After the launch of CrazyTalk Animator, there have been many wonderful comments and praises about this new generation of CrazyTalk. We are very fortunate to have such a strong community with such high expectations and generous feedback, and we wish not to miss out on the opportunity to collect all your official quotes. Whether it’s about the product features itself, or how CrazyTalk Animator changes the way 2D animation is done, or even just a quick comparison between different 2D animation solutions, we invite all of you to leave your comments here as Reallusion would love to share your personal quotes, and names, with the rest of the World. All chosen quotes will be properly labeled and credited in our testimonial sections, and future PR activities.

A Million Thanks,
- The Reallusion Team

http://www.reallusion.com/testimonial.asp 

______________________________________________________

Visconti
Forum Moderator

Reallusion, Inc.
https://forum.reallusion.com

I'm a long-time user of Anime Studiio and Toon Boom Studio, and bought Crazy Talk 6 recently out of curiosity, and so I could take a look at CT Animator. Crazy Talk 6 -- even the Standard version -- was so good and simple to use it was almost spooky. Consequently, I expected great things from CT Animator, but it has been a little disappointing for me. For one thing the Standard version, while not crippled exactly, lacks so many features that the Pro version is almost mandatory - something I haven't found with other software.

The Tutorials for the software are mostly good, but lack perspective of a user -- where is the tutorial which shows the setting up, construction and animation of a project from start to finish? Tutorials are tools-based. That's fine, but it's only half the story. Also, tutorials make no distinction within them as to whether Pro or Standard features are being used. This can be confusing.

There have been many posts about the licensing issue - my view is that Reallusion's marketing department have got this very wrong, and need to put it right soon. Uninstalling software so you can use it on another machine!? That's just a disincentive to buy the software.

But the biggest negatives for me are constructing puppets from scratch, and having to buy the Pro version so I can rig up puppets. The former is like some kind of weird obstacle course for a user, and the second represents a considerable expense for a hobbyist, when a much superior system already exists in Anime Studio.

Wow. Didn't mean to ramble on! But it's easy to see how good this software could be. I've been involved in software development in a different life, and it is very much like steering a supertanker. If you start going in the wrong directiion, it can be increasingly difficult to get back on course. Good luck, anyway! Reallusion seem like a very responsive company, so you deserve to succeed.

where is the tutorial which shows the setting up, construction and animation of a project from start to finish?

================================
Agree to above questions

There are two major advantages to CTA, advantages that as far as I know, the other 2D animation applications do not offer.

The first one is: Pre-canned motions, walk cycles, actions, etc... In the other applications, one must meticulously create the appropriate bone animation keyframes to have a character walk across the room. Neither of them have a pre-included walk cycle.  The CTA takes it one step further, and using a series of sliders a user can come up with their own unique walk,  by adjusting sliders.  As opposed to re-keying keyframes, or starting completely over such as the other apps would force you to do.  And if you do come up with something you like, save it to a library and re-use it whenever you want.  Create any motions, by keyframing, and save them as re-usable motions.

The second one is the linking/unlinking of props.  In the other applications, it's the typical approach to create additional switch layers where the character's hand is drawn of created using said prop.  The there's a copy of it in the main scene.  So picture a character walking in, picking up that prop, carrying it around, passing it to another character, or throwing it, or dropping it.  In the other apps, it's a great deal of work to do this.  In CTA, with prop linking and unlinking it becomes a real snap.

For anybody who's attempted 2D animation knows these two things along are a great deal of work for an animator, and the facilities within CTA providing this type of functionality is phenonemal.  That's not to say that CTA is perfect, and it could really use with lots of missing features, tweaks to things, and some fixes but for a first version, it's not too bad.  I look forward to watching it's evolution and progress...

Pre-canned motion is fine, as long as you can integrate it seamlessly into other motions you want the character to perform. But you can't do that easily in a convincing way. A walk cycle isn't inherently fascinating. And the ability to link and unlink props is good, but I don't have a problem with doing this differently in other software, which otherwise is also a lot more responsive to the user's creativity.

It's early days, I guess.

I am generally impressed with the software.  It is a great next step from Crazy Talk and a good compliment to Iclone.  I am not happy about the licensing.  I work at home on a desktop and at work on a laptop.  Every other piece of software I own allows for to license both units as long as they are not used concurrently.  Animator doesn't.  I am also finding that it constantly crashes.  I have experienced better stability from other Reallusion products so I hope that they will fix this soon.  I think the software has great potential and I hope that Reallusion will make a few changes to improve it further.

yes definitely, need how to, instructions, not just features.

I was very excited to get the CTA - but agree the tutorials should have a more user-friendly based explanation.

the licensing is a real mess, and cannot work on my projects remotely.

Take Care and Happy New Years:
Denise "DeeNice" Rhodes
The Digital Dynamo
202-642-4636 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              202-642-4636      end_of_the_skype_highlighting begin_of_the_skype_highlighting

Twitter: DigitalDynamo
Youtube: TheDigitalDynamo Channel
Facebook: DeeNice Rhodes
LinkedIn: DeeNice Rhodes
Meetup: HTC Mobile Phone Enthusiasts

As a long-time user of both Crazy Talk and CTA's competition, Anime Studio, I really wanted CTA to be wonderful. Finally, I thought, a way to combine the terrific facial animation features of CT with the basic 2D bones animation features of Anime Studio.

Unfortunately, after struggling with CTA for nearly two weeks now, I'm giving up and will not be purchasing this software. I'm sorry to say I have found it to be the single most frustrating, unintuitive, and downright byzantine application I have used in many a year. Things that should be ridiculously simple to do are either impossible or maddeningly convoluted.

I must assume the creators of this application did not purposefully set out to create a stressful and frustrating experience for their customers, but that's sure how it seems.

Sad and disappointed,

PP

I have to agree. I have Crazy Talk 6 Standard, and would consider upgrading to Pro in the future if I can get a good deal. I also have Crazy Talk Animator Standard, but would not consider moving to the Pro version for the reasons outlined in the previous post.