Click on this and import your background image.Īt this point if you hit the play button at the bottom of the stage window you'll see your character head moving with the default idle motion. On the top toolbar is the Background Settings icon.

It should be fairly straight forward, though don't forget to use the Detail Face Fitting step which is easily missed if you're new to CrazyTalk 8.Ĭontinue the process until you're back in the main CrazyTalk 8 stage looking at your newly created head floating in white space.

The red arrow points to the Detail Face Fitting Icon.Ĭlick to access this step before clicking Next.įollow the face fitting steps through according to the guide images shown. If you crop the head it will become out of alignment with your background and may even be rescaled to a different ratio. Click the next button to start the face fitting process. Start a new project by clicking on the Create a New Actor icon and select 2D Actor. Your first time may take between 30 minutes to an hour as you tweak all the settings. Once you become adept at CrazyTalk 8 setting up a head can take as little as 5-10 minutes. Note that you can skip this step and just work directly with the artwork but you'll have to contend with background distortion and double imagery of the head.

Make sure to save the head as a transparent PNG file that is the same size as the background and positioned exactly where the head would be if you overlaid it onto the background image. Otherwise skip to the next heading for a more general overview of the process.īefore starting in CrazyTalk 8, it pays to spend some time in Photoshop (or similar application) separating your character's head from the background, and then filling in the space with the background you would have painted if the character's head wasn't there. If you would prefer to watch a detailed video of how I created my animation in CrazyTalk 8, I've got you covered below. If you're reading this article and thinking you may like to purchase CrazyTalk 8, I strongly recommend the Pipeline version, but if your budget doesn't stretch that far, the Pro edition will do.īelow is my example animation, created with CrazyTalk 8, featuring my cow character. I'll be using CrazyTalk 8, Pipeline edition, which is the full featured version of the software. The full 3D heads it creates are properly formed heads but they still have a limited turning range (you can't turn them more than about 45 degrees in any direction).įor the purpose of this tutorial I'll be focussing on my 2D painting of a cow, that I created back in 2003, with no intention of ever animating it, or turning it into a 2D animated scene. The 2D heads it creates are actually semi 3D 'relief map' style heads that have some ability to move up, down, and side to side.

Impressively it can be used to animate both 2D and 3D based characters.

Crazytalk 8