What is SALSA LipSync?
SALSA LipSync v2 is a system for breathing life into game or application characters/avatars using simple ideas and workflows. The goal is to bring AAA quality facial animation features to indie and pro developers with minimal effort.
Watch our video tutorial series for SALSA LipSync Suite v2.
SALSA LipSync
SALSA (Simple Automated LipSync Aproximation) is a realtime system for creating lip synchronization from audio input without the need for phoneme mapping or baking. This creates a simple and fast workflow that allows the designer to implement lipsync into their project without spending a lot of time or effort. Being a realtime solution affords opportunities that do not exist with phoneme mapping solutions, such as: microphone input and text-to-speech input. Realtime means it is not necessary to bake in phoneme mapping analysis. Need to re-record audio voice-overs...just do it -- SALSA does not care.
NOTE: SALSA is NOT a phoneme mapping system. The light-weight, realtime capabilities are produced from an approximation algorithm and do not produce Pixar quality lipsync results. This means, SALSA will NOT detect specific phonemes and trigger the associated viseme.
SALSA LipSync v2 is procedural, based on audio waveform analysis using amplitude progression and many other techniques to provide compelling lipsync automation. It improves dramatically on the capabilities of SALSA v1 and is perfect for most requirements. You will have to make the determination of whether or not you want to leverage SALSA's easy workflow and awesome capabilities into your project. If you are unsure, check out our YouTube channel for SALSA LipSync v2 samples and tutorials.
EmoteR
EmoteR is an emote randomizer utility. Some of the functionality of EmoteR was previously available in RandomEyes (SALSA v1). In SALSA v2, EmoteR is its own module and has quite a few new and advanced features. It provides easy configuration of emotes and several methods of triggering them. You can, of course, randomly fire emotes. Additionally, you can leverage SALSA to trigger the timing and nuance of (emphasis) emotes. And you can also implement repeater emotes that use a repetitive cycle.
EmoteR also has a simple API that allows you to take more control over your emoting and trigger emotes via code, UI interface, or Timeline.
Eyes
Eyes (formerly known as RandomEyes in SALSA v1) is an eye and head tracking and random generation system. Eyes adds many new capabilities that were not available in v1 and will breathe a huge amount of life into your characters on its own. In addition to eye randomization, it is now possible to link one or more character heads into the mix to really liven things up.
Of course, just as with v1, v2 allows you to track objects in the scene (with head and eyes). Eye tracking is also performed independently (where applicable), which creates a super realistic look to eye movement and even supports a cross-eyed look when targets are close.
Watch our video tutorial series for SALSA LipSync Suite v2.