how to make picture talk

[slyttle]

Hi Everyone,

I'm trying to figure out if it is possible to create the effect of people talking in a static picture.

In Adobe after effects I believe this is done by masking off the mouth, adding a second layer in that contains a video of someone's lips moving, and then blending the join between the two layer .... I'm not entirely sure how (or if) it is possible to create the same sort of effect in VS Pro X4.

Any suggestions?

-Sheldon

[Ken Berry]

Place the static picture in the timeline and extend its duration by pulling on the right hand yellow edge to the length you want it to be. Then place the moving lips video in an overlay track. Adjust its size and location over the mouth of the static picture.

However, I am not sure you could blend the colour of the skin around the mouth with the colour of the face in the static picture. VS doesn't have the same sort of sophisticated tools that After Effects has. The only thing I can think of offhand would be the incredibly tedious task of using the Painting Creator feature of VS (under Tools) to paint a solid colour around the lips in each and every frame, and then use the Chroma key function to remove that colour so that only the lips remain.

[slyttle]

Thanks Ken,

I'll give that a try ... since this video is for family, it doesn't have to be perfect.

I wonder if maybe I can shift the colour spectrum of the whole video with the moving lips in order to get it to match up as closely as possible to the static image.

Another thought was to make the edge of the custom mask a bit fuzzy so that I get some pixles from the image and some from the video near the edge of the lips ... this might be a cheep and cheerful way of blending the skin-tone.

thx for your thoughts (and quick response)!

-Sheldon

[Ken Berry]

Yes, that too might work -- though it would still be a very time consuming job as you would have to apply those pixels to every frame of the moving lips. Depending on where you are in the world (PAL or NTSC), even if the lips were to be moving for only 10 seconds, that would be 250 (PAL) or 297 (NTSC) frames you would have to alter...

[teknisyan]

You can also try to go to the stop-motion approach and instead of changing the whole picture you just move or change the position or movement of the mouth or whatever part of the photo you want to move.

Here's a quick video tutorial on how to create your stop motion animation.

http://vimeo.com/groups/vs14en/videos/19414292

[Trevor Andrew]

Hi

Create a PNG image having transparent lips, maybe feather the edges.
Place in Overlay Track 2, with the lips video in Overlay Track 1

I suppose that’s similar to the Adobe affect you mentioned in the first post.
I think I just mentioned similar in your other post regarding Picture Frames?