Automated Lip-Sync for 3D-Character Animation
Tal Frank, Michael Hoch, Georg Trogemann · 1997
A central task for animating computer generated characters is the synchronization of lip movements and speech signal. For real time synchronization high technical effort, which involves a face tracking system or data gloves, is needed to drive the expressions of the character. If the speech signal is already given, off-line synchronization is possible but the animator is left with a time consuming manual process that often needs several passes of fine tuning. In this paper we present an automated technique for creating the lip movements of a computer-generated character from a given speech signal by using a neural net. The net is trained by a set of pre-produced animations. INTRODUCTION One of the major problems in character animation is the synchronization of the speech signal and lip movements. If the speech signal is already given, off-line synchronization is necessary by using a time-consuming process called "lip-sync" that is also used in classic cartoon animation. Here, the spe...