Newsgroups: comp.speech
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From: hill@cpsc.ucalgary.ca (David Hill)
Subject: Re: Help with DecTalk...please!
Message-ID: <Cots5E.129@cpsc.ucalgary.ca>
Sender: news@cpsc.ucalgary.ca (News Manager)
Organization: University of Calgary Computer Science
References: <2pd614$oj@darkstar.UCSC.EDU> <2pdg50$1me@darkstar.UCSC.EDU> <jkatzCot0rG.5tJ@netcom.com>
Date: Mon, 25 Apr 1994 17:20:01 GMT
Lines: 41

In article <jkatzCot0rG.5tJ@netcom.com> jkatz@netcom.com (Joseph Katz) writes:
>In article <2pdg50$1me@darkstar.UCSC.EDU> mmcohen@dewi.ucsc.edu (Dr. Michael M. Cohen) writes:
>>In article <2pd614$oj@darkstar.UCSC.EDU> mmcohen@dewi.ucsc.edu (Dr. Michael M. Cohen) writes:
>>>In article <CoJKI2.746@cpsc.ucalgary.ca> hill@cpsc.ucalgary.ca (David Hill) writes:
>>>....
>
>  <a lot of stuff about synchronized speech synthesis and facial animation
>   deleted>
>
>...or you can get an Amiga and use its text-to-speech synthesizer which
>can return synchronized mouth shapes.
>
>


Depends what your goals for the speech animation are, what level of quality
you want, etc.  At the bottom end, Saturday cartoon animation where the mouth
flaps and speech is heard may be adequate.  At the top end, you would want
fidelity of shape and timing as good as with real speech coming from a
human.  The higher the quality demanded, the more care is needed in the
process, including the intelligibility/naturalness of the speech itself.  You
may also be concerned with appropriate changes of facial expression along
with the speech.  Moving lips in a granite face are not very acceptable
even if the shapes, synch, and speech intelligibility/naturalness are great.

You might want to check out the video "Tin Toy" shown at SIGGRAPH a couple of
years ago.  The face was based on Keith Waters work and, although the speech
is *very* minimal, the overall effect is very impressive, largely because
of the expressiveness of the face.  When discussing computer animated speaking
faces, we must be sure to remember that we are talking about a very complex
communication channel that involves much more than just speech and moving lips.

Ultimately the whole body is involved, and some of Condon's work is highly
relevant here.

david
---------
-- 
david hill: hill@cpsc.ucalgary.ca	|	Imagination is more
voice: 403-282-6481, fax: 403-282-6778	|	important than knowledge.
nextmail: hill@trillium.ab.ca		|		(Albert Einstein)
