This recipe handles two important parts of making characters seem alive and sentient. Technically, they can be handled using AnimChannel, but they still deserve their own mention as they have some special requirements.

Lip syncing revolves around something called Phoneme, which is the distinct shape the mouth takes when making certain sounds. The number of phonemes a character has varies according to different needs, but there is a basic set that is used to create believable mouth movements.

Finally, we'll use jMonkeyEngine's Cinematics system to apply them in sequence and have the character speak (mime) a word. Cinematics is jMonkeyEngine's scripting system, and it can be used both to create in-game-scripted events and cutscenes. It is covered in more depth in Chapter 9, Taking Our Game to the Next Level.

We'll follow the control pattern in this recipe, and control can be merged into another animation controller or be kept alone.