[ANSWERED] Using Blender animation
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Hi,
I'm creating an animated growing beanstalk in Blender. I'd like to import that into Isadora 3 to use on a stage with with other layered images. Think of a forest with trees in the foreground and hills and sky in the background with the beanstalk growing in between.
I got something working by creating a 'green screen' in red in the Blender output video and then using a Chroma Key actor to remove the background. But that is not creating a smooth edges for the beanstalk. Very pixelated.
Any idea how to get a transparent background out of Blender?
Thanks,
Tom
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Hi,
You really want to export your animation out of Blender with an alpha channel so that you can composite your layers in Isadora without the need for chromakey masking.
There are a number of ways and formats that will work. There are tutorial videos on YouTube. You can search for: how to export alpha channel from blender?
Best wishes
Russell
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Thanks Russell,
Since post the question. I've succeeded in exporting both a Quicktime .mov file and a .avi file that I can load into Photoshop and see the transparency.
But I'm getting a codec error when trying to import those into Isadora. The QT container with a "QT rle / QT Animation" Codec seems to be the best output combo in Blender but that will not load into Isadora.
I can get .mov file using QT and H.264 Codec in Blender to load into Isadora. But it is not behaving the same as a PNG file with a transparent background. The difference I'm seeing is that I can put the png projector with a "transparent" blend on a higher level than my background PNG and it looks opaque. When I try that with the projector for the .avi movie, it blocks the background image. If I put the .mov in "additive" blend it shows but is translucent, not opaque.
A work around I found was to put both the background image and the animation in Blender creating a combined video that I can use in Isadora. I can make that work but I'm loosing control and can't control the background and animation separately.
In reading the Isadora document, there must be a way to do this. I see the "alpha mode" parameter in the Movie Player. I think I'm doing something wrong in creating the video file to load.
I apologize if this is documented somewhere and I've missed it.
Thanks.
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@tomdunn said:
The QT container with a "QT rle / QT Animation" Codec seems to be the best output combo in Blender but that will not load into Isadora.
This is a good codec for getting an Alpha channel, but it is an old Quicktime codec, and since QuickTime has been removed from Isadora is no longer supported. You should be able to convert this file to either Prores (if you on Mac) or Hap Alpha if you are on PC (or Mac). I personally prefer Hap Alpha (quicker performance).
It should be easy to convert using Shutter Encoder (free and easy batch encoding) https://www.shutterencoder.com... -
don't forget for ProRes to use ProRes 4444 if you want alpha
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@dusx Thanks so much. Using Hap Alpha worked. I can now get an opaque animation in a layer in front of an image.
Now back to Blender to create the final beanstalk.
