Simon Edmondson Posted March 14, 2012 Share Posted March 14, 2012 Trying to learn lessons from previous post. This is a bit of lip synch leading towards some animation with a female blockhead. I thought I'd try to get this bit right then start working on the body poses and the overall piece. She breathes in just before starting to sing. Any feedback welcome. regards simonMouth_Test.mov Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hash Fellow robcat2075 Posted March 14, 2012 Hash Fellow Share Posted March 14, 2012 I think they are doing too much motion... they seem over-active. "Why" should start out with an "oo" pose and stretch out from that I think the lips are closing too often or too soon sometimes. Unless you make a very distinct M, B or P sound the full closures rarely happen in singing and she doesn't say many M, B or Ps in her lines. A good exercise is to put your finger on your chin while you say the lines and feel the movement. It's really very slight. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simon Edmondson Posted March 14, 2012 Author Share Posted March 14, 2012 Rob Thank you for your feed back. I shall try to make the adjustments later. simon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hash Fellow robcat2075 Posted March 14, 2012 Hash Fellow Share Posted March 14, 2012 perhaps part of it is you are trying to show her vocal vibrato with lip motion. Some people do indeed seem to open and close their mouth a bit for their vibrato but they tend to be big opera singer vibratos. I dont' know. Is there a reference clip you have of her singing that? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simon Edmondson Posted March 14, 2012 Author Share Posted March 14, 2012 perhaps part of it is you are trying to show her vocal vibrato with lip motion. Some people do indeed seem to open and close their mouth a bit for their vibrato but they tend to be big opera singer vibratos. I dont' know. Is there a reference clip you have of her singing that? Sadly the singer, Sandy Denny, died in 1980 or perhaps earlier. The track was originally on her first solo album. I don't know of any reference material for her singing it. You are right, I was trying to get the lip vibrato. Perhaps I've overdone it. I shall try to correct that. I was trying to avoid a static shape for too long as she hold a note for quite a while, in animation terms at least, in places. I only used the clip because it was to hand and I wanted a female voice to work to when doing the figure animation later. regards simon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simon Edmondson Posted March 14, 2012 Author Share Posted March 14, 2012 Take Two I've taken out a lot of the mouth closes and softened some of the poses.and added a couple of breaths. I did keep most of the lip vibrato as a personal preference,Mouth_Test.mov simon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simon Edmondson Posted April 12, 2012 Author Share Posted April 12, 2012 Update on the whispering lips. A head with whispering lips ( !!! ) This is a head design for a character ( Winona Blox ) I'm working on. I wondered if the style is too simple graphically and whether it needed a cavity behind the mouth ? There are no surface details as yet such as colour or texture because I'm still trying to get the surface itself 'right', as in an absence of creases were not wanted... Any feedback welcome ? regards simon Whispering.mov Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hash Fellow robcat2075 Posted April 12, 2012 Hash Fellow Share Posted April 12, 2012 Hi Simon This is a head design for a character ( Winona Blox ) I'm working on. I wondered if the style is too simple graphically and whether it needed a cavity behind the mouth ? Perhaps if you had black inside the mouth that would help There are no surface details as yet such as colour or texture because I'm still trying to get the surface itself 'right', as in an absence of creases were not wanted... relatively even spacing of the splines will help much. On the mouth shapes, the "whi" sound needs a good "oo" pose to get across. The W sound is really a transition from the small "oo" shape, made before the sound starts, to whatever vowel follows. In the case of "whispering" the "ss" will look very much like the "ee" shape. So posing out as "oo-ee" is a likely start. Try saying "oo-ee" and "Whee" and Whisss.." and the lips do pretty much the same for all. In rigging faces, I've found getting a good "oo" pose to be the hardest part. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Bigboote Posted April 12, 2012 Share Posted April 12, 2012 Trying to get too accurate with lip-synch is the wrong way to go about it... it is more a 'feel' thing than a technical thing. Don't get hung-up on individual phonemes... look for obvious 'hooks' you can hang on, like extended Oooh's or the ever-present 'TH' sounds. No deaf person will ever be able to lip-read from a cartoon... I don't care if it's Pixar. This is a very difficult and 'human' aspect to character animation, much practice will be involved, and people will ALWAYS say 'the lips look off to me'... OR worse, and I hate this is the - 'I could do better than that'-attitude, drives me nuts! Stylization may be better than technical accuracy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simon Edmondson Posted April 12, 2012 Author Share Posted April 12, 2012 Thank you both for your comments. I was trying to use the Preston Blair set of phoneme shapes because that was the only starting point I had really. I've not done much lip sync before ( about two short examples ) so hope it will iomprove with more experience. I actually started a lip reading class a few years ago because I thought it might help with the lip sync but had to stop after a few sessions. My hearing is actually quite