Face-Emotion Storyboard Animator

Making Animated Characters Without Drawing Skills

I can't draw to save my life. Stick figures are basically my limit. But I still wanted to create animated character videos for projects. Tried hiring animators - way too expensive. Looked at animation software - insanely complicated. So I built this thing that just needs you to type words with emotion tags. No artistic ability required whatsoever.

How to Use This Thing

Write your script. Add emotion tags in brackets before each line. Five emotions work: happy, sad, angry, surprised, neutral. Tool generates a cartoon face that changes expression based on your tags. Reads the script out loud using text-to-speech. That's the whole process.

Script Format That Actually Works

Each line starts with an emotion in square brackets, then your dialogue:

[neutral] Hello everyone, welcome to my channel.
[happy] Today I'm super excited to share this with you!
[surprised] You won't believe what happened next.
[sad] Unfortunately, things didn't work out.
[angry] This is completely unacceptable!

Keep each line under 20 words. Longer lines work but the narration timing gets weird. Shorter punchy lines flow way better.

Why Only Five Emotions

Could've added more but honestly these five cover like 90% of human expression. Happy, sad, angry, surprised, neutral. Mix them properly and you can tell pretty much any story. Plus more emotions means more code and I wanted this simple.

People Using This For Actual Projects

YouTubers Making Story Videos

Found out some YouTubers use this for storytime content. They write their story script with emotion tags, generate the video, use it as their visual while they do voiceover. Way easier than filming themselves or paying for stock footage. One person told me it cut their editing time by like 60%.

Teachers Creating Lesson Content

Elementary teacher makes character videos explaining concepts to kids. The animated face holds attention better than static slides. Kids think it's hilarious when the face gets angry or surprised. She makes all her lesson intros with this now.

Marketing People Making Ads

Small business owner creates quick promo videos. Writes a 30-second script with a friendly character explaining their product. Posts them on Instagram and TikTok. Said conversion rates went up after adding these character videos. People engage with faces more than text apparently.

Understanding That Preview Canvas

Big display shows your animated character face. Expression changes based on current emotion tag. Eyes, eyebrows, mouth all shift to match the feeling. Background pulses with that neon glow because static backgrounds are boring. Text overlay shows which frame you're on and what the character is saying.

Simple vs Detailed Face Styles

Simple cartoon style uses basic shapes. Clean, minimal, loads fast. Good for social media content where people scroll quickly. Detailed style adds more features and shading. Looks slightly more polished. Takes a tiny bit longer to render but still pretty quick.

Duration Settings Matter

Twenty seconds works for super quick clips. Thirty seconds is standard for most social posts. Forty-five seconds gives you room for more detailed stories. Sixty seconds is the max before people start losing interest. Match your duration to how much you actually need to say.

Voice Selection Changes Everything

Different browsers give you different voice options. Chrome has some, Firefox has others, Safari does its own thing. Test them all. Some sound robotic and terrible. Some sound surprisingly natural. Pick one that matches your content vibe - professional voice for business stuff, friendly voice for casual content.

Speech Rate Already Optimized

Set to 0.9x speed automatically. Slightly slower than normal talking. Makes the synthetic voice clearer and easier to understand. Normal speed sounds rushed. Slower speed sounds weird. This rate hits the sweet spot where it sounds natural enough.

Mistakes Everyone Makes at First

Forgetting the brackets: Emotion tags need square brackets. Write [happy] not (happy) or happy. Wrong bracket type means the parser ignores it completely. You end up with a neutral face saying everything.

Using unsupported emotions: Only happy, sad, angry, surprised, neutral work. Writing [confused] or [excited] does nothing because those emotions aren't programmed. Stick to the five that actually work.

Making lines too long: Thirty-word sentences sound terrible when read by text-to-speech. Plus the timing gets messed up. Break long thoughts into multiple shorter lines with appropriate emotion changes.

Not testing before downloading: Always hit play first. Listen to the whole thing. Make sure voices sound okay and timing works. Downloading records everything in real-time, so if preview is broken, your video will be broken too.

Getting Better Results

Match Emotions to Content

Don't just randomly throw emotion tags around. Think about what feeling actually fits each line. Starting with neutral works great for introductions. Build to happy for exciting parts. Use sad for disappointments. Angry for frustrations. Let emotions flow naturally through your story.

Vary Your Expressions

Using the same emotion for every line looks robotic. Mix it up. Neutral, happy, surprised, back to neutral. Changes keep viewers engaged. Static expressions make people zone out. Movement and variation hold attention.

Time Your Script Properly

Count how many lines you wrote. Divide your total duration by line count. That's roughly how long each line gets. If you picked 30 seconds and wrote 10 lines, each line gets about 3 seconds. Make sure that timing actually works for what you're saying.

Technical Stuff Behind the Scenes

How Face Animation Works

Tool draws everything with canvas graphics. Face shape, eyes, eyebrows, mouth - all separate elements that get positioned based on emotion state. Happy pulls mouth up into smile, raises eyebrows slightly. Sad drops mouth into frown, lowers eyebrows. Each emotion has specific coordinates for all facial features.

Recording Process Explained

When you hit download, browser captures the canvas stream at 30 frames per second. Records everything happening on screen including the animation and coordinates it with the text-to-speech audio. Outputs as WebM video file. Whole process happens locally in your browser - nothing gets uploaded to servers.

When This Tool Makes Sense

Social Media Content: Quick character videos for Instagram Reels, TikTok, YouTube Shorts. Faces get more engagement than plain text.

Educational Videos: Explaining concepts with a friendly animated character. Kids especially respond well to animated faces.

Product Explainers: Walking through features or benefits with an expressive character guide. More personable than corporate voiceovers.

Story Time Content: Narrating stories, experiences, or anecdotes with matching facial expressions. Adds visual interest to audio narratives.

Why Cartoon Faces Work Better Than You Think

Human brains are wired to pay attention to faces. Even simple cartoon faces trigger that response. Add changing expressions and you've got something that naturally holds attention. Way more engaging than static images or plain text on screen.

Plus cartoon faces are universal. No language barriers. No cultural confusion about expressions. Happy looks happy everywhere. Sad looks sad to everyone. Simple emotional communication that translates across any audience.

Look, this won't replace professional animation studios. But if you need a quick character video and don't have budget or skills for anything fancy, this gets the job done. Write your script, tag your emotions, download your video. Takes five minutes instead of five hours. Sometimes that's exactly what you need.