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  • ventriloquist mouth

    Posted by John G. miller on May 10, 2005 at 3:57 pm

    Hey ya’ll. I’m trying to make a comedy sketch in which in need a mouth to move like a dummy. I have already gone through all the necessary steps in photoshop and loaded it into After Effects on layers. I can adjust the position or scale of the mouth manually and make it talk along with the monologue. I have converted audio to keyframe and now I am at the point to where I have tried several guesses at pickwhipping expressions, between the audio keyframes and position. The mouth graphic keeps jumping around or is not affected at all. I am trying to find the right expression that will allow for the subtle position change needed for lypsynching along only the Y-axis. I have tried pickwhipping position[1] to the slider on the audio amplitude track and it gives me errors. Also, I am trying to make the chin move down instead of up for the talking movement so that the mouth will be open. I know the expression is there somewhere to do it easily and I am sure someone will say something like “Oh, that’s easy stuff”, but that’s the cool thing about this forum!

    John G. miller replied 21 years, 2 months ago 2 Members · 2 Replies
  • 2 Replies
  • Mike Clasby

    May 10, 2005 at 5:48 pm

    After you pickwhipped the position to Audiokeyframes you should have an expression like this:

    temp = thisComp.layer(“Audio Amplitude”).effect(“Both Channels”)(“Slider”);
    [temp, temp]

    Change the second line:

    value + [0,temp]

    And the jaw should just drop the value of the audio keyframe.

    If that’s too much of a drop, divide the temp by a number, 2 below;

    value + [0,temp/2]

    or to make it greater, multiply by 2:

    value + [0,temp*2]

    It works for a little test solid layer, so it should work for your jaw layer.

    If the movement is to jittery or eratic you can alway convert to keyframes and put the Smoother on it.

    I didn’t figure this out myself, but modified it from a Dan Ebbert’s solution to “one axis only” in 3D dated:

    Dan Ebberts
    Date: Aug 11, 2004 at 9:07 am

  • John G. miller

    May 10, 2005 at 8:17 pm

    Thanks so much! It worked like a charm.

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