Yolo - A Lip Sync program written in Java

What's Yolo?

Yolo is a Java program for creating timesheets to sync animation to a pre-recorded audio track. It is similar to Lost Marble's Papagayo.

Yolo is written in Java, and should run under Windows, Linux and OS X.

Current Status

Yolo is currently functional, but still beta. This means that it is usable, but still has a number of bugs in it. Don't be suprised if it crashes, burns, eats your lunch, or fails to behave as it's supposed to. Also, be aware that lipsync files saved using beta versions may not work with later releases.

If running beta software makes you nervous, you might check out another lipsync program I've written, JLipSync. There's also the free (but commercial) Papagayo, or the commercial (but not free) Magpie.

Installing Yolo

In order to run Yolo, you will need Java installed on your machine. If you haven't got Java installed, refer to the next section, Installing Java.

Once you have Java installed, download the Yolo.jar file, found here at the link below. For most browsers, you should be able to right-click the link and choose "Save Link" from the popup menu and save the file.

Yolo.jar (1.8 Meg) Yolo beta as of September 15, 2005. I haven't even had a chance to rename it yet, so this version is still called "LipSync." Clever name, eh?
(I'll be posting a proper version, with source code, Real Soon Now).

You should be able to run Yolo by double-clicking the file you've saved. If this doesn't work, you can run it from the command line with the instruction:

java -jar Yolo.jar

If you run into trouble, you can send me an email. (One of these days I'll learn to stop posting my real email address... Spambots love me).

Installing Java

Before you can use Yolo, you will need a Java Virtual Machine (JVM) installed on your machine. It should be compatible with Sun's Java Development Kit (JDK) 1.1 or later.

Here are links to JVMs for various operating systems:

Macintosh (All MacOS versions 9.1 and later come with an acceptable virtual machine preinstalled.)
Windows (If you have a non-English version of Windows, be sure to download the "all languages, including English" version of Java.)
Linux
Solaris

Problems?

If you have comments, problems or suggestions you can contact me via email.

A Short Tutorial

Loading a Wave File

To run Yolo, double-click Yolo.jar. After a few moments, you should see a screen similar to this one:

Main Yolo Screen

To load a .wav file, go to the File menu and choose Open...

File Open Menu

The Open File dialog will appear. By default, only Yolo lipsync files (.ls) are displayed. In the "Files of Type" option, choose "Wave Audio Files":

Choosing .wav files

Select a .wav file, and press the Open button:

Open File Dialog

Yolo will load the .wav file and display it on the timeline:

Loaded wave file

Adding Dialog

Replace the text "Enter your dialog here." with the correct dialog. If there are multiple sentances, place them on seperate lines.

After the dialog is entered, press the Convert Dialog To Phonemes button:

Entering dialog

Yolo will automatically break the sentances into words, and the words into phonemes. It displays the results on the timeline:
Phonetic breakdown

The top band (in green) contains the sentances. The middle bands (in orange) contains the words. The bottom bands (in purple and pink) contain the phonemes.

Timing the Dialog

You can resize the any of the bands by dragging it. Bands grouped underneath it will automatically be resized as well. Bands cannot be sized or moved outside of the bands they are under:

Resizing a band

Note that as you drag a band, Yolo plays back the portion of the wave that you are dragging it over. If you double-click a band, Yolo plays back the portion of the wave that lies under the band. This is useful to fine-tune your lipsync.

To move a band without resizing it, click it on the center of the band and drag it. You can also hold down the Shift key, and then click and drag to move a band.

xxx

If you don't like the phonemes that Yolo has suggested for a word, right-click on the word you want to change, and you can enter in a new set of phonemes:

Choosing different phonemes

Once you're happy with your lipsync, you can save it as a Yolo lipsync file, or export it to Magpie or Moho format:

Saving a File

If you choose Copy to Clipboard, you can then paste the results into another program (such as a word processor):

Frame   Timecode   Key   Mouth name    Comments
    1  00.00.00.00       Closed
    2  00.00.00.00       Closed
    3  00.00.00.00   X   Closed
    4  00.00.00.00   X   A    
    5  00.00.00.00       A
    6  00.00.00.00       A

...snip...

    76  00.00.00.00   X    Closed