Hi folks, I'm just getting started on a music video project that involves a lot of lip-syncing with StephPetite. Other than the time-consuming aspects, things are running smoothly so far. My big question concerns this 'break/spline/linear/spline' stuff... what type of splines work best for lip-syncing? Or in general, for animating "Unimess"(sorry Wolf) based characters? Better yet, any good links to some tutorials that explain this 'spline' stuff would be really appreciated :) TIA

Animation is based on 'keyframing'. This is the idea of creating 'key frames' of certain points of motion and letting software algorithms do the frames inbetween. These algorithms are termed 'interpolations'. Linear means just that - the transition from one keyframe to the next is linear. If you start an object at (0,0,0) and move it to (10, 20, 30) using linear interpolation the motion from the start to the new position will be a straight line (linear). Spline means that a type of curve is used for the transition to introduce a more 'natural' motion. In other words, objects usually don't go from 0 to 60 mph instantaneously and from 60 mph to 0 similarly (linearly). They accelerate up to full speed and decelerate to full stop because of inertia (etc., won't get too technical here). For natural motions, splines are better because the curve mimics these affects of motion on real objects. The problem with spline interpolation is that it can be nonintuitive. When working with multiple keyframes, the spline curve is usually based upon several of them which can lead to unexpected results. For instance, although you have a maximum point (say, height) of motion as a keyframe, the combination of previous and following keyframes may cause the curve of the spline to go to a higher maximum (way beyond the maximum height intended). Again, for natural, organic motions spline interpolation is better than linear, but be sure to check the keyframe graphs and adjust the keyframes to get the motion desired.

Thanks for the response! The way you just explained it made a whole lot more sense than what the P5 manual says! As for spline being nonintuitive, I've seen many examples of that already(and just didn't know it). For instance, in a test animation that I did yesterday, while S3 was singing her eyes complete a blink but then they open up wide to the point that it looks quite grotesque! While I've accepted the fact that keyframe editing IS a major part of animating, little things like "bugeye blinks" and "auctioneer lip rattling" can drive a person nuts! Thanks again for the info! This knowledge will come in quite handy. Lee

Attached Link: http://www.philc.net/animation1.htm

You are gonna use mimic right? There is no reason to have to lip sync from scratch. I have mimic 2 pro and it does a pretty decent job... It doesn't take too much tweaking to get good results.

I'm definitely using mimic (Mimic3Pro). The bad thing is that the openGL preview is sluggish on my system, so it DOES take quite a bit of tweaking to adjust the lips with the vocal parts. Not to mention that the human mouth works differnently when a person sings as opposed to speaking. Thanks for the link, Phil. Unfortunately, the video won't load and when I try to save to disk, a small error message keeps telling me to try later :( This happens in both IE and Firefox. Any suggestions?

Right click on the link above the video and save the file to your hard drive. Play it from there.

The problem with spline animation in Poser is that you cannot define ease-in or ease-out (or spline tension in other words) for keyframes...This makes human motion quite hard to do right...With that parameters you can manipulate how the transisiton will be (speeding up or slowing down) when approaching and going out of every key frame... In Lightwave it is so easy...

Sorry Phil, it still won't download for some reason. The message keeps saying that it can't reach your website. And yet I can browse all through your webpage with no problem. Even the freebies will download, just not the videos. :(? Aha, CemAygun! Yet another item for the evergrowing Poser wishlist, spline tension. I'd LOVE to try out Lightwave but, that one is WAY over my budget. Heck, I can't even afford Wardrobe Wizard right now (sorry again,Phil). But hey, Christmas IS approaching (big nudge to the family members).