DAZ Temptress
starboard
Posts: 452
DAZ is offering IClone I assume at a discounted price. I am deep in the learning curve of Carrara, but the promo of I Clone is quite tempting. For those Carrara /I Clone users..How do you use it. Do you model in Carrara and import the 3D model into I Clone to enhance and render? Is it worth taking a detour to learn what appears to be whole new 3D program and take the time away from Carrara ? The dynamic clothing features seem very appealing.. I don't see how, but the promo seems to imply that you can convert , say imported M4 clothing into a dynamic flexible cloth. I know this can't be so.
Anyway is it worth the effort to acquire and learn this new tempting offer.
Starboardtack
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It's hard to say because it boils down to you and your preferences. The easy way out would have been to download a trial, watch a few introductory tutorials and play around a bit. There is always a learning curve anyway. In my own experience, I would say iClone makes it possible to make working with animated characters very quick and almost easy. One major draw back for a while was the quality of the final render, but that has been improved significantly with the new iClone 6 release and the option to also purchase the Indigo Render plugin which afford you even higher quality unbiased rendering, note though that Indigo is no Octane render. Maybe I should put it this way, for the long term, yes, it would be a very handy and useful tool to add to your tool kit, you will be able to layer motions and work with animation pretty quick and it feels fun too, you can also import Genesis character through 3DExchange if you have the pipeline version (note that this comes at extra cost and has its own learning curve too). Also note that you will have to pay an export license fee per content for some of the Reallusion content if you want to export them out of iClone to other software (like Carrara for example).
For the short term, it will take you off Carrara for a bit, because you would have to put in the time to learn, but you will come back refreshed and yes most of the skills are transferable between Carrara and iClone. This is why I say it depends on you and what you want to do with your apps and how you want to work. But you don't have to buy it now just because its on sale, it will be on sale again in the next one year cycle at least, if not here at Daz, then at the Reallusion store. If you're not sure, just download the trial and decide how long you want to set aside to play with it for a bit to see if it interests you enough to buy.
Dada Universe,
Thanks for the all the information - lots to think about. As you suggest I will try the trial download.
At present my work method is from Carrara to AE or PS and then to Premier Pro. You might say meat and potatoes. I'm just wondering what would be the logical next step. Some of the posts to the forum pertain to Octane which I suppose I should look into also. There seems to be so many options - Just wondering what others are working with so as to make plans.
Starboardtack
Dada Universe,
After re-reading your post, I realize that I have some distance to go in Carrara..I have yet to utilize fully its rendering options which are available. Your comment that "Indigo is no Octane renderer" makes me realize I have much to learn about rendering before I start branching out.
Thanks again for your time.
Starboardtack
What DADA said.
You are right. I tried using Daz clothing in iClone 6. It works with a small percentage of it, and you have to play with weight maps, collision shapes and whatnot. If you want to do dynamic or soft cloth in iClone, you better off using iClone characters with iClone clothing, for now.
Hmmmm...
I have often checked out the promo videos for iClone and thought that it would be all manner of fun. It's like a 3d animation playground with all sorts of mix n' match assistance helpers and what appears to be a fun way to make morphing people to boot. Add to that the accelerated rendering via the graphics card, and one can imagine possibilities galore for fun and quick animated renders.
I've always felt that, if I'd have gone that route before I bought Carrara, I might still be stuck (and happy to be so) within its interface. That being said, however, I'm glad that I've got myself stuck into Carrara instead. Not to say anything bad at all about the mighty iClone, as I may still end up within it one day.
...and with it's current sale for the Full bundle or even just the 3d Pipeline bundle, it's really hard to not just add it to the cart and finally buy it for a change! Last time I've looked into it the price for all of it was a lot more than that.
Like Starboard Track, I am still very much in the 'stuck-in learning phase' of Carrara, which is the only reason that I haven't fully immersed myself into learning more of the tools that I already have. I am still in a mode where TIME is a hard thing to come by and when I can find some I'd rather be stuck-in with Carrara... but that's me. As for that, next month begins my new occupation (going back into custom stone chiseling) - made a deal that should give me half a week in Carrara each week, eight to nine months a year getting the entirety of winters off, once again, which is where I've always done my Carrara work in the past. Should be a good switch for me! ;)
Did I see that if you want to use Genesis you need IClone Pro? That's much pricier. I was thinking about it for subtle movement posing, but maybe it's above my ability at this time...and for a long time to come!
:) Silene
Right now iClone 6 is kind of beta. 3DXChange 6 is not yet born for full Support of all new iClone 6 stuff. So you will have to buy the update in a few months.
Kinect Support is really bad, and the new mocap system they announced to support in future will cost about $1500, if you are heading for mocap.
Integration with Indigo is beta. Render an Animation with Indigo and for every frame there will be created all the texture exports and everything by new. So the preparation for Indigo render will take hours and Gigabytes space on your hdd until it finally starts rendering an animation.
If you want to animate in iClone and export the animation to Carrara you have to buy the "3DXChange Pipeline" product and additionally you have to buy export licenses for the animations. Regular Price for 3DXChange Pipeline is $500. This sums quite up.
Sales will repeat. Christmas time they sold iclone6+3dxchange5+indigo for about 200$
Thanks Aspin
You have convinced me to stay put and learn Carrara. The IClone promos looked so good, but like most things in life the fine print can bring pain. The financial out lay makes Carrara look like a mega bargain.
Thanks for the scoop
Starboardtack
I'll add some follow up questions, because iClone has peaked my interest too.
What are the render times like with Indigo? Especially useful if I could compare to the render times in Octane.
The little video made it look like turning your daz conforming clothes was quick and easy, sounds like maybe not so much so though (too good to be true?).
I really do like the idea of not being able to push the character's foot through the floor, that sounds very useful.
