Early Lip-Sync & Acting Tests

Here are some of my first character animation tests. The first two, "Yeah sure" and "Listen Up" were produced as entries in the now defunct 10 Second Club monthly competitions.

NEWS: A new animation competition club has started up! The 11 Second Club takes up where the 10 second club left off. Well worth a look if you want to learn character animation.

The first video began as just a three second short, just to see if I could do it. Before I knew it, I'd animated the whole ten second clip!


"Yeah sure" April 2006

This second clip shows that when doing lip-sync, words are not important. What really matters is that the mouth shapes match the sounds - and those sounds won't always be English words spoken in generic accents. Every character has a different sound and delivery and therefore, every character requires a unique approach to lip syncing. Even if two characters are saying the same thing, the lip-sync, acting and facial expressions would be different for each one, according to their character.


"Listen up" May 2006

The following test animation was produced using a sound file from animationmeat.com


"Attitude" May 2006

Shorts like these are a great way of testing a rig and your skills. One thing that is worth mentioning is that when attempting lip-syncing, the character acting is often more important than getting perfect shapes for the mouth. If the overall body action is right, then the animation should "sell", even without any lip movement. Then, when adding lip movements, consider whole facial expressions too as these are just as important as the mouth shapes.

Keith Lango has some great tips on lip-sync.
Aardman Animations lip-sync technique
My tutorial on lip-sync using shape keys in Blender is here.