Okay, I'm sure some one's brought this up before, but making a mouth chart from scratch is a lot of work! I'm preparing to do my first short with talking, and I read that it's best to create a mouth chart before you start animating, rather that making it up as you go.
The problem is, I've never attempted lip synch before. Where do you start? I've already got the dialogue timed and plotted out phonetically... Now what?
Any ideas would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks,
Pooryorik
ohh lip synch is easy everyone makes it out to be so hard but truley its one of the easy'est parts in animating.
This page helped me emensly http://minyos.its.rmit.edu.au/~rpyjp/a_notes/mouth_shapes_01.html
just from the info on that page i was able to make my lip synch chart.If you need any more help just ask. :D
and good luck!
You don't even need to make a chart out. Just sound it out and look in the mirror. Having charts can help, but don't follow them robotically.
i put several variations on my mouths.some look very crazy/ugly when compared to others.I went a little overboard with it actually.So try to put small variations on your mouth chart mouth's.
Ant-eater is right in a way because you want some unique-ness and personalllity in every mouth.But mouth charts still help just put your own spin on every diffrent mouth.
I think looking in a mirror is a good idea but a chart and a mirror used together would be better at least for a begininng lip sych'er
? no its not lol,lip sync is like the second hardest thing after walk cycles.
but obviously it depends who you are and how fast you learn.
I agree with given about the looking at your mouth in the mirror from time to time,sooner or later u'll get used to the shapes your own mouth makes,then it will be easily to translate those movements into animation.
ANIMATION FORUM
Production Blog
In my experience, both lip-sync and walk cycles have been pretty straight-forward. There's not all that much to them. If you try to learn how to do it from a book, you may become bogged down and confused, and personally I found it was pretty easy to figure out. Some people learn things in different ways, but I found the best way to learn for me was by observing and by doing.
Naturally it depends on how good a job you want to do, and once you get going, you can always find various ways to improve. The Richard Williams book is pretty good, though he tends to overcomplicate things. If I had got that book before getting into animation, I would have found animation a lot more daunting.
yep theres isn't much to learn,but as everything is when u first start out,its difficult.and on top of everythin else they are the most difficult in my opinion
ANIMATION FORUM
Production Blog
mine were realy easy.I was expecting it to be hard but i just looked at that preston blair mouth shape page and translated his mouths to my characters.Its all very easy for me. :D
i think youll be fine Pooryorik :D
...sounds like you just copied a formula. That's no way to learn. I don't know how many times I've seen Preston Blair walk cycles and characters in student films. It can make your work look amateurish.
Thanks for all your suggestions. My character's mouth is severely simplified compared to those on the Preston Blair website. It's not bad for a start--but his mouth seems to be jumping all over the place! For some reason, it doesn't register as movement. Rather, his mouth looks like a bunch of random frames.
Is there any way to fix this? I tried making his mouth smaller, but it did not seem to help.
(I've attempted to upload the file as a .swf , but the audio is waaayy off. When I figure out how to fix this, I can post a link to the animation).
Thanks for responding,
Pooryorik
If the mouth is simplified, try to use very broad shapes for the vowel sounds, and try to contrast one key shape from the next.
sort of like this:
<> O o .
It's also worth noting that you can get most of the dialogue it across with the right gestures and body movements to accentuate what the character is saying. I've seen some 'lip synching' tests that had been posed out, but before any actual mouth animation, and they almost didn't need it.
To fix the prob with your .swf, if you are sure the timing of the dialogue matches the frames, then make sure you have your sound set as a stream. That may cause some of your frames to skip, making the motion a little jerky, but it's the best way to ensure that your sound will synch. Even then it's not guanteed. If you already know this and have it as a stream. Then..... I don't know. Maybe exporting as smaller or lower quality will make it run more smoothly.
Also, did you just use the mouth shapes, or did you use tweens to morph one into the other (consonant to vowel, etc)? Sometimes I find it's needed to keep them from looking like random frames, sometimes not. What does everyone else do?
Meleponine, thanks for the suggestions. I've never tried morphing before, but I 'll give it a shot.
About converting the swf audio: how exactly would you convert the audio to a streaming file? I didn't see any such option when I exported the movie from Flash. Also, I'm working from a really cheap audio program--SoundStudio for Macs. Any ideas?
