Syncing Animation to Sound...

[michelle]

Hi,

Can someone please tell me how to sync an animation with a long, continuous piece of music...so that the animation follows the words of a song?

I have tried setting it to sync and it totally messes it all up! My animation is split into several scenes because it is fairly long. When I set the sync to 'Event' it works much better than 'Stream' does...but still is out of place on different computers --- It's like hit or miss!
I even tried having 2 layers: 1 with the sound on 'Event' & 1 with it set to 'Stream', just to see if it made a difference (someone had once advised that).

Is there a way around this or is it a lost cause with Flash?

Many thanks,

michelle

[tost]

hi michelle,
the 'event' setting attaches your sound to the frame where it starts. that's the only reference point, any frame other than the first can be out of sync if the flash player can't render your movie fast enough to keep up with the framerate.
'stream' is what you want: your movie will now make sure that the animation follows the music. if the movie can't render fast enough, the flash player will skip frames in between to keep up with the sound.
good luck,
tost

[farafiro]

MM and I think Kirupa have a tut for that
see the Divnet section in MM site

[michelle]

You see, I always use multiple scenes for my long animations. It makes it much more organized and easier to change when my clients require several changes. I can't even begin to imagine how much time I'd have to waste tweaking if it all was on one scene (timeline). -- I'd go crazy! It's much easier to target & make adjustments when you've got scenes.

Here's my question...Is this possible?...
Creating my animations with several scenes, which will allow me to tweak easier 'til the client's heart is content. Then, when the animation is completely finalized, convert it to one scene and add the sound? Is there a method for converting to one long scene in Flash?

I just can't understand...when one first learns Flash, they are told to always use scenes to help better organize their work. Also, it works nicely for mimicing 'cut to' scenes like in a regular movie.
Surely, there must be a way around this sound problem?!

Like I said, I had tried setting the song to 'Stream' for a long animation and, I guess, due to the fact that it was broken up into scenes; it was really out of whack...much more than if I had it set to 'Event'.

Hmmm...anymore advice and / or suggestions would be really appreciated!
Thanks!
michelle

[emergency_pants]

Michelle,

Tost is right on this.... using sound 'stream' is the best way to get your animations and sound synched properly.

I do know what you mean about navigating through very large movies and using scenes to help organize your work, but nowdays I avoid scenes like the plague. In fact, I would go as far as to say that I HATE scenes in Flash files. I thinkn they should be taken out and a proper timeline label navigation tool built into Flash to help workflow.

My advice is to make good use of frame labels. In my experience, frame labels enable you to organise your work just as easily as scenes... with the added advantage that they don't screw up your timeline navigation actionscripts and they don't interfere with your sound streaming.

I usually add a dedicated layer in my movies, usually the top layer, marked 'labels'. It makes it very easy to navigate back and forth at a glance.

Here's a trick I thought of, that you might wanna try...

In frame 1 of your movie, use a gotoAndStop("wip"); script.

Go to the place in your movie where you are working and place a "wip" label there. Now, when you preview your movie, you can quickly navigate back to the correct point by popping back to frame 1, hitting play and watching the frame jump straight back to where you are working! :)

Make sure you have "enable simple actionscripts" ticked in your control menu.

It might just work.

Good luck with it.

[vilehelm]

Is it just a looping background?

if so, couldn't you just load the sound and the animation as seprate .swfs into a master file? That would be an easy work around in that instance.

=v=

[tost]

hey simon
neat tip, that wip frame :)
regards
tost

[vilehelm]

ohh, good one... (the wip) I was just running into that same problem.

cheers

=v=

[michelle]

Hi Emergency Pants,

I think in future, I'm going to attempt using only one scene & labels.

Can you explain more about this: gotoAndStop("wip");

I am not exactly sure I am understanding what this does.
Can you please explain further? How would this benefit me if I have multiple scenes involved in the animation?

Thanks!!

michelle

[vilehelm]

It's for preview purposes.

Instead of having to watch an entire animation when you're just wanting see if one section is working. place that wip label wherever you want to jump to.

When you finally publish the movie you take out the label and the gotoAndPlay().

[emergency_pants]

Just as Vilehelm says.

It can be used to jump to a scpecific point in your animation to save you having to re-watch the whole anim over and over again.

It can also be used to navigate to correct frame from within Flash, providing you have your "enable simple actionscripts" option enabled in the control menu.