I was working on this for the "Classic Sci-Fi" project
but (as usual) never finished it. I want to start working
on this again and would appreciate some feedback.

This is about 350K. It's all CSG, mostly spheres.

http://www.threestrands.com/Movies/AlienTalks.mpg


Am I close? Does it synch Ok? I've been reading some
stuff on-line about Phonemes and such, for example:

http://www.comet-cartoons.com/toons/3ddocs/lipsync/lipsync.html
http://www.garycmartin.com/phoneme_examples.html

Thanks in advance!
=Bob=

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Looks pretty good to me! After he says "Crap", there's this wave on the
right side of his lips, that looks kinda strange. Also, the additional,
irrational movement of the eyes, along with the changing colors of his
eyebrows, if that's what they're meant to be, confuses me a little.

You might want to work on his facial rigging. The upper half of his head is
moving when talking, where it should either be the jaws, or more
concentrated on the lips and nearby regions.

All those nitpickings aside, I think with a little extra work that lip-synch
would come out perfect. His lips do move well in synch, maybe a tad too
early, but that's more a feeling than a fact.

Who did the voice, yourself? It's been quiet a while and I can't really
grasp if that's your voice or not...

BTW, where's this going? Aiming to make a short yourself? :-)

-- 
"Tim Nikias v2.0"
Homepage: <http://www.nolights.de>

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"Tim Nikias v2.0" <#macro timnikias (@) #local = "gmx.net" #end> wrote in message
news:40919b26$1@news.povray.org...
: Looks pretty good to me! After he says "Crap", there's this wave on the
: right side of his lips, that looks kinda strange.

That was a test for rolling the lips from side-to-side.

: Also, the additional,
: irrational movement of the eyes, along with the changing colors of his
: eyebrows, if that's what they're meant to be, confuses me a little.

More testing. Just wanted to make them move around and
I didn't want to make a lengthy animation, so I just put it
all together in one. I know it's confusing.

: You might want to work on his facial rigging. The upper half of his head is
: moving when talking, where it should either be the jaws, or more
: concentrated on the lips and nearby regions.

I know the whole head is affected by the mouth opening and
closing. I'm not sure how to resolve this yet. There's no
skeletal structure nor skin really. It's all CSG and spheres.

: All those nitpickings aside, I think with a little extra work that lip-synch
: would come out perfect. His lips do move well in synch, maybe a tad too
: early, but that's more a feeling than a fact.

Ok, I can slide it around. I wasn't sure and after staring at
it for so long, I think I'm going blind :^)

: Who did the voice, yourself? It's been quiet a while and I can't really
: grasp if that's your voice or not...

Yup. I was planning on changing the character to a female
so I can use my daughter's voice. She has much more
character (and she's a theatre arts major).

: BTW, where's this going? Aiming to make a short yourself? :-)

Not sure about a short. I'm working on a spline editor that
holds the data in an indexed table so I can create multiple
splines and store them frame-by-frame. This one is 10 splines
per frame.

2 for the lips
2 for the gums/jaws
2 for the eyes
2 for the tongue
2 for the facial profile (these don't change much)

Thanks for the suggestions!
=Bob=

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=Bob= wrote:
> I was working on this for the "Classic Sci-Fi"
> project but (as usual) never finished it. I want
> to start working on this again and would
> appreciate some feedback.

It looks promising, but rather jerky and wobbling...

Perhaps you are using cubic splines for the movement? That can create
quite wobbling results, that are not always desired. I've had the best
success with linear splines for lip synching.

I created an extensive lip synch system include file back in 2002 which
give quite good control over the interpolation of the phonemes in a
rather flexible way. I only created some bicubic-patches mouth for it,
but it could be extended to work with other objects.

I did these two animations with it, that can be seen on this page:
http://runevision.com/3d/anims/

(It's the two called "Lip Synch System" and "AL the Alien - Talking".)

> http://www.comet-cartoons.com/toons/3ddocs/lipsync/lipsync.html

Ah, I used that one too!

> http://www.garycmartin.com/phoneme_examples.html

Nice one too. Hadn't seen that one before.

Rune
--
3D images and anims, include files, tutorials and more:
rune|vision:  http://runevision.com **updated Apr 27**
POV-Ray Ring: http://webring.povray.co.uk

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"Rune" <run### [at] runevisioncom> wrote in message news:4091b538$1@news.povray.org...
: =Bob= wrote:
: > I was working on this for the "Classic Sci-Fi"
: > project but (as usual) never finished it. I want
: > to start working on this again and would
: > appreciate some feedback.
:
: It looks promising, but rather jerky and wobbling...
:
: Perhaps you are using cubic splines for the movement? That can create
: quite wobbling results, that are not always desired. I've had the best
: success with linear splines for lip synching.

I used linear splines. It's jerky most likely because they are
all hand positioned.

: I created an extensive lip synch system include file back in 2002 which
: give quite good control over the interpolation of the phonemes in a
: rather flexible way. I only created some bicubic-patches mouth for it,
: but it could be extended to work with other objects.
:
: I did these two animations with it, that can be seen on this page:
: http://runevision.com/3d/anims/
:
: (It's the two called "Lip Synch System" and "AL the Alien - Talking".)
:
: > http://www.comet-cartoons.com/toons/3ddocs/lipsync/lipsync.html
:
: Ah, I used that one too!
:
: > http://www.garycmartin.com/phoneme_examples.html
:
: Nice one too. Hadn't seen that one before.
:
: Rune

Thanks Rune. I appreciate the suggestions.
=Bob=

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Cool. What's the face actually made out of??

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"Greg M. Johnson" <gregj;-)565### [at] aolcom> wrote in message
news:40a6d0de@news.povray.org...
: Cool. What's the face actually made out of??

Lots of spheres. The teeth are cones. That's it...
=Bob=

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