Subject: character speech
From: [email-masked] (Nicolai Grut)
To: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 6 Feb 1995 20:02:00 -0500

>   I am currently developing an "affordable" 3D paint application but
 > before

 <explanation and other info deleted>

 >   I'm hoping that enough people would express an interest to me for
 > either an affordable 3D paint package or the voice synchronization
 > software such that I would feel justified in working on them full
 > time. I think they would be really useful tools but I honestly don't
 > know how many other people are really interested in these products.
 > Well I hope to hear from some of you about these topics.
 >
 > Rod Lambert              [email-masked]
 >
 As an animator I think this is a great idea and a clever approach.
 Although I am rarely asked to make a character talk (unless it's a
 2d animation) I can imagine that this will become more and more
 important as animation software improves,making  3d "actors" a
 practical reality. Software utilities such as yours will be a part
 of this process.

 I would suggest that to begin with, don't bother too much about
 getting the exact phoneme right. Even software that just recognises
 that a word is being spoken and opens the characters mouth while
 that is so would be valuable (perhaps the mouth could open and close
 in sync with the peeks and lows of the speech track)Most of the time,
 the character will be moving as will the camera etc so as long as
 there is the impression that the character is saying the words that
 should do for most situations. (it is only animation after all.)

 I would also suggest that you make this hardware independent. By
 that I mean that all that would be required would be a digital audio
 track (voice only of course) that could be interpreted irrespective
 of the hardware used to digitize it.

 The third suggestion that I would like to make is that the lip
 movements could be added in AFTER all the principal animation has
 been settled. There are many reasons for this as I see it, among
 them, the time needed to render previews would increase, one may
 want to change a particular audio take, etc etc .

 Anyway, I do think that your idea is a very valuable one, the only
 question remaining is, is it feasible ie: will it be worth your
 while to spend the amount of time neccessary to get it working well
 enough for enough people to buy it, thereby giving you a decent
 salary for work already done. That's why I made my first suggestion
 of starting with smaller aspirations and working up to getting the
 precise phonemes right later.

 Anyway, best of luck with you project, should you decide to pursue
 it. (I hope so)

 -Nicolai