Topic: Mouth animation help!

ok, so i have looked at various tutorials, for mouth animation and they all work amazingly! but my problem is that i dont know how to get the mouths to look like real lego mouths. i love the mouth animation of both nick durron and old scratch but i dont know how to make those lego looking mouths. PLEASE HELP IT WILL BE GREATLY APPRECIATED!!!

My youtube channel is: CRAZYMUSICPARODIES

Re: Mouth animation help!

Why don't you just ask 0ldScratch?  He'll be able to help you.

Not literally dead, just no longer interested in Lego or animation.

Re: Mouth animation help!

because i have messaged him before and got no response. i will message him again and see if he responds. any extra help would be nice

- zeogx

My youtube channel is: CRAZYMUSICPARODIES

Re: Mouth animation help!

Message him how?  PM on this site?

If so, then he doesn't log on that often.  But he will eventually, just wait.

Not literally dead, just no longer interested in Lego or animation.

Re: Mouth animation help!

message him on his youtube channel. my youtube is CRAZYMUSICPARODIES. I wish i could change it to Zeogx lol.

My youtube channel is: CRAZYMUSICPARODIES

Re: Mouth animation help!

Oh, he doesn't check YouTube that often.  Less than here, I would think.

A faster way would be to PM him on this site.

Not literally dead, just no longer interested in Lego or animation.

Re: Mouth animation help!

ok, but i hope that if he doesnt reply then someone that knows how will mini/smile

My youtube channel is: CRAZYMUSICPARODIES

Re: Mouth animation help!

anyone know how nick durron does it?

My youtube channel is: CRAZYMUSICPARODIES

Re: Mouth animation help!

Well, I e-mailed him about it and got this reply:

Nick Durron (in the E-mail) wrote:

Hey,

I have been wanting to make a tutorial for years now but I've never gotten to it. Maybe someday... I can give you some tips though. Basically what I do is make a black shape for the mouth and keyframe it to change into one of several preset mouth shapes to match the audio. You could do this with a polygon object in a 3D program, which would not be very difficult. After the actual mouth animation is done you just have to reposition the mouth to match any head movement of the minifigure. That's the basic process. It's a little hard to explain without getting into specifics of how I do it in After Effects, but I hope that helps.

I'm not sure that would answer your question though...

Re: Mouth animation help!

In my opinion, I think that the idea of mouth animation should be dropped. If done wrong, it can very easily distract the viewer from the entire film. I suggest making more quality effective brickfilms before moving onto such a big step. Though do what you want. You never know how it's going to turn out, and that can also be a good thing mini/wink

(Though if you really want to make realistic mouths, trace over a normal mouth in photoshop, then try to mimic the different phonemes as best as you can)

EDIT: A little 'cheat' or guide of reference is the Glueface phoneme gallery: http://bricktrick.de/index-e-glueface-4.php You can use it as reference, or simply even use those. That's for creating phoneme mouth animation. The style Nick Durron uses is (IMO) quite easy, you just need a little experience with AfterFX. Though I prefer the phonemes over the masking due to it "blending" in more with the animation.

Last edited by Mason (December 12, 2011 (06:56pm))

Re: Mouth animation help!

Mason wrote:

In my opinion, I think that the idea of mouth animation should be dropped. If done wrong, it can very easily distract the viewer from the entire film. I

Agreed I have seen many mouth animations (mostly in tests) that don't match the words being spoken
very distracting

I have though about this for a wile but I think that patience and practice will be the best thing for a problem like this

Re: Mouth animation help!

Thefourmonkeys have a tutorial. Also Forrestfire does it with a bunch of just generic mouths and just picks and chooses which ones. There are several other topics designated to the problem that 0ld Scratch has responded to. Some are in Post-Production.

Re: Mouth animation help!

Mason wrote:

In my opinion, I think that the idea of mouth animation should be dropped. If done wrong, it can very easily distract the viewer from the entire film.

So because something can be detrimental if it's done wrong, the entire concept is rubbish... That's just dumb. Pretty much EVERYTHING is crap if done incorrectly.

THAC XIV entry here: (Never) Meant To Be

Re: Mouth animation help!

You know, It seems that like Jargon and Sean are always the voice of reason on these forums. mini/yes

https://i.imgur.com/gGaR9Oz.png
Youtube @TheRealSonjira I consider it a personal defeat if my pee is not perfectly clear every time.]