinelerra has some features for loading up many clips at once and keeping them in a clip library. It displays a thumbnail of each clip. From discussions on the Cinelerra mailing list, other packages do this better.
  • Cinelerra is GPL, so Blender developers can read the code.
  • Cinelerra has a compositor, so it can do split screens, picture in picture, video zoom, etc, in the EDL.

M.e 11:43, 18 May 2007 (CEST)

Kino

ULEAD Media Studio Pro

  • Audio cross fade shortcut. In ULEAD, you can press 'F' to enter audio cross fade mode. Once in this mode, you can click on the one audio strip, then the next and it will automatically cross between the two strips if they are overlapping. The cross goes across the portion of the overlap. Currently to cross fade audio is painful, you have to add an IPO to each strip then try guess the overlap area. (javawocky)
  • Ideally, the IPO's should be directly on/inside the Audio strip. It should appear as a lite which you can click on to fiddle with the nodes. This way you can edit the audio at a specific point easily without having to judge based on a percentage where the audio will appear. (javawocky)
  • A preview range would be valuable. Above the time line in ULEAD you can drag the mouse over a section to highlight a start and end point easily. Currently the only way I know how to do this is to manually put a start and end frame into the time line tool. (javawocky)
  • When dragging strips around in ULEAD, it will snap to clips when they come close to a corresponding strip or to the frame pointer. So if you have a bunch of cuts you can easily let one clip start directly after the previous clip without having to look at frame numbers to get an exact match. (javawocky)
  • Moving paths are a vital part of editing and should be implemented somehow. Movie paths allow a strip to be placed within a frame at a certain point, so you could easily get picture in picture effects, or add a channel water mark. I think the only way to do this now is to create a scene with a plane containing the video you wish to have overlaid then make the scene into a strip. Correct me if I am wrong. (javawocky)
  • Fade to black is another thing that seams to be missing from Blender. The Cross tool could probably just be modified to work with only one strip. A color property should also be set, cause sometimes people like fading to white ;) (javawocky)

Others

  • Something akin to iMovie's clip view. Basically, instead of a long timeline, each clip is a single square with a thumbnail; the time is still put above the clip, but all the squares are the same size. There are pictures here: http://www.peachpit.com/articles/article.asp?p=412366&seqNum=3&rl=1 (It's under "Choose a Timeline View". I would have just put a link to the picture, but I wasn't sure if that would be okay with you guys and the writers of the other site.)
Should be optional for speed reasons. (I still can't get the sense here, since I simply haven't found any use for such a preview. Really. I'm still happy with using instructive names for my clips...) (Peter) -- jtuttle (jpt9 on IRC)
I always thought that that was a really interesting feature too, but I'm not sure how it would work in a real professional video editing system that has MULTIPLE LAYERS of video. Seeing as iMovie is, well, the worst video editing software ever, something tells me that this cool feature will be left out of any other video package by association. (Bmud)
Yeah... it would be difficult. iMovie isn't crap, though; I used it to edit a French movie project in 10th grade. It obviously isn't high-end, or even mid-range, but it's still a pretty good program, especially for just putting footage from a camera together with transitions and titles (which is what ~90% of most random camcorder owners need to do (I think.)) Just an idea, though...
Thumbnails on the strips would be useful to, even without the clip view. -- jtuttle


Feedback and suggestions from an FCP editor's P.O.V.

(This article was written with regard to blender 2.44.)

Introduction

This is the attempt to analyse the blender NLE from a Final Cut Pro editor's/film maker's point of view and to make some simple suggestions that maybe can help to improve the blender NLE further in terms of ease of use/workflow.

Please note that I am still relatively new to blender (I started about a year ago) and I am also not a programmer... The feedback I give you is the one from a user's/creator's perspective. I'll try to write down those points because I've come to the conclusion that one key thing that is missing in many open-source software projects is usability/ease of use testing.

Now this is a delicate area because it involves personal taste and preferences for doing things in a certain way. But maybe it is possible to make the blender NLE just a bit more userfriendly without giving up the original clean and minimalist approach that is of course consistent with the rest of the blender UI.

Some of these points may have been made above already, if I list something again then it's because I feel it is important (it is also just easier this way). Should one or the other suggestion on my list actually already have been implemented then just take it as a sign that it's maybe not easy enough at this point to figure out how-to use a particular feature - which would mean that either a better documentation is needed or that the feature might need some attention in terms of its ease of use.

