Moho Forum

Hi I have an animation that is pretty much gibberish. It was created and recorded by me. This has been my first time doing lip sync with smart bones. When I first started Anime Studio I used actions. I found this to be a lot better looking. I need constructive criticism on what or how I can improve this animation. Any help, tips, or links would be greatly appreciated.

I know the audio isn't the best and I can't do an English accent worth a poo and the lip syncing is off, but that's where I need your help!

Thanks!

https://youtu.be/xCQ2nZ_XoGE

Let me know what you think!

Stand in front of the mirror and act it out before you animate. For example, the arm flapping in the beginning, would a human being ever really do that? It's a fast weird robot movement. If you'd act it out yourself in the mirror (or record yourself), you'd never decide to animate it that way.
Also, try to avoid rotating the head bone like that. Try to start movement from his hips. And don't be afraid to translate or even scale the head bone.
The "S" from doctor "S" is a bit awkward, try to spice up the phonemes a bit.

Hope that helps.

Lukas wrote:Stand in front of the mirror and act it out before you animate. For example, the arm flapping in the beginning, would a human being ever really do that? It's a fast weird robot movement. If you'd act it out yourself in the mirror (or record yourself), you'd never decide to animate it that way.

that's an interesting Idea. I never thought of it that way. I'll have to try that.

I didn't think your English accent was that bad (and I'm English, I oughta know!).

I once saw a useful tip about lip syncing. Make a fist, rest your elbow on a desk or some hard surface, and then rest your chin on top of your fingers. Now, when you speak, you can feel the times your mouth opens and closes -- and how often. Try this with a word like "banana" -- your mouth only opens once! I've found it a very useful technique when lip syncing.

With the mouth that wide open it sure would have been nice to see a tongue on the L or T sounds. Otherwise it looked good.

Awesome! Thanks for the advice Lukas! I have seen your animations and know that you definitely know what you are talking about! That is something I will definitely remember for my future animations is to just act it out myself then exaggerate my actions a little bit more, very helpful!

Lukas wrote: Also, try to avoid rotating the head bone like that. Try to start movement from his hips. And don't be afraid to translate or even scale the head bone.
The "S" from doctor "S" is a bit awkward, try to spice up the phonemes a bit.

Now could you help me understand this part a little bit. Due to the fact that I am almost still brand new with Anime Studio what do you mean "translate or even scale the head bone"? Did you mean that for like the movement? Squash and stretch? If you have an example or a link to an example to help me understand better that would be awesome!

Thanks for you advice and help!

jahnocli wrote:I didn't think your English accent was that bad (and I'm English, I oughta know!).

Haha thanks jahnocli! I was afraid it might throw off the animation altogether and upset an Englishman...

jahnocli wrote:I once saw a useful tip about lip syncing. Make a fist, rest your elbow on a desk or some hard surface, and then rest your chin on top of your fingers. Now, when you speak, you can feel the times your mouth opens and closes -- and how often. Try this with a word like "banana" -- your mouth only opens once! I've found it a very useful technique when lip syncing.

That is an awesome tip! That is definitely going to help me with lip syncing, it took forever to get the lip syncing in the animation to work simply because of that reason.

Thanks for your help!

Great start. I think you have potential. Your artwork is good. I think you'll get much better!

Danimal wrote:With the mouth that wide open it sure would have been nice to see a tongue on the L or T sounds.

Thanks Danimal! That was something I was struggling with. I will upload a video of different problems I am having with this rig - that was one of them - when the mouth is fully open I have a smart bone for the tongue to go up on the "th" and "n" but when the mouth is wide open the smart bone action gets all distorted and doesn't work right. I can figure out why that is. My hunch is the origin of the layers are too far apart that the one distorts when the points are moved further from the origin.

If you or anyone has any feedback of how to improve that would be awesome!

THanks!

3deeguy wrote:Great start. I think you have potential. Your artwork is good. I think you'll get much better!

Thanks 3deeguy! I really appreciate your compliment! That definitely helps me to want to keep getting better!

Thanks!

I felt like I was watching a TV commercial for medication.

That was a complimen.

Pinesal wrote:I felt like I was watching a TV commercial for medication.

That was a complimen.

Haha thanks Pinesal I will take it as one

I liked it! I really liked your character design. Not sure about the white outline.

I thought your English accent was pretty good.

The arm movements were jerky, if not unnecessary. You could always go further with movement generally, but I liked the minimalist approach to it overall. A nice kind of Hanna Barbera feel. Just get rid of it, or if you are looking for more experience with animation, watch similar real life presenter types on Youtube or TV and see what they do, then take another poke at it. Drug commercials seem to have plenty of this type of thing - your animation reminded me of that for a few reasons.

The lip movement overall was great imo. Practically the way I would do it with that mouth setup, except I wouldn't have had the rather large open mouth at that one point. Not that I thought that was bad either - I just might not have thought of it. It's unexpected things like that that sometimes add character to an animation, which I thought this did.

Mostly I was impressed by the character design and the nice lip movement. The voice worked fine too.

I liked it! I really liked your character design. Not sure about the white outline.

Thank you Kadoogan! Yeah I was just messing around with the settings and discovered it, I was kinda going for a paper cutout look

I thought your English accent was pretty good.

Thanks haha! guess I didn't sound as bad as I thought.

The arm movements were jerky, if not unnecessary. You could always go further with movement generally, but I liked the minimalist approach to it overall. A nice kind of Hanna Barbera feel. Just get rid of it, or if you are looking for more experience with animation, watch similar real life presenter types on Youtube or TV and see what they do, then take another poke at it. Drug commercials seem to have plenty of this type of thing - your animation reminded me of that for a few reasons.

Thanks I will keep this in mind. Right now I don't have much movement simply because I don't know how to give it much movement. Right now, I am struggling with the smart bone actions and rigging characters themselves, so I thought I would just try and learn how to do lip synching. But I definitely hope to create something more exaggerated as time goes on!

The lip movement overall was great imo. Practically the way I would do it with that mouth setup, except I wouldn't have had the rather large open mouth at that one point. Not that I thought that was bad either - I just might not have thought of it. It's unexpected things like that that sometimes add character to an animation, which I thought this did.

Yeah I'm one to stray a way from the technical type of stuff, after I learn of it, of course! I am definitely willing to try new things!

Mostly I was impressed by the character design and the nice lip movement. The voice worked fine too.

Thanks so much for your feedback and compliments and helps! I really appreciate it!

I too was very impressed with this. The character is very pleasing to the eye and your English accent would easily have fooled me, had you not said you weren't English! Great stuff.