If you’re anything like me, you likely have hundreds, perhaps thousands of photos of your family, friends, and pets sitting on your hard drive.

As the overprotective owner of two whippets, I will admit that I have a disturbing number of photos of my dogs, just begging for more attention. Whining for something to do.

So I decided to try out Reallusion’s CrazyTalk5 PRO software, and I was impressed with the results I got in just one day. It’s fun, addictive, and I found myself thoroughly engrossed in my project. 

What is CrazyTalk5 PRO? It’s a face puppet animation studio that turns your portrait photos into 3D talking characters.  You only need a single shot to turn any head into a fully-animated  one.

It’s easy to get started. Import a photo and map out the facial feature points, such as the corners of the eyes and mouth. I used a straight-forward shot of my dog Ribsy.

 

If you want, you can add teeth, change the background, and switch up the color of its throat. So go ahead - give your toy poodle that German shepherd gullet it’s always fancied. In Ribsy’s case, I switched to a splashier background, and kept him toothless.

Next comes the fun part - adding sound. Choose a song file in wav or mp3 format, type text, or record your own voice. CrazyTalk automatically lip-synced Ribsy’s mouth to the tune I uploaded. 

Then I added some character to Ribsy with one of the many personality options in the Emotions library.

 

Using my mouse, I also puppeted Ribsy in real-time, complete with head tilting and eye blinking. Finally, I threw in a couple of fun special effects to liven it up more.

 

And presto - my dog has learned to talk back to me! Or to be more accurate, has learned to sing passionately about the plight of epileptic dogs.

CrazyTalk5 has a variety of output options. You can share your video on CD, DVD, as a Flash movie, high-definition YouTube videos and more. 

Check out this infectiously cute creation for even more inspiration.