Exporting movies with audio

[mlinke]

Hi,

I "seem" to have this set up right, but still my mpg4 render ignores the audio to control the animation. I must be missing something obvious--perhaps in another location?

Matt

[mlinke]

As a PS to the previous post. I went back to an earlier practice project where I put an exported m,movie into After Effects and re-rendered it-- and the music continued to control the animation. Looking at the set up in Magic, I can't see a difference.

Matt Linke

[Magic]

Can you post a screenshot of your project, including the Audio/MIDI window? It will help me make sure everything is set up correctly.

[mlinke]

Hi,

Attached is the image. I am very new at this, so don't feel bad about pointing out obvious errors.

Best,

Matt Linke

[mlinke]

Let me know if that did not come through right. I'm not used to the size restrictions the systems is using.

Matt

[artnik]

I notice that nothing is toggled ON in the AudioToImage module. (Neither Waveform or Spectrum). Perhaps that's the glitch?

[Magic]

Let me know if that did not come through right. I'm not used to the size restrictions the systems is using.

Oh I didn't realize there was a size restriction. I'll investigate.

I notice that nothing is toggled ON in the AudioToImage module. (Neither Waveform or Spectrum). Perhaps that's the glitch?

Yes that could be it, but it wouldn't be different in exporting vs. in live (editing) mode. Are you seeing different behavior in live mode?

[mlinke]

Oops. That was actually the one that worked. My bad. Here is a screen shot of the correct, non-working project. I'll off line for a while.

Matt

[Magic]

The first thing I notice is that you imported an .mp4 video file as your audio. I'm surprised it let you do that . I can't say for sure whether it's fully supported.

Have you tried with an audio-only file, such as an .mp3, .wav, .aif, .aac, etc.?

[mlinke]

Hi,

Well, it must. The one that worked when I exported the movie and then played with it in After Effects worked fine.

It was a convenient way to grab the audio. But I have a ton of regular audio files I can try out.

Matt

[Magic]

Right, that makes sense.

The thing is though, if you got your first project to work, it probably is just some small issue with your second project. But since the issue isn't obvious, the only thing you can do is start "debugging": disabling or bypassing modules until the issue is fixed. Then work your way back so you can see exactly where the problem is. Know what I mean?

If you're still stuck after a while, maybe you can attach the project (without the audio file) and I'll take a look.

[mlinke]

Hi Eric,

Okay. Here is what I have discovered. The mpeg4 made by Magic seems to play with the audio controlling the animation, as it was designed. The trouble occurs when I try to import that mpeg-4 into After Effects, where I work within the circular realm for our planetarium. Once there, it sees to lose the connection of the music to the animation. When you render, it plays the music, but there is no apparent relationship between the music and the motion of the objects. So the problem might lie in After Effects, or in how AE interprets the mpeg from Magic. Does that ring any bells?

Also. When i said that previous effort did work, I am not so sure anymore that it did. Looking carefully at the animations, I can see that the speed up and slow down on the animations do not actually fit very closely to the music. So maybe there is a disconnect that happens when importing into AE...

Matt.

[Magic]

Ok, so it sounds like Magic isn't the problem then? Initially I thought you were saying that your exported movie wasn't playing properly in a standard movie player (such as QuickTime Player or Windows Media Player). But that works fine? So really what you're saying is that AfterEffects is the only place it doesn't play properly. In which case the problem is with AfterEffects .

I don't have a copy of AfterEffects here, so unfortunately I can't verify. But from my previous experience, I seem to remember that AfterEffects doesn't always play back your content in real-time, unless you do a RAM preview or something. Could that be the issue?

Also, just out of curiosity, why are you re-rendering the movie in AfterEffects? Is it because that's where you have the circular correction set up? You might think about seeing if there's a way to do it in Magic to avoid AfterEffects altogether.

[blackdot]

Hi Eric,

Okay. Here is what I have discovered. The mpeg4 made by Magic seems to play with the audio controlling the animation, as it was designed. The trouble occurs when I try to import that mpeg-4 into After Effects, where I work within the circular realm for our planetarium. Once there, it sees to lose the connection of the music to the animation. When you render, it plays the music, but there is no apparent relationship between the music and the motion of the objects. So the problem might lie in After Effects, or in how AE interprets the mpeg from Magic. Does that ring any bells?

Also. When i said that previous effort did work, I am not so sure anymore that it did. Looking carefully at the animations, I can see that the speed up and slow down on the animations do not actually fit very closely to the music. So maybe there is a disconnect that happens when importing into AE...

Matt.

at first sight, it sound like after effects might be playing it at a different framerate perhaps? so there might a setting or so, to tell AE the correct one?
furthermore, if you plan to edit your magic output further, i recommend to export it to a png sequence, at this would be lossless. if you export it into mp4 and then manipulate it in AE and then export it again, you actually compress it twice, thus you are losing information twice. might be neglectable, just generally i mean

[mlinke]

Hi,

Hmmm. Interesting. That might indeed be the case. I'll check in the morning.

If that fails, I'll send you a clip.

Matt

[mlinke]

Hello,

I did find that the frames settings for AE and Magic were ten frames different. So far that has allowed me to export a movie from Magic that will play correctly in AE. Oddly, using the PNG files and a true mp3 of the music has not worked. I'll keep at it. I do normally use png in production.

By the way, what I am working towards can be sort of envisioned by looking at one of the You Tube videos of the Wizards In Winter light shows that people do to their homes at Christmas. In my case, it would involve clip-art-style graphics and whatever else I can cobble together--all to that music. I want to use it as a pre-show entertainment piece. So I need spinning, flashing, twisting and all manner of energy.

Matt