How To Mash

Installation

Install vmashd with pip:

pip install vmashd

Creating a default configuration file

Some configuration is required prior to generating video mixes. Execute the config command to generate a default configuration file.

vmashd config

This will generate a default configuration file and print the contents to the console. The directories will not be created at this point. If you would like to change any of the file paths, edit the config file in your text editor of choice. The folders do not need to exist.

Generate directory structure

Create missing directory structures defined in the configuration file by executing:

vmashd makedirs

The tool should only attempt to create directories that do not exist. Nested directories are permitted.

Random titles

If you would like to add titles (at random of course) throughout the video, provide the path to a text file in the config file. The text file should have each caption on a separate line. Ex:

eat beef
it is delicious
beef makes you better
mooooooo

Creating a video mashup

After the configuration is complete, the rest is pretty simple. You will need:

1. one or more audio files stored in the audio directory; make sure they will not be filtered out by the audio filter string.

2. one or more video files (more is better) stored in the video directory; they should at least 5 seconds long.

If the above conditions are met, execute:

vmashd mashup --filename ./filepath.mp4

Optionally, you can enable video effects to be randomly inserted into the video:

vmashd mashup --randfx --filename ./filepath.mp4

A soft blur can be applied to the length of the video:

vmash mash -f filepath.mp4 --blur --randfx

Config File Tricks

Filtering videos

Adjust the video filter to select the file type that you provide. By default, only files with an extension that matches *.m*. If you alter it to select all files, ensure that your captions file is located elsewhere.

Weighting videos

Videos are automatically weighted based on length. This prevents repeated clips from a shorter video. The config file allows you to set a filter to select videos that should be excluded from weighting. This means that any file matching the filter would be weighted as a shorter video despite its length.

Adjusting titles

Font, position, and color can be modified in the configuration file. To see a list of fonts available (it will be long) execute:

vmashd listfonts