Unzip the start scene file into a 'scenes' directory of an xsi project.

Unzip the wav file into the 'audio' directory of the same xsi project.

Load up the scene.

Open up an explorer and under the Rockstar_001 model null you will see a custom ppg called facial_animation. Inspect this.

You'll see that it's made up of a number of sliders, the names of these sliders is important! For auto talk to work you need to set the values of markers on an audio track to be the same as the names of these sliders.

Now if you open up an mixer and scroll down to the audio tracks you'll see that I ave setup a sound clip with some markers. Select a marker and hit enter to bring up it's ppg and you'll see that the name is just marker... and the value is bbb or something similar. It's this value that has to be the same as the name of a slider in the ppg. I did this because it's not possible to have markers of the same name.

 

2) Running the script

Load up the script as you normally would, (if you're not sure about how to load script then see the script docs or this tutorial)

With the audio source selected in the mixer (or an explorer if you feel like looking for it :) run the script. It will send xsi into a picking session where you are prompted to select the ppg that holds the sliders you want to animate. Select the facial_animation ppg in an explorer.

The main autotalk window will popup. fig.2 >>

Replace the current fcurve? - overwrites any animation that existed previously

Time Range - sets the start and end of the animation to capture

Key Values - sets a minimum and maximum value for key frames to take.

Tangents - Auto Compute - sets the tangents of the keys to standard bell shaped curves.

Tangents - Keys Tangents .... if auto comp is unchecked then this value is used for both the right and left tangents values.

Curve Offset time - Offset all the fcurves created by this number of frames.

Offset Individual.... - provides options for offsetting the beginning and end keys from the marker, by default they are set to 2, meaning that if you had a marker that started on frame 5 and finished on frame 7 then the first key would be set at 3 and the last would be set at frame 9.

Offset Max Key - Offsets the middle key by this number of frames.

Randomise - Provides options for randomising the max and min keys by a percentage of their original value.

 

Setup the values as you like and press ok. XSI will now start making the fcurves. Once it finishes thinking you can play the animation. If you're not happy with the result then run the script again and check the Replace Fcurve option.

The markers I set up are extremely rough so the results aren't brilliant but you can see how with a little setup of the markers you can get some nice fast animation.

It's not meant as a final solution, just as a quick way to rough out the animation. The result is still going to be limited by the original positioning of the markers, as clearly demonstrated here :)

fig.2