Lip Sync render doesn't match with voice audio

[Anonymous]

Hi - Ive imported an audio file in to Maya and adjusted the timeline to real time to hear the audio during playback. 

I animated the character to the audio (lip sync), rendered the sequence as 24 frames a second and imported it in to After Effects and this is where Im having the issue...

In After Effects Ive also set the timeline to 24 frames a second but when I import the sequence and also add the audio layer, the two do not match. But in Maya, they do.

What am I missing? What frame rate settings should I be using so that I can work in After Effects? Or, should I be exporting the audio from Maya? If so, what settings are these?

Thanks in advance for your help!

[alec.andersenLP8AU · Accepted solution]

Hi @Anonymous,

Make sure that you are using "Play every frame, Max real time" in your playback speed in Maya. I would not recommend using audio in Maya outside of animation references, it sounds like you may have to pair the audio and alter either the base audio file or stretch the animation. If you've set the animation framerate to 24fps to both softwares, then I expect this is an issue with how After Effects is interpreting the file.

I hope this helps to clarify this issue!

[Anonymous]

Hi - thank you it does and yes in answer to both your solutions, I do Play Every Frame at Real Time in Maya to hear the audio and that works great. 

And yes, when imported to AE I do delay the animation by almost a quarter, it helps to match the animation with the audio but its not really accurate and is hard to create good detail when playback is so tedious when trying to match the two...I wasnt sure if maybe I was missing something and there was a process that I wasnt familiar with.

For example, is it better to have the model at a lower poly count? or no textures? or in wireframe when animating to audio? 

The only control that you have in AE (as im sure youre aware) is the ability to stretch the animation to fit the audio and/or change composition frame rate. So I was hoping maybe theres something within Maya I could change to help the animation be more accurate. 

[alec.andersenLP8AU]

Hello @Anonymous,

As long as you are able to slide through the timeline smoothly, you should not have any issues. I would also personally check a render against the audio outside of Adobe manually just to confirm things are working smoothly. In case you have not done this already, if you Right-click the footage in the Project window of AE and choose Interpret Footage, you can set the frame rate there to 24 as well. Finally, if you navigate to your preferences inside Maya and scroll down to the Time slider settings, you can confirm these settings. I've attached a quick image for reference. I hope this helps!