Can I use my existing aniblocks in iclone? I notice only Genesis and Genesis2 are mentioned, what about taking my M4/V4 into iclone?
Is there a way to do the animations in iclone, then import them back to Carrara for the final rendering?
I'm not tempted away from Carrara, but am curious about the possibility of adding iclone to the workflow as a possible 'plugin' :)
1. I suppose you can, but it's tricky. I'd rather use my aniblocks in Daz Studio's Animate 2 in combination with the animations I export as BVH from iClone.
2. Genesis re-targeting is automatic if you have DXchange pipeline. For V4/M4, you have to do it manually. It's not very hard. There are tutorials on the iClone site. You only have to do it once as you can save the profile.
3. Absolutely! I do it all the time. You need DXchange and you export the animation as BVH for Daz Studio's animate 2. Then you can export it again as DUF and use Carrara's awesome graph editor to refine your animation.
Thanks Argus! That's actually incredibly useful info.
Even if not using the aniblocks, does iclone come with a good number of useable motion files? Sounds like I could use any mocap as long as it's BVH format, is that right?
I'm also somewhat interested in Indigo Render, I realize it's not the full version and is more limited, but still very interested in giving it a test drive too, though I suspect it would be better to bring back to Carrara and render with Octane.
Right now Indigo is very slow compared to Octane.
GPU Rendering is maybe 2 or 3 times faster than CPU Rendering, because it is not pure GPU rendering. Pure GPU Rendering will be available at Version 4 (right now 3.8). If you buy now Indigo you get Version 4 for free whenever it will be available.
There is no IPR for Indigo
The Indigo camera doesnt match the iClone camera.
The most daz clothes are not working in iClone, because they are too high poly (more than 20000).
If you look at the dynamic hair.. they are only dynamic, if they are long hair. Everything, that is close to the head is not dynamic at all. So your Jonstark-avatar hair wont be dynamic. Same with clothes.
Animation capabilities are great, but you still have sliding feet, so dont render feet.
My interest died at the words "Windows only."
Yes windows only it is.
You all should have grabbed the iC5 freebie the other week and had a play around then you would have a better idea.
I lost interest when Aspin mentioned all the problems with I Clone and the cost of all the extras. Now that Tim A has said that it is Windows only I am definitely out.
Makes life simple - just learn Carrara. I suppose I eventually should start looking into Octane - but first there has to be the need. When I read all the posts pertaining to Octane and the manipulation so as to tweak the renders I realize that there is a level of sophistication that I am just beginning to grasp. The renders I am getting at present from Carrara are fine with me as I do most of my corrections in AE. With time I am sure that will change.
Starboardtack
iClone has plenty of usable clips, and numerous features to handle them: motion puppet, direct puppet, mixmoves and edit motion layer.
You can export from iClone both as BVH and FBX. BVH is the most common, but I've exported some physics simulations directly in Carrara as FBXs. (While DS FBX export is good, the FBX import is sorely lacking). Carrara FBX import is okay.
The following clip is a little forklift from Google entirely run by physics animated in iClone. The wheels, the forklift, the base and the lifter are all simulated separately. I would have had a hard time doing this in Carrara.
http://youtu.be/5BDwudiVoRg
I've tried to use Daz clothes under 20000 polygons and many still won't work in iClone physics, even with weight maps.
You won't get sliding feet if you watch this iClone tutorial:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uDBbZmzbY4
I delved deep enough into iclone5 and 6 and daz studio before coming to Carrara. I don't miss them much. I wish I found Carrara earlier, it's like a DS+iclone+modeler+nativerender package that I have always wanted.
For total CG noob, Iclone is a super easy to learn character anim tool. Has limtied puppeteering capability, phoneme driven face anim, collision and physics, dynamic enough for simple 3D cartoons, but no where near even Carrara 7 or DS+animate2+keymate in these areas. I do miss some basics like "remove all animation" on selected tracks, but nothing compared to the options gained through Carrara.
I agree with the responses re:render time and quality...
Iclone's native "real time" render quality = similar quality to Carrara's openGL Lightmap + lights but with shadows, and no true reflections. That's their claim to real-time rendering power. Good enough for gamers and goofy cartoons, but Carrarists are probably too discerning/ spoiled. I can confirm Indigo iclone is not integrated at all, so tedious, faster to manually export scenes. LuxusCore Carrara even at beta is more useful. I've also signed on to Octane OR4C 2 days ago, so, can't go back to iclone's stone age render options.
And yes the poly/tri count limit... Iclone simply cannot handle heavy scenes the way DS can. Nevermind Carrara...
Which means, Genesis1 and 2 in iclone are super optimized in texture size. Only Genesis in topology, no DS quality joint bends or fidelity.
So, how iclone can enhance Carrarist animators...possibly their canned NLA animation, kinect(1) mocap, and coming neuroperception, price and usefulness unknown. Iclone as a NLA generator starts at appx $500 for ic5+3dx5+kinect, and easily $1000++ for ic6 gen mocap package.
One other thing Iclone does very well is the latest Nvidia Apex cloth. No doubt more efficient than Carrara's soft body physics. Then again I just discovered Sparrowhawke's cloth deformer 3 days ago, and if I get it to work with Daz figures, again, nothing more to miss.
Well, except perhaps their DazStudio copycat flexi-dock UI. :)
As to iclone having "dynamic hair", just to clarity, those are apex cloth transmapped hair with serious self-collision issues.
Iclone can be a fun space to fool around especially if you're an experienced animator with no specific project goals and has no care for realism correctness.
If you're a DIY type animator coming from iclone to Carrara, very soon you will feel like your other hand and two legs are finally untied.
I've been here on and off a month or two, I'm beginning to have fun already :)