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Comments
Dartanbeck
I have done the Lynda.com courses previosly and found them to be the best I have used.
My thoughts... the Lynda is on Carrara 5. Therefore, from your points it may be the software hasn't changed as much as I may be perceiving. I do know when the primary whole number in a software version changes as a rule the changes are significant,
In my posting I mentioned online training for Lynda and infinite skills, kinowing what you do what would be your choice for a first time user.
I really don't have the time to do workarounds on training. I have learned it is best practice to get with some type of structured training and follow the course of instruction if it is available.
Carrara has had significant changes, yes. But it's a vast software with a lot to learn.
As of Carrara 5, many of the changes have been improvements and additions of features. For example, PhilW and Infinite Skills released the lesser expensive update to the Basic Training for Carrara 8, on the new implementations introduced in 8.5
Philw's Infinite Skills trainings are incredibly good, and I highly recommend them. Especially if you intend to do any rendering in Carrara (and I don't know what your final pipeline would be, but it seems to me Carrara's renderer would be a preferable option) then the Realism in Rendering course is nearly a must, imo.
Here's the thing you may not have realized, though. The courses offered at the Infinite Skills site and the ones listed in the Daz store are the same courses. So you can buy/own them from DAZ for more dollars, or you could look into getting a monthy membership at Infinite Skills for 25 dollars (quite a bit less) and you're not locked into renewing it month to month if you watch the courses and feel like you're good to go. So it might make more sense to get the monthly directly from Infinite Skills rather than buy the courses/videos and have them on your hard drive ready to reference for the rest of time as needed (depending on how you absorb info).
I'm not that familiar with iclone, though Wendy has mentioned it a few times in the forums here. I'm a bit interested in it. Looked over on the iclone site and looks like it's mainly an animation tool, which looks like the main draw is that you can use Kinect + the computer to quickly make your characters move in realistic motion poses. Looked like with an add on it will cover Daz genesis, though I don't know whether that means support for V4/M4 is out or whether Genesis2 would be supported or not. Still looked kind of nifty. Can you guys shed some more light on the pros of iclone and what it does, how you fit it into your pipeline?
JonStark
I will go with the infinite $25 a month subscription.
------------------------------
Iclone like so many other animation softwares can appear more than or less than what it is, which might have alot to do with experience.
When I started with iclone I was doing live actor video post productions. I had a project that needed animated characters to present some complex information. I used animation to make it seem simpler and hold viewer intersest. It worked. I enjoy working with the animation videos...no actors, no sets, or physical props. No on site work, or dealing with the weather. LOL
The new release for Iclone is coming some time this month, which is improved by quantum leaps over past versions.
You like rendering in Carrara.. Iclone users talk of Daz applications as very slow compared to iclone.
I personally can't compare, because I am not familiar enough with Carrara to speak of it.
Wendy and some others on these forums are better qualitied to answer you questions.
The principal thing about Iclone. It is a dedicated animated 3D video production software.
Iclone has a number of easy to use tools for motion edititng, facial animation, import of audio scripts for lipsync.
A complex timeline, with tremendous number of options.
The Iclone community is a attentive to help out and share as Daz forums from what I can tell.
If you want to do high quality 3d animation videos efficiently it is excellent software.
If you are developer of games or graphic content items then iclone is defintiely not the software you want.
Thanks rampart1, I'm just a hobbyist, and barely ever do any animating, but I do think it would be a nifty cool timesaving trick to use Kinect to do motion capture that could be transferred easily to one of the daz figures. I have a lot of Genesis stuff, even though I prefer the V4/M4 models, so might very well pick iclone up to play with. The app itself isn't that expensive, but looks like the addons that would be needed to make it use my daz content might make it a bit more expensive. Plus I don't have a Kinect yet :)
I can see iclone does all kinds of other stuff too in regards to making animation easier, I'm envisioning I could use it to help set up the animation sequence, bring it then into carrara for final tweaking and then render, maybe using Octane plugin to get really extremely realistic quality of render that goes quickly.
I can't resist a few manual memories.
Long ago, I got hooked on synthesizers, like a lot of wannabe musicians when MIDI first came out on PC's. A lot of the stuff came from Japan - Casio, Yamaha, some of the Roland stuff. Great hardware, but the manuals ... the rule is you translate INTO your native language, but they obviously did not do that, using Japanese speakers to write the English manuals. You were better off just hitting the buttons and taking notes on whatever happened ... if you could tell what happened. :ohh:
Another time, also long ago in the days of Vax computers and VMS, I was assigned to a programming group in a big engineering firm. A typical carpeted, noise deadened, dozens of geeks cube farm with almost no ambient sound. All of a sudden, our somewhat volatile member shouted loudly, "READ THE MANUAL?!?! WTF ..." etc. I don't know who told him to do that, but it is a fond Dilbertesque memory. :lol:
well are you in for a surprise :lol:
I must say iClone's timeline is better than DAZ studio's though
You should wait until the new iclone 6 is released before looking into buy it. Major improvements and a render engine are in the works.
Reallusion has indicated the plan a December 2014 release, which could be any day now.
Your workflow, if you are producing videos will be differnt from what you do now. You would need the 3DXchange software for migrating content iles from Daz softwares, and the iclone pro version with the render package to do capable video production. I use Sony Vegas Pro for developing my audio scripts, iclone for the video animation production, then I use Sony Vegas and Hitfilm for editing and rendering for final.
I do not use Kinect and most iclone users that have tried it...very disappointed.
iclone can use alot of the generic motion files, bvh, etc. There are thousands available for free and minimal cost.
You can also use iclone to create your own motion files, with the motion build and edit tools in iclone.
In other words, don't even think about Kinect for motions at this point. Maybe in the not to distant future...biut not right now.
You can seach on iclone forums and look for kinect. You will find Kinect and iclone are mostly associated with problems.
Thanks for sharing
Wendy
Do you do that much with daz3d studio?
Are you producing video with anything besides iclone?
I can't resist a few manual memories.
Long ago, I got hooked on synthesizers, like a lot of wannabe musicians when MIDI first came out on PC's. A lot of the stuff came from Japan - Casio, Yamaha, some of the Roland stuff. Great hardware, but the manuals ... the rule is you translate INTO your native language, but they obviously did not do that, using Japanese speakers to write the English manuals. You were better off just hitting the buttons and taking notes on whatever happened ... if you could tell what happened. :ohh:
Another time, also long ago in the days of Vax computers and VMS, I was assigned to a programming group in a big engineering firm. A typical carpeted, noise deadened, dozens of geeks cube farm with almost no ambient sound. All of a sudden, our somewhat volatile member shouted loudly, "READ THE MANUAL?!?! WTF ..." etc. I don't know who told him to do that, but it is a fond Dilbertesque memory. :lol:
I used to work as a VAR and systems consultant. That was a favored expression -"have you read your manual". It always amazed me how people could afford so much technology, but refused to read the docs to utilize all that technology.
My Sony Vegas Pro manual is huge, and I've probably read it three times...and still I learn new things.
Deja Vue
FYI - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BH4coQNeloA#t=234
The number of light sources and cameras = unlimited
Light sources have been limited up to now, but that changes to unlimited in new IC6
You can do some editing of characters, which very practical.
You can import photo faces and apply them to iclone characters as well.
You can do some external modifications of objects, but you cannot make a container from a tube.
In other words, you can resize, scale but you can't really sculpt objects.
There is no landscape tool like in Carrara, but you can import Carrara terrains into iclone.
Iclone does have a height map edit tool now, which allows some excellent ability to apply textures
The Earth Sculptor is the tool used by most iclone users, but it is a hit and miss situation (IMO).
It is like Sculptris you have to mold the terrain, and some of the tools aren't very good.