I don't really like morphed mouth shapes because they tent to look mushy and slow to me. But that's a personal preferance. It's hard to say what could be wrong with your lipsync till we can see it, untill then it's all just shots in the dark. So here's my shot :)
You want to lip sync phoneticaly and not the way things are spelled. For example the word "home." Don't use 4 mouth shapes for that word, like an "H" mouth, then an "Ooh" mouth, then "em" mouth and finally an "Eee" mouth. You can use only two mouth shapes for the word, the "ooh" mouth and the "em" mouth so it broken down to him saying more like "Omm" instead of "Home." This way the mouth shapes will be on screen longer for your audience to register what is being said.
Just a guess though.
Aloha,
the Ape
...we must all face a choice, between what is right... and what is easy."
What I mean by setting it as a stream... it is not an export option. You need to click on the sound in the timeline and then in the properties window set it as a "stream" instead of "event", "start", etc.
Also... I wasn't talking about doing a shape morph or tween or anything with the mouth, just to clear up. I mean, instead of having, in the word home, the fully opened "o" shape followed by a frame of the fully closed "m" shape, having an inbetween frame of not quite open, but not quite closed. Is that what you though I meant?
BTW does anyone know if they use shape tweens for the mouths on Foster's? It almost looks like the do. I'm just curious.
No we don't.
Oh, when you said "tween" I always think a computer "tween." Yeah, having inbetween mouth shapes between the extremes helps to cusion the mouth shapes. Like a mouth shape like Oo- instead of just O- Sorry about the confusion Mele.
Aloha,
the Ape
...we must all face a choice, between what is right... and what is easy."
I knew there were some Foster's animators lurking around here. I didn't realize you were one of them. So I got it straight from the horse's mouth!!! The reason I thought they look like shape tweens is because the movement of the mouths is just so fluid. Great work on that show by the way.
I'm sorry about the confusion... I should have been more specific. I had a feeling that's what you thought I meant!!
Pooryorik, were you able to figure out what I mean with the sound file? Personally, I would try exporting it as a quicktime. I think it will keep time better that way. But if you need an swf for storage reasons, stream is the way to go. Good luck with that. Please post it when you can!
I know I"m probably late chimming in on this topic, but in our store, we have posted all of the mouth positions for our characters:
http://cartoonsolutions.com/store/home.php
Good examples of the same mouth positions but on different characters in both the front and side view. Might be helpful.
Flash Character Packs, Video Tutorials and more: www.CartoonSolutions.com
I'm trying, I'm trying! I think I'm experiencing Mac descrimination... Here's the error message I get every time I try to upload the file as a Quicktime Video:
---The page ÒFreeVideoBlog.comÓ has content of MIME type Òapplication/x-mplayer2Ó. You do not have a plug-in installed for this MIME type, but one should be available on this page: http://www.microsoft.com/Windows/MediaPlayer/---
I'm going to keep trying tonight. I'll post it as soon as I get all the knots worked out.
(sorry for double posting)
Okay, let's see if this works...
testsynch1forums.swf
It will play rather slowly the first run through, but on the second run, things should line up. Thanks for your patience, and any suggestions are highly appreciated.
It loaded, but I had trouble really watching it. The sound sgot really off synch with the animation. I could tell that you didn't set it as a stream. You should really try that. It will make it easier to view and get suggestions on. Plus then it will loop properly, and the sound will stop when the animation does. Seems like it keeps going right now. The look is nice though.
Thanks Meleponine!
I set the audio to stream, and here's the new link. Hope it works!
synchteststream1.swf
We'll see if this one fairs better.
(edit) It takes a while to load. But don't worry. It will... Eventually.
For me the syc did not hold togeather and I think there were missing cels. The sound kept going with nothing on the screen.
I hope this is not Hi-Jacking this thread but I have a question. I am not doing lip sync, as of yet, but there is something I need to be cleared up. If I am shooting on ones and I am using nine shapes, just how am I going to make the lip sync work? If I am shooting at 24 fps would I need more shapes?
It should work the same as on two's. The mouth shape changes when the sound changes.
