For animation Reallusion crazytalk on sale in Daz store, is also useful to give photos a 3D animated feel.

In the descriptions for CrazyTalk Animator 2, there are features which are listed as being part of the PRO version that are listed on the developer's website as being exclusive to the "Pipeline" version, not PRO.. Based on the pricing, it seems obvious that the version on Daz3D as PRO really is PRO and not Pipeline renamed.

A comparison chart of the different versions is here http://www.reallusion.com/crazytalk/Animator/animator_matrix.aspx

http://www.daz3d.com/crazytalk-animator-pro

Well, the second time I did a search I got a page full- sorry about that. I agree with you, they should have it labeled as a former version.

http://www.daz3d.com/crazytalk-animator-standard
The Animator Standard is the only one I see offered here, and it is labeled as Standard and not Pro. You can also tell by the price difference that it is standard.

There is a 30 day return policy- I believe that's also for programs. If you're not happy with what you purchased, you shouldn't keep it. Just don't use it and return it.

This is the first time i get a bad feeling after i bought something here... :(
I bought the Crazytalk Animator pro here (not cheap bdw).
Then after i opened itand watch the tutorial i see that i actuallu bought an old version here (1.x), while there is a v2 available. If i want to buy that one i have to spend +100$ extra???

This is the first time this happens to me and actually not good for the reputation of DAZ, which is a pitty, cos i love you guys
Plz try to do more research before reselling 3rd party stuff !

THX.

Now that I've gotten the basic 3DX import tool to work properly, I'm going to try to "bulk up" my character with morphs and clothing, and see how that goes. I'm going to avoid fooling with G2 characters for now. I could use a span of time with more accomplishments and fewer rabbit holes.

CrazyTalk has the best automated lipsync around, and I can see that iClone has inherited that. I can also see that iClone body animation is happily lacking the "walk on heels" feature. Strictly as an animation tool, I think that iClone compares very well, favorably in some ways, to DS. Hopefully I will soon be able to actually create something.

Thanks.

I have to admit, that if I went the CrazyTalk route, I'd have to go with Animator. Even if I had to wait on the product, but I believe it's already out for the Mac.

Melissa Conway said:

Novica said:

Melissa Conway said:

Hi Novica.

I have CrazyTalk. It's meant to be used on 2D photos/drawing to give them the appearance of 3D movement.

M.

That sounds like fun- what do you think of it?

It really is fun! And the learning curve isn't too steep. I prefer CrazyTalk Animator, though, because you can do so much more. Like this:

http://youtu.be/3G-vQ8YhoJo?list=UUcu1sjd7JrBsLK4F_ggh3ig

Melissa- what a funny song- very clever lyrics!

http://www.reallusion.com/crazytalk/

Shows the difference in crazy talk and CrazyTalk Animator 2
The animator does the full body (but a workaround could be screenshots of your character in different poses and put into the timeline?

The Crazy Talk Animator does NOT
Export Interactive Avatars to Web, iPad/iPhone

Not exactly sure what interactive avatars are- meaning you have typed questions that the avatars can answer?

but unlimited characters.

The question with just the CrazyTalk is it has Voice-driven Auto Motion and the Animator 2 doesn't. HUH? Why would something that includes the body and seems like MORE, not have voice auto motion- I guess I don't know what that is.

They also have this note for MAC users:
Note 1: CrazyTalk Animator 2 Mac is scheduled to be released in 2014.

Novica said:

Melissa Conway said:

Hi Novica.

I have CrazyTalk. It's meant to be used on 2D photos/drawing to give them the appearance of 3D movement.

M.

That sounds like fun- what do you think of it?

It really is fun! And the learning curve isn't too steep. I prefer CrazyTalk Animator, though, because you can do so much more. Like this:

http://youtu.be/3G-vQ8YhoJo?list=UUcu1sjd7JrBsLK4F_ggh3ig

MacSavers said:

The best I can tell from iClone is that it can take your Daz characters and then do the animation work in iClone. It can do the voice work, full animation and other stuff, but I don't see where it comes back to DazStudio. I could be wrong, but based on what I read on here and at Reallusion, it appears that once it goes to iClone, it stays there.

Crazytalk seems to be more of a fake animation. It takes a 2D image and allows you to set it up to do voice overs and the like. It doesn't stay 3D like iClone or DazStudio with Mimic.

There is a Mimic for Carrara. Never tried it or moved from DazStudio to Carrara or vice versa.

Thank you :) I'm looking to see if I can figure it out. There's several components to it and I got all of them I think.

Melissa Conway said:

Hi Novica.

I have CrazyTalk. It's meant to be used on 2D photos/drawing to give them the appearance of 3D movement.

M.

That sounds like fun- what do you think of it?

Hi Novica.

