How to attach a mouth to a face

Wondering how to accomplish a certain animation task? Ask here.

Moderators: Víctor Paredes, Belgarath, slowtiger

Post Reply
cwheeler
Posts: 1
Joined: Sun May 03, 2009 9:09 am

How to attach a mouth to a face

Post by cwheeler »

Hi,

I'm new to anime studio. So far, I've figured out how to create a character from a photograph of a person cut apart, and I've added all the bones.

What I'd like to do is have the person's lower lip and jaw move up and down. To do this, I created 2 images: one is of the head with the jaw cut out and all black in it's place, and the other is of the jaw. I've added a bone to the head with the torso bone as the parent, and the jaw is just hanging out loose from the body.

Now I feel like I might have painted myself into a corner because I can't find any way to work with the jaw. It doesn't seem like I should attach the jaw with a bone--it doesn't move right then--but I can't find another way to get it to attach. I want to be able to move the body and have the jaw move with it.

I'd also like to be able to use the automatic lip sync with the jaw--but it doesn't seem like the lip sync program is made to work the way I've prepared the images. Would I need to instead create a series of images of the whole head with the jaw at different heights and put it in a switch layer? And if so, then how do I attach those images to the body as it moves through the animation?

I could use some advice--much appreciated!

~Thanks
User avatar
DK
Posts: 2891
Joined: Mon Aug 09, 2004 6:06 am
Location: Australia

Post by DK »

Here's a quick outline.
Put the jaw on a seperate layer them use the Layer Bind tool to Binid the jaw layer to the head bone.

To use the auto lips sync you need to place the jaw layer into several layers in, various open and shut positions, under a main switch layer then assign the audio track to auto lipsync the Switch layer.

EDit: Oh...then bind the Switch layer to the head bone. ;)

Cheers
D.K
User avatar
slowtiger
Posts: 6237
Joined: Thu Feb 16, 2006 6:53 pm
Location: Berlin, Germany
Contact:

Post by slowtiger »

You can have images in a switch layer the same way as vector layers. Place the jaw images in the switch wherever you like - up, down, tilted; or replace with another image for fun.

The only thing which doesn't work with images in a switch layer is interpolation - of course, because AS only interpolates vector points.

(Remember the dollar bill we animated some months ago? I just imagined a setup where each switch would hold a bone and an image layer, the bones warping the very same image to different mouth positions ...)
mrpcsol
Posts: 12
Joined: Mon May 04, 2009 7:07 am
Location: Israel
Contact:

Tutorial on Placing and Creating Mouths.

Post by mrpcsol »

There is a good tutorial for placing mouths with Anime Studio Pro 5 here:

http://say-web.com/?p=525
Post Reply