What the...Smiley Guy has a daughter?? *Challenge included*

[mtbuck24]

So I was messing around with the mouth sync some more on the smiley guy animation and I was like..."wait a minute I never animated a child before they are a little more expressive when it comes to the mouth and facial expressions and stuff so I will try that".

So I did...introducing smiley guy's daughter...Smiley Kid.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-1rP0mj5rU

The voice was done by my girl friend in Anime Studio. I used the voice recorder AS has and put the pitch up a few notches.

Let me know what you think!

extra note: I am still have problems getting all the points in my smart bones to move the way I want them to -when I have more than one smart bone active- so it's not exactly how I want it to look but it will do

*See comments below for challenge*

[Danimal]

The expressions were well done and mostly matched what was being said. There are several "r" sounds in the speech (store, cherries, etc...) but the mouth doesn't close. The mouth should close to something of a U or W shape on Rs. Otherwise it looked pretty good.

[funksmaname]

cute voice.
I think the main problem is that the top teeth move up and down a lot - this should only happen if the entire head is thrown back, since they are fixed to the skull
I think If the top teeth move up and down, so should the eyes and bow as the head is acutally pivoting.

There also seems to be more tongue flapping than necessary - like on "store today", instead of closing the mouth for an 'O' shape, you flap the tongue. I think you're missing some 'O' shapes all over actually... I think also, hold some poses - so the mouth isn't constantly morphing from one shape to the next, like there's a smooth transition of moods throughout the dialogue, but this could be more snappy.

Hope that helps!

[mtbuck24]

Would it be possible danimal or funksmaname if I gave you the file itself you show me how you would animate it? I think that's where I'm screwing up. Is not even knowing how to do it

[funksmaname]

You did it with the other ball guy - his eyes went up and down with the top teeth which makes him look more 'solid' - this characters mouth seems totally dissociated.
It could be a fun project though to share a simple character like this with some basic smart bones set up and see how different people tackle the same audio file with the same character.

I feel a forum challenge coming on... sometime (i'm too busy right now )

having said that - look at yourself in the mirror saying the dialogue in slow motion with exadurated shapes and you'll clearly see where you're going wrong

[mtbuck24]

Will do! Thanks funksmaname exadurated = exaggerated

[ddrake]

Nice work, things are coming along well.

For starters I think the voice work is great, very cute and energetic and you're matching that acting and emotion well even if the lip-sync is a little inconsistent. You've definitely got some solid lip-sync work in there too. I particularly like that you didn't shy away from dropping the mouth corners to exaggerate some of the pauses and set up a little anticipation for going back into a big grin. I think that captures what a child's manner of speech is like as well as a good tip for animation overall.

To reiterate what has already been mentioned, the top teeth should be static in head, it's the "jaw" that drops down when speaking. I do think that you have some flexibility with a simple shape character like this though.

Kind of depends on your smart bone setup, but my quick fix thought for this would be to maybe connect the eyes and bow to the top teeth movement, so if the teeth go up the head sort of rolls back? Really depends on the look you want. (If your Smiley Guy family is related to the "Guy Smiley" family, a head opening a little more backwards at the mouth would be appropriate... maybe "Guy Smiley" is too old a reference? Is he even still on Sesame Street?

Anyway...

I feel a forum challenge coming on...

I don't really have the time for it either, but it would be hard to resist... The audio clip just sounds like a lot of fun to work with, like a fun fresh 11 second club clip... Oh, that reminds me that if you aren't already aware, it may be of use to you to check out http://www.11secondclub.com As much as anything if you're looking to practice, and interested in comparing lip-sync/acting across a pretty broad base of styles and skill levels.

[mtbuck24]

Thanks a lot ddrake! haha Yeah I used the same rig as Smiley Guy and had the same smart bones, but when I went to move the points for the eye more towards the center and shrink the head a bit. It screwed up a lot of my original smart bone actions, so the eyes -when the mouth opened wide- went way off to the sides of the head and made it look like a cartoon of something being squished with it's eyes bulging out haha.

I will definitely fix that. Can't believe I missed it in the first place...now that I look at it.

(If your Smiley Guy family is related to the "Guy Smiley" family, a head opening a little more backwards at the mouth would be appropriate... maybe "Guy Smiley" is too old a reference? Is he even still on Sesame Street?

I totally forgot about guy smiley haha! That's awesome!

Oh, that reminds me that if you aren't already aware, it may be of use to you to check out http://www.11secondclub.com As much as anything if you're looking to practice, and interested in comparing lip-sync/acting across a pretty broad base of styles and skill levels.

Wow that is awesome I didn't even know about that. I will definitely try/check that out. That is really neat!

I will get back to work on the project on work on fixing it...in the mean time.

