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VSE Quick Functions

VSE Quick Functions
Add useful, easy-to-use features to the VSE

UI location	Sequencer Panels; Sequencer Menus; Sequencer S, F, Z, Ctrl-P, Shift-P, Alt-M, Alt-K Shortcuts
Version	0.9.2	Author(s)	Hudson Barkley (Snu)
Blender	2.78	License	GPL
Category	Sequencer	Distribution	Extern

Executable information

File name	VSEQuickFunctions_0_92.zip
Current version download	http://www.snuq.com/scripts/vseqf/VSEQuickFunctions_0_92.zip

This script is designed to make Blender's VSE easier to use by implementing features often found in other video editors, or features that I find useful as a video editor.

QuickContinuous

Setting can be found in the sequence editor 'View' menu. When QuickContinuous is enabled, it will constantly run and detect sequence editing events, and adjust sequences as needed. Many of the other features require this to be enabled to work: Parenting, Ripple, Fade auto-adjustments and Proxy settings.

When enabled, a menu titled 'QuickContinuous Settings' will be shown, this provides settings for various real-time behaviors of this addon.

Settings Menu

General Settings:

• Ripple Editing Mode
  • When enabled, this will automatically move all clips following the active clip when the active clip is deleted, or the ending point is changed.
• Fix Active Strip When Cutting
  • By default when cutting a strip with the mouse to the right, Blender will select this strip but not activate it, this option will activate the strip as well.

QuickParent Settings:

• Cut/Move Children
  • Enables child strips to be moved and cut when their parent is moved or cut.
• Auto-Parent New Audio To Video
  • Automatically sets up a parenting relationship for imported video clips that include an audio track, enabling the audio to easily be moved with the video.
• Auto-Select Children
  • When a parent is selected, child strips will be selected as well, enabling easy visualization of relationships.
• Adjust Child Edges
  • When the edges of a parent and child strip are on the same frame, the child strip's edge will be moved along with the parent's edge, keeping them in sync.
• Auto-Delete Children
  • When a parent strip is deleted, any child strips will be removed as well.

QuickProxy Settings:

• Enable Proxy On Import
  • The proxy settings below will automatically be applied to new strips in the timeline.
• Auto-Build Proxy On Import
  • Proxies will be automatically generated for a strip when it is imported. This is only valid when the above setting is enabled.
• Proxy Quality
  • Setting to determine the quality (and inversely, the size) of the generated proxy strips.
• Generate __% Proxy
  • Settings to generate proxies at these sizes.

QuickFades

Enables one-click adding of a fade in or fade out, or crossfading to other strips.

Can be found in the sequence editor properties panel, or by pressing the 'f' key over the sequencer. When QuickContinuous is running, fade in and outs will be automatically fixed when a sequence start or end frame is adjusted. The 'Edit Strip' panel will display the fadein and fadeout lengths for the current active strip.

The 'QuickFades' panel provides buttons for setting and removing fades.

• Fade Length
  • The target length for fade editing or creating.
  • This can be set to 0 to remove a fade.
• Set Fadein/Set Fadeout
  • Allows easy adding and changing of fade in/out. The script will check the curve for any fades already applied to the sequence (either manually or by the script), and edit them if found.
  • These buttons can apply the same fade to multiple selected sequences at once.
• Clear Fades
  • Remove fades on all selected strips.

• Transition Type
  • Selects the type of transition for adding with the following buttons.
• Crossfade Prev/Next Sequence
  • Allows easy adding of transitions between sequences. This will simply find the closest sequence to the active sequence, and add a transition between them.
• Smart Cross to Prev/Next
  • Adjust the length of the active sequence and the next sequence to create a transition of the target fade length.
  • This will also attempt to avoid extending the sequences past their end points if possible.

QuickSnaps

A menu for extra cursor and strip snapping functions.

Can be found in the sequence editor 'Strip' menu, or by pressing the 's' key over the sequencer.

