Lipsyncing Questions

[Toontoonz]

Lipsyncing Questions / Problems:

1. How does one get the soundtrack to start at other than frame 1?
(Everytime I try to add an animation, no matter where the current frame cursor is, the sound always starts at frame 1.)

2. How does one have more than one soundtrack per moho animation?
(For example I would like character A to lipsync a 2 second soundtrack from frame 12 - 36, then on frame 42 have character B lipsync a 3 second soundtrack/voice, then on frame 60 have another character lipsync a 5 second soundtrack/voice. How does one do that? I can only get one soundtrack in Moho at a time -always starting on frame 1.)

3. Can one create different actions - each with a different soundtrack?
Can one even make an action with a soundtrack in it? It does not seem to work for me.
Then can these actions with soundtracks be inserted into the "Mainline" timeline?

4. When I put a cycle function on say, for example, the body parts moving in the bones layer, not only does this bones layer cycle, but so does the soundtrack.
(Example: At frame 20 of the time line I put in a cycle function for one of the layers to got back to frame 1 and repeat. The sound also stops at frame 20 and goes back to frame 1.)
I can not get a the timeline cycle function to work when there is a soundtrack. The sound is not independent of the cycle function.

[CrAzY Dan]

For your soundtrack problems try doing your animation first and then export it (e.g to .avi) and use a program like windows moviemaker to import the files and record and add different sounds and add soundtracks.
Hope this helps.

CrAzY Dan

[Toontoonz]

Perhaps I was not clear in my questions above - the problems I have are with lipsyncing where the character(s) in the animation speak (mouths move) in coordination with the voice soundtrack - (As shown in Moho tutorials 5.1 and 5.2) - not about adding extra sounds such as sound effects or music.

Can Moho only import a single soundtrack/voice that starts on Frame 1?
If so, this is quite limiting and creates lots more work. So if I want the characterto do any non-talking action before the soundtrack starts this is not possible? (Such as: Rabbit hops around the field and then on frame 48 starts talking and stops on frame 96 then starts talking on frame 137 again. Does one have to break all of these things up into four separate animations and then stitch them together in a separate movie editing program?)

And can Moho only import one soundtrack/voice per project/file?
For example, one has an animation with 2 or more characters in it and all are talking back and forth to each other - must the voice soundtrack all be on one soundtrack and not different snippets of voice soundtrack imported and used where needed? (One can import various single graphics into Moho, but only one can only import one continuous soundtrack? And it has to start on frame 1?)

I must be doing something wrong.

[Lost Marble]

The answer to most of those questions is that the sound capabilities of Moho are very limited. You can only add one soundtrack file, and it always starts at the first frame of your animation (this is usually frame 1, but not necessarily - you can change the start frame).

So, you can't add more than one soundtrack. The way to do this is to use a video editing tool to add music, sound effects, etc.

The cycling issue sounds like a bug - the sountrack really should be independent of any cycling, but I am unable to reproduce this problem. Can you post a sample file where this happens?

[Toontoonz]

Regarding the file I had the soundtrack cycling problems with, I got a little frustrated with it and deleted the file I was playing around with. I will try to recreate it, but where the problem was happening was when I was trying to create an action (or series of actions) using the same soundtrack.

In the Actions window and in the "Mainline" there was no problem with soundtrack if I created an animation there, but if I tried to work with the soundtrack in a new Action and there was a cycle function on some other bones or vector layer not only does this bones layer cycle, but so does the soundtrack.

I assumed the problem was is that one cannot make multiple Actions using the same soundtrack. (I wanted to try the character in different poses using the same soundtrack.) Can one make multiple Actions using the same soundtrack?

I will try to recreate the situation. When you say "Can you post a sample file where this happens?" do you mean the .mov file or the moho file?

[LittleFenris]

I will try to recreate the situation. When you say "Can you post a sample file where this happens?" do you mean the .mov file or the moho file?

I'm sure they mean the moho file, its the only way to really see the problem first hand.

[Lost Marble]

Yes, I mean the Moho file. A movie file would show the result, but there would be no way to tell if it was caused by a program bug or by some operation performed by the user.

About actions and sounds: the soundtrack in Moho is a "global" property of the animation. You can't attach a sound to an action - I'll look into whether that might be the cause of the problem.

[Toontoonz]

After trying to make different actions with one sound I figured this must be the problem. Sound in "Actions" can´t be done.

So in order to put a character in a different position or pose using the same sound clip, one would have to create the animation file in Moho one time, save it, then open and do the animation again in the new pose or position, but save it under a different name.

With the use of sound in Moho being so inflexible (starts only at frame 1, can only have one sound per file, can´t be used in actions), it limits the use of Moho in production and makes it more complicated and time consuming to create a project of any length.

Ideally, I would like to be able to make the entire animation in Moho - all scenes, all sounds in one file/project in Moho.
Moho can only be used to make single scenes ; e.g. First file: Man A talks to Man B, Second File: Man B talkes to Man A. (However, the different scenes can´t be put together in Moho.) The other possibility is make one total, complete dialog sound file prior to starting the animation- which won´t work because there always has to be made adjustments in the timing of the sound and other events. As the graphics are assembled in pieces, so should the sound have the flexibility.

