Quick overview of blenders sequencer

Intro

This tutorial will step you through the basics of using blenders sequencer. You should know how to get around in blender before starting this. Blenders sequencer can be used for a variety of things, some of them I'm sure were not intended by the creators of blender. You can do video composing, transitions, post processing, and pretty much anything you can dream up that will work on a series of images. The basic building block of blenders sequencer is called a strip. A strip is basically a block of images. Download: Plugins: Sweep, Wipeout This file has three windows open currently. A text window, The sequencer, and a 3d window.

Adding strips to the sequencer

In the sequencer add scenes 1 & 2. The things you add to the sequencer are called strips. To add a scene hit shift-a Select scene and then select the appropriate scene. Line both scenes up so that they start at frame 1. image here. Selection works just like it does in the 3d window. You can also use g to move a strip around. Select both scenes by holding down shift and right-clicking on them. Lets start by adding an alpha-over. (With shift-a select alpha-over) Place the alpha-over above the other two scenes. Now its important that you get the scenes in the right order. You can switch the order by selecting the alpha-over and hitting the c key. Then select switch a-b. An effect can work on up to 3 strips at a time. (If you have 3 strips you may also need to switch b-c.) Ok make the alpha-over 2-1 And render your scene. (Note: for rendering you need to make sure the do-sequence button is clicked in the Display Buttons F10, you also need to make sure that all of your scenes are the same size and have the same output file type.)

Adding a Plugin

Ok lets remove the alpha-over and try adding a plugin. To remove the alpha-over select it and hit x. The first plugin we are going to use is the sweep plugin. If you don't have it on your machine already you can get it from http://www.blender.nl/resource/plugins/sequence.php