AT&T Intellectual Property I, LP

Telecom Italia Lab S.p.a.

At+t Corp.

Claudio Lande

Joern Ostermann

Mehmet Reha Civanlar

Barbara Buda

Mauro Quaglia

Gianluca Francini

Skjalg Lepsoy

A system and method of creating a customized multi-media message to a recipient is disclosed. The multi-media message is created by a sender and contains an animated entity that delivers an audible message. The sender chooses the animated entity from a plurality of animated entities. The system receives a text message from the sender and receives a sender audio message associated with the text message. The sender audio message is associated with the chosen animated entity to create the multi-media message. The multi-media message is delivered by the animated entity using as the voice the sender audio message wherein the mouth movements of the animated entity conform to the sender audio message.

Method for sending multi-media messages with customized audio

The method permits the animation of a synthesised model of a human face in relation to an audio signal. The method is not language dependent and provides a very natural animated synthetic model, being based on the simultaneous analysis of voice and facial movements, tracked on real speakers, and on the extraction of suitable visemes. The subsequent animation consists in transforming the sequence of visemes corresponding to the phonemes of the driving text into the sequence of movements applied to the model of the human face.

Method of animating a synthesized model of a human face driven by an acoustic signal

A method and an apparatus for the animation, driven by an audio signal, of a synthesised human face model are described, that allow the animation of any model complying with the ISO/IEC standard 14496 (&ldquo;MPEG-4 standard&rdquo;). The concerned phonemes are derived from the audio signal, and the corresponding visemes are identified within a set comprising both visemes defined by the standard and visemes typical of the language. Visemes are split into macroparameters that define shape and positions of the mouth and jaw of the model and that are associated to values indicating a difference from a neutral position. Such macroparameters are then transformed into face animaton parameters complying with the standard, the values of which define the deformation to be applied to the model in order to achieve animation.

Method of and apparatus for animation, driven by an audio signal, of a synthesized model of a human face

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Turin, Italy

Claudio Lande