LipService/LBrush Animation Tips

Trust the Track

It’s important to listen to the track, what something sounds like is more important than how it’s spelled. Always trust the track.

If it’s spelled like “yellow”, it will sound like “ee-eh-ll-oh-ww”. Use the arrow keys, we override Maya's frame forward hotkey and play a frame's worth of sound each time you hit the forward arrow (we also advance the frame).

Compress/Explode/Sustain

The ‘mm’ shape is a perfect example of a compressive shape. You will probably want one additional ‘mm’ shape that’s over compressed tightly. Then instead of one ‘mm’ key, you’d make two or three ‘mm-compressed-mm’, depending on what there’s time for. This will add quite a lot to the physicality of the animation.

The ‘pp’ shape is a perfect example of an explosive shape. You usually want to hold it all the way until just before the next target, which is usually a mouth open type of shape. This will help the next shape explode. This happens because you hold air in your mouth and then release it explosively to make the sound. Example “Oh please!” = “Oh Oh pp - - - pp-ll-ee - ee – ee – ss’.

The ‘ah’ shape is a sustain shape. A lot of open mouth shapes want to be sustained, and you should think in terms of making 2 keys instead of one when time allows to let them arrive quickly to the shape then do a little bit of overshoot and then get out of it quickly.

Remember, you’re animating with shapes on a timeline, so if you want to ease something in, create an ease-in shape, or make multiple keys of the same shape to articulate the curves. Each and every vertex on your model has a splined motion path. You can make something move in a perfect arc by making 3 keys. Each of the keys will be hit.

  Silence is golden

Animators love silence, sometimes what you choose to do in the silent areas when the character is listening and reacting to another character is the funnest bit to animate. You’ll want to do lots of sustain, and may want to use ‘ee’ for smiles, and ‘mm’ to ‘compressed mm’ for frowns – up to you, but don’t just leave them empty.