[Bf-funboard] Modernizing the Video Sequencer Editor UI

David McSween 3pointedit at gmail.com
Fri Feb 21 07:58:21 CET 2014


Paulo,
Yes this makes me sad too. There are some good addons that help to
re-create the in point / out point operation of a real video editor
http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?264676-Sequencer-Addon-Trim-Videos-before-adding-them-to-the-Timeline-(In-and-Outpoints)&p=2201070#post2201070
but there is no access to meta data or asset compilation (key word lists
etc.), so you could re-use media or group media into collections.

This is because Ton prefers to keep Blender as a function specific
application. That is it should create or composite 3D animations only. here
are his thoughts on the Sequencer...

http://lists.blender.org/pipermail/soc-2013-dev/2013-July/000127.html

" Requirements:

- Above all: Sequencer is for real-time editing of shots. It is a
Blender tool, well working with rest of Blender, for Blender artists
to manage their work. We don't make a generic video editor."

Remember this from Ton last year, it is a comprehensive look at what
Blender should do...
http://code.blender.org/index.php/2013/10/redefining-blender/

"The official Blender Foundation goal is worded like this:

*Provide individual artists and small teams with a complete, free and open
source 3D creation pipeline.*

In this simple sentence a couple of crucial focus points come together.

   - Artists and teams:
   We work for people who consider themselves artist - and who work on
   creating 3D individually or in small teams together. The definition for
   "artist" can be taken quite wide - to include engineers, product designers,
   architects or scientists. But each of them can be considered to have a
   serious interest in working with 3D software to create something related to
   that interest.
   "Blender is for artists" also means that's it not a programming API or
   scripting environment, these are secondary to this goal.
   - Complete 3D creation:
   Blender should work for making finished products, without requirement to
   purchase or run other programs. Its output should satisfy the users
   sufficiently to share their work in public or market it as part of a living.
   - Pipeline:
   We are aware of how CG production works (for animation, film, vfx,
   games) and we want Blender to work sufficiently in each and every aspect of
   such creation pipelines. This to to make complex creations possible and to
   enable people working together.
   - Free and open source:
   And not only should Blender be a complete production system, we even
   want this to be free and open source!

"
and here
http://lists.blender.org/pipermail/bf-committers/2013-January/038991.html

"By design (and focus for work) the Sequencer is meant for Blender
projects, to manage own Blender renders efficiently. Input files are
typically openexrs or pngs, and export to whatever (mmovie) format you like.

Blender Sequencer just isn't a generic multi-purpose video editor
system. Not by design, and impossible to manage with our limited
resources. The more narrow we can keep our Sequencer, the better it
will work. :)


-Ton-"

It seems that Blender would be a 'down-stream' tool, that should come after
editorial/story development.

But...

...the Open Movies 'have' used the VSE to layout storyboards against voice
acting (sound clips) and music score. This is editorial I think? However
they 'did not' use video clips, instead they use still images that are
replaced with rendered art as the production goes on, and some audio clips.

In this way "prototyping" is testing a movie with storyboard panels in the
VSE.
While "assemblage" or montage of renders is what happens at the end of a
job. That is, you collect all the scenes/shots that you have rendered and
place them in order, trimming the elements that you don't require.

Paulo I think that your proposal fits these requirements PERFECTLY ;)
 Unfortunately none of the media handling you would expect in a video
editor, fits the Blender goals :(

So there will be:

-NO clip bins internally

-NO clip metadata like keywords or notes

-NO source preview/skimmer

-NO marking of source in-points and timeline in-points, that is
pre-trimming before the edit

-NO audio mixing tools like basic EQ or assigned track output

-NO improved speed effects like Optical Flow or frame blending

-NO VSE to Compositor conform, that is no way to round trip edited VSE
clips to compositor for applying effects (there is an addon that tries).

-NO EDL or XML export/import of edited sequences (potential solution to
Compositor roundtrip problem).



They just aren't suitable it seems.

P.S.
This last bf mailing list email gives me some hope...
http://lists.blender.org/pipermail/bf-committers/2013-June/041070.html

"For example: the Sequencer code now can get a full makeover without
breaking the rest of Blender. It's highly needed to do that.

Solutions for having tracking/compositing/sequencer work together are
there too. What I'd like to explore is some kindof image-depsgraph. A
user then can manage image dependencies in Blender like: render to
image, which gets used as a texture in other render, which goes to
compositor, which goes into a VSE, etc etc.

