Digital Workshop

When using a Timeline:

I'd like a visual representation of the length of an audio clip... so if I've got an action on the timeline to play a 6 second clip, I'd like it to automatically block off 6 seconds.

In the helpfile, it does actually say:

"The pattern of the sound file is shown in the middle of the Play Sound icon and the icon is stretched to the length of the time the sound will play for. This is particularly useful if you want to synchronise other actions to the sound."

But it's lying, as I proved to Robin Spinks this afternoon.....

The waveform is displayed if the sound action is set to block following actions (i.e. the Wait for sound to finish before next action can start option on the Play Sound action is set).
If the option is not set then (as far as the timeline is concerned) the play sound takes 0 time (since you have said "start the sound and then carry on". Therefore it draws in the timeline editor as a simple vertical line. Check the option and voilà - the waveform will appear.
The current revised help file (included in all full versions) does say:
"The pattern of the sound file is shown in the middle of the Play Sound icon and the icon is stretched to the length of the time the sound will play for. This is particularly useful if you want to synchronise other actions to the sound. Please note that this only happens if the Play Sound action is set to "Wait for sound to finish before next action can start". If this option is not set, the duration of the action is effectively 0 so will draw as such."
however this revised help is not included in the service releases for reasons of size. If you want a revised help file please contact Support who will glady send a copy (Note: it is almost 6Mb in size when ZIPped)

Hello Duncan
Is there any possibility you sending me a copy of this zip help manual please.
German

Does this revised Help File contain changes releated to more than this issue on audio files?

If so, would it be possilbe to provide a link so we can download it if it interests us?

So looking at this logically, this only caters for people who want to sync actions to the exact end of the audio file? In other words there's no provision for anyone who might want to sync an action to the middle of an audio file? You'd have to click "Wait for sound to finish..." to be able to see the audio block so you can line up your action at the appropriate place, but there's no point in doing so because it will not activate until the audio file has finished anyway?

Maybe I misunderstand the helpfile?

I would find it more useful to ALWAYS display audio files as appropriate length blocks in the timeline? ..same for video and any other time-based asset? ...and maybe even show a little icon at the end of the file (or a different colour block) if it's been set to "Wait for sound to finish before next action can start".

Rob Kirkwood
www.visibleform.co.uk

Put the other actions on another track in the timeline - the blocking affects each timeline independently.


We will add this to the suggestions list.

No. Almost all the changes were for spelling and grammar issues; with a few small corrections and amendments.


The revised help is now available for our downloads page. Note that this will only work with Opus Pro 04.

I followed this url. It took me to Downloads > Evaluation copies, but I could find no mention of the updated Help File there or on other possible links.

Perhaps I tried too early?

Afraid so! The file is there now - it took longer to upload than I thought.

Am I missing something here??
The new help file available is only 9.93 Mb in size compared with the original Opus Pro 04 help file which is 46Mb.

The script help file available is 676Kb compared with the original from Opus Pro 04 which is 1.73Mb

Could you please advise what is going on?
German

I did notice this; however the content is the same - I can only assume that the versions sent out with the original release were compiled as uncompressed in error (Help files can be internally compressed but this makes testing them during the writing very slow so it it usually turned off).
They compress down in the installer to a similar size to the new versions, so there is little difference in the end file size.

Yes, yes, I vote for this too.

I wasn't satisfied by your original answer, Duncan, but I couldn't figure how to best word a reply... this morning I see that Rob's very eloquently done the job for me (as ever!).

Those of us that are also video editors are used to highly complex timelines, but the most basic view surely must show the length of each event...

Sorry my answer did not please you but that is exactly what it is showing you currently - the sound action by default takes no time so displays as such. We will look at adding some sort of "ghost" version of the sound that allows other actions "inside" it for a future version.

... just to clarify, as what is being suggested is that the audio be drawn no matter whether a wait for sound to finsh option has been selected.

Unfortunately, if you allow the sound to be drawn in the timeline track while being able to add further actions to the same track before the sound has completed, you would get the sound drawing over the top of the new action - very messy, and would probably break the selection.

By default we may change the option for adding a play sound action to a timeline to 'wait for sound to complete' by default. This doesn't actually prevent actions being added to other tracks in the timeline before the sound has ended. Just ones on the same track.

Also note that you can highlight small sections of the displayed waveform and play that section by pressing alt and left clicking along the audio track. Great for finding that little part of the audio you wish to synchronise with.

Until I saw Duncan talk about this above, I would never even have dreamt of putting actions I was trying to synchronise on the same actual track as an audio clip ...as Linda alluded to above (see I can use big words too! ) in video editing/compositing software you pretty much always put events on different tracks of the timeline, and anything that is time-based displays for the time it will show. I would have thought the Opus timeline would be much more intuitive to more people if it followed these well-worn conventions rather than trying to plough a new furrow and then need help files, support calls, etc., to explain?

Linda and I are both very familiar with timeline-based software, yet we both obviously completely misunderstood how the Opus timeline actually works. So either we are both stupid (quite possible in my case), or the Opus timeline feature is not intuitive enough.

Rob
www.visibleform.co.uk