Kasjorg
Placing sound in scene?????
Moderators: Víctor Paredes, Belgarath, slowtiger
Placing sound in scene?????
I find it very strange that it´s impossible to put my sounds on separate layers and don´t have the possibillity to move them around as i wish. Does anybody have any suggestions to how I put my speech in the middle of an animation scene??!! Is it true that I need to put a .dat file on my mouths in a different moho file -then import it into my scene without sound -then export to .swf -then use flash to place the sound??? Can this be true now that we´ve got such a great animation program?? I´ve been doing classical animation for years and the only way I see lipsyncing working is to have my sound and then animating from that!
Kasjorg
Kasjorg
Many people have asked for that, and Lost Marble has said that they want to concentrate on the actual animation aspects of the program. Not really audio developers, y'know, and there are plenty of good programs around for doing audio. I'm working on a script based solution for this, but it may take me a bit since I code all the audio processing functions in Lua, and I'm not such a hotshot in audio programming myself...
For audio in the middle of your piece - if you know the frame you want your audio to start, you can add that many frames worth of silence at the beginning of the audio file in any halfway competent audio editor. Should only take a few seconds to set up, and then import the new file into Moho.
You don't need to use a .dat file. That is the way moho is able to understand lipsysnc data that is exported from another program. If you do use a .dat file, you can also import the corresponding audio file as the soundtrack and the sound will go along when you export the animation.
If you want to do the lipsync by hand, you can set the mouths up in a Switch layer and use the Switch tool to set the mouth for each frame by hand if that's what you prefer. If you want to automate part of the process, there are a number of options - but I would suggest you check out Papagayo, which is the new (free) lipsync program that Lost Marble just put out (look in the Announcements section for a link). It allows you to import your audio file, type in the text, and with a lttle tweaking export a .dat file that can be used in Moho to control the mouths related to the audio. Works well. It's dictionary based, and right now the dictioanary is for english.
For audio in the middle of your piece - if you know the frame you want your audio to start, you can add that many frames worth of silence at the beginning of the audio file in any halfway competent audio editor. Should only take a few seconds to set up, and then import the new file into Moho.
You don't need to use a .dat file. That is the way moho is able to understand lipsysnc data that is exported from another program. If you do use a .dat file, you can also import the corresponding audio file as the soundtrack and the sound will go along when you export the animation.
If you want to do the lipsync by hand, you can set the mouths up in a Switch layer and use the Switch tool to set the mouth for each frame by hand if that's what you prefer. If you want to automate part of the process, there are a number of options - but I would suggest you check out Papagayo, which is the new (free) lipsync program that Lost Marble just put out (look in the Announcements section for a link). It allows you to import your audio file, type in the text, and with a lttle tweaking export a .dat file that can be used in Moho to control the mouths related to the audio. Works well. It's dictionary based, and right now the dictioanary is for english.
One gets a better quality animation (in my "not so many years of animation expertise" personal opinion) by rendering the Moho animation frames out as indivindual png, bmp, targa files then bringing them into a program such as Adobe After Effects and adding the sound, plus any other things one´s imagination wants to include.
And if one wants interactivity using Flash is a must anyway.
And if one wants interactivity using Flash is a must anyway.
Thanks Brian,
I will be looking forward to your script. It still seems strange to me though that I have to start the soundtrack from frame 1 and have to manipulate it before I import it, if I want to have my speech at frame 20!! And what if I have more characters speeking?? It just seems like it would be the easiest thing to put the sound on layers and then have the freedom do move and crop etc. In flash that´s a very simple feature. I am trying out papagayo at the moment and it seems to work fine and exported to moho I have great options to change mouthshapes and timing them, - what a shame that the sound is "locked" and I will not be able to add or remove frames in the animation around it!
I will be looking forward to your script. It still seems strange to me though that I have to start the soundtrack from frame 1 and have to manipulate it before I import it, if I want to have my speech at frame 20!! And what if I have more characters speeking?? It just seems like it would be the easiest thing to put the sound on layers and then have the freedom do move and crop etc. In flash that´s a very simple feature. I am trying out papagayo at the moment and it seems to work fine and exported to moho I have great options to change mouthshapes and timing them, - what a shame that the sound is "locked" and I will not be able to add or remove frames in the animation around it!
You do the lipsync in Moho with both sound and images, then render the individual images, import into After Effects and then import the Sound into After Effects.kasjorg wrote:Sure Toon,
but still then you have to do the lipsync in a seperate scene and then match up the images with the rest of the movement in the editing program, -just seems to be a bit inaccruate for the finished scene.
It works fine. 100% accurate.
Do you do an entire 10 minute animation in one take or break it into separate scenes and animate (with lipsync), then put together in a film editing program?
What film editing software do you use?
It seems to me that it would be a good thing to be able to specify which frame your sound track will start on. Your scene may not start with someone speaking immediately. If there is silent action for several seconds and then the speaking begins, then you have to be able to bring your sound track into an audio editor to add the right amount of silence before importing it, just as Brian suggested. But, just as LostMarble are not really audio developers, all of us animators are not necessarily audio editors, so it would be good to be able to move the soundtrack to where it needs to begin.
But...for audio editing I recommend the free program Audacity.
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
Jack
But...for audio editing I recommend the free program Audacity.
