You can use any avatar as your Clone Bone base. The stick figure one is sometimes easier to use, but not necessary.

What's the best way to do that? Never come across that suggestion before...

The way that CB works is that you attach rigid objects to the various bones of the avatar, and then hide the underlying avatar so that only the attached objects are visible.

Another way to think of those attached objects is "accessories", or even "avatar sub-props". So.... Any time your attaching anything to any bone of an avatar, your really doing the same thing you would do with CB.

Granted, there are a few more bits to hide with a standard avatar. like eyes and mouth.

An example that would bridge the idea of avatar and CB perfectly would be knight in full plate armor. The pieces of armor are all rigid, and the underlying avatar needn't be visible.

EDIT: You could even make a really, really skinny CC, if you want a stick figure.

Why not view this Tutorial by Reallusion and use any set of props to create a Clone Bone Style Character without the unnecessary underlying boneset that needs to be hidden.




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" If I had Alzheimer's (Old Timers), would I know it? "

I saw that tutorial. I'm using ic6 and 3dx5 - maybe it's this combination but I don't get the button to send something to 3dx5 from ic6, and the option to make my prop a "non standard character" is greyed out in 3dx5. I arranged everything as per the tutorial but then I can't get the model from ic6 to 3dx5 - 3dx5 gives me an error when I try to load the iclone prop that I've arranged in ic6. Any idea what coukd be going on?

I will try your suggestion about attaching the different prop parts to a character. 

To clarify, I don't get the option to turn it into a non-standard character in 3dx5 - greyed out. Then, when I do anything to the prop in ic6, I can't get the prop back into 3dx5 - error every time. I wonder if I need to buy 3dx6 or if there's something I'm totally missing.

.

Older Versions of 3dxChange will not accept props from iClone6.  The process in the video tutorial still works in iClone6, but you have to have 3dxChange6 to send the items from iClone6.

 If you have iClone5, you can always build what you need, convert to an Avatar, and then use it inside iClone6.  Once changed inside iClone6, you won't be able to edit it in 3dxChange5 again. 





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" If I had Alzheimer's (Old Timers), would I know it? "

I've been doing the hierarchy according to http://www.reallusion.com/iclone/help/3DXchange5/Pipeline/03_Pipelines/From_iClone.htm

I didn't realize you could do sub-hierarchies in 3dx. I'm trying that now but what a pain in the butt compared to doing it in ic6.

At what point does the "Convert to non-standard" option become available?