Hello!
I would like to play different avi clips at different times (setting opacity from 0 to 100 when needed)  but it seems the clips always begin to play at the first moment when the timeline runs and can not be controlled to wait.
Am I missing something?

Hi... You can use the Visible/Invisible option on the top toolbar to turn off the video until the frame you want it to start. Then make it visible again and it will play from there.

                                                                

Peter
Forum Administrator

www.reallusion.com

Thanks a bunch Peter (RL)
Got it working!

Sorry I have to com back on this matter...
After aranging the videos and start / stopping them with the visible option I saved the file as a project. After some days I came back to it and it stopped working, i.e.the videos are starting from the beginning! Although it isn't visible, you can hear the audio and when it gets visible it shows that is was playing all along. When I delete the video and put it back, it works until I save and close the project.

I can replicate this problem with .avi and .wmf files.

Is this a bug and is there any proper way to control this behavior? I really need a solution for this urgently, as I can not leave the project open until finalization.

Thanks for any help!

I'm thinking laterally here…  If your main timeline is pretty much set in stone and you're fine tuning character animations, etc, then you'll know exactly where you want your video(s) to appear and start.  Say the first video should begin playing at 10 seconds in.  Pad your video with 10 seconds of "buffer" space at the start so that it does start running at t=0 (but it's not visible) and then have the important part you want your viewers to see actually occurs at t=10s.  Does that make sense?
I know it's not ideal and adds a little extra work preparing your imported video assets but, given the behaviour you've experienced, it seems as if it should at least work reliably.

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@x-bit

I can confirm your findings, what seems to be happening is that CTA3 is not saving the "Visible/Hidden" keys on the time line with imported videos with sound.
This pic shows the keys before the save and closing CTA3.

After reopening the project they are missing and the sound starts at the beginning of the clip as you are aware.

However if you import a video without sound and add your sound in the form of a WAV file from the timeline by clicking on the Project/Music tab, and save the project it does save the keys!


Hope this helps.

[[EDIT:]]  Now I think my findings are flawed as the project I show not saving the keys might have been due to using videos with different frame rates, on another test it did save the keyframes with two avi movies @30 fps as props.  However when I added a third wmv movie @29 fps as a prop then it didn't save the keyframes after the save.  Still you'd think it would save the keyframes regardless.


Dell XPS 8900, Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-6700 CPU @ 3.40GHz, 3408 Mhz, 4 Core(s), 8 Logical Processor(s), 16 GB RAM, - 4 GB GeForce GTX 745, NVIDIA compatible.
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Hello garylearntech
Yes, if one  has a timeline set in stone, this would work, but to be honest, in real life it doesn't. There is always something to change at the last minute and this would mean modifications on all avis.
In this case I prefer a "green screen" solution, where I can display the avi files with Vegas when I need them.

But both solutions are far from practical.

Hello Snarp Farkle

That's an interesting finding! I received the avis from the client and they are all muted but have an audio track.The one avi which I produced, has underlying music got the sound on the Project / Music tab as you suggested. I checked my timeline with the saved and reopened project and, although they are starting at frame 1, instead of the frame when they get visible, they still have the keys: http://prntscr.com/dxllxg

The only way to proceed with the work after reopening the project is to delete the first avi and to position it newly. Then the subsequent avis will arrange accordingly.
I have opened a ticket with Reallusion and will report when there is any news.

Thanks to all for helping to find the problem!

Hi x-bit, 
If you extract the sound from the AVI's as WAV and add them to the 'Music Track" it should save them all where you placed them as was the case in one of my trials anyways, but it only had one video prop with sound added to the Music channel. 

So I tried adding another video prop to this successful save.

Saved the keyframes but see what happened when I reopened it.



Dell XPS 8900, Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-6700 CPU @ 3.40GHz, 3408 Mhz, 4 Core(s), 8 Logical Processor(s), 16 GB RAM, - 4 GB GeForce GTX 745, NVIDIA compatible.
Acer Aspire V Nitro Laptop,  2.5GHz Intel Core i5-7300HQ processor with 6MB cache,  256GB solid state drive, 16GB Ram,  4 GB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti graphics.

Snarp Farkle,

I am very grateful for your clips, showing exactly my findings! This is gold!
As I stated, I got in contact with the Reallusion support and received, as I see it at this time, o totally unrelated answer. I wrote back and referenced this Thread.
We can call this a bug and, as I heavily rely on external produced clips for the animations (normally used as the screen content in a news room), I am hoping that RL will fix this as soon as possible.

Once again, thanks a bunch for the clips, mate, it shows me that, although I am a beginner with CTA, I really didn't do anything wrong.

I'll keep this thread updated as soon as I get any usable answer from RL.


Edit: What they call "rigid state" in iClone was actually what I was looking for. It is just a player control to start / stop a clip. This would be the perfect solution and I am astonished, that this does not exist in CTA,