Media Viewer by Blender Studio
- 22 Nov 2021
- 2 min read
- 12 min watch time
In this article you will learn what the Blender Media Viewer is and how it uses the concept of Application Templates to turn Blender in to an app that serves a specific purpose.
Application Templates
Application Templates become useful when you need more than just an add-on. With an Application Template you can ship your own keymaps, startup file and user preferences. You can even define template specific add-ons and modify parts of the Blender user interface. And the great thing is that you can easily switch between these templates without overwriting your own personal configuration or requiring a separate Blender installation.
In fact Blender already ships with some default Application Templates that you can access via the File -> New menu.
Introducing the Media Viewer
The Media Viewer came to life because we wanted to have a player that could seamlessly browse media files with the arrow keys for our weekly presentations at the studio no matter if they are video, images or image sequences.
This Application Template reduces the Blender UI to a bare minimum by removing all elements that are not needed. It ships with its own add-on and keymap which add the functionality to make it usable as a media viewer. One important aspect while developing was to be able to use is without a mouse.
Without further explanation check out this quick demo.
The Media Viewer switches dynamically between the Blender Image Editor, Sequence Editor and Text Editor depending on what type of file was selected. A draw handler on the File Browser tracks the selection. The Media Viewer also detects image sequences and loads them accordingly.
Besides that, it adds several features like remembering the last selected folder at a path in the File Browser. Another aspect I like is that it wraps around the frame range when stepping frames with dot and comma. Furthermore, the numpad can be used to navigate the camera of the media view to drop the need for a mouse.
Full Walkthrough
Checkout this video for a full walkthrough on how to install it and some more information.
The Media Viewer is part of the Blender Studio Tools and can be downloaded here. For now you have to install git and clone the repository with the following command:
git clone git://git.blender.org/blender-studio-tools.git
Note: The Blender Media Viewer requires at least Blender 3.0!
In the README.md of the blender-media-viewer directory you can find all the instructions on how to install it. Make sure to read the shortcut section as these are an essential part of the Media Viewer.
10 comments
Anyone know why i can´t clone the git?
@Paul Golter This is fantastic, it's fantastic for reviews! would it be possible to consider the following features:
- Step to next/previous keyframe from annotation (like Grease Pencil) (to help animation notes easier) it would make it the ideal review software for animation.
- Currently the annotations keyframes don't display on the timeline, would be rad if they could appear and be able to edit them to retime things.
Thank you for all your work on this, this is already super helpful!!!
You know "Media Viewer" could be actually become "Media Reviewer"
Does this work on Mac? I'm having a lot of trouble!
This is great ! Just a few ideas that come to mind when using it :
- An alternative logo that we could pick for shortcuts so that it can sit on the taskbar and be available very quickly without being confused with the "regular" blender
- Perhaps a property view would be nice, with info like resolution, framerate, size, or even better, EXIF for images and encoding specs for videos, with a "N" key toggle like in the viewport
- This one is maybe a little more platform dependant, but a right click shortcut to start the template from a specific folder would be a killer feature !
Also Paul, with released 3.0 I find that a symlink does not work on WIndows, you have to have a copy of the directory in that location. Further going New -> Blender Media Browser crashes, but if you start with the command line argument to load it that works fine
Also Paul, if it doesn't already please support playing audio files!
Something I've been unable to figure out - I've created new App templates for myself for various workflows, however the keymaps get messed up. For me the ability to have a embedded custom keymap is too powerful and causes issues. Is there a way to have an app template always be based off your keymap? Basically I just want an app template to be like a different startup file and that's it.
Thank you, this really shows the potential that Blender has to adapt to different needs on demand. Some feedback:
- I can't figure how to download the repo. I had to use another app to clone the repo.
- This would be perfect if it had annotation enabled and exporting with annotations!
@Orestis Konstantinidis Thanks for your feedback!
For now the only way to download the repository is to indeed clone it with git.
So if you have git installed use this command: git clone git://git.blender.org/blender-studio-tools.git
I am already working on a bigger patch that adds an annotation workflow. Will be coming soon.
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