Animating to a song?

[MothPals]

I want to Animate along to a song, but I'm only finding tutorials on how to add sound afterwards. Is there a way to input the sound first then be able to play it along while I animate? Sorry if tis is worded weirdly, not sure how to word it.

[n. tilcheff]

Hi mate,

Just import your audio file - has to be 44100Hz 16-bit - and then drag that to the stage and set its sync properties to "Stream" from the Properties panel.

The audio will be mapped to the frames so you will be able to hear sections of it when you scrub and you will be able to animate to it.

[Iain McDonald]

Hey, I just thought I would chime in because I am doing something very similar, but am running into a profoundly unique problem. It's probably worth noting that I am using the old Flash CS6

I am making an animation to a musical track.  I have made an animatic in After effects and exported it as a video (FLV), which I then embed into a flash timeline to animate over the top of by hand. I then import the video's audio into another layer and set to stream, so I can scrub to accurately time the animation with sound.
However, despite exporting from after effects in 12 fps, the flash project being in 12 fps, and the audio being the same, it still drifts by about 3 percent, which for a 5 minute animation becomes pretty severe at the end.
(the audio is 16-bit, 44100 hz, the video is 1080p, 12 fps)

Is there anything I can do? most help I see online only adresses short clips here and there and I wonder if 5 mins is too ambitious.

[n. tilcheff]

Hi Iain,

No, not too ambitious. You should be able to make it work.

First of all, make sure that the audio you are importing is a PCM WAV (and not an MP3); then make sure that your SWF publish setting is not set to MP3 either. Use RAW or ADPCM which do not generate offset during SWF preview.

This will keep your SWF previews synced at all time.

I read your message several times, but couldn't determine whether you get the progressive drift one the way out of Animate or the mapped audio is drifting on import.

Anyway... I have made many 5 min episodes in Flash and there is this problem of exporting longer audio than video.

I always export the animation as a PNG sequence and the audio as a separate WAV which then combine in Premiere.

The WAV is always progressively longer, the longer the animation. All that has to be done is match the Time/Duration of the animation in Premiere and all falls in perfect sync. (Right-click audio in Premiere's Timeline, choose Time/Duration, change the value to the exact time of the animated sequence.)

So what I wanted to say is that if you are facing the drift on import you can reverse the process and prepare an audio file to use inside Animate that maps to the exact number of frames + compensation. It should not be too difficult to do.

Or work to the existing audio with a few animatic frames added here and there and then in Premiere match the final audio to the animation. I don't think that the speed up will be even 3%. It will be unnoticeable.

Hope this helps!

[Iain McDonald]

Sorry, I think I mean it drifts on IMPORT. What I meant was the audio is about 3% shorter IN flash's actual workspace, on the timeline. Right now, I have the original audio on the timeline, and the video that I had made (that is meant to synch with the audio) on another layer, so I can scrub and accuratle hear audio ques as I work inside flash. However, as I mentioned, it is here IN the program's timeline, that the audio has shrunk, things that I know should line up, dont for some reason.

I can try and make a version of the audio that is slightly slower for working purposes, but that will take a large amount of trial and error

I publish by exporting a png sequence and putting it together with the original audio in after effects as you say (or rather I would, were I to actually finish a project like I have in the past).

[n. tilcheff]

I see.

Look. It's not going to be that difficult.

You have your whole FLA - say 5 min x 60 seconds x 12 frames = 3600 frames - put in some audio - any audio, even blank, and export that exact number of frames to WAV. You will have the actual duration in time code, the exact time you need to stretch your music to prepare for import.

[Iain McDonald]

I used audacity's change tempo function to streatch the audio out to map to the duration, however when I get the sound to map to one que in the animatic there are bits in the middle that are substantially unaligned still, nothing makes sense anymore. I dont know if that program and that function are not accurate or something, what other programs can I use?

[n. tilcheff]

I should not speculate further, mate.

It really is in your hands to determine where the stretch/squash is happening and why, and how to compensate it to be able to complete the job. Make sure you examine your FLV too. Do the time to frame calculations with your original audio source to really know where the problem occurs.

I'm sorry that I can't give you definitive answers here.

I've done hours of animation to audio - lip sync and music - and have not experienced this, but none of it was with your exact setup.

Good luck!