Enable Lip Sync Options & Reduce Lip Keys for ALL iClone iAvatars
Known multi-year issues: Even with crystal clear, well-normalized 44K 16bit mono vocal wav files 1. IClone lip sync engine produces 50 to 70% REDUNDANT viseme keys 2. IClone lip sync engine fails to line up at minimum 50% of usable keys
IClone lip sync inaccuracies are probably acceptable (or indiscernible) to hobby movie makers To discerning users, experienced animation artists or those who've used other prosumer lip sync tools (Mimic or Unity plugins etc) iClone's auto-generated lip keys are at best 25% accurate which means, tedious manual adjustment and fine-tuning or, may as well start from scratch: ERASE the whole auto-generated Viseme>Lips track and then MANUALLY match little viseme keys, patiently, one by one, to audio file
RL is aware of the issue and have attempted to fix it. IClone6 introduced fixes: - Reduce Lip Keys (activated only for CC) - Lip Sync Options (activated only for CC)
RL also finally added Audio scrubbing in a recent update. All helped. However Deep into iClone 6 dev cycle...yet Reduce Lip Keys and Lip Sync Options have yet to be enabled GLOBALLY for ALL IAVATARS!
G5, G6, Genesis1, Genesis 2, Genesis 3, Maya import, Max import, Blender import, Poser import, Mixamo import can all benefit from iClone's progress in lip sync. After all, IClone is marketed as a MULTI-CHARACTER-PLATFORM-SUPPORTING character animation tool.
Thank you for listening and thank you for making iClone a more EFFICIENT animation tool for discerning animators.
If the lipsync visemes are exposed in the upcoming Python scripting we can greatly improve it by using outside programs and/or just other scripts. I have written routines myself which will improve such tracks 100% (or more). Please consider making it possible to access these (both reading and writing, but particularly writing to that track).
gogstudios
Can you tell us why it isn't enabled for non CC characters? Is there some technical limitation that's stopping you guys from doing it?
I have done quite a bit of lip sync with iclone 6. It is tedious and needs quite a bit of refinement. Most of the time I find that I am reducing the number of visemes and reusing the same ones just to get a somewhat believable lip movement.
I think the key is to add more bone and morph control of the face based on the sound files. This is something that has been accomplished years ago by other software developers.
animagic
I don't why this doesn't get more votes, because the technology is there to do things better. Mimic, mentioned above, is a good example. I have used Mimic from the time that it was a Poser plugin and produced by a company called LipSync. I have written this many times in forum posts, but might as well repeat it here: one of the reasons Mimic works so well is that it uses a script of the dialog text to support the viseme assignment. To quote from the Mimic 3 manual:
"The Text area of the Session Manager is where you load plain ASCII text (.txt on a Windows PC) files. Alternatively, you may click in the Text Display field and then type in your desired text. Your text must quote the sound file verbatim. This step is optional, but typically improves results. Mimic analyzes this text file (if present in conjunction with the sound file) to ensure maximum phoneme accuracy. It does this by reading each syllable, applying standard English pronunciation rules, and selecting the best available phoneme for the job."
The manual is actually quite thorough and may serve is a source of inspiration: http://docs.daz3d.com/lib/exe/fetch.php/artzone/pub/software/mimic/mimic_pro_user_guide_071408.pdf.
There is no shame in borrowing good ideas.
