EDIT: Ha. A reboot and suddenly things are working in the program so I''m just gonna .... yeah about that. Still have questions. Hope folks are willing to help.

I just downloaded the trial of CTA 2 (now 3) days ago and have spent two sleepless nights just trying to get something to work. So I hope I can have my following questions answered, because this limited trial isn't quite frankly enough for me to make a real decision on it turns out. For the record I have been looking at the tutorials here: https://www.reallusion.com/crazytalk-animator/tutorial.html. At the time of this posting I'm still going through them, but with fading hopes.

1. I had to use an old tut for CTA2 (not 3) to bring in my character. Has CTA3 improved on this process, and if so how? (still wondering)

2. Is it possible AT ALL to keep the *** eyeballs from flying away?!?!??!!?? Without finding an appropriate tutorial I had to experiment and try to set things by myself. I also have calibrated many times. (still wondering)

3. Are you able to manipulate the character's pose manually? The premade actions are GREAT but in the event I need a character to make a shrug, how do I do that? (solved! The 2D editor now works properly. Woot. Although I admit the system is a bit way off from what I'm used to. I never did care much for puppeteering.)

4. The timeline is problematic. Is there a way to simply tell it "insert key frame" so I don't have two actions blend into each other or have the character bounce to new places?  (sort of solved.)

5. Also speaking of the timeline Is there a way to tell the timeline "only look at frames x to frames x"?!?!?!?! Because, seriously, who expects everyone to only  make 500 frame long animations? :-p

6: New with edit: So uhhhh....... the thing I'm working on turned out to be longer than the frames I'm "allowed" to have. Is there a way to split out the last scene to start a new file so I can continue without having to rebuild and somehow get the character pose perfect?

And finally. 7.  If I buy the basic version (finances, y'know) will I be able to upgrade to another one later? I haven't really hunted hard for that answer yet, but though I'd ask here just in case.

CTA3 greatly improves the custom character creation process making it a lot simpler. Was there a special reason why you chose the CTA2 trial rather than CTA3? In CTA3 you have everything that was included in CTA2 plus all the new features.



I have never encountered eyeballs flying away. Can you describe the steps you are taking when this happens so we can try to reproduce.



When you move your character around your scene it will automatically add a transform keyframe. So for example if your character is on the left of your scene at frame 1, and then you move him to the right at frame 200, he will gradually transition from left to right over the 200 frames. If you don't want this to happen immediately you can copy the keyframe at frame 1 and paste it to say frame 150. Now your character won't start moving until that point. You can also add keys on the Timeline by pressing V.



Your projects can be up to 26,000 frames long. Just open Project Settings (CTRL+SHIFT+P) and change to the desired length.



You can upgrade from the Standard version to Pro or Pipeline version for a discounted upgrade price. However please be aware that the Standard version does not allow custom character creation. This version only allows you to customise existing characters or those you purchase from the Content Store.


                                                                

Peter
Forum Administrator

www.reallusion.com