Beginner Blender: Syncing Animation to Sound with Keyframes in the Timeline
In this chapter, you will learn how to keyframe a Blender animation by adding an audio file to your project and syncing your robot’s movements to the sound.
If you’re just joining us, you will want to start with Part 1, Beginner Blender Tutorial: How to Model & Animate a Robot.
If you haven’t yet, download the audio file here: https://github.com/nielsenjared/blender-robot
In Properties under Render, set the Frame Rate to 29.97
In the Timeline panel, select Video Sequence Editor
From the Video Sequence Editor menu, click Add and select Sound. This will prompt you to open a sound file. Select ‘hello_world.wav’. (You can download it, and all of the .blend files on our Gumroad page).
Position the cursor at the end of the sound clip.
Switch back to timeline
Change the length of the animation to match the position of the cursor (66)
Shift + L Arrow to move cursor to beginning of timeline
In Timeline, select Playback
Check Audio Scrubbing and AV Sync
ALT + A to play.
Hello World!
RMB to select robot
In Properties panel, select Object Data
Press R Arrow until first bite of audio (11)
Back one frame (10)
Under Shape Keys, select mouth
Hover mouse over Value slider.
Press I to insert keyframe
R Arrow to find end of first syllable (‘hell’, 17)
Hover mouse in Value field and press I
back to find ‘peak’ of ‘hell’ (13)
Set Value slider to 1
I to insert keyframe
Press UP to jump to the last keyframe
RIGHT to find end of ‘hello’ (39)
I
LEFT to find ‘peak’ of ‘o’ (30)
Set Value to 1
I
UP
RIGHT to end of ‘World’ (52)
I
LEFT to ‘peak’ of ‘World!’ (45)
Set Value to 1
I
Shift + LEFT
ALT + A to play
ALT + A to pause
CTRL + ALT + Q
SHIFT + LEFT
RMB HandIK.L
G and position
I > Location
Alternatively, you can hover the mouse of the Location in the […] panel, and press I
RMB HandIK.R
G and position
I > Location
Move Timeline to 30
G
I > Location
RMB HandIK.L
I > Location
Timeline 50
G
I > Location
SHIFT + LEFT
ALT + A
Hello World!
In the next and final tutorial we will add lights, a camera, and render our animation to video.
