Improve supporting and workflow for video and audio files

[Ehsan.Sarahian]

Now we have buggy, slow, and limited workflow for working with external movie and audio in 3ds Max.

- Improve performance of movie playback in viewports for background and object maps. Like FFmpeg Changsoo idea: http://cganimator.com/ffmpeg-plugin-for-3ds-max-2015-2017mp4dpx-decoder/

- Read more movie files like mkv, flv and ...

- Support more movie codec. For exam now in preview we can export H.264 but we can't use it for background!!
- Read more audio files. Prosound can't import MP3!! only WAV and AVI.

- Audio in Sound Track don't playback when play animation and must scroll Time Slider manually!!! fix it please.
- Add an option to make preview window for Add Background movie or Sound Track audio to previews.

- Add an option for background tab on viewport configuration window for play animated background with their sounds.

- Add an option to Right click on Sound Track for direct access to Prosound.

- Upgrade "Time" rollout in map options for better animated maps support. Parameters like speed,reverse,end and ...

[billnuttall]

Now that Apple has discontinued QuickTime for PC, Max needs a new codec to output movie files, particularly when producing a viewport animation preview (shift-V). Any new codec would ideally need to be royalty-free, support 4k resolutions and up, and support modern HDR colour spaces. That narrows the field down to pretty much Google's VP9, read more here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VP9

H.265 would be an alternative, but as it's proprietary, there would likely be licensing issues.

[michael_spaw]

+1 All good ideas

Thanks

-Michael

[davision]

Max has poor support for video codecs.  Sometimes we want animated textures, or reference guides.

Mp4 support should be added.  It is long overdue.

[RGhost77]

Yes, something like this http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=6&t=1357562, based on FFmpeg will be good...

[michael_spaw]

+1

Thanks

-Michael

[brentscannell]

Would merging with this idea make sense?

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/3ds-max-ideas/improve-supporting-and-workflow-for-video-and-audio-fil...

[michael_spaw]

Agreed, Ill mention it to Kelly.

Thanks.

[Isaac_Zuniga]

I am not the only one who thinks this, the audio support for the program is (not the main focus of the application, I am aware) not the best. It only supports .WAV files and it must be a 16-bit wav file. Here's where the issues arise:

Not all modern audio formats are in .WAV format. Some are in MP3, OGG, WMA, FLAC, M4A (to list a few) and so on. Converting any of those to WAV would actually consume more hard drive space than if the proper codec was supported and the file was used as-is. In conjunction to that, some people create music of different bit depths, and it is not always 16-bit. Sometimes it's 24-bit, or 8-bit. Both of which, the program has issues with interpreting when playing back the audio.

I've heard from others that ProSound in 3ds Max is quite buggy and should be looked at as well. If a 24-bit wav file is loaded into the sound system and played back during the animation, you hear nothing but a bunch of static. That is not what I wanted to hear.

Also, the "audio float controller" should be given some more controls and flexibility. Right now it's a few basic options, such as oversampling, absolute value, which axis to affect and so on. The oversampling is capped at 1,000 for some reason, which in some cases, is not enough to smooth out the audio to get a fluid-like animation from it. Can we get it increased to 10,000 or a higher number?

I'm sure if the application got some better support for audio, there are people out there (I am one of them) who would use it's audio capabilities more.

What do you guys think? Should this be a thing to consider?

[brentscannell]

Hi @Isaac_Zuniga

Do you think it would make sense if we merged your into with this one?
https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/3ds-max-ideas/improve-supporting-and-workflow-for-video-and-audio-fil...

Your post would show up as a comment there if we did. Let me know!

[Isaac_Zuniga]

@brentscannell

Yes, please do, and thank you for linking me to that!

[Isaac_Zuniga]

I know I already posted here, but please do not stop with FFMPEG, if possible, include WavPack as well!

I feel like FLAC files get all the attention while WavPacks go unnoticed... 😕

[markus]

+1 Wish there were more options for video formats you could import as viewport background (reference and rotoscoping) and for animated textures in 3dsmax. Please allow for more popular video formats and codecs. Improved viewport playback and scrubbing would also be nice.

[markus]

BTW, why doesn't playback of viewport background update when scrubbing?

If I apply the same image sequence to a texture and show it on an object in viewport, it plays  in the viewport while scrubbing. 3dsmax, while great for a lot of complex and advanced stuff it is sometimes lacking some of the basics!

[Ehsan.Sarahian]

This idea since 2017 under review!!!

This staff is one of the basic requests, after about 5 years if dont want to do this, close this or not, do it ....