Mouth Shapes/Transition problem for speech

Ok, so I drew a couple of mouth shapes/positions in synfig that I was going to use for speech.

So I have 8 seperate shapes that together are pretty much all different mouth positions you need for animated speech.
I was planning to just show the right shape when that sound was said and when another sound is made show the other shape. (When the character said “O” show the “O” mouth, when he said “A” show that shape, etcetera)

The problem is I can’t quite figure out a good way to do this. I played around with the “amount” property. Setting the amount of the wanted shape to “1” and all others to “0” so that they are invisible.
However when I do that the previous shape fades out and the next one fades in. That doesn’t quite give the desired effect.

I don’t want the mouths to be blurry or half transparent all the time. I just want to switch between the shapes without any kind of transistion.
I know that’s kind of the opposite of the great auto-tweening effects of Synfig, but I really find it looks much better then the fading.

Is there a way I can do this easily?

(If it’s really not possible how can I make one pre-drawn shape morph into another one.)

P.S. I attached what I have so far. I know it’s way too fast, but you get what I mean with the shapes fading in and out.
HeadTest2.gif

You just need to set your interpolation to “constant” to get the effect you want. Look here for some guidance:

synfig.org/wiki/Waypoints#Interpolation

Matt

Alternatively it is possible to encapsulate each mouth in a different in line canvas and export the canvas parameter. Once done you can “switch” from one mouth to other just by selecting the mouth shape exported canvas in the canvas parameter list.
See synfig.org/wiki/Paste_Canvas_Layer
and possibly synfig.org/wiki/Switching_Scenes might help. It is very similar to this mini tutorial but with exported canvases instead of external files. But conceptually it is the same solution.

-G

That works exactly as I wanted it too, thanks!

Sounds good. I’ve encapsulated each mouth and all of them encapsulated in one thing too. But after I export it I still only get “Inline” and “Other” as parameters.

It’s killing me trying to lipread what he’s saying…

Haha! No doubt it is. Good luck with that he’s not actually saying anything, I just put all the positions in to see the effect. But if you can make a sentence from it be my guest. :smiley:

He’s clearly saying, “Ah, chihuahua bliss.” But with a Boris Karloff lisp.

:smiley:

Matt

that would be a nice monthly challenge.
Create animations where it is possible to read from the lips…
has to be a famous sentence like Armstrong’s “One small step …”
then the others have to guess…