by Eric Strouth
Included are:
-Setting up facial morphs
-the morphs you need
-how to work efficiently
-example animation
Alrighty, lets get started!
Modeler
In Lightwave’s Modeler we have a few basic tools that allow lip-syncing possible. With the use of morph targets we can fashion any geometry to move into a new shape over time. This means that with one main object we can deliver as many mouth shapes as we need to make speech.
As you can see in Fig.1 we have a basic setup with four view ports.
Down in the bottom right hand corner of the interface, (circled in red) you can see the letters W, T, M, C, & S.
The button that means the most for this tutorial is the M button. M means morph if you want to get technically advanced. So, go ahead and click on the M button and highlight it.
To the right you will see a drop-down menu. Click it and you will have the option of selecting (base) or (new) just like in Fig.2. Click on (new) and a dialog box opens Fig.3. Name your morph here.
In this case we are making a basic open mouth morph. In order to make things easier on ourselves later in the animation side, we will name it mouth.open because of how Lightwave organizes morphs. Lightwave puts things into groups for you if you do them right. For instance, we named the first part (mouth) and then the next part (open), with a period between and no spaces. By doing this we can name all of the morphs with the word (mouth) at the beginning. Ex: mouth.open, mouth.a&e, mouth.q&w. This will allow Lightwave to group all of the mouth morphs together for easier access in Layout.
figure 1
figure 2 assnd figure 3
Ok, the next step is to actually make the morph.
Making sure that the drop down menu still says mouth.open you can begin to make your morph.
Make sure it doesn’t say (base) because you will hate yourself later, especially if you save after you have altered the base object.
In this case we just want to make a simple open mouth. This requires opening the lips and teeth, but most importantly the jaw. Too many people when making their morphs for the mouth forget that when people talk that the jaw actually opens and not just the lips. And if they do make the jaw move, it looks like it is just moving up and down, but not rotating. Test for yourself. Open your mouth, but when you do, touch the side of you face and feel where your jaw actually hinges from. This is a good reference for making your morphs.
Alrighty, now that we have that clear, select all the points of the lower jaw and lower teeth and gums Fig.4. These are the points we want to move.
In Fig.5 the red dot represents the reference point in which I decided to rotate the points from. I just placed my rotate tool in that area and spun from there.
This is the point that makes or breaks you facial morphing. Since most people relate talking characters to humans, we can really see when things aren’t right. So, if you screw something up here, then you better go back and start over for the current morph. Now that the mouth and jaw has been moved, you can go in and drag the points of the mouth until the desired shape has been found.
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Layout
In Layout open the object and make sure you are on the correct layer with morphs.
Press p for object properties. The object properties panel will open Fig.6.
Change the subdivision order to last and make the display subpatch level 1. This will make things easier on the system and raise the performance of the OpenGL.
Basically it will make things faster without loosing too much quality in what you are looking at.
Next, on the deform tab Fig.7 we need to add a displacement by selecting Morph Mixer out of the drop-down menu.
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On the left is a list of objects and their morphs. Click the object and a hierarchy of morphs will appear.
You should see the word (Mouth). If you remember back in Modeler we named everything with the word mouth at the beginning. Now you know why. Ok, so these are the morphs, but we have nothing to morph to unless we have sound.
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Hopefully you have some pre-recorded .wav files (sound files) that you want the mouth to move to. Always use .wav files and not mp3s because mp3s are lower in quality and I am not sure if Lightwave can import them.
Open up the classic scene editor and you will see a tab that says “audio” on it Fig.10.
Click it and then Load Audio Fig.11… Open the audio that you wish and it will appear on the timeline in blue Fig.12.
If you scrub through the time you will hear the audio, but it may sound a bit choppy. This is ok due to the fact that you are controlling the playback time with your hand and not the computer. It is basically only a reference for what you need to be listening to.
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Now go back into the morph mixer like you were in before and check out what it has to offer Fig.13.
