Digital Puppet?

[Onirayushizobura]

So, a while back, I viewed a live video podcast where one of the guest stars was using a digital puppet during a live webstream.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0Vf4zy_Sws#t=31m30s , if you're curious.

I'm wondering if anybody knows of any software that'll let me do exactly that. It doesn't have to actually stream the videofeed, since I have other software to do that. What I'm really looking for is some software that lets me use a custom avatar, with a custom mouth and facial expressions that I can map to hotkeys. Kind of like a soundboard, except with animation.

Perhaps something that lets me toggle the different facial actions on and off. For example, I press "T" on my keyboard and the character's mouth just flaps, and then I press "T" again, and it stops flapping.

I'm aware of programs like Crazy Talk 6, but it appears Crazy talk only lets you use their pre-made mouths and eyes, which doesn't really work for me, since I want to use my own.

Maybe if I knew Flash better, I could just create my own there, but I figured I'd ask around here first, since the community here seems really helpful.

[rice14]

I actually did this type of thing once. The software I used was GameMaker by yoyogames. I didn't really create a videogame, but rather just a "game" wherein upon pressing a button (I chose spacebar), the character would switch sprites from an image with its mouth closed to mouth open. Then, upon releasing spacebar, it would switch back to the image with the mouth closed. So basically, as you're speaking, you just press the spacebar whenever you open your mouth, like a puppet.