CrazyTalk Pro

5.0 stars

"It works even better than I hoped"

January 29, 2010  |   By Mr Earl

Version: CrazyTalk Pro 6.13

Pros

Lifelike results
Excellent help available
Excellent user interface
Easier to learn than I expected

Cons

So far NOTHING

Summary

It's not easy to learn, but considering it's power, it was a lot EASIER to learn than you would expect. What I like best is that you can make a change and immediately test it to see the results. It produced EXCELLENT results for me. It's expensive, but worth every penny if you are serious about animating your pictures.

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3.0 stars

"Might have promise promise but is complicated"

January 24, 2010  |   By beagoldbuyer

Version: CrazyTalk Pro 6.13

Pros

Can make life-like eyes
Can customize actions and facial gestures timed exactly to speech

Cons

works best on straight ahead shots (see below)
can't use mic on computer, has to be external mic
very complicated to me

Summary

This program looks really cool at first, it's a great idea. Probably it is best for the professional and the person who wants to spend a lot of time with it.That person can probably do a lot with it. but for me it is way too much of an investment.
I have a gif animation that I made on another program. It is a header for my website. The person in the drawing/photo is looking slightly sideways, and he blinks and grins at the same time. it is life-like for the most part, but I thought this program could make him talk instead. That would have been even better. So I set to making the facial "mask" as they calling it. Basically you fit the various points to the models face. Then I added the eyes and mouth, etc. It looked pretty good except that the teeth were a bit sideways since the model was looking to the left a bit and the program doesn't allow you to compensate for that. Anyway, that was all the easy part. it took some tweaking but looked pretty good. (By the way they have a lot of tutorials and stuff at their website to show you how to do things, but it is a lot to navigate and I could never find my way back to one spot that I had planned to continue reading.)
The second part involves actually adding the speech and fitting your model to it. That was a problem since the program requires an external mic. I have a laptop with a built in webcam and mic that works for skype and the rest but not for this program. That is a pain. So I defaulted to typing - text to speech.But the program doesn't nclude voices so I was left with the only voice on my computer, I guess it is a part of windows, but it is a woman's voice. My model was a man by the way, so that didn't fit well obviously. But I proceeded anyway at that point just wanting to see my work yield something. But the mouth didnt fit the speech at all. The youtube video that the company made for this product shows a guy fitting the facial movement to the speech, but he makes it look so much easier than it actually is.Some tabs can only be opened up on the screen when certain features are selected.Otherwise those tabs are just grayed out and inactive. But the tutorials doesnt specify where the deomonstrater has clicked in order to select certain tabs at certain times. It became a very complicated and frustrating process at that point, and I eventually gave up. By then it had taken up enough of my time to make a man with sideways teeth flap his lips with a womans voice.
If you are curious, go play with it but don;t expect a life-like result if you dont plan on spending a lot of time with it. If you are a professional though,an animator or something,this is probably the program for you Essentially this is the art of puppetry with a computer. And that is far more detailed an art than I knew until trying this program.The website makes it clear by selling all kinds of puppetry program add-ons for facial responses and stuff..

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5.0 stars

"Great new upgrade"

November 8, 2009  |   By jkllyn

Version: CrazyTalk Pro 6.12

Pros

I have CrazyTalk4 and this new version comes with a lot of new features for animation. Very cool!

Cons

not at the moment

Summary

This is really a cool product for anyone who wants to do more works on their photos. the creative result can be easily placed on my own blog and share with my family and friends. they all love it so much.

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4.0 stars

"Easily worked and amazingly effective"

November 8, 2009  |   By retreaded

Version: CrazyTalk Pro 6.12

Pros

Great for getting ideas through to children

Cons

I have none. It is great

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4.0 stars

"Fun and easy to use animator"

September 9, 2009  |   By luciloocifer

Version: CrazyTalk Pro 5.1

Pros

Crazy Talk 5 PRO is a pretty solid piece of software engineering that literally takes still facial photos and converts the eyes, mouth, and other facial features into fluid motion. You can be a real puppeteer and use your creations in videos.

