The subject probably isn't very clear, but I'm sure you get the general gist... I would like to have two figures hold a conversation in Poser with Mimic generated poses. I have only Poser 4.03 and Mimic 1 (until Daz reopens after this weekend and clears my Paypal order for Mimic 2 Pro). Is it possible to do this in just Poser? I know this subject has been addressed before and I did search through the threads but didn't turn up anything that was useful or that I could understand. Thanks, Lhiannan

Yes, it can be done with Mimic 1, but it takes some additional work. The "simplest" way is to feed a single audio clip, containing the dialogue of both speakers, into Mimic. Then apply the same Mimic-generated pose file to each speaker. Then select the first character, open the animation graph, and delete all the keyframes where he isn't speaking; this way, he won't be mouthing his companion's lines. Select the second character and give her the same treatment.

keyframes... okie doke... looks fearfully toward the animation palette in Poser I'm going to learn this animation stuff, one way or another... just need to buy more Tylenol... Does Mimic 2 Pro cover multiple speakers? Most of the animations I want to attempt are going to involve characters from my RPG group and will be multi-speaker most often. Thank you, Little Dragon!

Hello Little Dragon; I've got a question too if you've got a second.... Do you know of a tutorial on how to make characters mimic-ready? Eg. I tried to work with Koshini today (with the new Mimic) and aren't having any real success. I tried downloading Ockhams file from freestuff but that isn't solving it. Is there a tute somewhere?

The animation palette isn't as difficult as you think, lhiannan. You probably won't even have to go into the graph itself for this work; just draw a selection box around the coloured keyframes you want to eliminate, and hit the Delete key.

krimpr:

jamball77 has a few Mimic 1 reference files that I find useful ....

http://3dtutor.homestead.com/

Also, you can find a few Mimic 2 tutorials at DAZ Arcana:

http://arcana.daz3d.com/category_index.php?cat=9

Basically, a character needs to meet a few requirements to work with Mimic.

First, it has to be a figure, and it needs a body part called "head"; that would be the internal name of the body part, not just the external label you normally see in Poser. You can only change the internal names from the Setup Room, or by hacking the CR2 with a third-party utility like a text editor.

Of course, if you change a body part's internal name, the .obj file may need to be updated also, so the group's name matches. And existing poses for the figure might not work properly any more. It's ... uh ... complicated, which is why it's best if the figure's creator names everything properly from the start. For instance, when I updated Valandar's Land Dragon for Mimic compatibility, I was faced with the prospect of renaming the "Head" to "head" (note capitalization), which would require me to edit the .obj file also, and invalidate any existing poses. Instead, I created a phantom body part named "head" and linked it to the real head and morphs via ERC code. A botch-job, I admit, but it seems to work, and I only had to modify and redistribute the CR2.

Second, the head must have a specific set of morph targets used by Mimic (which also must be named properly). From what I've heard of Mimic 2, I get the impression that you can change these within Mimic itself, so it uses different morph channels, but I haven't had a chance to play with it yet, so I can't confirm. In any case, jamball77's reference files list the basic morphs used by Mimic 1. If your character doesn't have these morphs, you'll have to add them, either by creating brand-new morphs, or renaming existing ones.

At the very least, you should have the OpenLips morph (and perhaps Blink Left and Blink Right). If you want any articulation beyond basic mouth-opening-and-closing, you'll need to include the phoneme morphs, which shape the lips.

Mimic also affects eye movement, but I prefer to pose the eyes manually and rarely use that feature, so I can't go into any detail about how to set up a figure to use it properly.

Hi. to answer the question about using Koshini or any other character in Mimic 2. as long as the figure has a fair amount of mouth shapes they can be used in mimic 2. unlike mimic 1 the morphs dont have to be specificly named. with mimic 2 (pro version only) you can create a custom configuration file assigning the morphs from your figure in combination to specific phonemes (these custom configuration files can then be used in either the pro or regular versions). using the supplied configuration files will not work on every figure becouse not all figures have the same morphs. one of the great things about Mimic 2 Pro is that ANY morph, or combination of morphs, can be programmed in and controlled using strength levels in both the phoneme and expression nodes as well as the timeline itself. as far as doing two figures in conversation you could use the video playback feature to sync up a conversation in Mimic 2 Pro, though I must say I have yet to try it myself

Thinking about it doing a conversation would be simplicity itself using the editable timeline. simply load the first figure into mimic with the full conversation and delete the phonemes of the second figure from the timeline. saving the pose then do the same with the second figure, deleteing the phonems of the first figure.

Great references and answers. Thank you very much.

I would like to be able to transfer vic 3 to max 5.1 and apply morpher modifier to create morph targets so i could animate speech from max directly, however, the modifier also morhs the teeth, with very bad consequences. What I need is a way to edit the vic 3 mesh to eliminate the teeth for the morph, but I am having trouble doing this. Any suggestions? send replies on floatingworld2@yahoo.com.au

Sorry I wouldn't know how to help. For me, if I can figure out properly setting up mimic for the characters I like to use I'll create the Poser file that way and then import it into Lightwave with Propack; ready to go. That's what makes the Mimic/Poser combo so valuable to me. To do the lipsynching (and morph targeting) in Max is possible, of course, but alot more work. For what it's worth Propack works well, you just need to plan your shots ahead. Sorry I don't know what to tell you.

I have another way to do a conversation in Mimic 1.0 with two speakers. I take the sound file with two speakers, bring it into a sound editing program and insert silance for all the speaking from one character making sure that the timing of the sound file does not change. I then save it under a different name (character1 for example). I open the original file with the two speakers again and do the same thing for the other character and save it again (character2 for example). I load each sound file into Mimic and create a separate pose file for each character. I place the characters into a Poser file and apply the pose to the respective characters. After I render the animation I add the original sound file with two speakers in a video editing program. You could also add the original sound file inside Poser as well.

Ockham (at least I think it was Ockham) created a mimic-ready Koshini when she first came out.. It's probably still in Free Stuff...

Thanks ernyoka1; I did download that yesterday. I got some pretty strange results with the new Mimic, but I probably haven't got it configured properly. I was going to try it with Mimic 1.0 today, but am cleaning out my runtime folder instead. What a friggin mess!! I figured it wasn't going to get better on it's own. Thanks for pointing it out :)