Advice

Hey guys!

I'm looking for some advice. I am doing a few episodes for a company, all requires talking avatars.

1) I don't want to use Crazy Talk because the image has to be still, and it's important I can do cool movements with my camera when the avatars are talking.

2) I don't want to use too much of green screening the avatars so i can put a moving background. The reason is that the character interact a lot with the environment while talking- and its VERY hard to achieve that on green screen!

3) Motor mouth lags like CRAZY for a LOT of our actors plus it's hard to SYNC the motormouth with the lines and exact syllables- sometimes it is REALLY off.

4) Lipsync viewer - i can't install/upgrade this thing- the directions are really complex- does anyone have this installed?? I have vista 64 bit.

5) I don't want to be iclone because the avatars have to be specific - we have those avatars.

Anyways.. what's the best suggestion you guys have?

Also : http://youtube.com/watch?v=bSo_sNhAWdw

I want to achieve what Silver Bells achieved- that was soo well done and the background still moved! Any suggestions?

Have you seen the Shakespear movies made in SL?

If you try There.com, their lip syncing programme in the environment works quite well. You can still grab machinima from that programme using a 3rd party screen grabber like Fraps or Hypercam. Although the avatars are not near as pretty or variable.

oh wow yeah the shakespeare movies were really neat! Did they use There.com? thanks.

I like motor Mouth but it's hard to sync it.

From my understanding and looking at the movie, I would guess they used chroma screened CrazyTalk layers in Adobe editing programme. That's what I would have done, although I use Sony Vegas. They could have used iClone, but the avatars look too SLish lol.

Motor Mouth is not actually a lip syncing programme, it simply adds movement to the avatar mouth that indicates you are speaking (via voice). SL's avatars do not yet have the ability to lip sync. Even There.com's platform, is a mimic lip syncing and based on basic vocals/movement events, it's better than SL, but no where as good as CrazyTalk.

Yeah.. yesterday I did the whole green screen with Crazy Talk. Let me tell you though- it's an extra step. And then doing that extra step for almost every single talking shot becomes a hassle But it's still a good idea.

But basically, with some help I decided that Lip Sync viewer is the best option- have you seen it? I'm going to film with it today and sync a rather long speech- I suppose we'll see what happens.

Hey if anyone is having problems installing lip sync (i think one person on this forum was) im me: Ariella Languish on SL. I'll show you how! It's tricky but I got it.

LOL... anything that is better than the existing SL stuff is never going to be easy. The news broadcasts we used to make for MetaNetwork Media, in the earlier examples, we did chroma screening for the reporters over a backdrop layer, the most recent ones in the studio, we painfully 'removed' the studio scenes, using a mask in CrazyTalk, pixel by pixel. Although once done, we could use that template over and over.

I wonder, with the vast amount of Client updates, if you use a 3rd party lip syncing to work with SL client, which requires some trick to work, what issues are you going to encounter eachtime they release a new client update?

I did look with great interest at that Lip Syncing programme, it certainly has some uses, but is still not true lip syncing. Its best attribute would be for full view moving avatar footage, maybe interluding a mixture of close up views using CarzyTalk to complete the illusion?

That's definitely what I was thinking- I'm most worried about the close ups and use the best moments of the talking to sync with the audio, without having to cutaway whenever it doesn't match up. That would just be messy, and obvious I'm just trying to cover it up.

I agree, I think Lip Sync viewer in long shots is great. Another thing is we have tons of avatar action- so even that will help create the illusion if there is a lot of movement in the frame.

Well guess I'll give it a shot. The next episode I'm doing will be a combo of crazytalk and lipsync.

Ariella,

Let us know how that goes. I've been following your posts. I'm pretty much in the EXACT same pickle you are in involving lip synching mess!

[email]twisted.surface@gmail.com[/email]

Silver Bells and Golden Spurs is one of the best Machinimas ever made. Excellent work--you can tell it's the craftsmanship of a professional film maker.

It seems you have already been given several options for lip sync...

However, have you thought about using the Source engine? Gary's Mod?

Thanks for everyones tips/advice on this! Finally, I made a decision.

(dun dun dun) we settled with LipSync, the movements of the mouth look the most natural, are close to being synced EXACTLy to how the speaker says it, I'm very very impressed! I tried editing my first sequence yesterday. Sometimes i have to slow or speed the video up some, but if you have the dialogue recorded ahead of time, just have the person read it exactly to the audio source. I think that's the best option! Do a couple takes just in case. That's my advice anyways!

Great to hear! So what is the actual software called? Who's it by?

Have you tired this? http://www.moviestorm.co.uk/MSDB/HomePageServlet

I've downloaded the whole set some weeks ago, but haven't had time to play with it. From the movie examples, it looks like what you are looking for, although a closed environment like iClone.