Using Dope Sheet for the first time

[Gerry]

Trying to get the hang of doing lip synch and using the dope sheet by following the instructions in TaoAM, though I'm not doing the KeeKat exercise, just following the steps. It works up until I click "New dope sheet" and enter the text, a couple of words appear in the PWS, then it crashes. happened three or four times so far.

 

They're all simple words, in fact I keep shortening the phrase to go easy on the app. Dictionary.dic is present where it should be.

 

I know this is an area not a lot of folks here have experience in, but does anyone have an idea about how to proceed. I'm using v16b.

[Gerry]

Okay, scratch that. It seems to be working fine with KeeKat and doing the actual exercise. Let's see how this goes.

[Gerry]

Are the phonemes dependent on using a particular rig?

[robcat2075]

I've never done that exercise but your character must be rigged with the same phonemes you are trying to use, i believe.

 

Try it, but i recommend regular mouth animation for lip sync. Good open/close will cover about 70% of it.

[Gerry]

Well, I was frankly surprised at how sophisticated the automated part of that was. My characters have Holmes' Lite Face rig and I just wrote asking him how compatible it is with the automated functions, and his rig has a full set of phonemes. So I was prepared to do the whole thing manually in any case, and in addition there are very few closeup shots of the face for this sequence.

 

so I'm going to get a rough start on it and I'll be back here with questions. I suspect you're right about the simple open/close option Robert.

[robcat2075]

I recall an expensive product called Magpie that seemed to be doing what A:M's lipsync feature does and it was quite the rage for a long time, so there must be some possibilities in the technique especially for fast-production environments.

[thumperness]

I am pretty happy with the dope sheets except for the fact that each word steps down further and further in the timeline. So if you have any length to your dope sheets, it makes for a very tall timeline unless you start closing sections. (Make any sense?)

 

It makes for a very good start of the lip sync. Then you can tweek to your heart's content to make it perfect.

[HomeSlice]

....My characters have Holmes' Lite Face rig and I just wrote asking him how compatible it is with the automated functions, and his rig has a full set of phonemes. So I was prepared to do the whole thing manually in any case, and in addition there are very few closeup shots of the face for this sequence....

LiteFace does work with AM's dopesheet feature. You have to edit each phoneme pose (in User Properties > Face Controls > Face Rigging > Phonemes) and shape the mouth into the appropriate shape for the phoneme. You can manipulate bones, control points or a combination or both.

 

But the dope sheet creates choppy movements and I usually have to spend a significant amount of time in the Channel editor to smooth out the animation. So, like Robert, I have gotten better, and faster, results by doing it manually. (I have had a lot of practice lip syncing though, so at first it may take you quite a bit longer to get the hang of it)

 

Some issues I have noticed with the dope sheet:

 

*The keyframes it generates are often only 1 frame apart, or less (a fraction of a frame apart). Occasionally you may want some keyframes only one frame apart, but not often, and I have never found a desire to have them less than 1 keyframe apart.

(fix: delete keyframes until there are none left that are closer than 1 frame apart. Then go back through and remove/move keyframes that are closer than two frames apart unless there is some very fast talking in a particular segment.)

 

*The keyframes are all zero sloped by default. I always want spline interpolation, even for very fast talking.

(fix: Select all the keyframes (in the Channel editor) and convert them to Spline Interpolation)

 

*After I convert all the keys to Spline Interpolation, the splines (in the Channel editor) quite often travel over the 100% mark or under the 0% mark during their transition from keyframe to keyframe. This effectively clips the animation, contributing to the choppiness.

(fix: Move control points (in the Channel editor) down until the apex of the offending curves are just a tad under the 100% mark. And move control points up until the nadir of offending curves are on the 0% mark (not below it).