You can import via IClone 3DXchange software tool fbx, obj, sketchup, and other file types.
This is an addon software (not a plugin) for iclone by Reallusion.
You can also import and do some rigging on imported characters from other software.
Animation viewing of your projects is almost instant , no waiting for renders to run the timeline.
There are huge new improvements in the timeline GUI.
For the first time we will have filtered searchable content items (content management)
You can buy pipeline version of iclone as well, which allows export to game engines.
I don't use pipeline version, because I only make videos.
Anyway, if you go to the forums for iclone 6 you can watch some recent videos about IC6 planned features.
Here is link to forum page with all the information on iclone 6. There are a number of very good videos explaining.
Look for episosodes mentioned in the thread topic.. These are among the pinned topics at the top of the page.
http://forum.reallusion.com/Forum368-1.aspx
The bonds between iclone and Daz3d software and products should grow.
Iclone content items by third party developers are significantly more expensive than Daz3d content with Platinum Plus.
Reallusion doesn't appear to pay much attention to pricing in the Content Marketplace stores.
Creating and edtiting content within Carrara is an exciting option.
Also, with the Reallusion 3DXchange software Daz3d content can be migrated to iclone. This is excellent.
All I have to do is learn Carrara well enough to do what I need.
I have been using Octane render with DAZ studio a lot lately
Carrara has always been my main software even if I may render slightly more in iClone since being on a desktop, a lot starts off at least in carrara
and I use carrara 360 renders in my iClone skies mostly too often animated
Looking into the tutors I found this site.
http://www.markbremmer.com/3Bpages/carrara7Pro.html
I realize it isn't for Carrara 8, but the instructor is very articulate and careful about making certain you know precisely what to do.
I viewed several of the infinite starter videos, and the instructor skipped over some things. He showed you how to do something, but would leave off the click ons for submissions and such. Also, heavy British acceent does make a bit difficult to understand sometimes. I think the instructor assumes there are things people should "just know". That is probably fine after you have worked with the application a while.
The Lynda.com course does appear to be very carefully done. The only problem is there are differences in GUI and features. Since it is a version 5 of Carrara.
Anyone know about Mark Bremmer?
Absolutely! His multi-legged walk cycle tutorial is great!
I learned much thing thanks to Mister Cripman, Marcello Teixeira, Infiniteskills etc.
but Mark Bremmer has something moreover for a foreigner: he explains very conscientiously, in perfect English, the development of his subject.
I like a lot Cripeman for its very sympathetic approaches, but Mark, I would listen to him during hours for the pleasure.
He's the coordinator of the Carrara forum on Renderosity.
Looking in tonight I saw how this thread has grown - so I might as well add to it!
Firstly, I'm glad that my earlier post might have been helpful to you, Rampart1. By the time it was posted you had gone ahead to buy Carrara and I'm sure you will get a lot from the program once you begin to uncover what it can do.
Initially you could do worse than just loading and posing characters (when I bought 8.5, I was given DAZ Victoria and Michael) and then render them. That way you are only using the Assembly Room and the Render Room.
You could build a scene in the Assembly room from primitives: (flatten a few cubes to make stairs or walls, stretch and duplicate a cylinder to make columns, etc.). You could texture such primitives from the Preset selection, add a distant light or a bulb after removing the scene default light and so on. Just render each change in a new window. Then scrub along the timeline and change character pose, light settings or textures. Try rendering that as a movie and see how Carrara's basic animation works. I think you'll like it.
Later you could use some DAZ assets to animate a DAZ character in a temple with a sword - that's a joke based on the number of such renders already done.
Jonstark, I haven't tried mocap and don't have a Kinect but Rampart1 is correct in reporting that users have expressed disappointment and dissatisfaction with it. (Not all users - some are enthusiastic). Outside Iclone there is at least one crowd-funded mocap solution soon to be released which looks extremely promising https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKzEpb_SMSw - although I don't know what's involved in making the captured motion compatible with Avaters in different software.
