Skip to main content

Crazy Talk Animator 2 and iClone 5.51

3D motion for 2D characters in
Crazy Talk Animator 2.

Crazy Talk Animator 2

I'm very excited at the release of Crazy Talk Animator 2 from Realusion. So excited that I bought my copy on pre-order as part of a pre-visualization bundle with iClone 5.51. I bought over $1000 worth of software for 70% off and got Crazy Talk Animator 2 for free, thrown in.

The down side is I won't get Crazy Talk Animator 2 until it's released some time in December 2013. The upside is I'm now the proud owner of so much 3D animation software I could just about make my own Toy Story movie (or maybe a sequel to The Invincibles since Pixar won't get their act together).

Regular readers of this blog will know I have the original Crazy Talk Animator. You can see pretty much the sum total of my efforts with it in this blog post on animating Cool Cat, Froyd. I just haven't had the time to really dive into it.

However, aside from all the new 3D features for 2D characters in version 2, what's really got me excited is the new feature of being able to draw your own characters to a specific template that you can then import and have your character take advantage of all the new 3D features. That's hugely exciting to me. Previously characters were much harder to animate in three dimensions, involving a lot of swapping of different views of body parts to achieve the desired effect.

Character Templates.

There's also a new, built in, character creation system that looks like it could be a great addition to my animation business. I'm hoping it'll allow me to create custom characters quickly so that maybe I can finally offer Crazy Talk Animator videos as part of my explainer video business.

Rather than me run through every feature, take a moment to watch the demo, sneak peek video below. If it doesn't get you excited then you must be a hand drawn animation purist or something.



iClone 5.51

3D digital actors in iClone.
At this point I feel like I've bought the entire iClone catalogue of tools. Just yesterday I bought extra plug-ins for it despite not yet having even used the program since installing it a week ago. 

I've got the main program along with the Avatar Toolkit, the Monster Avatar Toolkit, the MoCap Device Plug-in, the pop video converter plug-in, 3DXchange (for converting models made with other 3D software), the Toon Maker Plug-in and a whole bunch of other content and training materials. All up I spent about $425.00 because all of it was bought on special (this software isn't usually this cheap!)

When I started out in computer animation, 3D animation is what I wanted to do, after being inspired by the cut scenes created for the very first Tomb Raider computer game. However I never had a computer powerful enough. I still don't really, but my humble Toshiba laptop can just about manage, especially after I bought an extra 4GB of RAM.

With everything I bought for iClone I can now realize that dream but my main focus is more 2D animation these days - hence my excitement for CTA2.

I can't tell you much about iClone, having not really used it yet. However I do know the interface between CTA2 and iClone follows the same basic layout, making it very easy to switch between the two. If you want to get into 3D animation with a tool that makes it relatively easy then see if iClone is for you by watching the video below. 

I'm sure at some point in the future I'll be posting about my efforts with both CTA2 and iClone so be sure to keep coming back.



Topics:

Comments

Post a Comment

This blog is monitored by a real human. Generic or unrelated spam comments with links to sites of dubious relativity may be DELETED.

I welcome, read, and respond to genuine comments relating to each post. If your comment isn't that save me some time by not posting it.

Popular posts from this blog

Eight 2D Animation Apps For Your Phone or Tablet Mobile Device

M obile productivity apps have become so capable that they can be great alternatives to their PC/MAC equivalents or serve as great tools in their own right when you're away from your desk. While some apps simply mimic their desktop counterparts, others offer well thought out, touch-friendly interfaces that are easier and more fun to use. Every so often I check out what's available for 2D animation for Android devices, since that's what I use, that can complement my workflow with Reallusion's Cartoon Animator 5. Some may be available for Apple devices as well. Below I've listed six free (F) apps (with optional paid (P) upgrades) on the Google Play Store that you might want to explore. Some are just fun apps on their own while others may be useful as part of your workflow on bigger animation projects. Not all are exclusively animation apps and could be used on any production. JotterPad (F/P) The name JotterPad makes this sound like a notepad application but it's ...
Post a Comment
Continue Reading »

Inochi2D - Free Open Source 2D VTuber Avatar Rigging and Puppeteering Software (Part 1)

Inochi2D Creator - Free Open Source VTuber Software. If you've been looking for a way to live perform as a 2D cartoon avatar on camera, whether it be for a live stream or for pre-recorded content like educational videos, then VTuber software is a low cost (or even no cost) option worth looking into. In my previous post, How to Become a VTuber - 2D and 3D Software for Creating and Controlling Your Avatar , I took a brief look at the relatively new but completely free and open source Inochi2D  which I thought showed great potential for my own needs of creating a live performance character rig for my own TET Avatar that I use for all my promotional materials. While it is possible to live perform my character using Cartoon Animator itself, Reallusion's MotionLive2D capture system isn't great - with lip sync in particular. More importantly though, I can't exactly teach people how to use Cartoon Animator if I'm using Cartoon Animator to control my Avatar. What is Inochi2D...
1 comment
Continue Reading »

