Placing sound in scene?????
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saintmovius
- Posts: 28
- Joined: Tue Aug 03, 2004 10:05 pm
- Location: Tulsa, OK USA
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Audio in the middle
What I have been doing when I need the audio in the middle of the animation is rendering out the first frames without speech as a seperate file, then setting the next render at the frame the speech begins and rendering out from that frame forward. I peice the two animations together in flash, or Quick Time...whichever format I am shooting for. Not the best way, but it works for me. I wish Lost Marble would work on this audio problem, too! It just makes more sense to be able to get all your animating and sound coming from one place.
I'd like to see a way to import the sound track at the current frame. That way you could have the silence you need at the start, if you need some, and animate using the soundtrack in the right place. Also it would be nice to be able to select the soundtrack in the timeline as an object and move it to a different frame, much as you would select keys and move them. This might require a new type of track expressly for importing soundtracks into, or some sort of tool. I should think this might be doable (but then...I'm not a programmer!).
I certainly don't expect Moho to become a sound editor, but being able to move the sound file around in the timeline would be a great thing. Combined with Brian's script for importing swich files at a specific frame, this would really help a lot.
I usually render animations as frames, and compile them together in Quicktime or Cleaner, so I would expect to then import the soundtrack into a compositing program and add it to the animation. But first you need to animate to the soundtrack, so the above suggestions would do it.
Jack
I certainly don't expect Moho to become a sound editor, but being able to move the sound file around in the timeline would be a great thing. Combined with Brian's script for importing swich files at a specific frame, this would really help a lot.
I usually render animations as frames, and compile them together in Quicktime or Cleaner, so I would expect to then import the soundtrack into a compositing program and add it to the animation. But first you need to animate to the soundtrack, so the above suggestions would do it.
Jack
I could do a bit that would insert the proper number of frames of silence to your audio inside Moho pretty quick. It's only audio processing that's hard. So it would be select soundtrack file, insert silence to the current frame, save as a new file (say with an addition of "Padded" to the file name), and reassign the soundtrack to that file. I might even be able to do that tonight when I get home. The more I do this, the faster it goes.
Brian,
Thanks for the script file, I can´t seem to get it to work, mabye I´m just doing something wrong! I choose my switch layer and a frame number and select the script, -it places the correct number of keyframes but they are all the first layer in my switch, -so the mouth is open all the time.
I´m actually happy to hear that I´m not the only one with sound problems. I know we are all animation lovers but when it comes down to it after the story, sound is the most importaint thing in the finished movie! We only do the animation to enhance the rythm of the soundtrack. Don´t get me wrong I am very animation minded and love to do and watch very controlled acting and effects. But let´s face it, -most people don´t care! The finished experience is important and sound is important. Moho is a program made to do simple animation and to save time (otherwise wouldn´t we all want to draw it all by hand!!??). Sorry I didn´t mean to be negative , -I´m just saying if LM just did some simple sound options, we would have the perfect program for TV and commercial production, -now we only have the perfect 2d animation program, -and thanks for that! I am enjoying it.
Thanks for the script file, I can´t seem to get it to work, mabye I´m just doing something wrong! I choose my switch layer and a frame number and select the script, -it places the correct number of keyframes but they are all the first layer in my switch, -so the mouth is open all the time.
I´m actually happy to hear that I´m not the only one with sound problems. I know we are all animation lovers but when it comes down to it after the story, sound is the most importaint thing in the finished movie! We only do the animation to enhance the rythm of the soundtrack. Don´t get me wrong I am very animation minded and love to do and watch very controlled acting and effects. But let´s face it, -most people don´t care! The finished experience is important and sound is important. Moho is a program made to do simple animation and to save time (otherwise wouldn´t we all want to draw it all by hand!!??). Sorry I didn´t mean to be negative , -I´m just saying if LM just did some simple sound options, we would have the perfect program for TV and commercial production, -now we only have the perfect 2d animation program, -and thanks for that! I am enjoying it.
Kasper
Part of it is that Lua is just plain picky. I saw it i anopther thread yesterday, which came down to "make sure that your output layer names = your input layer names. And it is case sensitive, so you have to get the capitals and lowercase letters right.
Just to get an Idea how it works, open up one of those .Dat files in a text editor. The first line is a designation, "MohoSwitch1".
The rest is a frame number, and then (and here is the important part, I think)
a Layer name. That Layer name is what is assigned to the switch layer. Moho is pretty particular about layer names. So it has to be spelled corecttly, alll the upper and lowercase letters presented properly. Just make sure that you're output switch names really match you're switch file names, That's the most common problem.
