S e c o n d e d I t I o n j a s o n o s I p a w I l e y p u b L i s h I n g, I n c

Word
Wide/Narrow Sequence
why
Narrow, wide
are
No change/shape
we
Narrow, wide
watching
Narrow, slightly wide
you
Narrow
Simple, right? Now let’s look at the jaw, or Open/Closed, cycle. “Closed” refers to a
position not completely closed, but closer to closed than to open:
Word
Open/Closed Sequence
why
Closed, open, closed
are
Closed, open, closed
we
Closed, slightly open
watching
Closed, open, closed, slightly open, closed
you
Closed / no change
That’s it for the essentials. We’re going to get into more shapes and controls and special
cases, but there it is. The backbone of this book’s lip sync technique has to do with simple
analysis of the Wide/Narrow and Open/Closed cycles; over time, we’ll add more and more
levels, each one simple on its own, to create complex, believable performances.
These cycles will be the foundation on which we build everything else. Taking the lead
from the human mouth, I’ve based all of this book on the “simpler is better” mindset.
Your mouth is lazy. Go on, admit it. It hits the major sounds and fudges over the rest, like
saying hi to someone even though you forgot their name, hoping they don’t notice. It
makes good sense; it’s efficient.
When I say “cycle,” I’m merely referring to how the shape will go from one to the other and
then back again. There are no other stops along the way. The mouth will go open, closed,
open, closed; the lips will go wide, narrow, wide, narrow.
speech cycles
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I’ve had programs and books and teachers all show me sets of shape keys for sync I had
to build that included things like G. Why would we build a shape for or pay special atten-
tion to the letter G? Whether it’s hard G or soft G, you can say it with your mouth in any
of the shapes shown in Figure 1.3.
Now, these are obviously all pretty different. But if you were to try to say a soft or hard
G with your mouth held in each of these poses, you could do it without much trouble.
Ninety-five percent of the time, when the letter G comes up in sync, we’re going to ignore
it—that is, it will get no keys in the animation. Further, we will most certainly not build a
shape for G; how would we pick just one?
The G sound is actually created in the throat, not by the lips or the open/closed posi-
tions of the mouth. This whole example with G is to illustrate the criteria of visimes. What
are visimes, you ask? Read on.