Brought to you by the Viseme Reference model from the Oculus Developer’s Guide and the real life human that the Oculus Lipsync demo avatar is based off of 🙂
Welcome to the Viseme Cheat Sheet! The Viseme Cheat Sheet is a visual guide to English phonemes for audiences working on speech animation.
Things to note:
- This sheet is meant to be a quick reference. For a deeper dive: 1) Book a specialized lecture for your team 2) If you’re a Premium member, see the Viseme & Speech Reference Guide for more in-depth references with videos and blended consonants. (So far just the consonants are posted, but vowels and blended consonants will be up soon.)
- There may be some missing phonemes and visemes. Feel free to comment on this page to point out any specific ones (already aware about ng & y).
- Each viseme is variable. While some visemes possess fixed characteristics required for mechanical production (e.g. b/p/m will always need the lips to close), facial actions required for each viseme will fluctuate depending on numerous factors including – but not limited to – individual facial features and speech context.
- Visemes in the wild (during natural speech) are much more complicated and context-dependent than the isolated visemes presented in this document.
the consonants
neutral / silent
no sound, relaxed
b / p / m
b
as in buccinator
bilabial, plosive, voiced
slides 1 (closed) & 2 (open)
p
as in pout
bilabial. plosive, voiceless
slides 3 (closed) & 4 (open)
m
as in masseter
bilabial, nasal, voiced
slides 5
Slide through carousal, and hover over images to reveal phoneme & phoneme state.
ʧ / ʤ / ʃ / ʒ
ʧ
as in chin
post-alveolar, affricate, voiceless
slide 1
ʤ
as in jaw, gem
post-alveolar, affricate, voiced
slide 2
ʃ
as in shine, spatial
post-alveolar, fricative, voiceless
slide 3
ʒ
as in genre, measure
post-alveolar, fricative, voiced
not shown in slides
Slide through carousal, and hover over images to reveal phoneme & phoneme state.
d / t
d
as in depressor
alveolar, plosive, voiced
slide 1
t
as in temporalis
alveolar, plosive, voiceless
slide 2
Slide through carousal, and hover over images to reveal phoneme & phoneme state.
f / v
f
as in face
labiodental, fricative, voiceless
slide 1
v
as in viseme
labiodental, fricative, voiced
slide 2
Slide through carousal, and hover over images to reveal phoneme & phoneme state.
g / k
g
as in guess
velar, plosive, voiced
slide 1
k
as in king
velar, plosive, voiceless
slide 2
Slide through carousal, and hover over images to reveal phoneme & phoneme state.
h
h
as in hippocampus, happy
glottal, fricative, voiceless
realtime, then slowmo
l
l
as in labial
alveolar, lateral, voiced
n
n
as in nasal
alveolar, nasal, voiced
r
r
as in red
post-alveolar, approximant, voiced
s / z
s
as in see
alveolar, fricative, voiceless
slide 1
z
as in zygomatic
alveolar, fricative, voiced
slide 2
Slide through carousal, and hover over images to reveal phoneme & phoneme state.
θ / ð (th)
θ
as in wreath (voiceless)
dental, fricative, voiceless
ð
as in thoracic (voiced)
dental, fricative, voiced
Example not present. ð is in the same viseme category as θ.
the vowels
ɑ (ah)
ɑ
as in jaw, because, stop
æ
æ
as in cat, FACS, zygomaticus
ɛ (eh)
ɛ
as in any, kept, levator
i (ee)
i (ee)
as in eel, cheese, meat
ɪ (ih)
ɪ
as in lip, which
u (oo)
u
as in food, rue, mood
ʊ (ouh)
ʊ
as in puller, look, good
oʊ (oh)
oʊ
as in lowerer, slow, moat
ɔɪ (oy)
ɔɪ
as in joy, soy, join
ə (uh)
ə
as in upper, other
Check back soon 🙂
key terms
alveolar: tip of tongue touches the gum line behind the teeth (the alveolar ridge)
bilabial: upper and lower lips come together
labiodental: lip touches the teeth (Usually it is the lower lip touching the top teeth; however, an equivalent sound can technically be achieved from the reverse.)
dental: tongue interacts with teeth either by being placed between upper and lower teeth or against back of upper teeth
post-alveolar: tongue is placed right behind the gum line behind teeth
palatal: tongue is raised against the center of mouth roof
velar: back of tongue touches or is held close to the velum (soft palate)
glottal: air sound is produced by stopping flow to glottis
labiovelar approximant: lips and velum both constrict – but not completely (Read more about approximants here.)
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