Proven Tips for Animating Believable Lip Sync
Nov 18, 2013 • 3 Minute Read
Whether you're a student or a professional animator, inevitably the time will come when you'll need to tackle some sort of dialogue shot. With the need to create believable lip sync, on top of the rest of your character's animation, its understandable why they are typically viewed as some of the hardest shots to tackle. It can seem overwhelming, but if you remember a few key principles, lip sync can quickly become one of the easiest things to do in a dialogue shot. So let's breakdown some of the most important techniques for animating believable lip sync.
Don't animate every syllable
Offset the lip sync for readability
Offsetting lip sync is something that is often forgotten or overlooked, but it is important to take into account. With animation, its all about readability and lip sync is no exception. For your audience to be able to read the lip sync you'll want to offset the jaw opening one to two frames before the audio is actually heard. If you have the jaw opening and closing each frame that the audio is heard your lip sync will feel like it's just slightly ahead of the audio.
Hit those closed mouth shapes
Be the reference
If you are having trouble coming up with the right mouth shapes, try whipping out a mirror. Many times there is no better way to find the right shapes than to look at yourself for reference. Say the dialogue out loud. Study how your mouth is blending between shapes and what kind of pose it's in for each word. If you wanted to take it a step further, try shooting video of yourself saying the dialogue and copy it to your computer to look at it frame-by-frame. This way you can really see the different types of shapes and movements your mouth is doing for each word.Don't be afraid to exaggerate
![facial_animation](http://i2.wp.com/blog.digitaltutors.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/facial_animation.jpg)