The next step after creating your animation in Adobe Animate is adding lip-sync to bring your characters to life. Lip syncing in Adobe Animate allows you to synchronize your character's mouth movements with spoken dialogue so that your character can look more realistic. Otherwise, your character may feel disconnected from the scene.
Proper lip-syncing can add realism and depth to your animation. However, you may face the challenge of navigating through the complex interface of Adobe Animate. This software can be overwhelming for beginners, with numerous tools and settings that require careful attention.
That's why we're here to help you understand the process of lip-syncing in Adobe Animate. And for those looking to localize their animations, we'll also introduce AI Lip Sync in Wondershare Filmora as an efficient solution.
In this article
Part 1 How To Do a Lip Sync Animation in Adobe Animate
The process of doing lip sync in animation in Adobe Animate involves creating a series of mouth shapes, known as visemes, that correspond to the sounds of speech. Then, you'll match these visemes to the phonemes in your audio track, using keyframes to animate the transitions between them.
This process can be time-consuming, but thankfully, Adobe Animate now features auto lip-sync to help simplify the workflow. To get started, you can use the provided sample material for practice. Then, simply follow the steps outlined below.
- Step 1: Create Mouth Shapes (Visemes)
Design different mouth shapes in Adobe Animate for phonemes like A, E, O, etc. These will represent how the character’s mouth moves when pronouncing various sounds. Group them into a symbol (graphic).
- Step 2: Prepare the Mouth Symbol Layer
Double-click the mouth symbol to open it. In this timeline, label each frame with the phoneme it represents (e.g., "A", "E", "O") to make it easier to map to the audio later on.
- Step 3: Use Adobe Animate Auto Lip-Sync
Once the mouth shapes are prepared, select the mouth symbol in the timeline. In the Properties panel, click Lip Syncing. This opens the Lip Sync Settings dialog box.
- Step 4: Map Mouth Shapes to Audio
In the Lip Sync Settings window, you can assign each mouth shape to a corresponding sound or phoneme (viseme). Animate automatically creates keyframes at different points along the timeline to match these phonemes to the audio.
- Step 5: Sync with Audio
In the Lip Sync Settings, select the audio layer to sync with, and Animate will automatically match the audio with your mouth poses.
After applying auto lip-sync, you may need to adjust the timing or individual frames to ensure the synchronization looks natural. You can watch the full video here.
Pros and Cons of Lip Syncing in Adobe Animate
Based on user reviews and professional experiences, we can evaluate the pros and cons of using Adobe Animate for lip syncing. These considerations may help you decide whether it's the right tool for your animation needs.
Part 2 Wondershare Filmora: Explore Other Video Editing Scenarios with AI Lip Sync
Now that you’ve learned how to create lip-sync effects for your animations in Adobe Animate, you can take your projects even further by localizing your animation into different languages. However, before you think of manually reanimating the mouth shapes in Adobe Animate for each language, you can streamline this process using Filmora AI Lip Sync feature.
Filmora has introduced AI Lip Sync to help animators, video content creators, marketers, or anyone who needs to produce multilingual content quickly and efficiently. This feature automatically adjusts the mouth movements to match the dialogue in different languages, making it easier to localize your content without going through the painstaking process of animating it manually.
Key features of Filmora AI lip sync feature
- Automatic Lip Sync: Filmora’s AI technology automatically syncs mouth movements with voiceovers in minutes
- Multilingual Voiceovers: Generate natural-sounding voiceovers in more than 20 languages
- Customizable Subtitles: Options to add, adjust, and download subtitles, which you can edit for precise synchronization with your content
- AI Translation Accuracy: Filmora’s AI Translation delivers more than 90% accuracy, perfect for multilingual content creation.
- Transform speech with AI lip sync magic.
- Accents vanish, authenticity stays with synced lips.
- Dub in any language, lips follow suit flawlessly.
Step-by-step guide on AI lip sync effects in Filmora
Step 1: Install the latest version of Filmora
Make sure you have the latest version of Filmora installed. You can update or download it from the official website and follow the installation instructions.
