Setup Custom Characters

Creation of the Blendshapes:

To enable the LipTalk Plugin, you must have blendshapes/poses for specific visemes. The full set of visemes includes 

• AA

• EE

• IY

• OW

• UW

• F

• W

• SH

• T

• M 

For the Comic mode of LipTalk, you only need 

• AA

• EE

• OW

• T

• M

The first step is to attach a Pose Morph tag to your character's geometry.

A convenient way to create all the needed poses is to make a Null-Object and apply the LipTalk tag to it. 

Drag the empty Pose Morph tag into the LipTalk Plugin and click "Add Poses".

This will generate empty poses for all the required visemes and assign them the correct name.

This saves you from doing it manually.

Tip: You should disable the LipTalk Tag to be able to model/sculpt the poses in the PoseMorph tag otherwise it tries to control the Pose Morph tag.

Creation of the Blendshapes:

To enable the LipTalk Plugin, you must have blendshapes/poses for specific visemes. The full set of visemes includes :

• AA

• EE

• IY

• OW

• UW

• F

• W

• SH

• T

• M 

For the Comic mode of LipTalk, you only need 

• AA

• EE

• OW

• T

• M

If your character has a Jaw Joint to controll the Jaw, you have 3 possibilities now:

1. 1. Only Blendshapes:
      You model/sculpt the viseme shapes with or without the help of the Jaw Joint and use the "Current State to Object" function in Cinema 4D  and connect the new object as target in the Pose Morph tag or you simply sculpt/model the poses. Your Jaw Joint then has nothing to do anymore with the Liptalk plugin, because you use completely blendshapes.
      
      

   2. Mixture of Bendshapes and the Jaw Joint and the Jaw Joint Solver Tag:
      You add all the poses via the "Add Poses" button in the LipTalk tag or do it manually. Don´t forget to disable the LipTalk tag. Switch into the Edit mode of the Pose Morph tag, set every pose to "Post Defomers" since it should take the Jaw Joint into account. Then you just need to sculpt the lips only instead of the full jaw geometry.
      
      Example:
      Pose "AA" needs nothing to do. You can let the pose empty, since the Jaw later opens the mouth with the help of the Jaw Solver tag.
      Pose "EE": Open the Jaw with the Jaw Joint a bit and go into your PoseMorph Tag select the "EE" pose and sculpt just the lips a bit sideways.
      
      Do this for all other poses. Since the Jaw Joint opens the mouth later, you only need to model the lips, saving you a lot of time.
      Since you are using now the Jaw joint and blendshaps in combination you have also to use the LipTalk Jaw Joint Solver Tag in combination with the LipTalk Tag.
      
      

   3. Only Jaw Joint (Simplest Animation)
      Since your character has a Jaw joint you can use the LipTalk Jaw Joint Solver Tag in combination with the LipTalk Tag.
      It controls a Jaw Joint and opens and closes the mouth depending on the visemes and strength
      You just need a Pose Morph tag and the required poses, which can be empty and the Jaw Solver Tag on the Jaw Joint. 

Go to LipTalk Plugin  to find out how to work with the Jaw Solver Tag