AS/Papagayo flexibility & customization issues

[molaconola]

We have a team of 3, new to AS, that is working on an animation project. The characters' movement has been done by one via stop-motion animation in After Effects and is imported as a .mov in small chunks into AS. We are using AS to apply the eye and mouth movement and expressions. We're trying to create a good workflow at the same time as learning this, working with Papagayo & the phenomes, and have a few questions @ this point. My talented 13-yr. old daughter has done the storyboards and is using AS to draw/animate the eyes & mouths. We sure would appreciate some guidance for some roadblocks we have come across, as we haven't yet found clear solutions in all the Help areas (tutorials, etc.). Here are our issues:

1. There are 2 characters in these scenes. Can we have a library of our created mouth/eye shapes that will be importable into every new document we're creating for these multiple sections of the animations? What are the tricks for setting these up or importing them for each section and each character? I've read about Start-up preferences and am wondering if that would help us, but don't know how.

2. How do we change or add additional mouth shapes once we've gotten the Papagayo files the way we want and have imported them? For instance, in a scene where a character is sad, we want the "rest" mouth to be more a frown than usual. There are other goofy expressions that don't match any of the Papagayo phenomes, too, and we are not sure how to either add those in or manipulate existing ones (without changing them globally). Would this involve additional switch layers, or bones? If so, how? I also read something today in the Tutorial/Help documents that suggested that the mouth shapes needed to all have the same amount of points to be able to do something in sub-layers that sounded like it could be what we need as well, but am not sure. None of these documents go into any sort of "how-to" detail, though, so we're not sure how to proceed.

3. I've seen mentioned the Amazon AS book...would this go into the kind of detail we're looking for (that is beyond the tutorials)?

4. I had a problem last night with importing a recently synched Papagayo file. The phenomes were all in the wrong place when brought into AS. Am wondering if this is due to me using my MAC/Leopard system to do Papagayo (just uploaded the newest version), or if those bugs have been worked out. I am also wondering if it has to do with the order of importing things into AS, and if there is a best order to do this (we're needing to bring in the .mov file, the .aif file and the papagayo file before working in AS).

Thanks for any guidance you can give!

[synthsin75]

1) File>import>anime studio object will allow you to select any upper level grouping layer from another AS file to import.

2) For expressions, such as sad, you can put a switch layer containing all the phonemes for an expression in a higher switch layer with other such expressions. (This is referred to as 'nested switch layers') As long as each expression switch layer has the same data file, you can then switch between them for your expressions, and they will be synced to the same data.

Alternately, for single expression phonemes and 'goofy' expressions, you can right-click a word in Papagayo and change its phoneme to any custom word you'd like. So you could change 'rest' to 'sad rest'. As long as you have a phoneme in the switch with the same name, it will call this 'sad' phoneme.
For those 'goofy' expressions, just add extra 'filler' words in the lip-sync text so you have a word to modify for the 'goofy' phoneme.

3) Don't know about the book, but the tutorials and this forum were all I needed.

4)My first guess would be something to do with changing your framerate, but that's only a wild guess. I have heard Papagayo being a pain on Mac though.

Hope that helps.

[molaconola]

Thanks for the help. We're still a little confused about the steps needed under the #2 response. Specifically, we don't know how to go about setting up this heirarchy of switch layers you describe. Are the different groups of phonemes (i.e. sad, happy) set up as separate switch layers within another switch layer OR within a group layer? If within another switch layer, how do you switch between them timeline wise? Does this switching all happen in Papagayo or some of it in AS? And, if so, how? Also, would we create a "parent layer" (group or switch) named for each of our 2 characters (with no phonemes directly attached), and within these create "Character #1-Sad" "Character #1-Happy" etc. with accompanying phonemes? And now do we do all this set-up in AS before going back into Papagayo and correcting or adding these additional expressions or variations we want?

Thanks for any light you can shed on this. It is VERY much appreciated.

[synthsin75]

Main switch
-sad switch
--phoneme vector
--phoneme vector
-happy switch
--phoneme vector
--phoneme vector

Your Papagayo data file is used in every switch layer but the main one. The main switch layer is only used to pick your expression. You would switch this one manually in AS as you animate.

If you're using the same mouth for several characters, then just duplicate this 'main switch' after you have it all setup. (I assume you know how to do the multiple voices in Pagagayo)

[mkelley]

Not that it's the final word, but here is my setup with my characters.

