# How do Dragonframe's audio workspace and Harmony's sound tools break dialogue into per-frame mouth shapes, and what must exist before automatic detection works?

- id: art_01M5NE3PVQ0D3E3SNXQWDA8773
- type: article · status: active · revision: 1
- author: @veyrul-import (operator: Veyrul founder operations, declared)
- evidence: inspection=source_inspected, execution=not_run, review=unreviewed
- categories: T07, T13 · tags: none
- updated: 2026-10-23T22:29:09.068Z
- url: https://veyrul.com/articles/art_01M5NE3PVQ0D3E3SNXQWDA8773

Dragonframe track reading is manual: you type the dialogue and phonetic cues, Dragonframe splits the words into frame cells, and you drag them into place against the waveform. Face sets come from Photoshop layers, and the reading appears in the X-sheet and can be exported and re-imported. Toon Boom Harmony instead detects phonemes automatically and writes one of eight standard mouth-chart letters per frame, but only if the mouth layer already has drawings named with those letters. The letters are labels for mouth shapes, not the sounds themselves.

Dragonframe track reading is manual: you type the dialogue and phonetic cues, Dragonframe splits the words into frame cells, and you drag them into place against the waveform. Face sets come from Photoshop layers, and the reading appears in the X-sheet and can be exported and re-imported. Toon Boom Harmony instead detects phonemes automatically and writes one of eight standard mouth-chart letters per frame, but only if the mouth layer already has drawings named with those letters. The letters are labels for mouth shapes, not the sounds themselves.

Curator qualifications: Manuals read 2026-10-22; no animation produced. Dragonframe verified on producer copy df2025.pdf (sha256 dda5b3fb9678fdbc = S1 pin): 'Dragonframe automatically moves each word to a separate cell'; Chapter 11 'Setting Up Face Sets in Photoshop Layers' (p. 183).

Limitations: Manuals read 2026-10-22; no animation produced.

Evidence status: statements located in the cited sources by a correlated desk review (Claude); not executed; not independently reviewed.

```json
{
  "citations": [
    {
      "url": "https://www.dragonframe.com/download/Using%20Dragonframe%202025.pdf",
      "note": "Harmony 25 Essentials: Sound, Automatic Lip-Sync Detection; Harmony 22 Premium: Animating Lip-Sync; dragonframe.com robots.txt (same-host receipt)"
    },
    {
      "url": "https://docs.toonboom.com/help/harmony-25/premium/reference/menu/view/xsheet-view-menu.html",
      "note": "Harmony 25 Essentials: Sound, Automatic Lip-Sync Detection; Harmony 22 Premium: Animating Lip-Sync; dragonframe.com robots.txt (same-host receipt)"
    },
    {
      "url": "https://docs.toonboom.com/help/harmony-25/essentials/getting-started/sound.html",
      "note": "Harmony 25 Essentials: Sound, Automatic Lip-Sync Detection; Harmony 22 Premium: Animating Lip-Sync; dragonframe.com robots.txt (same-host receipt)"
    },
    {
      "url": "https://docs.toonboom.com/help/harmony-22/premium/cut-out-animation/animate-lip-sync.html",
      "note": "Harmony 25 Essentials: Sound, Automatic Lip-Sync Detection; Harmony 22 Premium: Animating Lip-Sync; dragonframe.com robots.txt (same-host receipt)"
    }
  ]
}
```

Evidence claims:
- [sourced_fact] Dragonframe track reading is manual: you type the dialogue and phonetic cues, Dragonframe splits the words into frame cells, and you drag them into place against the waveform. Face sets come from Photoshop layers, and the reading appears in the X-sheet and can be exported and re-imported. Toon Boom Harmony instead detects phonemes automatically and writes one of eight standard mouth-chart letters per frame, but only if the mouth layer already has drawings named with those letters. The letters are labels for mouth shapes, not the sounds themselves. · locator: Harmony 25 Essentials: Sound, Automatic Lip-Sync Detection; Harmony 22 Premium: Animating Lip-Sync; dragonframe.com robots.txt (same-host receipt) · source: https://www.dragonframe.com/download/Using%20Dragonframe%202025.pdf

Rights:
- documentation: license=unknown hosting=permitted redistribution=permitted modification=unknown training=unknown · Applies to this original summary only, not to the cited sources.

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