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.)
English 
Spanish (Spain) 
French 
Spanish (Venezuela) 
Spanish (Chile) 
Spanish (Guatemala) 
Portuguese 
Chinese (China) 
Chinese (Taiwan) 
Chinese (Hong Kong) 
Japanese 
Hindi 
Sindhi 
German (Switzerland) 
German 
Russian 
Polish 
Czech 
Vietnamese 
Italian 
Swedish 
Serbian