Yorik, the second one worked much better with the sound. I think you can use less mouth shapes when he turns to screen right. I think the dialogue is "Over here..." You can just hit the OH...Errr for 'over' and the e (soft "E" not like 'chEEse' Ok , so ..e..Errr for 'here.' After you do that, you might want to try shifting all your mouth shapes forward one frame. What this does is prepare the view for whats being said. It's almost like an anticipation.
Aloha,
the Ape
...we must all face a choice, between what is right... and what is easy."
It looks much better now!!! I think it looks good. The only thing I thought could really help is if you do a little squash and stretch with the head, then you could exaggerate the open mouth a little more, too. But if what you are aspiring to is that "limited animation" style where the jaw doesn't move, then it looks good as is. A lot of cartoons (particularly anime) do this and I think it is fine in some instances. But you might want to be able to show that you can animate the rest of the face, too.
I like the look of the character and the colors you chose. One thing, though. It seems that if his shadow is that long there would be more dramatic lighting on him... defined light and dark forms. It looks like a sunset-type shadow. Just something you might want to try. I like the subtle shadow color you've chosen, it just doesn't seem consistent with the cast shadow to me. Also, if you are going to use symbols for his body (as I assume you did) you can try creating a separate symbol for his body when he turns around. That way the light source stays consistent. The way it is now, his belly stays in shadow after he turns it toward the light source. Just create a new symbol, paste the old symbol of his body into it, and change the colors. Then you can easily swap the symbols.
I'm being picky, here. I really think it looks nice, especially if this is your first lip synch.
Animated Ape's suggestions are good. He's the expert here! Maybe you should try them. I've heard that before, about moving the sound up a frame. Good luck! Nice work so far!
Thanks for the suggestions!
Ape >
I tried eliminating some of the mouth shapes for some of my other characters, and it totally fixed the "random frames" problem. Thanks a bunch.
Meleponine >
It never occured to me to try squashing and strectching the character's face when he talks. That sounds like a good idea. I think I'll try that tonight. Also, about the shadows-- good eyes! I completely missed the shadow on his stomach. The shadow on the ground was actually long because there was another character in the scene. (I cut out his layer before posting the animation).
(double posting again, lol)
Thanks a ton for the suggestions, everyone! I'm very pleased with the results. Here's a link to the improved clip (again, it may take a while to load) :
synchstream2.swf
Thanks again,
Pooryorik
PS. Was it just me, or did the AWN server go down last night?
Pooryorik, I just saw a still from an upcoming movie and one of the characters looks just like your avitar. I can not remeber the title of the movie, but it has something to do about a dog and cat who are on some kind of road trip.
Your animation looks really good. The lip sync looks fine to me.
:eek: Don't you just hate when that happens? Ah well...
Thanks for the compliments--and if you happen to remember the name of the movie, please let me know. I'd like to see if my character cuts it too close.
Pooryorik
PS: Did the character have one eye? I'm totally biting my nails!
The synch looks good and that shadow makes so much more sense now!!!!
One more thing though... there seem to be some weird shaps (maybe an instance of your main character) showing up near the bottom of the frame. Not sure what it is. Good work.
Is your character saying, "Hey, hey Art over here!"
I had to go back to the place where I saw the article, the current issue of Time. The movie has the title "American Dog" and it wll be released by Disney next year. The character has the same shape as yours and it has an eye patch over the right eye. So you are really an animator for Disney, aren't you. :D
>Wontobe
Lol, I wish! American dog looks really cool. Here are some links to some concept art I found online.
flickr.com/photos/garyfixler/31115720/in/set-694944/
www.magicalears.com/films/Feature%20Films/American%20Dog/Images/
>Meleponine
Those extra bits on the bottom of the frame are actually the character's hand symbols. In the flash document, they were offscreen, but once I exported, bits of them showed up anyway. No biggie though. It's just a test :)
>pcdoctor
Yup--that's what he's saying. "Art" is driving by on a separate layer, and this character is trying to flag him down.
Pooryorik
Wantobe>
Gosh, is the audio still screwy? Thought I fixed it. Were you clicking on the second link I posted?
And no, you're not hijacking the thread :D . That's a good question, and I'd like to know the answer too.
worked for me. I think it works pretty good. You could maybe put some squash and stretch into the head, but it works either way.
Cought the new epsiode of Foster's, great show.
Now back to your normal program...
Well you do use simple mouth shapes and that is great. For me, I plan to animate the whole lower face, when I get to making characters speak