Dope Sheet

[flashawd]

Hi again - When you have 2 sentences for example the KeeKat tutorial:

 

"I have a secret. Can you keep a secret"

 

Between the two sentences there is a pause, but my characters mouth is slowing starting to open during the pause. How do I keep his mouth completely shut until the second sentence starts "Can you keep a secret"?

[phatso]

I've had the same problem. The timeline fits a spline between keyframes, however far apart they may be. I used to go into the timeline and set the points to "zero slope," but now I just add words to the dope sheet to force mouth closure: "hmm." The character doesn't actually say that, but it keeps the mouth closed.

 

This is a seat-of-the-pants workaround but I bet it's not the right way. Rodney? Somebody?

 

By the way, replacement words can save a lot of time. You can add words to the dictionary, but I find it easier to just type in words that are already there. "Isaac Newton" becomes "I say egg new ton". "Ben Franklin" becomes "been frank line." They look the same as the original words.

[frosteternal]

I've had the same problem. The timeline fits a spline between keyframes, however far apart they may be. I used to go into the timeline and set the points to "zero slope," but now I just add words to the dope sheet to force mouth closure: "hmm." The character doesn't actually say that, but it keeps the mouth closed.

This is the correct solution - since an automated lip-syncing tool produces varyingly acceptable results, it is common to tweak the channels' tweening curves. Adjust the timeline curvatures for tweens that need to hold (like "hmmmm") or other such oddities. Probably no need to even set all curves to zero-slope, in most situations that is over-kill.

[flashawd]

Perfect. Thank you both.