CrazyTalk Animator 3: Using a Morph Based Character Head on a G2 Character Body

TET CrazyTalk Animator Avatar
Morph head with G2 Character Body.

Over the last couple of weeks I've been tinkering away at developing a new CrazyTalk Animator 3 character avatar for myself. You can see the finished character in the top image of this post.

The head is my original artwork, based upon a sketch I drew of myself back in 2016 and posted to my instagram.

The body is a CTA3, G2 Character body from Reallusion's G2 Body Composer Kit Volume One (except the shoes which are from Volume two).

What is interesting about the character is that the head is a hybrid, morph based head rather than a standard G2 character head.

The reason I chose a morph based head is almost entirely because they're much quicker to make than any other type in CTA3. You can literally make them using only one image. Though my hybrid uses five images that I actually created myself (six if you count the glasses which are actually a separate prop linked to the nose bone).

As well as that, a front facing morph based head has about the same range of turning motion as a front facing G3 character head... and since a morph head takes less work, that's why I have a bias for them.

Back hair sprite.

A morph based head will work fine with a G2 character body even though, no matter which way the body is facing the head always faces forward. You can give yourself a bit more range by adding a back hair sprite to your morph head that covers the entire face.

The addition of sprites to your morph based head is what turns it into a hybrid morph based head. My avatar also has a front hair sprite for the fringe and eyebrow sprites.

I could have made the glasses attach by making them the nose sprite but I found, even with the head at the shallowest facial depth of one, they still looked like they were floating in space just in front of the head.

By making the glasses a linked prop to the nose bone, they still retain their z axis coordinate so I can more precisely locate them closer to my character's face.

Anyway, the best way to experience a character is to see it in action. In the video below I talk more about how the character was made and show you how it moves around, as well as sample one or two premade animated actions.

Eventually I hope to create my own custom body for the character but for now the one it has will do. Most of what the character needs to do is speak to camera and pose for my TETanimations YouTube thumbnails.

No doubt I also put the character into one or two of my animations, interacting with my other characters... because that's what I tend to do with my animated avatars.

If you have any interest in animating your own characters, and you want to get started as quickly and easily as possible, morph base character heads are a good starting point. Well worth considering before you move on to the more advanced, versatile, and more complex G2 and G3 heads.

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