The brief for this unit MED2226 was to create an animation that showed of lip-sync and performance. I didn’t have a set idea of what I wanted to do. I knew I wanted to follow the path of something 3D as it is my speciality, however lip-syncing in 3D can be very diffuclt compared to 2D lip-syncing.
There are a number of posibilties of acheiving a lipsync effect within a 3D application such as; having a rigged mouth on a 3D model, having set mouth positions and interchanging them each frame (similar to stop motion). Or a hybrid effect, using a 3D model and a 2D drawn mouth. Each have their advantages and disadvantages such as the full 3D effect would take time to model and rig, but look very professional. The stop motion effect looks jumpy and jittery (could be a stylised effect) but takes a lot less time to build. And finally the 2D hybrid, it could look out of place and awkward, but then also it could add to the animation, and it would be easier to animate as your just drawing the frames, not building them.
I decided between using the hybrid effect or use the stop motion 3D effect. I would make my final decision after recording the audio as I hope that will give me a better idea on what my animation will be.
For audio recording, I used zoom recorder with a boom microphone and recorded my friend talking for a long period of time. I was asking her random questions until I got something of use, to which I then cut 90% of the original recording and kept the rest to use.
Here is the unedited sample of the audio I used:
The audio of my voice talking behind the microphone is quite distorted so I added subtitles so you can understand what i’m saying. However I could also possibly used a microphone facing in my direction and lowered the level down which would of made it more clearer but would have needed more equipment and set up time.
From the audio I got the idea of using a porcelain piggy bank as the character to lip-sync the audio with. The audio talks about having no money to buy nice clothes which is a juxtaposition for a piggy bank as piggy banks are associated with money, so a piggy bank with no money is funny. It creates an underlying theme of irony which will make the animation a stronger if well executed.
The model of the pig was a premade model from TF3DM.com
I had to use a model as of time restraints with this coursework and others. The model isnt incredibly detailed and i still made a lot of edits and adjustments to it so it suited my purpose. Firstly, I changed the colour from this orange shade to a more appropriate, glossy ceramic pink tone.
I adjusted the position of the snout and eyes moving them further up the pigs head and making them smaller to make the pig look more cute.
The ratio of the smaller snout and stubbier legs make the piggy bank more cuter. I added a bumpy glossy reflections so it wouldn’t be perfectly smooth to make it look more realistic
For making the lip syncing part I knew I was going to use a stop motion technique so i needed to make different mouth shapes and render each shape as a separate image.
I was looking for mouth style sheets on pinterest and found this example which is the mouth sheet from Aardman animations
This example would work well as it means I wouldn’t have to edit the model, instead just position a mouth on the pig and that will be interchangeable.
Using this mouth style gives a very similar look to Aardmans “Creature Comforts”
It was not intentional to use such a similar style in the outcome but I feel it doesn’t effect the animation negatively.
Here are the finished mouth shapes.
I’m really happy how the mouth shapes have turned out and it fits the character model very well. They’re very expressive and emotive which adds more humour to the animation. However to give the animation more structure I decided to add a computer in the animation as a prop for the pig to use, therefore it will look as the pig is on the computer replying to a cameraman rather than just speaking with no context.
Here is the model of a Macbook I used in the animation.
I could not think of a way to have the laptop positioned so the pig can type on it, I thought about having it raised on a stool and the pig the same scale as the laptop which would mean I would have to add another prop and the pig would not actually be touching the laptop, but I think this method looks funnier and is more practical as the pig looks the right scale compared to the laptop. So I now needed to render each of the mouth expressions with the new scene
Now with all the facial modelling, lighting, texturing done it needed to be composited together in post processing using After Effects to make it an animation.
I had each mouth shape rendered as individual images so each of those images will be 4 or 5 frames long in a 30fps animation. The technique I used to figure out what words made what corresponding mouth shape was by replicating the word and saying it aloud. This might not be the best technique but as shown in my final animation it worked out well. I added subtitles in a plain white font so the viewing can understand what the voice behind the camera is saying. This technique also adds a camera man/interviewer style to the animation which again makes it more similar to creature comforts.
In overview I am pleased with my stylistic approach to this animation. Character lip-syncing is something ive never tried before so it the brief was challenging to begin with but got better as I got more confident. The use of a stop motion technique made my animation look very stylised as it a simpler method of animating a mouth but in no way a lesser method. I think the character ideology of it being a piggy bank and talking about having money problems is something that was well received when I shown the animation to my peers however, feedback from my tutor pointed out that I only had animation in the eyes and mouth, and If i were to make the head or jaw move it would add another layer of realism to the character. As my skill set of lip-syncing was very limited at the time it was something that I was cautious of over complicating it but perhaps I should of pushed myself further to achieve a better result.
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