Blender for Video Production Quick Start Guide

Create high quality videos for YouTube and other social media platforms with Blender

Allan Brito

• Publisher: Packt Publishing
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN:
  9781789804959
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781789809657
• Topic: Computer Science
• Subtopic: Digital Media
• Index: Computer Science

Use Blender to edit and produce video for YouTube or any other social media platforms

Key Features

• Use the Blender Video editing toolkit and UI
• Make 3D info-graphics and interactive video with the latest Blender toolkit
• Prepare a video production with live markings for tracking

Book Description

One of the critical components of any workflow related to video production is a reliable tool to create and edit media such as video and audio. In most cases, you will find video producers using software that can only cut and mount video in a "traditional" way. What if you could use a software that offers not only options to edit and cut video, but also create 3D content and animation? With Blender, you can make use of a fantastic set of tools to edit and cut video, and also produce 3D content that will enable you to take your productions to the next level.

Do you want to take footage from a camera and cut or add sound and titles? This book will show you how Blender can do that for you! You will learn to add 3D virtual objects to the same footage that will help you to create a full 3D environment. Using some camera tricks, you can even turn Blender into a powerful 2.5D animation software to create compelling infographics to produce educational, marketing, and instructional videos. You will also learn how to work with motion tracking to mix live-action footage with virtual objects. You will then learn how to use the video editing capabilities of Blender and match 3D content to your project for YouTube or any other media.

Toward the end of the book, you will export the project to YouTube using optimal settings for the best performance in the platform.

What you will learn

• Import video and audio footage to Blender
• Use the Video Sequencer Editor to manipulate footage
• Prepare a project related to video in Blender
• Cut and reorganize video footage in Blender
• Create animations and add voiceover and sound to video
• Build infographics based on 3D content
• Blend 3D content with live-action footage
• Export video for YouTube using optimal settings

Who this book is for

Anyone trying to produce content based on video for platforms like YouTube. Those artists will need a software to cut and edit video footage or make small intro clips, animations, or info graphics for video.

Creating Intro Videos for YouTube with Text and Motion Graphics

One of the most significant advantages of using Blender to produce any content related to video is the immediate availability of a full-featured 3D editor. Whenever you need to create animation and blend that with 3D content, all you have to do is change the editor type.

In this chapter, you will learn how to use some of the 3D tools in Blender to emulate a bi-dimensional animation editor with an orthographic camera. From that orthographic camera, we will add text, graphics as textures, and an animated background.

Here is what you will learn:

• Managing cameras in Blender
• Creating and setting up an orthographic camera
• Adding and editing 3D text
• Assigning textures to objects
• Using transparent textures for enhanced graphics
• Creating animations from 3D objects
• Editing animation speed
• Using multiple scenes in the Sequencer

Technical requirements

You will be required to have Blender 2.80 installed to follow this procedure. Even if you have a later version of Blender, the described example should work with no significant problems.

The media files of this chapter can be found on GitHub:
https://github.com/PacktPublishing/Blender-for-Video-Production-Quick-Start-Guide/tree/master/Chapter05
Check out the following video to see the procedures in action:
http://bit.ly/2FNvTtU

Creating an intro for YouTube

An intro clip for a channel or video is significant as it presents valuable information to anyone watching your content. You can present your brand, subject, or any other relevant information for the audience.

In most video editing software, you will find some tools and options to add text and graphics to video, and Blender is no different. However, we must make a few adjustments before some particular types of projects.

You will need a 2D space to create text animations and also set the Blender 3D camera with an orthographic projection. The intro can hold several types of visual content from images to full 3D models. But, in our case, we will use title text and a fictional logo for our channel.

Making a storyboard for your animation

The first step in the process of getting an intro video for your projects is to arrange a storyboard to guide the production. Using a simple approach for the storyboard will allow you to focus solely on production and worry less about what the final product will look like.

In our case, we will use a simple design for the intro video to show the following parts:

• Title text
• Logo
• Animated background

If you look at a static version of the intro video, you will see something similar to Figure 5.1:

Figure 5.1: Intro video layout

The title text we can create inside Blender itself uses some of the tools available for 3D content creation, and our logo is a texture that we will apply to a 3D plane. We will make it use transparent pixels to only display the necessary shape.

What about the background? We will use another plane with a texture, but with a loop animation to create a much better-looking video.

Preparing Blender for animation

Until this point, we made all the designs for our projects using only the Video Sequencer Editor, and it worked great for our purposes. But if you want to use the full power of Blender, we must also use the 3D Editor and it's capabilities.

With that in mind, we must prepare Blender to create all the necessary elements to make our intro video.

Start a new project in Blender or press the Ctrl + N keys to create a new file and choose General from the options.

If you have an actual project in Blender that you don't want to lose, you can always use the File menu to save the project before starting a new one.

Once you get to the Blender default screen, we can start preparing the project.

A critical step for the project is the setup of our user interface to have something close to a video editor space. We will set the view to the top with an orthographic projection to simulate a 2D space. That view will become essential to blend our results with a video later.

Creating an orthographic camera

Regarding rendering 3D content in Blender, we must prepare our space to follow a simple rule. The software will only render 3D content visible to the active camera. In the default scene, you already have a camera to use, and we need to relocate it to the top.

How do you do that? The first step is to set our view to the top using the 7 key from your numeric keyboard, or go to the view menu and choose Viewpoint | Top.

For keyboard shortcuts related to 3D navigation to work, you must place the mouse cursor over the 3D View window. That will set the window as active.

Look to the top-left corner of your 3D View and you will see the name Top Perspective. It means our view is successfully at the top. But we still have to change the camera.

There is a shortcut in Blender that will make any active camera move and adapt to the current viewing angle yo...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright and Credits
• Dedication
• About Packt
• Contributors
• Preface
• Blender as a Video Editor for YouTube
• Editing and Cutting Video Footage in Blender
• Using Properties to Enhance Video
• Animated Properties for Video Effects
• Creating Intro Videos for YouTube with Text and Motion Graphics
• Using Videos as Textures for 3D Compositions
• Adding Sound and Voiceover for YouTube
• Aligning 3D Content with Video Using Virtual Cameras
• Exporting Video for YouTube
• Other Books You May Enjoy