blender-text2sequences

Blender add-on to select a group of strips and create sequences based on time marks defined in text files. Ideal to create a first edition of a video based on a script or create video previews.

Download

Download the addon using the next link:

https://github.com/mondeja/blender-text2sequences/releases/download/v0.0.9/text2sequences.py

Install

Under Edit -> Preferences -> Add-ons, press on Install and select the downloaded file:

Search for text2sequences in the search bar and enable the addon marking the top-left checkbox:

Usage

Create a .txt file and edit it with a content like:

1 00:01 00:03
2 00:02 00:04
1 00:03 00:05
2 00:02 00:04
1 00:01 00:02

Select two movie clips with their sound channels in the Video Sequence Editor:

Under Add menu, you can see that now the Text to sequences operator is enabled. Press it and open the text file with time marks. Press Text to sequences button and the result will be:

Explanation

The plugin builds a continuous sequence based on cuts of the original clips.

Channels 2 (movie) and 1 (sound), which compound the first media container channel, is named "1" in the text file and the channel 4 and 3 are "2".

In this example, a continous sequence will be generated from cuts of the original clips defined by time marks:

• 1 00:01 00:03 -> Cut from second 1 to second 3 of first movie (channels 2 and 1) and place from seconds 0 to 2 of the new sequence.
• 2 00:02 00:04 -> Cut from second 2 to second 4 of first movie (channels 4 and 3) and place from seconds 2 to 4 of the new sequence.
• ...

Documentation

Syntax

.txt

For *.txt files, time marks are defined each one in a line with the next format:

<media-container> <start-time> <end-time>

• <media-container> (number): Number of the media container (movie clip) to use. Starts in 1.
• <start-time> (time): Start time of the cut in the original clip.
• <end-time> (time): End time of the cut in the original clip.

Supports comments with # characters and fields separation by any number of spaces or tabs.

time

Mark times are defined in one of the next regular expressions:

# <minutes>:<seconds>(.<microseconds>)? (eg. 00:01 or 01:02.345)
(\d+:)?\d+:\d+(\.\d+)

# <hours>:<minutes>:<seconds>(.<microseconds>)? (eg. 00:01:02 or 01:02:03.456)
(\d+:)?\d+:\d+:\d+(\.\d+)

# <frames> (eg. 360 or 690)
\d+

Example

# This is a comment
1 00:01 00:03                # minutes:seconds
2 00:01.600 00:04.200        # minutes:seconds.microseconds
1 180 300                    # frames
2 00:05:04.100 00:06:07.300  # hours:minutes:seconds.microseconds

.srt

For *.srt files, time marks are defined in SRT format, changing the number of the subtitle by the number of the media container (movie sequence) to use. Subtitles values are ignored.

<media-container>
<start-time> --> <end-time>

• <media-container> (number): Number of the media container (movie clip) to use. Starts in 1.
• <start-time> (SRT time): Start time of the cut in the original clip.
• <end-time> (SRT time): End time of the cut in the original clip.

Supports comments with # characters and fields separation by any number of spaces or tabs.

SRT time

# <hours>:<minutes>:<seconds>(,<microseconds>)? (eg. 01:02:03,456)
\d+:\d+:\d+(\,\d+)

Example

# This is a comment
1
00:00:01,000 --> 00:00:03,000  # hours:minutes:seconds,microseconds

2
00:00:01,600 --> 00:00:04,200

1
00:00:03,000 --> 00:00:05,000

2
00:05:04,100 --> 00:06:07,300

Properties

When you click on Add -> Text to sequences, the file browser will display a menu at the side with options to customize the generation of the new timeline of sequences.

• # Select new sequences (enabled): Select the new generated sequences after creating them.
• # Select original sequences: Select the original sequences after creating the new ones.
• # Mute new sequences: Mute channels of new sequences after creating them.
• # Mute original sequences: Mute channels of original sequences after creating the new ones.
• # Channel Y offset (0): Offset in channels (Y axis) for the new sequences of the timeline.
• # Frames X offset (0): Offset in frames (X axis) for the new sequences of the timeline.
• # Time X offset (0): Offset in duration (X axis) for the new sequences of the timeline.