Lip Sync Notes from Today

Group critique of Rough lip sync :

1. Anticipate dialogue with head, body or gestures 3-4 frames ahead of the heavy modulation but mouth sync should be right on the modulation. 

2. If it is a closed mouth, it will be on the consonant, and, if possible remain closed for two frames in order to be seen.

 "B' on Job from Junsu's animation, holding the closed mouth shape for 4 frames makes it read as a 'B'

3. You need interesting mouth shapes that reflect the personality of your voice. Look for shapes that give you an extra touch of character and are peculiar to this one personality.

4. Try to show enough time on the important shapes so that the viewer will be aware that he has seen a picture of the word.

On Jesse's animation, holding the mouth shape from frame 1, in preparation to start speaking 

5. On holds at the end of a phrase or a line of dialogue, try to retain a mouth expression that reflects the word or phrase. Retain the character of the shape in the hold with a softening action to keep it alive.

On Junsu's animation, holding the mouth shape after the word 'okay' (small 'o' or 'u' shape) to the end of the scene.

6. The consonant sounds M P B are all closed mouths. Keep in mind that the mood of the character will determine the shape of the mouth. Generally mouth shapes that have the "E" sound show teeth.

7. T and G also can pucker like a U.

8. Y and W can go in a very small O or U shape. 

Modules 4-7 REALISTIC ANIMATION

Notes

Lip Sync assignment to be handed in.

Lecture/Demo

Building a quadruped trot cycle using a layered approach instead of traditional keys, breakdowns and in-betweens. Instructor will start with the root cycle and flow out through the character.

Activity

Students audit the Character rig and follow the demo. Analyze reference and build core mechanics.

Assignment

Cycle Animation. (CY) Modules 4-7. Animate a fully articulated quadruped rig in a tread-milling trot cycle, using a layered animation workflow. After the initial trot cycle loops smoothly, students will extend the assignment in one of three ways; by adding a rider, changing gait or adding non-looping behavioral element. Cycle (19-22 fr) final assignment length varies. For next class students should have the core mechanics in the torso along with basic foot cycle.

Horse TROT cycle

THIS WEEK :

COLLECT REFERENCE , create poses to get familiar with the horse model.

Finish Articulation of mouth for lip sync assignment, post 'FACE CAM' animations on the blog !

(5 seconds of your best lip sync from your work in progress)

Junsu_Song_ Blocking

I tried to consider animation principles in my blocking but it still has problem.

Blocking

Face Close Up

Hi, my name is Irena and I took Linda's realistic animation class last year. This is a simple deer behavior I did for your viewing pleasure.

face_closeups WIP

Easiest Way To Remove Barnacles From Boat or Out Drive

comment - Junsu

I like reference 3.  I like the ending from reference 1 ("sure no problem"). For me, the 3rd one is a little too extreme.
Is she scraping barnacles off the ship, like the class suggested last week? Are there barnacles flying all over the place as she's scraping? ... maybe you could add a loud scraping noise at the beginning, when she's scraping/cleaning which is what is annoying him. Or maybe she's using a loud electric scraper like in the video ?
I put this youtube video up, since cleaning barnacles off the ship was suggested by the class last week. . You don't have to use any of this! It's just ideas that you can choose to use, or not use. I thought this was funny -
Someone wrote as a comment to this video , referring to the barnacles  - If you listen, you can hear them screaming...and whales cheering.

Nice Phoneme Library !!!

Junsu Song_Dialogue Reference

Hi. I need feedback for my dialogue animation.
I made a story through a dialogue file.

Dialogue: 

Man: "You know, that is really getting annoying."
Woman: "Look, I have one job on this lousy ship... it's stupid, but I'm going to do it. Okay?"
Man: "Sure, no problem." 

Story:
They were cleaning a room on the old ship.(They are cleaners.) The man felt dissatisfaction from her work. So that, he started to argue with her. However, she already had stressful so her anger finally explodes. He got cold feet from her reaction.(Emotional change)


Reference:

Reference 01

Reference 02

Reference 03

I shot myself for 3 days. After I shot the Reference 01, I thought I need more action, so I decided to add more active actions. In the Reference 02, my left hand looks uncomfortable so I was concerned about my hands and poses. Then, I shot reference 03.

Characters:

                         

   Rig name: Bonnie by Josh Sobel     /     Rig Name: Malcolm by Animschool

Phoneme collection:

Polishing Lip Sync Demo from David Latour on Vimeo.

Goals for this week's Blocking

1. Size and placement of the characters in the scene
2. Staging to best show the performance
3. Choreograph the performances to work together and lead the viewers eye from one character to another during the dialogue piece

Try to have clear silhouettes in your poses. You can use poses from multiple references. The best stories have subtext ; 'What is the character saying, what is he really saying?' 
‘What should I have the character do?’ ‘How Can I best show it?’

The viewer's eye can only be in one place at once. 

