Second Life Forums Archive - Allow avatars better facial expressions / lip movements

Total Boffin

Aspiring Director...

Join date: 2 Sep 2004

Posts: 19

07-06-2005 06:43

I placed this proposal on the voting system....

"Allow avatars better facial expressions / lip movements"
================================
Allow uploaded animations to animate avatars facial expressions, rather than using the fixed selection inside SL of around 15.

By allowing better facial expression animations to be uploaded, it would be possible to lip synch avatars which would assist in filming projects here in SL.

Text to speech scripts could also be developed and make full use of this extra control over the avatars bodies.

================================

After looking at Jimmy Thomson's post on Lip Synch. I started to look into developing poser animations which utilize lip movements, only to find these were lost in the import into SL.

So currently we are stuck with the 15 or so fixed expression animations for all our uploaded animations

This is why I added the proposal to the voting system...

I would hope that lip movements and facial expressions could be added into the importing routine for our animations from poser...

Total
check out my first video from SL here....
http://www.dbsms.co.uk

Total Boffin

Aspiring Director...

Join date: 2 Sep 2004

Posts: 19

07-06-2005 07:16

Just had a quick play with poser using Jimmy Thomson's test audio.

Not perfect, but only took a few minutes to prepare (really needs better expressions adding)...

pink_or_blue.mov

Sound taken from Jimmy Thomsons Lip Synch test

Total

Seagel Neville

Far East User

Join date: 2 Jan 2005

Posts: 1,476

07-06-2005 07:28

Great works! I admire you. I've just voted one point to it. But this is Feature Suggesting post, isn't it?

_____________________

Seagel Neville

Total Boffin

Aspiring Director...

Join date: 2 Sep 2004

Posts: 19

07-06-2005 07:31

My question is do or can bvh outputs from poser include lip movements?

Are bvh files only used for the major joints in a body and lip movements aren't covered?

Just started rechecking my bvh files and poser doesn't seem to re-import the bvh files with lip movements either

Perhaps SL isn't to blame.... I just don't know enough about the import/export process for SL or poser

Seagel Neville

Far East User

Join date: 2 Jan 2005

Posts: 1,476

07-06-2005 07:56

Eek, that is your question. Sorry for my dense.
But I'm afraid to say Morphing and BVH are another method. So it would be needed another way to upload morphing data. You can make a morphing animation on Poser, but it is not constructed to export its data to anther software as like BVH. That is a problem. Linden will need to hack and make that data to import. I cannot help but saying I wish they would do....

_____________________

Seagel Neville

Total Boffin

Aspiring Director...

Join date: 2 Sep 2004

Posts: 19

07-06-2005 08:18

Yup, I thought that might be the case....

I don't know much about the various formats available.

Perhaps someone can suggest what would be the best / easiest format for exporting from poser to allow facial/mouth movements to be imported into SL (if this option was developed)....

Perhaps being able to import pose files (pz2,pz3) as well as bvh files would solve the problem? (no idea is importing pz2,pz3 files is a difficult job though

)

Strife Onizuka

Moonchild

Join date: 3 Mar 2004

Posts: 5,887

07-06-2005 15:40

It should be said about the existing morphs that they are *baked* into the mesh. All avatar customization is morph driven. The facial morph interface is hardcoded too. It would require major rewrites to SL to allow for the addition of custom facial morphs.

The other reason it's unlike to happen is: It's alot of data that is going to go unnoticed by the general public. Do you look at peoples faces in SL enough to possibly notice if they have a facial twitch?

_____________________

Truth is a river that is always splitting up into arms that reunite. Islanded between the arms, the inhabitants argue for a lifetime as to which is the main river.
- Cyril Connolly

Without the political will to find common ground, the continual friction of tactic and counter tactic, only creates suspicion and hatred and vengeance, and perpetuates the cycle of violence.
- James Nachtwey

Torn Bobbysocks

Registered User

Join date: 6 Jul 2005

Posts: 11

07-06-2005 16:15

From: Strife Onizuka

The other reason it's unlike to happen is: It's alot of data that is going to go unnoticed by the general public. Do you look at peoples faces in SL enough to possibly notice if they have a facial twitch?

I think it adds an astounding amount of realism to conversation. The fact that Im talking to people rather then "dolls" becomes alot more apparent when people's faces move to accompany what they say. By allowing facial manipulation, people might be get attracted to text2speech scripts, and there's a possibility we could end up in a world where we actually spoke to each other rather then typed.

A working text2speech script is actually one of my goals for SL. Though with the limited sound editing capabilities of the software, I might not make much progress

Pierce Portocarrero

Registered User

Join date: 20 Mar 2004

Posts: 65

07-06-2005 17:03

This is certainly what i've been looking for. You have all ten of my votes.

_____________________

"What would a pre-op transexual in an angora sweater fleeing a horde of zombie women in g-strings do, if he backed himself against a cliff near two midget rhinos dancing around a bonfire to The Smiths?"

Hamlet Linden on Pierce Portocarrero's A Scream in the Dark of the Night

Total Boffin

Aspiring Director...

