VSE: Scene Selector & Scene Time Synchronization - Feedback

Feature & Design Feedback
1

This is the first milestone that we’re working towards for the VSE Story Tools project.

Sequencer Scene

Instead of using the active scene in a window, the sequencer now uses the Sequencer Scene which is defined per workspace. A Scene selector is added to the VSE timeline header.

With no sequencer scene selected:

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A new, empty sequencer scene:

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Workspace settings:

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Contextual Playback

Starting the animation playback (e.g. by pressing space) is now contextual:
depending on the context, i.e. in which editor your mouse cursor is or in which editor you pressed the play button, the scene that is played back might be different.
For example, with a 3D Viewport and a Sequencer open, pressing “play”
in the 3D Viewport will play the active scene of the window, while pressing “play”
in the sequencer will play the sequencer scene.

Time & Scene Synchronization

The “Sync Active Scene” setting allows the time of the active scene to be synchronized with the current scene strip in the sequencer.

Note that this is not bi-directional. The sequencer can change the active scene
and map time, but it’s not possible the other way around since it one can have
mutliple strips using the same scene (+camera, and even time!).

This setting is exposed in the footer of the sequencer timeline as well as in the
workspace settings.

Feedback & Testing

We would like to gather some feedback from the community on the current state, more specifically:

  • How do you like the current design of the sequencer scene at the workspace level?
  • How do you feel about the scene strip time synchronization feature?

If you encouter any of the following, please let us know about them:

  • Crashes (ideally with a crash report).
  • Other bugs (like operators etc. not working as they should).
  • Python errors in the console (e.g. because of broken UI elements).

Also, please avoid topics that this thread should not be about:

  • Feature requests.
  • VSE separation from the Scene (this will not happen as part of this current topic).
  • Anything unrelated to the VSE story tools project.

Thank you!

Follow the development here: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/pulls/140271

Update (August 2025)

The scene selector and scene time synchronization now landed in Blender 5.0!

There are two known issues that we’re aware of and tracking:

  1. When changing the length of a scene, the scene strips do not update accordingly. WIP fix here.
  2. Scene strip rendering flushes user edits #139501. E.g. when there is a VSE preview open that shows a scene strip, changing the value of an animated property immediatly resets the value to its previous state.

Download

Get the latest build from the build bot here.

17 Likes
2025-08-01 Project Updates meeting
2025-08-04 Grease Pencil Module Meeting
2025-08-05 Sequencer meeting notes
2025-08-18 iPad/Tablet Design Workshop
3

Hi! Could you please consider rendering your mouse pointer next time you do such a clip as above? It isn’t clear to me where you show the sync setting. Or didn’t you do that at all? See? I can’t know. Or i’m stupid. Then appologies!

4

Sorry, yes. I don’t know why that didn’t work as I did enable the cursor in the recording software. The sync button is in the new “Footer” region of the VSE timeline.

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For now the “Footer” is off by default, but that will probably change.

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5

I’m sad that Sequence ID isn’t done as part of the project anymore, it could open more possibilities, but admittedly what I’m seeing is very nice, and probably enough.

Without playing with it, just looking at the videos, I think main issue on UI side is lack of visualization of states.

  1. In Sequencer, it should be obvious which Scene strip is shown in 3D viewport. I think it would be good if selection changed, so that outline can tell you. Basically when scene switches change selected strip as well. If others think it’s not good and keeping selection is important, some other indicator would be needed, maybe secondary outline, or brighter color on the strip. (EDIT: thinking about this, user can change selected strip manually, so information will be lost. I think making active scene strip brighter is good idea, so that it’s permanently visible).

  2. When working on multiple shots that are very similar, like same character same setting, you might accidentally work on wrong scenes, especially if you don’t have Sequencer visible (for example, if you have focus mode on 3D viewport, and play anim to change shots). Scene picker in header I think is too easy to miss. Maybe we can put scene name in the text overlays above or left of perspective info? Or if somebody has better idea.

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6

Right, the Sequence ID was just too big of a first step. It’s not out of the question, long term. This new approach should still provide the same functionality that we want.

