Thank you so much for Shotcut! It is doing almost everything I want, which is wonderful.
I have a series of video projects for which I would like to create a standardized Intro, Outro and Credit sequences. So that each time I make a new video, all I have to do is drag those three items into the Playlist and then into one channel on the timeline, and then add a middle filler clip which would be different each time.
I am not sure how to do certain parts of this.
At the moment I have several projects for Intro, Outro and Credits, but they are only saved as Projects and they have not been rendered.
If I render each of these Projects, will they then be in a format that I can drag back in to the Playlist as video clips I can then merge with the new material?
And is there a way to then additionally edit these clips in the current project, like change a date, or a topic line of text in any one of these clip sections?
Yes. When you export a project it is then a video file and like all video files you can bring them into Shotcut and do whatever it is you want with them.
Assuming you created these intro, outro and credit clips in Shotcut then what you can do is save them as mlt files and keep those mlt files around along with any media that you may have you used to create those clips in one folder. When the time comes when you want to insert those clips in a new project but with text that is unique to that project (e.g. a specific date) then you open those mlt files and edit the text accordingly. After you are done then export them and bring those specific intro, outro and credit videos into your new project.
Alternatively, you can open those mlt files and edit them according to the project you are doing them save them after editing. Then when you go to your main project you can open those mlt files for intro, outro and credits as if they were clips by going to “File” and hitting “Open MLT XML As Clip”.
jbsheridan: That’s good instruction from DRM, including some stuff I didn’t know yet.
As your methods are very similar to my work, let me share a few things I have learned along the way.
Intro and Outro behave better for me if I put each on its own Track.
I have used two methods for current project edits. Both involve making (I use TheGimp photo editor) to make PNG files with transparent background (alpha channel) for the changing data:
A) Overlay the PNG (in its own Track) over the Intro.
—or—
B) Clone the Intro project, overlay the PNG into a unique intro, export, then use with the real project.
I find that Shotcut works better for me (I use GPU Effects, so I am always on the unsupported edge of system instability, LOL) if I do the intermediate step of converting my PNG to a video file of exactly the length I need. Shotcut preserves the transparency of the background very nicely.
…or you may find that doing it the way DRM suggests fits your work style better.
Thank you DRM for such a complete and lucid answer. And thank you Kagsundaram for the really great additional insights. I can see how all the parts fit together now. It’s really great to have such helpful comment.
