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

Why Phonemes Aren’t Best for CGI
The most common key sets and setups out there for public consumption are based 
on phonemes, which means “the sounds your mouth makes during speech.” To base sync on
phonemes seemingly makes perfect sense—it’s the way it’s been done for years with
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chapter 1: Learning the Basics of Lip Sync
Figure 1.3
All varieties of G
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classical animation—but for the newer world of CGI, it can be overly complicated.
Phonemes worked fantastically on paper, where nothing comes for free; every frame had
to be drawn, and a lot of popping from frame to frame was just part of the style. In CGI—
in anything, really—the eye is drawn to what is out of place, and generally, most computer
animations don’t have wildly different keys on every frame, or even every second frame.
Sure, some animators will end up with a key on every frame before they are done, but
those keys are going to have some relationship to each other in motion. If just on the
mouth there’s a totally different key on every frame of your lip sync, you had better believe
that’s where all eyes will be, and that’s probably not a good thing. Thinking too hard about
phonemes can lead people down a path that will create this look.
In the search for a better system for CGI sync, something became very apparent: There
are three different kinds of sounds you can make during speech, and not all of them are
easy to see! Phonemes-based sync lumps all of these sounds together, and that is what pre-
cludes it from being the best solution for us. The important point I’m coming to here is
that during speech, some sounds are just not easily distinguished visually. Some sounds
are made primarily with your lips, some are made primarily by your tongue, and others are
made in your throat and vocal cords. Of these three, the only ones you absolutely have to
worry about every time in animation are the sounds made primarily by the lips.
Phonemes are sounds, but what matters in animation is what can be seen. Instead of
phonemes, of which there are about 38 in English (depending on your reference), what
we’re going to base our system on is “visual phonemes,” or visimes. Visimes are the signifi-
cant shapes or visuals that are made by your lips. Phonemes are sounds; visimes are shapes.
Visimes are all you really need to see to be convinced. You obviously cue these shapes
based on the sounds you hear, but there aren’t nearly as many to be seen as there are
heard. The necessary visimes are listed in Table 1.1. Remember that these are shapes tied
to sounds, not necessarily collections of letters exactly in the text.
Words are made up of these even if they aren’t spelled this way; the word you com-
prises the two visimes EE and then OO, to make the EE-OO sound of the word. As we
move forward, you’ll learn that if there is no exact visime for the sound, we’ll merely use
the next closest thing. For instance, the sound OH, as in M-OH-N (moan), is not really
shown on this chart, whereas OO is. They’re not really the same, but they’re close enough
that you can funnel OH over to an OO-type shape.
I said the only sounds you absolutely have to worry about every time in animation are the
sounds made primarily by the lips. I say “primarily” because combinations of all these ways to
make sound occur all the time. Also, you could argue that your throat makes all sounds, but
that would be an intellectual standpoint, not an artistic one, like saying we should include
the lungs in sync—and believe me, we’re not going to be doing that!
starting with what’s most important: visimes
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