Producing the Videos - a look behind the scenes

People frequently ask how we go about producing the videos - so this page gives a brief outline of how the characters are created and then animated together with how the sets are produced.

Making the Characters:

The three original characters were created using photographs of our eldest grand-daughter's soft toys. It is necessary to pose them in this position to form a side-on character that is more versatile to animate than a face-on character.

Many of the characters are created from paintings - which are scanned and entered into the "CrazyTalk Animator" program we use ( here the hands are sketched in fairly roughly, as they will be replaced by hands generated by the program in the final character. In the same way the eyes are not painted in as these are added later in the "Face Fitting" mode so they can be made to move and blink. ) The figure on the right has the face sketched in a rudimentary way as this will be replaced by a photograph or head taken from another figure to create the final character.

Here the character on the right has been scanned into the program and the animation points being added before -

- being moved to the 'Face Fitting' mode to add the face ( taken here from a photograph )

Finally the hands are changed - which can be accomplished at any stage throughout the animation to make the gestures more realistic.

The finished characters from the first two paintings shown - the one on the right with a head from another character rather than a photograph - as shown below.

Here two different characters are created using the same head onto which differing hands and expressions can be added.

Producing the Sets:

The first stage in creating the surgery is to use an image of an empty room, import it into the program and enlarge it to fit the screen.

Then the props are added to complete the set.

Although the set that is seen is a 2D image, when seen in 3D mode the props are positioned so the characters can move around, behind or in front of then, as would be the case if it were an actual room.

Putting everything together in the animation stage.

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