Hello again davdud101. Was a bummer when you lost your earlier attempt, but well done on not giving up.
As you said in your video, "theres not a lot of audio happening in Anim8or videos", and actually, lipsyncing is
very rare here indeed, which is surprising, considering how well anim8or handles it. The easy to use morph system and graph editor are perfect for the job.
Anyway, because i love doing this stuff, i have a particular interest in your project, and hope to help keep you keen.
(or you'll get sick to death of my ongoing raves)
So heres my first rave, re "Anim8or Morphs (lipsyncing) test."
Probly the first thing that came to my mind was 'you really jumped in at the deep end here.
40 seconds of casual chat is a big task. Might i suggest a slightly different approach. It worked for me, and i
would recommend it to anyone wanting to 'put some time into bringing their characters to life with sound'.
This is only my personal thought of course, but i found that animating the lip syncing to the lyrics of a song is
hugely helpfull in understanding timing and expression.
The words aren't all rolling along as in a casual conversation, where, without facial expressions, the actual mouth movements can become rather 'humdrum'. I mean, you can say 'long day', or 'looooong day'.
Next point is eye movements. Well done. They look great. I noticed early on in the piece that his eyeballs veer slightly to left and right as he is talking, (microsaccades?) It looks really effective, as if he was thinking about his talking. Thanks for introducing me to that word, and the concept. (note to self. microsaccades)
Another thing about the eyes is the eyebrows. Its worth keeping in mind that eyebrows are usually raised on
'particular' words, often associated with 'stressing a point'. Too many 'random' eyebrow raises distracts the viewer from the conversation.
As far as the mouth timing goes, i go back to the point about 'jumping in at the deep end'. To get perfectly 40 seconds of normal speed talking is a huge task. (again,I would urge you to try something a little less daunting. I'm sure it will pay off for you in the long run.)
One last thing, for now
, is i notice he has no teeth or tongue.
Its not too late to add them. If you can't add them to your object, becoz of losing existing morphs. They can
always be made as seperate objects and added to a bone in figure mode. I'm in the process now of updating one of my characters. Previously i've used 3 or 4 bones to bend the tongue. Now i'm just adding the tongue to 1 bone, and animating it with morph targets. Works a treat. Have also added teeth as a seperate object. Haven't tested it yet, but its looking hopefull.
Whew. Time for me to stop this talking and get back to it.
Good luck with this project, davdud. Looking fwd to more.
Don't worry, i won't always go on and on and on and on....
Peace.
