Details of Grant 

EPSRC Reference:	EP/M014053/1
Title:	Speech Animation using Dynamic Visemes
Principal Investigator:	Milner, Dr B
Other Investigators:
Researcher Co-Investigators:
Project Partners:
Department:	Computing Sciences
Organisation:	University of East Anglia
Scheme:	Standard Research
Starts:	22 July 2015	Ends:	29 November 2018	Value (£):	343,515
EPSRC Research Topic Classifications:	Computer Graphics & Visual. Human Communication in ICT
EPSRC Industrial Sector Classifications:	Creative Industries
Related Grants:
Panel History:	Panel Date Panel Name Outcome 02 Dec 2014 EPSRC ICT Prioritisation Panel - Dec 2014 Announced
Summary on Grant Application Form
This project will investigate new methods for automatically producing speech animation. For animators in the movie industry this is typically a tedious, iterative process that involves key-framing static lip-poses and then handcrafting a blending function to transition from one key pose to another. In is not uncommon for an animator to spend several hours producing animation for just a few seconds of speech. We have previously worked on identifying a new dynamic unit for speech animation, termed dynamic visemes, and have shown that these units produce better animation than more traditional phoneme-based units. In this project we will integrate dynamic visemes into state of the art approaches to further improve upon the quality of automated animation that is currently possible. Furthermore, we will investigate how dynamic visemes relate to speech acoustics so that animation can be generated directly from the voice of an actor. We will build tools that can be implemented in commercial animation pipelines so animation studios can use our tools as a basis for animating any speech on their own models. This will leave their artists free to focus on the overall performance of the character. The proposed project is ambitious in its aims, proposing a new approaches for producing better speech animation. However, the impact of the work is wide reaching and has the potential to influence the production of speech content in all animated movies and computer games.
Key Findings
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Potential use in non-academic contexts
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Project URL:
Further Information:
Organisation Website:	http://www.uea.ac.uk