Living sprites: she blinks, breathes, and speaks (Patreon)

Big one today. The sprites are alive now.

The gif shows Serith and Avel just standing in a scene, except they are not statues anymore. They breathe, they blink, at random intervals, each with their own rhythm. This already runs on the whole Serith cast with every expression, and the rest of the ensemble follows.

The bigger piece is the mouth. During voiced lines Serith now actually speaks. This is not a canned flap loop: the mouth timing is generated per line from the real voice recording of that exact line, pauses at the commas included. All 471 voiced lines across the chapters got their own timeline.

I kept it deliberately quiet. My internal yardstick: the strongest mouth movement is about a third as visible as a blink. The emotion stays in the eyes and the text.

Two clips are attached, since inline video is not a thing here: a full scene with three voiced chapter 3 lines, and an A/B that plays the same line first without, then with lip movement.

Last thing: lip movement has its own switch in the preferences, and both ways ship. The poll decides the default. Watch the A/B first, then vote here:patreon.com/posts/lip-movement-166266024

Enjoy the descent.