Contents
Magpie help

Contents

Thank you for using  the Magpie lip sync tool for Windows® 95/NT. Select any of the following topics to get help.

Introduction

Requirements

Getting started

The magpie window

Menu options

Toolbar

Technical support

Registering

About Magpie


Introduction
Magpie help

Introduction

Magpie is a tool that helps in the analysis of a recorded voice for lip sync animation.

With the output of this program you can make an animated character "mimics" the recorded voice so that it appears that it is really the one who's talking. This is often called "lip sync".


Requirements
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Requirements

To run Magpie you need:

- a PC compatible computer equipped with a 486 or higher processor

- Windows 95® or Windows NT® operating systems

- 16 Megabytes of RAM memory (you can go by with less but is not recommended)

- video hardware supporting truecolor graphics

- about 5 megabytes of hard disk space

- MCI device supporting 8 or 16 bits WAV audio files


About Magpie
Magpie help

About Magpie

Magpie

- the lip sync tool -

Idea & programming

Miguel Grinberg

Examples & graphics

Alicia Crivicich

Copyright © 1996 by Miguel Grinberg

Buenos Aires, Argentina

The Magpie application was developed using the Visual Smalltalk development environment
©1995 ParcPlace-Digitalk, Inc.

To contact the author you can e-mail to:

Miguel Grinberg

mgrinberg@impsat1.com.ar


Menu options
Magpie help

Menu options

Select any of the following menus to get help on it.

File menu

Waveform menu

Mouth menu

Options menu

Help menu


Toolbar
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Toolbar

Click the desired button to get help

Open

Save

Copy to clipboard

Play

Play selection

Play from selection

Play to selection

Zoom to selection

Zoom back


Technical support
Magpie help

Technical support

If you have problems, questions, comments or bug reports you can e-mail them to:

Miguel Grinberg

mgrinberg@impsat1.com.ar

Please include the Magpie version you are using. (You can find the version number selecting the "About Magpie..." option in the Help menu)


File Menu
Magpie help

File Menu

Open... (ALT+O)

Use this option to load a new WAV audio file or a previously saved magpie session (*.MPS).

Save (ALT+S)

Use this option to save the current session to disk.

Save As...

Use this option to save the current session to disk. You will be prompted to enter the name.

Copy to clipboard

With this option you can copy the exposure sheet to the clipboard. Then you can paste it into a word processor for formatting and printing. In future releases Magpie itself will include a print option. At this time this is the only way to export your work.

Exit

Select this option to exit Magpie.


Waveform Menu
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Waveform Menu

Play (CTRL+P)

Play selection

Play from selection (CTRL+F)

Play to selection (CTRL+T)

These options let you preview your work. You can play the complete waveform, only the selected portion, from the selection to end or from the start to the selection respectively.

Zoom to selection

Expands the selected part of the waveform to fill the entire waveform pane. You can apply the Zoom function again to increase the magnification.

Zoom back

Select this option to go back one zoom step.


Mouth Set menu
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Mouth menu

Add mouth... (CTRL+A)

Let's you add a new mouth to the current mouth set. You need to enter its name and select a picture that will be displayed on the preview pane to represent this mouth.
The picture must be a 128 by 128 pixel BMP format graphic file. In future releases of Magpie, other image sizes and formats will be supported.

Mouth properties...

With this option you can edit the settings for the currently selected mouth in the mouth pane. You can change its name and/or its associated picture.

Delete mouth

Select this option to remove the currently selected mouth in the mouth pane.

New mouth set...

With this option you can create a new mouth set. You will be prompted to enter its name. Then, you must add mouths to this set using the "Add mouth..." option described above.

Delete mouth set...

Use this option to permanently remove a mouth set. You will be prompted to select which mouth set you want to delete. The "Default" mouth set cannot be removed.

Select mouth set (CTRL+M)

With this option you can change the active mouth set. You will be prompted to select the new set from a list.


Options menu
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Options menu

Base timecode

Use this option to set the timecode for the first frame of the audio clip. You can use this option to synchronize the exposure sheet to the global timecode of your animation. The default base timecode is 00:00:00.00.

Audio/Video Sync

Sometimes an animation looks best if the sound track is delayed by 2 or 3 frames in relation to the image. With this option you can enter this offset. Also you can enter negative values to get the inverse effect. The default value is 0 which means that no shifting occurs.

Film (24 fps)

PAL (25 fps)

NTSC (30 fps)

You can select the frame rate depending of the output system you have. Currently you can select Film, PAL video or NTSC video frame rates. Setting this option is important to get correct information on the exposure sheet.


Help menu
Magpie help

Help menu

Contents...

View the help contents.

About Magpie...

Information about your copy of Magpie including the version number.


Magpie Window
Magpie help

The Magpie window

The magpie window is composed of four panes. Click on the following topics to get help about them.

