Video import problem.

[toymaker1]

Hello.

I am trying to import a.mp4 video which is on my iMac osx 10.12.4 HD, so that I can rotoscope parts of it in Animate CC.  The imort video process seems to work fine, until at the very end, the video on the stage does not open. I have tried several times. I get messages such as to use a playback component, I am not sure where to go from here. Does anyone have any advice, or can point to a tutorial which covers this situation?

Thanks for any tips.

[kglad]

your playback component is in the components panel (windows>components) of animate.  drag it to your stage and check the properties panel especially for the source (your mp4).

[toymaker1]

Thanks for your response kglad.

Unfortunately, I do not understand your answer. For example, when I drag the components to the stage (the components are 'User interface' and 'video", broken up into the individual parts), nothing happens, for example there is a component inside 'user interface; called 'start button' - it is not dynamic, it just gets pasted onto the stage inertly.

I have attached a screenshot of my animate CC window. - you can see the blank window, which ought to play the video which has just been encoded, but nothing happens. I closely followed the guidance in a Youtube video 'Importing video in Animate CC' by DJO Lessons, Nov 22, 2016. everything seems to work fine until the end, when the video just doesn't open. do you have any further advice?

regards.

[kglad]

it won't play the video in the ide.  click control>test.

[toymaker1]

Hi kglad.

I'm sorry, perhaps i did not make it clear I want to rotoscope parts of the video, which is on my HD. When I play 'test movie', it plays in a separate window. - I want it in the timeline, so I can rotoscope some frames in the video.

cheers.

[kglad]

start a new fla

click file>import>import video>tick to add to timeline

click browse>nav to your video>click next/ok/whatever a few times.

[Colin Holgate]

Although you can't see H.264 embedded video when doing a test movie, you can scrub the timeline or press the enter key to have the timeline play. When scrubbing you also get the video sound, so it's easy to find the exact frame if you're trying to sync animation to sound.

[toymaker1]

Colin,

I want to draw over the frames in the imported video. One of the choices offered in the Animate import process is FLV, but FLV  cannot be converted in Adobe media encoder,  as that file format was deleted by Adobe.

I can play the movie peffectly in Test movie mode, but I want it on a layer in Animate, so that on another layer I can draw over individual frames. (It's mainly because the video in question has lot's of excellent sea and wave animation, and I want to learn how to animate sea and waves! - it's quite difficult).

regards.

[Colin Holgate]

What you want to do is exactly what the embed H.264 is for. The video is imported into a layer, and you can draw on other layers on top of the video. You want the third of the "on your computer" options, the Embed H.264 Video one. Once you have selected that you click on the Browse button, and choose your video file.

Two useful things to think about, you will probably want to lock the layer the video is in, otherwise you'll end up dragging it around by mistake. Also, some people like to have the video on top, and draw underneath it. That way the drawing doesn't obscure the video that you're trying to trace. You can right-click on a layer and set the Properties of the layer. In there you could set the video layer to be 50% transparent, and as it will be locked you can draw on top of the video but still see it while you are drawing.

[Colin Holgate]

Can you explain the part about opening the video? Do you mean that you don't see video when you do a test movie? The H.264 on the timeline isn't an object you can open. You can change some settings in the library, but the video is not going to appear in either a test movie or an export.

Rotoscoping can mean a couple of things. Either you're tracing the frames of a video in a regular drawing layer, or you plan to have the video run as part of the scene. For example, as if a TV in the scene was showing the video. The H.264 feature isn't meant to work like that, but using the tracing in another layer approach you could create a scene that had a hole in it where the video is to appear.

To get the final effect you would combine the original video with a File/Export/Export Video (ignore stage color generate alpha) of your animation. You ought to not send the video to Media Encoder, and use the huge MOV file in After Effects or Premiere.

What kglad said about FLV would work, but there are challenges in making FLVs these days, and the quality wouldn't be as good as H.264.