Just to get an Idea how it works, open up one of those .Dat files in a text editor. The first line is a designation, "MohoSwitch1".
The rest is a frame number, and then (and here is the important part, I think)
a Layer name. That Layer name is what is assigned to the switch layer. Moho is pretty particular about layer names. So it has to be spelled corecttly, alll the upper and lowercase letters presented properly. Just make sure that you're output switch names really match you're switch file names, That's the most common problem.
Well 
THANKS again for another GREAT script 7feet!! Now 
cause I have the same problem that kasjorg... I've a correct *.dat file with exactly names of the layers but the keyframes that script import to Moho seems empty in Active Child box when I select Switch Layer tool and go to any imported keyframes, I'm sure that there will be a simple solution, but I have not yet...
Another thing that I want post here is that if you select a range of frames of your proyect duration (Alt + Left Click in timeline blue bar) in another frame distint of 1 (14, 16, 24, 1440, etc...) for the begining, when you import a soundtrack this might start just at frame that your proyect begin (14, 16, 24, 1440, etc...), I think that this is more easy and quickly than add silence in another program again and again when you change your mind... You only must change your In poin and reimport your soundtrack (by the way, a SHORTCUT for this it'll be great LM) if you change your mind.
Apart of this, I want to say that I am DREAMING since I meet Moho with that sound features that you are talking about (above) ...I know and understand that LM pretends with his 2D Animation Program and his limited company resources... but I think that it'll be nice if he take a chance for a moth (i.e.) with that great 2D features and dedicate that time to add this kind of sound features, you must be thinking that I'm nobody to tell you how you must do your work, I agree! But I think that with this, Moho it'd be on the real TOP of the animation programs without doubt, cause many interested people that I showed Moho is scared when see this sound program limitation and his consecuences... Only an opinion, but with the best intencionality
*XAO*
THANKS again for another GREAT script 7feet!! Now cause I have the same problem that kasjorg... I've a correct *.dat file with exactly names of the layers but the keyframes that script import to Moho seems empty in Active Child box when I select Switch Layer tool and go to any imported keyframes, I'm sure that there will be a simple solution, but I have not yet...Another thing that I want post here is that if you select a range of frames of your proyect duration (Alt + Left Click in timeline blue bar) in another frame distint of 1 (14, 16, 24, 1440, etc...) for the begining, when you import a soundtrack this might start just at frame that your proyect begin (14, 16, 24, 1440, etc...), I think that this is more easy and quickly than add silence in another program again and again when you change your mind... You only must change your In poin and reimport your soundtrack (by the way, a SHORTCUT for this it'll be great LM) if you change your mind.
Apart of this, I want to say that I am DREAMING since I meet Moho with that sound features that you are talking about (above) ...I know and understand that LM pretends with his 2D Animation Program and his limited company resources... but I think that it'll be nice if he take a chance for a moth (i.e.) with that great 2D features and dedicate that time to add this kind of sound features, you must be thinking that I'm nobody to tell you how you must do your work, I agree! But I think that with this, Moho it'd be on the real TOP of the animation programs without doubt, cause many interested people that I showed Moho is scared when see this sound program limitation and his consecuences... Only an opinion, but with the best intencionality
*XAO*Didn't do enough testing. There's an extra character in the layer name I'm pulling, a space or a linefeed. That's what I think is screwing it up. I'll fix it as soon as I can, but I have to go build a talking sandwich puppet for a TV pilot right now, it has to be there at 6 am. Probably tommorow, and I'll try to bust out a sound padding script. Might put them together - pick you sound and switch file, and automatically insert the silence to the audio and import the .Dat file. The first one I'll make simple for me, only 8 bit 11kHz files. Flexibility will come when I have a chance.
Talking sammitches... How'd I ever get into this business anyway?
Talking sammitches... How'd I ever get into this business anyway?
What should I do without peoples great ideas on the forum, thanks everybody.
What I think will be my solution is to do my lipsync in papagayo and save my .dat file. I´ll set my start frame for my project to the frame I want the sound to start - import the sound at that frame, - import my .dat file (hope I get Brian´s script to work, or just move the switch frames in the timeline) give my lipsync one last tuning. Then I can do character animation and don´t care if I move the lipsync back and forth. (I can still see my animation if i scroll the frames even though my scene starts at a different frame). I will remove my soundtrack, set the startframe to 1 and export my animation. After that it will be easy to place the sound in an editing program or even flash. I think this will be an ok quick solution and give me the control I would like.
