Hi,

Looking for a program or programs that will enable me to create 3d
animated talking sales presentations such as the one at the link
below.

http://www.exstream.to/examples.shtml

and 2d talking presentations such as the one below.

http://www.pulse3d.com/examples/pptdemo/index.html

Each needs to be able to convert typed text into words which are
animated on either the picture or animated chartacter where the mouth
moves in sync with the words.  looking for a low cost solution off the
shelf where I can create my own, put up on the website and have folks
take a virtual tour through the website where the character leads then
page by page, narrating the key points of that page.  So the program
must also have a function to go from page to page automatically.  Can
anyone help?

Thanks

Jeff Tappan

Hallo Jeff,

I hope I have your answer here. The market for animated heads programs
seems to be dominated by famous3d. Their offering best offering for
you is their product proface, of which they write, "proFACE[voice]
provides an intuitive interface for animating faces using a system
that converts an audio file into facial animations." It costs $995.

There is a much smaller program called redted. This does not create
animations per se, but animates photographs. There is no price stated,
as they would prefer clients to get in touch to discuss their needs.

The URL's you need are: 

http://www.famous3d.com/animation/Products/index.html

http://www.redted.mcmail.com/


If, Mr Tappan, you need any further help in finding your software,
please post it and I'll get on it.

---

Clarification of Answer by rajeevsmind-ga on 24 Jan 2003 06:09 PST

Here are some academicish background articles on 3d talking heads.
I'll run your search when I have some free time Jeff.

http://216.239.37.100/search?q=cache:jLguDtRmOGsC:www.research.att.com/projects/AnimatedHead/Icslp/Icslp931.pdf+text+3d+heads&hl=en&ie=UTF-

8http://www.sho.com/alt/expo/labzone/edit_january.cfm

Great Job

go to www.matrox.com  

their video cards are bundled with a virtual presenter creator that
can be embedded in powerpoint files or in HTML and other such
web-enabled tech.

Hi, thanks for the comment.  Yes, I saw them earlier but for full
resolution it requires the person who is watching it to have the card.
 Without the card, the resolution is not good.  I also was looking at
talkingshow 2.0 which seems to do what I want as far as 2d, but it
bothers me that all their examples on their site dont work, nor does
any site they point to still have their product up and working...

I have a bit of a low budget solution. Input your text at the att
natural voices site (http://www.naturalvoices.att.com/demos/). You can
choose the language, voice, format and sample rate. Download your
voice recordings.

Then either piece them together in an audio program. Or upload them as
is into the sitepal 3D flash animated character creation program.

Sorry, here's a link to the sitepal flash program.

https://vhost.oddcast.com/vhost_minisite/index.php?email=1