• Cursor To Nearest Second
  • Will round the cursor position to the nearest second, based on framerate.
• Cursor To Beginning/End Of Sequence
  • Will move the cursor to the beginning or end of the active sequence.
• Selected To Cursor
  • Snaps the beginning of selected strips to the cursor. This is the same as the 'shift-s' shortcut in the VSE.
• Sequence Beginning/End To Cursor
  • Moves all selected sequences so their beginning/end is at the cursor.
• Sequence To Previous/Next Sequence
  • Detects the previous or next sequence in the timeline from the active sequence, and moves the active sequence so it's beginning or end matches the other sequence's end or beginning.

QuickZooms

A menu with zoom shortcuts.

Can be found in the sequence editor 'View' menu, or by pressing the 'z' key over the sequencer.

• Zoom All Strips
  • Zooms the sequencer out to show all sequences.
• Zoom To Timeline
  • Zooms the sequencer to the timeline start and end.
• Zoom Selected
  • Zooms the sequencer to show the currently selected sequence(s).
• Zoom Cursor
  • Zooms the sequencer to an amount of frames around the cursor.
• Size
  • How many frames should be shown by using Zoom Cursor. Changing this value will automatically activate Zoom Cursor.
• Zoom ______
  • Several preset zoom values for convenience.

QuickParents

This implements a parenting system for sequences, working with QuickContinuous by finding any children of a moved or cut sequence and performing the same operation on them. If the sequence is cut, any children under the cursor will be cut as well, and the script will duplicate parent/child relationships to the cut sequences. If the parent sequence is resized and a child sequences have the same endpoints, they will be resized as well. Note that any relationships will be broken if a sequence is renamed!

Can be found in the sequence editor properties panel under "Edit Strip", or by pressing the 'Ctrl-p' key over the sequencer. Children or Parents of selected sequence will be shown in these two places.

• Select Children or Parent (Small Selection Button)
  • Selects any related sequences to the current sequence. Also can be accomplished with the shortcut 'Shift-p'.
• Clear Children or Parent (Small X Button)
  • Removes relationships from selected sequence.
• Set Active As Parent
  • If multiple sequences are selected, this will set selected sequences as children of the active (last selected) sequence.
• Cut/Move Sequence Children
  • Enables parenting

Additional settings are found in the QuickContinuous Settings menu.

All parenting features require QuickContinuous to be enabled.

QuickList

Displays a list of loaded sequences and allows you to change various settings.

Can be found in the sequence editor properties panel.

• Display Settings
  • Changes the details that are displayed for each sequence:
  • Settings
    • Adds an extra area for editing the length, position, and proxy settings of each sequence.
  • Parenting
    • Adds an extra area that displays children of each sequence.
  • Tags
    • Adds an extra area that displays tags for each sequence.
• Select/Deselect All Sequences
  • Like pressing the 'a' key in the sequencer, this will toggle the selection of all sequences.
• Sort by
  • Reorders the list based on timeline position, title, or length. Click the small arrow to change the sorting order.

Settings For Each Sequence:

• Eye Icon
  • Mutes/unmutes sequence.
• Padlock Icon
  • Locks/unlocks sequence.
• Sequence Type Button
  • Allows selecting and deselecting the sequence.
• Sequence Title
  • Allows editing of sequence name.
• Len
  • See the sequence length in HH:MM:SS:FF format, and adjust the length.
• Pos
  • See the sequence position in HH:MM:SS:FF, and adjust the position.
• Proxy settings (Only visible when 'Settings' display is enabled)
  • Enable/disable proxy and sizes.
• Sub-Sequences (Only visible on meta sequences)
  • Displays sequences inside the meta sequence.
• Tags (Only visible if 'Tags' display is enabled)
  • A list of tags for this sequence is shown. Click the tag to select all sequences with this tag, click the 'X' next to the tag to remove it from this sequence.
• Children (Only visible if 'Parenting' display is enabled)
  • The child sequences will be displayed here. Click the 'X' next to a child sequence to remove it from this sequence's children.

