#animating to

Animating to Sound This week I was able to finish my Lip Syncing project, I found I still had so issue with timing so most of my time was taken up trying to get better timing with the mouth movement and the audio. Once I was able to get this to a stage where I was happy with it I add in for facial expression and movement, I had the puppet frown until he says ‘family’ as he puts a lot of emphasis on that word so I decided to have an eye roll was he says the words. I also put an eyebrow life there to help present the moment more as this part of the audio is what stands out the most. I was also able to do a little research on historical and Cultural lip syncing and how the used to or do handle lip syncing. Overall I am very happy with the lip syncing, I didnt enjoy it that much as it became very frustrating at point but I am still really happy with what I was able to accomplish and hopefully I will just continue to improve and get better at lip syncing.

Historical, cultural research: I wanted to start to research a bit more about the historical side of lip syncing how how the process has developed and changed over they years. This helps we get a really good understand as to how the process we are using in our project can relate to other ways I has been made and wether the process has gotten easier with time. http://r-b-character-animation.blogspot.co.uk/2011/06/further-development-of-our-app.html This website is really helpful as I got to see some of the first films to have lip syncing in them. I was able able to watch the clips and see how the lip syncing looked compared to the more modern day lip syncing. Also being able to see a slow build up of films that used audio let me see how long the process took before it was used in all films. It also states what companies each of the films where from so you can see with ones took to the new technological process faster then others. https://www.quora.com/Why-is-there-no-lip-syncing-in-Japanese-animation This website is super helpful with allowing me to see how different places have different process to make animations. This website also shows a list of the order America makes their animations and then how they do it in Japan. In America they record the audio before the animating even begins to insure that the lip syncing is correct. However in Japan the audio is recorded last after its been animated this is because they are small companies and don't have large studios so most of the animators draw the scenes out on paper at home and then send it back to the company to put it all together also Anime is generally dubbed so they have to insure that the mouths don't look odd with the changing of the words and it still looks fluent.

Today we had our last lip syncing workshop. During this time I added a bit of expression to the face by making him role his eyes when he says family. I also made the eye brows rise during this action and them move back to a frown. I choose to do this as he puts a lot of emphasis on the word family so I choose to make the main part of his expression change appear at this line.  

Lip Syncing This week we had our first lip syncing session after coming back from Easter. In this lesson we where starting the animation with the mouth shapes we had made over easter. I found that because I had exported all of my mouth shapes with a background that I would have to cut out the mouth in after effects so then the white background wouldn't be there any more and then it would have a neater finished. When it came to lip syncing it I used the dope sheet I had already filled out and after adjusting a few because the timing was slightly out I though I was finished but after talking to my lecture I got some advice about timing and found that after moving all of my mouth shapes over by one second that timing was actually better, I did have to more one back as it cha win slightly to early but after finished it I was really happy. I still am going to have someone check it as I am concerned that I didn't fix all of the timing properly as I did struggle seeing there the timing is off as it all moved so fast. Next week we are going to start adding more expression into the face as the character is talking and continue to improve our lip syncing. I felt that the project has gone well so far and I am happy that I was able to animate the lip syncing with so few issues as I feared my timing was going to be really out and that none of it was going to look right of fit together properly. Overall I am happy this the progress we are making and I am looking forward to adding in more emption next week.  

The second half of Thursday we had a lip syncing workshop, this is where we put the mouths we drew over Easter into after affects so we could animate the lip syncing to the dialogue we had selected and done the dope sheet for. I found with the mouth shapes I had drawn because I saved them in a JPG film with a background that the white background was Imported as well so I had to go around the mouth with the masking tool to remove the background. I also found that my times was a little to early so I had to move all of the mouth shapes over by one second to back it come in a bit earlier. I am happy with how this looks but Im still going to work on it and see if the lip syncing can improve in anyway before i start adding more emotion with the rest of the face.   

Animating to Sound This week I was able to digitalis all of the mouth shapes ready of the lip syncing project the we return. This part didn't take to long as I had already drawn out all of the mouth shapes I just had to go over them in photo shop and make sure that all of the documents where the right sizes as each mouth has to be in its own document. the hardest part was making sure that the mouths still looked right after I had redrawn them. If I was to do it again I would maybe separate out each of the phonemes more so then there is more mouth shapes so I cover a larger range instead of just the basic ones that I think I need. Overall I am happy with getting all of the work do and I feel that I am ready of our first lip syncing lesson when we go back so I can animate what I need.

Animating to Sound This week I was able to continue with the lip syncing homework and I was able to get the mouth shapes drawn out on paper which I am really happy with. I staged at first having to think and draw out each of the mouths and making sure they were the right shapes for each sound I need. I also did a bit of research looking at any advice I could get on lip syncing and what I can do to improve, I found a lot of useful information that when into more detail then our lesson and more information just going over what we have already learned. I hope to do a bit more research on dope sheets as that is the area I struggle in the most but I hope to find some useful information that will help improve my skill. I feel like the lip syncing homework is going okay so far and I intend to draw out all of the mouths digitally next week. Overall I am very happy with my progress and look forward to doing further work on this part of the project.