I have found it very challenging and have a team of 3 people, including a professional artist.

The tutorials are NOT very helpful -- they go by sooo fast! It's click, click, click. If Reallusion wants to know how to make a good tutorial -- I recommend looking at some of the Sony Vegas experts who put up tutorials on YouTube -- they are very clear to list EACH STEP.

EACH STEP. Like "first click this to open the program, then click this to save."

For example -- it took me 2 DAYS to figure out how to save a character. Do you know why? Because you have to click on it which highlights it with a box and THEN the plus sign to add lights up and is not gray and THEN you can add it! Hello! In the tutorial, the guy's like "and then you just save/add your character."

I've been saying that step by step clear tutorials would really help. One member of my team has already bailed for Anime Studio. I wanted CTA because the amazing facial animation packs, great way to add facial expression. I'm really hoping that this works because I'm in a big project and I need to figure it out!

Also -- the tech help support sucks. I ask a question and they send me a link to a white paper. Really? They can't just answer it?

right now I see plusses and minuses and am hoping one will outweigh the other.

Animation is redifined with the introduction of the kinect/mocap developments.

I do speculate that Adobe will cause a tsunami in animation.

To many different software developers with great ideas are splintered.

Adobe will bring the total concept to a new level.

Facial recognition is not a element of the future, it is already here.

Crazytalk was a great concept, back then. Crazytalk and it's extension animator is a dead street.

Bringing animation to the masses will be very simple within 1-3 years.

Just look at all the ideas and concepts, even toonboon will look prehistoric within a few years.

I put my money on Adobe.

Cheers,
René

Ps: when trying to post a new topic I do get a server error.

Sorry, but I completely disagree.  Adobe makes (buys) great image and illustration software, and fairly good video editor (Premiere and AfterEffects), but it knows next to nothing about 3d or 2d character animation.  Even Flash, which now features bones, was bought out by Adobe from Macromedia is limiting in many animation aspects, while it has some great animation and timeline manipulations.

While putting together custom characters in CTA is still a tedious process, it cannot be beat for animation.  It has many useful automatic features for animations, and yet revelas the lower level keyframing animation techniques that are common in all animation applications.  I've used a lot of animation applications, bth 2D and 3D, and by far CTA was one of the easiest to come to grips with and start using right out of the box.  Try using ToonBoom or even Anime Studio Pro, and tell me that CTA is hard.  Anime Studio Pro, in my opinion, would probably be the next easiest to use, then ToonBoom.  But both of these latter programs are far more technical, while using CTA is just plain fun, quick, and easy.

The other applications are all about the technical aspect and process of creating animations, every aspect of it.  Drawing, rigging, animating, etc...  CTA is about animating, making movies.  I don't think that niche will ever go away.  Although CTA does need a bit more variety, but again, for quick animations, it cannot be beat.

Adobe can keep the image editing, illustration demographics, but it's very doubtful they'll ever be an animation powerhouse.

I just purchased CTA the other day, after weighing it against Crazytalk 6 pro.
I'll admit I 'm happy with my purchase. Sure there are some things it isn't going to be able to do, but then again, it can do quite a lot as well.

I haven't worked with it extensively yet and am already making and importing my own goodies for it.
One thing I do wish it had (if i haven't missed it yet during my playing around with the software ) is a direct motion control like iclone 5 has, thus making personal animations easier.

Can some of you more seasoned users suggest some methods for custom animations I can implement?Or is that something left for the RL gang to handle?

Hi BG

Direct animation is done by using the Motion Key Editor from the left toolbar when you have a character selected. You can choose control over Pose, Body and Face. To find out more about the Motion Key Editor just go HERE.

You also have the same Puppeteering controls as you do in iClone5. These enable you to tweak and customise the puppeteering profiles supplied or purchased in motion packs.

Any motions you do create yourself can be saved for later use using Collect Clip.

                                                                

Peter
Forum Administrator

www.reallusion.com

Thanks a lot Peter, for the response

there is no waveform for the audio files. that's bad! that's very bad!

There is a waveform for the voice track but not for the music or sound effects tracks.

                                                                

Peter
Forum Administrator

www.reallusion.com

how to activate it? so i could see it

To see the wave form:

With an imported wave file or recorded voice using CTA loaded for an actor, go to the actor in the timeline and click on the facial button for that actor. You will now see the voice clip and facial clip tracks for the actor. Select the voice clip that was inserted and right click and then ungroup. Expand the voice clip to show the voice and lips tracks. On the voice track click the button to the left of the header "Voice" (looks like a waveform) and the track will be displayed as a waveform.

Note: The waveform display is only available in the voice track, not the music or sound FX tracks.

Jeff


Get my Plugin Manager and TaskNotes plugins for iClone.
Check out EZColors and Other products for CTA/CA. EZColors: the easy way to change Render Styled (RS) colors!
See my CTA Tutorials on the YouTube channel CTAStepByStep