Trouble with imported file for lips sync

[christiandenayer]

Hi folks,

When I import an aiff file, drag it into the scene and select it with the puppet I want to use for lips syncing and select "compute..." the visemes appear correctly ont the time line but when i play the scene, i can ear the audio but the lips sync doesn't work. Any idea to solve this?

Kind regards,

Chris

[SharonfromMD]

I'm a composer and I use this feature. But I'm a beginner to CA.

To answer your basic question-sometimes other behaviors are "in front". For instance, I had a sad face once, and it stopped the character from moving.

But here are other things I've discovered:

1. I have the character lip sync to the voices only if it's possible. It seems to be more accurate. There are too many distractions with instruments etc. I can do this, because I'm the one who created the file.

2. It's not perfect no matter what. However, I have found that it's better than the live lip sync. (That may be due to the fact I don't really know about the ways to make it more effective)

3. The visemes have a tendency to get too complex, rather than not enough. So I end up disappearing many and elongating others.

4. I took a screen shot of a viseme chart (What each sound shape is and what letters they correspond to) I keep this chart up when I'm editing because I don't know it yet. For instance, B and M are the same viseme.

5. I often do the correcting while in a slower playback mode-.75 or .5

[christiandenayer]

Dear SharonfromMD,

There is no music, just a simple voice. It's ok with lip sync when I record live but not when I import a file...

[alank99101739]

When you say “dosen’t work”, do you mean you have never got the mouth to work at all, or normally lip sync works but for that particular file formation it does not work (I don’t think so from your description), or it works but is not synced well with the audio? The different problems have different potential solutions. Sharon’s suggestions are good ones if you know lip sync works with the puppet.

Also be aware that in editing mode (scrubbing mode?), I have sometimes found the lips don’t move with complex puppets, but it all works in the final movie file export. I assume it ran out of CPU on my laptop and was trying to keep playback fast.

[SharonfromMD]

By not work- I mean it works for part of the phrase

Or song and then suddenly doesn’t move the mouth.

I finally figured out that in that case the “sad” trigger I clicked on for some reason over rides the lip sync.

It was an old behavior anyway as you cant have

Lip sync and sad at the same time unless you are recording it live.

Sent from my iPhone

[christiandenayer]

Hello Alan,

I'm just training as I recently discovered Character Animation. I use therefore one of the puppets proposed in tutorials (Bongo). So I guess it remains quite simple. When I play the scene, I here the voice from file, but the lips just don't work. I see this on timeline:

[SharonfromMD]

I’m definitely not an expert but I would try making sure the imported file gets moved below the speaking puppet. CA has a tendency to favor the highest import on the timeline. So in the box to the left of the timeline move the file below the puppet that is talking.

Sent from my iPhone

[christiandenayer]

Nope, close but no cigar

[SharonfromMD]

I would try recording again a short but and see if the new one works.

Sent from my iPhone

[SharonfromMD]

I would try another thing. Did you have both the mic and the camera on? Sometimes the solution is the most obvious. Bummer as it can be.

Sent from my iPhone

[SharonfromMD]

Chris,

One more question-did you select the puppet, select the audio file and then make sure you pushed the "Compute Lipsync from Scene Audio?" In other words, did you link the puppet and the aiff file together?

Again, sometimes it's the most basic that gets us figuring things out for hours.

-Sharon

[alank99101739 · Accepted solution]

D'oh! Bongo uses a Nutcracker jaw, which is not controlled by vizemes! Does the +Jaw puppet work with the compute lip sync audio function ? If so how to do it ?   It just watches how open/closed the mouth is.  If you try a puppet like Chloe it should work.

[christiandenayer]

Hello Alan,

You're totally right, it works perfectly with Chloe. I get the reason, indeed, Nevertheless, Bongo works perfectly when used with the mic as I speak...

Many thanks for your useful answer!

[christiandenayer]

Hello Sharon,

Finally, Alan found the good reason: the Bongo puppet is not controlled by vizemes and only opens & shouts his mouth. Though it works perfectly when used with the mic as I speak, it seems incompatible with imported audio files.

Many thanks for your suggestions. Hope Alan's answer will help you as well