How To Animate Moving Mouth In After Effets

Can You Talk the Talk?

BY RICHARD HARRINGTON & MARCUS GEDULD

Recently, we needed to create a Monty Python-style talking caput in Adobe Subsequently Effects and, as with most of our projects, the deadline was yesterday. So there was no fourth dimension to keyframe the mouth movements. With a footling know-how, nosotros were able to craft a chatterbox faster than you can say "Spam." In this tutorial, we'll take you lot step-by-footstep through the process, beginning with the audio recording in Adobe Audition, moving on to the prototype prep in Adobe Photoshop, and ending up in good quondam Adobe After Effects, where a little Expression magic saves the 24-hour interval.

Tape Sound File in Audition

STEP 1 Create a High-Quality Sound File
Plug a microphone into your PC and launch Audition. Make sure you lot're working in Edit view, and click the Record icon. When Audience displays the New Waveform dialog, cull high-quality settings (east.g., a Sample Rate of 48000, which is DVD-quality audio). You tin can always consign the audio at a lower quality afterward if necessary.

Stride 2 Prepare File for Export
Later speaking into the mic, click Stop, and then cull File>Salvage Every bit to save the audio. Choose the WAV format for uncompressed (highest quality) sound or MP3 for a smaller file size (simply even so a pretty good sound for dialog). The Options push button reveals controls for fine-tuning the export. In this example, we accustomed all the defaults. One time you've saved the WAV or MP3, you can shut out of Audition.

Fix Images in Photoshop

STEP 1 Cull Your Two Images
In Photoshop, choose File>Open and navigate to your ii images: one of a airtight-mouth face and i of an open mouth with teeth and a natural language.

STEP ii Identify Images into a Single File
Choose the Move tool (Five) and drag-and-drop the closed-oral cavity prototype onto the teeth and natural language paradigm.

Pace 3 Brand a Pick
Choose the Lasso tool (50) and brand a selection of the mentum and lower lip of the closed-mouth layer (Layer ane).

STEP 4 Cut-and-Paste Selection into New Layer
Press Shift-Command-J (PC: Shift-Control-J) to cut-and-paste the chin option onto a new layer. Utilize the Move tool to drag the mentum down a little from its original position, equally if the mouth is open up.

Step v Rename Layers; Save File as PSD
Now you need to move and resize the lower layer. Photoshop will simply let you practise this if you rename information technology something other than Background. In the Layers palette, double-click the text "Background" and rename the layer "teeth." At present, using the Movement tool and Gratis Transform command (Command-T [PC: Command-T]), adjust the lower layer (move, resize, and rotate it) until you tin can run into the teeth and tongue showing through the open rima oris on the upper layer. Rename the heart layer "face" and the top layer "chin." Salve the file as a PSD and shut out of Photoshop.

Animate Chin in After Effects

STEP i Import the PSD
In Later on Effects, choose File>Import>File from the carte du jour bar. Select the PSD and choose Composition – Cropped Layers from the Import Every bit drop-down menu. This will import the PSD file as a layered AE Composition, keeping the layer society and layer names intact.

STEP 2 Import the Sound File
Find the imported comp in the Project panel and double-click information technology to open up it in the Timeline and Comp windows. Import the sound file that you created in Audition and add it to the Comp.

STEP iii Convert Sound to Keyframes
With the sound layer selected, cull Animation>Keyframe Banana>Catechumen Audio to Keyframes. After Effects will create a new layer called Sound Amplitude and add it to the Comp. Twirl this layer open to reveal its Effects in the Timeline. Twirl open Effects and then the Both Channels effect (which AE added automatically). You'll see a property called Slider with keyframes on every frame. These keyframes contain book information from the audio layer.

STEP 4 Add together an Expression to Chin Layer
Select the mentum layer and move it dorsum into its original position (closed mouth). Press P to reveal its Position holding, then Selection-click (PC: Alt-click) the belongings's Stopwatch icon to add an Expression. Elevate the Pick Whip and release it when it'southward pointing to the Slider property on the Audio Aamplitude level.

Pace v The Expression Is Added
Later on Effects adds an Expression to the Position property of the chin layer, every bit shown in the image above.

Footstep half dozen Alter the Expression
Click inside the Expression to place a text cursor in it. Highlight all of the text that appears after ("Slider") and supplant it with the following text:

* 10;
[position[0], position[1] + temp]

Note: In that location should be a infinite both earlier and after the asterisk (*). Besides, make sure you don't accidentally erase the semi-colon (after the 10) or the square brackets on the outset and end of the 2d line.

STEP 7 Fourth dimension to Play
Play the Comp. To make the confront shout, change the 10 in the Expression to a larger number. To brand the face up whisper, change the x to a smaller number.