I am animating to music I am composing. The music comes first, and then I build the animation. A lot of stuff needs to happen on beats in these movies. I've discovered that it's a PITA to make things happen right on beats when the bpm of the music isn't easily divisible by 24 fps. (Cycles, for examples, become out of sync fairly quickly when the music works out to 10.6 frames per beat.) So, moving forward I've decided that all my scoring will be done using bpm that is divisible by 24, so that I will always have an integer value for frames per beat.
If anyone is geeky enough to care, here is the formula I worked out. (Assuming animations at 24 fps)
fpb = frames per beat
bpm = beats per minute
bpm = 1440 / fpb
or
fpb = 1440 / bpm
for example, a piece at 130.909 bpm will mean my movie is 11 frames per beat.
So all I will need to do is select my bpm for my score and then adjust slightly so that the fpb is an integer. Gonna work good!
Now the question: I would love to be able to adjust the Moho timeline so that the vertical bars indicate beats (11 frames in this example) rather than seconds. Is there a way to do this?
Adjustable timeline bars
Moderators: Víctor Paredes, Belgarath, slowtiger
- Jkoseattle
- Posts: 430
- Joined: Tue Nov 08, 2016 6:39 pm
Adjustable timeline bars
Most of the time I'm doing music stuff. Check me out at http://www.jimofseattle.com/music.
Thing I did for work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgFYGqifLYw
Thing I did for work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgFYGqifLYw
Re: Adjustable timeline bars
Thanks for the info! I'm pasting the info in my 'tips and tricks' notebook. I'm sure this will come in handy someday.
Regarding the adjustable timeline guides, that's a good idea. I would suggest it to the developers.
For now, I use the timeline markers, which can be labeled, color coded, and copy/pasted multiple times. This isn't as convenient as just entering a value but maybe it will help if you need to do this now.
Regarding the adjustable timeline guides, that's a good idea. I would suggest it to the developers.
For now, I use the timeline markers, which can be labeled, color coded, and copy/pasted multiple times. This isn't as convenient as just entering a value but maybe it will help if you need to do this now.
D.R. Greenlaw
Artist/Partner - Little Green Dog | Little Green Dog Channel on Vimeo | Greenlaw's Demo Reel 2020 Edtion
Lead Digital Animator, DreamWorks Animation
Artist/Partner - Little Green Dog | Little Green Dog Channel on Vimeo | Greenlaw's Demo Reel 2020 Edtion
Lead Digital Animator, DreamWorks Animation
Re: Adjustable timeline bars
I've made a table for this purpose years ago, here it is: http://slowtiger.de/examples/fps_bpm.pdf
But don't stick to this too much. It's possible to animate to the beat of any tempo since you can add or skip a frame every nth beat. And you'll notice that certain visual actions have to be shifted one or two frames in either direction to appear to be on the beat.
But don't stick to this too much. It's possible to animate to the beat of any tempo since you can add or skip a frame every nth beat. And you'll notice that certain visual actions have to be shifted one or two frames in either direction to appear to be on the beat.
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- Jkoseattle
- Posts: 430
- Joined: Tue Nov 08, 2016 6:39 pm
Re: Adjustable timeline bars
Yeah, that's it. I've been adding or skipping frames like you said all along, but if you have cycles going, you can't do that. The video below is the last time I'll ever compose at a tempo that can't be divisible by 24 frames. You can see some cycles in there in the second half, or at least, potential cycles that I had to un-cycle and edit manually, much to the chagrin of the deadline.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLBo5ss ... e=youtu.be
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLBo5ss ... e=youtu.be
Most of the time I'm doing music stuff. Check me out at http://www.jimofseattle.com/music.
Thing I did for work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgFYGqifLYw
Thing I did for work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgFYGqifLYw
Re: Adjustable timeline bars
A nifty trick is, when you edit in a video editor, to use its time stretch function on just one cycle. Depending on your rigs, this might be much faster than editing the cycle in Moho.
AS 9.5 MacPro Quadcore 3GHz 16GB OS 10.6.8 Quicktime 7.6.6
AS 11 MacPro 12core 3GHz 32GB OS 10.11 Quicktime 10.7.3
Moho 13.5 iMac Quadcore 2,9GHz 16GB OS 10.15
Moho 14.1 Mac Mini Plus OS 13.5
AS 11 MacPro 12core 3GHz 32GB OS 10.11 Quicktime 10.7.3
Moho 13.5 iMac Quadcore 2,9GHz 16GB OS 10.15
Moho 14.1 Mac Mini Plus OS 13.5
- synthsin75
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Re: Adjustable timeline bars
Is there any reason you couldn't use the waveform of the music, or a click track, as a visual reference?
- Wes
Donations: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/synthsin75 (Thx, everyone.)
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Donations: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/synthsin75 (Thx, everyone.)
https://www.youtube.com/user/synthsin75
Scripting reference: https://mohoscripting.com/
- Jkoseattle
- Posts: 430
- Joined: Tue Nov 08, 2016 6:39 pm
Re: Adjustable timeline bars
That works to a point, but it assumes there are clear visual cues for the beats, which isn’t always the case. A click track in place of the actual score would fix that, but it still doesn’t help when using cycles, and there’s a lot going on in the score which inspires animation ideas, so I need to hear it. Since in this project the music is coming first, and I am writing it, the easiest is to write at the correct bpm in the first place.
Most of the time I'm doing music stuff. Check me out at http://www.jimofseattle.com/music.
Thing I did for work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgFYGqifLYw
Thing I did for work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgFYGqifLYw