← Animation Glossary

Visemes

Visemes are the different facial expressions and mouth shapes that animators use to make characters look like they are talking. They help to create the illusion of speech in animated movies and cartoons, and make the characters look more realistic and expressive. Think of them like the different shapes your mouth makes when you say different words - animators use visemes to mimic those shapes for their characters.

Visemes are a crucial aspect of animation that allows characters to speak realistically and convey emotions through facial expressions. By using visemes, animators can create believable lip movements that match the spoken dialogue of the character. The process of matching the movements of an animated character’s mouth to the sounds of spoken dialogue is called lip syncing.

The importance of visemes in animation cannot be overstated. They allow for characters to appear more realistic and relatable to audiences, which in turn helps to create a stronger emotional connection between the viewer and the character. This connection is critical for creating engaging stories that keep viewers interested and invested in what happens to the characters.

There are a variety of different visemes that animators use, typically ranging from 15-20 depending on the complexity of the character’s speech. These visemes cover a range of sounds, from plosives like “p” and “b” to fricatives like “f” and “s.” By combining these different visemes in various ways, animators can create a wide range of mouth movements that accurately reflect the character’s speech.

Creating visemes can be done manually by animators, but it is often a time-consuming process. To speed up this process, some studios use motion capture technology or machine learning algorithms to automatically generate visemes based on recorded speech. While this method can be faster than manual animation, it also requires significant resources and expertise.

Regardless of how they are created, visemes play an essential role in bringing animated characters to life. By allowing them to speak realistically and convey emotions through facial expressions, visemes help to create engaging stories that resonate with viewers on an emotional level. As animation continues to evolve, it is likely that we will see even more advanced techniques for creating realistic lip syncing and facial expressions that further enhance the believability of animated characters.

Animation Terms

2

2D Animation

3

3D Animation

A

Alpha Channel

Ambient sound

Animation

Anti-Aliasing

Anticipation

Aspect Ratio

B

Bezier Curve

Bitmap

Blue Screen

Bone Animation

Bounce

Broadcast Standards

C

Camera Angle

Camera Shake

Casting

Cel Animation

Character Animation

Character Design Sheets

Cinematic lighting

Claymation

Clean-up

Close-up

Color Correction

Color Grading

Compositing

Composition

Concept Art

Continuity editing

Cross-cutting

Cut

Cutout nimation

D

Depth of Field

Dialogue

Dissolve

Distributed Rendering

Dolby Atmos

Dope Sheet

Dutch Angle

E

Easing

Emitter

Exaggeration

Eyedropper

F

Foley

Follow through

Forward Kinematics

Frame Rate

Frame

Framing

Freeze Frame

G

Ghosting

GIF File Format

Golden Ratio

Graph Editor

H

High key lighting

Hue and Saturation

I

Inertia

Infographic Animation

Inverse Kinematics

J

Joint

JPEG File Format

Jump cut

K

Keyframe Interpolation

Keyframe

Kinetic typography

L

Layers

Lens distortion

Level of Detail

Lighting

Line of action

Lip syncing

Low key lighting

M

Match cut

Matte painting

Montage

Morphing

Motion blur

Motion capture

Motion graphics

Motion path

Motion trail

Mouth shapes

MP3 File Format

MP4 File Format

N

Network rendering

Non-linear editing

O

Occlusion culling

Onion skinning

Overlapping action

P

Pan

Parallel rendering

Particle system

Persistance of Vision

Phonemes

Playback speed

Plot

PNG File Format

Pose-to-pose animation

Props

Puppet animation

R

Render farm

Rendering

Resolution

Rigging

Rotoscoping

Rule of thirds

Run cycle

S

Safe zone

Scene

Score

Screenplay

Script

Shot

Silhouette

Skeletal animation

Slow Motion

Smears

Sound Design

Sound effects

Soundtrack

Special Effects

Split screen

Squash and Stretch

Staging

Stop Motion Animation

Storyboard

Straight-ahead Animation

T

Time Remapping

Timeline

Timing

Title Card

Title Sequence

Tracking shot

Tweening

V

Vector graphics

Visemes

Voice acting

Voice-over Narration

W

Walk cycle

WebM File Format

Weighting

Wide shot

Z

Z-depth

Zoom

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