My iclone experience
Scarecrow
Posts: 168
I bought I clone five when it was on sale a year or so ago and the ads from Daz claimed it was the best way to get your Genesis characters moving. First let me say I'm a professional audio engineer, I do live sound for concerts and tech work for a professional recording studio, I know how to install software. I had to write to tech-support three times, and it took over two weeks just to get all the correct software installed and working properly. It took a minimum of two days for each response from tech-support, and the responses came already saying that the issue has been solved, so they weren't even going to check with me to see if it actually had been solved. You'd think if you were having a big sale on your product you would make sure the correct versions are included in the download package, or at least make it clear that you need to go update it right away. Tech-support taking two days to respond, really? Guess they're busy over there. Then once I got the software actually working correctly, I just found it to be a poor quality all around. It felt like they're trying to make a software that does absolutely everything, but it doesn't do any one thing very well. It's like that old saying jack of all trades, master of none. The interface is overly convoluted and difficult to use. Render quality is poor. And I didn't consider any of the character animations I got from it to even be usable. After all that hassle, I decided that I clone was not worth my time, It was a whole lot of work and $300 for no results. I decided to try Carrara 8.5 pro, And I love it, it does what you expect it to do without difficulty, and it has pretty much every tool you need as an animator. The renders look great. And the price is great.
Daz 3D is part of 
Connect
DAZ Productions, Inc.
224 S 200 W, Suite #250
Salt Lake City, UT 84101
Licensing Agreement | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | EULA
© 2024 Daz Productions Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Comments
When you say you contacted Tech Support was that DAZ 3D's Tech Support or Reallusion's Tech Support?
With iClone Daz 3D is a reseller, so Tech Support is done by the Vendor rather than DAZ 3D, unlike brokered products, where DAZ 3D supplies the support.
I contacted reallusion tech support. Why would I contact Daz tech support about iclone?
We did just wonder if that was a possible answer.
We do have a person from reallusion posting regularly in the animation forum, so there is one direct line here at DAZ 3D now.
It is obviously a bit late to tell you that if you were having problems then you could have taken advantage of the 30 day money back guarantee.
Wow, thanks for posting your experiences Jason.
I'm a big fan of Carrara, and Carrara itself often gets tagged with that 'jack of all trades' moniker :) I was looking at the latest promos for iclone 6 and wondering if it might fit into my pipeline at all (which would still be based around Carrara, but was thinking of maybe doing some animation-making in iclone and then exporting to Carrara). Since I vastly prefer using M4/V4 instead of Genesis/Genesis2, and since there's no mention of M4/V4 support, I'm guessing that's a strike against me going in that direction.
But I sincerely appreciate the relation of your experience, as that also definitely helps guide my decision.
I had a similar experience - in fact I am still unable to download some content I paid for last October - It wasn't critical so I finally gave up. Anyway today I bought iClone 6 , but have not received any serial numbers after waiting more than 8 hours - has anyone else received their numbers in their DAZ account or should I file a ticket?
if you accept it does not use DAZ content natively like DAZ studio but rather imports it and not expect it to work like DAZ that may help your perspective on using it.
It certainly uses DAZ content better than say Vue for example.
to export to other software at the moment you need 3dxchange 5 pipeline and iC5 pro not iC6, the BVH files export well to use in DAZ studio on their matching characters
and C8.5 imports FBX from iClone well.
it is not going to suit the Art style renderers doing highpoly finely rendered figures and scenes, those people best sticking to DAZ
it suits more the story tellers where the figures are actors like in a play and the script etc the star not the quality of the visuals
did you check - My Account ( at the top of this page if missed it )
Yes, I've checked in My Account - even did a word search for "iclone", "i clone" and just "clone" but all I get is the references to the iclone 5 numbers that I already had. There are NO numbers for the version 6 or the G6 Empowerment now 24 hours later. In fact the product I originally purchased "iClone 6 PRO Empowerment Bundle is not even listed in the Store any more WTF? This is the only product suitable for people who had the v5 bundle and just want to upgrade - why would they remove it from the store. Anyway - I paid for mine so I want it - There is no reason to pay for the full version when many things did not change since v5.
If you have already bought it then it will not show up in the store for you, unless you remove the tick in the "Hide products I own" box It is here http://www.daz3d.com/iclone-6-pro-empowerment-bundle
Oh, I forgot about that LOL - so what's up with the serial numbers? - I'm still waiting - I submitted a ticket but I know weekends are a little hectic for the few who are there. Thanks for reminding me to check the obvious first ;)
Thanks for telling us your experience Jason
I have been thinking about iClone since looking at the info here at DAZ.
I'm a Carrara user and LOVE the software too.
How is your experience using Genesis/Genesis 2 in Carrara?
I do animation as well as stills and have been wanting to make the leap, but since I do this professionally, the software HAS to work correctly and C8.5 HAD been buggy.
Do you use aniMate with C8.5 too?
I'd love to hear your experiences (anyone else can chime in on this too).
Thanks
No animate2 is just for Daz studio, Carrara doesn't need any plugins for animation. I do have the aniblock importer for Carrara, which allows you to use any aniblocks you may have, it works great, turns aniblocks into Carrara keyframes. No I have not had any problems using Genesis or Genesis2 in Carrara, they work just fine for me.
Looking back on it now it seems to me that reallusion was the one having problems, (poor service, poor product) my only problem was that I fell for it.
I had no idea there was a 30 day money back guarantee. You might consider making your customers aware of that. It sure would've been nice not to pay $350 or whatever it was for a product that I will never use.
I also wanted to add that during the same purchase Daz customer service was very helpful and scored points with me and made me feel good about being a customer. I initially purchased the wrong bundle. I specifically wanted the mocap device plugin for the Kinect, and I was a little unclear about where it was included. So Daz gave me store credit for the purchase price and allowed me to buy the other bundle and have $50 store credit left to spend on whatever I chose. They were friendly and took care of it all very quickly. So Thank You for that.
I wonder if I'm using the aniblock importer wrong for Genesis content. It works fine for V4/M4 (which are my preferred figures to use anyway) but when I import an aniblock and apply it to a Genesis figure, the only thing it seems to move is the hip (which can make for some funny animations as the Genesis stiffly toddles across the scene)
Or are you using the aniblocks in Studio to set up the animation, then opening the scene in Carrara to put the finishing touches on and render?
Carrara constantly astonishes me with what it can do, it really is an awesome software.
No I don't really use studio at all anymore, just Carrara. The aniblock importer works fine for me for Genesis and Genesis2 with the bonetech 3d aniblocks that I have. But I just tried to load something from the animate plus folder and I got an error. I'm not sure if the aniblock I tried to load was for Genesis though, because they are not clearly labeled as to which models they are for.
I've also been having great success with the aniblock importer and Stonemason's Prototype. You have to keyframe all the pistons manually but it's worth the time, if you like robots that is...
I've got some of the bonetech aniblocks, so maybe this means I'm not importing them onto Genesis the right way. Do you import/drop it on the top level, or maybe the hip, or somewhere else?
I select Genesis at the very top level, then I go to the file menu and select import. Then you navigate to your aniblocks, select one, and it should just load up at that point.
I also saw a tutorial that recommended setting your default tweener to linear for aniblock importing.
Weird, that's what I was doing and no dice. I did learn quick to reset my tweeners to linear though, lol. I had it set to Bezier originally (which is very good for naturalistic movement when keyframing by hand, but for an aniblock where all the moves are keyframed frame by frame makes your character do some weird wild overcorrective movements).
I'll have to try it again. I just learned today that there's a whole different content folder I should have been loading my Genesis content from that I never knew about before; it might just be that since I've been loading my Genesis from the wrong place that that's causing the problem when I try to import aniblocks.