Week 2: Lip Syncing

Lip Syncing: 

To create the basic lip sync is to create using 3 passes. Pass 1 ups and downs for the mouth, pass 2 narrows and wide positions and detail them helps create more exact mouth shapes.  Even though there is a lot of internal movement of the tongue and teeth ( usually some this detail is added in the 3rd pass) when some one speaks most of this movemetn isn't sence so it doesn't have to be recreated. The Muppets is a good example of how simple up and down movement in sync with a voice can be convincing enough movement for lip syncing. 

            

'You Feeling Alight There Phil?':

This is the first lip sync test I've ever done so found it a very interesting challenge. Do it in 3D means that  the computer creates all the interpolation so the only work is to create the key frames. This I found really hard to do. The timing wasn't an issue because the dialogue provides that but it was deciding what mouth positions go with what sound. Unfortunately due to my dyslexia I found this process very hard to do.






After my first attempt I decided to create a rough dope sheet to help distinguish clearly the shape of the mouth to every letter pronounced. Once doing this I could then figure out where the main keys have to go and I felt that the mouth moved in a more realistic way and fitted the audio more than the first test. Once the mouths movements the rest of the face had to be animated to create a sense of overall movement. This was simply moving the nose to follow the ups and downs of the mouth and then doing the same with the cheeks and the chin.

To help me create the dope sheet I used this sheet which outlines the main positions for most of the letters and sounds. the example to the side shows how some of the letters although are shown to hold one position when in the middle of a word become an in-between letters either side of it. for example the 'N' in 'FINE' is shown with mouth closed but in the word 'FINE' it forms an shape in-between the extreme open mouth forming the 'I' and and the closed 'E'.

I feel that this test is a great improvement for the first but there is still room for improvement. In my first test the mouth movement felt too lose due to not enough keys but the final test might have been to exaggerated.