20. Using Lip-Sync
Enabling lip-syncing with a Switch layer
Lip-sync is the process of synchronizing the animated mouth movements of a character to match the spoken dialogue. Although it can be a tricky process, Anime Studio includes some features that make it easy to accomplish. Anime Studio makes lip-syncing possible by using Switch layers. Switch layers let you display one of many available sublayers using an external source. You can learn more about Switch layers in Chapter 24, “Using Switch and Note Layers.”
There are actually two different ways to do lip-syncing in Anime Studio. One method is to switch between several different sublayer graphics using the amplitude of a linked audio file. A second lip-sync method is to create a graphic for each possible sound. Anime Studio then computes the correct graphic to show based on the sound file.
Anime Studio can also use an external lip-sync program such as Papagayo to prepare data files for syncing.
Note
Within the Library palette is a Mouths folder that includes several sample mouth graphics that can be lip-synced.