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In Short

I have animated a strip in the VSE and would like to apply the same animation to other strips later. How can I do that without manually recreating the keyframes on the other strips?

In More Detail

I guess I’m looking for a way to create something like an animation template that I can apply to multiple strips at different points in time. Ideally, making changes to the animation template will also update the animations where the template was used.

The accepted answer on this question suggests that Actions could be used to create such animation templates. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get new keyframes on VSE strip properties into custom Actions but only into the default “SceneAction”.

Example .blend File

Here’s a sample .blend file that shows what I’m after:

There are three similar, scaled (color) strips on top of a background strip. I have animated the yellow strip (via Transform.Yellow). I would like to reuse the same animation on the other two color strips, just later in the video.

one rendered frame of the result with the yellow strip being animated

(Note: in reality I don’t work with color strips but they should be good enough to demonstrate the issue.)

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  • $\begingroup$ Please state your level of familiarity with Python. $\endgroup$
    – atomicbezierslinger
    Nov 25, 2018 at 14:49
  • $\begingroup$ Below you wrote .... I need to change my animation later, I’ll have to recreate all strip copies. If this (hypo) situation were to occur would it be a different scene? Are you only animating one attribute such a transparency or many attributes? $\endgroup$
    – atomicbezierslinger
    Nov 25, 2018 at 14:52
  • $\begingroup$ I have developed Python software but not in the context of Blender. $\endgroup$
    – Chriki
    Nov 25, 2018 at 16:23
  • $\begingroup$ I think I have not worked with different scenes so far, so it’d probably be the same scene. I should note that I have mostly used Blender for video editing so far. I don’t know, yet, how many attributes will be affected; for my concrete current use case I’m playing with scaling and moving the strips. The main point of changing the animation later would be to be able to easily try out different looks on all affected strips. For example, I have just tried to get along with animating movement only but then figured out that some additional scaling looks better. $\endgroup$
    – Chriki
    Nov 25, 2018 at 16:23
  • $\begingroup$ You only need to see a small portion of the large Blender API to get your tasks done. It is work. Some of the information you need might be on the Blender Information Window showing some of the software invoked by the User. Of course a comment is not going to be enough space to list all the ways to get the correct knowledge to get your job done. Searching here at BSE for Python and API topics will help. I do not read a clear definition of the scope of your task from your writing. Thus I would say what I have listed in the candidate answer is still a reasonable starting point. $\endgroup$
    – atomicbezierslinger
    Nov 25, 2018 at 18:37

1 Answer 1

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Consider

  • Change Data Files ... a single button in the VSE Panel
  • Copy and Paste from the Graph Editor Window

Additional

  • Archive your software by Duplicating the file or entire Scene to Duplicate all VSE Strips.
  • Duplicating the Strips in the Particular Scene to test new animations.
  • A Python Script solution by searching BSE or the internet in general. Obtaining a new Python Script written by someone or you. Your expertise with Python will be a factor in determining the cost of this.

enter image description here

A Python Script can handle this situation. The cost could be searching the internet or someone writing it. You might be that someone. Sometimes a manual solution may be more time cost or other cost effective depending on arrangement and quantity of data. If you get lucky. Probably more people on the BSE site are familiar with Copy and Paste rather than writing a Python Script.

Please know keyframe data can be copied and pasted from the Graph Editor Window.

enter image description here

Copy and Paste from the Menu or use the indicated standard keystrokes. Image Above.

You might also have a manual copy and paste solution depending on your data quantity and the time cost or other cost of getting a Python Script. Just like spreadsheet data or text data has a copy and paste with a cursor ... the Blender User may copy points of the one data graph (A) and paste them to a certain target data graph (B) with the graph timeline frame cursor.

Lets imagine an optimistic hypothetical situation. Suppose your Blender Scene situation has 3 independent video strips in a set named [A] in VSE each with 88 transparency keyframes each and 3 dependent video strips in a set named [B]. Next the scene is duplicated and [A] has been given a new animation by you. Next you may only need to copy and paste actions 3 times to give [B] a new animation. In this scenario you did [not] manually duplicate the work of thinking about the 88 keyframes individually.

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  • $\begingroup$ Good idea, that’s definitely better than having to recreate the keyframes manually. Unfortunately, if I need to change my animation later, I’ll have to recreate all strip copies. Let’s see if maybe there’ll be an even better solution. Anyway, thanks, +1! $\endgroup$
    – Chriki
    Nov 25, 2018 at 11:28

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