Patent Document ID: 20100060647
Application ID: 12622553
Patent Status: 0

Claim One:
1. A computer implemented method of animating speech of an avatar representing a participant in a mobile communication, the avatar displayed on a display screen of a mobile communications device, the method comprising: displaying, by an animation module installed on the mobile communications device, the avatar representing the participant including: receiving a text source; identifying, in dependence upon the text source, the participant; selecting, from data storage in dependence upon the identification of the participant, one or more images to represent the participant; selecting from data storage a generic animation template for the participant, the generic animation template having a mouth, the mouth characterized by a mouth position; fitting the one or more images representing the participant with the generic animation template; texture wrapping the one more images representing the participant over the generic animation template; and displaying, by the animation module, the one or more images texture wrapped over the generic animation template; converting, by the animation module, the text source to an audio speech signal; identifying, by the animation module from the audio speech signal, a series of phonemes, each phoneme representing a portion of the audio speech signal; and for each phoneme: identifying a new mouth position for the mouth of the generic animation template, altering the mouth position of the mouth of the generic animation template to the new mouth position, texture wrapping a portion of the one or more images corresponding to the altered mouth position of the mouth of the generic animation template, displaying the texture wrapped portion of the one or more images corresponding to the altered mouth position of the mouth of the generic animation template, and playing, synchronously with the displayed texture wrapped portion of the one or more images, the portion of the audio speech signal represented by the phoneme.