How does the lip sync work?
Each line is turned into speech first, and then two things drive the mouth. The words decide its shapes, taken from a classic cartoon mouth chart: lips pressed for an M, B or P, wide for an A, rounded for an O. The voice decides the timing: Blabba measures how loud the speech is a hundred times a second, lays the shapes along the sound, and opens the mouth as far as the voice is loud. Silence closes it, so pauses read as pauses.
The rest of the face and body go with it. Characters blink, breathe and turn their heads to whoever is speaking, and the head nods on stressed words. You can add one of five expressions or twelve gestures on any word, from a shrug to a facepalm.
How do I make cartoon characters talk?
- Open the studio and add a character. Pick a look, then a voice.
- Type what they say. Press Enter for the next line, and choose who says it.
- Press play. The voice is made and the lip sync follows it.
- Export an MP4 when it sounds right.
For gestures, camera cuts and backgrounds, see how to make an animated video.
Which text-to-speech voices are there?
The studio has eight voices, each with a character of its own. Every one can be heard before you choose it:
- Bored Receptionist, American English
- Overconfident Manager, American English
- Tired Dad, American English
- Extremely Calm HR Lady, American English
- Posh Consultant, British English
- Grave Newsreader, British English
- Chirpy Intern, American English
- Seen-It-All IT Guy, British English
The mobile editor at blabba.app/m uses a smaller voice engine built for phones, with ten American and British voices.
Are the voices AI?
The voices come from neural text-to-speech models, which are a kind of AI, and they run on your computer rather than on our servers. Nothing else is generated: the sixteen ready-made characters and every background are drawn by Blabba, and the animation follows your script exactly. Nothing is improvised, and nothing you write is sent to an AI service.
Can I upload a photo or record my own voice?
No. Blabba is not a photo-to-talking-head tool. Characters are built in its character editor (skin, build, hair, clothes, glasses, hats), and saved for your next film. Recording your own voice is not available yet; every line is spoken by one of the text-to-speech voices.
Is lip sync animation in Blabba free?
Yes. Making a film and downloading it is free, with no account. The free export is a 540p MP4 with a small Blabba.app mark, for personal use. Clean exports with a commercial licence are paid, and the prices are on the pricing page.