Hi all -
I was just wondering how everyone does lip syncs… I am wondering if there is an easier technique than the way I am doing it … I have eight different mouth positions for front, side, and 3/4 facial poses for both male and female. What I do is create a blank element, copy in whichever mouth set I need, rename each mout position to something like a1,b1,c1 etc, then move and resize each mouth image to the facial expression. I then run the modify lip sync mapping from the sound drop down list. Once that runs, I find each instance where that facial movement fits and copy those rows to the element I created to contain the entire lip sync for that character. I then delete the temp element, create a new one, copy in the next mouth set, rename it to a2,b2,c2, (i know I don’t have to rename them, it just makes it easier for me if I need to extend it or copy in one or two of them to another area of the voice element),etc, and repeat the process until the character’s lip sync is complete… I then go onto the next character and do the same thing … this method generally takes some time, especially if I have five or six different characters and a lot of interaction taking place with the character moving around the scene, nodding, looking up or down, or shaking its head, thereby requiring the mouths to be adjusted accordingly … I was just curious if anyone out there in TB land has a better, more simple way of having the mouth movements adhere to each character without having to perform the time intensive and tedious tasks outlined above … thanks in advance … dan
I’m new to Toon Boom myself, but it looks as though your problem could be solved by using peg hierarchy. You should make the various instances of the head (front, side, 3/4) and attach them to a peg. After that, you should make all the mouth positions for the three instances and attach them to a peg as well; make those children pegs of the head pegs described earlier, and just select it all and put it in the library. After that, just swap heads where needed and move them around, mouths should always “follow” and be in-sync with your audio. For technicalities about these things be sure to check out JK-TGRS (Jerry Keslensky) posts in the TUTORIALS section of the forum.
Hi -
Thanks for the feedback … interesting feedback … I had thought about trying that aspect (did not think about the peg hierarchy though) - my concern was that having the head with the mouth position embedded would cause more work as i would have to relocate the head image as the character moved about the scene … I suppose I could have the character walk in place and have the background move … I think I will give that a shot and see what happens … thanks, dan
That’s the beauty of pegs. You won’t have any repositioning issues if you prepare things cleverly. Now make your head peg a children peg of the overall character peg, and then you can move the whole thing (character) around without having to reposition anything. Check out the various cut-out-style tutorial videos (in the TBS product page, tutorials tab) to fully understand peg hierarchy. You can benefit from a combination of cut-out and frame-by-frame animation styles. No need for a moving background, don’t worry. Glad to light up some ideas over there. Happy animating.
Renato