This dialogue shot is an individual project I worked on in order to figure out the general mechanics of lip syncing, and also to try and combine them with body movements and language. It's important to know how the face moves in shots with dialogue, without neglecting the rest of the body and resulting in a disconnect of the animation from face to body. I've seen some scenes where the face and body look like they were animated on two different rigs and then smushed together. That is not what I was going for here. 

I also had to figure out and learn timing and sound functions when doing this, as it is an incredibly important piece of getting the dialogue to look normal. But all that being said, my process for animating this scene was to start with the most broad things and then slowly move on to the more precise ones, so I actually started with the body. The rig is in a rather odd position weight distribution wise, so it took me some time to figure out how to make it look natural, and not like he was wobbling back and forth like a drunk person. ​Unfortunately, due to the way I saved this project, I have no in progress videos to add to this page, so it is simply going to remain a process of thoughts. 

Once I got most of the body done and moving in a way I liked, I worked on facial expressions and changes. I could have started with the lip syncing, I guess, but I feel like it would have looked detatched and incorrect. I figured it was best to get the general facial expressions finished before attempting to get the mouth to move in more complex ways, so that I could match the mouth shape with the expression easier. Getting the eyes right was honestly the hardest part of this step. Every time I tried to do eye darts, it just looked like his eyes were shaking out of his head. It's a surprisingly precise and specific feature, and incredibly easy to mess up.

Only once I was done with most of the animation for the face and body did I go in and start adding the lip syncing, which was a lot of back and forth on the timeline, just trying to get the movements to look right. Human mouths are odd. I can't imagine trying to do something similar with a completely different mouth face. Some animated shows involve talking animals, or creatures that are humanoid but have different anatomy, and I bet there's a whole bunch of other things you need to keep track off as well when animating mouths like that. 

The animation for the mouth turned out okay, I think, though it is a little fast. I can't seem to figure out how to get all the correct mouth shapes in the animation without it looking like he's speaking at the speed of light. It's an annoying process and I might go back at some point and try to fix it. But for now I'm fairly happy with the result. I went back and added/tweaked some small animated pieces once I finished the lip syncing. Things like hair, fingers, clothing, that needed a bit more work. Overall this project was a good learning experience!!​​​​​​​​​​​