Main points/suggestions for improving the NLE

1) Tracks and frames

What I miss most in the blender NLE are "real" tracks and a clear visual representation/navigation for the timeline cursor/playhead in context with single frames in the timeline.

A) Tracks

a) Visual representation

Tracks are of course there, but at first they might appear not to be numbered (they are, but it's hard to see) and it is also kind of hard at first to figure out where e.g. track 1 starts or ends. The background graphics are not 100% helpful here: intuitively I would try to place a new clip at the bottom line of one of the brighter/darker horizontal stripes and expect the clip to fit exactly into that area. This would let me know that it is in the right track and would make things much easier on the eye once there are many stripes on a multitude of different layers.

The current solution makes clips appear to "float" and the brighter/darker areas between the tracks almost tend to create some kind of dizzy making shutter effect if you happen to be very sensitive to light and contrast - stripes and checkboard like background graphics are useful e.g. for visualising the alpha channel in the Gimp, but might be too hard to look at as the default working background in an NLE.

The concept that Final Cut Pro uses is one where a clip fits perfectly into a track - placing a new clip at the beginning of the timeline can be done without having to look at frame numbers etc. and there is no way that you could add it before 0 on the timeline. (What is the reason for that option...?)

Maybe there are good reasons for the blender approach to tracks that I have not found out about yet, just at this point I don't see the need for this flexibility - it can make working in the timeline a bit confusing at times. E.g. there is a peculiar problem when importing soundfiles: I add them but they are nowhere to be seen. Most of the time they end up being somewhere high up in track 50 or so and need to be pulled down. (Worst case: you don't notice one lost soundfile in track 50 or so and wonder why the final render suddenly has those strange soundeffects.) This kind of thing is what makes the non obvious presence of tracks a bit hard to work in the blender NLE for me at this moment.

b) Functionality

The logic behind "layer 1 first" etc.

It seems that the track with the lowest number is the one that gets played back/rendered (first), another track on top of it only when the right filter is added. This concept - if I understood this correctly - is quite different from to the one I know from other NLEs where you basically look down from the top (e.g. layer 3) and all other layers are played back according to how track 3 is set to blend into track 2 etc. So if track 3 in FCP is in blend mode "normal" and opacity is set to the standard 100% then you would not see track 2 and 1 underneath.

Again, there might well be good reasons for doing it differently in blender, as of now I just don't see/understand them. The current approach makes it a bit difficult when you add a new clip to the timeline or when you move it around: you just can't view the clip if there is a clip underneath - at least that's how it seemed to work on my last project, the first one where I really used the blender NLE for more than just putting a couple of clips together.

no, there wasn't a good reason besides confusing the user :) is fixed in SVN. The layer order is that of The Gimp, meaning: the uppermost tracks get played down to the first track, that is in "replace" mode. --Peter Schlaile 15:06, 1 January 2008 (CET)

Turning tracks on and off

In any case it seems to me that a key functionality missing at the moment is the ability to turn tracks on and off. Such a feature would also make it easier to view a new clip in the timeline even if there is another clip underneath - you just turn off track 1.

is in SVN now on a per strip basis. --Peter Schlaile 15:06, 1 January 2008 (CET)

B) Frames

Single frames and the cursor/playhead

Just like I would like to see "real" empty tracks for the clips I would like to be able to see a clear relationship of single frames and the cursor/playhead when zooming in - meaning a clear graphical indication of where the playhead really is/where a single frames starts/ends in relation to the playhead. So while I can see a single frame I find it hard to figure out at what point in time exactly the cursor/playhead is placed. Of course you can look at the frame indicator/counter, this works. But doing it only by focusing on your work in the timeline is much harder.

A possible solution: in FCP the playhead has the shape of a flag. This means that the flag part is the one that covers the frame that the editors sees in the viewer. The flag's mast is where a cut is made should the editor press the equivalent of blenders "k".

This whole business of first/last frame can become very important in certain editing situations and a better visual representation for the timeline cursor/playhead is needed I think.

2) Next/previous cut, JKL, space = play/stop

I might not be seeing the obvious, but so far I can't figure out how-to navigate from one cut to the next. 10 frames +/- is good to have, but I also need next/previous cut and would prefer that if I needed to make a choice between the two.

JKL is the classic NLE navigation: backwards (J) - stop (K) - forward (L), and when you hit J and L multiple times the speed increases. Maybe there are better ways of doing this, but without a next/previous cut option and without JKL navigating the blender NLE feels a bit limited to me at this point.

