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sound

Hey guys. During my visit to Fathom Studios they emphasised showing emotion in all of your animations. One animator who went to SCAD suggested animating someone getting a phone call and recieving bad news. I thought that would be a good exercise, so I have decided to animate someone getting a phone call that their mother died. Anyway, I have never worked with sound before and am clueless as to how to do it. I am going to animate this in 2d since my 3d character still isn't ready for animation. Could you guys give me suggestions on how to add sound and how to lip sync in 2d please? I have Flash MX 2004 although I will more thanlikely put the scanned frames together in ImageReady.

I am going to take my "Bible" to survey of western art class and read the part on dailouge and dope sheets again, during break. I still need you guy's help though, since I've read it before but I still dont know how to lip sync.

MightyMew1's picture
"Animation isn't about how well you draw, but how much to believe." -Glen Keane

"Animation isn't about how well you draw, but how much to believe." -Glen Keane

What the news is isn't important and you can do it without audio if you had to.

Your character can be reading the paper, watching TV, making out with his girlfriend and the phone can ring. You can show the receiver vibrate, add little lines or he can simply reach into his pocket and grab his cell but the thing is you can add the audio later, we the viewer will get the idea.

Then he can answer phone still in the previous mindset or maybe annoyed by the disturbance. Then he listens. What does is eyes tells us about what he is hearing on the other side, when does his face go blank, does he run his fingers through his hair as he grows more and more distraught. Does he deny the news or bravely accept it. There is so much to work with; audio should be the least of your concerns.

ed

Department of Computer Animation
Ringling College of Art and Design
Sarasota Florida

I was just reading a book on animation the other day and this exact situation came up. Audio is such a deeply rooted convention in movies, and even when it first arrived it wasn't long before it got that way (to my understanding), but the thing they noticed is the audience reaction was stronger in parts where they didn't have to rely on it so much. Meaning that while it can add lots to the experience, and make the film more immersive, anything that has animation content strong enough to communicate and stand up without the audio's help is what you would hopefully be aiming for. Sound is icing on the cake.

That said (because Ed's point is relevant), when I tried doing audiosync I just played it in the authoring environment and stopped it when the scrubber hit the certain hits in the audio (or I'd play it and hit it just before, once I was familiar with where the sound was to be positioned)...then I would set up one of those red flag/label things (or mark it in some way, but the labels let you write ToolTip style things) to identify sound on that frame (usually stuck, like on Flash programs, on a separate layer for ease of use), and if it's not syncing to your tastes, then you can just highlight and move things around. If that's not clear enough, please e-mail me and I'll try and elaborate.

As an aside if you want to see how well a movie with sound can work without sound, rent Fritz Lang's M. One of the best movies I've ever seen, and the choices made in how they opted -against- sound even though it's definitely a sound movie put the feel of the movie in a class of its own. Plus, even though whistles and alarms and dialogue are the only real main sounds, everything from broad to subtle is very effectively communicated visually.

Oh, and sorry for using that word twice =)

I was able to read the opening post, but my current state of mind (waiting for my wife to start labor soon) really reduces my literacy level... or attention span or something...

Anyway, I'm a bit lazy about some things. For my first Flash movie, Mac and Retro, I used Magpie to do my lip synch manually and get a dope sheet. You could even use the demo mode of it and copy down the sheet on another page, but I bought it and printed the sheet. It was less than $100. This allowed me to get the sound exactly where I wanted it. I recommend doing your sound first so that your frame numbers in your sound match the frame numbers in your Flash scenes. You can use the Magpie printouts to do Bar Sheets also, for rough timing of actions besides lip synch. Magpie Pro will actually allow you to have other layers for stuff like eyes and other expression parts.

My other solution--yeah, it costs money also-- is Toon Boom. If you're a student you can get it for around $150. It has auto lip synch tools, and works a lot like flash, but is more suited for cartoon animation because it features a camera that can be put on a peg and moved about your scene. All 2D, of course, but in a 3D plane, like paper dolls.

If you want to stick to Flash to keep your learning curve down, Magpie is a big help. Another solution would be to get your sound all setup and timed in whichever program your sound is done in, and set your time markers to frames so you can copy your x-sheet that way, timing it by ear and using the 10 (8 in toon boom) lip shapes for the phonemes. Programs like Sound Forge would work for this, or a free program is Audacity, available at www.sourceforge.net. If you have questions, pop me an email. I'm not in the field, but I teach technology and figure solutions out quickly, and can share what works for me.

Cartoon Thunder
There's a little biker in all of us...

Not being a professional my suggestion would be listen to the track and feel it and react to it. But that's probably simplistic.

Pat Hacker, Visit Scooter's World.

