Using Phoneme Lip-Sync
Phonemes are the basic mouth shapes used to create all the various sounds. The best way to learn the basic phonemes is to get a mirror and look at your facial expressions while making different sounds. For example, when making an O sound, your mouth is open and round, and when making the TH sound, the lips are almost closed and the tongue sticks out just a little.
Each bit of spoken dialogue can be broken down into its phoneme components, and combining several phonemes together, you can create words and sentences.
Note
Phoneme lip-sync is only available within Anime Studio Pro.
For example, the word poor consists of three phonemes, the first one pulls the lips together to make the P sound, the second one curves the lips into a round shape to make the O sound, and the final one draws the lips back to make the R sound.
There are a lot of different phonemes that make up the English language and even more if you consider other languages, but luckily for animators, many sounds look the same on the outside, even though the sound is different based on the position of the tongue. For example, the M, B, and P sounds all look the same.
Although including a larger number of phonemes in your animation will make your lip-syncing more detailed, for most animations, you can get away with using only 10 distinct phonemes.
These phonemes are labeled the following and matching examples of each phoneme are available in the File, Import, Mouths menu:
AI: The vowel A as in the word, may, which leaves the mouth open and the tongue visible.
O: The vowel O as in the word, go, which curls the sides of the mouth in to form an O shape.
E: The vowel E as in the word, squeek, which pulls the sides of the mouth back and leaves the mouth open.
U: The vowel U as in the word, up, which pulls the sides of the mouth in like the O sound, but the mouth doesn’t open as wide. The lips also pucker for this sound.
Etc: A miscellaneous phoneme with the teeth clenched like a smile. This is used for the T sound and for intermediate positions between sounds.
L: The sound L as in the word, love, which opens the mouth but places the tongue higher as it touches the back of the top teeth.
WQ: The sound W or Q as in the word, word, which pulls the lips in real tight with a pucker that is tighter than the U sound.
MBP: The sound M, B, or P as in the word, map, which closes the lips tight.
FV: The sound F or V as in the word, four, which curls the bottom lip under the top teeth.
Rest: The lip positions when no sound is being made with the lips relaxed and together.
The File, Import, Mouths menu command includes several sets of mouths. Each of these sets has the above listed 10 layers contained within a Switch layer. Figure 20.4 shows each of these layers for one of these sets.
If you create a graphic for each of the 10 phonemes listed previously, then you’ll be able to match any English spoken dialogue. Each graphic should be on its own layer and added to a Switch layer. Remember to name each layer using the name presented in the list above.
Note
The above list of phonemes are intended for the English language. Other languages will require their own set of phonemes.
Loading an Audio File
After the graphics for the mouth phonemes are created and added to a Switch layer, you will need to load in the audio file that has the dialogue that you are trying to match. This is done using the File, Import, Audio File menu command. Loaded audio files appear as waveforms in the Timeline palette, and you can adjust their starting time using the Sequencer panel. More on working with audio files is covered in Chapter 19, “Working with Sound.”
Tip
Try to avoid audio dialogue files with background music and sounds as they could throw off the syncing.
Entering Audio Text
If you double-click the Audio layer and select the Audio panel in the Layer Settings dialog box, shown in Figure 20.5, then you can type in the text that matches the spoken dialogue. If you forget to enter the spoken dialogue, Anime Studio will still do its best to align the phonemes to the dialogue track, but entering the text will often help make the lip-sync more accurate.
Figure 20.5. Audio panel.
Linking to an Audio Sync Source
Once the phoneme graphics are in place and the audio file has been added to the project, you can link the Switch layer with the audio file using the Switch panel in the Layer Settings dialog box. Within the Select Audio Sync Source drop-down list are all the loaded audio files. Simply select the audio file for the dialogue that you want to sync too and the keys are automatically added to the Timeline palette. Click the Play button to see the results.
If the phonemes are off, you can edit the keys to match better.
Tip
It generally looks better if the phoneme precedes the sound rather than coming after the sound. It is also a good habit to end a sentence with the mouth closed.
To lip-sync audio using the phoneme method, follow these steps:
Open the Apple face.anme file from the Chapter 20 folder on the CD. This file includes a simple apple face minus the mouth.
Open the Library palette and within the Mouths folder, double-click Mouth 2 to add it to the project. Move the mouth layer into place with the Translate Layer tool.
Select the File, Import, Audio File menu and load the Wowdidyouseethat.wav file from the Chapter 20 folder on the CD.
Double-click the Switch layer that holds the mouth graphics, and in the Switch panel, select the Wowdidyouseethat.wav file from the Select Audio Sync Source drop-down list. Then close the dialog box.
Click the Play button located at the bottom left corner of the working area to see the resulting animation, as shown in Figure 20.6.