Mainly just experiment and learn on your own. This is the best way to learn. But here is what everything means. You can see all of your sliders and their ranges. By default they are –100% to 100%. –100% allows you to completely go in the opposite direction of which you made the morph for, which may seem a bit odd, but I can tell you that there are instances where you may need this. And 100% will make the morph exactly how you modeled it in Modeler. The blue buttons with the K on them mean Key.
If you want to make a keyframe or take a keyframe away at a certain time just press this button. There are some cool little grouping options at the bottom left of the panel, but I am not going to get into those. They don’t matter for this. And finally in this panel are the white buttons which I circled one of them. They mean envelope, which means the animator’s Heaven…
figure 13
The Graph Editor
Most people avoid the graph editor and SO do I. But there are just some things that MUST be done in here. NO ifs, ands, or buts about it. This is the real deal ya’ll. Let me just start by saying you can see the animators who do use it and the ones who don’t. It can be seen in pretty much any movement. It allows you to control the smoothness or harshness of movement and even its velocity. While I do not claim to be a great animator, I can see what makes up good animation. And when I see animation that struggles only because of how bumpy and abrupt things are, I just cringe. Especially when I notice it in the camera. That being said, use the graph editor and become familiar with all of its options. Once you do, it is like anything else and becomes second nature and is no longer an avoidance.
So, click on that white E and open the graph editor. It should look something like this Fig.14. Down in the channels box you should see the object or object layer that you are working on. Click on the little white triangle to open up the hierarchy. Scroll down to the word (mouth) and double-click it. Now the panel should look like this with all of the mouth morphs in the upper bin Fig.15.
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It is important to emphasize that simple is better in this case. In one line of dialog from an animation you can see that this is actually a pretty simple set of splines Fig.16.
The dialog says, “Oh God, I’m so nervous. This is six syllables long, which is pretty simple too. When I first started working with lip syncing about 2 years back, I basically wanted to use every morph that I made in modeler in each word of dialog. It is easy to do if you are listening to all of the sounds within a word. But, it is just not practical especially when a word is said so fast that nobody could even appreciate the work that you put into that word. Not even you! Keep it simple. The best piece of advice would be to buy a circular 6” mirror with a stand so that you can stare aimlessly at yourself while you work. It’s really so much fun. It is amazing what kind of faces you can make after working on a sentence of dialog for an hour! But really, go buy one. Do it. Do it. The best reference for speech is yourself and if you are not making yourself available, you have lost the point. Also, watch animated movies, especially from Pixar or Dreamworks. Pixar puts some great emotion into their mouth movements and you can see that even though the dialog may seem demanding, the animation is still simple and gets the point across. With all the other emotion and movement in the character, we as viewer just believe that it is perfect. Well, it pretty much is, but you get the point.
figure 16
In Fig.16 look at how the splines are constructed. For the most part, as one comes down another comes up simultaneously. They may criss-cross a bit, which is good for blending mouth movements. Also, the point at which each ends at 0%, make the tension on it 1. Do this unless there is an abrupt stoppage in the dialog and you want a quick exit out of a movement. It will make your mouth flow better. More flowage is good. Flowage. Yep. Also, remember that you don’t have to make every morph go all the way up to 100%. This can make your character look like a robot and less sensitive to its own voice. When it comes down to it, experiment with each mouth movement and see what it has to offer. A lot of times you might need a specific mouth shape but cannot achieve it with what you have made as morphs. You can always go back in and make new morphs or change what you have. Something that is pretty nifty is combining morphs within the graph editor by drawing spines of different morphs on top of each other. This can give you random results but you will get the feel of how to make new morphs out of combinations.
Like I said before, this is not something that can be done easily with great results. It is something that takes time to get good at. I am still working on getting better at it. I believe that lip-syncing is an art form and can convey tons of emotion when done right. You can give two people the same sentence of dialog with the same character and get completely different results, mostly because of style, execution, and eye for timing and emotion.
Happy Animating!