Thanks a whole lot for the responses guys! You've made a very good point Ed, and I agree with you. I thought it would be a good excuse to try out using sound. Scattered, you lost me in the second paragraph. I don't know what a scrubber is, and I don't know what red flag thingies you're talking about. In fact I don't know what you're talking about in that entire paragraph >_<. I'll try to check out that video you are recomending. Rupert, thanks for the info on software. I didn't have any clue as to what sound software exsisted and which to use. I have never used a dope sheet but I read about it in the "bible". My question is on the dope sheet you have the number of frames and then you have the dailouge, how do you know how many frames the animation will be? Do you just list numbers one through whatever and then just write the letters in the dialouge box starting at number one? Phacker, thanks for the response. I'm sure reacting to the track would help, but I dont even have the software to create a track with. o.O

"Animation isn't about how well you draw, but how much to believe." -Glen Keane

It's cool. Part of the thing about talking to yourself in ways you understand is your responses only make sense to you. Glad you're renting the movie though. Good luck with the functional advice =)

My question is on the dope sheet you have the number of frames and then you have the dailouge, how do you know how many frames the animation will be? Do you just list numbers one through whatever and then just write the letters in the dialouge box starting at number one?

Frame one on your dope sheet should be frame one of your animation. If you create a sound file that covers an entire scene, including silence and dialogue, your frame numbers on the dope sheet should match your dialogue frames. This means you have to plan the scene more tightly. Use an animatic matched with the sound to get it closer, and act it out yourself some.

Shamus Culhane gets us right up against the wall about this one: "If you fail to plan, you plan to fail." My best work (sure, out of maybe three things I've done ever at all) was a result of planning that started at my sound track.

Cartoon Thunder
There's a little biker in all of us...

Thanks for the good luck wishes, Scattered. ^-^

That makes sense Rupert, but what if you only have a few lines of dialouge and its not at the start of the animation? Would you just animate up to the part where the character is supposed to speak and then write the dialouge on the frames after where you stopped?

"Animation isn't about how well you draw, but how much to believe." -Glen Keane

The dope sheet is a great tool for guaging timing... erm, I think that's why they were invented.

Start by storyboarding; create an animatic to layout your scene and follow it with thumbnail sketches of key action changes within the scene. Just quick pencil sketches on small bits of paper will do, and lay these out approximately according to your storyboard. This should help you more accurately determine the timing of each sequence. If your dope sheet is numbered, frame by frame, then you can use this to number the keys sketches. The numbering doesn't have to be exact yet.

From this rough but relatively close timeline you'll get a better idea of where your sound should fit in. This should allow you to play around until the timing "feels" right and then start laying it out on your dope sheets. There's no need to begin lip-synching (sinking???) until all the extremes, contact points, and keys have been done. It's not even a bad idea to carry on with all the inbetweens until the scene plays well against the sound and then go frame by frame and do the lip-synch (and facial expressions).

Perhaps this seems like more work but in the end it'll probably turn out to be less, and with a better result.

I hope this helps but it's only a suggestion. Some of our more experienced colleagues may have a better method but I find that it works for me.

slodog

Breathe, man, breathe!

Oh, and Rupert!
I know where you're at with the pins'n'needles and butterflies in the belly.
hehe, you're gonna be a basket case for at least a week. ;)

Best wishes for Mom and baby.

Aaah, thanks Brutha Slo:

Yesterday at work I could think of no good reason I should be teaching English when my wife was at home and something like 30% of my kids failed the last grading period after not writing a major essay. I think my mantra was something like "This is a stupid job". A conversation with a good friend helped me realize that my purpose in teaching had been overridden by my purpose at home. That said, the doc sez we probably have another week at least, if not two, which means ol' Rupe gets to buckle down and try to act normal.

Cartoon Thunder
There's a little biker in all of us...

thanks

Thanks Slodog. I had read a little about dope sheets but never really knew how to use them. I have never made an animatic or used a dope sheet before. Thats probably because I haven't done any real scenes. The only scenes I have worked on were short and unfinished >_<. You can see my most recent one on the How to teleport thread in the animation cafe. I used a storyboard for that, but thats it. :(

"Animation isn't about how well you draw, but how much to believe." -Glen Keane

Dope Sheets

Animation Meat has some goodies at the veeeerry bottom of their download page, such as X-sheets, storyboards, and other handy printables.

Cartoon Thunder
There's a little biker in all of us...

Thanks Rupert, I'll check it out!

"Animation isn't about how well you draw, but how much to believe." -Glen Keane

Thanks for the links Rupert, I'll have nip the wife's ear about the DVDs :) Best wishes on the baby arrival, I'm in the same boat I'm awaiting numbr 6 on Dec 23rd :D

Duncan

Congrats are in order for you and yours soon then also Duncan! Six! what a joyful household?!?!?!?

Cartoon Thunder
There's a little biker in all of us...