1 Like
7

Note that if you’re full screen working in the 3D viewport and you start the playback, only the scene you’re looking at will play not the entire sequence. You’d need to explicitly start the playback in the VSE. See the section about how the contextual playback works.

2 Likes
8

So not even if you have sync enabled?

9

No. This is because if you start playback in a scene, the same scene might be used several times with different strips in the sequence. Time synchronization only works in one direction: From the VSE to the active scene. Not the other way around.

3 Likes
10

When I first tried it using the existing Video editing workspace can cause crash in middle of using, doing random things for example pressing F3 Operator Search.

Current active sync scene playback Limit to Frame range option can cause issue when scrubbing from the sequencer scene timeline, happen at the end of the video.

I don’t know this considered as feature request or not but would be nice if there is some indicator a range showing the current scene strip where it actually is playing, start end frame of that scene strip after it got slide.

2 Likes
11

Thanks! I’ll look into these playback issues :slight_smile:

Yes, I’ve already taked about this with one of the artists here at the studio. Some range indicator when the sync option is enabled would definitely make sense. I think that also is similar to what @nickberckley was worried about.

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12

Could you share the file with me? I can’t reproduce the issue you’re showing here.
EDIT: Got it, thanks.

1 Like
13

I updated the build that should fix a few issues. @zNight You’re bug should also be solved, thanks for reporting.

14

The design decisions are beautiful. I love it.
I thought it will only sync the cursor, but the fact that it’s switching the scenes simultaneously is a whole another level of convenience.

Syncing was one continuous struggle for me while working in the old VSE

Thanks, guys!

4 Likes
15

I love how current design works with syncing and switching Scenes.

I like that VSE audio tracks play out as expected:

  • when playing directly from the view of a global selected scene (3D Viewport, Graph Editor, Image Editor, etc…), the sound is coming from linked to that scene VSE
  • when paying from Video Sequencer whilst referencing the scene, the sound is coming from this sequencer

These are feel as unexpected behavior for me:

  • Does not sync on Muting/Unmuting Scene Strip
  • When changing a frame from the footer, scene does not sync
  • Alt+Scroll and Right/Left arrow keys are not working when the sync is enabled
  • When using an effect (like Gaussian Blur) the sync does not detect Scene Strip properly
  • Dragging audio from windows file browser causes a crash (can not upload the crash file as a new user)

When playing or changing frames from Timeline editor (in fact from any other editor as oppose to Sequence Editor) with the sync enabled, this editor remains linked not to a global scene, but to a Video Sequencer workspace scene, which is expected. But when playing or changing frames from Video Sequencer the mentioned editor switches to a global scene, which is, again, expected. But it could be potentially confusing behaving differently in these two scenarios

It hard to say how do you I feel about the scene strip time synchronization without slipping in sort of feature requests. Please let me know if the following seems more as feature requests rather than feedback on synchronization:

  • When slowed down via retiming Scene Strip feels out of sync without activated subframes in the referenced scene
  • Deprecated VSE Backdrop may have been useful here, when strips are overlapping with semi-opacity and we are working in 3D space seeing only topmost strip
  • With the sync enabled, scene pinning to the current workspace feels ambiguous

I had numerous crashed throughout the testing, especially when added secondary Video Editing workspace, but I was not able to exactly reproduce them. However, I saved the reports just in case

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16

Another couple of issues (was able to reproduce crashes mentioned earlier):

  1. When stopping animation playback from almost any of default Workspaces (as for now, found only two exceptions: Layout and Video Editing) Blender crashes.
  2. Animated properties within global scene immediately resetting back to animation-driven value on attempt to change the value. This happens when there is a Video Sequencer Preview is present and currently previewing this Scene. I experienced exceptions from this behavior, but in most cases the issue is present. I did not notice any differences whether it’s an object property or otherwise.
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17

Unfortunately, that’s an issue even in current Blender. See #139501 - Scene strip rendering flushes user edits - blender - Blender Projects.

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18

@Ian_Dorow Thanks for all the feedback.

All of these issues should be fixed now :slight_smile:

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19

Great! Glad to provide a feedback for such a wonderful feature.

One note, that this is still present if toggling of a Mute state is done via Sidebar.

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20

Thanks, fixed it in the upcoming build.

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