Reallusion Announces 360 Head Creator for Cartoon Animator 4

VFX Online February 17, 2019, 4:45 am 2k Views

Reallusion Announces 360 Head Creator for Cartoon Animator 4

Reallusion has announced 360 Head Creator, a new character design feature for 2D animation software Cartoon Animator 4. Cartoon Animator (formerly CrazyTalk Animator) is known for its quick results combined with pro features for an easy approach and workflow since 2008. Cartoon Animator 4 will release in April 2019 with Smart IK, 3D Head Creator and Live performance capture (webcam facial mocap), all new tools to elevate 2D animation production.

CrazyTalk Animator (CTA) brought the power of 2D face creation and facial animation from CrazyTalk to a full body 2D character with scenes, props, cameras and a stage to bring it all to life. Now CrazyTalk Animator is growing again and this next version is evolving the power into a robust 2D animation studio that deserves its own unique brand. Reallusion now is ready to start unveiling the next exciting features to elevate 2D animation production with intuitive character creation, smart animation and live performance capture. Reallusion introduces, Cartoon Animator 4 (CrazyTalk Animator) with all the favorite crazy features and many new tools to easily approach animation or innovate existing pipelines.

WIP2 – 360 Head Creation

This WIP 2 shows how Reallusion breaks through the limitations of 2D Art, and delivers a practical way for 2D animators to create characters with advanced animation along with vivid expressions. The 360 evolution streamlines the workflow for Head Creation, Expression Setup, and directly to the animation core with face key editing, puppeteering and the timeline system. Apart from introducing a set of 360 assets and new professional animation library, users also have the path to convert existing content into 360 heads with a full range of motion.

Quickly Transform a 2D Face into a 3D Head

3D Head Creator transforms 2D art into 3D styled characters with up to 360 degree of motion for deeply rich performances. Photoshop round trip integration for editing multi-angle character in and out of 3D Head Creator.

Full Featured 360 Head Creator

Anchor Nine Head Turn Directions

Inherit basic angle settings from Quick Setup
Transform and deform head sprites for perfect 3D turn
Optional FFD resolution from 2×2 (perspective correction) to 5×5 (precise shape definition)
Mask-out features outside the face to create the 3D illusion

Photoshop 360 Creation Pipeline

Designing 360 Heads with Photoshop Layers

Complete PSD to CTA round-trip workflow for 360 Head Creation
The PSD character template is extended with angle layers for sprite change
Use several image layers to accentuate depth such like a hog’s nose
Build the layer hierarchy using a simple naming rule, eg. Parent > Child
The 360 Head Creator can generate and send angle definitions back to Photoshop, new PSD layers are generated for the 360 angle adjustments