Trouble with Phonemes

[Ilidrake]

Another quick question. What is the deal with the timeline? While trying to setup phenomes shapes for the animation I can select a particular part of the text on the dope sheet and then hit the curve button to edit the curve and all I can see is the graph of the sound file. No matter what I do I can't find the curves for the phenome shape? There has got to be an easier way to do this!!!!!

[robcat2075]

Another quick question. What is the deal with the timeline? While trying to setup phenomes shapes for the animation I can select a particular part of the text on the dope sheet and then hit the curve button to edit the curve and all I can see is the graph of the sound file. No matter what I do I can't find the curves for the phenome shape? There has got to be an easier way to do this!!!!!

 

I've never used the phoneme thing for dialog so i'm not clear on how it works but...

 

I believe it drives settings of the pose sliders that make the phoneme shapes. I would look at the curves associated with those pose sliders.

 

(the better way to do speech is to keyframe the face controls directly in the timeline.)

[Rodney]

No matter what I do I can't find the curves for the phenome shape? There has got to be an easier way to do this!!!!!

 

Don't be silly. Of course there is an easier way to do that.

 

Robert has hit on the full functioning answer but here's more to the phoneme aspect...

 

When using the Dopesheet to automate the animation of phonemes its good to understand that what you are doing is simply animating Pose Sliders.

The phoneme's are just Poses that have stored up an action.

 

Aside: You don't have to automate lipsync... you can control any automate any Pose driven action via the Dopesheet but... the dictionary will control the interpretation of that. So whatever you assign to "Ah" will produce that action. Whatever you assign to "Oo" will provide that action etc. etc.

 

So how do you edit a curve on the Timeline from a Pose?

You edit the same way on the Timeline as you would for a Dopesheet'd phoneme action.

 

I'll see if I can grab a screen shot to demo some of that.

Sometimes we need to trick a Pose into revealing its (channel) spline curves.

[Ilidrake]

I understand how to do it, I just don't understand why the timeline goes crazy on me. It quite literally will not show me the curves no matter what I click on. If I close the project, open it, and then select timeline it will work fine until I go from curve editor to the other view, and vixe versa....it's just weird.

 

What about Magpie? Anyone ever use it for AM?

[Rodney]

I understand how to do it, I just don't understand why the timeline goes crazy on me. It quite literally will not show me the curves no matter what I click on. If I close the project, open it, and then select timeline it will work fine until I go from curve editor to the other view, and vixe versa....it's just weird.

 

When you say the Timeline goes crazy on you... that's were you lose me.

As I said, Poses don't automatically set keyframes in the same way moving Bones or Control Points do.

There are there but you have to find them.

I could probably tell you from memory but I confess that I haven't used the Dopesheet for awhile myself.

 

What about Magpie? Anyone ever use it for AM?

 

Yes, people have used it with A:M and because it is specifically designed for Lipsync it has some nice bells and whistles.

But it won't do the job for you. (I started to go by memory... best not to do that!)

I can't help but think the cost is going to be prohibitive for you.

The primary thing you'll gain is the speech recognition.

Edit: I see it still supports exporting animation to A:M!

 

Note that I am assuming you are using the Dopesheet here. That may not be the case.

Also know that you can just manipulate the phonemes directly in the Timeline.

 

I would first like to know what you mean by 'the timeline goes crazy'.

We should address that first before moving on.

It seems to me that you just can't see channel curves.

[Rodney]

 

I think the issue you are having is that you are looking for keyframes where there are no keyframes, only Poses in the Timeline.

The Poses store the default Pose Slider setting and will only show keyframes if you create them otherwise.

 

I'm trying to figure out the best way to demo this but if you want to edit the actual phoneme/pose you want to edit the original relationship in the Model.

If you are using a dopesheet you can just replace the phoneme with a different phoneme (Selected from the drop down menu as I recall).

 

For more extensive use of poses/phonemes with the added benefit of keyframing you just have to create those keyframes yourself by adjusting the Pose in the Timeline. You'll think it's easy once you get into it... so try it!

[mtpeak2]

There should be a folder for user properties under the shortcut to model. This folder contains the channels, for the pose sliders, in the curve editor. That is, if your phenome shapes were created in a pose.

[Rodney]

I can't recall what if any changes there were since v15 but if nothing is showing (after you dig down deep) consider going to the Menu and unders Tools on the Global Tab select "Show more than Drivers".

 

You might not need that but it won't hurt if you are digging deeply into the depths of the PWS.

 

Someone correct me where I am wrong.

[NancyGormezano]

AS Mark said you should see the channels in the user properties for the phoneme poses. I just tried this in 15j PC

[Rodney]

A picture is worth a thousand words. Thanks Nancy!

 

Added:

Heres a follow up on the Magpie export to A:M:

 

From Magpie documentation regarding export of animation:

Animation Master

Exports an action file that can be imported into a Hash Animation Master project. Pose sliders in the Animation Master project must match the Magpie Pro actor pose names.

 

Note: recent versions of Animation Master replaced action files with a newer file format, but they continue to import the older action files.

 

I'm learning lots today... I didn't know that Victor Navone used Magpie Pro for lipsync in 'Alien Song'.

Shows what I know!

[Ilidrake]

The price isnt a problem. I just dont want to waste money. But after playing with the trail version i definitly like it. I did find the keyframes in the timeline. I do believe ill get it and put it to work.

[Rodney]

I did find the keyframes in the timeline.

 

Oustanding!

 

Unless you say otherwise we'll call this one resolved.

[Ilidrake]

It is not resolved. When I try to render avi just shaded, uncompressed, the program crashes to the desktop. When I render out quicktime, no matter the settings, all I get is a sinfo file???? I'm at a lose. I don't want to render test pics and have to load them into after effects just to see what 11 seconds of animation looks like.

[robcat2075]

It is not resolved. When I try to render avi just shaded, uncompressed, the program crashes to the desktop. When I render out quicktime, no matter the settings, all I get is a sinfo file???? I'm at a lose. I don't want to render test pics and have to load them into after effects just to see what 11 seconds of animation looks like.

 

This only happens on this Phoneme project?

[Ilidrake]

Unfortunatly not. It happens no matter what I try. Still pics render fine. And only when I try shaded mode. I've been tinkering with it for days now and habe not figured out what the problem is. It's the first time I've had this issue. And it occurs no matter the machine I use.

[robcat2075]

It only happens with shaded renders?

[Ilidrake]

Ya. Don't worry about it I found a work around so no big deal.