Join date: 2 Sep 2004

Posts: 19

07-07-2005 04:35

I understand what you are saying Strife, that it may be a difficult task to get facial expressions and lip movements into the current SL model.

I'm trying to film a short film here in SL and the obvious lack of lip sync/facial expressions drove me to ask for a better system.

If people could speak (via a text to speach/voice masking system) I'm sure more people would look at other peoples faces

I'm guessing there are short term and long term options able regarding how be animate our avatars better.

Interested to know if anyone here has any ideas on a better way to animate the avatars?

And I'm interested to see what other people think about a better facial expression system...

Want better facial expressions and lip movements... vote for the proposal

Strife Onizuka

Moonchild

Join date: 3 Mar 2004

Posts: 5,887

07-07-2005 09:02

Now if SL used Text2Speach it would be easy to match the lips up with the phonemems being said. Then only the text would be streamed, saving on bandwidth and storage (my main reason against this) and the matchup would be pretty good. You would still need morphs setup in the av mesh but that wouldn't be hard for LL to do.

_____________________

Truth is a river that is always splitting up into arms that reunite. Islanded between the arms, the inhabitants argue for a lifetime as to which is the main river.
- Cyril Connolly

Without the political will to find common ground, the continual friction of tactic and counter tactic, only creates suspicion and hatred and vengeance, and perpetuates the cycle of violence.
- James Nachtwey

Cristiano Midnight

Evil Snapshot Baron

Join date: 17 May 2003

Posts: 8,616

07-11-2005 00:38

From: Total Boffin

I understand what you are saying Strife, that it may be a difficult task to get facial expressions and lip movements into the current SL model.

I'm trying to film a short film here in SL and the obvious lack of lip sync/facial expressions drove me to ask for a better system.

If people could speak (via a text to speach/voice masking system) I'm sure more people would look at other peoples faces

I'm guessing there are short term and long term options able regarding how be animate our avatars better.

Interested to know if anyone here has any ideas on a better way to animate the avatars?

And I'm interested to see what other people think about a better facial expression system...

Want better facial expressions and lip movements... vote for the proposal

I don't know what the current status of development is, but I do know that Xenon Linden did say that facial injection morph support is a future goal of the improvements to animation. I certainly hope something is coming, as we have had no new animation features since 1.4 - and facial injections would certainly go a long way toward adding more realism.

_____________________

Cristiano

ANOmations - huge selection of high quality, low priced animations all $100L or less.

~SLUniverse.com~ SL's oldest and largest community site, featuring Snapzilla image sharing, forums, and much more.