Another one that I miss is the space key for start/stop. I am aware that blender is a 3D application and that the space key has a special meaning in blender, yet I really would prefer to have space = start/stop when I am editing. Alt-A is just not the same.

is in SVN now. Works only in the preview window though --Peter Schlaile 15:06, 1 January 2008 (CET)

Also ergonomically there is probably a reason why space and JKL are being used in FCP and (at least JKL) in other NLEs: with one hand you can control almost anything you need for navigating the timeline. Note also in this context the use of the I and O key in FCP for setting the In and Out point (I and O being right over JKL on the keyboard!) and you get the standard FCP editor's (right) hand position when editing.

Maybe blender should do things differently in terms of navigating the timeline, at the moment I just don't see it being as efficient as in e.g. FCP.

3) Effects (fade in/out), basic editing workflow

I find it astonishingly hard and complicated to add a simple fade-in to a clip. While it's great to have IPOs I feel that the current implementation is a total overkill for an editing environment. At least for basic editing. You don't want to spend time thinking about Alpha Over/Under/Over Drop and x, y and IPO curves when you just need a simple 25 frames long fade-in.... Maybe there are technical reasons and a more userfriendly implementation would mean a considerable coding effort - I understand this and won't complain about it then. But the current solution is not as simple as e.g. an FCP editor would expect it to be.

should be better with latest SVN now. (You can add simple fade in/out's directly on every input strip in replace-mode) --Peter Schlaile 15:06, 1 January 2008 (CET)

Another example is the new "Speed Control" feature. I really needed and wanted to use this one for my last project, but after reading the Wikipages that explain its use and after having tried for an hour or two to get the effect to work the way I needed it, I just had to give up and created some manual slomo/shutter effect by duplicating single frames on the finder - at least I was able to make it work.

I think the problem here is that for a coder the implementation of e.g. "Speed Control" probably seems simple and like a concept that others can easily grasp. But for me it appears like one of those math problems in school that I always had a hard time to solve... When you are editing and maybe have worked for 12 hours and there is a deadline you don't want to spend time with solving a logic/math problem, but just tell the NLE that the clip that is highlighted should be copied with "Fit to fill" (or give it another, similar name) to the area that you previously marked with an In and Out point. This kind of concept is so much simpler to understand and execute. At least for visual (not math-based visual) thinkers like me.

Uhm, that works. Add a speed control, just ignore the IPOs and extend the right handle to fill the gap. The video will play exactly the time of the gap. The manual only mentions the more advanced usages though, sorry... Updated the manual. Hope that helps. --Peter Schlaile 20:50, 24 July 2007 (CEST)

4) In and out, bins, media management

Implementation of in and out points have been mentioned by others, I agree that this is very important.

Does the blender NLE need bins? Do users want them? (I think I do.) Probably to ask in this context: what is the blender NLE's main purpose? What does it (not) want to be?

If it is just for putting together a couple of clips then bins are probably not needed. But editing a longer project in blender without a bin system seems not a good idea to me.

Again, maybe I am missing something here, but I could not figure out how to reconnect media. Like when you've edited in a low resolution and then want to replace the clips with the higher resolution ones (without having to rename/replace files on the finder...). Or when you've moved stuff around on the finder level for whatever reason. Or when working on a group project recently we had such a problem I think, and I ended up rebuilding a whole sequence since I could not tell blender to use different paths for certain clips that now had different names on someone else's computer or were coming from other (sub)folders etc.

Summary

My first impression of the blender NLE is that it could still be improved substantially in terms of its ease of use and workflow by looking closer at those 4 points made above. Maybe an implementation that satisfies both the experienced 3D animator/coder as well as the director/editor turned animator can be found...?

There is a lot of potential in the minimalist NLE blender UI the way it is, my impression is that it's about 2/3 there in terms of feature richness vs. simplicity/usability. I think it needs to be more accessible for users who are not coders and rely on simple visual clues instead of (IPO) calculations when it comes to basic editing tasks like adding/moving clips and adding basic effects like a simple fade-in.

One more point: a simple, userfriendly and powerful blender NLE is very important since there can be all sorts of problems with square and non-square pixels when working with blender rendered clips in other NLEs (incl. FCP) - being able to edit/finish everything inside blender can make things a lot easier. -- indiworks.

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