#sound sync.
Yes, that is exactly what i had in mind!
The Ipas will read a .wav file and will show a graph of the sound wave.
At this point the user has the choice of either automatically (through setting
tolorances) mark the peak points or a range of points of the wave file or can
manually mark the needed points on the wave file.
Each point or range can be given a name with a limited number of characters,
say 10, (ex. "A" or "D"… or abriviate a certain event name like "explosion
start" or "explosion range"…etc).
The user also specifies a range of frames for which the sound is being
analyzed.
Once this is done, the Ipas will super impose the name of the wave points on
the corisponding frame/ frames in the KF.(No marks for frames with no wave
point)
This will give a direct visual ref. to both music beat and/or a particular
event in the music to which the user will adjust his/hers keyframing for
perfect sync.
This is the main application of the Ipas. If it can do this, then we are 80%
there!!
Where playing the music from 3ds becomes important is when you want to identify
certain points in the music.
The user will play the music through the ipas and watch a vertical bar pass
over the wave, showing the particular point on the wave that corisponds to the
sound being heard.
The user with a click on a button in the ipas(lets say this button is called
"mark") will automatically pick the point on the wave he was intrested in.
At this point the ipas pauses and opens up a window allowing the user to name
the point. Once the point is named the ipas resumes with the rest of the
music/sound.
So through realtime music play back one can manually mark and identify the
needed points in the music!!!
The second use for realtime sound playback which i think is also very
interesting is as follows:
Once the above procedure is complete and the keyframing is done, one can go
back to the ipas and take a look at a preview. The Ipas will playback, in real
time, the segment of the animation worked on and also play the music in sync
with the segment!! This will allow double checking the motion with the sound in
real time!!!
The quality of the rendering for the preview is secondary. Ofcourse phong
shaded smooth preview is the best! But wireframe will do just as good.
I believe 3ds is capable of playing previews in real time given the window of
the playback is not in full screen??!!!(a small 3x2in window will do).
There it is, Thats the Ipas! It will both allow lip sync through point
identification and music/sound sync through beat and range identification!
I strongly believe this will be a very useful Ipas and i am sure there will be
a great deal of demand for it.
Unfortunatly I have Zero knowledge about programing with C and the Ipas kit, or
i would have done it myself for sure. (i wish it was possible to learn these
languages easly on partime base)!
What do you think?!
ara
ara