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November 11, 2006

superNOVember - 8

by sven at 11:59 pm

Today's stopmo progress:

I think the next step for the Q&D project is going to be recording a scratch track. I'm feeling ready to choose my lipsync software.

AnimAide XT (1.0.3) has some clever and unique features as a framegrabber. In terms of doing any kind of serious lipsync work, however, I think I'd find it pretty useless. (Thanks for the tip, though, Mike!)

I tried this software earlier this year, when it was just "AnimAide". It's pretty good, and I recommend that Mac users give it a whirl. For me, though, it has a few quirks that I find irritating -- I'll probably stick with FrameThief for the time being. Considered doing a formal review of the product; but that'd take me a little too far afield from the projects that I'm really pursuing right now.

I recalled that LIO has a page about stopmo software, and found it again. LIO references three lipsync aps for Macs: Magpie, Papagayo, and JLipSync. Judging from the website, JLipSync doesn't look like reliable programming, so I haven't bothered to download it and give it a real test. Magpie and Papagayo are the serious contenders, and I'm leaning toward Magpie.

Papagayo is FREE, and very good. Jeffrey, if you're listening: Take a look -- I think you could do great things with this software!!

(Incidentally, Chris Boyers just put up another vlog "making of" entry today where he talks about using Papagayo. I found it useful to see how it fits into his workflow. Worth watching.)

Magpie is not necessarily all that different from Papagayo, but it costs $250. (Youch.) The extra bells and whistles may be worth it to me, though. I'm still sorting out exactly what Magpie has that Papagayo doesn't... Here's a partial list:

The job can get done with Papagayo -- but I think I'd have a smoother, more enjoyable experience with Magpie... This may be how I use birthday money I received this year.

Another factor weighing on my mind: Magpie is what they use at a particular animation company where I'd like to work. There's a test that they give you: A puppet, an X sheet -- go! No particular timeline on this ambition... But I do have a reason to be interested in what software gets used at the professional level.

In life news: This evening Gretchin and I finally had a chance to go have a social night with friends. We've been trying to get around to this for weeks... We watched the Classic Trek episode "Space Seed" followed immediately by "The Wrath of Khan."

Y'all already knew that we're geeks, right?

posted by sven | November 11, 2006 11:59 PM | comments (7) | categories: stopmo

Comments

Most ewxcellent! I'll be watching your lipsync testing. Oh, I tried JLipSync before, and it went absolutely haywire and basically turned my computer into an insane rampaging beast that I had to shut down (the hard way) and then throw away the software. It did this twice, and I didn't give it another chance. Good call on that one. Since you're doing gibberish for this film, of course you could just animate nonsense mouth movment/head wagging etc, and then add vocal sounds to match. You could first record the vocal scratch track just to get a sense of timing. But I understand this is an opportunity to learn lip sync, and I'm sure you'll make the best of it as such.

Posted by: Darkstrider at November 12, 2006 5:59 AM

Can't go wrong with the original Star Trek - it's classic. Watching Shattner overact is pretty funny too.

I have always heard magpie is the best for lip sync, but I did not know it was available for Mac's

Posted by: Mark F. at November 12, 2006 8:55 AM

Thanks for the Papagayo tip, I'm on my way to download city now :) I've been wanting to do more lip-sync (my one and only attempt was with Mike's little glove of birthday love) but there won't be any dialogue in the Jenny film, so it seems moot at this point...but soon enough.....

I never did get into Star Trek, I'm not sure why, I've been at times obsessed with pretty much every other genre show (faves being Buffy and Xena, and all those horror anthology shows which I adore, TwilightZone, Tales From the Darkside, Friday the 13th the Series, Amazing Stories, I could go on :)....ST seems like such an undertaking though, like 30 years of shows to watch....my wife liked Next Gen. so I've seen some of them, but thats about it.....

And yes, we knew you were geeks.........we can smell our own :)

Posted by: ubatuber at November 12, 2006 10:02 AM

Thanks for the links to the other software. Magpie works amazingly well when it works, but the interface is TERRIBLE- it uses its own windows like pull downs and it crashes constantly without warning. I've used it for work on several different mac machines and it's unstable on all of them. On a PC it might be different, I haven't tried. good luck and thanks for the links.

Posted by: anonymous at November 12, 2006 11:39 AM

I should have been more specific... Magpie (which costs $65) is NOT available for Macs. But Magpie Pro is.

Hey anonymous -- thanks for the tip about random crashes! That's valuable info!

...After sleeping on it, I've changed my mind. Magpie is still tempting -- and I may wind up getting it a little later on -- but there's no reason why I have to purchase it for my FIRST lipsynch effort. (And particularly for a project where the characters speak gibberish.)

I'm going to go ahead with using Papagayo on the Q&D project, and learn firsthand to what extent its deficiencies really bother me. The main practical consequences of this decision: I'll wind up putting more time into making my own X sheets, and I'll probably work with fairly short sound clips -- rather than with the whole soundtrack at once.

Posted by: sven at November 12, 2006 12:43 PM

I never really liked any of the followup Star Trek shows.... what happened to the humor? That's what makes the original great, that and the sense of a perfect ensemble cast working together and having great fun doing it.

Posted by: Darkstrider at November 12, 2006 9:02 PM

Good choice, Sven. And I'll be watching you lead the way with syncing.

Shatner overacting? Don't be ridiculous! I have a wicked wicked crush on that man and he can literally do no wrong in my eyes.

Yes, Paul knows. He even took me to a Bill booksigning one year for my birthday. And Bill did not disappoint. Hubba T. Hubba.

Posted by: shelley Noble at November 12, 2006 9:05 PM

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