OK, I don't do any serious work with Kdenlive - just anime music videos in the main but I have a lot of fun!

I use the 'affine' effect a lot to zoom cuts from one to other but I find it a bit limiting. So far I can only zoom and fade a sharp rectangle, as it were.

I could really do with blurring the edges and possibly changing the affine shape to, say, a circle or eclipse.

Is there anyway this can be done? Am I missing something?
Thanks in advance.

The things you are asking for are additonal building blocks for effects. The Kdenlive documentation has information about the alpha effects, and the blurr effect. You need to combine multiple effects with the transitions. The advantage is, that Kdenlive supports many things without restricting users to some stock canned effects. The affine transitions as its cousin the composite transition are often only the final piece after first applying effects, including alpha effects for shape/region selection.

TheDiveO wrote:The things you are asking for are additonal building blocks for effects. The Kdenlive documentation has information about the alpha effects, and the blurr effect. You need to combine multiple effects with the transitions. The advantage is, that Kdenlive supports many things without restricting users to some stock canned effects. The affine transitions as its cousin the composite transition are often only the final piece after first applying effects, including alpha effects for shape/region selection.

Wow! Thanks for the speedy reply! That was not what was expected!

However, I am confused here. Let me see if I begin to understand...

You're suggesting I can apply an edge filter to a cut and then use affine to shrink and fade out the track? If that would work that's cool!

I'll have to look into alpha affects.

Sorry if I am being dumb here. As I say, I am far from a pro!

You could also look at other built in transitions - which will be a bit easier to use - eg Wipe https://userbase.kde.org/Kdenlive/Manua ... tions/Wipe

The alpha effects allow for gradual edges, that is, fading out. Their disadvantage is that they may look too synthetic, geometrical. The alpha effects solely manipulate the alpha layer of a clip, so when compositing later, blending does happen. But it's difficult to explain, you need to experiment. As ttguy says, have a look at other transitions that may be easier to use.

Albeit I somehow manage to end up with affine and composite only in all my projects. And composite because it has luma swipes. Now if that could be combined into a single transition...

The affine transition allows you to control the overall alpha, that is, opacity, along time (only). The alpha effects allow you to select different regions within a frame, but is static in time.

Another thing to learn over time is that Kdenlive's tracks are not layers, albeit they suspiciously look like them. But in fact, transitions allow you to compose a frame in the rendered output in a tree-like and nonlinear fashion. Something you can't do with layers.

ttguy wrote:You could also look at other built in transitions - which will be a bit easier to use - eg Wipe https://userbase.kde.org/Kdenlive/Manua ... tions/Wipe

HI. Thanks. I nearly mentioned wipes in my original post but didn't. Yes,I know about wipes and very useful they are indeed but I can't fade in/out a track at the same time as epanding/contracting it and it's a very useful effect in my AMV's.

Have a look at the Composite transition then. https://userbase.kde.org/Kdenlive/Manua ... /Composite

You can use wipe files to change the shape of the transition - see Video masks section on that page.

Or add some transparency of different shapes using https://userbase.kde.org/Special:MyLang ... pha_shapes Alpha shapes.

REad https://userbase.kde.org/Kdenlive/Manua ... nipulation for a primer on alpha channels and kdenlive

TheDiveO wrote:The affine transition allows you to control the overall alpha, that is, opacity, along time (only). The alpha effects allow you to select different regions within a frame, but is static in time.

Yes, but can they be combined? I admit I have not played with apha and so I will take a look but I find affine tends to 'fight' other effects. Speed changes throw affine out completely!

Another thing to learn over time is that Kdenlive's tracks are not layers, albeit they suspiciously look like them. But in fact, transitions allow you to compose a frame in the rendered output in a tree-like and nonlinear fashion. Something you can't do with layers.

Yes, I get that. That's why we have a time line and tracks. Did I use the wrong word somewhere. But effects can be stacked and I am wondering if/how I can mix and match to get the result I want? Just softening the edges of affine would be a great help.

Thanks for the info. I will investigate,

ttguy wrote:Have a look at the Composite transition then. https://userbase.kde.org/Kdenlive/Manua ... /Composite

You can use wipe files to change the shape of the transition - see Video masks section on that page.

Or add some transparency of different shapes using https://userbase.kde.org/Special:MyLang ... pha_shapes Alpha shapes.

REad https://userbase.kde.org/Kdenlive/Manua ... nipulation for a primer on alpha channels and kdenlive

OK, I will take a look. I have used composite in the past but generally found affine better suited to my needs - up to this point!

If I may... here is an example of the sort of stuff I like to do and my first real AMV with Kdenlive.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZ9ibMTNX-Q

I am pretty happy with the result (bear in mind, I am a pure amateur in it for amusement purposes only!) and it uses a lot of affine but there are time when I would have loved to have been able at least soften edges and/or have a circle selection.