Hey guys-

A central part of my camera fly through of a scene is the TV and what is playing on it.  The .mov file rendered beautifully on the TV, but I need to figure out how to get the sound from the .mov file to also play.

I am guessing I have to do something in the Graph Editor with sound and the .mov file, but I can’t figure out how to go about it.

Also, I don’t have compositing software (Final Cut, Premiere, etc) to drop in the sound after.  I realize that would be ideal, but since I don’t have it, I am hoping there is a way I can just do it in max.

Any/all help is greatly appreciated!!!

3DS Max 2009
XP SP3

Thanks
Andrew

Edited to add:  This is a 30-second animation at 30fps, rendered to a .mov file with JPEG-photo compression.  Came out to 945mb, any thoughts on reducing file size?

To add a sound file, go to Track View - Curve Editor
Highlight Sound
Right-click and choose Properties

However, I only see that you can add AVI and WAV files, unless someone knows different.

Tim Wilbers [FA]

College of Arts and Sciences
Department of Visual Arts
University of Dayton
http://www.udayton.edu/
3ds Max: 7.5, 8, 9, 2008, 2009, 2010

Tim_Wilbers 13 November 2008 08:06 PM

To add a sound file, go to Track View - Curve Editor
Highlight Sound
Right-click and choose Properties

However, I only see that you can add AVI and WAV files, unless someone knows different.

Thanks Tim, for pointing me in the right direction!  I just investigated it, and indeed, I am only able to load .avi or .wav files.  Unfortunately, I do not have just the sound file from my .mov, nor do I know how to extract it.  Fortunately, I now know how to load sound files in the future at least!!!  Your help is greatly appreciated in this regard!

Off to Google I go to see if there is an easy method of extracting the sound from the .mov....

Regards,
Andrew

Just did some quick Googling.  Looks like with Quicktime Pro ($29.99) I can extract/export the sound file to a different file format (including .avi).  Not sure how well it works, I will try it in the next few days.

See page 42 here:
http://images.apple.com/quicktime/pdf/QuickTime7_User_Guide.pdf

Still curious if anyone else knows of other methodologies to sync up the .mov file so it pulls the sound on it’s own in the animation…

Thanks
Andrew

You could download the 30-day free trial version of Adobe Premiere.

theyoda3 13 November 2008 10:11 PM

You could download the 30-day free trial version of Adobe Premiere.

Not a bad thought as a temporary solution.

In my case, I do understand Premiere has a pretty friendly user-interface, but I have no training on it, and might waste a lot of hours to get to my end result.  For others, this could work well though.

As noted above, I will try the Quicktime Pro solution in the next few days and report back here as too how it went.  Part of me has to believe there is still a way in Max to do this though.  After all, it seems like there isn’t anything you can’t you do in Max if you don’t dig around! 
: )

Thanks
Andrew

Well if you are planning on working with video and audio in the future it would be better to have an editing program.  For this one case, why spend $30 for something you can get done for free?  Who cares if you have no training with Premiere, there is a reference manual and I could just tell you the steps to get a WAV or AVI sound file.

theyoda3 13 November 2008 10:35 PM

Well if you are planning on working with video and audio in the future it would be better to have an editing program.  For this one case, why spend $30 for something you can get done for free?  Who cares if you have no training with Premiere, there is a reference manual and I could just tell you the steps to get a WAV or AVI sound file.

I will bite, what are the steps in Premiere?

Thanks
Andrew

1) Start a new project.  Select something that matches MOV file you have or just set custom attributes.  The video size and specifications do not really matter, but you probably want 48kHz/16 bit audio.
2) Locate the MOV file and either drag it into the Timeline at the bottom or go to File->Import . . . and select the file.  It should now be listed in your Project window at the top left.  Select it and drag it to the Timeline.
3) Go to File -> Export -> Audio and choose the location and filename for the new audio file.  Before selecting Save, click on Settings and choose the audio specifications you want.  I think there are options for both WAV and AVI with different compression settings.

theyoda3 18 November 2008 01:22 AM

1) Start a new project.  Select something that matches MOV file you have or just set custom attributes.  The video size and specifications do not really matter, but you probably want 48kHz/16 bit audio.
2) Locate the MOV file and either drag it into the Timeline at the bottom or go to File->Import . . . and select the file.  It should now be listed in your Project window at the top left.  Select it and drag it to the Timeline.
3) Go to File -> Export -> Audio and choose the location and filename for the new audio file.  Before selecting Save, click on Settings and choose the audio specifications you want.  I think there are options for both WAV and AVI with different compression settings.

Wow, that sounds really easy!  I will give this a try...thanks for the steps!

Andrew