Enjoy... for those who can't resist

https://www.dropbox.com/s/pv4n4k7l41r7n ... %20Kid.zip

Be sure to show it in this Thread if you can, I would love to see how everyone goes about using this clip

[ddrake]

First round playing with your rig, (everything as is) experimenting with just the first part of the clip. Definitely a usable setup though. A little more adjustment to get closed mouth-shapes would be helpful (P,B,M phenomes, and a normal closed mouth shape weren't easy to come about.) And I personally wasn't wild about extending the lips beyond the teeth into the gumline so much (probably a side effect of trying to get the other point extremes), so I just reined it in a tad. Also, I just took a minimalist approach and used tongue movement sparingly. I think the action works ok for how much I'd probably use it, your up/down and ridged/rounded tongue distortion can be used to decent effect I think.



Didn't get a chance to look in detail at the head turn action, definitely some bugging out eye issues. Probably fixable easily enough. But I think with simple characters you can always get away with simpler movement. Some up and down motion, and a little scaling for secondary motion without needing to go crazy with headturns.

(Also, I captured the audio myself from your clip, as the shared .anme file only contain reference to external file not the actual file.)

[Danimal]

Would it be possible danimal or funksmaname if I gave you the file itself you show me how you would animate it?

Feel free to call me an old stick in the mud, but I wouldn't animate lip sync with Smart Bones to begin with, I like using the regular ol' mouth shapes in a switch layer. It's quicker & easier, looks good, and it removes the temptation to have the mouth make all kinds of wild movements just because it can rather than what actually looks real.

[ddrake]

Feel free to call me an old stick in the mud

Danimal, you old stick in the mud! Smartbones are the wave of the future, didn't you know?

Just kidding, I actually agree with this point:

I like using the regular ol' mouth shapes in a switch layer. It's quicker & easier, looks good, and it removes the temptation to have the mouth make all kinds of wild movements just because it can rather than what actually looks real.

I've been a mostly switchlayer guy myself.

I do think there are pros and cons to both routes though. The quicker & easier route should probably win out as long as it is effective and looks good, but I could imagine some users comfortable and efficient enough with bone controls for this kind of thing where the "quick & easy" is negligible. (I'm not one of those users, mind you)

The one thing I feel is lacking a little if you go "shapes in a switch" is the squash/stretch and facial movement that accompanies speech, up/down of the chin etc, which you can relatively easily incorporate into smartbone extreme positions. Switchlayer just kind of sits on the face, instead of being a part of it. That can wind up making the lip-sync feel overly simplistic and flat. Then it could not "look real" in a completely different way than wild and overly animated mouth movement.

Maybe there's a different approach to this that I haven't been considering. Interesting topic though, and I'm a little curious what other people tend to use, why that preference, and what techniques of either yield their best results.

[Danimal]

The one thing I feel is lacking a little if you go "shapes in a switch" is the squash/stretch and facial movement that accompanies speech, up/down of the chin etc, which you can relatively easily incorporate into smartbone extreme positions. Switchlayer just kind of sits on the face, instead of being a part of it

After noticing that in my early animations, I started incorporating jaw movement into my switch layers as well, so when the mouth opens, the jaw moves with it.

[ddrake]

I started incorporating jaw movement into my switch layers as well, so when the mouth opens, the jaw moves with it.

Guess this depends a lot on character design, but how are you achieving that with yours? I think because I'm mostly looking at solid outline characters with a mouth switch on top of a face shape I'm having trouble picturing it. I'm talking about control over the edges of the face, a sort of shape stretching of the head as the mouth opens, which you can adjust if you alter the headshape with the smartboned mouth action. I can also picture jaw movement in switchlayers if the chin/jaw are shape components of the mouth, kind of like a family guy Peter Griffin "butt-chin," but can't think of a way to get switches to incorporate the kind of elongation of the surrounding face without it being an entire "Switch-Head" or something.

[heyvern]

One of the limitations I find with switch layers is that they are "static". Even if you create multiple versions with different emotions or expressions, a switch layer is "always the same". You can add in some bone "tweaking" or layer scaling I suppose but that's limited in scope and effectiveness. You have to rely on the initial state of the mouth shapes.

Also switch layer interpolation is "linear". Switch layers don't have access to the multiple types of interpolation key frame types; ease in, smooth, etc. Even if you use a smart bone to change switch layers and set that bone to an interpolation value it merely changes "when" the change begins and ends not how the switches transition from one layer to the next.

I've lso found that some properties in switch layer shapes do not interpolate. There just aren't the same options with switches you get with smart bone type vector changes for lip sync and other things. Plus there is massive amounts of layer management. Change one thing and you have to change it in a bazillion places potentially.

Just an opinion.

[Danimal]

how are you achieving that with yours?

I have two different layers for the head. Pretty much everything from the nose down is the mouth switch layer. The cheeks stretch as the mouth opens and the chin and jawline move as they should. At least I think that's how I did it, it's been a while since I built that particular character as I diverted to 3D for a while.

No other stretching occurs in the face, just the jawline. I don't want to derail this thread any more than I already did so if you'd like to PM me I can send you a link to a video I did with this effect in place.