The Ultimate Independent Animator's App and Resource List - Animation and Video Life

Image created with Cartoon Animator 4. Being an independent animator is not like a studio animation job. There's so much more to do that is indirectly related to the actual task of animating. Over the years I've sought out many apps, tools, and services that can help me achieve that one single task, expressing myself through animation. Below is my Ultimate Independent Animator's Resource List for 2024 (last updated Oct 2024). It started out as a list of free or low cost apps that could help you in every stage of producing either 2D or 3D animation, and then just kind of grew from there. You may not have been looking for a Time Management App as much as you needed something to get you started in 3D animation but when those commissioned projects start coming in you'll have a head start on maximizing your time. All the apps and services on this list had to meet two main criteria: They had to be useful and relevant to an Indy Animator/artist. The base app/se...
9 comments
Continue Reading »

Moho 14 Released - Still the Best 2D Animation Software for Indy Animators on a Budget

Moho 14 Released. Regular readers know I am a Reallusion, Cartoon Animator advocate through and through. Hands down I would recommend Cartoon Animator 5 first over Lost Marble's Moho 14 to anyone who is just starting in 2D animation, is a team of one, or just needs to animate as quickly as possible. However, feature for feature, Moho is, arguably, the best 2D animation software for the rest of us who can't justify a Toon Boom Harmony , or Adobe Creative Cloud subscription (and even with their applications Moho is very competitive on features). You can get started with Moho Debut for just USD$59.99 which is a cut down version of Moho Pro but it still has the most essential features needed for 2D animation. While Moho Pro is a whopping USD$399.99 (Cartoon Animator, which only has one version, is just USD$149.00) upgrades to new version numbers come down to a quarter of the price at USD$99.00. Even though Reallusion just released features like Motion Pilot Puppet Animation and...
Post a Comment
Continue Reading »

OpenArt Versus Dzine: AI Consistent Character Training Compared

TET2d Avatar Image created with Dzine . R egular readers of Animation and Video Life will be familiar with my alter ego, 2D avatar character, TET, who is both the face of The Lazy Animator Cartoon Animator Tutorials, and is currently part of my Resident Dragon joke cartoon series. It is my goal to use him as an animated avatar for both my Lazy Animator video courses and my Cartoon Animator tutorials that you'll find on my @AnimLife YouTube channel . Unfortunately I don't have the time to animate him for every single project. Even with Cartoon Animator's time-saving workflow I wouldn't be able to produce animated content quick enough. Which is why advances in AI animation is something that is increasingly more interesting to me each day. Consistent Characters Before we get there I have to overcome one of the biggest hurdles in AI I've come across... reproducing my art style consistently. I don't want an approximation of my characters, I want my characters looki...
Post a Comment
Continue Reading »

Krita AI Diffusion - Generative Image AI For Krita is Seriously Useful, Powerful and Free (If You Can Install it Locally)

Generative AI sequence of a woman in a business suit. From sketch to refined image using Krita AI Diffusion - by TET G enerative image AI, where you describe an image with a text prompt to an Artificial Intelligence model and it produces a new image based on your prompt, is gaining a strong hold as a tool for many artists. Krita AI Diffusion brings generative AI image tools right into your favourite free and opensource, graphics editor, Krita. Not only that, if you have a computer with decent specs (and at least 10GB of hard drive space), Krita AI Diffusion is completely free. What If I Don't Have a Powerful Computer? If you're in my situation, with a computer that was around before anyone in the mainstream had even heard of generative AI, you can still access Krita AI Diffusion for free, using a cloud based AI server, Interstice  and 300 tokens, to get you started. Once your initial tokens run out, purchase 5000 more for 10€ (approx US$11.00). Tokens never expire. I would...
1 comment
Continue Reading »

XP-Pen Artist 12 (2nd Gen) Pen Display Drawing Tablet Review - Portable and Robust Quality Ideal for Sketching on the Go!

XP-Pen's Artist 12 (2nd Gen) Pen Display Tablet. I've been looking for a more portable drawing solution for a while to work with my Samsung Galaxy Tab A, 8 inch, Android tablet, which is why, when XP-Pen invited me to collaborate on an animation project, I asked about trying their Artist 12 (2nd Gen) Pen Display Drawing Tablet . Does It Really Work With Android Devices? Having heard many of XP-Pen's mobile drawing displays could be connected to Android devices I, incorrectly, assumed wide compatibility. Unfortunately this isn't the case. There is a list of specific Android devices that work with XP-Pen's Pen Display tablets and none of them are any of the three Samsung devices I own. XP-Pen could definitely improve the compatibility of their displays with more Android devices if they're going to promote that as a feature (or make it more clear to check their device compatibility list before you buy). Also note the additional USB-C to USB-C video cable, needed to...
Post a Comment
Continue Reading »