Cons

The movement of the head is limiited. You cannot turn it sideways, and it takes considerable time and a sophisticated video editor to put two talking interacting characters into one frame. (The new 6.0 version claims to do this integratively.)

Summary

A well engineered software product with good responsive online help. Crazy Talk 5 PRO is enjoyable to use for the most part, and had few bugs in it. However, not just any facial photo of a human, animal, etc., will work well, since the lips need to be closed fully to add teeth, and if the angle of the head isn't full frontal, it may be difficult, if not impossible, to get eyes and mouth features to work well. It does force its user to be very selective in choosing the "right" photo. Despite these limitations, it still provides a wide latitude of creativeness that should make it fun and worthwhile to a user who doesn't want long learning curves and complex animation programs to tackle. You'll probably be happy with paying the rather steep price, and I suspect it's a bit high because there's really nothing else quite like it on the market. I've used it frequently on You Tube to animate portions of my videos, and have actually done entire animated short stories. Inanimate objects like a toilet, pumpkin, or some ready-made cartoon character can be easily made to talk, with some hilarious effect.
All in all, it's much fun, fairly easy to master, but I wish they'd lower the price on the PRO edition. If you ever wanted to be a puppeteer, or are or were one, you'll especially enjoy its features. Sound (only .wav files allowed) integrates automatically very well, or you can manually manipulate the mouth, or use both features combined. There is a good assortment of ready-made facial expression, eyes, teeth, mouth colors, motions, etc. Static backgrounds from photos can be easily created and animated characters can move left to right and vice versa, up and down, or even spin. Zoom feature allows dramatic or comic emphasis. A really nice piece of reliable creative software that integrated well into Vista and doesn't suck a lot of RAM.

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4.0 stars

"great software"

September 3, 2009  |   By djps55

Version: CrazyTalk Pro 6.1

Pros

i like that i can take a four person photo and make it look like each personson is talking.

Cons

they offer freebies each month for their other software,but very rarely offer freebies for crazytalk.

Summary

i feel this is very good software,but in order to make projects you see on reallusion website,you have to keep buying more add-on packs.

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5.0 stars

"So new, so exciting and So much better and SO EASY!"

July 22, 2009  |   By fufuchou

Version: CrazyTalk Pro 6.0

Pros

Multi-character can help story telling much ealier than previous version
Better with different angled face
Ease of use is maintained

Cons

Not much!!!

Summary

I really like the function about multi-character where I could literally compose a story using CrazyTak 6. In the past, I need to use extra video editing software and it is not friendly. With CrazyTalk6, I could make different characters taling to each other. With the new timeline (stage) design, I can even do much more. You never have to worry about the animation as much of the dirty/tough work is done by CrazyTalk. Thanks to Reallusion's smart engineers and design team. I would definitely continue to use this.

As a Manga lover, I also love to draw. Now, I can use my pen to draw some of my favourite characters, color it, and use CrazyTalk's new EYE technology. The Eyes n't be any than this version. Use it and you will know what I mean.!

ENjoy this product and share your video with everyone! world of image-talking!!

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5.0 stars

"Professional animation for everyone"

July 21, 2009  |   By Visconti

Version: CrazyTalk Pro 6.0

Pros

It's amazingly easy to use. I just spent a few hours playing this tool in the afternoon, and found I should be able to join any animation competition since the result is so quality.

Cons

It would be better if some video/transition effects are considered inside this product.

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5.0 stars

"It's really save time on production"

July 17, 2009  |   By CosaLu

Version: CrazyTalk Pro 6.0

Pros

The puppeteering facial animation function, and the Multi-character Editing function.

Cons

It doesn't contain TTS engine. If I want better TTS voice, I need to buy it separately.

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