Adding Background Audio to Your Movie


You can create background audio for your movie. When you add a background audio track, the sound will play while the slides of your movie are shown. Background audio can be music, sound effects, or virtually any kind of sound you can import or record. Just keep in mind that Captivate can read only a WAV and MP3 files. You'll have to convert AIFF, WMA, and other audio formats to one of these two prior to placing them into your Captivate movie.

You can also use background audio together with individual slide audio for a truly professional effect. This is accomplished by lowering the volume of a background audio track when a slide with audio assigned plays. For example, you can import a music file and have it play while the movie plays. When the movie reaches a slide where there is a voice over narration, the background music track's volume will be lowered while the narration plays. Audio, if used properly, makes the viewer's experience with your work a positive one. The problem with audio, though, is the inevitable tradeoff a developer must make between quality and size. The better the sound quality, the higher the file size, and vice versa.

Captivate can help you with this tradeoff, because it enables you to control the way a sound is recorded based upon your input and output needs.

There are two methods of recording background audio in Captivate:

  • Record a voiceover narration using a microphone.

  • Create the audio using another recording, which connects directly to your computer. When recording, the sound will be captured as a WAV file that is subsequently converted to an MP3 file.

Captivate also contains a handy little feature that enables you to write the voiceover narration script used for each slide

This section covers only how to capture a voiceover narration. Other ways to use audio will be discussed in Chapter 6.

To import background audio into a Captivate movie

1.

Open a Captivate movie and select Movie > Preferences.

2.

When the Movie Preferences dialog box opens, select the Background Audio tab.

3.

Click the Import button.

The Import Audio dialog box opens (Figure 2.25).

Figure 2.25. A number of prerecorded audio files are installed with Captivate and can be added to your movie through the Import Audio dialog box.


4.

Select the file and click Open.

The Import Audio dialog box closes, and you are returned to the Background Audio dialog box.

5.

To preview your sound file, click the Play button.

6.

In the Fade In and Fade Out areas of the Background Area dialog box, which become active when a file is imported, use the arrows or input fade in and fade out values.

7.

Select "Lower background audio volume on slides with additional audio" to reduce automatically the background audio volume on slides that have individual audio filessuch as voiceover narrationassigned.

8.

Select "Loop audio" to have the background audio file play over and over again.

9.

Select "Stop at end of movie" to have the background audio stop when the movie ends.

10.

When you are finished, click OK to close the dialog box and add the background audio to your movie.

Tips

  • Captivate ships with a number of pre recorded background sound loops and files in the MP3 format. You can find them in your Program Files\Macromedia\Captivate\Gallery\Sound folder.

  • The fade values apply when the movie starts and when the movie finishes. They are not related to the duration of a slide.


To record a background audio file

1.

Connect your microphone to your computer and open a Captivate movie.

2.

Open the Background Audio preferences and click the "Record new" button to open the Record Audio dialog box.

3.

Click the Options button.

The Audio Options dialog box opens.

4.

Select Microphone as your input source.

5.

Click the "Calibrate input" button in the Audio Options.

The "Calibrate microphone" dialog box opens (Figure 2.26).

Figure 2.26. The Calibrate microphone dialog box.


6.

Speak into the microphone.

The Recording Level meter on the right side of the dialog box changes color, and you will be informed whether the input level is acceptable. Click OK to return to the Audio Options dialog box.

7.

Select your audio quality from the Audio Quality pop-down menu and click OK to return to the Record Audio dialog box.

8.

Click the Record button and speak into the microphone.

A VU meter appears in the Record Audio dialog box (Figure 2.27).

Figure 2.27. The Record Audio dialog box.


9.

When you finish recording, click the Stop button (the button with the square on it).

The file is converted to an MP3 file and appears in the Record Audio dialog box. You'll see that the file is ready and its duration.

10.

If you want to delete the audio file, click the "Remove audio" button (the button with the red X).

11.

Click OK to return to the Background Audio dialog box.

12.

Select your options and click OK to close the dialog box.

Tips

  • Be sure that the microphone is active in your computer's Recording Control options.

  • The "Calibrate microphone" dialog box is inaccurately named. It doesn't calibrate a edx microphone, it detects a microphone and the resulting audio levels. If your recording level is too high, reduce the volume control in the Microphone section of your computer's Recording Control options (Figure 2.28). You won't be able to do it in Captivate.

    Figure 2.28. Calibrate a microphone using the computer's Recording Control options. Don't use Captivate.


  • Keep an eye on the VU meter as you record. If it moves too far to the left, turns red, and stays there, you are speaking too loudly. In this case, stop the recording and start over.


To write a script used for narration

1.

In the Edit View panel, double-click the slide to which the script will apply.

The Slide Properties dialog box opens.

2.

Click the Slide Notes button and enter the text for the script in the Slide notes dialog box (Figure 2.29).

Figure 2.29. Enter the slide's narration script into the Slide notes dialog box.


3.

Click OK to accept the note and close the dialog box.

4.

Click OK to close the Slide Properties dialog box.

5.

Click the Audio button on the Main toolbar to open the Audio Properties dialog box.

6.

Select View Script.

The note appears in the dialog box (Figure 2.30).

Figure 2.30. Selecting View Script in the Audio Properties opens the script, in which you can write a caption or note.


7.

Click the Record button and read the script.

Tip

  • You can use more than just notes as scripts. You can also use caption text. This is especially important in situations where accessibility for the visually impaired is a key issue. By narrating a caption, the soundtrack is embedded into the final file. This makes Flash, which is a generally inaccessible product to screen readers, accessible.




Macromedia Captivate for Windows. Visual QuickStart Guide
Macromedia Captivate for Windows. Visual QuickStart Guide
ISBN: 321294173
EAN: N/A
Year: 2003
Pages: 130

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