Lip-syncing is something that all animators will be asked to do at some point in their career. The following technique automates the process of lip sync in After Effects and uses only built-in features of Adobe After Effects – no extra software is required! This video tutorial is an updated version for Adobe CS5. Tutorial files and a text-based version of the tutorial for older versions of After Effects are available here if you want to follow along.
This project was a test project for a job for the BBC. They contacted me and asked if it was possible to create a minute of lip-synced animation on a cartoon character. The budget was really tight, as was the deadline, so I had only one day to create a character that lip-synced to a provided sound track for a full minute.
Of course it was the BBC so I could hardly say no! So I said “Yes, no problem, I’ll take the job!” The minute I put the phone down I thought, “Oh Blimey! What have I got myself into?” I went to bed that night worrying about how I’d manage to get the job done. I tossed and turned, having nightmares about failing in my first job with the BBC. Then suddenly I sat bolt upright in bed and thought, “hang on a minute, what if I use Time Remapping with the Convert Audio To Keyframes Assistant, I’m sure that’ll work!” (That’s the kind of sad geek I really am!) 😉
After effects lip sync In a continuation of his charter Lip Sync tutorials for After Effects, David Legion shows how to swap out scratch audio voice overs with other audio tracks using MamoWorld’s Auto Lip Sync Plugin for After Effects. Save time and sanity with this facial animation rig for After Effects. Intuitive controls and automatic lip-sync take the tedium out of facial animation. Jan 23, 2016 There are many automated ways to create lip sync. Some include After Effects add-ons. Others are meant to be entire animation solutions such as Adobe’s Character Animator. Ross Plaskow adds to his After Effects cartoon character series with a look at creating lip sync to an animation, taking more of a manual approach.
Anyway, I leapt out of bed, ran over to my computer and put together a test project to see if it would work. This is the very project I put together as a test to see if the technique would work. Luckily, it did and I got the job done on time!
The audio used in this tutorial is contributed with kind permission. “Memories Of Your Own” – Words and Music by Jason A. Levine © Jason Levine 2007
Auto Lip Sync After Effects 5 0
There are many automated ways to create lip sync. Some include After Effects add-ons. Others are meant to be entire animation solutions such as Adobe’s Character Animator.
Ross Plaskow adds to his After Effects cartoon character series with a look at creating lip sync to an animation, taking more of a manual approach.
Auto Lip Sync After Effects
Taking more of a traditional animation approach, Ross starts out by mapping the phonemes needed to a number scale for reference. There are 8 in total. He then draws out all the phonemes for each by hand.
The numbers and order of the hand drawn mouths, become important as you will be recalling them from a precomp using the tried and true approach of time remapping.
In the end triggering the custom mouth shapes with manual keyframes looks far more like professional animation, than tracked and automated movements from character animator.
Ross Plaskow has other great tutorials in his character animation series in After Effects. His simple and non technical approach to character animation is refreshing. The tutorials tend to deal with traditional animation far more than automated tools. Be sure to check out the rest on his YouTube Channel.
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