Rhubarb is an automated lip sync generator and phonetic speech analyzer that converts audio recordings into timed mouth-shape animation data. It identifies sounds and syllables within audio files to map them to specific visual mouth shapes, serving as an animation timing exporter for external character animation software.
The tool utilizes a language-independent phonetic recognizer to process speech regardless of the spoken language. To increase accuracy, it supports dialogue-guided recognition by using external text files to guide the phonetic analysis of specific spoken scripts.
The system covers audio processing across multiple formats and provides a mapping system to link phonetic events to user-defined mouth assets. It exports synchronization data in various formats for integration with external creative tools, including support for Spine, After Effects, and Magix Vegas.
The application emits machine-readable status updates and progress events via a standard error stream for external tool integration.