Hi, I am currently using Toon Boom Animate for my junior thesis at my college. When exporting to Quicktime, the video quality is perfect, but the sound quality compared to the original audio files sounds very “muffled”. It lacks the crispness of the original file, which recorded on a usb condenser microphone.
I checked many export settings and made sure the sampling rate is 44.1k, that there was no audio compression and that it was set to16-bit, but it still noticeably lacks the high definition audio quality of the original recording. Am I missing something in terms of exporting codecs or is there a workaround? The current audio is satisfactory, but I invested in the USB microphone to have higher results.
Hi
What are your export settings are you using?
What is the format of the sound as imported into animate?
Bob
I am exporting as a quicktime with the Animation codec at the highest settings and the audio is uncompressed, sampled at 44.1k, and set to 16 bit stereo. The source sound files are uncompressed .wavs at 44.1k and sound much more clear when played in quicktime.
The thing is, when I just import the voices in to animate, the quality sounds lower in the actual timeline. The only time I hear it as clean as the source file is when I test it in SWF format. This has forced me to match up the wave forms of the voice files with the exported video in After Effects to retain the quality, and I was hoping there was a better way around it or at least bring this downside to the developers’ attention.
I need to check that I’ve understood you correctly,
1) If you import your sound into the timeline, the sound degrades when playing back within animate 2.
2) When you export from Animate 2 in .swf format the sound is the same as the sound source i.e better than in Animate 2.
3) When you export the same Animate 2 file to .mov the sound file is degraded i.e the same is the sound within Animate 2.
What makes me think that I’ve misunderstood something here, is that when you export to swf from Animate 2, the sound improves.
(I checked one of my Animate 2 files and I can’t hear a difference between a .swf export and a .mov export. To test I was using an EMU external soundcard and Tascom Studio Monitors)
Bob
Hi Lily, I am using Animate 2.
Roberto, what you described is completely correct. When tested/exported as a .swf, the sound quality is better then .mov file and simply just playing the sound in the timeline in Animate 2. I tried this with multiple sounds (all recorded in the same program however) and different animate files.
Let’s see what Lilly comes up with. If you’re still stuck and can send me a small sample sound file I will try to replicate the issue on my system.
Bob
I’m currently having the same problem I didnt have this problem before with my less detail project. But this time my project is 3 mins long and when I exported it out as .swf the sound and the lipsync doesnt match up. Plz help.
Hi Rconan17,
This doesn’t appear to be the same problem as aaronY_33880. It appears to be a lipsync issue. You might get more responses if you re-post as separate thread.
Here’s a couple of questions you may get asked after a re-post.
1) What format is the sound file that you’re importing?
2) Does the lipsync go out if you use a soundtrack with voice only?
3) What .swf export settings are you using
4) What happens if you export only a small section of the movie? Does the lipsync still got out.
5) Do you have the same issue if you export to .mov?
6) How do you know it’s not your mouth shapes that are “wrong”?
I’ve not had any problems with lipsync on Animate2. I import a voice only .wav file then do the lipsync. When sync is correct, I delete the voice only track. Outside of Animate2 I then combine the voice track with other music and sound effects and re-import. I export to .swf using the default settings.
I’m on 32 bit Vista using Cakewalk LE for sound recordings and an EMU 0404 USB external sound card.
Hope this is helpful.
Bob
@ Roberto
Thank you so much! You just solved my problem. I think .mp3 format was the problem. This time I exported the sound file as .wav from Adobe Audition. Now when I exported the movie and sound from Animate Pro. The lipsync and the sound match up perfectly.
Vu
Hi
Sounds plausible, other things remaining equal, converting from wav to MP3 will usually shorten the duration of the track.
Bob
Can I just check, Aaron are you using Animate 1 or Animate 2?
~Lilly
We will need to run some tests to determine what’s going on here. It would help us out if we could take a look at your project files, so if you can send an email to support@toonboom.com, then we can continue to diagnose the issue there.
For the sound and the lip sync not matching up, there are a couple of things. One is are you using mp3s? mp3 and Quicktime don’t always play well together, so if possible it’s preferable to use an aif or a wav file.
With swf, what you need to keep in mind is that swf plays back at whatever speed it can load it in at, so if it’s a really heavy file, then the images might play back more slowly than normal - I’d have to double-check but I believe in this case that the sound would play back at a normal speed but the images would play back more slowly.
Do you get the same offset with the sound when you export to Quicktime, or is it only with swf?
~Lilly
Nevermind on the sync issue - I just saw the response that mp3 was the issue.
Aaron if you can still email support@toonboom.com that would be great.
~Lilly