Waveform pane

Mouth pane

Preview pane

Exposure sheet pane


Preview pane
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Preview pane

The preview pane shows the picture of the selected mouth in the mouth pane.

When playing, this pane shows an animated preview of your mouth assignments. Frames that don't have an assigned mouth display the closest one. However, if you want an accurate preview, you may need to assign a mouth for all the frames.

Frames that have assigned a mouth that was deleted (after the assignment) are shown as full black on this pane.

Preview pane commands

Double clicking with the left button anywhere on this pane plays the waveform.


Mouths pane
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Mouth pane

The mouth pane has a list of all the different mouths available in the current mouth set for assigning to the frames of the sound clip

Mouth pane commands

Left clicking on a mouth name selects it. Also, its picture is displayed on the preview pane.

Double clicking on a mouth name with the left button assigns that mouth to the currently selected frame or group of frames on the waveform pane.

Right clicking anywhere on the pane opens the Mouth menu.


Waveform Pane
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Waveform pane

The waveform pane shows a graphic representation of the waveform of the audio clip. The vertical dotted lines indicate the frame boundaries. The red section is the selected part of the waveform.

Waveform pane commands

Left clicking on a particular frame selects it (it turns red).

Double clicking with the left button on a frame selects and plays it. The preview pane also shows its assigned mouth.

Left clicking on a frame and dragging to another frame selects a group of frames.

Right clicking anywhere on the pane opens the waveform menu.


Exposure sheet pane
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Exposure sheet pane

The exposure sheet is a list containing all the mouth assignments you made on the sound clip. Each row corresponds to a frame. There are four columns:

Frame (the frame number from the start of the clip)

Timecode (the timecode for the frame)

Mouth (the mouth assigned to the frame, blank if none)

Comments (optional comments about the frame)

Exposure sheet pane commands

Left clicking on a particular frame selects it on both this and the waveform pane.

Double clicking with the left button on a frame allows you to enter or edit the comment for that frame.


Registering
Magpie help

Registering

This program is Shareware, you may evaluate it for a period of no more than 30 days. After this time you must either register or remove it from your system. Failure to comply with this condition is a violation of international copyright law.

Registered users will receive newer versions of the software as they become available free of charge.

If you want to register, print the order form included in the file register.txt located in the directory where you installed the software. You must fill in this order and send it together with the payment to the specified address.


Getting started
Magpie help

Getting started

This is a step by step tour into Magpie. If you didn't installed the software, consult the included readme file for instructions on how to do it and come back after you have completed the task.

Start Magpie if you didn't yet. Click on the copyright window to accept it. The magpie main window appears.

Click on the "Open..." option in the file menu. Select the file "VISTA.MPS". This is a magpie session file. It contains an example lip sync animation.

Click on the "Play" option in the waveform menu.

If nothing happens please check the requirements to run Magpie. If you still have problems, you may need to ask for technical support.

Now select the "Select Mouth Set" option in the mouth menu. Choose the "Cartoon" mouth set from the list.

Click on the "Play" option again. Try the other example mouth sets included. Magpie allows you to add your own mouth sets. Consult the mouth menu for help on that topic.

Now let's start a new session. Click again on the "Open..." option and now select the file "VISTA.WAV". Selecting a WAV file automatically loads a clean session to start working on.

Look at the waveform pane. It shows the graphical waveform of the WAV file. Each section between a pair of vertical dotted lines correspond to a frame.

Select the fifth frame from the left by clicking on it with the left mouse button. It turns red. The status bar at the bottom of the magpie window should display that you selected the range from 00.00.00.04 to 00:00:00.05.

Double click with the left mouse button on the selected frame. You will hear how this frame sounds.

The frame sounds clearly as an "A" so double click with the left mouse button the mouth named "A" on the mouth pane to assign it. Note that the exposure sheet is updated.

Select a frame in the middle of the waveform pane. Play it as you did before.

Click the "Play from selection" option in the waveform menu.

Now try the "Play to selection" option in the same menu.

When you have decided which mouth you want to assign to that frame, double click on it and confirm that the exposure sheet updates.

Select a group of frames dragging over the waveform pane with the left mouse button pressed. All the frames selected will turn red.

Click on the "Zoom to selection" option in the waveform menu to expand the current selected range of frames to fill the entire waveform pane. With large WAV files you may need to use this tool to magnify a section of the waveform until the frame boundaries get large enough to be seen.

When you want to go back to the full view, click on the "Zoom back" option.

Using the tools already shown, you can continue listening to frames and assigning mouths to them.

You can preview your work at any moment clicking on the "Play" option  and watching the results on the preview pane. The program takes care of the frames you don't set, but if you want an accurate preview you must assign a mouth for every frame.

Congratulations! You reach the end of this tour. To learn about other useful commands and options of magpie browse through the other topics of this help file. Enjoy!