Inbetweeding switch layer mouth shapes

Patrick McClintock · Post by **Patrick McClintock** » Thu Oct 25, 2007 5:54 pm

Oh Wise and Wonderful Gurus,
How can I get smooth transitions between mouth shapes when using papagyo? The way that the mouth shapes pop on and off bothers me.
Must lip sync be done by hand to get a good result?
Awaiting your sage advice.

slowtiger · Post by **slowtiger** » Thu Oct 25, 2007 6:09 pm

First: it's all a matter of choosing the right style. Some animation style works pretty well with popping mouth, others don't. Some doesn't need any mouth movement at all.

Technically, you need to make the several switch layers "identical" to AS in terms of point order. That is best done with creating one mouth shape, preferrably a complicated one with teeth and tongue and whatever, and duplicating it as often as you need. The the duplicates are renamed according to Papagayo, and you have to tweak them until they look as they should. Don't erase or add a point, don't erase or add any shape! AS can only interpolate between switch layers which are "clones" of each other.

Genete · Post by **Genete** » Thu Oct 25, 2007 8:58 pm

I think you can currently delete shapes if maintain the points. The deleted shapes would appear suddenly between switches but the points would be smooth interpolated.

And you can change shape order between the child vectors layers!!! This would allow a teeth overlapped tongue for the fricative phonemes.

-G

Patrick McClintock · Post by **Patrick McClintock** » Thu Oct 25, 2007 9:16 pm

Somehow, Interpolate sub-layers is working now. Thanks Slowtiger for your in put. I shall never know where I went wrong.

Patrick McClintock · Post by **Patrick McClintock** » Thu Oct 25, 2007 9:19 pm

Genete,
Could you please clarify, if only with a brilliant sample.

Genete · Post by **Genete** » Thu Oct 25, 2007 11:57 pm

The sub layers of the switch layer doesn't need to have all the shapes at the same order. Tongue shape(s) can have different relative shape order to the lips and teeth when pronouncing the 'F' phoneme.

-G

heyvern · Post by **heyvern** » Fri Oct 26, 2007 12:14 am

Genete wrote:I think you can currently delete shapes if maintain the points. The deleted shapes would appear suddenly between switches but the points would be smooth interpolated.

Good grief! I never thought of that! Deleting hidden shapes on switch layers would certainly be easier than trying to get them in the correct order or move the darn points around so they are completely covered!!!

Great idea!

-vern

Patrick McClintock · Post by **Patrick McClintock** » Sat Oct 27, 2007 6:17 pm

Then, when you choose 'interpolate,' a layer order change made, on the switch layer involved, begins to change on the frame adjacent to the previous keyframe, well, how else would that happen?Just what are we talking about?

heyvern · Post by **heyvern** » Sat Oct 27, 2007 9:13 pm

Shapes on layers in a switch can be in different orders. The shape doesn't even have to exist at all as long as the points on the layers match up.

Interpolate switch layers only involves the points in the layer. So you could change the order of shapes to, for instance, make the tongue come out over the lips or the teeth cover the lips for different moth shapes. Just remember that shape ordering in a switch is not interpolated... it will "jump" but considering how quickly this happens during lip sync it usually isn't noticeable if the shape in question is covered by other shapes untill the "last moment".

-vern