So it makes it mandatory to have a second program such as Adobe Premier or Final Cut or Flash or other alternative to put the entire animation project together.

[Lost Marble]

Unfortunately, our resources are limited, so adding a full suite of audio-editing features to Moho is not practical. If we tried, either the animation features would start to fall behind or the audio editing features wouldn't be very satisfactory and you would end up choosing to use Premiere or Final Cut anyway.

In my opinion, there's nothing wrong with multiple software programs anyway. Let each tool do its job and do it well. You wouldn't want a hammer with a saw blade on the back and a power drill in the handle, would you?

[Toontoonz]

I understand your position and understand that to add non-vocal sound effects and music is best done in another video editing program.

The purpose of my experimenting with Moho before offering to create animation on it for clients is to figure out its limits so that I can budget or better guesstimate the time it would take to produce an animation for a client. One does not want to offer something and then realize too late that it will take much more work than budgeted for.

If I could do all the vocal animation for a scene in one Moho animation file (example two or characters conversing with each other bringing in different, separate sound files) this would make things much faster.
Having to make a separate animation for each vocal in a particular scene then putting it into Final Cut, After Effects or Premier or other program will take much longer and I have to keep that in consideration when figuring out the time it would take to create a particular animation.

[Lost Marble]

I don't see why you have to split the visual portion into multiple parts just because the audio is in multiple parts. Here are a couple ways to create a scene with two people talking:

Mix the vocals into one sound file (if they're currently separate), using an sound editor. Insert the sound file into Moho and animate the scene - you will hear both people talking.

Or, insert one character's vocal track into Moho and animate the character. Then, insert the other character's vocals and animate that character. Finally, render out the entire scene with no audio and add both audio tracks in the video editor.

If there's some scenario you can imagine where you can't have two characters talking, please describe it and I'm sure we can work out a solution.

[Toontoonz]

Thanks for ideas - I was thinking along those lines, too, although I have not tried them. I know there are lots of ways to work around my multiple dialogue situation, I was mainly concerned that at first I was doing something wrong or missing some function of Moho.
Since Moho is new to me I want to explore all the possibilities and limits of it to see how one can be use it effectively. I like to throw up some challenges to myself regarding Moho to see how can I do different, more complex things in a timely manner. (When you get down to it, it is all about being good, but doing it in a cost-efficient timely manner. Got to meet those deadlines and budgets!)

I really like Moho and it is the most interesting program I have come across in the last couple of years. Moho is a very revolutionary program for 2-D animation and has got me thinking about all the possibilities of creating good animation quickly, without having a huge team of people working on it.

I was a 100% Flash user (even had it before it was called Flash), but Flash is now for action script writers (which I am not) and website makers (which I don´t want to be) - and not really for any thing above basic cartoon animation. Wrangling with all the layers on Flash is one big pain. However, I do like the crisp lines and good colors one gets in the .swf format.

[nobudget]

"I was a 100% Flash user (even had it before it was called Flash), but Flash is now for action script writers (which I am not) and website makers (which I don´t want to be) - and not really for any thing above basic cartoon animation."

"Future Splash Animator" I know where you're coming from, if I need Flash I still use v.4, since 5 it has gotten way too technical for me. In Flash 4 I can create my own games by just using roll-over and such, but setting variables and brackets and codes and... Moho supports Lua scripting but it's a optional tool, not an essential part of the program, Moho does what it does and it does that well!

Reindert.
www.nobudgetvideo.com

[Zaphod]

Regarding something written above, here's my method for dealing with Moho's limitations in the audio department: If I were to make a bunny hop for a few minutes, then say something, hop a bit more and talk again, I would work out the audio in an audio editing program (or a video editing program with ok sound capabilities) so that it starts with silence for the exact number of frames it takes for the bunny to hop and stop and get ready to talk, then throw the voice in there, add some more silence for X seconds and stick in the next bit of audio. Use the frame rate (in moho, default is 24 frames per second) to calculate that on frame Y, Y/24 seconds have passed and put in that amount of silence.
If I have more than one character speaking in the same shot, and they are not talking at the same time, and if you're using the auto lip-sync feature in a switch layer, use the audio software to make your file, combining the 2 voices and then apply that to both mouths. Then you can copy the closed mouth layer and put it above the switch layer in the layers window. Turn the visibility of this closed mouth off and the visibilty of the switch layer on when the character is talking, and when the character has stopped, turn on the visibility of the closed mouth shape on the same frame you turn off the visibility of the switch layer.
I animate mouths talking in Final Cut Pro, make that into a movie with an alpha layer and import it into Moho to do my lip-sync. I use only a few mouth shapes. It's boring and time consuming but it works very well and will render in a few seconds. If you've ever seen a Home Star Runner cartoon, you can see how much you can get out of only 3 or 4 mouth shapes, it's really not necesary to have a different mouth for every phoneme (sp?).