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Is there a way or a workaround to omit certain Frames in the VSE completely while rendering out a final video from the Sequencer? That would be even handy for Playback in the VSE.

When I want the compositor to not render out something (but have an alpha value of 100% appear at certain places resulting in not being visible), I can use a Holdout Shader to achieve this.

Is there something similar for the VSE like an "Holdout" Effect Strip that will basically just skip all the frames including the Audio that are covered by this Effect Strip? I don't mean being rendered transparent, but omitted completely.

It would basically allow me to cut out parts of my Video where I have lots of timed strips that have to stay in place because of the timing with multiple cameras/sound files being all used together. And I have many markers already set up properly at certain time positions after the range I want to be skipped/not rendered that should stay in sync with my footage, so I think just "deleting" all strips from all channels in this range using soft or hard cuts won't be an option here.

Using a Speed effect strip with a very high multiply value doesn't work here as it doesn't really skip frames and doesn't reduce the final amount of frames to be rendered while my remaining strips stay in their position at the timeline.

To make it more obvious with an example: I want to skip the muted and selected strips in my resulting render at around 2:30 to 3:20 with a Holdout Strip I place above them:
Holdout Strip example
But I want to keep my markers at their exact positions and I need these strips all at their relative positions so that my sync between the multiple cameras and audio files won't be lost. They are already aligned perfectly fine in time so far and therefore start at different positions.

I just want these frames where the (fake) Holdout Strip is placed to be omitted while rendering. The benefit would be that I can easily adjust this Effect Strips position even though while there might be some cuts "underneath" already.

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  • $\begingroup$ Do you mean that you want (for example) to render only the first 100 frames and last 100 frames of a 300 frame sequence, to give you a 200 frame result with a jump in the middle? Or do you want to render all 300 frames, but have the middle 100 frames render as totally transparent? $\endgroup$
    – Matt
    Mar 24, 2016 at 20:20
  • $\begingroup$ Your first mentioned result. I hope, I edited this more obvious now. $\endgroup$
    – Samoth
    Mar 24, 2016 at 20:32

2 Answers 2

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Why not just place all of your strips into a meta strip (or VSE sub scene) then trim a hole in that strip. Your editing will stay in place but the animation will skip it upon rendering. To undo the trim simply un-meta the strip.

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  • $\begingroup$ This won't include my markers I want to stick in sync with my footage after the trim cut. $\endgroup$
    – Samoth
    Mar 24, 2016 at 13:06
  • $\begingroup$ You could place color effect strips between markers, like a checkerboard. When you collapse all the strips into the metastrip the coloured effect strips become apparent so you know where to cut? Sorry if I'm missing the point. $\endgroup$
    – 3pointedit
    Mar 24, 2016 at 14:00
  • $\begingroup$ Might be worth being considered, I'll give it a try... But I think, I've already seen a feature called ripple delete which should move following markes as well and perform what I try to achieve. $\endgroup$
    – Samoth
    Mar 24, 2016 at 20:38
  • $\begingroup$ I think, the nested Scene Strips might work, I'll give it a try soon. Thus I might still keep one Scene with all my original footage and markers being properly in place and only cut the imported Scene Strip in another Scene that I use for my "holdout cuts" and finally rendering... Think, this is, what you meant with "VSE sub scene"? Might you elaborate on that? $\endgroup$
    – Samoth
    May 11, 2016 at 22:14
  • $\begingroup$ It does work reasonably with Nested Scene Strips - would you like to elaborate on that or would you prefer me posting a self-answer? Though there's a bit of a tradeoff with Markers copied to the new Scene when you delete parts. $\endgroup$
    – Samoth
    May 17, 2016 at 9:21
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You can use Strip Duplication & Muting:

enter image description here

You can move your marker selection as well:

enter image description here

You can select them via this script, albeit semi-automatic (If you keep the default marker naming):

import bpy

myScene = bpy.data.scenes['Scene.001']
myMarkers = myScene.timeline_markers.items()

myIndices = []

for i in myMarkers:
    if int(i[0].split("_")[1]) > 60:
        myIndices += [i[1]]

for j in myMarkers:
    j[1].select = False

for k in myIndices:
    k.select = True

enter image description here

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  • $\begingroup$ Then I won't be able to see my later markers together with my cut footage anymore... $\endgroup$
    – Samoth
    Mar 24, 2016 at 20:44
  • $\begingroup$ @Samoth - I've appended my answer to show how you can keep your marker relationship. You just have to move them. However, I would recommend that you keep your untouched version in a separate scene - Just in case you need to get back to that point. $\endgroup$
    – Rick Riggs
    Mar 25, 2016 at 20:35
  • $\begingroup$ Yeah - as a manual workaround that might help. But it might be tricky to select all the following markers, it can be up to 99 at all in my project... $\endgroup$
    – Samoth
    Mar 25, 2016 at 20:37
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    $\begingroup$ You can use Border select on them - if that helps any - @Samoth $\endgroup$
    – Rick Riggs
    Mar 25, 2016 at 20:58
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    $\begingroup$ I just appended my answer to include a python helper for marker selection - @Samoth $\endgroup$
    – Rick Riggs
    Mar 25, 2016 at 21:40

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