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View Full Version : Need help with animating a cat

IneffablePolk
07-16-2006, 06:00 AM
First of all I'd like to apologize if this isn't the proper board to post this in, but none of the boards under "General Technique" seemed quite right either.

I have an idea for a project that would almost certainly require some sort of computer animation, and I have no idea how to go about it, or even where to start. What I have in mind is a video blog from the perspective of my cat. What I would like to do is record video of my cat sitting around, record audio of someone speaking the cat's lines, and then use some form of computer trickery to make it look like the cat's lips are moving. Sort of like the commercial with the bulls playing football, only with a cat.


Like I said, I have no idea how to do something like this, and it seemed like this would be a good place to ask for help. So, any thoughts?


Thanks.


--Jeff
LucentDreams
07-16-2006, 11:13 AM
this is somethign I highly doubt I'd ever see someone do without 3 or 4 years of training and 3D experience. Being capable to model, rig, setup hair, track, animate, simulate, render and composite, thats a lot of stuff for a newb to do even in a mediocre way.
nemesis_256
07-16-2006, 02:22 PM
Do you really need to make the lips move? IMO, any animal that has their lips move when talking is lame. I much prefer interpreting it as thoughts.
BadgerSundae
07-16-2006, 08:44 PM
Chalk me up in agreement with with Lucent and nemesis' comments. If you want to do as you describe with any semblance of quality, it's a truckload of work. If you had a lot of VFX experience, you might be able to pull off a short video segment by yourself, but a regular video blog with effects shots in each... not so much.

I think you could pull off the blog with good video footage and well-delivered voice-over narration. Nail those two and see if you're satisfied. If you still want the effects at that point, dive in. Just know that you have a lot of learning ahead of you.

Best of luck.
IneffablePolk
07-19-2006, 04:43 AM
You guys are probably right. I will put together a quick episode to see how it looks, and if I still think that it needs lip movement, I'll just have to recruit someone who has computer animation experience onto the project. Once I finish the test episode I'll post again regarding how it turns out. If I think it's any good, I may even post a link.
pollywoggles
07-22-2006, 03:34 AM
If it's for a video blog, you probably don't need an incredibly high production quality. Maybe you could just use a 2D morphing program... or perhaps after effects, maybe cinepaint... or even hand-draw the mouth on the movie frames using some other 2d animation program such as Mirage.

... or you could just feed your cat peanut butter and sync the audio according to what the cat does...

Just to give you an idea how a couple of people did it in 3d (using 3d matchmoving / 2d tracking with a 3d animation)...


http://www.eyeonline.com/Web/EyeonWeb/Community/case_studies/rainmaker_goodboy/rainmaker_goodboy.aspx
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