Sidebar

The Sidebar can be toggled with the menu item View ‣ Sidebar or with the shortcut N.

The image below shows two Video Sequencers, one in Preview mode and one in Sequencer mode, both with their Sidebar open.

Tool

Reference

Editor:

Video Sequencer

View Type:

Preview

Panel:

Sidebar ‣ Tool tab

Settings for the active tool.

Drag

What to do when dragging LMB on a place other than the tool’s gizmo.

• Active Tool

  Perform the same action as when dragging the gizmo.

  Tweak

  Move the image under the mouse cursor.

  Select Box

  Drag a selection rectangle and select all the images that are partially or completely inside it.

View

View Settings

Reference

Editor:

Video Sequencer

View Type:

Preview

Panel:

Sidebar ‣ View tab ‣ View Settings

Proxy Render Size

Controls the preview resolution. Lower values have worse detail but better performance.

• No Display:

  Disable the preview entirely.

  Scene Size:

  Preview at the full resolution without using proxies.

  25%, 50%, 75%, 100%:

  Preview at a downscaled resolution, optionally using proxies (see below). Even selecting 100% can give a performance benefit due to the reduced image quality and corresponding smaller file size.

Use Proxies

Enable the use of proxies, which are copies of original footage stored at a lower resolution and/or quality for better preview performance.

Proxies can be configured in the Proxy tab of the Sidebar, which is however only visible in the Sequencer and Sequencer & Preview modes.

Prefetch Frames

Automatically fill the cache with frames after the current frame in the background. Use this to achieve a more consistent playback speed. This feature currently doesn’t support rendering Scene strips.

Channel

Setting this to 0 shows all channels. Setting it to something higher will only show the channels up to and including that number.

Show Overexposed

Hilight overexposed (bright white) areas using a zebra pattern. The threshold can be adjusted with the slider.

Show Missing Media

Render missing images/movies with a solid magenta color. When disabled, missing content will render fully transparent.

Tip

Strips with missing content will be displayed as red in the timeline.

2D Cursor

Reference

Editor:

Video Sequencer

View Type:

Preview

Panel:

Sidebar ‣ View tab ‣ 2D Cursor

The 2D Cursor is the white-red circle with a crosshair that is shown in the preview region (provided that the 2D Cursor overlay is enabled). It can be used as a Pivot Point for rotating and scaling images.

Location X, Y

The location of the 2D Cursor relative to the center of the video. The edges are 0.5 away, so (0.5, 0.5) is the top right corner.

The 2D Cursor’s location can also be set with the Cursor tool or by dragging with Shift-RMB.

Frame Overlay

Reference

Editor:

Video Sequencer

View Type:

Preview

Panel:

Sidebar ‣ View tab ‣ Frame Overlay

The Frame Overlay lets you display a reference frame for comparing to the current frame.

Set Overlay Region

Lets you drag a rectangle to define the bounds of the overlay. Instead of clicking this button, you can also press O while hovering over the preview.

Frame Offset

The time offset between the reference frame and the current frame, in frames.

Overlay Type

How the reference frame should be displayed.

• Rectangle:

  Display part of the reference frame (defined by the Overlay Region) on top of the current frame.

  Reference:

  Display only the reference frame.

  Current:

  Display only the current frame.

Tip

Each Video Sequencer editor can have its own Overlay Type. This means you can open two of them for showing the current frame and the reference frame next to each other.

Overlay Lock

Keep displaying the same reference frame, even when moving to a different time point. This works by automatically adjusting the Frame Offset.

Safe Areas

Reference

Editor:

Video Sequencer

View Type:

Preview

Panel:

Sidebar ‣ View tab ‣ Safe Areas

Shows guides indicating the video area where content can be seen across all screens.

See also

Camera Safe Areas.

Scene Strip Display

Reference

Editor:

Video Sequencer

View Type:

Preview

Panel:

Sidebar ‣ View tab ‣ Scene Strip Display

Controls how Scene Strips are displayed in the preview.

Shading

The shading mode to use.

Override Scene Settings

Use the Workbench render settings from the current scene rather than the scenes referenced by the strips. Only available for the Wireframe and Solid shading modes.

Annotations

Reference

Editor:

Video Sequencer

View Type:

Preview

Panel:

Sidebar ‣ View tab ‣ Annotations

For managing the Annotations in the Sequencer.

Metadata

Reference

Editor:

Video Sequencer

View Type:

Preview

Panel:

Sidebar ‣ Metadata tab

Lists information that has been encoded in the currently visible movie or image file (not the file referenced by the selected strip). This can include the filename, the creation date, the camera model etc. This also works for images produced by Blender; see Render Output for the metadata that can be included in this case.

Other graphics programs may also store metadata, but only the text in the header field “Comments” can be read.

Some of this metadata can also be made visible in the preview with the Metadata overlay.

Tip

The metadata can’t be edited from Blender. Instead, you can use an external program such as exiftool. For example, the command to change the “Comments” field is:

exiftool --comments="My new comment" name-of-file.png

Note

Metadata is only displayed for images/movies that don’t have an effect applied.