Lip Sync in After Effects [updated]

Some resources

By Rich Young | June 15, 2012

Last year Angie Taylor posted Lip Sync in After Effects, demoed a possible solution to a task that most animators will be asked to do at some point. Admittedly though it would rarely involve a talking dog or space coyote.

The techniques in the videos below from Angie (Adobe After Effects CS5: Learn by Video) and from Robert Powers automate the process using time-remapping and other built-in features of After Effects.

Here's a few more lip sync video tutorials for After Effects. They're often similar in using time remapping, basic expressions, or converting audio to keyframes, etc. and not using older ideas that used CC Split, Reshape, or other effects:

Lip Sync in After Effects by Angie Taylor (mentioned above)

Lip-Syncing in After Effects by Aharon Rabinowitz uses character phonemes

After Effects Lip Sync Tutorial by Rob Moffett

Create Cartoons 04: Lip Sync by Ryan Boyle (embedded below; part of a series)

Using Time Remapping for Lip-sync by Robert Powers (embedded below; more from Todd Kopriva)

Lip-Synch with Twixtor from ReVisionFX

lipsyncing with papagayo (and After Effects) in text by Ianian7

Pucker Up With A "Rocky Horror" Lips Rig by Ran Ben Avraham on AEtuts

Advanced 2D Cartoon Lip Sync Animation by Dave Scotland on AEtuts+ AE Premium

Annoying fruit in After Effects: Basic "face replacement" courting Hollywood looks at a sort of lip sync

And of course animation similar to JibJab also features lip syncing -- see Create the JibJab Effect by Adam Everett Miller on AEtuts+ and Make the JibJab Effect using After Effects and the Tracker by Greyscale Gorilla. By the way, JibJab posts behind-the-scenes videos and background including the use of AE in their productions; see for example Putting it All Together and their Behind the Scenes of the 2010 Year in Review collection.

See also Animate a character in After Effects: A survey of resources. By the way, if you're trying to sync up audio recorded separately, Premiere has an Audio Units mode for its Timeline that allows for easy fine-tuning.

Back to AE, here's Ryan Boyle on lip sync:

UPDATE: Mamoworld has released Auto Lip-Sync, a tool that leverages built-in features of After Effects to help you animate a mouth in sync with audio. Auto Lip-Sync features a step-by-step wizard that analyzes a voice recording and helps you customize and fine-tune the mouth for your project, for example, how wide the mouth opens and how it deforms for certain syllables. It also provides null objects to animate user-provided teeth and tongue. It won't solve all your problems, especially if prominent jaws need animating, but should pay for itself before the first job is finished. To peak at some successes and limitations with related techniques, see an AE Portal roundup, Lip Sync in After Effects.

VinhSon Nguyen had an early review, and on AEtuts is A Look At How To Use "Auto Lip-Sync" by creator Mathias Mohl, which does lip sync on a moving car: tracking in MochaAE, importing with MochaImport+, and stepping through the wizard. Here's the intro tutorial, Talking Tree with Auto Lip-Sync: