Seems the lights are going out for some iClone 7 users with large scenes using GI. This quick tip shows you how to control the GI Anchor to put it where you need it and follow the camera when needed.

Retired Digital Freelancer, Author, and Die Hard Animator No Longer Under Adult Supervision.
Doing what I want to do... instead of what someone else's script forces me to do.
Writer and reviewer at Reallusion Magazine


                                                                                                                     

Mark - AHA! This explains much, THANKS! I have run into a problem regarding tone mapping, I think you must have had an issue with. Whenever I check the 'Tone Mapping' box, I get fantastic results. However, it takes the exposure slider down to zero gradually throughout the scene even if you click it at frame #1, like it's creating keyframes, yet 'exposure' & 'tone mapping' are not present on the time line to eliminate this there. How can I use the tone mapping without the gradual loss of exposure? Thanks again!   ~Val~

       Val RogueAnanda

Great tip warlord.  I had no idea about the voxel feature.  Wow thats a lot of polygons you got in the scene!

Nice tutorial -- and even better, it got me to buy the Greeble stuff (terrific things Stonemason makes anyway, but I didn't realize it worked so well inside of iClone).

But it begs the question -- can you do a tutorial on creating a city like you did with the Stonemason stuff?  Or, really, just using snap properly in iClone.  I can see I will need to align all these pieces and either I missed class that day or I forgot how to do it easily (I have to believe there's an easy way to align and snap these blocks together).

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Alienware Aurora R16, Win 11, i9-149000KF, 3.20GHz CPU, 64GB RAM, RTX 4090 (24GB), Samsung 870 Pro 8TB, Gen3 MVNe M-2 SSD, 4TBx2, 39" Alienware Widescreen Monitor
Mike "ex-genius" Kelley

There are Snap To options that can be activated in the Preferences panel.






Gerry

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System: Win 10 Pro (21H2), Asus X99-E WS, CPU i7-5930K -3,5 GHz, 32 GB DDR4 2666-16 RAM, NVidia GTX 1080 Ti GPU - 11 GB VRAM(Driver Studio-536.99), Samsung 850 Pro 512 GB SSD, 6 TB HD storage.

Thanks, Gerry, I knew there was something somewhere (iClone is just SO deep I need to spend some hours just exploring without trying to actually DO something :>.

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Alienware Aurora R16, Win 11, i9-149000KF, 3.20GHz CPU, 64GB RAM, RTX 4090 (24GB), Samsung 870 Pro 8TB, Gen3 MVNe M-2 SSD, 4TBx2, 39" Alienware Widescreen Monitor
Mike "ex-genius" Kelley

Val - I'll have to look into this. That is indeed annoying. I don't think I've noticed that before. 

Kelleytoons - My library is heavy with Stonemason assets. Those are Greeble and Greeble 2. I put the city together in 3DS Max then exported as FBX. The background city is wallpaper on a plane. I did export the individual greebles out but I wished I would have payed attention to scale during the process. If I had to choose one vendor... it would be Stonemason.

Biz - You notice a lack of characters and other things. Usually I film the city for 2D composite using a screenshot for placement of items that are green screened and added in POST. Thing is iClone is now capable of running some massive establishing shots without composition depending on complexity.

Gerry - thanks for the answer. As Kelleytoons said... iClone 7 is so deep.

Retired Digital Freelancer, Author, and Die Hard Animator No Longer Under Adult Supervision.
Doing what I want to do... instead of what someone else's script forces me to do.
Writer and reviewer at Reallusion Magazine


                                                                                                                     

In test versions of iClone 7 there was the option to link the GI anchor to an object, which is great if the object is moving. I've used it for a traveling spaceship.

I have a feature request to bring that functionality back (FT #2107).

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Link GI Anchor to Camera then attach the camera to the spaceship to have the GI follow the spaceship? Just thinking out loud... which I try not to do without iClone in front of me. 

Retired Digital Freelancer, Author, and Die Hard Animator No Longer Under Adult Supervision.
Doing what I want to do... instead of what someone else's script forces me to do.
Writer and reviewer at Reallusion Magazine


                                                                                                                     

That actually works. Thanks for the idea!

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