Moho Animation Forum

yessss!! this mixing possibilities you're talking about here, 7feet, sounds like a really great update to moho regarding handling intiutive work with effects, dialog, music..everything, you name it, this make me very happy to hear since I'm working with, and composing a lot of music and I would really like to start experimenting with animation to music and dialog and fx..etc.
I'm very happy that you are supporting this forum with a lot of helpful scripts, thank you!

HI!

7feet wrote:-- When you add, remove, or move/modify a sound, the script will recompute the whole mixed soundtrack file and assign that to the soundtrack.

...THIS SOUNDS SO GREAT!!! I can't wait to see how it works! Definitely it can change my way of work in Moho to another level! So THANK YOU VERY MUCH for it!

...In the other hand (the Feature (possible) Request section ), have you consider the possiblity of make it works like a Tool instead like a Menu comand? Only a thought, but I think that, if possible, could be very interesting to can make quick changes and increase the workflow! I mean, in example, you select the Sound tool in the Tools window and Tool options appears in the Main window "sensitive" menu, there, you can Load a new sondtrack clicking in a simple button and the sound was added at current frame (preferently without advertisement windows), then you could have the posibility of choose other frame to adjust and reload the sound to adjust and press a Recompute button to quickly listen the results and go on loading another sounds and so and so... Maybe another options could be added too to the sensitive menu to speed up the audio steps and possibilities... but well, I don't know too much about how you think implement all that incredible effects and things that you talked about, so better I stop here ...Well, THANKS for bring us so much HOPE! ...BYE!

Sorry - much work and my internets connection was blowed up.

The idea of making it a tool is interesting, hadn't thought of that. One of the reasons I thought to make it a tool was I could, eventually, make a much crazier interface. Kinda heads-up display - always wanted to do that. It would have to be a suite of commands, as they'd have to work on somewhat Global variables (I think - but maybe a file tied to the project is better.

Sorry, I'm very tired, this transit strike here in ol' NYC is making it very hard to have time to think.

Advertisement Windows? What do you take me for, Sir?

I'm not sure if I could implement a proper "preview" function unless I can access LibSnd at a pretty direct level. You'll pretty much have to use Moho to preview, although it wouldn't be that hard to trigger a OS specific player to run the soundtrack. But that would not let you hear it with the animation. A conundrum.

My thought was to have each new sound file added to a drop down list, and you can mess with them from there. And lets be clear here. I ain't gonna give you Soundforge inside Moho. Well, probably not, and it would be awful slow if I tried. I just want a fair basic (in my mind) sound mixer you can play with.

One thing I had asked for previously - a "generic" keyframe channel. One you could assign keyframe values to a specific layer for, say embedded scripts that would stay there, or... In this case a generic keyframe channel that could hold the text of the path of a sound file would solve most of the complications I'm thinking of.

Okay, like I said, the trains ain't runnin' and it's Christmas and all that. So don't expect anything in the next few weeks. But I'm on it, never fear.

...EY! I have been thinking (all this time, yes ) and... What about to resolve it using the PadSound script embedded into a Switch layer (called (i.e.) "Sound") containing sub-Image layers where you load the *.wav files with the pourpose of keep name and path plus can switch between them along the time? I've been thinking (as I said) and although it can seems like a madness it could works, isn't? The script only must change in realtime the soundtrack according with the switch information, and even I think that could be (even) more easy cause ALL the info it'd be saved into the *.moho file, I mean, into the Switch (timing) and into Image layers (names & paths) for more liberty and easiness during manipulation (in theory even you could use Switch Layer tool to see where sound files are placed exactly! ), cause the external text files seems like a little pain to program and maintain, yes... Well, the question is, could be possible something like this, 7feet (or company)? Do you like the idea? Uf... Come'on guy, tell us something about all this issue or I'll continuing thinking more of this kind of stupid things

PS: ...ARGH! I want to be a SCRIIIPTER! (as I still have said in so much other occasions... )

AHHH...JAJAJAJAHHH!!! You thought I'd never get it, don't you??? Well AHHH...JAJAJAJAHHH.... Ahhh...

