Blender Underground

Hello Vincent here aka Evol Child! Let's learn to lip sync...


Grab any human model into blender, here I took my brother Joshua's barmaid from his Pirates because she is low res and will be easier to work with but you can apply this to any model.



SETTING UP THE WORKAREA



Go to the far left of your screen right click and (A)split the window.



Looks like this right? Next change the new window to display the Video Sequencer.



Then choose it from the popup menu (B) Video Sequence Editor.



Next split the VSE window in half



Open the (C)popup menu and select (D) the Action Editor



Now with your model selected in object mode push the (E)edit button and (F)shapes tab



DEFINE YOUR SHAPES

This isn't so hard we just need to place the mouth in 4 different shapes if you want the advanced class you can check out the 10 common shapes on Preston Blair phoneme series but let's continue with our four. They will cover the sounds made M O V or F and E. Don't confuse sounds with actual letters. These are phonics the sound made by speech.



Click the (G)add shape key button and it will be named basis. Place your mouse on the model and hit [Tab] twice this will lock basis as our standard shape. Now hit (G)add shape key again and it will be named Key1. Rename it by clicking (H)the name and call it M.



This time we hit [Tab] once entering the edit mode. And I select her lower lip vertices





Using the hotkeys (G and Z) I close her mouth to make the M sound.



Once closed I [Tab] out and inspect my work. You can flip now between basis key and M key to see the changes.





Now using the same method create the O shape key. In edit mode I drag the corners of the mouth down and make the mouth an oval shape.





Here the teeth are poking through the cheek and need to be moved back and opened.









Starting back with basis, now we create another key I called VF. The upper teeth bite on the lower lip.







Last one and you will NEVER have to do these keys on this model again. The E key where the teeth are apart and the lips are broad.







NOW ON TO THE EASY LIP SYNC

I will now load a wav file that contains the line "You guys are out of control!". Click add then choose (I) Audio wav from the menu select your wav file.





Once loaded select the (J)Scene button and the (K)Sound Blocks button.



Then press (L)both sync and scrub buttons. Then click the arrow (M)sliders will appear.



Using left and right arrows you can scrub through the (O)audio listen for sounds "You" is said with the mouth O so set the (N)slider towards 1 and you can use combinations.



Thanks for reading my tutorial.



Click here to download the full bender file.
Link repaired: 2.12.11
Use Alt+A to play the animation.


You can also see the fully rendered 2 second video clip on my bother's YouTube page here.


Watch Evol Child season 2 on YouTube

Sweet! Thanks for this. I look forward to trying it out on the weekend.

Wow I was actually looking for something like this for a while. This really helps, thank you...