Phoneme reduction in automated speech for computer animation
Accurate facial animation is rapidly becoming a key feature in computer animation, from movie production to software agents. A lot of practical work in computer animation presently is done by 3ds max software. An advantage of this system is that one of the hardest part of an animator's work, creating key frames based on prerecorded soundtrack, can be automated using MaxScript control script. However, to achieve realistic results, any generated facial animations must be manually fine tuned by adding facial expressions and emotions. This paper analyses different methods for reducing the problem of phonemes in speech animation for virtual characters. Through examples created using a control parametrization approach, the paper discusses different levels of phoneme reduction, their look and application in several areas of computer animation production.