4 or 5 channel mouth

[kingfish]

plan on some wire frames this year and using rope light my question is . do you prefer a 4 or 5 channel mouth ?  I do plan to buy my first year sequences but later hope to add my own

 

thanx for any replys

 

also I wish their was spellcheck here

 

larry

[Don]

 

also I wish their was spellcheck here

 

larry

 

Spell check info here.

[sax]

All 8 (4 for Halloween and 4 for Xmas) of my faces are 4 channel mouths. Programming is universal between all faces.

And to me, the weird extra mouth movement, the half oval mouth, looks unnatural and causes the song to look laggy. It basically causes a distraction. I want the mouth movement to look unforced and natural. But that is just my opinion.

I don't buy any sequences. So I don't know anything about which one is found easier for purchase.

[godman]

All the faces I use have 8 total channels, outline, eyes open, eyes closed, top mouth, middle mouth, bottom mouth, wavy mouth and O mouth

 

For your face sequences you should look at  holidaysequences.com they are great to work with and for $15 a sequence you can't go wrong, purchase a couple sequences, see how its done and then try it on your own. For me its much more cost effective to purchase the face sequences and spend the rest of the time on my other sequences and props

 

Just my .02 cents

 

Have fun!

[jimswinder]

if you haven't already, take a look at this software:

 

http://www.lostmarble.com/papagayo/

 

check out the different mouth movements and how they are used...

 

out of the ten different mouth shapes I use 5, since several are so similar:

 

Edited February 9, 2015 by jimswinder

[mpageler]

If you're going to buy them, most are done with 5 mouth channels.

 

Seems like that's the standard that most follow in creating singing faces/trees.

[Box on Rails]

5 channels are the norm. but the more face positions you use the more natural the animation looks.

Right mow I am working on converting the Halidaycoro christmas trees from 5 to 6 mouth positions. The tree will still have 8 channels but I plan on combining the outline and lower eye channels to free up the 6th mouth position. The extra mouth channel would be for a more natural look when the letters B,M and P sounds are made. I use papagayo like Jinswinder. I use the version created by BobO here. http://itsmebob.com/SD.html. He has all the tools you need for sequencing any singing element with any number of channels. 

[Vince4xmas]

My face is 9 channels. However, one of the channels is for a male (santa) and one is for female (girl yellow hair and bow).

 

Check out "Colley Christmas" on YouTube.

[default]

IMHO the most determing factor of faces is money and cost per channels.  I agree 100% that more is better but most times my wallet doesn't agree. I certainly understand people selling sequences, it's a lot of work. I did what I did on a limited budget.

Currently I have only 1 CTB16PC to run 2 faces leaving me 2 free cicuits for other stuff, which meant combining other props that used to be controlled indepently. i.e. each wind spinner used to be on thier own circuit. When I decided to build another face I had to combine props to free up some channels. Silly me instead of buying another CTB16PC I bought Cosmic Color Pixels.

A little FYI, since most videos I've seen are Christmas-y related I wanted to give examples of different faces. Living in the Pacific Northwest, doing winter shows is not something I want to do. I do my shows in the summer months and spend the nasty cold wet days of winter inside sequencing. I also do not use my house for a backdrop, I have a pasture with Wind Spinners I wanted to see lit up, that way friends and I can sit in our favorite lawn chairs, sipping our beverages and watch the shows. This makes my song choices a little different than the standard Christmas stuff.

Both faces are 7 circuits each with 4 mouth movements. I wish I could more, but I'd rather spend the money elsewhere. I may adjust "baldys" mouth movements in the spring. Although I don't want both faces to have identical looks, if they did it would speed up sequencing.

The faces are mounted on a 4'x7' frame, and the rope lighting uses all of it.

1. face outline including nose
2. eyes open
3. eyes closed
4. mouth closed
5. mouth 1/4 open
6. mouth 1/2 open  
7. mouth "O"

I learned from the first face, and changed the style of movements for the next one built. If you plan to buy sequences make sure your mouth movements match or are close to what you buy.

In the video, it shows both faces side by side in Visulizer. (This is also how I sequence the movements) You can see the different configurations of mouth parts.

The second part of video is an actual snippet from a show. It shows the faces in action. I dubbed the song over the video and it's off just a little but you get the jest.

 

EDIT

You probaly need to go full screen with the video, it is smaller than I hoped. While the video is playing double click it to go full screen, then double click to return.

An issue I ran into was using a mixture of LED and incandesant rope lighting on the same prop. If you notice in the second part of the video, when the face on the left fades up, the bottom lights (LED) up faster then the top (incandesant) This can be adjusted in the sequencer but is just another thing to remember to do.

All the rope lighting (except the orange hair on the left face is white, I made the other colors by covering the rope light with translucent 3M Vinyl.(baldys eyes are green, lips are red) In some areas it's covered in opaque black to hide the jumps between face parts. Keep in mind blue is a very hard color for people to see on a face. i.e. blue eyes.

I have more props but they had not been added when this video was shot. The aforementioned beverages has alot to do if I remember to set up the camera.



Good Luck... Let us know how you fare... Edited February 11, 2015 by default

[jimswinder]

Currently I have only 1 CTB16PC to run 2 faces leaving me 2 free cicuits for other stuff, which meant combining other props that used to be controlled indepently. i.e. each wind spinner used to be on thier own circuit. When I decided to build another face I had to combine props to free up some channels. Silly me instead of buying another CTB16PC I bought Cosmic Color Pixels.

 

 

Have you considered using pixels instead of rope light for the mouth movements? That's what I used on mine. Not only are the mouths pixels, but also the nose (on my snowman) and the eyebrows (on my trees). The eyes (which there are 10 for each face, so they can look up, down, left, right and straight ahead) are RGB also, but not pixels. Frees up channels, though there is the cost of the RGB stuff you would need to control them...

 

Edited February 11, 2015 by jimswinder

[default]

Have you considered using pixels instead of rope light for the mouth movements? That's what I used on mine. Not only are the mouths pixels, but also the nose (on my snowman) and the eyebrows (on my trees). The eyes (which there are 10 for each face, so they can look up, down, left, right and straight ahead) are RGB also, but not pixels. Frees up channels, though there is the cost of the RGB stuff you would need to control them...

lol love the video.  I haven't looked into pixels much. I did a lttle today. I haven't messed with DMX yet and probably should rethink not using DMX. I do like the idea of moving eyes, eyebrows, hair color changes, etc. Right now I run  the show with a uMP3g3 mini director and as far as I understand it doesn't allow mixing DMX and LOR. I would not like the thought of starting over with all my sequences. I'll look into it. Thanks for the ideas.

Edited February 11, 2015 by default