I have CrazyTalk. It's meant to be used on 2D photos/drawing to give them the appearance of 3D movement.

M.

The best I can tell from iClone is that it can take your Daz characters and then do the animation work in iClone. It can do the voice work, full animation and other stuff, but I don't see where it comes back to DazStudio. I could be wrong, but based on what I read on here and at Reallusion, it appears that once it goes to iClone, it stays there.

Crazytalk seems to be more of a fake animation. It takes a 2D image and allows you to set it up to do voice overs and the like. It doesn't stay 3D like iClone or DazStudio with Mimic.

There is a Mimic for Carrara. Never tried it or moved from DazStudio to Carrara or vice versa.

Scythar said:

bigh said:

Scythar said:

I'd allready settle with a Serial key in my account,
Can't even install ftm... :-(

you have to take the code from Daz and goto -

http://www.reallusion.com/iclone/

create account
use your code from Daz - to get all of your iClone downloads .

more info ( little text file ( manual ) ) should be in your Daz account .

Thats what i am trying to tell :), in my account at the serials page, behind iClone Pro, there is no serial key, its blank. I do have one for the training video and crazytalk pro though...

guess you will have to file a support ticket then .

bigh said:

Scythar said:

I'd allready settle with a Serial key in my account,
Can't even install ftm... :-(

you have to take the code from Daz and goto -

http://www.reallusion.com/iclone/

create account
use your code from Daz - to get all of your iClone downloads .

more info ( little text file ( manual ) ) should be in your Daz account .

Thats what i am trying to tell :), in my account at the serials page, behind iClone Pro, there is no serial key, its blank. I do have one for the training video and crazytalk pro though...

joeping said:

I'd love to see results from your experiments. You always have such great stuff. :)

wendy♥catz said:

well put it this way, I can create mimic dmc files for most things in mimic pro, and those I cannot notepad actually works but is hard work!
But
I rarely use Daz studio at all except as an exporter and Daz content set up tool for iClone, carrara and Poser if doing animation
will do occasional image render in it.
If by chance I do render an animation I mostly just use the inbuilt lipsync and a few facial morphs.

That's interesting. When you bring a DS character into iClone, does it look the same as it did in DS, or does it take on that "CrazyTalk" look?

CrazyTalk has a nice lipsync tool, easy to use and it works well. iClone looks like it is the same tool. The main reservation I've had about investing in it, though, is that the iClone characters I've seen in screenshots are much less sophisticated than DS or Poser characters. Has that changed now that iClone can import Genesis characters?

Wendy and Holly - much thanks for your replies. I'm considering both of these options.

Wendy: I have CrazyTalk (version 6) and am a little familiar with Reallusion's Animator2 - do you know if I can simply render a full body picture of a character from DAZ / Carrar and then use that png image as a full body character in Animator2? Is it simple to attach bones to such a figure and then use IK for movement? (wasn't clear to me if I'd need the whole Pipeline version or iClone to do that, or if that's only for bringing in motion files through fbx)

Holly: I downloaded a trial of Toon!Pro from Digital Carver's Guild - but seem to be running into lots of problems getting it to work right.

If I just take a DAZ character like M4 (say M4's face or fabric on a t-shirt or a cart) and I change the top of each shader from MultiChannel to Toon!Pro Cel Shader - the model simply ends up vaishing wherever I've changed the shader. Tried playing with the parameters (shdaow/highlight. levels, and shadow brightness - doesn't help.

Don't know if the whole Toon Pro Cel download simply stops working after a few minutes.

Ideally, I'd be able to use standard DAZ characters like M4./V4 and get them to have the same 'cartoon' appearance of the images you displayed in the posts above. SHould that be possible with the DCG Toon plugin?

I've also had mixed results with the Toon Renderer - where it doesn't look much different from standard of M4 face or chest with default shaders.

Thanks for any suggestions either of you can offer.

You have a lot of choices/options, but at some point you will want to stop trying to "fix" everything in post and start making custom shaders so you can build your "toon" scene in Carrara.

I am not a fan of NPR. It is designed to look like charcoal/pastels controlled by a "brush". Every line on the final render is "drawn" by that same brush. An outline looks like hundreds of tiny applications of that brush.... You will quickly see how limiting that is, and wonder why you can't just get a clean line.

I recommend some plugins:
TOONPRO from DCG - gives a better Outline renderer and Toon shaders
SHADERSPLUS from DCG - when you need the texture to render as-is with no light interactions

the "fuzzy" pic is the NPR renderer. I don't think you would have any success trying to animate it, but if you used Wendy's suggestion of CrazyTalk then you can create most of your scenes from still renders...

the clean outline is just the ToonPro renderer. The solid pic is the ToonPro renderer and some ToonPro shaders...