"Ebon" lipsync test

[luckbat]

Well, here goes...

 

Below is an 11-second lipsync test I did for a personal project I'm working on, called "Ebon." The dialog in this clip is from a 2-3 minute scene I'll start work on once I build the rest of the characters and the set.

 

This is both my first model ever as well as my first animation ever, so it's not all it could be, but that's okay--this isn't a portfolio piece, just an excuse to teach myself the Hash interface and to suggest what the final animation might look like.

 

[Addendum 7:40am - preview image:]

 

 

 

About this clip:

The dialog comes from my own script, with voices provided by friends. The background was Photoshopped from a stock photo [ http://www.istockphoto.com/file_closeup.php?id=130157 ].

 

Questions, comments & criticisms welcome.

 

[Addendum 10/31/2004:]

 

Note: This is the old version--there's a newer one at the bottom of the page...

Ebon_lipsync_test_v1_0.mov

[MATrickz]

You rock man, that was great lipsync and I love the model. Why havent I seen your work before?? I can't get lipsync down, did you use the dopesheet or did you do it by hand? Keep it up!

 

::EDIT:: Oh I guess I didn't read all that you've said, I havent seen your work becuase this is your first model and animation... wow I think I hate you!!

[luckbat]

You rock man, that was great lipsync and I love the model.

 

Thanks so much.

 

Why havent I seen your work before??

 

I'm shy. Actually, if you spend much time in the New Users forum, you may have seen a couple of the masters helping me out with some tricky modeling problems:

 

When pose sliders collide:

http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=8387&hl=

 

How to create mummy bandages, toon-style:

http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=8177&hl=

 

I can't get lipsync down, did you use the dopesheet or did you do it by hand?

 

Well, I was planning to use the dopesheet, but most of the Hash old-schoolers recommend ignoring it in favor of manual lipsync, so that's what I did. (In a nutshell, the argument is that you'll spend more time tweaking the dopesheet's output than you'd spend just building lipsync by hand.) If you're serious about lipsync, do what everyone does and buy Jason Osipa's book Stop Staring. Trust me, it lives up to the hype.

 

There's no real secret to lipsync, the trick is just to be lazy. Seriously! The mouth is lazy; it moves as little as it has to between sounds. (Of course, it also helps to have a tiny anime-style mouth like my character does.)

 

Keep it up!

 

Thanks again. You know, it's words of encouragement like yours that--

 

::EDIT:: ... wow I think I hate you!!

 

--uh... never mind.

[JBarrett]

There's no real secret to lipsync, the trick is just to be lazy. Seriously! The mouth is lazy; it moves as little as it has to between sounds.

It's true that the mouth is lazy in some respects, but that doesn't mean that we should be lazy with our lip sync, nor does it make lip sync super easy. Learning exactly how the mouth moves in its specific form of laziness takes time and practice. "Just being lazy" isn't as easy as it sounds.

 

Re: your clip, you did all right for a first-timer. The body poses are okay, but could still use some added strength and clarification in places. One big issue is the very floaty movement between those poses, particularly at the beginning before she speaks. There are also some isolation issues in a few places, esp. at the end when she points but only moves her head and hand. Her major facial expressions are pretty static. Granted, she's keeping a pretty even tone across the whole clip from a vocal sense, but the eyes and brows could still use some extra punch.

 

Lip sync is pretty darn good for a first shot, but there are still some things that could make it more accurate. Laziness aside, you can't skip the shapes for compressive sounds like M, B P, etc., and the lips don't come together for the "b" in "about" or the "m" in "my." The jaw is moving a bit too much in some places, like the double hit during "all the" near the beginning, but you did a nice job of keeping it toned down during "something or other."

 

All in all, for a first attempt, it's not bad! Keep at it!

[John Bigboote]

As I said in a similar post... I'd like to see you take the mouth to more extremes.

 

Here you have a hot chick in a men's room---I KNOW you built a wider 'O' mouth for her than that...

[KenH]

Here you have a hot chick in a men's room---I KNOW you built a wider 'O' mouth for her than that...

LOL Depends on your definition of hot....and O for that matter!

[luckbat]

Laziness aside, you can't skip the shapes for compressive sounds like M, B P, etc., and the lips don't come together for the "b" in "about" or the "m" in "my."

 

Drat! They do come together, when the clip is rendered at 30 fps. But you're right, this 15-fps upload is missing those crucial frames.

 

Hmm. I'm not sure how to fix that. I can't hold the closed-mouth pose for longer, since that's unnatural. I suppose I could drop the lipsync action's framerate to 15 and shift some of the keyframes, since this test is geared more towards uploading than broadcasting....

 

Still feels like a hack, though.

[luckbat]

Oh, and trust me, fellas... You do not want to see this woman's "O" face.

[starwarsguy]

lol

[luckbat]

Just a quick note--

 

I'm looking to spend the weekend working on version 1.1 of this clip, so if anyone has any specific advice/suggestions, please let me know.

 

So far, here's what I'm planning to tackle:

• Fix the lipsync poppyness around "all the," and the closed-mouth poses around "about"/"my"
  
• Rework the beginning to be less floaty
  
• Incorporate more full-body movement towards the end
  

That's all I have, aside from Bigboote's request for more 'O'-mouth action.

