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Any new lipsync tools in 7.5?
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Any new lipsync tools in 7.5? // Roundtable
Post by instantmovieman // Apr 6, 2007, 4:15am
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instantmovieman
Total Posts: 10
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I'm hoping 7.5 has something better than the Facial Animation plugin in 6.6.
The whole seperate head thing really seems cheesy and cumbersome to work with. Hop'n there is some news in this department. |
Post by Methusela // Apr 6, 2007, 5:07am
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Methusela
Total Posts: 414
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I second that. There's a chance of me getting an internship with a local animator, and I'll need facial animation capabilities to really take advantage of it. Ideally some sort of morph target setup would be nice! |
Post by instantmovieman // Apr 6, 2007, 5:37am
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instantmovieman
Total Posts: 10
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I've noticed a tab for the dope sheet in the videos n screen shots so that seems different. I've used them in other software for phoneme layout.
Just being able to use the facial animator with the head still on your character would be an improvement. The rest of the updates look awesome. Character animation without lipsyncing wouldn't be much fun. I'm sure there is something on the way. I think. I hope. No, I'm sure there must be. Right? |
Post by TomG // Apr 6, 2007, 7:23am
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TomG
Total Posts: 3397
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Hi all,
There are no Facial Animator-like tools over in the new animation tools (that is, nothing to take sound files and automatically process them to create lip synch movements to that sound file).
HTH!
Tom |
Post by Methusela // Apr 6, 2007, 7:35am
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Methusela
Total Posts: 414
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Thanks for the reply Tom!
D'you know if we'll get any sort of morph target capabilities? I understand if you can't say. ^^ |
Post by instantmovieman // Apr 6, 2007, 3:41pm
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instantmovieman
Total Posts: 10
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Wow,I just spent $400, its 12 days from ship, couldn't you give us maybe a couple more crumbs on this subject? I won't say anything to any body! |
Post by mrbones // Apr 6, 2007, 4:22pm
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mrbones
Total Posts: 1280
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Morph targeting is not the way anymore, there is a new way that makes it so you can acheive morph targets without referencing multiple target meshs. this improves performance.
Here is something from C4D, I hope develop something simaler in TS.
Morph Tag
Morph Tag – Finally we no longer need to have multiple copies of our objects for posing and morphing. The Morph Tag is not unlike using a Posemixer but with a Morph tag the pose are stored in the tag rather than a copy of the object for each pose. This means that scene files for character animation can be much smaller in size and much more responsive. People with Cactus Dan’s Morph 1.0 plugin have had this capability for some time so it’s good to see MAXON catching up. Along with the Morph Tag we get a new Morph Brush tool that allows you paint morph targets from one object on to another object.
The Morph tag is much more sophisticated than using a Posemixer. With a Posemixer going between 2 pose is linear i.e. straight. With a Morph tag you can define a pivot point and have an eyelid for example closing and have the lid close in curved transition. Very slick!! In addition to the new muscle system you can record morph targets for bulging biceps for example as an arm flexes and the morphs are driven by the arm joints. Again there is no need for extra mesh objects. Continuing our series of mini tutorials I'll add a few morphs to give you an idea of how easy things are now.
Here is a link to a video demonstration.
http://www.c4dcafe.com/reviews/r10/videos/ca_part4/ca_part4.html
Check it out if you have a chance, definatly a cool feature, maybee the only feature missing from TS..
Thanks for the reply Tom!
D'you know if we'll get any sort of morph target capabilities? I understand if you can't say. ^^ |
Post by instantmovieman // Apr 7, 2007, 3:49pm
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instantmovieman
Total Posts: 10
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Thanx for the info mrbones. I was hop'n there was something in 7.5 to aid lipsync that would be a step up from the facial animator. That looked great until I looked through the help. I still haven't tried to work with it yet. The example they showed has you copy n paste the talk'n head on to your model. Just seems it would be such a pain for an action packed scene with several characters.
I'm wondering if I could build basic facial rig and pose phonemes and save clips ( in Hash AM we call them actions ) and then use some thing that breaks down script into phonemes and build lipsync more by hand.
So if any body has read this far, could you save rig poses in TS and reuse them like this for lipsync. I'm very new to using TS for animation.
I'm hoping to use TS 7.5's real time rendering for a Machinma project instead of a game engine. The lipsync doesn't need to be prefect. It does need to be productive. Quick to set up n quick to use.
Any tips, links or even opinions on using TS for this type of project welcome! |
Post by roman // Apr 9, 2007, 11:47am
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roman
Total Posts: 320
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Thanx for the info mrbones. I was hop'n there was something in 7.5 to aid lipsync that would be a step up from the facial animator.
I'm wondering if I could build basic facial rig and pose phonemes and save clips ( in Hash AM we call them actions ) and then use some thing that breaks down script into phonemes and build lipsync more by hand.TS7.5 will let you to save clips and yes, I believe you could create facial rigs and use them for facial animation.
