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By clmessina - 13 Years Ago
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Alright, this is driving me CRAZY!!!!!!
Does anyone actually use this software for lip-synching? That's primarily what I bought it for.
Here's a trick I'd like you to try. First, import 10 minutes of realistic dialogue, with slow and fast parts. Don't forget to add frames, because nothing really tells you how, which you'll have to, until you consult the manual.
After you've done that, TRY, just TRY to edit it! Have you felt my pain yet?
First, there is no way to slow your dialogue down (e.g. run it at half speed). So your listening, watching and trying to figure out what's going where. The ability to slow the dialogue down would be immensely helpful, particularly for small, fast phrases that, in real life, don't seem fast at all.
Second, and how about being able to place a marker at a given point? I don't mean the time bar, but real markers like you see in Sony Vegas. As in, 'at 4:15 he starts talking about dogs...' etc. The markers don't even need labels or colors, just something to identify an edit point other than the one your directly working on would be nice.
Third, how about allowing the visemes to be standard set at 50% expression and adjusted from there by the user? Seriously, you never know what you're going to get at any given point. Should we start from the middle or even high end (100%) consistently and adjust from there when adding a new viseme?
Fourth, in the viseme box there's a check box for 'apply'. I don't really know what it does. Yeah, it's supposed to lip-synch over motion, but does it? Does it do it for one viseme at a time, the whole time line, all the current visemes being used but not those you haven't put in yet or all visemes being used and will be used? It would be nice to know SPECIFICALLY what this button does.
Fifth, I saved the best for last. WHO DESIGNED THE ZOOM BUTTONS? Yes, that's me screaming. Someone deserves to be screamed at or to just be served a cold cup of coffee when they expect a hot one.
That zoom feature is just wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. Whoever designed it has never zoomed in on anything in any given software in their life or they were drunk or they were supervised by drunks.
What might one expect from a zoom? Well, I'd expect you would focus in on something... like your timeline bar, or the middle of the screen- not so here. It zooms into a random spot every time. AND to make matters worse, the horizontal scroll bar continues to get smaller as you zoom to the point where you can't actually scroll horizontally. You have to zoom ALL THE WAY IN to actually change visemes. You have to. I mean, if you want accurate visemmes, but if you do, you can't scroll. So you zoom in, work on a second worth of dialogue, zoom out, scroll over (don't scroll out too much because if you scroll back in you might not be anywhere near where you want), zoom in, redo, redo, redo, redo!!!! This is terrible. Again, has anyone who designed this ever worked with a zoom button in media software of any sort before? Who would design this?
And a very odd thing is that at one point of zoom (three zoom outs from full zoom in) the transformation bar goes completely grey! I mean, there's no altering it- it's locked!
AND, the transformation bar changes size at seemingly random as you zoom in and out!!!!!
Was that a joke feature? Because I don't find it funny.
So, if you will, for the love of God, please fix these issues for people who actually try to do REAL lip synching with this software.
NOW, as for 'wish list', and I only suggest this out of spite and hatred. You know why? Because your company deserves little if any help from anyone. I bought Animator pro three weeks ago (I know this rant/forum/wishlist is about CTPro, I'm getting there). Anyway, I bought it three weeks ago and suddenly there's an announcement that if you buy it NOW you get the upgrade to Animator Pro 2 FREE. I'm thinking, OK, I'm only three weeks out. So I ask and am told: 'Ohhhhh! You got Animate pro, Serif X5 and the training DVD. You can't have the new one'
I already HAD Serif X5- had been using it for YEARS. Liked it so much I upgraded to X6! As for the training DVD, you can find all of the info free on YouTube, but that's not the big deal. The big deal is it's terrible! Read the comments! They're spot on! In sum, it goes a million miles an hour, makes many assumptions on the part the user and never walks a new user through an entire project! Ha! WHAT A DEAL! THANKS FOR NOTHING!
Anyway, that's why I feel your company deserves no help, BUT, there's always a chance that if you actually listen and implement useful changes it might improve the software and make my life easier. I'm sure I'll have to fork over a kidney and truckload of kittens because I deserve nothing for suggesting, but I guess I'm getting used to those kinds of deals from this company.
OK, here goes.
How about a 'save phonemes that build common words'. Some words you run into a lot and it'd be nice to cut/copy/save for later.
That reminds me- the file folder system- it's very screwy. I mean, it's about as confusing as one could get. I get lost in it and it drives me nuts.
Also, where's the 'save' button? 'Save as' has ALWAYS implied I want to create a new file, not back up my work. And what is the difference between a Save As that overwrites the project and going to the content menu F4 and saving the project? When do I know I've backed up my project? Because, seriously, when you spend hours on a project and have to step away you like to know a kitten stepping on your keyboard isn't going to erase everything. That lack of a 'save' button in general tells me this was programmed by lunatic aliens. Complete lunatics. Welcome to Earth.
OK, rant over, hope you fix these things. Captain Kirk out!
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