Datasheet

Starting with What’s Most Important: Visemes n 11
Visemes Aren’t Tied to Individual Sounds
One viseme shape can represent several sounds as read. For example, you might not read
the AW in spa and draw as the same letters, but you can represent them with the same
visual components. This is going to give you fewer things to animate and keep track of,
leaving you more time to be a performer.
Visemes have certain rules that must be followed. For example, you can’t say B or M
without your lips closed, you can’t say OO without your mouth narrow, and so forth.
These rules were listed previously in Table 1.1, and I cover them in further detail in Part
II of this book.
Now, this isn’t to say that for every F sound you’ll need the biggest, gnarliest, lower-
lip-chewingest, gum-baringest, spit-flyingest F shape—quite the contrary, you just need
to make sure something, anything, “F-like” happens in your animation to represent that
sound. That’s what visemes are: the representation of the sounds through visuals that
match only the necessary aspects. Visemes are not entire poses. F is not a shape—it is part
of a shape. The whole shape may be smiling or frowning, wide or narrow, but the lower
lip is up and the upper lip is up, giving you what you need for an F.
Representative Shapes
You may notice some disparity between the Wide/Narrow–Open/Closed distinctions and
the viseme set, which I summarize in Table 1.3. But as long as you represent the viseme in
some way, you’re all right.
ViSeme deScriptioN Schematic
B, M, P / Closed Closed
EE / Wide Somewhat open and wide
F, V Somewhat open
OO / Narrow Somewhat narrow and somewhat open
IH Somewhat wide and open
R Sometimes narrower than the shapes around
it, if they’re not already narrow
T, S Sometimes wider than the shapes around it,
if they’re not already wide
Table 1.3
The visemes’ rep-
resentation on
an Open/Closed
Narrow/Wide mouth
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