It is true we do not have yet replacement for old Facial Animator (we will) and I see some users saying "If trueSpace7.5 does not have X" (substitute your favorite feature) I will not buy it. Let me put my 2 cents here:
The last thing trueSpace6 user has to worry about is not having enough significant new features. TS7.5 provides a complete back to back 3D authoring solution with full character animation, running on new architecture with outstanding backward TS6 compatibillity. I will not bore you with listing of all of the new features let me just mention one right here:
TS7.5 Animation Editor allow seamless blending of key-frame clips (IK or FK) and procedural clips, including clips generated by physical simulation. You could for example have a character walk via key-frames, then have it hit by a car at which point simulation would take over so character is slammed against the wall, then have the character get up and walk away via keyframes again.
Check video in this link:
http://www.caligari.com/products/trueSpace/ts75/Brochure/animation.asp?Cate=BAnimation
To my knowledge, neither 3DS MAX nor Maya, not even Motion Builder will give you this capabillity out of the box (I could be wrong, correct me if I am). Endorphin does this but I already hear trueSpace users saying "No way I am going to pay $10,000 for a software which does not even offer modeling or rendering!" Does it mean Endorphin is not a good product? Of course not, it is a great product, my point is that at $299 TS6 users will get access to some very high end capabilities at a price which makes the upgrade a very good value. It is even better value for TS7 users, many of whom will receive the upgrade for free. |
Post by instantmovieman // Apr 9, 2007, 6:09pm
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instantmovieman
Total Posts: 10
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roman, I thank you for stop'n by. I hope you weren't referring to this thread as being a negative discussion on TS. My only reason for starting it was to find out if 7.5 was going to be the right product for the project I have in mind. The info available so far didn't answer my questions so I thought I'd ask.
TS 7.5 looks to be a great upgrade, I'm really looking forward to the release. The new character animation features are a hugh improvement over previous versions. And if I can figure out how to do half desent lipsync with the Animation Editor, I'm golden! I would have thought talk'n characters would have been more important than bouncing them off cars n walls. But as you point out we all think the features we need are the most important. |
Post by Solomon // Apr 13, 2007, 9:46am
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Solomon
Total Posts: 30
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TS7.5 will let you to save clips and yes, I believe you could create facial rigs and use them for facial animation.
It is true we do not have yet replacement for old Facial Animator (we will) and I see some users saying "If trueSpace7.5 does not have X" (substitute your favorite feature) I will not buy it. Let me put my 2 cents here:
Check video in this link:
http://www.caligari.com/products/trueSpace/ts75/Brochure/animation.asp?Cate=BAnimation
To my knowledge, neither 3DS MAX nor Maya, not even Motion Builder will give you this capabillity out of the box (I could be wrong, correct me if I am). Endorphin does this but I already hear trueSpace users saying "No way I am going to pay $10,000 for a software which does not even offer modeling or rendering!" Does it mean Endorphin is not a good product? Of course not, it is a great product, my point is that at $299 TS6 users will get access to some very high end capabilities at a price which makes the upgrade a very good value. It is even better value for TS7 users, many of whom will receive the upgrade for free.
Hi Roman,
i appreciate your responses, rarely do you see owners of companies taking an active role in interacting with the users - so thumbs up to you.
However, my point would be that without integration with other applications - like Motionbuilder, Vue Infinite, which make things like environment generation and character animation better - you stand to lose a large following and potential buyers of Truespace - I was just looking at this image of the trees - one of the new features in Truespace 7.5 -
http://caligari.com/news/news_april2007/images/tS75_StephenBeauchamp_Plants01.jpg
It honestly looks light years behind what Vue Infinite and Maya Painteffects create - which made me wonder why all those resources are spent on creating trees when you could have worked on a VOB exporter so users can integrate with programs like Vue, or Terragen - I know you want to make Truespace a one stop shop of sorts - but I think with the way the industry is evolving, integration is going to become key to survival of software applications.
Just my 2 cents - I am a longtime user of Truespace, and I would like to see it succeed, thats why I am hoping that the integration tools will come sooner rather than later.
I would love to be able to model and rig my entire character in Truespace and export as FBX and animate in Motionbuilder and bring it back to Truespace to render with it's powerful renderer and superior dynamics engine.
that would make Truespace even more appealing to large studios like ours. An alternative to Endorphin is absolutely welcome - and from the demo videos I have seen, Truespace looks like it is going to fill that void.
Now that would be a synergy and workflow to die for - k, maybe not literary :) |
Post by TomG // Apr 13, 2007, 10:42am
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TomG
Total Posts: 3397
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Just a quick note that the trees are a "development free" modification of the hair / fur tools.
