The lip sync tutorial they DON’T give you
I mentioned on twitter that I wanted to do a lip sync tutorial and immediately got some people who were interested so I put one together real quick!
I’m going to use a bit of unfinished lip sync from my taz animated part as reference. They’re just gifs so no sound, but you should still be able to tell that he’s saying “I’d say a solid B… Solid B minus.”
Anyone who’s looked up how to do lip sync has seen phoneme charts. Phonemes are just the shape your mouth makes when you make certain sounds.
When you do lip sync, you want some kind of reference to make sure it’s right
What’s easiest is to say it yourself and pay attention to the shapes your mouth is making. Since you’re going frame by frame, your audio is slow enough that you can make each shape slowly and distinctly and you can get each individual phoneme down in the animation.
Don’t do this.^
An easy way to tell if you’re animating lip sync wrong is if you run out of frames to make each shape. You don’t need them! Making each shape is unnatural. People talk quickly and the mouth doesn’t have the time to get into each shape. They blend together, sometimes to the point where the shape doesn’t change at all!
Not only does the 2nd gif take less frames and energy to make, it’s more relaxed, it looks less distracting, and his lips are much easier to read!
These are reference charts to show the differences more clearly
This is the difference between getting swallowed up in every last detail and paying attention to reality.
What matters more than hitting every syllable is making it look natural and flow with the acting. That’s why anime mouth flaps can work so well. A strong pose through the whole body matters more than one mouth shape.
