This tutorial is great for beginner flash animators. It covers how to know what sounds go with what mouth movements and how to animate the mouth movements to fit with an audio clip. I’ve seen many ways to create Lip-Syncing in flash but I feel this is the best way.
Preview Final Product
Click the play button below to view the final animation. You can download the .zip files here. Files include the final product, mouth guide, and instructions
Step 1
Open a new flash file. Save the file with the name LipSync.fla
Set the frames per second to 24. This will allow for smoother play back and it will let us pick out most for the syllables in the animation.
Step 2
Create your cartoon character and put it on a layer named character. I have created an animated Ron Burgundy from the movie Anchorman. I’m not going to go into detail on this because this tutorial focuses on lip-syncing. I’ve left the mouth off of my character for now.
Step 3
Open the file titled FF_MouthGuide.fla
This file shows the 10 different mouths I used in my animation.
Notice how certain mouths go with certain letters. This is not an exact science and with some practice you will learn what mouth works best and short cuts that trick the eye.
Step 4
Copy the Mouth Guide Symbol within FF_MouthGuide.fla, and paste into your LipSync.fla file and put it on a layer named guide. Move it to the side to use for reference. Or if you want you can create your own mouths. If you create your own be sure to turn each mouth into it’s own graphic symbol.
Step 5
Next import your audio to the library and then drag it to the stage on it’s own layer named audio. I search the Internet and found an audio clip from the Anchorman movie to go with my character. In the Property Panel for Sync type chose stream.
Step 6
Create a new graphic symbol and name it MouthAll. Once in the MouthAll symbol, go to the library and drag out each mouth on it’s own frame.
Example mouth-1 place on frame 1, and mouth-2 on frame 2, and so on…
Step 7
Now place the MouthAll symbol from the library on the main timeline on a layer named mouth, and line it up with the head so it looks normal.
Step 8
Here is where the fun begins. Click on the MouthAll graphic symbol and down in the properties panel make sure the symbol is set to, single frame, The number in the first box will determine which mouth will be shown.
Step 9
Move the play head until you hear sound. You can also see the waveform on the audio layer. Place a keyframe on the mouth layer. Down in the properties panel, in the first box choose the number of the frame that contains the mouth that goes with the sound being made. In my animation at frame 7 I place a key frame on the mouth layer. In the first box I chose frame number 5 for the G sound because my character is saying the word good. Next I chose frame 8, and place a key frame. Then chose frame 4 in the first box, for the O sound. Just keep repeating this and you’ll get the hang of it. It just takes a little practice and time. Publish Preview your file as you go along to see if the mouth looks right.
Step 10
View the FF_LipSync.fla file to view the final animation this will help you understand how the lip Syncing is achieved.
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