Animated Logo... sort of

[andypullen]

Hey everyone... I need to make a video that goes along with an audio track that I've already made. I need the audio indicator level lights that are in the logo to move with the sound, according to how the frequency of the music. I made the logo in Illustrator CS3 and I have Final Cut Express 3.5 and CS3 Design Standard to work with. Is there any way that I can make this easily, or will I have to do it manually, frame-by-frame (I'd rather not go that approach!)?

I really appreciate the help and suggestions. If there is a way that there is some sort of software that would do this for me automatically, that would be great. Maybe I'll have to download a trial of AfterEffects or Motion or something and try to learn those very technical programs. Thanks again in advance for the help! The logo is attached.

 

[Rob Mclovin]

Hey everyone... I need to make a video that goes along with an audio track that I've already made. I need the audio indicator level lights that are in the logo to move with the sound, according to how the frequency of the music. I made the logo in Illustrator CS3 and I have Final Cut Express 3.5 and CS3 Design Standard to work with. Is there any way that I can make this easily, or will I have to do it manually, frame-by-frame (I'd rather not go that approach!)?

I really appreciate the help and suggestions. If there is a way that there is some sort of software that would do this for me automatically, that would be great. Maybe I'll have to download a trial of AfterEffects or Motion or something and try to learn those very technical programs. Thanks again in advance for the help! The logo is attached.

I dont know about final cut and illustrator, but i do know you can do it in Adobe After Effects.

 

[AviationFan]

Is there any way that I can make this easily, or will I have to do it manually, frame-by-frame (I'd rather not go that approach!)?

I don't know how you would fully automate this, to the extend of automatically matching the bars to the frequencies of the music. About the only thing I can think of is to use a music player that has a similar bar display, capture what it does when it plays the audio, and try to analyze the result.

But even with what you've got already (Final Cut Express), you can do something that's a little better than hand-painting each single frame. You could draw a single image of bars, with each bar extending all the way to the top. Import that to your timeline in Final Cut Express. Then add a garbage matte for each bar, and use keyframes to hide more or less of each bar. You'd have to manually ensure that the animation of the mattes matches the music, at least roughly, so that it'll look right in the end.

I'd be interested in hearing about more elegant solutions, though, if anyone wants to share some ideas!

- Martin

 

[Rob Mclovin]

I don't know how you would fully automate this, to the extend of automatically matching the bars to the frequencies of the music. About the only thing I can think of is to use a music player that has a similar bar display, capture what it does when it plays the audio, and try to analyze the result.

But even with what you've got already (Final Cut Express), you can do something that's a little better than hand-painting each single frame. You could draw a single image of bars, with each bar extending all the way to the top. Import that to your timeline in Final Cut Express. Then add a garbage matte for each bar, and use keyframes to hide more or less of each bar. You'd have to manually ensure that the animation of the mattes matches the music, at least roughly, so that it'll look right in the end.

I'd be interested in hearing about more elegant solutions, though, if anyone wants to share some ideas!

- Martin

Theres a videocopilot tutorial on Audio to animation tutorial, but you need After Effects for it.
http://www.videocopilot.net/tutorials.html?id=64

 

[huntercr]

Hey everyone... I need to make a video that goes along with an audio track that I've already made. I need the audio indicator level lights that are in the logo to move with the sound, according to how the frequency of the music. I made the logo in Illustrator CS3 and I have Final Cut Express 3.5 and CS3 Design Standard to work with. Is there any way that I can make this easily, or will I have to do it manually, frame-by-frame (I'd rather not go that approach!)?

I really appreciate the help and suggestions. If there is a way that there is some sort of software that would do this for me automatically, that would be great. Maybe I'll have to download a trial of AfterEffects or Motion or something and try to learn those very technical programs. Thanks again in advance for the help! The logo is attached.

You mention getting a trial of Motion. If that's an option still, I would try that. With "Audio behaviors" in Motion, you could do this in about an hour.
There are several audio behavior tutorials that you can google for.

I understand you wanting to find a solution with what you have though... good luck!

 

[McDughf]

...

Then add a garbage matte for each bar, and use keyframes to hide more or less of each bar. You'd have to manually ensure that the animation of the mattes matches the music, at least roughly, so that it'll look right in the end.
...

Trouble With This Is That A Garbage Matte Would Cut The Tops Off Of The Bars, Which Is Not The Place You Want To Alter As These Contain The Information You Need Such As Peak Hold And Frequency Colour Indicators.
Then Again, Cutting The Bottom Bits And Moving Each And Every Bar Seems A Bit Mundane.
I Believe A Simple Travelling Matte Would Be Better Then A Garbage Matte, But Saying That, A Black Square Would Be Even Simpler.

...I Seem To Recall One Of My Colleagues Working On A Script That Did Such A Thing A While Ago, But Cannot For The Life Of Me Remember If It Were In Shake, Soundtrack Pro Or Motion.....

I'll Get Back To You On This

Barney

 

[Flynnstone]

How about Quartz Composer?

 

[AviationFan]

With "Audio behaviors" in Motion, you could do this in about an hour.

Just looked it up in the manual. Very cool - I didn't know this existed. Thanks a lot for mentioning this!

- Martin