Crazy Talk 6 Standard

Crazy Talk is an image-manipulation program that can animate any face with movement and sound. It can also create videos to upload to Youtube, build comic strips and draw sketches.

It’s designed for animating digital characters in films and helping artists create moving storyboards but it’s an interesting program for home users.

Installation took about 10 minutes. The manual is straightforward, with a step-by-step guide to animating an image and a list of all the keyboard shortcuts. However, we needed the online video demonstrations to help us find all the options and buttons, as it was not obvious where everything was. Unless you are already familiar with the program, watching the tutorials is a must.

Going from a still image to an animation is a two-stage process. First, select an image and tell the software where the eyes and mouth are. Then tell it what type of image it is (an animal with a long nose, or a human face, for example).

There is plenty of scope to play with the settings and it's possible to create some detailed models by placing a wire frame over a face and adding points at which the image can be moved. This level of detail can make the final animation much more lifelike.

Once you have your basic model it can be moved to the Stage, to add audio. You can use a Wav or MP3 file of your own or record a voice if you have a microphone connected. You can also manipulate the camera as your models speak to make the animation more dynamic.

Once a project has been created it can be exported in several formats, such as ones suitable for Youtube, a Flash website or sending to friends.

As with lots of software, people with newer, more powerful computers will find the software runs faster and more smoothly. We noticed a few long pauses when our test computer was applying changes we had made.

Crazy Talk 6 takes a lot of the time and hassle out of animating an image by doing much of the hard work for the user.

It offers an easy-to-follow route for beginners, who will really benefit from the tutorials, and a vast array of options and settings for advanced users, who will be able to use it to create exciting animations.