Animation and Video Life

Long before there were G3-SVG vector characters in Cartoon Animator 5 there was the original vector based G1 characters from the first version of the software, formerly known as CrazyTalk Animator. Interestingly, not only can you still use G1 characters in Cartoon Animator 5, you can also still buy them in both the Reallusion Content Store and the Marketplace . The original Power Tools series for CrazyTalk Animator (now Cartoon Animator) is still available to purchase in the Reallusion Content Store along with many other Legacy packs containing G1 characters as well as vector based Props/Scenes, and Motion files. Note that not all G1 characters are vector based. In general anything that looks more photographic in G1 characters is raster based bitmaps. Most of the more cartoon style characters are flash based vector (SWF) images that are resolution independent. G1 Characters - They're a Bit Different Placing a G1 character on CA5's stage will bring up this G2 conversion window...

Find out how to make that Bubble Top Knot Bounce In my video tutorial for CTA3/CA4. If you've bought Reallusion's Spongy Moves, Elastic Motions and Jelly Bees Emotion Props Combo Pack for CrazyTalk Animator 3/Cartoon Animator 4 you may be wondering how those little Jelly Bees are making their little bubble top knots bounce around like they do in the promo video? Well grab your copy of CrazyTalk Animator 3 or Cartoon Animator 4 and follow along with my video tutorial below for how to make those bubble top knots bounce! The secondary animation in my tutorial is should not be confused with the principle of animation known as 'Secondary Action' - which is a second action that supports the main action a character is performing. The principle my tutorial demonstrates is actually known as 'Follow Through and Overlapping Action'. Actions that are caused by the main action dragging something else along with it, that then follows through and continues to mov...

I love a really good avatar creation app because it feeds my narcissism (I mean somebody has to take an interest me, right?). So when I came across Oppa Doll for Android , a super cute Chibi avatar creation app I immediately went to work on creating my TET Avatar as a chibi character. The creators of the app are not wrong when they say your character "will be the most adorable character in the world." I was so impressed by the quality of my finished character I was inspired to see how quickly I could turn it into an animated character using Reallusion's CrazyTalk Animator 3 . The fastest way to create a character in CTA3 is to put a Morph-based head onto a G3 character body rig (don't worry if you're not familiar with those terms they'll be defined as I go). For this article I decided to make a companion character to my TET Avatar, called Mia.

Turning my 2003 artwork, A Cow's Tail into an animation with CrazyTalk Animator 3. Previously I've shown you how to animate your artwork with Reallusion's CrazyTallk 8 , an app designed to make the creation of talking head style animations easy and quick. In this article I'm going to take the same Cow's Tail artwork and animate it with Reallusion's CrazyTalk Animator 3 (Pipeline Edition) just to show you the additional animation options that this application can bring to your production. Note: At the time of writing Reallusion is weeks away from launching Cartoon Animator 4 , the next iteration of CrazyTalk Animator which has been rebranded to better reflect its ambition as a complete 2D animation studio. Everything discussed in this article can be done in Cartoon Animator 4. What is CrazyTalk Animator 3? CrazyTalk Animator 3 (CTA3) is designed to be a complete 2D animation composition studio. That is, you'll use external graphic editors lik...

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 ...

Skateboarding Cage Monster by TET. Around the beginning of December 2018 I started work on a new CrazyTalk Animator 3 , G3 character of my own original design. Known as 'The Cage Monster' readers of my TET Life blog may recognize him as the Skatepark mascot for the long since closed Cage Skatepark . I didn't document the creation process in this blog, as I've done with other characters in the past, as I didn't want to start yet another series on a new character that I may or may not complete. At this stage I have completed a full G3 'side' view character rig which I managed to finish faster than usual because I could simply copy and paste all the hands and facial features from my G3 color monkey characters (that this character was derived from and which you can purchase in my Reallusion Marketplace store ). The Cage Monster will become available in my store when I've completed a front view character rig and his fully animated skateboard prop....

The Dork Knight was one of the very first animations I created in 2008 on the then very new GoAnimate (now known as Vyond ) website and animation studio. At the time it was featured as a Staff Pick and spawned two 'sequel' animated shorts. A very loose parody of Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy, The Dork Knight reimagines Bruce Wayne as a preteen nerd who thinks he can be a superhero. This version of the character is rich enough to have a butler (Alfred) but lives a more suburban lifestyle with his 'Batcave' being his mother's garage. Anyway, to cut a long story short, over the years I've bought probably thousands of dollars of CrazyTalk Animator content packs that I've barely used. I really want to do more animation that doesn't take months to complete and is just made for the fun of telling a story. Remaking my old GoAnimation shorts is something for years I thought would be a fun challenge so I finally decided to give it a shot. Rather t...

This chicken really turned heads at the end of Reallusion's WIP 1 Video. Reallusion recently announced the next iteration of their 2D Animation studio, CrazyTalk Animator 3 , by unveiling a new name and a work in progress page on their website showcasing some of the new features. Now known as Cartoon Animator 4 , the new name signifies that CrazyTalk Animator has grown far beyond giving bodies to the morph based heads in CrazyTalk  and evolved into, as their tagline states, the one-for-all 2D animation software. CrazyTalk Animator 3 was such a leap forward, and has had so many new features added through periodical updates, that you might wonder if there was anything left to implement that would wow users. But Reallusion has managed to do just that. Some of the features revealed, which are explained in more detail, with video, on their WIP 1 page , include: Motion Enhancement Auto IK Rig Smart IK System Motion Retargeting Custom UI Rig Smooth Head Turn 360 De...

