Voice and Audio
Dannycoppell
Posts: 49
I don't know if this has been asked before,but is there anything avaiable or any ways to vocalize the figures or give the scenes sound like the "Sims" do?
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I'm not sure what you want - to add sound to the anuiamted output from daz Studio? No, but render to an image sequence and you can add audio in your video editor (rendering to an image sequence is good practice anyway). Or match aniamtion to audio? The 32 bit version of DS has LipSync for that (then save a scene or Pose preset and use that in the 64 bit version for rendering).
The Sims is a really bad program to compare Daz3D to. Low poly mesh and low resolution maps. Like all video games they make those sacrifices to get smooth gaming. The lip movements in that are known as mouth flap and it's not special. IF you're using windows and IF you have the 32 bit Daz3D installed, Mimic lip sync studio will give you mouth flap. https://www.daz3d.com/mimic-live
Daz3D is pushing the industry to create ultra realism in its prduct. It is brilliant and unparalleled for its still frame work. The model designs are top notch. They even have a separate bones for bending and twisting, so they can custom weight map to each of those actions, but it is not for animating. Inverse kinematics do not work...not properly. It’s a foot dance nightmare no matter which color of pins you use. Not to get too far off subject, voice actors are always pain and out of the building before anyone starts those animations. (Not including MOCAP). Voices don’t ever start after you render.
But... if Daz ever fixes its animating system and adds the ability to import audio tracks, they will make a ton of money and dominate the industry in markets they're not even playing in right now (IMO). Specifically, not like other really complicted programs out there that require a couple years in school to figure out, but in a Daz3D way. Thousands of new users who can't afford those classes and will be trying to find a way into the industry. Currently there is no better software out there for that. It is how I got started, and I would love to animate in Daz3D...with audio.
But but... you can import audio. Edit/audio.
A video review of 3 out of the 4 audio based lipsynch options for Daz studio
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xOSyocgvpRfrYw821IxxdYVLuQI5rALm/view
It’s all mouth flap though, we are made of meat and we flap our meat to make sounds to communicate
lipreading can yield some amusing results as visemes and phonemes are sound and only loosely correspond to the musculature that produces them on an induvidual, some people hardly move their mouths and produce intelligeable speech others look like they are entering a gurning contest.
Mimic roughly correlates certain morphs to sound but for realistic facial movements you need mocap with or without marker dots and a program that matches that to the facial morphs and bones, they exist but not many import data back into DAZ studio, faceshift apparently can via Motionbuilder and FBX but I have not seen much on it, most stuff is rendered in something like Max or Maya.
As for the Sims, they speak Simlish
do you want a Text to speech Simlish translator added to AniLip
What industry??
The professional CG /VFX industry does not use Daz studio, they use the Autodesk products or Houdini .
Thus the people seeking careers in that industry , need to learn those programs ..not Daz studio
The hobbyiest, still render ,portrait /pinup demographic that dominates the Daz/Poser user base, does not much care about animation /lipsynch to sound etc.
Also, something people tend not to understand is that complexity is a double-edged sword. Daz is great for what it does, but the more functionality you add to something, generally speaking, the more difficult it becomes to use. The reason Maya, for example, has such a steep learning curve is that it's an incredibly powerful program and is stuffed to the gills with functionality. I'm all for improving the animation capabilities of Daz, but I don't want it to turn into Maya.
You are right about lip movements. There is a huge spectrum of difference in how people move their mouths, but we don't animate by what people do in the real world, we animate what looks the best, regardless of the voice actor. This is a good example of how to animate a mouth regardless of your actor. The weak speakers are mumblers! ????
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfZscA9V6nU
I don't believe you need Maya or Mocap products unless you're making a full production movie for Marvel. If I can manually produce a good example in Daz 4.11 without mimic and just my video editor. Definitely better than what you can do with Mimic. Maybe you buy me a coffee at Millcreek down the street from Daz, if I pull it off. I live a stones throw away. I'll more than likely screw it up but I think I can.
I still prefer timeline scrubbing but face mocap has become cheaper and faster. I would love to see Daz incorporate this or something similar.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89dW2LFR07I
I believe that given enough time and patience you, or anyone so inclined, can meticulously handkey a lip sync animation that will be better than any Default unedited Daz Mimic generated lipsynch.
But I also beleive that this is not the year 1959 and that I am not a masochist.
Animated movie making in general is quite time consuming as it is .