 

Any other areas you guys think I should focus on?

[entity]

I think it looks fine as is... She seems to me to be calm... so her mouth movements should be lazier than normal. But we don't know her yet, so we are seeing this out of context.

All we know is she is a Vamp. She's an ethereal character so I think that she NEEDS something wierd or odd in her movement.

If that's how you "invision" seeing her say it. But don't change it to suit a technical perameter acording to the way humans act. There are no guidlines for human emotions or actions. It's all relative and changes with each persona and generation.

 

*EDIT:

You payed for a URINAL picture.

Edited October 18, 2004 by entity

[luckbat]

I think it looks fine as is...

 

Thanks! Maybe that's the reason I've gotten so few responses to my request for feedback. (I'd like to think so, anyway.)

 

She's an ethereal character so I think that she NEEDS something wierd or odd in her movement.

 

Yeah, tough call. In the final version of this scene, her outfit, the background, and even her voice are all going to be different, and her animated performance will be a lot moodier. Right now the voice track is pleasant and calm, so that's how I'm animating it. It'll be a shame to throw all of it away for the full scene, but that's why it's a test, I guess. I am learning a lot about the process, which is the important thing.

 

You payed for a URINAL picture.

 

Well, you get two free download credits when you sign up for an account with istockphoto.com, so technically I didn't pay anything. But even so, their pictures only cost 50 cents, so... meh. I needed a men's bathroom interior, I got a men's bathroom interior.

[starwarsguy]

couldn't you just go and find one on the internet?

[luckbat]

Oh, the emotional highs and lows of 3D animation.

 

It took me about 12 days to create my first one, and the feeling it gave me was nothing short of elation. To singlehandedly create an animated character out of nothingness, well... it's extremely empowering.

 

And then came the changes.

 

All I wanted to do was fix a few arm movements, smooth the lip sync, maybe sharpen the facial expressions a bit. But the new arm movements revealed places where the arms and hands weren't proportioned right, so I felt I had to redo them. Which helped, but that screwed up the shoulder fan-bones, so they needed to be rebuilt. Which is when I realized that the neck wasn't toon-rendering properly, because I'd just used a simple tube instead of a more anatomically accurate shape. So I fixed that, too. Once the neck was finished, I could see that my character's cheekbones and jawline weren't quite right, either, and neither was the hair, which really needed more spikyness and some bones with dynamic constraints...

 

Which is why, in the end, it took me 12 more days to make an animation that only looks about 10% different from the old one. And I still haven't fixed the facial expressions.

 

That's not such a good feeling.

 

Anyway, here's the new version, which ought to be twice as good as the old one, but isn't. It looks like I still need to make one more pass, this time focusing on facial animation, but if anyone has any feedback on this version, please pass it along.

 

Ebon_lipsync_test_v1_1.mov

[Paul Forwood]

Wow! That's amazing for a first model and first animation in A:M. You must have been using some other software up until now, I would guess. Nice job.

 

I realise that this is a test and you'll be making changes but for me either the background needs to be flatter, (tone down some of the highlights ) or your character need to gain some. At the moment I feel they are two different worlds.

 

Really good rffort there though, Luckbat!

[entity]

Good! The only suggestion... is to keep going! Are you going to go on to animating the brows? I see a lot of possibilities there.

 

I almost missed this posting. There are a lot of wip's going on, right now.

 

**EDIT:

Sorry, I didn't see the brow movement the first time around. It's very muted. I suppose you don't want it to interfere with any of the other jestures going on there, but I think a few strong arches are good for puctuation "!" . Just a suggestion since I'm not much of an animator. Just my first impression, concidering the subject matter here.

Edited October 31, 2004 by entity

[luckbat]

Wow! That's amazing for a first model and first animation in A:M. You must have been using some other software up until now, I would guess. Nice job.

 

I'm flattered, Paul, but to tell you the truth, I'd never used any other 3D software before I started playing with Hash A:M about five months ago. Maybe that's why this 11-second clip took me over four weeks to do...

 

for me either the background needs to be flatter, (tone down some of the highlights ) or your character need to gain some. At the moment I feel they are two different worlds.

 

I definitely agree. Unfortunately, the v.10.5 toon renderer doesn't give me as much control over the shadows and highlights as I'd like, so I'll probably need to use some sort of compositing software like After Effects or Motion once I head down this road.

 

Still, your suggestion made me curious, so I used Photoshop to composite some still renders to better simulate the appropriate lighting. Here's the result:

 

 

The above image is simply a combination of two different lighting setups--one for shadows, and one for highlights, plus a levels adjustment and a couple of gradient overlays. It shouldn't be hard to reproduce using motion graphics software. (Strictly speaking, since I'm rendering out to targa anyway, I could just use a massive Photoshop action to do it all, but it think it would choke after the first few thousand...)

 

Are you going to go on to animating the brows? I see a lot of possibilities there.

 

Yeah, like I said, I'll be doing facial expressions in the next version. I haven't even built the pose sliders yet...

[Paul Forwood]

Yes. That has improved things.