Software Review: CrazyTalk Media Studio 4, Pg. 2

Performance
The performance of CrazyTalk 4 is pretty good. It's basic intent and design is clean and fairly easy to proceed through, responding in a timely manner. However, this is not to say there were not a few issues.

One of the biggest issues is that there are some really basic Windows options that are completely lacking. For example, unlike nearly all other Windows programs, there are no pull-down menus at the top left corner of the screen (i.e. 'File', 'Edit', 'View', 'Help', etc.), which means that, if you can't figure something out readily, you have to return to the manual and look it up. Additionally, because of this layout, saving projects and importing things requires much more hunting around and can lead you to believe you've saved a creation when, in reality, you've only saved a script!

Another example of a missing Windows norm is the lack of an 'Undo' command, either via a menu option or through allowing the Cntrl-Z shortcut. This means that if you accidentally move your entire facial mask when you meant to just reposition a point on that mask, you can't undo it, which is a major pain.

While they do include a variety of facial modifiers to tweak your face, like the aforementioned different eye colors, teeth, and inner mouth coloration, these tended to have some issues. The biggest problem in this area is that most of the eyes looked painted, rather than photo-realistic, which made them clash somewhat with most photos. Now, if you play around with the coloration and shading enough, you can eventually come up with useable eyes, but it would have been nicer to have them more readily available. A bigger issue comes in the creation of teeth, which are necessary due to the fact that photos rarely have teeth in them. No matter how much you work to precisely create your lips, they tend to have difficulty covering up the artificial teeth, which makes the lips look too short or the teeth look too big for the mouths. While CT4 allows you to resize the teeth and reposition them, repositioning is done by slowly clicking up-down and left-right arrows, rather than by dragging the teeth around actively with your mouse, and it still doesn't get rid of the snaggle-toothed problem that tends to crop up.

Value
For how realistic things can look when using this program and how little they're charging in comparison to other programs, I had to say that I found this to be a pretty useful program. While CrazyTalk 4 was designed more for animated heads, in the ilk of a modern day Max Headroom, with some finessing, you can actually get these heads to stand in for real actors on a film. No, you can't leave them in the shot for a long discourse, but they can be just the ticket to cheating a shot you missed by showing one of your actors starting to say something and then cutting to reaction B-roll while the dialogue goes on.

And for any microfilmmakers who specialize in machinima, this would be just the ticket to make those 3D models say what you want them to say! (For that, you would also be wise to check out Reallusion's full 3D body software, iClone as well, which we will be reviewing in a few months!)

Final Comments
While CrazyTalk 4 isn't the answer to every 3D programmer's problems, it is a creative solution for generating talking heads from photos which can be easily green screened and placed in virtual sets. This can be a great way to cheat a film shot, create a stylized cartoon, craft an unusual multimedia creation, or make an evolutionary leap in Machinima. A strong program for the price point and one that you definitely should download the demo for to see if it will work for you!

	Ease of Use             9.5          Depth of Options             7.5          Performance             7.0                                  Value                        8.0          Overall Score              8.0

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