"

Cheers
David





On Fri, Feb 21, 2014 at 1:55 PM, Paulo José Amaro <pauloup at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi David,
>
> Thank you very much for presenting me to this patch and the addon. This
> feature is something that I ever desired to have in VSE and it certainly
> should be included in Blender natively. I hope to see this to gain
> attention from more people.
>
> Thanks for the links also. I already knew them, but still so they are good
> references to be read more than once. Before writing my ideas I checked if
> there was something already in the wiki, but I had found nothing related to
> VSE. Is there any link where I could find more info about the mould you've
> cited?
>
> Or may you explain me more about the implications of "keep it as a tool for
> "assemblage of rendered scenes" or for "prototyping storyboards". This
> description seems not much exciting, but more like a advice to invest not
> much effort on VSE as a video edition tool. This would make me sad, because
> Blender is really the most powerful, flexible and stable free tool I
> already worked with video. :-(
>
>
> On Thu, Feb 20, 2014 at 11:56 PM, David McSween <3pointedit at gmail.com
> >wrote:
>
> > And here is the UI team Project Page
> > https://developer.blender.org/project/view/12/
> >
> > While this is the UI proposals page
> > http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Dev:Ref/Proposals/UI
> >
> > I guess your well thought out suggestions should go there. But I do hope
> > you get more feedback here of course.
> >
> > David
> >
> >
> > On Fri, Feb 21, 2014 at 12:52 PM, David McSween <3pointedit at gmail.com
> > >wrote:
> >
> > > Paulo, have you also seen this patch from Jehan
> > > https://developer.blender.org/T34064
> > >
> > > It provides a new way to interact with the media in the preview window
> > > (much like the translate addon does). Allowing the user to scale and
> crop
> > > dynamically. Sadly I don't have the resources to build my own Blender
> > with
> > > patches. Taken together, your UI concepts and the interaction patch
> would
> > > really improve the VSE without breaking the BF approved mould. That is
> > the
> > > preference to keep it as a tool for "assemblage of rendered scenes" or
> > for
> > > "prototyping storyboards".
> > >
> > >
> > > On Thu, Feb 20, 2014 at 4:11 PM, Paulo José Amaro <pauloup at gmail.com
> > >wrote:
> > >
> > >> Hi,
> > >>
> > >> I'm Paulo Jose, from Brazil, and I want to share some ideas and
> > >> suggestions
> > >> about the Video Sequencer Editor's user interface.
> > >>
> > >> I sent my first message to bf-commiters mails list and had very good
> > >> suggestions there. Then someone told me that here could be a better
> > place
> > >> to discuss this. So I'm copying my message here.
> > >>
> > >> I'm being a Blender user for many years and the main functionality I
> use
> > >> is
> > >> the VSE. Along the years, I used many tools, from VirtualDub to Adobe
> > >> Premiere. Blender is by far the most complete and powerful open source
> > >> software to work with, its flexibility is the keyword here. But there
> > are
> > >> some areas of VSE that still can be improved.
> > >>
> > >> Taking advantage of the new Tabs feature which is being implemented in
> > >> Blender UI and the current moving to reorganizing things in a better
> > way,
> > >> I
> > >> put my efforts to study how to improve Blender's VSE UI.
> > >>
> > >> In the past days I prepared a little Demo of a modernized UI for VSE,
> > made
> > >> with HTML+CSS+JS to simulate the Blender UI and some of its behavior.
> > It's
> > >> not a "lets throw everything away", but most like "lets move these
> > options
> > >> to here, those to there". The Demo includes a step by step guide to
> > every
> > >> change, explaining my motivation about them, so I don't get longer in
> > this
> > >> mail.
> > >>
> > >> You can access it here: Blender Sequencer Video Editor -
> > >> Demo<
> > >>
> >
> https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/5107072/blender-vse-2014/sequencer.html
> > >> >
> > >>
> > >> The changes are restrict to Properties Panel. You can compare it with
> > the
> > >> current UI by clicking on "How was this screen" button. There are some
> > few
> > >> new features, but most of them are already in another parts of Blender
> > and
> > >> they are not out of scope.
> > >>
> > >> I would like very much to know your opinion. And I'll keep to work on
> > this
> > >> based on your feedback. My intent is to try to modernize VSE, starting
> > by
> > >> the Properties Panel, then going to menus and so on.
> > >>
> > >> I'm not a developer, but I put myself available to help with design
> > tasks
> > >> and maybe coding too if needed. I'm experienced with using Inkscape,
> > >> coding
> > >> with Python and a little of C. I just need some guidance.
> > >>
> > >> I'm sorry for any misspelling, English is not my main language, but I
> > love
> > >> to learn! I hope to get familiar with this mail listing and actively
> > >> participate of it. :-)
> > >>
> > >> Someone said that some development may be happening already to VSE. I
> > did
> > >> know nothing about it, and I would like to know more and to get
> > involved,
> > >> if it's possible. I'm open to adapt my proposal to the current
> > >> development,
> > >> or help some another way you may think I should.
> > >>
> > >> Thank you for your time and I hope my efforts may be useful somehow.
> > >>
> > >> Cheers,
> > >> ~Paulo
> > >> _______________________________________________
> > >> Bf-funboard mailing list
> > >> Bf-funboard at blender.org
> > >> http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-funboard
> > >>
> > >
> > >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Bf-funboard mailing list
> > Bf-funboard at blender.org
> > http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-funboard
> >
>
>
>
> --
> *Paulo José O. Amaro*
> *Estudante na UFSJ-MG-Brazil. Blogueiro na CasaTwain.com*
> *Freelancer* em artes gráficas, edição de vídeo, modelagem 3D, interfaces
> web, CSS3, HTML5, Javascript, Wordpress e padrões web.
> _______________________________________________
> Bf-funboard mailing list
> Bf-funboard at blender.org
> http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-funboard
>


More information about the Bf-funboard mailing list