A method for automatically animating lip synchronization and facial expression of three-dimensional characters comprising:</claim-text> obtaining a first set of rules that define output morph weight set stream as a function of phoneme sequence and of said phoneme sequence; obtaining a timed data file of phonemes having a plurality of sub-sequences; generating an intermediate stream of output morph weight sets and a plurality of transition parameters between two adjacent morph weight sets by evaluating said plurality of sub-sequences against said first set of rules; generating a final stream of output morph weight sets at a desired frame rate from said intermediate stream of output morph weight sets and said plurality of transition parameters; and applying said final stream of output morph weight sets to a sequence of animated characters to produce lip synchronization and facial expression control of said animated characters. view more

The method of claim <HIL><BOLD>1</BOLD></HIL> wherein said timed data is a timed aligned phonetic transcriptions data.

The method of claim <HIL><BOLD>7</BOLD></HIL> wherein said timed data further comprises time aligned data.

The method of claim <HIL><BOLD>7</BOLD></HIL> wherein said timed data further comprises time aligned emotional transcription data.

The method of claim <HIL><BOLD>1</BOLD></HIL> wherein said first set of rules comprises:</claim-text> correspondence rules between a plurality of visual phoneme groups and a plurality of morph weight sets; and morph weight set transition rules r generating transitionary curves between morph weight sets. view more