A couple of the people I follow on Twitter were talking about Xtranormal which is a site that allows you to pick a couple of cartoonish characters, type in some text, and then with a few button presses, animate their presentation of it. Naturally, I had to try it.

The video (above) is a sample of what you can do and so far, I’m fairly impressed. My video is not too smooth (I’m still learning what the system is capable of). My only real complaint would be that you can’t actually control the movement of the characters to any great degree. Whatever point in the set they’re on at the start of the video they remain on throughout the video. I’m assuming that will improve as Xtranormal (now in beta) develops its capabilities.

For now Xtranormal is free, and there’s no indication what they’ll eventually charge for the service. It’s pretty cool, and seems to catch the kids imagination, so use it while you can.