Allow avatars better facial expressions / lip movements
Total Boffin Aspiring Director... Join date: 2 Sep 2004 Posts: 19	07-06-2005 06:43 I placed this proposal on the voting system.... "Allow avatars better facial expressions / lip movements" ================================ Allow uploaded animations to animate avatars facial expressions, rather than using the fixed selection inside SL of around 15. By allowing better facial expression animations to be uploaded, it would be possible to lip synch avatars which would assist in filming projects here in SL. Text to speech scripts could also be developed and make full use of this extra control over the avatars bodies. ================================ After looking at Jimmy Thomson's post on Lip Synch. I started to look into developing poser animations which utilize lip movements, only to find these were lost in the import into SL. So currently we are stuck with the 15 or so fixed expression animations for all our uploaded animations This is why I added the proposal to the voting system... I would hope that lip movements and facial expressions could be added into the importing routine for our animations from poser... Total check out my first video from SL here.... http://www.dbsms.co.uk
Total Boffin Aspiring Director... Join date: 2 Sep 2004 Posts: 19	07-06-2005 07:16 Just had a quick play with poser using Jimmy Thomson's test audio. Not perfect, but only took a few minutes to prepare (really needs better expressions adding)... pink_or_blue.mov Sound taken from Jimmy Thomsons Lip Synch test Total
Seagel Neville Far East User Join date: 2 Jan 2005 Posts: 1,476	07-06-2005 07:28 Great works! I admire you. I've just voted one point to it. But this is Feature Suggesting post, isn't it? _____________________ Seagel Neville
Total Boffin Aspiring Director... Join date: 2 Sep 2004 Posts: 19	07-06-2005 07:31 My question is do or can bvh outputs from poser include lip movements? Are bvh files only used for the major joints in a body and lip movements aren't covered? Just started rechecking my bvh files and poser doesn't seem to re-import the bvh files with lip movements either Perhaps SL isn't to blame.... I just don't know enough about the import/export process for SL or poser
Seagel Neville Far East User Join date: 2 Jan 2005 Posts: 1,476	07-06-2005 07:56 Eek, that is your question. Sorry for my dense. But I'm afraid to say Morphing and BVH are another method. So it would be needed another way to upload morphing data. You can make a morphing animation on Poser, but it is not constructed to export its data to anther software as like BVH. That is a problem. Linden will need to hack and make that data to import. I cannot help but saying I wish they would do.... _____________________ Seagel Neville
Total Boffin Aspiring Director... Join date: 2 Sep 2004 Posts: 19	07-06-2005 08:18 Yup, I thought that might be the case.... I don't know much about the various formats available. Perhaps someone can suggest what would be the best / easiest format for exporting from poser to allow facial/mouth movements to be imported into SL (if this option was developed).... Perhaps being able to import pose files (pz2,pz3) as well as bvh files would solve the problem? (no idea is importing pz2,pz3 files is a difficult job though )
Strife Onizuka Moonchild Join date: 3 Mar 2004 Posts: 5,887	07-06-2005 15:40 It should be said about the existing morphs that they are baked into the mesh. All avatar customization is morph driven. The facial morph interface is hardcoded too. It would require major rewrites to SL to allow for the addition of custom facial morphs. The other reason it's unlike to happen is: It's alot of data that is going to go unnoticed by the general public. Do you look at peoples faces in SL enough to possibly notice if they have a facial twitch? _____________________ Truth is a river that is always splitting up into arms that reunite. Islanded between the arms, the inhabitants argue for a lifetime as to which is the main river. - Cyril Connolly Without the political will to find common ground, the continual friction of tactic and counter tactic, only creates suspicion and hatred and vengeance, and perpetuates the cycle of violence. - James Nachtwey
Torn Bobbysocks Registered User Join date: 6 Jul 2005 Posts: 11	07-06-2005 16:15 From: Strife Onizuka The other reason it's unlike to happen is: It's alot of data that is going to go unnoticed by the general public. Do you look at peoples faces in SL enough to possibly notice if they have a facial twitch? I think it adds an astounding amount of realism to conversation. The fact that Im talking to people rather then "dolls" becomes alot more apparent when people's faces move to accompany what they say. By allowing facial manipulation, people might be get attracted to text2speech scripts, and there's a possibility we could end up in a world where we actually spoke to each other rather then typed. A working text2speech script is actually one of my goals for SL. Though with the limited sound editing capabilities of the software, I might not make much progress
Pierce Portocarrero Registered User Join date: 20 Mar 2004 Posts: 65	07-06-2005 17:03 This is certainly what i've been looking for. You have all ten of my votes. _____________________ "What would a pre-op transexual in an angora sweater fleeing a horde of zombie women in g-strings do, if he backed himself against a cliff near two midget rhinos dancing around a bonfire to The Smiths?" Hamlet Linden on Pierce Portocarrero's A Scream in the Dark of the Night
Total Boffin Aspiring Director... Join date: 2 Sep 2004 Posts: 19	07-07-2005 04:35 I understand what you are saying Strife, that it may be a difficult task to get facial expressions and lip movements into the current SL model. I'm trying to film a short film here in SL and the obvious lack of lip sync/facial expressions drove me to ask for a better system. If people could speak (via a text to speach/voice masking system) I'm sure more people would look at other peoples faces I'm guessing there are short term and long term options able regarding how be animate our avatars better. Interested to know if anyone here has any ideas on a better way to animate the avatars? And I'm interested to see what other people think about a better facial expression system... Want better facial expressions and lip movements... vote for the proposal
Strife Onizuka Moonchild Join date: 3 Mar 2004 Posts: 5,887	07-07-2005 09:02 Now if SL used Text2Speach it would be easy to match the lips up with the phonemems being said. Then only the text would be streamed, saving on bandwidth and storage (my main reason against this) and the matchup would be pretty good. You would still need morphs setup in the av mesh but that wouldn't be hard for LL to do. _____________________ Truth is a river that is always splitting up into arms that reunite. Islanded between the arms, the inhabitants argue for a lifetime as to which is the main river. - Cyril Connolly Without the political will to find common ground, the continual friction of tactic and counter tactic, only creates suspicion and hatred and vengeance, and perpetuates the cycle of violence. - James Nachtwey
Cristiano Midnight Evil Snapshot Baron Join date: 17 May 2003 Posts: 8,616	07-11-2005 00:38 From: Total Boffin I understand what you are saying Strife, that it may be a difficult task to get facial expressions and lip movements into the current SL model. I'm trying to film a short film here in SL and the obvious lack of lip sync/facial expressions drove me to ask for a better system. If people could speak (via a text to speach/voice masking system) I'm sure more people would look at other peoples faces I'm guessing there are short term and long term options able regarding how be animate our avatars better. Interested to know if anyone here has any ideas on a better way to animate the avatars? And I'm interested to see what other people think about a better facial expression system... Want better facial expressions and lip movements... vote for the proposal I don't know what the current status of development is, but I do know that Xenon Linden did say that facial injection morph support is a future goal of the improvements to animation. I certainly hope something is coming, as we have had no new animation features since 1.4 - and facial injections would certainly go a long way toward adding more realism. _____________________ Cristiano ANOmations - huge selection of high quality, low priced animations all $100L or less. ~SLUniverse.com~ SL's oldest and largest community site, featuring Snapzilla image sharing, forums, and much more.

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Allow avatars better facial expressions / lip movements