[Bf-committers] Bf-committers Digest, Vol 83, Issue 26

Peter Schlaile peter at schlaile.de
Sun Jun 19 12:43:18 CEST 2011


Hi Matt,

I didn't want to make it hard to use from a user perspective.

In fact, I'd want to make it possible to easily script features like 
those implemented in a hardcoded way by Algorith.

And: the most general solution still looks like a possibility to add 
special strips, that internally (read: more or less hidden to the user) 
use scene templates.

Idea: you get 100% flexibility + extensibility *and* easy UI.

Speed problems could be handled by OGL rendering or cache rendering to 
disk.

I still don't get, why this should be overcomplicated (I don't really need 
something like that currently, but it shouldn't be more than around 3 days 
of coding work).

I know, your first idea was adding a very simple text tool, but there it 
usually doesn't stop. You will be faced with people, who want to do 
something special to the text, have it 3D extruded, adding parameters and 
then you start to add a seperate 3D renderer to the sequencer.

(BTW: your text-tool even doesn't solve Algorith's problems. Fun fact :)
He wanted some automatic layout with his title cards, and so the whole 
thing needs some fancy scripting to be right in all circumstances.)

Do you know, where other open source video editors end up?

They usually add a strip for fancy 3D text, which uses Blender as a 
render backend. So that is really ironic, isn't it?

(e.g.: http://www.openshot.org/screenshots/ )

To summarize: I think, the most easy way to add this to blender is to add 
some small features to the scene strips, so that parameters can be passed 
to a scene and add some small operators, which make it possible to handle 
all this with python templates.

That is easy to code, easy to use and 100% flexible. Just my 2 Cents.

Cheers,
Peter

On Sun, 19 Jun 2011, bf-committers-request at blender.org wrote:

>
>> Personally, I think a text strip has been sorely missing from the sequencer
>> (and compositor) for a while, and it's great to see it added. Doing it via
>> blender scenes and python is a really slow, nasty overcomplicated way of
>> doing something which really should be quite simple, and is a really
>> simple,
>> common, basic tool in most other editors.
>>
>> Editing the text from the sequence editor interface and having it rendered
>> directly to a strip is the fastest and best way of having such a feature,
>> and it's something I would have loved to have had plenty of times. Note: I
>> haven't tried the current patch but it would be best as a generalised 'text
>> strip' rather than anything aimed specifically at title cards, with
>> properties like text box height and width, and typographic/paragraph
>> controls too.
>>
>> cheers
>>
>> Matt
>>
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 9:26 PM, Joshua Leung <aligorith at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Hey Peter,
>>>
>>> Cheers for the feedback!
>>>
>>> Indeed, as I started to pick through things, the issues faced by users
>>> who would want to use this as a base on which to start extending it in
>>> some ways did come up. Sure, a script which sets up a generic template
>>> would be nice in this situation, and is one way I'd thought of doing
>>> it.
>>>
>>> Some factors which made me favour this approach though were that:
>>> 1) Using this approach, we let automation take over making sure that
>>> the text fits and is aligned nicely in frame when things change. From
>>> experience, I've ended up scaling and re scaling text, moving it all
>>> over the place trying to get it to fit and be in frame. Registering a
>>> special operator for this, and/or trying to find somewhere decent to
>>> put it so that it can be easily found is an issue.
>>>
>>> 2) Text colours can be set in one place with this method, without
>>> fudging with material settings (and doing material-unlink dances after
>>> copying some text and deciding you want it a different colour - then
>>> again here, the level of control over this stuff is entirely
>>> hardcoded)
>>>
>>> 3) AFAIK, scene strips were synonymous with constantly being
>>> re-rendered and re-evaluated every single time they're encountered,
>>> when doing scene evaluation combined with rendering is a comparatively
>>> sluggish process for Blender. The alternative would have been to force
>>> people to always render these out to image files (something that I'm
>>> trying to avoid here) before they could be used.  (*1)
>>>
>>> 4) With this approach, including text in the sequencer feels more like
>>> a "first-class" entity than just a weirdo heavy-duty workflow, where
>>> you have a proliferation of "scene" strips in your timeline which are
>>> essentially just there to display text (but outwardly don't
>>> communicate this)
>>>
>>> 5) There's also the issue of a buildup of scene files in the file,
>>> each one for a different slide, making it easy to accidentally delete
>>> the wrong one from the file, and also making it slower to find the
>>> scene to go in and edit its text.  (*2)
>>>
>>> -------------
>>>
>>> (*1) From your mail below, it sounds like that's something the cache
>>> voodoo might be able to take care of under certain circumstances. As
>>> only a very infrequent user of VSE, I wasn't aware of this.
>>>
>>> (*2) I'm not really convinced about the idea of these template
>>> parameters for the scene strips. It sounds even more like a
>>> specialised hack from user perspective than shoehorning an entire
>>> strip type with some predefined slots where people commonly place text
>>> for common purposes.
>>>
>>> ---------------
>>>
>>> Anyhow, as an "experimental" feature, this was certainly a good
>>> exercise for seeing how such functionality could look like, and to
>>> generate debate over what use cases for this sort of stuff users have.
>>> (It was also a good exercise in exploring how the sequencer works,
>>> though I might add that the number of places where you have to
>>> redefine how a new strip type is a bit excessive)
>>>
>>> Personally, this is probably sufficient, though maybe with a few more
>>> optional slots for text. If nothing else, I can now save off this
>>> build for future use where necessary ;)
>>>
>>> Perhaps as you suggest, an operator which generates some preset
>>> title-card scene setups would be handy to have. Though it's the
>>> details of how we allow people to tweak the content there which
>>> worries me a bit.
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>> Joshua
>>>
>>> On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 10:35 PM, Peter Schlaile <peter at schlaile.de>
>>> wrote:
>>>> Hi Algorith,
>>>>
>>>> don't you think, we should add some other extensions to
>>>> blender, that make it possible, to script something like this with
>>> Python?
>>>>
>>>> Problem is: you wrote a *very* special solution for a
>>>> very special problem you had, and I'd like to keep the
>>>> sequencer core clean and simple.
>>>>
>>>> Would be cool, if you could specify a SCENE as template and only fill
>> in
>>>> parameters.
>>>>
>>>> Add some tweaks to the SCENE strip, that make it optionally render to
>>>> files by default, add template parameters for the SCENE strip and there
>>>> we go.
>>>>
>>>> Then your title cards will end up as ONE additional scene as template
>> and
>>>> template parameters to edit within the strip.
>>>>
>>>> That is in the long run a much better solution, since you give people
>> the
>>>> freedom to make title cards or even fancy title cards as they like.
>>>>
>>>> You can add a Python script, that wraps this all nicely, so that you
>> can
>>>> add some default title cards / whatever. (Which could add a template
>>> SCENE
>>>> automagically.)
>>>>
>>>> BTW: I personally use additional scenes within the same file, length 1,
>>>> which get extruded and animated properly. That way, the SCENE is
>> rendered
>>>> once into the memory cache and the cached result is animated (with
>> fades
>>>> etc.)
>>>>
>>>> If I didn't get the problem correctly, just let me know. I really like
>> to
>>>> work out a generic solution for that!
>>>>
>>>> Cheers,
>>>> Peter
>>>>
>>>> ----
>>>> Peter Schlaile
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Bf-committers mailing list
>>>> Bf-committers at blender.org
>>>> http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers
>>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Bf-committers mailing list
>>> Bf-committers at blender.org
>>> http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers
>>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Bf-committers mailing list
>> Bf-committers at blender.org
>> http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers
>>
>
>
>
> -- 
> ____________________
> Fran?ois Tarlier
> www.francois-tarlier.com
> www.linkedin.com/in/francoistarlier
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> Bf-committers mailing list
> Bf-committers at blender.org
> http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers
>
>
> End of Bf-committers Digest, Vol 83, Issue 26
> *********************************************
>

----
Peter Schlaile


More information about the Bf-committers mailing list