I absolutely don't want to encourage anyone to turn from Carrara to iclone, but since you expressed interest I can tell you that my needs are met with the Pro version along with the pro version of 3dXchange (the companion program for importing assets to iclone). 3dXchange Pipeline is a much more expensive version of the latter program but it allows export from iclone to game engines, etc. However, an additional cost is incurred when assets are bought with the intention of doing this - an export licence fee is added to the asset price. (all too expensive for me).
If you looked at the video Rampart1 linked to, you will have seen that the new version of iclone is going to be greatly improved. And DAZ have worked with Reallusion to make Genesis perfectly at home in the software for anyone who wants to turn out quick animations. Iclone isn't Carrara, obviously - but even as a Carrara fan, I like using it and plan to make short films with it. For anyone who primarily wants to have fun animating a story, Iclone is excellent and in the right hands, final results can be brilliant. But (in my view) if iclone is a large music band, Carrara is a full orchestra!
Rampart1 - on video training, I was lucky enough to get the infinite skills beginners and advance courses as a bundle from Amazon.
They were sold individually at $99 but cost $99 for the bundle.
Stevek - your post above outlining your animation method is very clear and helpful - thanks.
I bought this for the above reasons.
http://www.markbremmer.com/3Bpages/carrara7Pro.html
I bought the download version.
I plan to copy to DVDs and take with me when I travel for the next couple months.
Just plug in my earbuds and pop in the DVD.
Long plane rides won't be a waste.
That's great.
Good luck with Carrara.
Rampart1, Mark Bremmer's course is excellent, I think you'll find it very informative. And the man himself is the main moderator at the Renderosity Carrara forum,, and often posts there, answering question, etc.
Marcus, thanks for the info. I wasn't ever planning on leaving Carrara, just thought iclone might bring a way to do quick good easy mocaps that I could then see bringing into Carrara for rendering. I don't do much animation, but I was thinking in the future I'd like to turn my hand to it and it looked like iclone could bring some extra tools to the table. It's a shame to hear the Kinect motion capture isn't ready for prime time yet, but like has been mentioned there's a new version of iclone on the horizon, maybe it will be improved enough in that version to be ready tor rumble, that's a big feature imo that I think eventually would make motion capture quick and easy and therefore make human movement animation much easier. Currently I look at all the Animate modules in the Daz store and think there are very few motions per module and they ain't exactly dirt cheap, plus who knows what you will get. I know there's lots of free bvh files out there too that are decent, I see scififunk's tutorials mentioning them and how to use them, so I know that it's possible to put together a workable library, but the idea that I can get exactly the motion/pose I want nearly immediately using a Kinect capture with iclone that I can then apply to Genesis is very attractive. While for me personally I believe V4/M4 is the better figure for still renders, I do think Genesis and possibly Genesis2 are the better figures for animation. So I'll wait a bit for the new iclone version to come out and interested to see, will likely pick it up.
I wasn't envisioning taking things out of Carrara to render though, actually never crossed my mind. Carrara already has one of the best biased renderers around and now with Luxus and the Octane plugin I can't see any reason to export out of Carrara to anything else :) Well, for big scenes that I need rendered fast that won't fit in Octane I may still do some exporting as .obj files into Thearender, but mostly now that I've got Octane there's not much reason that Carrara isn't the final assembly/rendering point :)
Hi Jonstark,
I knew for sure that you wouldn't intend to abandon Carrara :-) I was just concerned not to give the impression that I'm touting other software in a place which is exclusively Carrara's own. I try to take the same care on the iclone forums - Reallusion is a small company and I regard myself as a guest on its forums as I do here at DAZ. In this case a considerable investment on your part is possibly at stake, hence my reply.
I'm not by any means up-to-date on current mocap options and have never been able to try it. But from what I read in passing, it looks to me that some good, reasonably affordable solutions will be available quite soon (if they aren't already).
