BRAVEST WARRIORS MOUTH CHART
In the Beginning...
Lipsync is a tricky thing to get the hang of at first. Many an animation shows the classic example of how just about everybody approaches it at first. The tendency is this:
1)
make 'sound' targets for 'sounds' like M and E and S and Th and F and
such. (some folks even go so far as to make targets for such 'sounds' as
H and G and J and Z).
2) listen to the sound track
3) for every 'sound'
you hear, hit the 'sound' target at or near 100%
4) Make a preview
render of the lipsync animation
5) watch the mouth flap out of
control
6) wonder what went wrong.
At
least that's how it went for me at first. The problem is being too
literal about animating a character talking, trying to animate the
letters in the words instead of only emphasizing the major sounds needed
to communicate the *idea* of speech..
There's No Such Thing As Letters in Speech...
Notice
how I kept putting the word 'sound' in quotes above? That's because a
common mistake for beginners is to associate LETTERS with SOUNDS.
Principle #1: Letters are not sounds. Sounds are not letters. There are NO letters in lipsync animation.
They
serve similar roles, but in wildly divergent forms. LETTERS are
representative symbols on a page (with a corresponding, arbitrarily
assigned sound) that, when strung together to form words, communicate a
thought. But letters aren't made for speech. They're for writing. And
we're not animating writing, but speech. SOUNDS are utterances (with a
corresponding arbitrarily assigned letter value used to transcribe the
sound) that, when interpreted as understood words, communicate a
thought. Sounds are for speech, but serve no use in writing. See the
similarities and differences? So when you animate speech, don't animate
letters. There are no letters in speech, only sounds, and the shape our
faces take to make those sounds.
I know this sounds like an argument in
semantics, but trust me, the distinction is very real. And when you
learn to approach lipsync animation from the perspective of animating sound shapesinstead of letters, your world will be a much brighter place.
So What Does that Mean For Animation?
Let's take a look at the following keys for the phrase:
"you hafta get"
Y (a pucker shape)
Ooo
H
Aa
V
T
Uh
G
Eh
T
That
is a very literal interpretation of what it takes to show a person
saying "you hafta get". But if you go ahead and keyframe the lipsync
that way, you'll soon realize that this will result in a very poppy
mouth when animated. Some of those poses will be onscreen for only a
single frame, which is too much information and not enough time for the
viewer to interpret it. A quick analysis will show that you go from one
mouth shape that is quite open (Ah in hafta) to a pretty closed one (the
F in hafta) and then back open again (for the end of hafta). The result
is the mouth popping from open to closed back to open in just 3 frames.
That's not fun to watch, folks.
But What About My Letter..um... I Mean "Sound" Shapes?
Often
times beginners will make a 'phoneme' that is an exact replication of
one's face saying that single 'letter' in isolation. So we make E
phonemes saying E by itself. And we model "K" phonemes based off our own
face in a mirror saying "kuh". At first that seems more than logical
enough. The problem with that is that when you say the "t" sound by
itself ('tuh'), your face doesn't look at all like it would if you say
something like "skate". And that "t" in 'skate' gives a face shape that
is completely different than the "t" sound shapes in "petstore". And
THAT "t" is very different from the "t" shape you make when you say
"goatee".
Principle #2: Mouth Shapes for Sounds Must Be Animated In Context
By context I mean this:
The
preceding sound shape affects the current sound shape. Likewise, the
following sound shape is anticipated in the current sound shape.
So
the shapes shown must all be in context with the shape/sound the preceds
it and follows it. When you get stuck on the idea of making all the "t"
sounds in a soundtrack the same shape, regardless of the prior or
following sound/shape context in the dialogue, then you're setting
yourself up for a very poppy mouth when animated. Remember Rule#1-
animating speech is not animating letters. It's animating the *flow* of
shapes that are needed to make the present sounds within what's being
communicated.
OK, Mr. Fancypants. So Just How Should I Animate Lipsync?
The
better approach is to interpret speech, to grasp the essential elements
of the communication as recorded in the sound track. To "squint your
ears" and try and pick up the overall feel of the
speech.
Let's take a look at art history.
For many years up until the
late 19th century, the effort in rennaissance art was the meticulous and
accurate recreation of reality. Realism was the goal, and literalism in
interpreting a painting was the norm. Then a bunch of artists got an
idea about capturing just the overall sense of an image. They became
less interested in capturing every leaf on a tree, but began to focus on
how the light and shadow and color hues projected that tree into
another realm. This new realm of seeing was an interpretive realm where
leaves didn't matter as much as form, color, tone and contrast. At first
these guys were derided as lazy artists, too shiftless to bother with
the details. But soon the world got hold of these new paintings and were
amazed to see such life and beauty where before there was just leaves.
The age of Impressionism was born, and we're all the better off for
it.
So how does that apply to us and lipsync?
Here's how: Just as
the impressionist painters got away from a literal realism in capturing a
picture, we too need to get impressionistic when it comes to lipsync
animation.
Principle #3: Interpret the Lipsync Animation Like an Impressionist
If
in your animation you can just get the major impressions across you can
let the little stuff slide if you want. Just like the impressionist
would hint at a cluster of leaves with a single daub of his brush, you
too should let words and sound shapes slur into the next word or sound
shape. Mix the target facial weights together to show a flow. Get away
from showing leaves and start showing contrast and form. Talking is more
of a flowing thought than an alliterative function of letters.
Impressionism Applied To Real Live LipSync...
Let's look again at our example phrase- "you hafta get".
