I use Poser but would like to talk to customers, what are your opinions of the above programs, is one preferred over the other, does Mimic have foreign language capabilities.

I've used both Mimic and the demo version of textPuppet. Here are my impressions.

textPuppet's strengths:

Built-in speech synthesis. Currently has support for U.S. English, U.K. English, French, Canadian French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish. Has a few additional animation options that Mimic lacks. Lower base price than Mimic.

textPuppet's weaknesses:

If you have prerecorded speech files, there is no easy way to lipsync them with textPuppet. Only for Windows PCs.

Mimic's strengths:

Works with any form of prerecorded speech. Available for both Windows and Macintosh.

Mimic's weaknesses:

No direct support for foreign languages. Fewer animation options. Higher base price than textPuppet.

Having said all that, I still prefer Mimic, because it's more versatile. textPuppet only uses synthesized speech, but Mimic can use both natural speech and synthesized speech (freeware speech synthesizers are available on the 'Net).

As far as lipsync accuracy and animation quality are concerned, each program has its own advantages and faults. I'll let you judge for yourself.

Below are a couple of animations created in Poser with both textPuppet and Mimic. I ran textPuppet first to create a synthesized voice file, then fed that same voice into Mimic. I've put both animations side-by-side for easier comparison.

Take the Pepsi Challenge (video in MPEG format, 683KB)

TTextpuppet can create sythesized voice in Textpuppet? And tehre are FREEWARE speech-synthesizer? Where can I find that? :) And does it sound at least a little bit realistic... or dies it sound like the voice-synthesizer on Amiga-Computer 12 years ago? ;)

Attached Link: http://www.fantasy3d.com/phon/posersync.html

I have never gotten this site to work. Anyone else have luck? I have tried IE and aol.

I have gotten it to work (NETSCAPE) but the results of the files are poor at best the lipsync is very mechanical you will have to work with the figure once you input the fc2 file to make it look even a little natural

Attached Link: http://www.research.att.com/~ttsweb/cgi-bin/ttsdemo

I never tried the Amiga speech synthesizer, Totoro3D, so I can't really compare. Voice synthesis has improved in the last few years. Most of the freeware utilities aren't state-of-the-art, but you get what you pay for.

Freeware speech synthesizers:
FreeTTS 1.1
ReadPlease 2002
AnalogX SayIt v2.03
My Text to Speech (Lips)
VB Speaker
Sh*t Talker

Here's an example of AT&T's Natural Voices, lipsynced with Mimic:
Video clip (MPEG format, 537KB)

And here's a sample of a real human voice (esteemed actor Sean Connery), again lipsynced with Mimic:
Video clip (MPEG format, 334KB)