Extended Preston Blair

phoneme series
It always amazes me how few phoneme shapes you really
need to give the impression of a talking character. This
article covers a slightly extended range of phoneme mouth
shapes, based originally on the Preston Blair series. This
extended set adds a few extra mouth poses useful for
seuencing mouth movement to dialogue tracks. The main
additions to the Preston Blair series is a speci!c phoneme
shape "ust for Th #as in thanks or thrash$ and an additional
phoneme shape for the %, &, ', (, ), *, +, , and - sounds,
which is similar to . but provides an extra target pose when
you have a run of sounds that are similar in mouth shape
#but need some slight variation for contrast$. I !nd these
occur freuently enough to deserve their own poses.
Getting started
.ach phoneme shape shown here is accompanied by
example word sounds, these are by no means golden
rules always be followed / but are there as examples of the
kind of sounds the mouth shape represents. If it looks
correct, then it is correct and the best trick to getting lip
synch looking correct is have an easy way to repeatedly
preview your sequence along with your soundtrack so
you can go back over the seuence again and again !ne
tuning poses. +ome lip/synch tools #as included with 0ash
Inc. 1nimation23aster$ provide uick and productive ways
of generating your dopesheet timing, other video
seuencing programs can also be used to calculate your
pose timings but reuire a more manual process #such as
1dobe Premiere$.
Phoneme A I
.xample sounds are2 apple, day, hat, happy, rat, act, plait,
dive, aisle.
Phoneme E
.xample sounds are2 egg, free, peach, dream, tree.
Phoneme O
.xample sounds are2 honk, hot, o4, odd, fetlock, exotic,
goat.
Phoneme U
.xample sounds are2 fund, universe, you runner, "ump,
fudge, treasure.
Phoneme C G ! " # $ % &
.xample sounds are2 sit, expend, act, pig, sacked, bang,
key, band, buzz, dig, sing.
Phoneme C G ' ! " # $ % &
.xample sounds are2 grouch, rod, zoo, kill, car, sheep, pun,
dug, "aw, void, roach, lodge.
Phoneme ( )
.xample sounds are2 forest, daft, life, fear, very, endeavour.
Phoneme *h
.xample sounds are2 the, that, then, they, this, brother.
Phoneme +
.xample sounds are2 election, alone, elicit, elm, leg, pull.
Phoneme , B P
5or many 3, B and P sounds, it6s important that the
phoneme shape should be reached before the 3, B or the P
sound is made, the sound is often only made as the pose
breaks. .xample words are2 embark, bear, best, put, plan,
imagine, mad, mine.
Phoneme - .
.xample sounds are2 cower, uick, wish, skewer, how.
*he rest shape
The rest shape is not a phoneme as such but a shape used
during pauses between words and sentences.
Get the tweening right
In addition to placing the correct phoneme shape next to
dialogue sound, keep in mind how your so/tware tweens
from phoneme pose to pose, the default settings are rarely
good enough. 7hen you need a clear de!nition of a
particular mouth shape you6ll need to space matching or
similar mouth poses at the start and end of the hold. 1
common example is during the rest point between spoken
sounds, where mouth movement often pauses. &on6t forget
you6ll need to go deeper in and ad0ust the timing curves
of your phoneme seuence to get the ease in and out of
mouth motion looking natural. *endering after each
animation pass / playing the seuence against the audio
track is really the best way of catching problem areas and
re!ning your work. 3y !nal comment is try not to over
coo1 your phoneme keys #don6t have too many$. Pick the
important sounds and hit their shape clearly to emphasize
the dialogue 8ow. Best of luck9
#elated lin1s
Preston Blair reference mouth shapes
0obbit phoneme character face examples
7izard phoneme uick animated example
:+T plugin wizard vocal musical interface element
Principles for ;ip +ynch 1nimation by (eith ;ango
;ip +ync 3aking %haracters +peak by 3ichael B. %omet
Preston Blair phoneme series
I6ve often looked for good examples of 2 phoneme
mouth shapes< but there isn6t that much material
available out there publicly / it6s about time someone
uploaded, so here goes 2o$ The !rst run of these standard
=> Preston Blair mouth shapes took about ? hours to
complete. I6ve revisited and updated the data several times
since then / testing them on several di4erent dialogue
examples. 1ll shapes shown here conform to the standard
Preston Blair phoneme series.
.ach image has been rendered at ?>>x?>>< for all you
;ip+ynch users out there #part of the old 0ash Inc.
1nimation23aster$ or 3agpie, feel free to convert these
images to T'1 or B3P as needed. I !nd they work well for
the initial 3loc1ing out of most dialogue seuences. If you
!nd them useful, great, glad I could help99 %heck back here
from time to time as I6ll continue to revise the content<
already posted are some extended phoneme shape
examples.
Creating phoneme pose shapes
.ach pose is setup entirely with muscle level control point
changes, no bones involved. The top set of teeth stay in a
!xed location for all poses, this loc1s the upper 0aw to
the characters skull. If you don6t, you6ll end up with a set of
false teeth, or worse, your character may end up looking
like it6s about to take out one of the supporting cast in an
1lien style chomp out9
&epending on the feature set of your chosen software, a
bene!cial techniue can be to create a low level set of
poses relating to the underlying muscle movement of a
face. I often build poses for ;ip +tretcher, ;ip Tightener,
+neering 3uscle, Bottom ;ip, Tongue, +miling 3uscle, +ad
3uscle and @aw. :arious combinations of these poses can
be mixed together to create the desired phoneme shape
and give you greater control when you come to !ne tune
your dialogue performance.
1 and I .
A B
%, &, ', (, ), *, +, Th, ,
and -
5 and : #sometimes like &
or Th$
; #sometimes like & or Th$ 3, B and P
7 and C *est
Use asymmetry
*emember to add some asymmetry into your facial
poses9 The images here are devoid of emotion and
personality so as to show each phoneme clearly. This is a
bad thing for a real dialogue performance, so make sure
you liven up your characters with asymmetrical
expressions / "ust think of the gag with the little green
aliens in Toy +tory when the all go DAoooooooo...D
#elated lin1s
.xtended phoneme reference mouth shapes
0obbit phoneme character face examples
7izard phoneme uick animated example
:+T plugin wizard vocal musical interface element
Principles for ;ip +ynch 1nimation by (eith ;ango
;ip +ync 3aking %haracters +peak by 3ichael B. %omet
Bil3o Baggins phoneme series
0ere6s a !rst run of some extreme phoneme shapes to
get my version of Bilbo Baggins talking. I6ve not rendered a
live lip/synch test yet, so there will be uite some tweaking
to these phoneme shapes once I6ve seen them in action.
Poses are based on an extended range derived from the
original Preston Blair phoneme set.
Pro0ect update
1s you can probably tell, this personal pro"ect #!rst toyed
with back 3ay =EFF$ has been some what super/seeded by
improvements in 0ash Inc. 1nimation 3aster +oftware. I do
plan to rework this data and provide some sample dialogue
and acting animation clips, though I don6t really want to get
caught up in all the ;ord or the *ings cliche animations that
are bound to start appearing now the !lm is out and about.
Phoneme 1 I
Phoneme % & ' @ ( ) * + , -
Phoneme % & ' ( ) * + , -
Phoneme .
Phoneme 5 :
Phoneme ;
Phoneme 3 B P
Phoneme A
Phoneme Th
Phoneme B
Phoneme 7 C
#elated lin1s
The 0obbit Bilbo character design
.xtended Phoneme reference mouth shapes
Preston Blair reference mouth shapes
7izard phoneme uick animated example
:+T plugin wizard vocal musical interface element