If a sequence is an effect, and it is applied to another sequence, it will be indented and placed below it's parent.

If QuickList is in Position sorting mode, up and down arrows will be displayed next to each strip, these can be used to swap position of a strip with the previous or next strip in the timeline. If parenting is enabled, this will ignore child strips. This may cause unpredictable behavior if strips are highly layered, it is best used on a very linear timeline.

QuickProxy

Automatically sets proxies for imported strips, and optionally can generate them automatically as well.

All settings for QuickProxy are found in the QuickContinuous Settings menu. Note that QuickProxy requires QuickContinuous to be enabled to function.

QuickMarkers

Add markers to the timeline using name presets, or quickly jump to and remove any marker. Can be found in the sequence editor properties panel under 'QuickMarkers', also Alt-M in the sequencer.

• New Preset
  • Enter a marker title into the text field, and click the + button to add a preset.
• Place A Marker
  • Click on a marker button once a preset has been added to add a marker with this name at the current cursor location.
• Remove A Preset
  • Click the X button next to a preset to remove it.
• Deselect New Markers
  • With this enabled, newly created markers will be unselected to prevent accidental moving.
• Marker List
  • Click a marker title to jump the cursor to this marker.
  • Click the X button next to a marker to delete it.

QuickRipple

When enabled, this will automatically move all clips following the active clip when the active clip is deleted, or the ending point is changed. Can be found in the sequence editor view menu under QuickContinuous Settings, 'Ripple Editing Mode'. Currently, adjusting the start point has no effect due to the way the grab operator works. QuickRipple features require QuickContinuous to be enabled to function.

QuickBatchRender

Render sequences in the timeline to individual files and automatically create a new copy of the current scene with these strips replaced with the rendered versions. Effects and unprocessed strips will still be in copied scene and unaffected.

Can be found in the sequence editor properties panel.

• Batch Render
  • Begin the batch render process using the settings below.
• Render Directory
  • Type in, or select the directory to render the files into. If left blank, the default scene render directory will be used.
• Render Only Selected
  • Only process selected strips, others will not be replaced.
• Render Modifiers
  • Apply modifiers to rendered strips. Uncheck this to copy the modifiers to the rendered strip instead.
• Render Audio
  • Check this to process audio strips as separate strips. Uncheck to not process audio strips.
• Render Meta Strips
  • Drop-down menu to decide what is done with meta strips:
  • Ignore
    • Meta strips will not be processed, only copied over.
  • Individual Substrips
    • Process and replace all strips inside meta strips. The rendered strips will remain grouped in a meta strip in the new scene.
  • Single Strip
    • Process the entire meta strip as one strip, and replace it with a single rendered strip.

Render Presets

• Preset render settings for various types of strips. Each type has a 'Scene Setting' option that will simply use the render settings of the current scene.
• Opaque Strips
  • Strips with no transparency set.
• Transparent Strips
  • Strips with transparency set. Several render settings will not render any transparency information, be careful when selecting these!
• Audio Strips
  • File type to use for rendering an audio strip.

QuickTags

Create tags, text snippets that can describe sequences, and apply them to any sequences in the timeline. All sequences with a specific tag can be easily selected with one click.

• All Tags
  • This list shows all tags on all sequences in the timeline.
  • Click a tag to select all sequences with that tag.
  • Click the '+' button to add that tag to all selected sequences.
• New Tag
  • Type a tag into the field, and press the '+' button to add to all selected strips. This tag will now show up in the list above as well.
• Show All Selected
  • This button toggles the lower list between showing the tags for the active sequence (Active Tags) or showing tags for all selected sequences (Selected Tags). Setting this to selected tags mode will possibly slow down the VSE, and is only available while QuickContinuous is enabled, so use it sparingly.
• Active Tags
  • Shows a list of tags for the active sequence.
  • Click a tag to select all sequences with this tag.
  • Click the 'X' button to remove the tag from the active sequence.
• Selected Tags
  • Shows a list of tags for all selected sequence.
  • Click a tag to select all sequences with this tag.
  • Click the 'X' button to remove the tag from all selected sequences.
• Clear Selected Tags
  • Removes all tags from all selected sequences.

