DAZ 3D has released a new plugin for Carrara, an application that evolves from nearly a decade of MetaCreations' 3D development experience with products such as Ray Dream and Infini-D. Mimic Pro provides an advanced environment for easily creating and editing facial animation sequences. It was originally priced at $199.95, but is currently on sale for just $139.97.

Mimic Pro lets you take an existing WAV audio file (in any language) and helps you animate your figure by using your own speech file which you've recorded in Mimic Pro's recording studio. Your 3D characters will "talk with incredible ease," the company claims.

Countenances can become as expressive as your imagination allows, with Mimic Pro's ability to add in expressions such as winks, nods and smiles. Mimic Pro also displays your custom character ERC and morph settings during playback, and has a much more intuitive, customizable interface, as well as enhanced features that will drastically cut down production time.

Mimic Pro exports PZ2 file compatible with DAZ|Studio 1.0 and Poser version 4.03 and higher, and sports new controls on how fishEye or Flat the camera is (available from the Preferences Window). Also, hair/props that are saved in a CR2 will be loaded in, with transparencies (controls available in the Object Tree). Mimic Pro can build a video preview so you can tweak up your character constantly, without having to go through the same editing process over and over again. Another plus is that video can be saved after the preview has been built - just follow File Menu --> Make Movie Preview, Daz 3D advises.

Mimic Pro also supports Flash output. You can use the same commands noted above, as soon as you've built your preview.

Mimic Pro costs $199.95 to buy. A demo version of Mimic Pro (version 2.5.06) is available for Lightwave users right HERE.