Blender VSE

Why Use Blender VSE For Video Editing?

• Intuitive & very fast workflow (with some plugins).
• Interface is very customizable.
• Can remap any hotkey, using both keyboard and mouse buttons.
• Blender's keyframing and graph editor.
• Frame accurate.
• Open source and free.
• Fast to open.
• Cross platform.
• Extensible.

Why Not Use Blender VSE For Video Editing?

• Slow rendering and playback (GPU rendering WIP).
• Will not conform media.
• Small community compared to Adobe products.
  • Not many good tutorials (yet).
  • Not many transitions or preset effects or templates.
• A little buggy sometimes.
• Not for everyone but if you like the workflow, it's great.

Downloading Blender

• Download latest release here.
• Download LTS here.

Note

A lot of blender's hotkeys work in any portion of the program. For example, a to select all works in the timeline, in the keyframe view, in the 3D view, and more.

UI Navigation

• Create a Video Editing workspace by pressing plus at the top.
• Middle mouse button drag to move stuff around.
• Scroll wheel zooms in and out.

Adding Media

• Add multiple videos/images with Shift + A.
• Press y on an image strip to split into separate images.

Generating Proxy

• Disable cache.
• Generate the proxy.
• Select all your strips and press "Set Selected Strip Proxy". This will do so for all selected strips.
• Enable the proxy in the viewport (press n if the panel isn't there).
• Safe areas.

Moving Shit Around

• Press g to move something.
• Cancel any action with right click.
• H to mute strips.

Splitting A Strip

• Hold offset: extending last frame, reversing clips and such.
• Blender pushes strips to end if you place on top.

Rendering

• Render frame with F12. This will not save your image anywhere.
• To save an image, go to the render and click Image > Save.
• Choose an output folder in the render panel.
• Render the frame range with Ctrl + F12.
• Relative render path.
• Mediainfo framerate.

Customizing Interface

• Remove panels by clicking on their corner.
• You can drag sections you never use elsewhere.
• Ctrl + Middle Mouse Click Drag to change the size of the timeline.
• Set a default start up file will do EXACTLY as you say.

Installing Plugins

Install VSE Transform Tools and Power Sequencer.

Adding More Media

• Enable offset to add something that isn't the canvas resolution.
• Click audio, display waveform, change volume.
• Blending modes.
• Shit on top channel takes visual precedence.
• A/V Sync menu: Timeline > Playback.

Using VSE Transform Tools

• g, s, and r to move, scale, and rotate selected elements.
• Alt + r/s/v to reset.
• c to crop a clip, c to confirm, Shift + C to make canvas same size as crop.
• Changing pivot point with Ctrl + click.
• Right click to cancel ANY action.

Animating Stuff

• You can really animate any value.
• It's easiest to animate with the auto keyframe option enabled.
• Graph editor.
• Default is bezier, t to change selected.
• In graph editor, v to change handle type.

Scenes

• Full copy scene.
• Copying between scenes.
• Appending scenes from other file.

Other Strip Types and Options

• adding text
• speed control
• gaussian blur
• color strip
• transitions
• reverse strips
• ctrl g make meta strip, ctrl alt g remove it, tab to enter and exit
• Right Click an option with many strips selected > apply to selected to apply that value to all selected strips.

More Hotkeys

Selection

• a to select all strips.
• Alt + a to deselect all strips. copy and paste with ctrl c and ctrl v, paste will paste at playhead, ctrl x to cut Shift to multiselect ctrl left mouse to select evcerying on side of playhead Ctrl + Click Selects related strips
• Shift + Alt + g to select handles of cut.
• l to select group of touching strips.

Moving

shift to do ANYTHING slowly ctrl key snap depends on which side of the selection your mouse is on alt right and left to swap ACTIVE strip

• Press x or y to move something on a specific axis.
• Transform by typed amount.
• e with the playhead on the strip on a side of the playhead to grab strip side, alt + click to ripple edit
• c to concatenate selected strips to the left.
• Shift + c to concatenate all strips in channel to the left.
• Shift + S to bring SELECTION to cursor.
• Shift + S will bring all clips to the cursor, lined up vertically. You can use this to sync cuts to music by selecting many cuts at once, bring them to your cursor, use Ctrl + Middle Mouse Click Drag Vertically to compress the view vertically, and see which strips fit the timing well.
• d to duplicate strips.

Navigation

numpad . to view selection (emulate numpad option) home to zoom to render range + strip range

• Ctrl + z to undo, Ctrl + Shift z to redo.
• Up/Down arrow will move playhead to nearest keyframes.

Cutting, Trimming, Editing

lock a strip with shift + l to make it not be cut as a side effect of some other edit alt k control k to trim either side, + shift will ripple

• k to cut with knife.
• "Trim" shift t
• Shift + x to CUT selection and ripple.
• f to fade strip in and out, ctrl f to fade in only, alt f to fade out only, ctrl alt f to remove fade

View

• n to pop up right side menu menu. t to bring up tools menu.
• toggle waveforms alt w
• Ctrl + Alt + p to set render region to selection.

Misc

• Meta strips give some unique transform workflows.
• You can do math in input boxes.
• You can copy and paste an input box without clicking.
• Color management panel supports sRGB and raw.

BPSProxy

• Installing and running BPSProxy.

My Current Hotkey Settings

In order to remap something in blender, you have to delete all conflicts.

Searching keymap for both input and name.

• Animation > Change Frame: Sequencer Tool: Select -> Right Click
• Sequencer: Mouse Trim > T, Time Cursor, Remove Gaps.
  • Uncheck SequencerCommon > Context Toggle
• Sequencer: Split Strips Under Cursor: Mouse Button 5
• Sequencer: Trim Left Or Right Handles: Mouse Button 4 Left, Ripple.
• Frames: Frame Offset > z, x
• Sequencer: Channel Offset > w, s
  • Uncheck SequencerCommon: Set Tool By Name
• Sequencer: Frame Selected > tilde

Preferences

Other Settings

• Bottom Left Timeline Menu, Playback > AV Sync, Limit Playback to Frame Range

• "Go To Current Frame"

• "Jump To Strip"

• Playhead limited to frame range.

• I have renders set to go to the image editor instead of a separate window.

• I set undo tree to really far.

Color Grading

Masking

• Strip mask.
• Guassian blur, must use transform strip.
• Its just a preview.
• feather, switch.

Other Hotkeys

• Something will crossfade the selected strips. Make sure you don't include audio.
• Backspace to remove gap natively, Shift Backspace to remove all gaps natively.
• f9 to change props of thing you just did.
• crossfade ctrl alt c SELECT ONCE, ctrl alt f to delete