The problem for camera-based solutions is that either you need a multi-camera setup or you are limited to one camera viewpoint - which is the case with the iclone plugin. I think with one camera trial and error will eventually lead to some acceptable results but will also show the limitations. (If anyone reading this is still interested, for iclone it's important to be certain of which kinect is purchased and I would advise waiting to see what else comes up).
Then there is the degree of realism desired (hand and feet movements, facial expressions). Simple mocap, I guess, would need lots of cleanup adjustments if only the main limb movements are captured.
Lastly, I remember someone pointing out that there are only so many moves that can be done on the spot by one person and that not everyone is good at acting, dancing or martial arts. (Actually I think mocap is great for 'idle' moves - animated characters are often stiff when nothing too active is taking place).
Where I'm living there is a local drama group with members who write their own short plays and enter some of them in contests. They are a friendly group and when I've seen their performances in a nearby hall, they only have minimal sets and props (I was going to say minimal costumes but that would give the wrong impression - they were performing for the very elderly :cheese:). I would love some day to be able to work with them acting with mocap in a DAZ scene with DAZ characters. Then they could really go to town with their ideas.
As for rendering in Carrara, I only have a low-spec system but am very pleased even with the basic set-up. Everything I do is still just for learning.
well I use iClone a lot and have lots of iClone content too but one thing I have never considered is the mocap pretty much for those reasons
any moves I would do would be mostly idles as my dancing best left unseen even in 3D
There are several motion tools within iclone that work very well, and some have automated features as well.
The following are observations of mine with animated characters:
The movements people actually make as live persons can be very outrageous and don't seem that over the top.
I think that is because we are more tolerant of absurdity in real people.
When I apply those same movements to a human like animated character they appear freaky or extreme.
It maybe that I am looking at them with a more critical eye. They seem over done to me.
When I apply the same motions to toons the motions don't seem to be outrageous.
I have been paying attention to this of late to be more accurate with motions.
Watch some of the newsy, commentary type shows where the persons in the discussion are personalities not news anchors.
These people wave their hands, move their heads, turn their bodies and do all kinds of movements.
They may be nervous or uncomfortable and I don't read it. I have never paid much attention to them until I started comparing my avatar motions.
Sorry. I don't watch Fox News. I only like Looney Toon cartoons. They're easier to take seriously. ;-)
Agree with you on PhilW's courses. I'm not even half way through and am happy with his tutor style. As good if not better than some DigitalTutor offerings.
Some context: I'm a modeller (mainly Zbrush and Sketchup) shopping for a animation and render package. I have used Iclone 5 too and watching Iclone 6 development with interest. Recently got serious with Daz Studio again, lured back by IPR. I took the plunge with Carrara after some extensive research through C4D, Poser, Modo and back to this zone. Good to see other active Iclone Daz Carrara Poser user here like Wendy who's very inspiring...
Here's my 2 cts comparing Iclone with (what little I know about) Cararra...
Iclone has intuitive, universal, easy entry UI, accessible to non-modellers. Strongest point: FUN, PLAYFUL real-time everything - shadow, AO, animation, like working in a game editor environment. Iclone 5 isn't so hot for rendering nice stills though but all that will change soon. Iclone 6 will have even better real-time lighting and shadows, tessellation (similar to DS smooth/subD) plus the bonus of progressive rendering (physical) through natively integrated Indigo plugin. Physics and effects are intuitive, hair and cloth physics will be even better in Iclone 6 too. Iclone promoter also mentioned on Zbrush forum that Perception Neuron mocap integration is in the works.
For me personally ic6's Daz Studio style customisable UI and GUI is most exciting. Ironically Iclone 6 will look and feel more like Daz Studio than Carrara. Guess this is a plus for DS users.