Don't... have one character standing still, while the other character is talking, waiting for their turn to speak. Rather have them listening and reacting to what is being said. 'Do Nothing Excellently'. The trick is to keep it subtle. Sometimes the reaction of the secondary character is more important than the character talking.

Nadya's Dialog Reference

Hi everyone,

I tried to shoot some reference for my dialog blocking pass. I uploaded several trials that I did with my friend. I wonder which approach looks best from these trials?

Reference 1

Reference 2

Reference 3

Reference 4

Sample phoneme library

0 - neutral jaw closed

1 - neutral jaw open

2 - AH ("call")

3 - AY ("say")

4 - a ("hat")

5 - EE ("see")

6 - E ("them")

7 IH ("it")

8 OH ("no")

9 OO ("took")

10 OO ("shoe")

11 UH ("up")

12 D,T

13 G,K,NG

14 L

15 M

16 B,P

17 B,P cheek puff

19 N

19 R

20 SS,Z

21 SH, CH J

22 TH

23 V,F

24 W (use shape for OO)

Reference / Refining - Billy CA Root Comparison

Before ----------------------------- After

I asked Tony to post this to the blog to show how important the root node is in keeping the characters alive. Even during a hold, there is some circular movement in the hips so that the character will sway back and forth, and up and down. Remember that life is your best teacher, so study your reference! I asked Tony to load his reference into the image plane, and track the motion of the root. The result is what you see on the 'after side'. Another observation Tony made was that moving the shoulders helped to give the rib cage a sense of compression (squash) and expansion (stretch), as the character moved from pose to pose. This gives a more natural feel to the poses. Lastly , after the root smoothing was established the waving arm gesture for 'It's Billy California' was delayed, slowed down and staged more in front of the character so that it would read better. Even though you are studying reference closely to understand the mechanics of movement, it is used as a reference and not copied exactly.

Reference / Blocking / Refining

studio library tips

This will be a studio class, where we will use class time to work on our shots

Homework: 

 Animate the mouth actions. Using your phoneme library, plug in the mouth shapes, using the same key frames as the jaw. Use the 'face camera'.

Shoot some video reference for the pantomime acting of your lip sync. Review tutorial on vimeo.com/dlatour “Polishing Lip Sync Demo.” Watch Keith Lango Posing tutorials. Have first pass of keys and breakdowns on the pantomime, with second pass on the lip sync.2. Act out your reference and create a movie file.

 The purpose of the assignment is to give you a chance get warmed up with your rig of choice, and to let me get an assessment of your current skill level. We're actually doing this backwards from normal animation workflow, attacking the lip sync first! Featured principles: Posing, Timing, and Staging. 3-5 sec. long (72-120 fr). 

Notes from 'The Illusion of Life', by Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnson

1. Anticipate dialogue with head, body or gestures 3-4 frames ahead of the heavy modulation but mouth sync should be right on the modulation. If it is a closed mouth, it will be on the consonant, and, if possible remain closed for two frames in order to be seen.

2. You need interesting mouth shapes that reflect the personality of your voice. Look for shapes that give you an extra touch of character and are peculiar to this one personality.

3. Try to show enough time on the important shapes so that the viewer will be aware that he has seen a picture of the word.

4. On holds at the end of a phrase or a line of dialogue, try to retain a mouth expression that reflects the word or phrase. Retain the character of the shape in the hold with a softening action to keep it alive.

5. There are not too many straight in betweens in dialogue. You may want to retain one mouth a little longer and then move quickly into the next one, or vice versa. Either way you will favor one extreme over the other - both in timing and the shapes you choose (draw).

6. If you have a word that has been stretched out fairly long, treat it like a moving hold.

7. When using the eyes only for sync in an extreme closeup, start the eyes into the move at least three frames ahead of the accent. If the accents are strong lead by 4-5 frames.

8. When using a blink to get the sync, the eyes should close ahead of the accent by 3-4 frames.

9. If you are going to start your dialogue on a drifting or slow move without an anticipation, it helps to start this movie 3-8 frames ahead of the accent.

10. There are times when your dialogue will have to be on ones.

11. The vowel sounds, A E I O U always will require some opening.

12. The consonant sounds M P B are all closed mouths. Keep in mind that the mood of the character will determine the shape of the mouth. Generally mouth shapes that have the "E"sound show teeth. T and G also can pucker like a U. Y and W can go in a very small O or U shape.

13. Make sure the teeth are not painted white or they will flash. This can be particularly annoying if the mouth is over articulated.

Studio Library: Demo

Week 2 : Dave Latour's Awesome Lip Sync Demo

Rough Lip Sync Demo from David Latour on Vimeo.

Notes from Dave Latour

'The demo uses a tool called pose2shelf: search for it on creative crash. Handy and simple but it's limited to working with specific object names. If the character is referenced, (and it always should be ) you need to pay attention to namespace etc.

Another tool you can use for this workflow is Poseman. That will allow you to build a pose library that works with any namespace.'