No Audio in Maya Playblast?

Autodesk Maya Playplast Options - select QT

What should you do if you are getting no audio in your Autodesk Maya Playblast? 

If you make a Playblast in Maya and there is no audio, try opening up the Playlist settings and tinkering with the output. 

By default, Maya tends to choose a .avi file, but if you go under Format and change the output to QT instead of AVI, you will often be able to get audio playback.

What is "Grammelot"?

What is Grammelot? And why do animators need it? Sometimes you want your characters to speak, but what they are actually saying isn't really that important.  Much more significant is the tone, and what that tone tells us about the character doing the speaking.  Think of the adults in the old Charlie Brown feature films; they spoke in a dreary unintelligible monotone.  We didn't know what they were saying, but we didn't need to - their tone of voice told us everything we needed to know.  And the content of their speech was far less important than what the Peanuts' kids had to say.

Sesame Street Sounds Archive

For animators looking for inspiration for some cartoony animation with dialogue, one great place to search is the Sesame Street Sound Archive, which you can find here. 

The Sesame Street Sound Archive is full of cartoony audio clips, which work well with cartoony characters such as Mr Buttons and also the Willy rig.  

To get started, try picking a very short line of dialogue, download it and then drag and drop it into your timeline in Maya. To see more about how to use audio files in Maya, follow this link.  To see more about how to use the "Willy" rig, see this blog post.

Royalty Free Music at Bensound

One question that animators often ask when making a short film, or compiling their demo reel, is where to get Royalty Free Music either for free or at low prices.

One useful resource that we recommend is Bensound. At Bensound.com you can download royalty free stock music for animation, YouTube and multimedia projects.

No Audio Playback in Maya 2020

One annoying bug in Maya 2020 is that audio playback can be troublesome. Scrub through the timeline and you get audio playback. However, press play and there is no audio playback. Fortunately, after Googling the problem I found a discussion thread that solves the problem. 

Assuming that your Evaluation
Mode is set to DG (check your preferences to find this. Go to Preferences / Settings / Animation / Evaluation / Evaluation Mode), and change DG to Parallel.  Then right-click on your timeline and disable "Cached Playback". Once this is done, you should get audio back in Maya when you press play. 

Audio First, Then Animation

Do the voice recording first

Audio first, then animation.  One of the rules of animation film-making is that the audio comes first, then you do the animation. The voice recording for the actors is done first of all, cut into the edit, and then the animators create their performance to match the dialogue.

Sometimes film-makers will try doing it the other way around, animating the characters first and then adding the voice-over, but this is almost always a mistake. The reason for this is that it is very hard to post-sync the dialogue.

The rule of animation film-making is always this: record your dialogue first, then do the animation.

Free Sound Effects From the BBC

For our student film-makers, one excellent (and free) resource for sound design and sound effects is the BBC Free Sound Effects for Film-Makers.

Around 16,000 BBC Sound Effects have been made available by the BBC in WAV format for free download for use under the terms of the RemArc Licence. The Sound Effects are BBC copyright, but they may be used for personal, educational or research purposes, as detailed in the license. We're recommending this for all our students.

Free Music by Moby for Animators

Mobygratis.com is a great free resource for independent film-makers, including animators. The musician Moby has released tons of free tracks for use in independent film projects, including short films and also student demo reels.  Moby's site is an excellent resource for independent and non-profit filmmakers, film students, and anyone in need of free music for their independent, non-profit film, video, or short. Props to Moby for so generously making his superb music available to the creative community.

Why Animators Need Sound Design

Sound Designer at work

Animators need sound design. If you're animating a shot, remember that the visuals are just 50% of the experience; the rest is audio.

Audio is made up of music, sound effects, dialogue and - sometimes - narration.

Occasionally, good sound design means having no sound at all, or very little. But there is usually some work to be done, and animators neglect sound design altogether at their peril.

Free Sound at YouTube Sound Effects Channel

Where can you find free sound effects for your animation? Sound design is something that animators at a big studio take for granted - because someone else does it for you.

But when you are creating your own animation, and your own animation demo reel, you need to think (at least a little) about sound effects, and sound design, for your shots. One excellent resource for royalty-free sound effects is the YouTube Sound Effects Channel.

How to Use Audio Files in Maya - A Guide for Animators

Maya is a wonderful piece of software but its audio tools are not especially sophisticated. You only get one audio track, and it will only accept certain kinds of audio files (wavs and iffs).

So, how exactly should an animator approach the use of audio files in Maya? Below is our handy guide which answers most of the vital questions.