1. I have three basic mouth groups, all grouped under a switch layer called "Mouth" (duh). Each subgroup is also a switch layer, so I have a switch layer of mouth shapes for a "happy" mouth, an "angry" mouth and a "neutral" mouth. Then I load in the Papagayo data into each of the three mouth subgroups.

Now I can change mouth expression on the timeline by choosing the switch layer of the upper "mouth" group, so person can start off smiling as they talk and then frown, or vice versa. Only drawback is that AS will not interpolate between such grouped switch groups (which is to say it will interpolate the mouth shapes at the lower level, but not switch smoothly between a sad "E" and an angry "E". However, it happens rapidly enough that it's very effective anyway).

2. I have an eyebrow switch layer consisting of various eyebrow layer positions such as angry, sad, puzzled, surprised, etc. These are all interpolated switch layers and can move very smoothly between the eyebrow positions.

3. I have an eyeblink master grouping consisting of upper lids, lower lids and (for women) eyelashes. These layers are squinting, wide open, sad, etc. I define actions that can change the eyes all at once (so I don't have to reset three different layers at the same time when I want a character to squint, for example). I also have actions that blink at various speeds and positions (a wide open blink, for example, is different from a sad blink).

4. I control the pupils separately as a vector layer.

All four of these things combine to form very sophisticated emotions, and there isn't an easy way to "can" them (nor would I want to). Putting an "angry" mouth on a puzzled brow with a heavy lid is very very different than having a neutral mouth on the same eye positions, not to mention the look of the pupils moving around. But once you've been playing around for a while with this setup it's easy to orchestrate the interplay of emotions so it feels very natural (I've gotten laughs with just the character expression in a very subtle manner, even without dialog).

You can't just assume that because you have your character's eyebrows in what is known as a standard "angry" position that it will read that way because it depends on the whole package -- put a smiling mouth on that and it looks very mischievous, for example (heighten this with a squint and the pupils moving from side to side as he plots). The combinations would number into the hundreds, so it would be useless to try and define an action that simply said "mischievous" anyway -- and the emotions will change depending on the dialog as well. But it's great fun to play with this stuff.

[molaconola]

Thanks to all these helpful hints...now we still want to know how to "manually switch" between the switch layers in AS...do you just click on them, because, in my daughter's opinion and limited experience, that does not seem to make sense in the timeline? Sorry if these sound like rudimentary questions. It is very difficult to be working on a project with a deadline, a practically zero budget, and learn a program at the same time! We sure appreciate your help!

[mkelley]

You right click on the switch layer and choose the one you want -- not sure why it doesn't "make sense" to her, but that's the way to do it.

[slowtiger]

To be exact: you create a key in the switch timeline, right-click it, and choose the phonem/layer/expression you want.

[mkelley]

ST,

You don't have to create a key to do this -- simply right-clicking on the switch layer (in the layers menu) and selecting the layer desired will automatically create that key.

I don't know why you'd want the extra step of creating the key and right-clicking on it (but to each his own).

[synthsin75]

I assume ST meant that that was how it made sense in the timeline.

[molaconola]

Thanks to everyone for your helpful info...we are so grateful for this wonderful forum for answering questions we just couldn't find answers for elsewhere! We're giving it all a try on this end and we'll be in touch if we run up against any further roadblocks.

Thanks again!

[molaconola]

Hi,

We have really made progress here with all your help! The great suggestions as to workflow and procedures really were a godsend. One thing we can't figure out, even after searching thru other posts on the topic, is the Visibility timeline and how to get that to work with our vector layer of eye pupils. We have set up a switch layer for other eye shapes, including closed eyes, but obviously want our eye pupils to disappear during these "blinks." We have tried all sorts of things, including clicking on the visibility layer where we want them to disappear (we see the pink after that) and clicking again where we want them to reappear. However, when we view what we've done, still clicking on the pupils' vector layer, the pupils don't disappear during that pink part on the timeline. There must be some little step we're missing, and we sure would appreciate knowing what that was!

Thank you all so much for being so helpful! You are all great teachers!

[molaconola]

We figured out the little trick - clicking on the main switch layer of the character's face instead of on the vector layer - now it's invisible where the pink part is on the visibility layer! Yippee!