How do you synchronize dialogues (audio) in Flash? MYSTERY SOLVED!
Yeah, I know how to synch audio in Flash, you just set the sound properties to Stream. But that only goes so far. After a few minutes, the sound starts to go out of synch. After 3 minutes, it gets really obvious and annoying. This happens when I put all my audio clips in the main Timeline. (One single Scene)
What I used to do in the early days was to put each line of dialogue in a individual movie clip, but that's because I didn't know otherwise. The synch was good (At least I hope so. That was in Flash 5. I hope they didn't botch things up since then in Flash 8...), but it's a fucking slow process. And the only way to hear your audio mix is to Publish the whole movie.
Now someone (Julian) suggested me to divide the movie in 3 or 4 parts (like the four acts: I, IIa, IIb and III), each parts being in a Movie Clip Symbol and paste those movie clips in the main timeline. (I did that once, for episode 15.) This way, each parts isn't long enough for the synch to fuck up. (I would put each individual movie clip in a individual Scene, since I don't know ActionScript enough to flip from one clip to another)
Any experts out there? How does that solution sounds? All the online tutorials I've check aren't advanced enough for this. They all explain how to synchronize one sound to one button or one event. Ya, I know how to do this. But when you're trying to synchronize almost 100 audio clips, it's quite different... :p
Also, Adobe warns not to loop Stream sounds. But I really need to do this for some effects. Like a synchronized fade out for exemple. They say you'll end up with a bigger file if you do this. Since most people are on broadband, that's not much of an issue anymore. Are there other downsides to doing this, quality wise? Do it fuck up anything else?
UPDATE: The Movie Clip option stated in the 3rd paragraph is the right one. Thanks to Tom Fulp, Stamper and JohnnyUtah!
What I used to do in the early days was to put each line of dialogue in a individual movie clip, but that's because I didn't know otherwise. The synch was good (At least I hope so. That was in Flash 5. I hope they didn't botch things up since then in Flash 8...), but it's a fucking slow process. And the only way to hear your audio mix is to Publish the whole movie.
Now someone (Julian) suggested me to divide the movie in 3 or 4 parts (like the four acts: I, IIa, IIb and III), each parts being in a Movie Clip Symbol and paste those movie clips in the main timeline. (I did that once, for episode 15.) This way, each parts isn't long enough for the synch to fuck up. (I would put each individual movie clip in a individual Scene, since I don't know ActionScript enough to flip from one clip to another)
Any experts out there? How does that solution sounds? All the online tutorials I've check aren't advanced enough for this. They all explain how to synchronize one sound to one button or one event. Ya, I know how to do this. But when you're trying to synchronize almost 100 audio clips, it's quite different... :p
Also, Adobe warns not to loop Stream sounds. But I really need to do this for some effects. Like a synchronized fade out for exemple. They say you'll end up with a bigger file if you do this. Since most people are on broadband, that's not much of an issue anymore. Are there other downsides to doing this, quality wise? Do it fuck up anything else?
UPDATE: The Movie Clip option stated in the 3rd paragraph is the right one. Thanks to Tom Fulp, Stamper and JohnnyUtah!
posted by Sirkowski at 2:38 PM
17 Comments:
Wish I could Help Ya. I dont even get into my Animation classes for another 6 Months >.<
Flash is a pain in the balls. If you think sound synch IN flash is bad try exporting or converting your flash to AVI to use on a DVD. Sheer horror.
I think your movies look great so far, so why not stick to how you've been doing it? Also if Flash 5 works for you, why "upgrade" to a version that may not?
I've switched to Flash 8 for almost a year now. Too late to go back.
My movies are fine, but I want to improve them.
Flash 8 any good?
Your flash rocks. How long did that frame by frame battle in the chrurch take to do? 6 years? My animation takes forever but still looks crude. Animation comes as naturally to me as sticking a fork in my eye.
Once you get used to the new interface, Flash 8 is pretty good, mainly because you can get a bigger drawing area.
Ep. 20 took 6 months of part-time work.
Most animation books show that once the storyboards are done, meaning the collection of B&W sketches that is the breakdown of what happens, the sound is then recorded. Usually actors are in the room with scripts and see a small movie made of the sketches. Then, the animation is done for real, timed to the scripts.
IMHO, in your shoes, if I had a long audio reel of the script now, I'd just seperate it up and keep timing it with the action so it doesn't go that off...
Feel for you. I was trying to make a one night animation, but some Z-Brush models were WAY too big for TrueSpace and converting 'em is being a pain.
No, that wouldn't fix the problem.
I think you might have better luck taking your question to the newgrounds forums, or forums on some other flash developer site.
Already tried Newgrounds. Not much help yet.
When I was updating my skills in web design, I learned this tip from the instructor: To get around the sound synch glitch in Flash, you need to place a copy of the sound you want to use at *one frame* before the event occurs and set its volume to zero. What this will do is tell the program to load in the sound but not play it until exactly the right moment. It's a little extra work but it doesn't take up anymore space in your raw or final movie.
I hope this helps. (If it doesn't, I'll gladly dig out the text I had for the course and double check)
But does it work? I often hear tricks like that and it never really does anything. Besides, the mute sound would be just as off as the rest.
MYSTERY SOLVED! Check the update.
So do you make different scenes for each movie clip? If you just used different scenes rather than movie clips would it make a difference? Why is flash still so finicky and retarded after all these years of "upgrades"?
It's not just Flash. Anything that mixes audio with video is always messy. Just check how many clips on YouTube have bad synch.
I forgot to write how to change from one Movie Clip to another in the same Scene. Here it is, explained by Stamper: "On your main timeline, say you have 4 movie clips, 1 on each frame, in 1 layer, each clip containing a part of the movie in order from 1 to 4. There should only be 1 layer (with your shit on it), so make another layer above that and put the action stop(); on frame 1. This will make sure only the first part of your movie plays and it doesn't rapidly move through all of your clips. Now, go inside the movie clip holding part 1, go to the very end, make a new layer on top of all your shit and put a blank keyframe at the very end. In that frame, put the action:
_root.nextFrame()
All this does is tell your movie to go back to the main timeline (the 'root') and play the next frame, which is holding part 2 of your movie. Now go into the movie clip holding part 2, make the new layer at the top and keyframe at the end, put the code inside, and it'll take it back and play the next frame (part 3)...then do the same for part 3 which'll bring it to part 4. Real simple - and part 4 doesn't need any code inside it, since it's not going anywhere and your movie is done."
I've done it, it works.
Next can you solve the mystery of how to convert flash to avi without the sound sync getting fucked up?
I don't quite have the answer for this. But one solution could be to cut down your Flash in under-one-minute bits. Then paste-edit it all together in a video editor.
I would bet that cartoons made with Flash on TV must work somewhat like this. Each shot is probably an independant Flash file, then edited together in AfterEffects.
I’d sweetie to satisfactorily undeviating with that too!
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