Moho Forum

I tried searching the forums, but I didn't see this question. If I missed it, I apologize for the double post.

I just got a new (to me) Macbook Air so I can animate on the go. I was running AS11.2 on a 2008 Macbook with 10.13 and it went great. The Air is running 10.15. When I try to export the animation with audio, however, I get static and pops in the soundtrack. The original files are just fine. I tried all the setting for QuickTime, and the pops are still there. I tried QuickTime Legacy, but the renderer crashes, saying "Invalid QTMovie format" and giving me a hang. I could potentially downgrade the Air to 10.13, where I know what I'm doing, but I want the Air to be as future proof as possible, so I'm hoping to stick with 10.15.

What do you all do to export your animations? What settings do you use? I want 1080p, myself, so I want the best resolution I can get while still working with ProRes (converting is fine, I just want to start with the best quality I can get). Is there some codec I need to download or something to get back to normal?

My specs:

2012 11" Macbook Air
2 GHz Dual-Core Intel Core i7 (although the renderer shows four CPU cores instead of two)
8GB memory (1600 MHz DDR3)
1TB SSD hard drive
OS X Catalina (10.15.7)
Anime Studio 11.2

Hm...that's strange, it obviously shouldn't do that. If this is a repeatable issue, I'd contact LM and send them some example files.

I don't have a Mac but regardless, I always output PNG sequence from Moho and render my final with audio from my video editor. Most pros and studios prefer using a video editor for final output because you have greater editorial flexibility and more control over the video and audio quality.

A typical 'pro' workflow is...

1. Create an animatic in my video editor with audio. At this stage the audio doesn't need to be final versions or final quality but the timing should be generally correct.

2. Export separate clips for each scene from your animatic. Ideally, you should use a format that uses whole frames for frame accuracy. (I personally prefer low-quality JPEG with a separate audio file.)

3. Import a scene clip with audio to the Moho project for that scene to use as audio/visual/timing reference for your animation. I like scale this down to 'thumbnail' size and place it in the corner and set it to Do Not Render.

4. After animating the scene in Moho, export as a PNG sequence if you're going to composite the footage, or export at a high-quality video clip (with no audio) if you're going directly to the video editor for final output. If you're compositing (i.e., for fx, lighting, efficiency, etc.,) you can export a high-quality video clip (no audio) from there.

5. Import the scene clip to your video editor and overcut this footage over the animatic version of the footage. Don't replace the footage in the timeline; instead, make a separate track for the 'final' above your 'animatic' track, and place the final clip over the animatic clip. The existing audio will already be in sync of course.

6. Repeat for each scene. When the timeline has been completely overcut with final footage, and you're satisfied with the audio track, export your final movie from there.

I follow these steps regardless of the scope of the project. For me, the better quality makes it worth it. About the only time I render a 'movie' file directly out from Moho is to render a GIF for a forum post. Now that we have ProRes available, I might use that occasionally for final output but for the most part, I'll continue with the above workflow.

Hope this helps.

You don't mention whether you're using compressed audio, like MP3. If you are, you really want to use uncompressed audio for rendering a final product.

synthsin75 wrote: ↑Sat Apr 02, 2022 10:39 pm You don't mention whether you're using compressed audio, like MP3. If you are, you really want to use uncompressed audio for rendering a final product.

I tried MP3, OGG, and WAV. They all do the same thing.

Okay, this is really weird....

For reasons that escape me, I went to the Project Settings. I set it to render 30 frames per second instead of the default 24.

No more audio issues.

I tried five tests, just to make sure I was getting those results, and so far, that seems to be it. The frame rate is what seemed to be causing the problems.

I'm not sure if that's the end of it, I'm sure as I work more with the new machine I'll find out. Time will tell, it always does. But for now, this seems to have done the trick.