Leo:Blender
Blender is a great tool for video sequencing among other things.
This is a wiki of my notes.
Contents
Video tutorials
- Blender Video Editing by Mikeycal
My notes
Initial Setup
Properties Section
- Start Blender
- Select View layout to Video Editing
- If you see graph Editor, replace it with Properties window (with "drop-up button")
Properties
Dimensions
- Change the preset to your format, e.g. HDTV 720
- Check the Resolution
- Check the Frame rate. E..g. 30fps for youtube (should match the source video).
Output
- Check the location of the output file
- Set File format, e.g. MPEG or Xvid
- Select RGB (for color)
Encoding
- Set preset, e.g. H264 or Xvid
- Set Format, e.g. MPEG4 or Xvid
- Bitrate: 6000 is ok
- GOP - should be half of the frame rate for Youtube
- Select Audio Codec (e.g. AAC or MP3)
Timeline Section
Playback menu:
- + Audio Scrubbing
- + AV Sync
- + Frame dropping
Save as defaults
- Menu -> File -> Save Startup File
System settings
Open: Menu -> File -> User Preferences -> System
- Sequencer / Clip Editor:
- Prefetch frames: 500 (later versions may not have this setting any more)
- Memory Cache limit - set to reasonable memory size in gigs: e.g. 10G out of 16G total RAM
Sequencer
- Right click selects a stream
- Home key zooms to the whole (project) view
- S - sets start frame. E - sets end frame
Preview
Set the preview interval. does not change the project start and end time points:
- Sequencer-menu -> Frame -> Preview (or press "P")
Selecting strips
- Box select: Press B, then draw a rectangle over the target strips
- Shift B - selects and zooms to the selection
- Grab: G - grabs the selection and can move to different channel or time point
- G, X moves only in X azes. Y restricts to Y axes.
- Shift while moving strips slows down the movement - better precision.
Add media
- Add media: Sequencer Menu -> Add -> Movie...
- Make sure the frame rate matches.
- To match the size for the whole movie, select the strip, then go to Sequencer-Menu -> Strip -> Set Render Size
Cuts
- Soft cut: K (menu-strip-cut). Can move handles left-right to change the cut boundaries.
- Hard cut: Shift+K
- PageUp - PageDown takes you to the previous/next cut
Combining resolutions
- Select the largest resolution strip for the final resolution
- The other strip: in properties check "Image offset" to keep the aspect ratio.
Hiding strips
- press "H" or menu -> Strip -> Mute Strips
Blending
- Top strips will take all screen, unless you select "Blend" type in strip properties, e.g.
- Alpha over - for images with transparent backgrounds
- Over Drop - for overlay videos
Fade in/out
- Sequencer-menu -> Add -> Effect Strip -> Color
- Stretch as long as fade is needed
- Select the color strip, then the video strip
- Sequencer-menu -> Add -> Effect Strip -> Gamma Cross
Fade with key-frames
- better solution with key frames.
- Sequencer-menu -> Add -> Effect Strip -> Color - above the video strips to be faded
- Stretch as long as fade is needed
- Set cursor to the beginning of the color strip. Select Opacity to 1 in the properties. Press "i" to insert a key-frame.
- Set cursor to the end of the color strip. Select Opacity to 0 in the properties. Press "i" to insert a key-frame.
- Now you have a fade effect that shows through all the strips, and that can be moved to a different location.
Cross-fading sounds
- Select the audio strips
- Sequencer-menu -> Strip -> Crossfade sounds
Wipe transition
- Select the video strips
- Sequencer-menu -> Add -> Effect Strip -> Wipe
- Can select the input in the Wipe stripe properties and blur the lines
Correcting color, hue, etc
- Select strip, then in strip properties go to Modifiers. Make changes.
- Better to add adjustment layer and do the corrections there:
- Sequencer-menu -> Add -> Effect Strip -> Adjustment Layer
Meta Strips
Make meta strip:
- Select multiple target strips (with box select)
- [Ctrl+G] Sequencer-Menu -> Strip -> Make Meta Strip
A Tab button will unwrap the metastrip. A Tab again will wrap it.
Rendering out the video
Pay attention to Render tab and Scene tab in the project Properties View.
- Display: Keep UI
- Set render size
- Set frame range
- Set frame rate
- Set ouput file location
- Set movie format and RGB
- Encoding: Set Codec (and container)
- Set bitrate (6000 or test a different value on a small sample)
- GOP size - set to half of frame rate for youtube
- Audio codec: AAC
- Audio Bitrate (160 or higher)
Scene tab
- Audio, set Rate to 48000
Ready to test:
- Click the Animation button - renders to file
- Go test the result, quality.
For Lossles output to file
- Chose AVI
- H.264
- Check the lossless option
- For Audio select PCM
Use Handbrake to convert the result for smaller file size
Handbrake settings
Settings for Linux:
- File menu -> Preferences
- Deselect "Use IPod/iTunes friendly .m4v..."
- Source button, select file
- Select output file name and directory
- Check "Web optimized"
Picture tab
- Uncheck Auto Crop (all 0)
- Storage geometry should match the movie resolution
- Anamorfic = off
- Keep Aspect ratio = Checked on
- Filters - all off
Video tab
- Codec = H.264
- Framerate = Same as source
- Framerate = Constant Framerate
- Preset = fast
- Tune = none
- Profile = High
- Level = 4.0
- Constant quality = Checked on
- Quality = 23 (could be larger number for less quality and file size, 23-20 is ok)
Audio tab
- Codec = AAC (FDK)
- Bitrate = 160
- Mixdown = Stereo
- Samplerate = 48 (or same as source)
Audio list tab
- Delete the line (kept the old settings)
- Add the line (Now will have the new settings)
Save as preset
At the bottom of presets click "Add" button
- Type in the new name for the new preset.