Good afternoon Poss.mcleod.

I thought I would write a reply to your initial post as I saw a flailing flaw in your initial logic starting out with iClone. That, of course, based on my own opinion based on my own experience. To state the obvious.... however....

Motion Packs.
Be careful. Leaning on these can sometimes clone-pigeon hole your hard effort output. What I mean is that some of the pre-created motions in many packs of "normal motions" OUTSIDE Dances (Which are stunning across the board so don't confuse the two) are a bit lame. The motions generally lack that ambient 'randomity' if there's such a word and if there isn't there is now.

So then.....

1st. TOONing in iClone.
Absolutely stunning and you cant go wrong with this ever since its birth. It looks awesome and comes across as 2D but in a superbly entertaining 3D transitioning style all its own and I cannot fault it.

2nd. Motions and movements.  The kit that comes inside iClone 6 is impressive and a lot of it allows for tweening from one to the other and THEN allows for editing that output AND adding more within it AND cloning AND deleting and so on.
LEARN ALL ABOUT IT.  
Motion in iClone is a complex issue but one I would SO highly recommend to LEARN OFF BY HEART.
Copping out for easy "off the shelf" motion packs?   Big no no.

What you learn now with basic motion control INSIDE iClone with motion YOU  create will absolutely carry you forwards forever into a league higher than prefab movements and higher than your competition.
You will always and can only get better.
Your work will always look unique.
Your fluency inside iClone will always accelerate.
FLUENCY. A word you need to keep in mind in iClone.
Without it you'll fail. No ifs and buts, you'll fail.

3rd. DO NOT plough forwards to clone something external to iClone AS IS.
Allow for small changes and re-adaptations  to suit.

Try to see what you're working on from the aspect of someone who has never seen your work or demands before. What ever you show them they'll accept and enjoy.
It's easy to lose several days working on something nobody will notice anyway. be careful with your clock. It will tick away very very fast and disallow you the success of mimicked responses from your audiences.
Allow for small re-adaptations.

I wish you very much luck with your iClone works. You're in for an excessively exciting adventure.

Armstrong.

Some good advice there! Will defs take that on board. As someone advised earlier I'll definitely be outsourcing most of the complicated stuff down the track, I just want to get in and learn as much as I can early on, so I'm in a better position later on to know what's possible through commission, and to be able to customise items/scenes etc.

Thanks for the intel!

ps have REALLUSION given any indication on when we might expect 3DX to work for iClone 6? I read on http://www.reallusion.com/iclone/iclone_ComingFeature.html that they're working on it (see below) as stated by others in this post, just wondering if they'd unofficially released any ballpark timeframes.

"We’ve been focusing a lot of our efforts on getting iClone 6 ready for launch in time for all of you. Also, due to the file format change and engine migration in iClone 6, users will still need to wait in order to be able to export their stuff from iClone 6 to other softwares."
Source: http://www.reallusion.com/iclone/iclone_ComingFeature.html

2Q16 (in most cases, that would mean mid-July)

From our moderator, Peter (RL): https://forum.reallusion.com/FindPost230398.aspx

.

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iClone 7... Character Creator... Substance Designer/Painter... Blender... Audacity...
Desktop (homebuilt) - Windows 10, Ryzen 9 3900x CPU, GTX 1080 GPU (8GB), 32GB RAM, Asus X570 Pro motherboard, 2TB SSD, terabytes of disk space, dual  monitors.
Laptop - Windows 10, MSI GS63VR STEALTH-252, 16GB RAM, GTX 1060 (6GB), 256GB SSD and 1TB HDD

WOW! Soooo long to wait

well, not really, they made a trade off with us....they are going to add some functionality to 3DX5 with the exception of G6 characters ...which will happen later with 3DX6 - and that is more than fair enough, because they are tweaking a new morphing system for the G6 characters - so we want them to take their time getting that right, and give them a chance to make new G6 content.

It's really not so bad, and will give them a chance to get the software more stable on release ....while allowing us to do what we were doing with iclone 5 ...but in iclone 6 - which was a lot, meanwhile it will give our community developers a chance to start making stuff for iclone 6 since the vet developers who have content from past versions, can now work with their existing libraries and the new features in ic6.

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