A more impressionistic interpretation would be to emphasize the
following major accents:
Ooo
aaFF
Eh
Go ahead and say that out loud. "Ooo" as in "scoop", "aaFF" as in "after" and "Eh" as in "pet".
Ooo--aaFF--Eh.
Sounds alot like "you hafta get",
doesn't it?
Now go one further.
Grab a handheld mirror.
Now,
comfortably (ie: don't play act or over emphasize it), just say "you hafta get".
Watch how your mouth looks as you say it again.
Now, say "oo-aaFF-eh" a
few times.
See how very close the two are in how they look? You want
another example of this same principle?
Say to your mirror "I love you".
Then say to it "Elephant Shoes".
You never knew that the connection between la' mour and pachydermal podiatry was this close!
The Devil is in the Details...
Let's take an even closer look at this from a lipsync animation point of view. For the phrase "you hafta get" there
is one special pose along with two major open poses and two major
closed poses.
The special pose is the pucker/ooo at the beginning of
You.
The first major open is the "aa" at the beginning of Hafta.
The
second major open pose is the "Eh" of Get.
Likewise, the first major
closed pose is the FF of Hafta.
The second closed pose is the T in Get.
(It's not a true closed pose, but it's close enough for us to define it
as such because it is more closed than open.)
Anyhow, by choosing to do
nothing more than hit these opens and closes you can get nearly all you
need. (heck, the Muppets have gotten by on that for 30+ years!) These
main target points are like the broad brushes in an impressionist
painting. They define shape, contrast, form, direction. The details of
texture come later with the specific choices you make on top of the
broad brushed open and closed pose shapes and timings. The opens and
closes are the foundation of your more specific choices.
Principle #4: Get the Opens and Closes Done Right and Build On Those
Even
if all you ever do is properly hit the opens and closes and wide shapes
of the mouth at the right time you are already more than 75% of the way
to great lipsync. You can get alot out of very little lipsync
animation. And if you doubt it, animated properties with projected
texture map mouths like "Veggietales" have proven that this is indeed
true.
Getting Specific...
Here's
a breakdown of some specific choices...
You'll want to start by
letting the "Yuh" of You flow into the more open "aa" at the beginning
of Hafta. Skip the specific "ooo" at the end of You because it is not
very strong. It's there, but it gets said while the mouth is
transitioning into the beginning of hafta. Basically it slurs into the
next word.
The H of Hafta is burried in the back of the throat, so the
lips don't really need to show it. So skip showing a specific H target
for it.
Picking up from the moderately strong "aa" of hafta, hit the F
for two frames to let it read. It's the major closed point of the
phrase, so that needs to line up and read clearly.
Then skip the ending
"ah" of hafta altogether, as well as the G of Get. Both happen under
the breath, they're slurred under the transition from FF to the Eh
accent of Get.
Hit that last open pose of Eh.
Then end with an
appropriately shaped nearly closed mouth to catch the idea of a
T.
You've basically now animated Ooo-aaFF-Eht. And you know what? It's enough. And the best part is it flows, it feels natural, and it doesn't pop.
There's Gotta be More. What about those T's and Stuff?
The
short answer to this question is: don't sweat it unless you really need
to. I haven't at all addressed the tongue in any of this. But if your
character has a tongue, then you can get all the inner mouth sound
shapes you need with that. The inner mouth sound shapes are:
L
Th
T
K
G
(hard)
So add your tongue work in here, keeping it as impressionistic
as everything else, and you can handle the 'little stuff' quite easily. A
good tip is to keep tongue movements very quick. Don't have the tongue
take longer than 2 frames to get from a position back to another, unless
you have a specific reason. Else wise it will look for all the world
like your character is saying the "LL" sound. The word "bad" turns into
"bald". "Good" becomes "gold". Keep the tongue light and quick, just
like your wits.
Miscellaneous Tips & Tricks & Principles...
1)
Don't go from wide open to closed in one frame and vice versa.
Definitely don't go from open to closed to open in 3 frames.
2) Don't
hold a mouth shape static. An "Ah" shape should shift into a slightly
different "Ah" as it's being held.
3) Keep M's and F's for 2 frames. If
it's tight, steal from the previous sound.
4) Keep and eye on your
targets and make sure they're not too linear in going from one sound
shape to the next.
5) Hit the sound shape at least 2 frames before the
sound is heard. Even if you're right on the nose, it will feel late when
played at full speed. Humans see things faster than they hear them, so
we pick up our cues from the shape before the sound.
6) Break up
the mouth angles. Shift the mouth up and down, tilt it left or right,
get some snarls in there. Show emotion as the character speaks. We can
speak and smile, speak and frown, speak and yawn at the same time. Built
rigs that allow you to keep that kind of life in your lipsync
animation.
7) Upper teeth do not move. They're nailed to your skull.
8)
Jaws rotate, not slide, in chaarcters with clearly defined head/neck
areas.
9) When building your sound shapes and facial controls, don't
forget the cheeks and the nose! The cheeks move when we speak, as does
our nose. The cheeks and nose are the great connectors in facial
animation, crossing the bridge from mouth animation to eye and brow
animation. By keeping your nose and cheeks in the action you tie
together the entire face of the character, creating a far more
believable character who can act.
10) Don't be afraid to go extreme.
Avoid the Princess Fiona Final Fantasy Syndrome(tm). Keep the
energy of the sound track in mind when you're doing the mouth shapes.
Louder sounds with more energy should be shown with the mouth open
wider, sound shapes more extreme. Watch TV announcers talk. Those faces
are movin' baby!
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