How to Use Blender for All VFX Composition and Video Editing

So many people know Adobe After Effects, Sony Vegas, Adobe Premiere or DaVinci Resolve. Such software can be sued to edit videos and also composite special video effects. Many people also know programs like 3Ds Max, Maya, Unreal Engine or Blender as 3D editors where the 3D scenes can be rendered. Not many people also know that Blender contains all! This article is just a short overview of the whole process and an example of how I use Blender for all editing steps. It can be used for all steps and the whole movie can be created with just Blender easily and for free. Blender is to me the top best open-source and free video editor for professional film-making.

When opening Blender, there is the default 3D Viewport. In the bookmarks at the top, it is possible to select the Video Editing tab (might be hidden in the + button). An here we are in the standard video editor. It can be used to stack several layers of videos on top of each other and to export the video with the same settings as standard rendering in Blender. I made an article about advanced video exporting here. One disadvantage of this editor is that high-resolution videos may not play in real time. You can, however, generate proxies which speed up the playback. It can basically prepare the video for the preview in lower resolution. There are also various filters, transitions, text strip and all basic things that every video editor has. I use this video sequence editor (VSE) for the final cut of the videos and also for compositing of some simple layer-based effects. One cool feature is so-called Adjustment Layer which is a special strip on which you can apply some filters and they will affect all layers below this strip. Very useful for adjusting multiple videos at once. Audo strips are of course supported too.

For more advanced 2D compositing and effects, Blender offers a Compositing tab similar to Video Editing. This editor is useful for post-processing of 3D renders, but also for composition of 2D videos, and offers more tools than VSE. This editor also uses a different principle than VSE. Instead of layer-based editing, it uses node-based editing. There are a variety of nodes that can be combined to create advanced filters and effects, and multiple videos can be combined in many ways. Make sure to enable Backdrop and connect the nodes to the Viewer node which shows the result of the node graph. To render the animation, the result needs to be connected to Composite node. If you tick the Use Nodes switch and the top, the Compositor will be the main output method. You need to tick it to see the results of Compositor. One tip, if you import a video (drag and drop) to the Compositor, set its length in frame or else you will see only one still frame even when you move the timeline. You can do it in the side panel on the right after selecting the video node in Node->Properties->Frames->Refresh button. You can do many things like greenscreen keying, transformations, color grading, using textures (I made an article about simple energy and fire using this technique), masks etc. in Compositor. You can also use the automatic tracking to move other elements in the video according to the motion of the camera or objects in the footage. You need to switch to Motion Tracking tab, track a video and then use Track Position node in the Compositor.

Both VSE and composites support masks. Masks can be edited in Image tab where the render or viewer results can be shown by selecting the image from the top dropdown list. The editing mode at the left needs to be set to Mask. Then hitting the New button allows you to draw a mask by holding the control button and clicking with the left mouse button or dragging for smooth curves. Hitting Alt+C connects the loose mask ends, and selecting some mask nodes and hitting Alt+S enables feather. Also, take a look at the left toolbar where mask layers are (hit N if not visible). The mask can be then used in the Compositor as a Mask node and in VSE as Mask modifier.

And then we have the 3D editor which is the most known Blender feature. So how do I use all these things? I usually use 3D editor to create some 3D effects and environments and render it to a PNG sequence to ensure lossless quality. I create some advanced compositions in Compositor and also render them to PNG sequence. Then I take these and import them to VSE along with standard videos and create the final video. I also do some simple compositing of effects in VSE which does not need the advanced Compositor features. From VSE I render the whole video.

This should be a good introduction of the main features that Blender offers for the whole videe editing process.

Keywords: post process, visual effects, tutorial, explained, cinematography
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