Some of us prefer to spend time telling our stories& narratives rather than engaging in masochistic exercises in self flaggelation,when Modern technolgy has enabled us to avoid such tedium.
What are you saying; You don't want to buy me a cup of coffee? ????
Lipsync software is a good place to start but it does create artifacts and unwanted elements that you have to remove with Keymate or tweak in Graphmate. Its not all roses. Daz3D doesn't even sell Keymate or Graphmate anymore so maybe I need to take a look around and rethink this conversation. I think I'm talking Ruth Chris quality at the Chuck E Cheese. ???? This has gone pretty far into the weeds from 'sounds like the Sims'.
I would ask however; If someone downloaded Das Studio today and wanted to remove lipsync artifacts, how would they do that without Keymate? They can't buy it. How would they get ahold of it? Is Daz3D working on something better in R&D? Or are we saying they leave the terrible mouth flap it creates and please don't try to make it look better? Maybe they could make all the face bones visible and delete each wrong keyframe it puts in by manually clicking ...for each affected bone ...at each keyframe in the timeline. Suddenly that's not so fast anymore.
Also, scrubbing a timeline in my video editor and then animating a pair of lips in Daz3D by doing timeline math in Daz3D, would be masochistic for me, but, if you read all of what I wrote, I was putting up a silly challenge. I wanted to hang out and talk in a coffee shop with Daz3D peope, and maybe ask some face to face quesitons that I don't want to post in the forums. I wasn't recommending it as a workflow. I don't live in 1959 either but I think it would have made for a fun conversation...at my expense.????
Lets just forget the coffee shop challenge. I have a thousand questions so maybe I should just walk from my house to Daz Productions and intoduce myself. I'm just a guy that makes a living by using Daz3D's software every day. Could be fun!
I don't know where all of the x4 question marks came from. I didn't do that.
Graphmate and keymate are now bundled free as Part of the core Daz studio software as of
Version 4.12 ( now in public beta release)
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/341006/daz-studio-pro-beta-version-4-12-0-47-updated
No I actually agree that the current native options
(free 32 bit mimic) and the $60 USD mimic Live have Zero Phoneme editing options other than using the (now free) graphMate/keyMate.
We used to have a Great Phoneme editor in the form of Mimic pro3 back in the Millenuim 2-3 figure era as I Showcased in my video review here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xOSyocgvpRfrYw821IxxdYVLuQI5rALm/view
The free Papagayo plugin lets you edit out the unwanted "Lip flap"
with an elegantly simple interface, Before sending the data to Daz studio as I showcased in my Video review
You can combine the Free papagayo script for basc lipflap with puppeteer for animated facial expression as I showcased in a another video here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ME6qMhLjfVCnGcuHIZPrrlQwKNP5WvQ7/view
Finally there is the $90 USD"anilip" plugin in the Daz store
I wont be buying it.
I leave it to you to watch thier promo video and decide for yourself if it price is justified by the end results.
“I leave it to you to watch thier promo video and decide for yourself if it price is justified by the end results.”
Honorable review and I love what Daz3D is doing. It is my one stop shop for all of my still frame work…but that Papagayo stuff is just…tragic.
Currently I FBX export my genesis 8 models into Blender where I can add an audio track to my animation timeline. It’s a little work on the materials, some minor bone adjustments, but I get to keep all of the genesis 8 weight maps (which are brilliantly done btw). I also fuse the bend and twist bones together, limiting movement between the head and tail…so inverse kinematics works.
Honestly, it’s more the IK than the lipsync problem for me. Most of the animating I do is action. There’s the “Glue to Floor Utility” made by 3D Universe but IMO that is a patch that shouldn’t have to exist…and it only fixes feet, not hands. Even still it’s quite a process from watching the video. In all of my other animating programs it’s just an IK button.
Here’s my question. I know when I tried to create IK joints in Blender, the bend and twist bones acted like another joint. Once I limited out the rotation between those bones, it works great. Can we create a button in Daz3D that does that? Something you could unclick if you need the bones to work separately again? I thought it would have a bad effect on the bend and twist weight maps but it didn’t…it is really smooth. IK buttons for the hands and feet would save me a boatload of time and bring my animating back into Daz3D…because I don’t want to export anything.
I’ve been over it before in the forums about trying to animate a belly dancer for a project I was working on. Please don’t re-explain to me how the red and purple pins work. There are no more pages to turn in that book. I use the Active Pose tool daily. I don’t believe it is a solution for animating.
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