Hmm.

TALK Designer.

Interesting.

You should be getting your e-mails.

Hmmmm..

Yes. My first reaction was they did not mention Talk Designer working with Daz figures.   Perhaps they do - ? 

Says:

"Third party content creators will be able to provide configuration files that make any viseme-equipped* figures Talk Designer compatible!
** Visemes are the visual representations of phonemes."*

Hmmmm.  I remember using Viseme to "get the red out" back when I smoked reefer, but it never seemed to work.

 What's that? Oh, ... *Viseme. * Never mind.  I'll go back to making Vicky's butt bigger now...

Saw the VERY short clip.

Not impressive.

Quote - Saw the VERY short clip.

Not impressive.

Agreed. I'm thinking I'll stick with Mimic for now.

They could have worked on that lame animation more. It was very bad. The mouth barely opened and looked unnatural.

Sounded like the computer text reading voice??? How would it look using expressive text, I wonder?

Quote - Hmmmm..

Yes. My first reaction was they did not mention Talk Designer working with Daz figures.   Perhaps they do - ? 

Says:

"Third party content creators will be able to provide configuration files that make any viseme-equipped* figures Talk Designer compatible!
** Visemes are the visual representations of phonemes."*

It's possible that Mimic-compatible figures have the necessary morphs, but they need the config file to tell this to Talk Designer. Which might allow there to be a generic config file. Until we know the details of the system, we're all guessing, but it's the obvious thing to do. The current South African National Anthem seems as if it should test animators: five languages, three of them using click consonants.

hmmm.  looking again at the mimic promos and comparing it to this new demonstration... well, mimic stuff has a lot more exaggeration and stuff, but imho, doesn't look as real if we're just talking about lip movement.  that was my first impression looking at the promo, and was confirmed when i looked at the mimic promos again.  but then i'm on a cable modem and a pc (flash doesn't perform as well on macs in as 2.0 rendering).  mimic stuff always seems slightly off in timing to me, and way over exaggerated.  this "felt" more natural to me.  if  we're looking at the whole package (expressions, body movements, etc.), then maybe i'd like it less,  but it's not clear yet from that promo.  that said, i just picked up mimic lite for $3.50. 

i will say this- i liked her face a lot more than sydney's.  miki g2?

personally, i'm a lot more pleased and interested in reason #2.  it definitely shows that they did some major work.

Not impressed with the lip sync I'm afraid - no better than Mimic. The thing I’m waiting for is better non realistic characters – have you ever seen Pixar create an animation with photorealistic characters – no – and you don’t want to. Give us some characters that reflect the current world of animation. You watch the Incredibles, you say WOW, and then you go home and look a James for two minutes then close Poser. And no you can’t distort things in the face and figure, it just breaks when you animate. So why Isn’t Poser reflecting popular animation culture? If there’s a generic ‘character creation room’ that allows squash and stretch and will give me exaggerated oooo shapes on the mouth. Give me that and I’ll buy Poser in a second. I know people want realistic characters, probably for still images, but for animation there’s a reason Pixar do stylised characters – there more interesting to watch and you can bend the laws of physics. If there’s ever the day we have totally realistic 3D characters in movies (and it’s coming) that would bore the pants off me – I don’t want real when I go to an animation.

That is Sydney's face, at least according to the video.

It's probably very good, but EF has a huge problem when it comes to representing their stuff. A lot of the their own figures and freebies are very good, but the renders they show of them are just horrible. While EF makes a good application they sure know how NOT to use it.

They should really hire a good artist to their promos.

On the other hand it's looks like Sixus1 is making a lot of their stuff now (including the freebies) and that's why there always seems to be a 'dark' mood on the stuff. Sixus1 one is good for abnormal, dark, mystic items, but he seems to apply that style to about everyhting, even something loving like a squirrel or lamb.

Quote - ... mimic stuff has a lot more exaggeration...

I agree the default strength of the facial movements in Mimic is too strong, at least for my taste.  However, you can (and I almost always do) click select all and slide the strength bar down from the default level of 50% to about 25%.  For my characters, at least, that yields very good results.

Quote - Not impressed with the lip sync I'm afraid - no better than Mimic. The thing I’m waiting for is better non realistic characters – have you ever seen Pixar create an animation with photorealistic characters – no – and you don’t want to. Give us some characters that reflect the current world of animation. You watch the Incredibles, you say WOW, and then you go home and look a James for two minutes then close Poser. And no you can’t distort things in the face and figure, it just breaks when you animate. So why Isn’t Poser reflecting popular animation culture? If there’s a generic ‘character creation room’ that allows squash and stretch and will give me exaggerated oooo shapes on the mouth. Give me that and I’ll buy Poser in a second. I know people want realistic characters, probably for still images, but for animation there’s a reason Pixar do stylised characters – there more interesting to watch and you can bend the laws of physics. If there’s ever the day we have totally realistic 3D characters in movies (and it’s coming) that would bore the pants off me – I don’t want real when I go to an animation.

