Leo:Blender

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Blender is a great tool for video sequencing among other things.

This is a wiki of my notes.

Video tutorials


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:

  1. Select multiple target strips (with box select)
  2. [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.
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