Mr Bowlsacc by Francesco Tammaccaro As promised in my post showcasing my own entry into Reallusion's Animation@Work Competition for 2018, this is my post letting you know the winners have been announced . This time my entry didn't even manage a special mention, unlike my entry from four years ago that won a Best Animation award in its category despite being shorter, taking less time to make, and featuring far less technical skill and actual animation, than my current entry. The fact is, in four years, awareness of CrazyTalk Animator, and the number of people who've become proficient with it has grown to a more competitive field. Demonstrated by the overall winner from 2014's competition , Garry Pye, coming in at third place with an animation that is easily streets ahead of his work with CTA from four years ago.

Reallusion is running its Animation@Work Competition again. I've been away, not writing blog posts, so I could focus entirely on getting my entry done. Now that it's finished, this post I'm going to run through the creation of my entry and highlight some of the techniques I used to create it. As per 2014's competition I'm entering the Business Animation section of the competition, presumably playing to my strengths, and allowing me to create an animation entirely from pre-existing content store library elements. This category is judged mainly on story, story tempo, sound design and animation skill. There is a preference for significantly modified content store characters but it's not an essential requirement (which is where my entry is at its weakest - none of my characters are modified at all from their base character).

Reallusion's Animation@Work competition is back after a four year hiatus in which time CrazyTalk Animator has grown from version 2 to 3 with features making it easier to use, more time saving, and more powerful than ever for 2D animation. Create an animation with CrazyTalk Animator 3 and enter it into the competition for a chance to win up to US$2000.00. CrazyTalk Animator 3 literally caters to all skill levels of 2D animator from the complete beginner with no drawing skills whatsoever to the power user who loves nothing better than to bring their own original artwork to life with the least amount of effort.

Scene 2 from my storyboard, Infinite Monkeys. Work on my Infinite Monkey animated short is definitely back on track since my last update and my previous part 4 post . To get things moving again I've decided not to spend time creating a final draft storyboard that uses all the actual props and characters. This is something that you'd generally do if you were planning to show the storyboard to someone else for feedback. At this point I'm not planning to do that so I'm going bypass it and create and animate each scene as I go, saving a bit of time.

Work on my Infinite Monkey Theorem, animated short has mostly stalled in the last few weeks. Readers of my other blog will know I've been struggling with a neck injury (sometimes referred to as 'Computer Neck') that has made doing any kind of lengthy computer work a literal pain in the neck. I'm getting through it but, if you spend a lot of time in front of a computer, I highly recommend you take five minute breaks, at least every 30 minutes, to walk around and do some neck stretching exercises. Anyway, to get this project back on track, I'm trying something a little new to create my video diary of my latest work. Recently I purchased a new Logitech HD webcam (my old webcam was a pre HD relic) which I've teamed with OBS studio , a free application staple, used by live streamers everywhere.

Top Down Typewriter Prop by TET. As far as my Infinite Monkey Theorem animated short goes, I think I'm just going to have to stop stating what I hope to complete by the next post and just be happy with the fact that I've completed something, and that the project is progressing. Last post I was hoping to have the entire final draft of my polished storyboard finished this week but instead, all I've managed is to create a top down view of my typewriter prop.

Final character art, scene one. Continuing to work on my Infinite Monkey Theorem animated short , I had hoped to have finished the entire final draft storyboard by now. However the holiday season being what it is, I didn't get as much time to work on it as I had hoped. Despite that I can show you the entire process of me taking the character (loosely based on myself) in the opening panel of the storyboard, from rough sketch to the final artwork that I'll use in the animation.

Infinite Monkey Theorem. Back in my last Project Update post I mentioned my Infinite Monkey Theorem, Animated Short that I had begun working on that was designed to showcase, Reddy, my first color monkey character for CrazyTalk Animator 3. Up until recently I had been working a little bit on the project every weekday, however the project fell by the wayside in an effort to get my Mar-Rey Sue, Desert Scavenger finished by the end of November. Now that character is finished, I think it's time to get this animated short back into my work schedule.

Mar-Rey Sue - Ideal for your next 'Force Awakens/Last Jedi' parody. Desert Scavenger, Mar-Rey Sue, is now available to buy in my Reallusion Marketplace store for your next CrazyTalk Animator 3 Star Wars parody (or any desert based animation really). The character is a single side angle, G3 character that comes with a range of options and accessories.

CTA3 Bone Editor Preview. If you've been following my posts on creating my CrazyTalk Animator 3, G3, Desert Scavenger Character, Mar-Rey Sue (note the revised spelling of 'Mar-Rey' from 'Ma-Rey'), then I hope you'll be excited to learn the main character rig is finished. That's right, all of the sprites are complete, the bone guides are in place, and I've imported the character into CrazyTalk Animator 3.

Ma-Rey Sue - Now with 100% less head scarves and googles. Work continues on my Desert Scavenger, Star Wars parody character, Ma-Rey Sue. Last post I gave you the character's development background and current status. This week, I've continued to work on her and made some real progress.

Since I hadn't talked about my upcoming CrazyTalk Animator 3, G3, Desert Scavenger Character, in any great detail (and because finishing her is taking longer than anticipated) I thought you may be interested to look at the project in a little more detail.