Animation (6017) - week 04

TODAY

1) Hand off the Simon 2.0 rig to do  some basic pantomime acting work

2) Introduce concept of Valence and Arousal

3) Timed Posing Exercise: Excited/Furious

4) Lip Sync, Visemes and Phonemes 'Meow'

5) Electricity Test

6) New Assignment - the Lip Sync (LS) (Nice resource for Audio - Radio Star Improv)


Lip sync workflow. we start with posing to create four primary viseme shapes. B/M/P, EE, AH and OO

The highlighted ones above: these are my 'primary colours' for lip sync animation

For the demo, I'll use this audio clip trimmed from 'the Simpsons'.
(for basic audio editing I use Audacity; an excellent, free, open-source program.)

My electricity

I'll start by placing these primary viseme shapes on the appropriate frames to match the phonemes I'm hearing in the audio clip. The end result should be that Simon looks like he's speaking the line.
After the demo, students will practice the same.

Homework for next class: Students will pick an audio clip 6-10 sec long (max for this is 300fr) and start by animating just the lip sync only. They will have this finished to show for next class.

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Part 1 of this assignment (Lip Sync) will account for 10% of your final grade.  Progress must be shown for feedback next class and will be due at the end of week 05

Part 2 of this assignment (Pantomime and Facial) will account for 20% of your final grade. Progress must be shown for feedback in week 06. Part 2 will be due at the end of week 07

Lip Sync Animation (LS)
This is a multi-part assignment.
Part 1 is just the lip sync, due in week 05.
Part 2 will be the pantomime acting along with facial performance, due in week 7.

Part 1:
Students select an audio clip between 6-10 sec long (300 frames max) and use the Simon 2.0 rig to animate the mouth to match the phonemes. No body or other facial animation is required in the first part of the animation. Students must show their work for feedback in class week 05, hand-in will be due at the end of week 05

Part 2:
In the second part of the assignment, students will shoot video reference and then create the pantomime (body) and facial performance to match the lip sync. Staging will be a mid shot (framing the character from the waist up) Students must show their work for feedback in week 06. Final hand-in will be in week 07

What I'll be grading on this assignment:
  1. Do the viseme shapes match the phonemes in the audio clip
  2. Does the lip sync animation transition smoothly between the poses with few pops or hitches?
  3. Are the viseme poses broad and clearly defined?
  4. Is the audio clip appropriate for a demo reel, with wide variety in phonemes, pitch and tempo?
  5. Has the student shown work in progress for feedback at week 03 and week 05?
  6. Does the pantomime performance match the dialogue
Hand in to the folder LS (Part1) with the following parameters:
Name will be <Last>_<First>_LS1.avi
  eg. Latour_David_LS1.avi

960x540 resolution
MPEG-4 compressed .avi
show only geometry (no animation controls please)

Some additional tutorial material: a couple of demos using Maya v2011 and the Morpheus rig. The workflow here will be similar to what we do in class, though the specifics of the tools will differ slightly.