QuickCuts

Provides a quick interface for basic and advanced cutting and trimming functions.

• Cut All Sequences
  • If enabled, all sequences under the cursor (besides locked sequences) will be affected by any button in this panel. If disabled, only selected sequences will be affected.
• Frames To Insert
  • When the 'Cut Insert' function is used, the number of frames defined here will be inserted.

• Cut
  • Basic soft cut function, equivalent to the 'K' shortcut in the VSE.
• Cut Insert
  • Performs a soft cut, then slides all sequences following the cut down the timeline by the amount of frames defined in the 'Frames To Insert' variable.
• UnCut Left/UnCut Right
  • Merges a selected sequence with the one to the left or right if they are from the same source file, and have not been slid on the timeline. Useful for 'undoing' an accidental cut.
• Delete
  • Removes selected sequences from the timeline.
• Ripple Delete
  • Removes selected sequences from the timeline, and attempts to remove any empty space left behind.

• Trim Left/Trim Right
  • Removes any part of the selected sequences to the left or right of the cursor.
• Slide Trim Left
  • Removes any part of the selected sequences to the left of the cursor, then slides the remaining sequence back to where the original left edge was.
• Ripple Trim Left/Ripple Trim Right
  • Trims one side of the selected sequences, then slides the sequence, and all following sequences back to attempt to fill the empty space

• Timeline To All
  • Sets the start and end points of the VSE timeline to fit all sequences loaded in.
• Timeline To Selected
  • Sets the start and end points of the VSE timeline to fit the currently selected sequences.
• Start To All/End To All
  • Sets only the start or end of the VSE timeline to fit all sequences.
• Start To Selected/End To Selected
  • Sets only the start or end of the VSE timeline to fit the selected sequences.

Known Problems

I welcome any help with these problems, if you have an idea on how to fix them, please contact me.

• Ripple editing -
  • Dragging left edge of a strip doesn't move it and other strips - unfortunately this might not be able to fix due to the way the grab operator works
  • Dragging edges of multiple strips will only move strips after the active one. This is also limited by the grab operator issue above.
• Proxy building progress bar is not shown for some reason...
• Copy/paste a parent/child pair does not update parent relationships
• Other strips can 'push' a child strip up or down in channels

Future Plans

• Possibly rework the way the script handles edits: replace built-in operators
  • Still figuring out how to do this... or if it's even possible
• Work On Quick Batch Render - needs testing, still crashes sometimes
• Maybe Implement QuickOrganizer
  • Optimize Channels - attempts to clean up clip channels - place side-by-side clips on the same channels, option to place audio strips starting on a channel, option to 'compress all' as low as possible
  • Consolidate Selected - Move all selected strips to one area
  • Auto-Set Timeline - Move strips up to frame 1, set timeline start and end
• Improve QuickRipple -
  • Ripple delete multiple clips with one not deleted in the middle causes issues
  • If possible, implement sequence moving (strips auto-adjusted when strip is 'popped' out of the sequence, or dropped in)
• Possible: QuickCuts - trim left/right of strip at edit line, ripple trim left/right,
  • UnCut/Merge feature: if two strips have the same source, and are next to each other and have the same offset, delete one and extend the other to fill that space
• Reimplement cursor following if it is possible to determine zoom level of the sequencer area
  • This could allow for overlay details or functions as well such as fades, displaying the current zoom window size in minutes/seconds,
  • Also this could allow for remembering previous zoom, and returning to it