PS: Well, still in process...

Very nice work! I learned a lot about how to process binary files in lua. Thank you!

I see the end part of the file is a function library, with many useful things, not used in this specific program. Are you planning to make all of these things to put into the "utilitiy" folder as a function library for other applications?

And I have an idea: Perhaps you can control the sound things from inside of moho with a separated structure of switch layers. The tag names could be the sound filenames and the user can edit these things faster, than an external text file. I imagine this:

group layer "mixsound"
switch layer 1
switch layer 2
....

The program could mix the contents of the overlapping switch layers into one audio file.

They were in a separate library (used in particular by my SOS script), which I thought was a liability pretty quickly. So I decided to use what I needed inside the scripts, even with a few hundred duplicate lines in Lua here and there, it's really pretty low overhead. All those functions are free to be reusesd, and should be if you've got a use. Most of the extra audio functions are filters translated to Lua. They're end purpose was for a multipurpose audio/image manipulation filter (ala SoundKeys), and the mixer I've really wanted to make for Moho. If you want to give a go I'd love it, I'm doing special makeup FX for a film now and I'm so swamped i feel like my head is gonna explode.

My idea was to have the mixer keep a list of the basic, original soundtrack and then add to it the file names and frame positions of the added files, dumped to a text file named after the moho file. Each time you called the script (tweaked the soundtrack) the whole pile would be re-evaluated and a new soundtrack (automatically applied to the animation) would be generated.

I wanted more a "sound goes here" data structure that I don't think would really work with a global type of thing like a switch layer. You could have a switch layer with a whole pile of sublayers with the name designating the audio file, and visibilty contolling when they start, but the script would have to reevaluate every time something was changed. As Moho stands, I think it would be better to make it a separate extension, a good bit away from the core functions.

I'll jump back in soon, but right now I'm godawful busy. Indie films are a pain in the arse, but I love 'em anyway.

Yo.

Do you know that switch layers can contain ANY strings in their keys, without a layer behind it? I think it is a good solution...

I found a mistake in the code: Under Linux, there is no OS environment variable and string.sub doesn't like if you call it with nil argument. I used this code in my Exposure Sheet tool, thank you for it.

Not really a mistake. Since OSX and Linux don't have an OS environment variable, the getenv call will always return nil, and if opSys is nil, the string.sub never gets called. It could even be simplified a bit - if there is a OS environment variable, then it's Windows, otherwise it's not.

That works okay for whipping up batch scripts, but part of the reason it's there is to determine the byte order of the processor, so clearly it's gonna break down if you are running Linux on a PC. Then you throw in the Intel Macs, and I'm going to need a much more definitive solution.

An addition: The OS environment variable is available only under Win2000/XP. So it is better to check the WINDIR variable, what is exists since Win95...

Good call, I'll do that. I don't really code much OS specific stuff, and even that bit came from Janimatic, so I got some holes in my knowledge. I'm gonna put all my stuff up on my site, and I'll include that mod shortly when I do. Thanks.

I am just uning the windows recorder and when I try to use the padding script I get this message

c:\Path\sf_padsound.lua:80 attempt to call field 'BadFile' (a nil value)

any help?

Okay, a stupid bit on my part; I had made a little "BadFile" function to provide specific alerts about messed up wave files and somewhere along the way it went missing. I was pretty careful to make sure the script validated .Wav files according to spec. So, as far as I can see, if you are getting that error that early in the script, it's because Windows recorder is not writing a "valid" wav file.

Either that, or you are trying to use the wav file, but you haven't actually saved it yet. Sonmethin' screwy, I'll look at it.

I really don't know what audio software I need can you recomend one that has the same timeline setup as moho that shows the frame numbers at the top. or one that created a real wav file. Thanks for all your help.