What's a good program for making simple animations synced to music on OS X?
September 20, 2011 6:55 AM Subscribe
What's a good program for making simple animations synced to music on OS X (10.6.8)?
I have a piece of music for which I want to create an animated real-time. For example, one object at the bottom of the screen showing changes in pitch (switching between twelve discrete states), another at the top showing gradations of dynamics (maybe five states), occasionally some text overlaid saying "FALSE CADENCE" or "HERE COMES THE CLIMAX" or whatever. That's not exactly what'll be going on, but it's roughly the same level of complexity -- enough that I don't want to create full screens for every possible combination and then fake it slideshow-style in iMovie or whatever.
All of these objects will be hand-drawn and scanned in, and I don't need smooth animation between states or anything like that. It can look pretty ragged overall, but the sync to the sound needs to be fairly precise. Ultimately I want to end up with a movie file I can upload to places like YouTube.
What's the best way to do this in OS X? I would be happy to spend money to save myself time and/or hassle, and I am a complete and utter novice at this sort of thing.
I have a piece of music for which I want to create an animated real-time. For example, one object at the bottom of the screen showing changes in pitch (switching between twelve discrete states), another at the top showing gradations of dynamics (maybe five states), occasionally some text overlaid saying "FALSE CADENCE" or "HERE COMES THE CLIMAX" or whatever. That's not exactly what'll be going on, but it's roughly the same level of complexity -- enough that I don't want to create full screens for every possible combination and then fake it slideshow-style in iMovie or whatever.
All of these objects will be hand-drawn and scanned in, and I don't need smooth animation between states or anything like that. It can look pretty ragged overall, but the sync to the sound needs to be fairly precise. Ultimately I want to end up with a movie file I can upload to places like YouTube.
What's the best way to do this in OS X? I would be happy to spend money to save myself time and/or hassle, and I am a complete and utter novice at this sort of thing.
Tricky. I mean, Adobe Flash will do this handily. I do it every day (animating stuff in sync with music). The learning curve for the type of thing you're describing isn't even that steep. Certainly gentler than, say, After Effects.
You may want to look into simple kids' animating software, if that exists. I'm thinking like it'd be to Flash what Kid Pix was to Photoshop when I was a kid.
Or you could make up all the "frames" of your animation in a graphics program (or just use the scanned drawings, sans manipulation) and set them to music in iMovie. Might be a bit time consuming, and I'm only guessing it'll work, but worth exploring.
posted by TangoCharlie at 8:48 AM on September 20, 2011
You may want to look into simple kids' animating software, if that exists. I'm thinking like it'd be to Flash what Kid Pix was to Photoshop when I was a kid.
Or you could make up all the "frames" of your animation in a graphics program (or just use the scanned drawings, sans manipulation) and set them to music in iMovie. Might be a bit time consuming, and I'm only guessing it'll work, but worth exploring.
posted by TangoCharlie at 8:48 AM on September 20, 2011
Ha, apologies - I glossed over your "iMovie slideshow" disclaimer. Sorry!
posted by TangoCharlie at 8:50 AM on September 20, 2011
posted by TangoCharlie at 8:50 AM on September 20, 2011
You may want to look into simple kids' animating software, if that exists.
Scratch might fit the bill pretty well.
I also wonder if Quartz Composer could do the job, but I don't know anything about how accessible it is.
posted by weston at 9:07 AM on September 20, 2011
Scratch might fit the bill pretty well.
I also wonder if Quartz Composer could do the job, but I don't know anything about how accessible it is.
posted by weston at 9:07 AM on September 20, 2011
Best answer: Hereya go:
Motion. By Apple.
$50. Parameters can be set to respond to audio volume or frequency. Tutorials abound.
posted by dpcoffin at 12:20 PM on September 20, 2011
Motion. By Apple.
$50. Parameters can be set to respond to audio volume or frequency. Tutorials abound.
posted by dpcoffin at 12:20 PM on September 20, 2011
Also seconding a look at Quartz Composer, which is a bit tricky but not too bad, especially if you've ever played around with software synths or a program like Reaktor or Max, since (like those) you build stuff by dragging predefined modules onto a work area and connecting them together with virtual cables. The reason you might want to check it is it has some built-in music visualizing modules, which you could no doubt easily customize to work with your own graphics, then output or capture as video, then insert into something like Motion to polish up, add text, etc.
But to keep it simple, I'm certain you could stick with Motion and get it all done, especially with the tutorial help that's out there. Quartz Composer doesn't have a lot of user-friendly tutorials, as far as I know. Some helpful forums, tho. But it's kinda old by now…
posted by dpcoffin at 12:37 PM on September 20, 2011
But to keep it simple, I'm certain you could stick with Motion and get it all done, especially with the tutorial help that's out there. Quartz Composer doesn't have a lot of user-friendly tutorials, as far as I know. Some helpful forums, tho. But it's kinda old by now…
posted by dpcoffin at 12:37 PM on September 20, 2011
I purchased Animation Studios for Mac OS X. Program basically for kids or beginners, but fairly flexible. has audio synching.
posted by ohshenandoah at 12:37 PM on September 20, 2011
posted by ohshenandoah at 12:37 PM on September 20, 2011
Anime Studio, either Pro or Debut, would certainly be useful.
But for about the same money as the starter Anime product, Motion is a full-strength motion fx app with wide acceptance, which means much more available help (all those tutorials), designed to compete with After Effects, but be much simpler to learn and control, not a stripped-down version of a cartoon-making app.
Anime's strength is that it's also a basic vector drawing program, like Flash or even Illustrator, which would be handy if you were planning to create a lot of moving, morphing vector images for your project. But it's focus is really character animation, while Motion's is more general motion fx with less strong (but still available) vector drawing tools, which I imagine would be a much closer fit with the OP's project.
posted by dpcoffin at 12:54 PM on September 20, 2011
But for about the same money as the starter Anime product, Motion is a full-strength motion fx app with wide acceptance, which means much more available help (all those tutorials), designed to compete with After Effects, but be much simpler to learn and control, not a stripped-down version of a cartoon-making app.
Anime's strength is that it's also a basic vector drawing program, like Flash or even Illustrator, which would be handy if you were planning to create a lot of moving, morphing vector images for your project. But it's focus is really character animation, while Motion's is more general motion fx with less strong (but still available) vector drawing tools, which I imagine would be a much closer fit with the OP's project.
posted by dpcoffin at 12:54 PM on September 20, 2011
Response by poster: Thanks, everyone! Motion looks like what I'm after.
posted by No-sword at 1:54 PM on September 20, 2011
posted by No-sword at 1:54 PM on September 20, 2011
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by No-sword at 6:56 AM on September 20, 2011