Auto sequencing a servodog for mouth movements

[bbockstanz]

I'm thinking this is not possible.  And I am trying to think of ways to accomplishing this.  Let me know if this can work somehow.  Or if there is a different approach of doing this.  But, what I would like to accomplish is programming a servodog channel (servo attached to a skull lower jaw) so that it will be easily programmable to a singing portion of a sequence.  "My" thought process says to create the mouth positions (closed, 1/4,1/2,3/4, and fully open) as effects rows(reason explained later).  I have selected those to be custom in the editor and had them as on/white.  With an additional effect row, i selected this and opened in superstar sequencer.  I then selected to auto sequence a singing face.  Selected no image.  Then, in the image setup window, created those 5 images.  I then selected "manipulate selected image" and changed the brightness of each "image" to correspond to the 1/4, 1/2, etc.  Now I took those and set those to correspond to the mouth portion in the singing faces window.  I have a audio file I made in Moises to have only the vocal of a song.  I brought that in and clicked on the auto sequence.  This works great in the superstar sequencer.  And when playing it back in there, the intensity shows a I want.  Success here.  (We will have to go back to this part later in my further thought).  I then close, and save in the effect row.  With the light output off, it shows correctly in the preview when playing.  Looks good so far.  BUT>>>>>>>>, Since it is a non enhanced network device, it will not play back when selected to output on for the preview.  BOOOOOOOO.  This would have been amazing.  Now stepping back.  Because I have the same count of lines in the superstar sequencer as I do have effects rows in the preview for the individual brightness...I was hoping to somehow just copy the rows in the top section of the superstar sequencer and past them in the preview and hoped it would fill the appropriate rows.  But....it appears that this portion of my thought process is not an option. 

Is there any other way of doing what I want other then programming this servo jaw other then completely manually. 

Is this something that the LOR development would create for use as this would be HUGE for ease of programming a servo.  You could have an additional channel or two for something like blinking eyes and some head movement.  Just like the auto sequencing of the blinking eyes of the tees/pumpkins/ other singing faces.  I would think that making a second drop down option for auto sequencing a single object with intensities for a jaw movement and such wouldn't take much effort for implementation. 

But, either or, I need some advice on how to complete what i am trying to do other then completely manually

 

[BrianBruderer]

Sounds like a clever approach if servo dog devices would work on an enhanced network.

To be honest, I'm not completely following what you are doing. But in general, the workaround for non-enhanced devices is to do the following:

After doing your sequencing in superstar, click on the File menu and select "export to sequence editor." This creates a .lms file.

Open the exported .lms file in the sequencer. The sequencer will convert it to a .loredit file. The sequencing will not be on a motion effect row, but instead will be at the "channel level" and therefore will not require an enhanced network. I'm not sure if this works in this particular case, let me know. 

[bbockstanz]

Well, I think I figured out another way.  Possibly a fairly simple way with some steps. 

1. I took the original music and brought it into Moises to be able to separate the vocals (only one singer).

2. I opened up new sequence and chose the vocal only wav file for this.  I used a preview that only had one item in it....the servodog channel I wanted to manipulate.

3. I took the row for that item and selected advanced tools and insert at sound level.  This gave me a intensity based off the sound level of ONLY the vocal wav file track.

4. I copied the entire row form there.

5. In the sequence you already have with other props, select the line you have for the new servodog prop, (should only be one row), and paste special there.  I then selected to paste by time since the file I was using is derived from the same file as the original audio.

6. Voila, it worked. 

This doesn't solve for the other things like eyes opening and closing, or some random generated head movement like pan or tilt.   But this is a start I guess.

[BrianBruderer]

So far so good!