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
Jack
I have no problem with doing the animtaion and lipsync and exporting it too still frames for an editing program but just as JCook says if I want silent frames I can´t do the entire animation unless I know where to put my speech and putting in silence in my audio file in an audio editing program. For me it is very important to have the sound in the right place when doing the lipsync -(I don´t see how you can do it without). I really hope Lost Marbe consider the use of audio in the next version. Then we just need image grabbing options, -then we have the ultimate 2d animation program.
What I was thinking of would let you pick your initial soundtrack (probably could make it create a initial blank soundtrack the length of your project) and then drop in various files at the frame you want and have them mixed into the original soundtrack. Then that would be output as a temp file, and then tempfile assigned as your soundtrack. For programming simplicities sake, I would probably make it only support one audio format, likely 8 bit 22kHz. I was looking at how I might program ressampling inside lua, and frankly the algorithms are beyond me. Also, I would be making a new temp file every time you imported a new audio clip, and keeping the last for undo puposes, so the size of the temp files could add up quick if it was something like 16 bit 44.1kHz. I was also thinking it would be a guide track, there's no way I going to try to build a full featured mixer inside Moho. At least not yet. At some point, if LM doesn't get to it first, maybe I'll write something external that Lua can access.
Once you were done with the project, you would still have to assemble the final soundtrack somewhere else. So you could either use the temp track as a guide, or I'd have it export a dope sheet that would tell you which files were placed at which frames, which should make assembly pretty quick.
Ah, hell, I would probably make one that was 16 bit 44.1 also. All the processing takes place with the whole wave file in memory, so huge files could make computers with little memory unhappy, and the tempfiles will really add up. Dunno, I've only been thinking about it the last few days. I was working on something thats a bit like Trapcodes Soundkeys plugin for AE to control layer and camera perameters. I programmed a bunch of audio filters to allow you to base the movements on low, mid or high frequencies in the sound. Then I thought I might as well do something more fundamental. Who knows, I may gp bezerk in my typical fashion and write something that gets toward a proper mixer. But I'm horribly strapped for cash at the moment so don't expect it too soon. Gotta hustle up the damn rent.
Any suggestions on what anyone thinks is the best way to set it up would be welcome. I usually just slap features in things as they come to me, but this I'd like to plan a little.
Once you were done with the project, you would still have to assemble the final soundtrack somewhere else. So you could either use the temp track as a guide, or I'd have it export a dope sheet that would tell you which files were placed at which frames, which should make assembly pretty quick.
Ah, hell, I would probably make one that was 16 bit 44.1 also. All the processing takes place with the whole wave file in memory, so huge files could make computers with little memory unhappy, and the tempfiles will really add up. Dunno, I've only been thinking about it the last few days. I was working on something thats a bit like Trapcodes Soundkeys plugin for AE to control layer and camera perameters. I programmed a bunch of audio filters to allow you to base the movements on low, mid or high frequencies in the sound. Then I thought I might as well do something more fundamental. Who knows, I may gp bezerk in my typical fashion and write something that gets toward a proper mixer. But I'm horribly strapped for cash at the moment so don't expect it too soon. Gotta hustle up the damn rent.
Any suggestions on what anyone thinks is the best way to set it up would be welcome. I usually just slap features in things as they come to me, but this I'd like to plan a little.
Your projekt sounds very intersting, good luck!
Either way, we will have to assemble everything in an editing program, I would be ok if I just had some kind of sound dope sheet to follow in moho when doing my lipsync. I was wondering....it´s ok to do the lipsync in papagayo...but WHY does moho insist to start the switch frames on frame 1 when I import the .dat file. That would work great like turning on/off layer visibility function??? I wouldn´t acctually need the sound in moho if I could just place the .dat file where I wanted to! Ok I know I can copy-paste the frames where i want them .....just wondering!! Hmm that might be a good solution for now - I guess I have to accept I can´t get the sound where I want it without editing it.
Either way, we will have to assemble everything in an editing program, I would be ok if I just had some kind of sound dope sheet to follow in moho when doing my lipsync. I was wondering....it´s ok to do the lipsync in papagayo...but WHY does moho insist to start the switch frames on frame 1 when I import the .dat file. That would work great like turning on/off layer visibility function??? I wouldn´t acctually need the sound in moho if I could just place the .dat file where I wanted to! Ok I know I can copy-paste the frames where i want them .....just wondering!! Hmm that might be a good solution for now - I guess I have to accept I can´t get the sound where I want it without editing it.
Could wait. Here you go:
http://www.sharemation.com/MoreMoho/Men ... rt_dat.lua
Imports your switch data starting at the current frame. Throw it somewhere in your Moho>switch>Menu folder.
http://www.sharemation.com/MoreMoho/Men ... rt_dat.lua
Imports your switch data starting at the current frame. Throw it somewhere in your Moho>switch>Menu folder.
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spasmodic_cheese
- Posts: 330
- Joined: Wed Aug 04, 2004 2:02 am
im sure it wouldnt be hard to change the pan and volume in relation as to where the camera is to a sound in the scene. Mind you doing something like this doesnt really aid the soundtrack in anyway. only instance i'd use it is if someone was whistling and they were walking to/away from the camera. If it were dialogue it could see it presenting more iproblems than solutions