Animation

Whether using the automatic lip-sync function or if syncing manually, your scene requires the same initial setup.

Preston Blair Phonemes +

Animators pair phonemes (the smallest unit of sound) with specific mouth shapes. There are different sets of phonemes that animators use. One of the major approaches was created by Preston Blair, a noted animator that worked at a few animation studios including Disney over the course of his career. Tahoma2D currently requires the Preston Blair mouth shapes for automated lip-syncing. Preston Blair's page on Dialogue is missing

Preston Blair's page on Dialogue is missing

Creating the mouth +

While in the most believable lip-syncs, other facial features will change during speech, the most important facial feature to sync is the mouth. Mouth shapes could be drawn in any order, but it saves time to draw them in order by phoneme.

Create a level with ten frames
- While any level type could be used, Vector or Smart Raster levels are recommended for labeling purposes
Draw the mouth drawings in order and give each phoneme a label
1. Create an extra style just for labeling - something bright and easy to see (ie. red) that will not be used anywhere else
2. Using the type tool - or just writing normally, on each frame use that style to make a label for the frame's phoneme
Use onion skin to keep the mouths positioned properly
Use the following order:

Do not rely too much on examples of other artist/animator's mouths - look in the mirror (or use Photo Booth on the Mac) to see what your own mouth looks like as it makes each sound.

Loading Audio +

Advanced sound editing should be done in an external program like Audacity before loading the audio track. Keep in mind that lip-synching is easiest if each line of dialog (or at least each actor) has its own track.

Right-click in the first cell in a layer (occupied or not) and choose "Load Level"
Select any 8 or 16bit wav, aiff or mp3 file from the computer and choose "Load"
Choose to import or load

Audio levels can be moved or re-ordered like other levels. If you remove or reorder audio frames, turn the layer visibility off/on to update the audio playback.

Visit the Edit Audio page to learn more about loading and making basic edits to the audio track.

Rhubarb Lip-Sync is included as part of Tahoma2D (as of the 1.2 release). It can be used to analyze your audio track to automatically set the order/pacing of your drawings for lip-synching. Sometimes the drawing order and pace may need further optimization but Rhubarb speeds up the lip-sync process drastically.

Use Rhubarb for Automatic Lip Syncing +

Load your audio track into its own layer if it is not already there (right-click on the cell the audio should begin and select "Load Level")
Select the mouth layer (click on the layer header)
In the program menu, go to Scene → Apply Lip Sync Data to Column
Use the arrows underneath each icon to change drawings if necessary to correct any errors with the mouth shape pairings
Choose an audio track from the scene to analyze
Add your script for more accurate lip-syncing
Select "Apply"

Papagayo (or PapagayoNG) is a free program that can give you more control over the process of lip syncing. Text is lined up with audio and then the program generates a text file that can be used in animation programs. If you prefer to manually sync your audio but want a faster process, Papagayo is a great free option.

Papagayo User's Manual +

Papagayo General Process +

Load a wav file into Papagayo
Type the script into the "Spoken Text Field"
- This can be most effective when using "Pidgin English" where each word is typed as it sounds rather than using accurate spelling
Click and drag the script boundaries (top) to match the audio
Click and drag from the left edge to position and from the right edge to resize the boundaries of the individual words (middle) to match the audio
Line up individual phonemes (bottom) with the audio
Export the .dat file
Save the lip-sync file in case future adjustments are needed

Apply Papagayo data to your mouth level +

Load your audio track into its own layer if it is not already there (right-click on the cell the audio should begin and select "Load Level")
Select the mouth layer (click on the layer header)
In the program menu, go to Scene → "Apply Lip Sync Data to Column"
Use the arrows underneath each icon to change drawings if necessary to correct any errors with the mouth shape pairings
Select the lip sync data file (.dat) exported from Papagayo at the bottom of the lip-sync pop-up
Select "Apply"

For optimal lip syncing, audio should be slightly delayed from the mouth movement. This is because light moves faster than sound.

As necessary, adjust the position of the audio level or the mouth level so that the sound begins a frame or so after the mouth movement (using the top or left dragbar)
Scrub and/or play the audio to make sure the timing is correct
Make adjustments to timing/placement as necessary
If any mouth shapes are incorrect:
1. Select the cells for the incorrect drawing
2. Use the hotkey "Q" to switch out the drawing for the correct drawing (moving backwards)
3. Use the hotkey "W" to switch out the drawing for the correct drawing (moving forwards)
Repeat as necessary
When the syncing is complete, in the Style Editor, turn the opacity (A/alpha) down to 0 for the special label style to hide the labels

For a more advanced lip-sync, try having multiple mouth/facial feature levels for different emotions. Some animators also use the phoneme frames as keyframes and create additional drawings to transition inbetween each pairing. Lip-synching can get quite complicated!

Learn to Animate

Lip syncing