Crazy Talk

From LIS 460 Summer 2007

"[Crazy Talk" from Reallusion, a U.S. based software company,allows you to create and control a cast of live talking characters ready to deliver an animated vocal performance for your video, web, mobile or messaging projects. Crazy Talk , version 1.0 , went into production in December of 2000.The latest version, 4.6, released in December 2005, offers many improvements and updates to the original.It is an innovative and easy-to-use software tool for creating animated talking messages from any digital still image. Images are brought to life by lip-synching with recordings of your own voice, imported audio files or text messages. Messages can be sent as animated greetings cards, instant talking messages you import or capture a photo - the program supports most digital cameras and scanners; alternatively, you can use a previously stored bitmap or JPEG image( GIF images need to be converted) You then use the Crazy Talk Fitting Editor to crop the photo and position it onto a "wire frame model", so that the software knows where the various parts of the face in the photo are. Crazy Talk provides a sound recorder that will allow you to record audio from various audio sources, however, utilizing Audacity provides a higher-quality recording. The audio file can then be used as a message or a script. The sound recorder can record sound from various audio devices such as a microphone, phone line, CD player, audio line in, or any other auxiliary input device connected to your PC. You can add independent music backgrounds to your animations which will be played in the background as your image talks. Other products from Reallusion include [iClone]and most recently, [Crazy Talk for Skype]

1 Applications in a School Setting
2 System Requirements
3 Questions that arose
4 Links

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Applications in a School Setting

Crazy Talk software lends itself to be utilized in a school setting..When students are introduced to this software they become excited and eager to create their own work. Third graders were given the assignment of writing a biography about a famous person from Massachusetts After weeks of conducting research and searching for just the right image of their person, they were ready to import the picture and begin recording their voices. After receiving brief instructions from me, they were able to adjust the settings for the head and facial features. Every student was a pleasure to work with because of their level of enthusiasm with the software.Two-dimensional photos and painting were "brought to life" by students recording their reports in a first-person format.The classroom teachers and I decided to invite the families of the students to a presentation of this project The students were very proud of their work and parents were overwhelmed. When students from other grades passed by the computer lab and saw the third graders working with Crazy Talk, they all wanted a chance to use it. Because of the demand by the other classes, I decided to teach fourth graders how to use Crazy Talk and showed them how easy it was to import their work into a PowerPoint presentation they were doing for me. For more ideas as to how Crazy Talk can be used, click here

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System Requirements

Hardware:

Pentium III 500 MHz (Pentium III 800 MHz or higher recommended)

128 MB RAM (256 MB or higher recommended)

300 MB disk space (500MB or higher recommended)

Duplex Sound Card/VGA Card/Keyboard/Mouse/Microphone/Speaker

Operating System:

Windows Vista/XP/2000/ME/98SE

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Questions that arose

I discovered this page FAQ about Crazy Talk

My question: When sending a Crazy Talk message to someone who doe not have Crazy Talk installed on their computer, will they be able to open it?

FAQ version: "My friend cannot see the CrazyTalk messenger which I sent. How should they do to see it if they don't install CrazyTalk?

If it is their first time seeing the CrazyTalk messenger and they don't install CrazyTalk program, when they open the file, they will see a popup message. Press "OK" will download the player form Reallusion.com. They only need to do it once, then they can see your messenger after.

My question: Is there a web site I can visit to download the player? I did not get a popup message.

FAQ version: How to install CrazyTalk component?

When you view the CrazyTalk web page, the CrazyTalk web component will auto install. Or, you can to the this page to install the newly CrazyTalk component. - [Install]

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