Built with Rive
Character Gestures Animations
Viky Wijaya
Rive Character Animation
Teachers Lip-Sync and Gestures Animations
Project Overview
Title: Teachers Lip-Sync and Gestures Animations
Role: Interaction Designer & Rive Animator
Platform / Tools: Rive (Bones & Rigs)
Date Posted: April 23 2025.
Time-frame: Oct 1 2024 – Nov 24 2024.
Brief / Purpose: Create character animations for a teacher-assistant app: the animated teacher speaks (lip-sync) and uses gestures to interact / guide users.
Key Challenges & Goals
Naturalism in animation: Make the teacher character’s lip movements sync realistically with speech, while also integrating expressive gesture animations so the character feels alive and responsive.
Interactivity constraints: Since the animations were intended for use in an app, performance and file size matter — rigging and bones had to be efficient.
Versatility / Reusability: Gestures and lip-sync sequences should be modular enough so that the teacher character can be reused or extended for different lessons or contexts.
Visual appeal + clarity: While functional (teaching assistant), the animation must also be engaging, friendly, and appropriate for educational content.
My Approach & Process
Concept & Planning
Defined the character’s role: teacher-assistant, friendly, clear, supportive.
Mapped out the required gesture library (e.g., pointing, explaining, waving, “thumbs up”) and lip-sync sequences tied to likely speech segments.
Chose Rive because of its ability to handle real-time vector animation with bones/rigs and export in formats compatible with apps.
Rigging & Animation
Built a skeletal rig for the teacher character (spine, arms, head, facial features) using Rive’s bones system.
Developed facial rig components dedicated to lip-sync: mouth shapes (visemes) for key phonemes, eyebrow/eye shapes for expression.
Created reusable gesture loops and transitions (e.g., idle → gesture → idle) so the app can trigger animations without jarring jumps.
Lip-Sync Integration
Matched audio track(s) of the teacher’s speech to viseme sequences in Rive. Ensured mouth shapes align with key phonemes to give the impression of speaking.
Fine-tuned timing for natural sync; added subtle head/eye motion to support the speech and avoid static character.
Ensured fallback states (e.g., silence/idle) are built in so the character remains alive even when not speaking.
Optimization for App Use
Checked file size, frame-rate, and export settings to make sure animations would run smoothly within the app environment (likely mobile).
Tested transitions so that one gesture or lip-sync sequence flows naturally into another, reducing abruptness.
Provided modular export files (e.g., separate gesture sequences, lip-sync track) so the app dev team can trigger segments as needed.
Review & Iteration
Reviewed the animations in situ (in a test build or mock-up) to check performance, clarity of gesture, readability of lip movement at typical app screen sizes.
Adjusted timings, refined mouth shapes / visemes for any mis-matches, polished transitions.
Finalised the deliverables and exported it for integration.
Results & Impact
Delivered a fully-rigged teacher character with both lip-sync capabilities and gesture library, ready for integration into the educational app.
Achieved naturalistic speaking animation: lip shapes matched audio, head/eyes/gestures complemented speech, creating a believable assistant-character.
Created modular, reusable assets: The gesture library, idle states, lip-sync library can scale for future lessons or characters, giving the client long-term value.
Improved user engagement potential: By having a dynamic visual guide, the app can feel more interactive and human-centred compared to static visuals.
Why this Project is Valuable & What It Shows About Me
Demonstrates strong technical competency with Rive and character rigging/animation: bones, visemes, gesture sets.
Shows ability to deliver for interactive/digital platforms (not just linear video animation) — important for apps, games, ed-tech.
Illustrates attention not just to animation aesthetics but also to usability, integration, optimisation — performance, modularity, reusability matter.
Reflects a thoughtful design mindset: considering the character’s function (teacher-assistant) and matching animation style to that role (friendly, clear, responsive).
Tips / Takeaways for Similar Projects
Early on, plan your gesture library and lip-sync requirements: knowing which visemes you need and what gestures the character must perform helps you avoid re-work.
Use transition states between gesture loops to keep the animation smooth and avoid “popping” between static poses.
For lip-sync, don’t just animate the mouth—consider head, eye, body movement to give life to the character while speaking.
Keep the file size and performance in mind if the output is for mobile or interactive use: fewer nodes, simple rigs, efficient textures/vectors.
Build the assets so they are modular: separate gestures, idle, lip-sync segments so the dev side can trigger them flexibly.
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Posted Apr 23, 2025
Gesture animations for an interactive teacher character—rigged in Rive for natural speech, expressive motion, and seamless app integration.
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Timeline
Oct 1, 2024 - Nov 24, 2024
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