All that said, Iclone is also not cheap as a toy, and for pro use requires a separate sister prog 3dxchange so expect at least 3 to 4 times Carrara's rack rate. Integration between the progs have not been the most seamless - a bit like Carrara DS issues.
Even with 3dxchange 6 (features and release date unknown), new Iclone 6 still won't have the simplest modelling tool, and their external pipeline via 3dxchange makes mesh edit/ import/ export workflow extremely cumbersome. Most Carrara users are used to having modelling tool at the finger tip, so this is probably a deterrent.
For those expecting DS level render quality, Carrara's internal render is superior to Iclone no doubt. Iclone 5 doesn't have any post-render. Indigo is a hybrid with non-node-shader hence more flexible and user-friendly, Carrara Octane speed should theoretically be above Iclone 6's Indigo basic.
Carrara has almost everything a machinima movie maker needs to make a decent non-photorealistic CGI. Modelling animation physics effects rendering, the works. Overall a technically more skilled community than Iclone, a plus (for me at least).
Carrara doesn't look sexy nor fashionable, awkward to get into, but it has depth. Whatever shortcomings Carrara has can be fixed by minor updates and giving Carrara a Daz Studio style overhaul (IPR Auxviewport, 3D mouse, custom GUI) and becoming responsive to its core users' needs. The more I know what Carrara can do the more I'm puzzled by its under-marketed, under-prioritized state. The slow update and small user base is also its greatest challenge...egg and chicken...chicken and egg...
My view in conclusion, for quality render, both are nearly on par. For beautiful characters, Daz3D wins by a long shot. For FUN workflow, fast toon or average game-realism animation, Iclone. For GTA5+ game cinematics with a lot of custom asset needs and better engine performance, Carrara. (Or...who knows, DS 5?)
For most intent and purposes in the animation movie maker middleware market segment Carrara deserves a larger user base than Iclone. But unless there are more hard evidence of significant Carrara feature upgrade and facelift, Iclone will always look more fun and chirpy to work in and kinda attractive.
My long-winded 2 cts... :)
Very interesting info Mythmaker, thank you!
Indigo last I checked was one of the unbiased render engines, so unless this is a specialized subset, to have Indigo as a native render option is a big, big deal for iclone, especially as Indigo by itself is just a bit too expensive to be accessible to the hobbyist market. Up til now for hobbyists, of course both Lux (via Luxus or Reality) and Cycles (via Blender) are priced to be very accessible, and by stretching finances a bit I can see Octane and Thea and Arion are all priced so that a hobbyist with a willingness to spend a bit can theoretically budget for them (although weirdly I have never yet run into a daz/poser content user hobbyist who uses Arion, so that one is a bit of a mystery) but Indigo was just priced too high above what I would imagine most people would spend, so iclone being able to use Genesis, and Iclone using Indigo natively is yet another very valid workflow to render our poser/daz content in an unbiased fashion without too much muss and fuss. Very interesting gameplan.
I don't know why it never occurred to me that good motion capture would require 2 cameras at least to provide the computer a 3d view of what's happening, that makes perfect sense. Maybe the new version of iclone will remedy this, so that it can use multiple kinects to capture motion and translate them into poses for animation, honestly that's one of the major points that interests me about iclone (even though I do understand there are many other animation tools in iclone that make for ease of workflow).
I'm allergic to the UI in Studio, personally, I just loathe it. That said, I'd have no problem with Daz introducing the option of choosing to customize the Carrara UI to look just like Studio, in fact I think that would be smart of them to offer that option to make it easier for Studio users to come into Carrara and feel 'at home' and ease their workflow. Just so long as those of us who prefer the Carrara UI as is are allowed to retain it if we want :)
I came to Carrara back in Carrara 7, just a month or so prior to the release of Carrara 8. Even back then, as a rank amateur who knew nothing I was absolutely astonished at how deep Carrara's capabilities were. Even back then I wondered 'why don't more people know about this software, and how is Daz not having people break down the doors and come flooding in to buy it in droves?'