[Bf-vfx] VFX tools and feedback for upcoming Mango project

[maciej.szczesnik at autograf.pl]

Hello,
I'd like to send my feedback for vfx and video editing tools in Blender. I'm using our favourite software for quite a time now, mainly for some vfx in small video projects. I've noticed a couple of things.
 
1. One of the biggest problems is the lack of instant preview of the edited clip. You can turn on the backdrop option in the Node Compositor, but you cannot play the video with close to real frame rate. So you are unable to check the final results before rendering. This makes the pipeline a bit ineffective. You have to waste lot of time for pre-compositing the video. Video Sequencer has the same problem. My workaround is to render small resolution videos (takes less time) and check what I get. But that also takes a lot of time. 
 
2. Another problematic situation is inserting pre-keyed effects, that have to be synchronized with the video and placed in a specified location, such as explosions, various hit effects, spashes etc. If you want to use a pre-keyed effects (you can buy tons of pre-keyed explosions and such in quicktime format) you have only one option. You have to use 3d objects with video assigned to them as a texture, place those 3d objects in front of your camera and use render layers in the Node Compositor. That is OK, but again you have no instant preview of the final effect. And in addition you cannot manipulate the playback speed of such effects in any easy way. It's often very useful (see this tutorial for an excellent example of using pre-keyed effects: http://www.videocopilot.net/tutorial/blast_wave/). I'm also not sure if you can use video with transparency (for example quicktime). 
 
Best regards,
Maciej
 
 
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