Step 2: Create a New Project and Import Your Video
Once you launch Filmora, click on "New Project" in the startup window. Next, you can add or import your video file by clicking "Import."
Step 3: Activate AI Lip Sync
Next, right-click on your video and choose "AI Translation" from the menu.
In the AI Translation window, set the translation type to "Translate voice and caption." Select your source and target languages, and check the box for "AI Lip Sync" to enable the feature. Click Generate or Try Free to start the lip-sync process.
Step 4: Edit and Customize Subtitles
Once done, you’ll find the results in the Project Media section. A new video will appear, featuring the lip synchronization in the chosen language along with the appropriate subtitles. You can drag them to the timeline for further editing.
To adjust the subtitles, simply double-click on the subtitle track within the timeline and make any necessary edits.
Bonus: Do Voice-Over for Animated Figures in Filmora
Besides lip-syncing, Filmora also allows you to dub or add voiceovers directly for your animation video. You can replace the original audio and record new voice recordings while the video plays. To use this feature, click on the Record Voice Over button located at the top of the editing timeline. Or you can watch the full guide in the video below.
Part 3 A Creative Comparison of Lip Sync: Adobe Animate vs. Filmora
After learning about both lip syncing with Adobe Animate and Filmora, it’s clear that each tool offers distinct advantages depending on your specific needs. To help you better understand the use cases of each tool, below is a comparison table that highlights key differences between them.
| Adobe Animate | Filmora | |
| Lip Sync Process | Manual and automatic (requires fine-tuning) | AI-driven, fully automated lip-syncing |
| Target Audience | Ideal for professional animators and advanced users | Suited for beginner-to-intermediate users, content creators, marketers, educators, or anyone who needs to localize their content naturally |
| Multilingual Support | Requires manual lip-sync for each language | Supports over 20 languages with automatic syncing |
| Best Use Cases | Perfect for detailed character animation and complex projects | Ideal for quick, efficient content creation and localization projects |
As you see, Adobe Animate is a solid choice for creating lip-sync animations. However, if you're looking to localize your animation in multiple languages, you can streamline the process by using the AI Lip Sync feature in Filmora.
Part 4 How To Ensure Lip Sync Animation Looks Professional and Polished
Creating a professional-looking lip-sync animation takes practice, but by following a few key techniques and principles, you can take your animation to the next level. Here are some simple tips to help you achieve polished results:
1. Match Mouth Shapes with Phonemes
Each sound (or phoneme) in speech corresponds to specific mouth shapes. Focus on matching the key phonemes to mouth positions. You can use reference charts for common phonemes to ensure accuracy.
2. Focus on Key Mouth Movements, Not Every Sound
Lip sync doesn't need to capture every single sound. Focus on the major sounds in a word (like the start and end of syllables) to create smoother, more believable animation.
3. Exaggerate Key Expressions for Clarity
Slightly exaggerate the mouth shapes and facial expressions to make the animation clearer, especially if the character is animated in a cartoony style. Exaggeration also helps ensure the lip-sync is readable even when the character is smaller on screen.
4. Use AI Tools to Refine Your Animation
If you’re working with a lot of dialogue or multiple languages, consider using AI lip-sync tools, like those in Filmora, to speed up the process while keeping the quality professional. These tools can help with auto-matching phonemes to lip movements, but always double-check and adjust for a natural feel.
Keep these techniques in mind and avoid overcomplicating the animation. Remember, a clean, simple approach will often look more professional than trying to animate every single detail!
Conclusion
Lip-syncing in Adobe Animate is a crucial but often tedious skill for animators who want to bring realism and personality to their characters. This process involves carefully matching mouth movements to spoken dialogue, requiring a keen understanding of phonemes and visemes. But still, it’s an important process to make your animation feel more realistic.
Meanwhile, for those seeking efficiency, especially when localizing content into multiple languages, Filmora’s AI Lip Sync is a time-saving solution. This innovative tool automates the lip-syncing process so that you can easily synchronize mouth movements with dialogue in various languages without the need for manual adjustments.
