Power Animation Tool For Hobbyist Or Professionals
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
I am a content creator. I use CrazyTalk Animator (CTA) for personal use in my own projects as well as freelance projects. At work, I first used the program when I was tasked to give a presentation that I was not prepared for. I decided to make a visual in the form of an animation instead of using traditional means such as PowerPoint. Needless to say, the presentation was a huge success.
Fast forward, I now use CTA on a regular basis and make promotional/marketing videos for my company. The ease of the program allows just about anyone in our marketing product to construct a professional looking animation. So now, instead of outsourcing video creation to third parties, we make them ourselves!
Pros
- The main pro of the entire program is that it makes animation incredibly simple. You are not required to even know how to draw. Once you grasp the gist of the software it is extremely simple to use.
- Another great aspect of CTA is the online community. There are a vast amount of online tutorials and an online forum for anyone who has questions. They even provide a content store in which users can sell their own content to other users.
- A recent update has allowed Photoshop integration. This allows even more customization of aspects of the animation you are working with.
- A characters mouth movements are automatically synced with voiceover audio. I felt this gave me one less thing to animate and has saved me time on more than one occasion.
Cons
- Other products made by this company (Namely their 3D animation software) have a character creator. I would love to see something like this with CTA.
- I would like to see a bigger integration with social media. Having the ability to live broadcast a CTA character in real-time (like mo-cap) would be amazing. If this were a possibility you could live stream a video chat or Facebook live portrayed as your CTA character.
- Allow more in-depth settings for exporting media.
Likelihood to Recommend
This is a difficult question to answer. This software can be used for a hobbyist or professionals alike. On one hand, you can make fun, simple animations for things like YouTube or Facebook. However, on the other hand, you can use this tool for professional looking animations that can be used in marketing, presentations, etc.
I am someone who uses the program for both - as a hobbyist and also professionally.
The first time I took it upon myself to make an animation for something job-related, it impressed my colleagues so much that they bought the company their own copy of the software and encouraged me to make more. There have been numerous times where I have used the program to entice new clients. I would even take it a step further by using a potential client's logo or CEO as a character in the animation.
In 2015, CrazyTalk Animator (CTA) has even helped me land a new job. I had been laid off and was out of work for a few months. I saw a job opening I was interested but had learned that the position had literally hundreds of potential applicants. Basically, I created a video using CTA of me performing the job as if I already had been offered it. I even included the company logo. In the video, I made an animation explaining why it was a good idea to hire the company. Once I finished the video I included it along with my resume. To make a long story short, I got the job.
