Iclone or Carrara for Animation?

Optimus Shepard

Hello,

 I know that this is a silly question and there are threads that talks about Iclone and Carrara but none of them have the answers I looking for. So I was hoping if anybody can please tell me which of these programs is best for animation iclone or carrara? Cuz I was going to buy the iclone 7 but I stumble upon carrara showing me that it is better animation than Daz aniblocks. So please let me know which one is better. Thank you.

evilproducer

Depends on what you want to do. I have no experience with iClone, but both Carrara and iClone have their strengths and weaknesses.

Carrara has some very serious animation tools, as does iClone, but there are effects and things that you can do in Carrara that you can't do in iClone. An advantage that iClone has is that it can use the graphics card to render, but this can also be a disadvantage as well.

Optimus Shepard

evilproducer said:

Depends on what you want to do. I have no experience with iClone, but both Carrara and iClone have their strengths and weaknesses.

Carrara has some very serious animation tools, as does iClone, but there are effects and things that you can do in Carrara that you can't do in iClone. An advantage that iClone has is that it can use the graphics card to render, but this can also be a disadvantage as well.

Alright cool thanks. I was just looking for a better animation software beside aniblocks so I can start some short videos with my daz3d characters that I made. Somewhat faster rendering time and not so diffcult.

WendyLuvsCatz

if you want premade animations Bonetech and Posermocap are some alternatives to Gofigure.

Optimus Shepard

Alright before I do the purchase for iclone. I know I need 3dxchange to export my daz characters but do I need the pipeline version or can I just get the pro?

WendyLuvsCatz

Optimus Shepard said:

Alright before I do the purchase for iclone. I know I need 3dxchange to export my daz characters but do I need the pipeline version or can I just get the pro?

pro to export FBX or BVH you need latter for DAZ studio and best done using Genesis or below Genesis 3 will not load the bvh well at all its a mess

FBX will load a frightful mess if at all in D|S but Carrara will import it

I myself use iClone but I render it in iClone, thats the easiest answer if you do that you only need pro

WendyLuvsCatz

if you really want to use DAZ studio you are better off not using iClone or other third party software but rather converting stuff to the figures you want in DAZ studio

various scripts that convert to genesis 3 would serve you better

WendyLuvsCatz

I cannot stand DAZ studio personally so trying to give an unbiased view 

Optimus Shepard

Thanks 3Ddigit for your help. I really appreciate it.

Hermit Crab

I'm just adding a few thoughts to this thread because I don't know enough about the standards you are setting for yourself and don't want to make a recommendation.

However, I have used both Iclone and Carrara in attempts to animate.  Both programs have done their bit to help me understand what needs to be done to create animations.  Iclone helped me particularly to understand the camera usage - but what I learned helped me to do the same in Carrara.

If you have a lot of DAZ content then Carrara can use most of it (Not Genesis 3 and I don't know what happens with Iray textures).  Carrara has many, many features which make it an all-round 3d program.  It sometimes becomes available at an amazingly low price and it renders very nicely in a variety of ways.   It has lots of tools for animation and effects as well as the tools to create your own assets, if you wish to get into modelling.  You can rig objects with bones also.  You can build a library of poses and of animation clips but you need to work at making these.

Iclone is a program going from strength to strength and is developing into a strong candidate for animators to invest in.  I only bought 3dXchange Pro because I see no need to take things out of Iclone back into other programs.  Buying a lot of content from Reallusion can become expensive but you can buy motions, movie sets, clothing items, trees and vegetation, etc. etc.   The costs will add up and it is important to check out the hardware specifications.  If you want to export bought content then you need 3dXchange Pipeline and most items for export cost more to buy because they then come with an export licence.

I use Iclone for the fun of putting short clips together but I haven't seriously tried to create a proper animation following a story.  Iclone lets me add rain, mist waterfalls and other effects very quickly but these aren't Pixar quality effects - they are game-engine quality but not the quality of Unity, etc.

I do the same with Carrara: I make short clips for fun.  Getting mist and other effects in Carrara isn't quite as instant as these are in Iclone.  Producing an animated story would most probably take a lot longer to do in Carrara.  With clothed Daz figures, the scene tree becomes huge but there may be plugins that others will know about to make handling these easier.

Iclone now has a figure-creation tool and clothing uses PhysX for soft-body realism.  Soft body animated clothing in Carrara needs another tool not sold by DAZ.

The beauty of having both Carrara and Iclone is that Carrara-made items (and .fbx exports) can be brought into Iclone.  You could aim to do a high-quality work in Carrara but see most of it as a quick prototype in Iclone.

The best users of Iclone have created some wonderful short films and likewise some fantastic animations have been done in Carrara..    

 

WendyLuvsCatz

Carrara is still my favourite program 

but iClone is always good for a quickie animation

what D|S does is load all of DAZ content nicely ready to render, click, pose and go no need to tweak

animating in it drives me utterly raving mad.

Hermit Crab

I hope it will be OK to ask a quick question of my own instead of a new thread in the Commons?

I bought this: http://www.daz3d.com/animate-walk-styles-1 a while back but I haven't a clue how to use it.

Supposedly it works in Poser too.  I thought I'd just have to drag a motion to a figure but maybe I need to buy something else?

WendyLuvsCatz

are gfa aniblocks so you would need the animate importer for Carrara or Poser or animate2 to bake to timeline in D|S to save as duf or pz2

Dartanbeck

Marcus Severus said:

I hope it will be OK to ask a quick question of my own instead of a new thread in the Commons?

I bought this: http://www.daz3d.com/animate-walk-styles-1 a while back but I haven't a clue how to use it.

Supposedly it works in Poser too.  I thought I'd just have to drag a motion to a figure but maybe I need to buy something else?

 

Marcus Severus said:

I hope it will be OK to ask a quick question of my own instead of a new thread in the Commons?

I bought this: http://www.daz3d.com/animate-walk-styles-1 a while back but I haven't a clue how to use it.

Supposedly it works in Poser too.  I thought I'd just have to drag a motion to a figure but maybe I need to buy something else?

Yup!

aniBlock Importer for Carrara!

I love that pack! Walk Styles has some nice, different walks to choose from.

I import them into Carrara onto either V4 or M4 figures, but they can be tweaked for Genesis too - mostly have to go into the graph editor and fix the legs and feet.

I also mix and match aniBlock information. Use the hip and legs from this, chest, abs and arms from that, and animate the neck and head myself! ;)

► AniMating in Carrara

Hermit Crab

Many thanks indeed, Wendy and Dartanbeck for answering my question.  It's strange how, in spite of sounding off on some topics, I've yet to grasp some of the basics!

The link, Dartanbeck, helps a lot.

Hope you are both enjoying anything left of the Festive Season!

Dartanbeck

Marcus Severus said:

Hope you are both enjoying anything left of the Festive Season!

I still have one more week of Christmas! ;)