When Lip Sync-ing....

Jimmicrackedcorn · Post by **Jimmicrackedcorn** » Tue Oct 06, 2009 4:15 am

When you lip sync do you use the switches or do you animate each movement as you go?

I ask only because when using the switches, although the mouth looks in sync and fairly good, the flicking or instantaneous switch bugs my OCD enriched brain. I know that moving the mouth for each syllable would make it flow nicely, but it seems unbearingly tedious. So, is there anyone here with that kind of patience and have you found a way to make it more... bearable?

Acochran_89 · Post by **Acochran_89** » Tue Oct 06, 2009 7:10 am

well...Anime Studio switch layers have a great function built into them that you can use.

Go into the switch layer settings, go to the switch layer tab and make sure the box marked, interpolate sub-layers is checked. What this does is smoothly transitions between the layers rather than just switching them. HOWEVER, there is a catch. in order for this to actually work, each layer must have the same amount of points. And from personal experience this can sometimes lead to really awkward looking transitions especially with mouths because of the different shapes, such as some mouths having the tongue and some not.

However, it is worth a shot. If you set up your mouth positions carefully and lay them out well, you might just find a solution to your problem.

GOOD LUCK!! and sorry if this wasn't very helpful, I tried

slowtiger · Post by **slowtiger** » Tue Oct 06, 2009 9:39 am

First: it all depends on the style of your animation. (I should start all my postings with this!) Some styles need the abrupt mouth pose changes, like Wallace and Gromit, or Family Guy. Other styles don't rely that much on mouth poses but on facial expression, into which the mouth poses are integrated (Disney).

Second: switch layer interpolation may give you a much-too-smooth, boring lipsync. OK for a drugged character, not OK for anyone else. If you go for it, here's the tip: start building the most complicated mouth first, some open position with tongue and teeth. Duplicate this layer often and manipulate each to build the other phonemes without ever erasing or adding a point.

Third: Most experienced animators use a mixture of automated and hand-made lipsync. Start with a Papagayo track, then adjust it to get better expression. Remember: you're not limited in the number of mouth positions you use! You can have a toned-down set of phonemes for standard speech, some exaggerated positions for accents, and some even more exaggerated poses for really comical effect.

Jimmicrackedcorn · Post by **Jimmicrackedcorn** » Tue Oct 06, 2009 10:40 pm

Thanx Fella's, this helps out more than you know.

SpaceBoy64 · Post by **SpaceBoy64** » Mon Oct 12, 2009 6:59 am

I bought some pre-made characters just to see how they were set up and I was very surprised to find that none of them were set up to use switch layer interpolation and most all of them had a standard set of phoneme shapes which I found to be less than adequate. What does "etc" mean exactly?

I did as suggested above and created my most complex mouth first, and I used layer masking. This let me hide the tongue and teeth when not needed.

The auto lip-sync might be alright for quicky things, but I found it used the "F" shape much too often. I'm still not sure if it picks shapes based on layer name, or layer position in the stack. Anyway, I will just scrub through the audio track and the visible waveform in the time line and pick mouth shapes myself. By putting in enough keyframes I've never had the problem of a too slowly changing mouth. If you put keyframes right next to each other, you get an abrupt change. Space them apart and you get in betweens. Also, I have a mirror sitting on top of my monitor and I watch myself saying the words. This helps to get an accurate lip sync.

slowtiger · Post by **slowtiger** » Mon Oct 12, 2009 9:57 am

What spaceboy says. Very good tips, he's exactly describing the common professional workflow.

fantasmo · Post by **fantasmo** » Thu Oct 15, 2009 1:11 pm

SpaceBoy64 wrote:If you put keyframes right next to each other, you get an abrupt change. Space them apart and you get in betweens.

But using a switch layer and no interpolation will always give an abrupt change, wouldn't it?

The thing with "watching the waveform and choose the mouth by hand" is probably the best, and I will try it too.

But I got some trouble with my switch layer and sound anyway:
I have three mouths in three switch layers, and I first tried that auto-lip-syncing-thing. For each switch I chose a different sound file, but...

The third character, which also has its own sound file does indeed use its sound file, but I can't here no sound. The lips move correctly, but there's no sound.

Hope anyone can help me. Thank you

SpaceBoy64 · Post by **SpaceBoy64** » Thu Oct 15, 2009 8:27 pm

I don't know what could be causing that.

How do you know the lips move correctly if you can't hear it?

If it does move correctly, you could add the sound back in with your editing program.

Try doing one character at a time.

meltedtoons · Post by **meltedtoons** » Tue Nov 10, 2009 1:16 am

another way is use papagayo and on Anime Studio add more mouth poses such as a half opened mouth that kind of thing... Like adding details. So lets say on Frame 12 is uses the AI layer and on Frame 14 it uses Etc. then add in the in-between. May take long at first but after couple of months you should have a collection of in-between so.. reuse it!

just think of it as Papagayo is where you sketch and ASP is where you fine line it.

Papagayo isn't always "perfect" it is always slightly off but not enough to make you notice unless you only stare at the mouths in slow motion...

so there's my 2 cents (well really 1 cent)

hope it helped and goodluck with your cartoons!

PS don't worry "TOO" much about the mouth as long as it matches the vowels ur good to go.