How do you do lip synching in Maya?

NoSeRider

http://boards.polycount.net/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=24287&an=0&page=1

Went thru this and realized you don't use bones but some sort of apparatus.....how do you do that in Maya?



I'm not pulling your chain. I might need this:

Asthane

I didn't read that thread, but my guess in blendshapes.

Snowfly

Looks like those floaty shapes are tied to different blendshapes via expressions. i.e. the big blue circle at the bottom, dragging it up and down controls jaw close/open..the five circles at the top control different points along the browline.

That's a nice rig right there (if it works as it should) but the setup is manual and tedious. You'd animate it by keyframing the blue circles....come to think of it, this would work with bones as well.

Badge

i believe thats a public doman scene right there. ive seen a few demo reels with the guy talkin the jibba-jabba.

but yea, sometimes theres blendhapes on key vowels, and hard constanants. others there are curves controling parts of the face. think of that as a little puppet, with strings attached to his lips and cheeks and eyes and such. its pretty simple, but lipsynching is not o.0

NoSeRider

It's on his demo reel....I believe he wants everybody to see it?

http://boards.polycount.net/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=24287&an=0&page=1

vahl

mhhh this can be a wire deformer, create a circle, pu it where you want it to deform the mesh, then go to derform->wire deformer, select the circle, then the mesh and you'll be set. move the circle or its control points to deform the mesh

this can also be done with clusters wich are pretty cool, select the verts you want to deform and create a cluster (deform->clusters) then paint the cluster weights like you will do with bones

what I usually do is :

apply all those deformers to a copied mesh
move them to create an expression, then duplicate the mesh, you'll use that mesh as a blendshape target

do this for all the blendshapes targets you want and you'll be set

all this must be done before rigging though.

NoSeRider

http://www.dirtyoldtoon.com/tutorials/LipTutorial_01.htm

Here's a bone based lip synch Maya tutorial....since blendshapes seems more laborous.

Snowfly

laborous why? just strip down your blendshape set if it's for game work. you can get away with ..

mouth open/close
mouth wide/narrow
jaw open/close

upper eyelid up/down
lower eyelid up/down
brow up/down

that's a functional set for lip synch and some emotion. if you want to add depth to the emotion, then model smile lines, squints, sneers...

personally i think setting up bones for a face rig is easy, but the weighting is a pain, and less flexible for the time and effort it takes. which is why the guy actually suggests adding blendshapes to correct bad deformations on step 10 of that tut .. hehe

Daz

I wholeheartedly recommend the book 'Sop Staring' by Jason Osipa. The 'visimes' technique he covers is pretty cool

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/det...ks&n=507846

But for quick everyday use, I use blendshapes a lot in Maya and they couldn't be simpler once you've done it a few times. They are very quick to make compared to rigging and weighting a face imo. Pros and cons of both ways of course.

NoSeRider

http://web.alfredstate.edu/ciat/tutorials/FacialExpressions.htm

http://www.cane-toad.com/tuteRig_Facial.htm

http://academy.smc.edu/3daet/resourcesFrameset.htm

http://www.learning-maya.com/tutorials.php

Just going thru tutorials. You might find something useful.

Malekyth

Daz: I wrote an ass-kissingly positive review for that book. His techniques and rig saved my ass on cinematics for UC2.