good ( except for the frequency response age factor ) and when the instructor was mouthing the words I could hear the breath shapes forming the words so it was counter productive. On the subject of stylisation. I suppose the most obvious example of that is with the South Park series which has only about three mouth shapes per character (?) regards simon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Bigboote Posted April 13, 2012 Share Posted April 13, 2012 On the subject of stylisation. I suppose the most obvious example of that is with the South Park series which has only about three mouth shapes per character (?) regards simon Yeah! Look at the Simpson's, the Flintstones, Family Guy etc take a really close look frame-by-frame at what the animators are doing(and getting away with) to 'sell' the convincing lip-synch. I think there is a tendency to 'overthink' this part of animation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simon Edmondson Posted April 13, 2012 Author Share Posted April 13, 2012 John The first Tutor I worked with on animation told us that lip sync was always slightly out in drawn animation because that allowed it to be exported to foreign language markets more readily. He suggested two frame leeway (?). When I mentioned this to another tutor on a different course, she was aghast and explained that it had to be 100% accurate. I tend more towards your view. I'll post a revision to the head test a little later. Experiencing a few glitches in practice at the mo. A posh way of saying I keep making mistakes ! regards simon Ps Coincidentally, have you ever seen an Italian film called "Volare Volari " It came out about the same time as Roger Rabbit and is based around a sound designer putting sound to animations . I sawit once and spent the next 15 years trying to track down a DVD for it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simon Edmondson Posted April 13, 2012 Author Share Posted April 13, 2012 A further revision to the head test. Following suggestions here and elsewhere, it now has a black background to the mouth. I haven't revised the actual lip poses as yet That will come over the weekend. Unfortunately, in making the background to the mouth some further creases appeared in the cheeks. I''ll try to fix those over the weekend too. Aby comments welcome. regards simonWhispering.mov Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Admin Rodney Posted April 14, 2012 Admin Share Posted April 14, 2012 I haven't looked at your earlier test but in looking at this latest it doesn't seem to be in sync. I'm not sure if this is something on my end or no though. Have you ever heard of the animators who speak the words while placing their fingers on their lips? That might help in this instance. I'm thinking back to some of the lessons Don Bluth shared a year or so ago and the main point I think he would emphasize here would be the phrasing rather than the wording. For instance the words of the song: Why do you whisper green grass. Why tell the trees what ain't so. Whispering rocks. The trees don't have to know. The first thing I might be tempted to do is combine elements of the phrasing that blend together. Why/doyou whis/per green/grass. There are basically three beats in this first phrase with the the middle beat getting the emphasis of the hard P sound in 'per'. Open/close Open/Close Open/Close I think you've got to hit those beats strongly before you can get the nuances to work for you. The lips will vary their position but those openings and closings are really important. The first Tutor I worked with on animation told us that lip sync was always slightly out in drawn animation because that allowed it to be exported to foreign language markets more readily. He suggested two frame leeway (?). The way I interpret the two frame lead/leeway thing is that we always have to gauge the difference between the event's visual and audial communication. Consider for instance, the difference between thunder and lightning (the three second rule) where when we first see lightning we can begin counting out seconds and then divide the number of seconds by three to get how many kilometers the lightning was away from us when it struck. Similarly, some sounds begin before any visual representation appears to us. Think of a guttural yell that begins with a low intensity then builds up in intensity as the character begins to tense up then suddenly explodes into full visual fury. If we place the beginning of the sound at the moment we see the visual signal it will likely be too late to register properly. When we move the sound forward two frames it might suddenly work for us. I have heard more than a few animators suggest they don't know why dropping the sound out of sync works but I don't think its all that mysterious. While I'd be hard pressed to prove it, I'm convinced its mostly a matter of physics. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hash Fellow robcat2075 Posted April 14, 2012 Hash Fellow Share Posted April 14, 2012 I think the need to move the animation "earlier" than the sound comes from the need that we have to form our lips and mouth before we start the sound. An example is the "Wh" sound I mention above. It's really not one shape but a transition from oo to ee and the oo needs to be in place before you can make an "oo" sound or you won't get an "oo" sound. I also think that the process of analyzing a sound track frame by frame tends to cause us to identify the start of a sound later than it really is. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Admin Rodney Posted April 14, 2012 Admin Share Posted April 14, 2012 I think the need to move the animation "earlier" than the sound comes from the need that we have to form our lips and mouth before we start the sound. Yes, I wholeheartedly agree. The really neat thing from my perspective on animation is how that becomes such a great opportunity for anticipation (and exaggeration). For instance, a character might know exactly what he's going to say so he takes in a big breath of air as preparation, squints his face and closes his eyes and then lets it all out in one long expression. He might go on and on and on until something or someone interrupts or he needs to take another breath. Then the cycle starts all over again. You mentioned above a desire for some video reference of the lady that is singing and that suggests some other thing that are definitely something worth considering. Knowing what preceded the words and what follows after can often heavily influence lip sync and facial gestures. For instance, the singer might be smiling throughout, barely moving her lips or performing in some way that is completely unanticipated. (If actually whispering those lips may not move much at all). There is also the lead in and follow through. Perhaps she bites her lip a little at the beginning or end. It's harder to gauge the delivery of words and phrases without a context or setting to place them in. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simon Edmondson Posted April 14, 2012 Author Share Posted April 14, 2012 I revised the lip sync by deleting all previous key frames and redoing it completely in the light of comments received. Tried to start all shapes two frames before the actual sound appeared and avoided completely closing the mouth. This latter was partly necessity as an odd glitch appeared when using the pose sliders. When setting up the shapes the model would vibrate in the action window and the sliders would not operate smoothly or select full values. This has not happened before. Does anybody have any ideas as to cause ? regards simonWhispering.mov Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mouseman Posted April 14, 2012 Share Posted April 14, 2012 Simon, I've been following along with great interest. Great song choice, and a good exercise! You have fixed a lot of things in the latest version that I would have pointed out in previous versions. I don't quite understand the problems you have for rigging and pose sliders, so I can't help there. But from a visual standpoint, here is what I'm thinking. This is just my opinion and I'm not a pro at this. I think you're about 85% of the way there, and it just requires some tweaking in specific places. This is probably more detail than you would want, but here are the things I'd tweak about it if it were my project; use whatever of it you think is useful. You could probably do these within 15 minutes or so. Some things I would tweak: First line, the word "whisper": What I see ... the lips are not coming together on the "p", and the mouth is opening slowly during the "-er" portion What I would tweak ... have the lips come together vertically quickly just before the "p" (anticipation), and then come apart (release) even faster. On the held "-er", you will want a moving hold Second line, the word "trees": What I see ... the lips are moving a little bit, but the "t" in "trees" doesn't read. What I would tweak ... similarly to the "p" in whisper, but not as much, make the lips come closer vertically (but unlike the "p" not all the way together), and then come apart faster. Second line, the word "so": What I see ... the lips give up before the voice gives up What I would tweak ... hold the mouth open a little longer Third line, the word "whispering": What I see ... the lip sync seems to correctly split this word into two syllables: "whis-p'ring". However, the 2nd syllable is a slow move from the "p" to the "eeee" (the "i" of "ing"). What I would tweak ... do the same quick move into the "p" and quicker out, then get to the "eeee" shape and do a moving hold (expand slightly horizontally) on it. Fourth line, the word "trees": What I see ... I like the beginning of the word a lot, but the "eeee" sound has the sides of the lips coming in slightly (from say 100% to 95%) during the holding move. What I would tweak ... reverse the lips coming in. Have them arrive at the 95% point first, and then spread (horizontally) during the moving hold to 100%. Fourth line, the words "have to know": What I see ... the mouth shrinks in on the sides during the "a" have. Then they don't come vertically together on the "v"/"t" consonants. Then there is some "lip flailing" for "to" and "know", and the word "know" hardly reads at all. What I would tweak ... For the moving hold of the "a" sound, again make it spread horizontally slightly. For the end, come together (vertically) quickly to start the "v" sound, and then hold it until after the "t". Then go into a tight-ish "ooo" shape for "to" and do a moving hold, then move into a larger one for "know" and (very important) do a moving hold. I hope this helps. As I mentioned, what I wrote is just a best guess by a non-professional animator, and you should only take from it what you think is useful. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simon Edmondson Posted April 15, 2012 Author Share Posted April 15, 2012 Mouseman Thank you very much for your detailed response. I will try to address those points later today. If the sliders allow that is. Although Id like to do it professionally my background is in painting and drawiing. Timing has never been a strong point, not the best condition for an animator ! regards simon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simon Edmondson Posted April 15, 2012 Author Share Posted April 15, 2012 Tried to incorporate Mouseman's points. Here is another revision. The sliders are behaving today but a glWhispering.movitch in the lips alignment became apparent. Hey Ho ! simon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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