Forum: Animation


Subject: Lip Sync Test

grafikdon opened this issue on Sep 23, 2005 ยท 3 posts


samsiahaija posted Sat, 24 September 2005 at 3:12 AM

First a compliment: nice to see some real acting and not just some fuzzy mimic stuff. Also, the animation has a clear and strong silhoutte, well done.

And then of course the points where you could improve on the animation.

Lipsync isn't just about lipsync, it is also about body-sync and communnication. Even if parts of the animation work, there are points for improvement.

First, listen carefully to your soundtrack for accents in the voice recording.
The biggest accents in the dialogue should have accents in the animation as well.
In this animation, an important accent that is missing is on the word 'really', which is a key-word in this sentence.
The hand gesture you have at that point is too weak to really support the voice track.

Then, think about the communication; who is she talking to. It seems like a political statement of sorts, either to an audience or an individual. Her main objective should be to convince whoever she is talking to. Her body language should support that idea. Elements of that are already present in your animation, but could be improved upon.

'If women really wanted to change society they could do it.' is a claim. Main accents are on 'really' and 'do'.
Gestures on both words (Or a couple of frames before, which mostly works better) are needed for her to get her point across. An asking gesture at the beginning (palm up hand or something in that fashion) and a determined gesture on 'do' like a pointed finger, would help to get her points across.

A change in expression is good for showing a thought process, and as animation depends on change of shape, try to exploit the possibilities.
Facial expression could start from a questioning look at the beginning, transforming into a more determined one towards the end of the sentence.
The head accent on 'do' comes a bit late: head accents should usually preceed the vowels they accentuate by a couple of frames: the extreme mouthshape should form after the extreme in the head. "Do' has a very clear vowel sound; the lips should be pouted more here.

The gesture on "I' in 'I want to change it.' could be clearer. You don't have to use a cliche pointed finger, but the hand gesture is off here, and therefore unclear; the palm of her hand should be lower and more towards the middle, towards her chest, not so much towards her throat the way it is now.
The head accents in this second sentence are excellent, though.
From there on, everything works fine.