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| Reallusion Releases CrazyTalk 5 Animation Software Reallusion has announced Version 5 of CrazyTalk, a software application known for the ability to make any photo or image talk. CrazyTalk 5 adds hands-on movie animation interactivity with the power to puppet facial expressions and animation in real-time. With the software, novices and experienced users can turn photos into life-like digital puppet performances for films, web videos, podcasts, blogs, machinima and classroom projects. The technology in CrazyTalk 5 is much like the tools used in Hollywood films, children's television and major brand commercials to create live, talking characters and animals. With the software, users can transform their PC into a face-animating movie studio for producing entertaining movies and videos for training, e-learning and websites. Any digital photo or image can be used to create a talking character that comes to life as an actor, automatically lip-synching to the recorded audio and enlivened by a broad range of emotions. Consumers and professionals alike can enjoy the increased productivity enabled by new CrazyTalk 5 features such as the ability to edit keys and the ability to explore/save motion clips without having to purchase expensive extra equipment. In addition, the character animation feature has been enhanced to add more personality and emotive control. When combined with the CrazyTalk 5's revolutionary real-time puppeteering panel, these capabilities enable users to perform character animation and record their mouse movements, resulting in facial motion-capture control using any mouse or human interface device. The ultimate facial animation solution, CrazyTalk 5 has also been enhanced with the following new features and tools. Create Live, Talking Characters and Animals By redesigning the fitting algorithm, users can now make any image talk, not just humans. With the all-new CrazyTalk 5 facial profile wizard, users can select the type of face to match their desired animation motion. Dogs will animate with doglike features and humans will perform with natural human facial movement. In addition to providing face profiles for human characters and non-human characters, CrazyTalk 5 offers an anti-distortion feature that can be used during face rotation and angle enhancement. New tools have also been added to enable customization of stand-by motions and customization of the characters' eyes and teeth to make them more realistic. Real-time Puppetry Animation and Motion Capture Now featuring a real-time puppeteering mode for live recording, the new version of CrazyTalk goes beyond traditional key frame timeline editing. With this feature, Reallusion introduces all-new interactive puppetry animation control where the user can apply realistic facial expressions and face morph effects simply by moving the mouse. Five default puppet profiles define instant personality performance for puppeteering including, attractive, grumpy and youthful. Six emotion styles are also included with an advanced select and deselect layer editing capability to provide full control of the puppet's facial features, mouth opening, emotional expression and more. Even the camera movement can be adjusted simply by selecting a camera type and dragging it freely to zoom in/out and rotate. Powerful Timeline Editing CrazyTalk's Timeline Editor provides users with easy drag-and-drop management of motion clips and the ability to customize their Emotion Library with key mode editing for specific character expression. Using the advanced select/deselect features, specific sections can also be grouped and ungrouped. Two Special Effects (SFX) tracks are also available on the timeline — one to swap the foreground/background attributes and one to add text messages. Flexible Media Output Offering an extended list of media output options and expanded interactivity, CrazyTalk 5 now provides HD video support to meet the growing demand of HD programming production and interactive web media support with Flash video output enabled for adding CrazyTalk to any Adobe Flash project or website. With output options ranging from HD-sized video to YouTube -sized video and the new Flash video option with a variety of quality settings, CrazyTalk users can share their productions in the full-screen, DV video format for DVD projects and as streaming videos for websites. Videos can also be produced for mobile handsets and emails. To accommodate the application needs and budget requirements of a broad range of users, Reallusion offers two versions of CrazyTalk — both are Windows XP and Vista compatible: • CrazyTalk 5 Pro is a complete solution for talking 3D facial animation that includes all of the tools in the CrazyTalk arsenal along with HD and Flash video output, real-time layered puppeteering animation with custom facial feature selection control, custom puppeteering profile editing, fully enabled timeline editing, audio voice morphing, and more. • CrazyTalk 5 Standard creates talking characters from photos for use in emails and home video projects. It includes basic emotional editing, additional SFX templates and comic effects, some timeline editing capabilities and standard definition video export. write your comments about the article :: © 2008 Computing News :: home page |