Naturally they are not quite development free, it took a little time to do it, but that was all, just a very little time. The functionality was already in place from the hair tools, and a minor tweak let it create plants.
It was never intended as a full fledged landscape generation tool to compete with a specialist program like Vue :) It should be handy for creating grass, throwing in some distant undergrowth, and similar.
The news article of course is limited to picking from what the beta testers actually tested, which is a question of personal experience and taste, so the images there are not intended to all be of the most mind-blowing quality of finished works - just a snapshot that Stephen had given the plant mod for the hair tool a quick spin and presto.
Oh and of course it is a real-time image, not rendered, which is also important when looking at that particular image.
Anyway, that answers that secondary point - if we invested the development time into exporters that went into that plant tool, you would get a couple of hours of work on it, and we'd have no exporter :) So nothing was lost there.
Mainly it has been pointless thinking about starting exports yet, since the core code has to be finished - you can't write an exporter until you know what you are exporting from. It would be like building a bridge where the land was shifting and changing. You would waste a lot of hours when your bridge fell down and you had to start again.
So we have deliberately not gone into exports just yet, until everything is finalised in the core code itself. We also believe that the core code should be as stable as possible, and that a 100 hours on an exporter are better spent at this stage (at this stage note) on stability of our own product.
However once that is all done and 7.5 is out the door, then yes, exports are very high on our list. In fact they have been very high on our list for a long time, just that it has not made sense to start work on that yet.
I am a big champion of exports internally, making a lot of fuss and noise about it, so you can bet that it will be addressed, and addressed well too ;)
HTH!
Tom |
Post by RAYMAN // Apr 13, 2007, 12:11pm
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RAYMAN
Total Posts: 1496
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sounds very nice !:)
I do hope that Vue and Poser are way on top of that
list.
How about shaders ?
symbiont for Vray;) ???
I love all the shaders I have for lightwork.
How about a sort of plug for shaders we already have (VRAY)
Export and import is just one side of the coin |
Post by Bobbins // Apr 13, 2007, 12:19pm
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Bobbins
Total Posts: 506
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Just to reinforce what Tom said, the trees were a very simple by-product of the hair tools - to think that much time was specifically spent on implementing it would be wrong.
Of course, had it not been implemented then some user sometime or later would have said "you know, had Caligari spent a few extra minutes on the hair tools, they could have done x,y,z and made it capable of producing trees and plants......" |
Post by Steinie // Apr 13, 2007, 12:22pm
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Steinie
Total Posts: 3667
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You guys always forget feathers and scales....:D |
Post by Mario // Apr 13, 2007, 10:06pm
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Mario
Total Posts: 10
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To my knowledge, neither 3DS MAX nor Maya, not even Motion Builder will give you this capabillity out of the box (I could be wrong, correct me if I am). Endorphin does this but I already hear trueSpace users saying "No way I am going to pay $10,000 for a software which does not even offer modeling or rendering!" Does it mean Endorphin is not a good product? Of course not, it is a great product, my point is that at $299 TS6 users will get access to some very high end capabilities at a price which makes the upgrade a very good value. It is even better value for TS7 users, many of whom will receive the upgrade for free.
Hi Roman
Just a quick note to say that I am not sure where you get the $10,000 price tag from. I use TrueSpace but I also use LightWave and it has Endormorphs and I use it to not only animate the face but also to correct body and limb movements if they need it. It works great and the price tag for the complete model, animation and render package (LightWave) is only $1,200. I am not advertising the product but just leting you know as you asked to be corrected if you were wrong.
Cheers
Mario |
Post by Délé // Apr 14, 2007, 12:30am
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Délé
Total Posts: 1374
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Hi Roman
Just a quick note to say that I am not sure where you get the $10,000 price tag from. I use TrueSpace but I also use LightWave and it has Endormorphs and I use it to not only animate the face but also to correct body and limb movements if they need it. It works great and the price tag for the complete model, animation and render package (LightWave) is only $1,200. I am not advertising the product but just leting you know as you asked to be corrected if you were wrong.
Cheers
Mario
Roman was referring to Endorphin (here (http://www.naturalmotion.com/endorphin.htm)) not Endormorphs. Endorphin is an animation suite that can blend behaviors and powerful physics simulations. What Roman was saying was that 7.5 can blend keyframing, physics, and procedural (behavioral) animation. As far as I know, this powerful blending possibility isn't in Motion Builder or Maya but is currently only found in Endorphin which IS about $10,000. This capability makes the 7.5 Animation Editor VERY powerful and far ahead of the game IMO, even with packages costing thousands of dollars more the tS. |
Post by Mario // Apr 14, 2007, 1:27pm
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Mario
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Hi Dele
Thanks for that, my apologies to Roman for the misunderstanding. I assumed Endorphin and Endormorphs was the same thing. That will teach me for reading too fast, clearly they are different. |
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