This is something I'm trying to work on myself. I've just run into rigging issues here and there but it's coming along.

Also, remember gang, the demo is just that, a demo, we can make our own phenome morphs and anims which can be just as good or better (and in some cases, worse) than what was shown. So while the demo may not have impressed you, consider the potential...

It's probably very good, but EF has a huge problem when it comes to representing their stuff. A lot of the their own figures and freebies are very good, but the renders they show of them are just horrible.<

I agree!  There were a handful of very nice portraits done by "name" artists included in a promo email when P6 came out, but usually, the promos are pretty lame. This is perhaps partly due to EF's desire to show what the program can produce without postwork, but still, we've all seen some great no-post stuff here in the galleries.   I don't understand - why don't they consistently commission great promos?  Silly.

This is me with my fingers crossed...

Captain Jack

First, I like the action in Mimic. What I like most is the control that you can insert with mimic. although I don't think that it timing was up to where it needs to be. The first word of the sentence has always lagging and I had to switch the first letter to better match the word quite often. 

EF's talk Designer is to short to judge. there is no way to know how good it is with that short clip. I thought the expressions if you look very closely, show great promise of the new characture, as per the way the face has a natural bending upward in words that would do that. but that doesn't tell you that much about the talk designer. That only speeks to the characture.

Which makes me wonder if it is the Talk Designer or the Person who made the animation in Talk Designer, It was bland. Give me something to sell me on, with a good animator and something with some expression. 1 Example,  a person that sees a ghost then get an frightned expression  on their face as they slightly turn there head and yells. Henry, come in hear. You won't believe what is stairing me in the face. Then if you have a good product. "Product sold! "

You could have killed two birds with one stone. You would sell Sydney's characture as a must, showing his expression potential, plus, the Talk designer all in one ad. That would take a lot of guess work out of what the product can,  and can't do. Not the, do-de-do, Oh hum!

Poser has had a great product, Poser 5 was my biggest disapointment. Not that the product wasn't a good one, It had a lot of great inovative features, but it just had so many bugs in it. I'm will  buy Poser 7. I love Poser 6, Although I wasn't happy with the  Rigging  of  James and Jessie, or Jessies perportions. I did like there skin, and especialy liked James face. Both had a very natural look, and great expressions.

You would sell Sydney's characture as a must, showing his expression potential

PLEASE GUYS! SYDNEY IS THE FEMALE! Can you please get the basics right before dissin the program?!

A little defensive are we? You miss the point. The promo was not impressive in showing off reason #2 because of the way the ad was presented.

actually, i don't know if i wouldn't rather do my expressions and motions the traditional way in poser.  miki, koji, and the others already have great expressions, and i've seen wonderful animations of them. personally, i'd really have to know more about the workflow of using the lip sync to know about how reasonable and helpful such redundancy would be.  if this is just a lip synch, not a full animation replacement, i'd rather see just it working.  the same way i'd rather  a promo pic be just the item being sold than with a bunch of other products. but this is all pure speculation.  i'm just interested in the fact that this indicates a program that has been substantially changed. 

oh, and if that's sydney, i'm much more pleased with her than the other preview led me to believe.

trekkiegrrrl - silly woman!  letting facts get in the way of complaining just isn't the poser way.

CobraEye- if they had shown off reason #2 the way everyone is suggesting (lots of expression, movement, postwork, toony characters), i personally would have been very _un_impressed.  i want to know features, not what animation masters can do if given enough time and leeway.  it would just look like flash and glam and not substance, imho.  by the way, i don't go "WOW" at the incredibles.  i go, "gee what a lot of highly technically difficult work.   great craftsmanship.  too bad i find the style terribly boring."   which is the problem with highly stylized content and promo materials- some will like it but others will loathe it.  oh, and how can trekkiegrrrl be defensive when she has nothing to do with eFrontier?

I do a ton of animation, when your characture is talking durring an animation. After you have used Mimic and you want to change the expression. using an expression durring that speach, Problems arise. My experience is that the mouth wants to hang on with that expression untill the next new expression is entered. Thus when talking ,the mouth doesn't want to close correctly or can close to far the other way. I have to edit the mouth in the keyframes to get them ballanced for the rest of the animation. 

The perfect MiMic or Talk Designer is that you can activate the expression you want, (not just brows up and brows down) all your detailed expressions right through those programs. And if you need to correct or tweek them you run them back through the Mimic or Talk Designer Program.

As far as Sydney being a girl or guy. Hey I was studying the detail of the facial movements of the new charactures, at 4 am getting sleep was a priority, but I had to check out the new features in Poser.  wether the characture was a guy or girl was the least of my concerns.  I wanted first and formost to analize head movements and expressions.

One thing I am sure of. If the Talk Designer comes up a little short at this point. EF will make sure it will meet the standards that it's customers want. I like the fact that you access it within Poser. Reguardlessly. I will buy Poser 7. I think they do a bag up job over all.

They also mentioned:

universal binary, auto populate and full body morphs saved in animations. 

Starting to sound better