I hope this discussion also helps other "sound frustrated minds" I´m ok happy (still whish LM would consider expanding the sound options in Moho)
Kasper
What I think will be my solution is to do my lipsync in papagayo and save my .dat file. I´ll set my start frame for my project to the frame I want the sound to start - import the sound at that frame, - import my .dat file (hope I get Brian´s script to work, or just move the switch frames in the timeline) give my lipsync one last tuning. Then I can do character animation and don´t care if I move the lipsync back and forth. (I can still see my animation if i scroll the frames even though my scene starts at a different frame). I will remove my soundtrack, set the startframe to 1 and export my animation. After that it will be easy to place the sound in an editing program or even flash. I think this will be an ok quick solution and give me the control I would like.
I hope this discussion also helps other "sound frustrated minds" I´m ok happy (still whish LM would consider expanding the sound options in Moho)
Kasper
Kasper
I fixed the script, same link but I'll put it over here too:
http://www.sharemation.com/MoreMoho/Men ... rt_dat.lua
It was a pretty dumb mistake. That's what I get for busting something out it 5 minutes and putting it up without really checking my work. Hope that helps.
http://www.sharemation.com/MoreMoho/Men ... rt_dat.lua
It was a pretty dumb mistake. That's what I get for busting something out it 5 minutes and putting it up without really checking my work. Hope that helps.
kasjorg, there's a few useful things around. Hopefully I'll actually get the page up where they're all collected together pretty soon. Look through the Scripting forum, most of them are floating around in there.
I couldn't figure out a way to automatically change the soundtrack in Moho, but I did what I could. Wrote a script that will allow you to pick an audio file from inside Moho (it has to be an uncompressed .WAV file), and it will add the right amount of silence to the beginning of the file so that the sound starts from the current frame. Then it saves the new file, with "PADDED" added to the end of the filename, to the same directory as the original .WAV file. Then just set the new file as the soundtrack.
If you use this with the .DAT importer, you can set up a fair amount of lipsync without having to figure out how many frames to add to an audio file in an audio editor. It's simple, but hopefully helpful.
This is the script (sf_PadSound.lua)
Put it somewhere in the Moho>scripts>menu folder.
And my ever-expanding utility library (v 1.05)
Unzip this in the Moho>scripts>utilty folder. If there is an older version of the file(sf_utilities.lua), just replace it.
Let me know if you have any problems. If it seems to work all around, I'll try working on something like a sound mixer. And also, LM, if you catch this, a way to assign the soundtrack from within a script would be very, very cool for a few of the things I want to do.
***EDIT- fixed stupid mistake on 8 bit files at 5:15am EDT...duh.
I couldn't figure out a way to automatically change the soundtrack in Moho, but I did what I could. Wrote a script that will allow you to pick an audio file from inside Moho (it has to be an uncompressed .WAV file), and it will add the right amount of silence to the beginning of the file so that the sound starts from the current frame. Then it saves the new file, with "PADDED" added to the end of the filename, to the same directory as the original .WAV file. Then just set the new file as the soundtrack.
If you use this with the .DAT importer, you can set up a fair amount of lipsync without having to figure out how many frames to add to an audio file in an audio editor. It's simple, but hopefully helpful.
This is the script (sf_PadSound.lua)
Put it somewhere in the Moho>scripts>menu folder.
And my ever-expanding utility library (v 1.05)
Unzip this in the Moho>scripts>utilty folder. If there is an older version of the file(sf_utilities.lua), just replace it.
Let me know if you have any problems. If it seems to work all around, I'll try working on something like a sound mixer. And also, LM, if you catch this, a way to assign the soundtrack from within a script would be very, very cool for a few of the things I want to do.
***EDIT- fixed stupid mistake on 8 bit files at 5:15am EDT...duh.
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Mike McGrane
- Posts: 10
- Joined: Wed Dec 14, 2005 7:15 pm
- Location: Maple Shade,NJ
Lip Sync and timeline issues
Hi, has there been any progress on this lip sync and timeline issue since the last post. I am having great fun with the lipsyncing process. But, I would like to be able to place the lip sync frames to start where I want them. Right now my options seem to be to export to Premiere, AE or flash for compositing of both audio and video. Have there been any improvement or updates? Many thanks to mkelly and all the other people who have posted on this message board,,,they have been a great help to me and the learning process.