[Bf-funboard] Icons for VSE

Knapp magick.crow at gmail.com
Sun Aug 26 20:02:08 CEST 2012


On Sun, Aug 26, 2012 at 5:31 PM, Campbell Barton <ideasman42 at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 22, 2012 at 1:03 PM, Knapp <magick.crow at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I was using the VSE today. Not something that I do very much and I
>> loaded up a little film from my camera and had to problems. Luckily
>> for me I new how to fix them but newbie is going to be at a real loss.
>>
>> First one is easy. Which strip is the sound and which is the video?
>> Clearly you can read it on the side panel, if you happen to have it
>> open and know to look there but would it not be much easier to just
>> have a little icon on each strip? A music note on the sound and a film
>> icon on the other? Simple fix BIG improvement in usability.
>
> I think icons would be a step backwards,
>
> Consider complex sequences where there really isn't any room for icons:
> http://www.sintel.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/animatic.png
>
> IMHO it would further clutter the UI.

I do see your point however I still think a small icon could be
helpful. It is not something I really would want to press you for. It
is just a convenience. I guess in time users learn the colors.

> >From what I've seen most other apps get around the confusion by having
> dedicated audio channels.
>
> For blender we could improve this by displaying the waveform in the
> audio strips, currently this is done only for sound loaded into RAM,
> which isnt so efficient - but it would be possible to cache the
> waveforms for non-RAM audio strips.

That would be nice. Perhaps pictures from the film strips? Anything so
that you know what each thing is. Each transition type could also have
icons.

>> The next problem is a bit odder. When you load the strip in the sound
>> is about 2 times longer than the video. This is because my camera
>> records in 10 fps and the default for blender is 24 fps. It is VERY
>> hard to understand that you have to go to the Render panel and change
>> the fps to get it to load up correctly. Why can't blender just read
>> that from the film and load it correctly? I mean all my other players
>> do and when you look at the film strip info in VLC it is there. It
>> could at least have a popup window that asks if you want it set to
>> 10fps and perhaps even ask about the dimensions and have that set to
>> 640x480 (my cam) or whatever is correct for that film.
>
> Agree this is a real problem, this is simply an issue the sequencer
> has no good solution for - the FPS has to match, if it doesnt - you're
> really out of luck (you have to re-adjust the FPS in some other
> app)...
> Blender does have a time effect that works too and can probably used
> to adjust FPS - but I think this is a pretty messy workflow.

Ya, I think I have used it many years ago. It was not to bad but a bit
hard to understand at first.

Could it be possible to click the film strip and adjust the FPS there?

I am not really sure I see the problem. You click load, the program
checks the FPS setting in world and then loads the strip based on
that, right? Why not just check the FPS on the stored film and use
that instead? Is it possible in Blender to work with film and blended
each has a different FPS? I have never even thought to try this.

Just to make the problem clear.
Render has an output FPS set in world.
Currently the VSE uses this also as the input setting.
The strips themselves have no FPS data attached to them.
We do have a time effect that could be attached to each strip.

What happens when the film is 10FPS and the World setting is 25? I
know you do get a shorter strip. Why is the sound always the right
length?
Thanks
-- 
Douglas E Knapp

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