Tim,
I haven't had much success using People Putty to turn a 2-dimensional photo of a head into a 3-dimensional animated head. By the time you finish editing the head, you end up with something that looks much like a generic People Puuty head. This is because you have to add 'hoods' (skin) to your photo to smooth out the cracks and seams that inevitably result when you attach your photo to the Putty head.
If you're looking for a product that can turn a photo into a talking head, I suggest that you have a look at Reallusion's CrazyTalk. You can create a 2-dimensional talking head, add text, control the animations and then save it all as an executable file. However, you can't use those heads in Hal or in any other program, as far as I know. Reallsuion also has great photo-editing software (called FaceFilter Studio) that allows you to touch up and even change the expression of faces in photos; it edits only the face. You can sort of do the same thing with the 'Liquify' tools in Photoshop; however, FaceFilter Studio is easier to use (with sliders and buttons), and it's much more precise. I guess the same wire-frame technology that's used in CrazyTalk has been incorporated into FaceFilter Studio. I use the latter product all the time now. In fact, I like it so much, I bought the company. Yeah, right.
