Reallusion, Inc, a pioneer in advancing 3D animation and imaging technology, has announced Version 5 of CrazyTalk, an innovative yet easy-to-use software application known for the ability to make any photo or image talk.
CrazyTalk 5 will be distributed by Phoenix Software in South Africa. 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 performance 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 Web sites. 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 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 customisation of stand-by motions and customisation 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 feature, 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 innovative Timeline Editor provides users with easy drag-and-drop management of motion clips and the ability to customise 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 support for MPEG-4, 3GP for mobile and interactive Web media support Flash video output enabled for adding CrazyTalk to any Adobe Flash project or Web site.
With output options ranging from alpha-channel ready Targa images 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 Web sites. Videos can also be produced for mobile handsets and e-mails.
CrazyTalk 5 is Windows XP and Vista compatible:
* CrazyTalk 5 Standard creates talking characters from photos for use in e-mails and home video projects. It includes basic emotional editing, additional SFX templates comic effects, some timeline editing capabilities and standard definition video export.
Pricing and availability
CrazyTalk 5 Standard is now available from retail stores countrywide including Incredible Connection, Electronic Wise and Kalahari.net at a recommended retail price of R499.99.
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Headquartered in Silicon Valley, Reallusion is a leader in the development of Hollywood-like 3D cinematic animation tools for PC and mobile platforms. Recognised as an industry pioneer, the company provides consumers with earl-to-use character animation, facial morphing and voice lip-sync solutions for real-time 3D filmmaking and previsualisation for professional post-production. Reallusion's core technologies are widely used by consumers and professionals.
Contact Reallusion, Inc at 2033 Gateway Place, 5th Floor, San Jose CA 95110; phone 408.573.6107. The APAC Offices are located at 2F, No. 126, Lane 235, Pao-Chiao Rd., Hsintien, Taipei 231, Taiwan; phone: +886.2.8912.1028. Or, visit the web site at www.reallusion.com.
Phoenix Software
Phoenix Software is a software republishing business. Founded in September 1999, PS supplies a wide range of software products to distribution and retail partners. The company focuses on niche software that is aimed at vertical markets and has an ongoing mission to bring leading-edge products to the marketplace in a timely and professional manner, while offering excellent price/performance ratios. The company's product range includes titles from leading vendors such as Ability Office, Adobe, Aspyr Media, BitDefender, BluBox, Britannica,BulkSMS, Corel, Cosmi Corporation, CyberLink, Feral Interactive, Individual Software, InterVideo, Iolo, ISL Light, Lavasoft Ad-Aware, Nero, Nova, O & O Software, Onspeed, Paragon Software, Parallels, PC Tools, Punch Software, Roxio, Shrink My Tunes, Sony Creative Software, Steganos, TonerSaver, Transparent Language, Ulead, Webroot, WinZip and X-oom. For additional information, please visit www.phoenixsoftware.co.za.
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