I'm working on my current project in iClone 5.51, determined to get this production finished.
But what I find is the most frustrating and time consuming part of any of the versions of iClone, is trying to work around stupid, unexplainable glitches that happen with the software. I know I'm far from an expert with iClone, but many of the problems I come across are software issues.

For example, I've got a car driving in a scene. I've attached rotating wheels to make it look more realistic. I've had the car follow a path, stop and then take off again. All good until the car stops. Once it stops, the 'attached' rear axle decides to drop down into the road for a few frames and then pop back into position. I look at the X,Y,Z coordinates of the wheels when this happens and none of the coordinates have changed and the wheels have remained attached. When I attempt to restore the axle position on those frames, the wheels just disappear altogether... No amount of fiddling has fixed the problem. So either I'm going to have to leave this indiscretion in the film or adjust the camera angle so the gliche is off camera......

Another issue.... the car is following a straight path and then toward the end of the path it pivots 90 degrees for no particular reason and travels the rest of the path sideways. Looks impressive if the film was about drift racing, but it's not what I want. I've checked everything from rogue key frames, even tried rotating the path end point to see if that was the problem. Nothing fixed it. I ended up having to uncheck the 'follow path' option. So now the car remains on the correct axis, but doesn't pivot along the path realistically...

And the list goes on, from avatars unexplainably sinking into the ground during a walk motion or limbs contorting like some sort of alien for no apparent reason. I spend so much time trying to fix or work around these problems that shouldn't be problems.

All the new features and enhancements of the new versions are fantastic, but honestly I would prefer RL concentrate more on making this program bullet proof before moving onto another version. I could have easily waited another 12 months for iClone 6 if it meant perfecting version 5.....

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Hi Darren

I'm still with iC5.51 & won't be Upgrading to iC6.

IMO, it's best to present each problem separately & try & fix it.

CAR

1) You need to ensure that Axles are Linked to Body, Not Attached & Wheels Linked to Axles.

2) Is this a Google Warehouse prop, with Axles & Wheels added as Sub-Props in 3DXChange?

3) How are you Rotating the wheels. By Rotate Keyframing or Physics Tool Box or iCar Bodyshop Wheel Rotate Helper.

4) You need to ensure Body pivot Point is Middle bottom & Axle & Wheel Pivot Points are dead centre. Use Edit Pivot Point.

5) There's a quick way of getting a Prop to Follow a Path on -Y Axis from Position 0 to 100.

I think Mark has a Video Tut for a Character Following a Path & stopping & staring again. Might also apply to a Prop.

Can't see this being solved without Screenshots or a Video TUT. Mark might be able to do one if & when he has time. Send him a PM. Unfortunately, I don't have time for Screenshots.

Good luck

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When things start moving off to the sides,etc... I usually look for a problem in the transitions between keyframes. Also in IC5.5 the keyframes are so tiny they can be overlapped.

It is so easy to forget transistions take place between one key frame to the next key frame...not at a keyframe.

If you are using a path, and you stop vehicle then resume you might not be registered properly with the next path point. The path may be pointing to a path point further along the path. Path has some problems, which have be noised out among many members of this forums.

I am hoping IC6 has fixes in place for some of the path issues in IC5.5. It is often hard to get a focus on the problem.

I have spent hours working on path problems and just like you I reverted to the forums for help. Use the search function above on the forums, you should get some information to help.

When I first started with Iclone I was like dumb to animateon video. A lot of people, including myself thought IClone was whiz bang and would make animation videos a snap. Not so, it is work in process. There are experienced iclone users that know the score as good or better than the developers.

I was skeptical but am very happy I upgraded to iClone 6, if for no other reason then the vastly improved user interface. That said, I agree in that I would rather Reallusion focus on improving movement over anything else at this point. Getting anything, especially characters to move is a laborious process. I suspect that's what keeps most people from creating presentable videos; more so than image quality or even facial animation.

That said, iClone 6 literally addressed every other issue I've had with iClone for the 7 years I've been playing with it.

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I had that problem with some of the things I made. It turned out that there was a keyframe just before I thought the next change was supposed to be.
It happened because I was not paying attention to what frame the timeline was on when I made a change and then when I made a change that I wanted the one I didn't want was still there.
Sort of like changing position for someone and later changing it again. Both changes will happen wherever you happened to be on the timeline when you did it.
I hope this doesn't confuse you and helps you with your problem.
Ken

Hi Colour, thanks for your assistance - I have been through the time line at full zoom and can't find any anomalies. I really don't expect to solve the problems, as I believe it's some sort of issue with iClone. I've accepted the fact that I just have to work around the issues. But here's some answers to your questions, maybe there is something there I've done wrong....

1. I've 'attached' the wheels to the car rather than 'linked', although it has worked well apart from those few frames where the wheels unexplainably dropped down into the road and then a few frames later returned to the original position (car prop hadn't moved at that stage). What is the advantage of linking the wheels rather than attaching ?

2. Yes the car is a Google Prop imported via 3D Exchange. I had to remove the wheels in 3D exchange, attach them to the wheel rotate helper, and then re-attach to the vehicle

3. I'm rotating the wheels using the rotate helper.

4. all the pivot points are as you described. The thing that gets me, is they all worked perfectly apart from those few isolated frames, after which it worked again. Which suggests to me I have the setup right, it seems to be some sort of bug from iClone. When the wheels dropped, I went to those frames and attempted to move the wheels back in place with the transform coordinates (none of which had actually changed). As soon as attempted to move the coordinates (just one digit) the wheels instantly disappeared from the screen...... I looked everywhere in the scene and couldn't locate them....

5. Yes I've been using the 0-100 -Y axis method on path. The car followed one path perfectly, but the second path it spun 45 deg (sideways) on it's axis part way along the path and continued to travel in that orientation until the end of the path. I tried to add a transform key frame at the end of the path to correct the orientation, but it only affected the orientation of the car at the end of the path - didn't change the orientation of the car along the path.

I have watched a tutorial video about starting and stopping on a path. Can't remember who the author was, but I managed to get the basics working as per the example, it's just these unexplainable things happening that has me scratching my head. I really do believe they are random iClone bugs that happen as you can do the very same thing twice and get different results. I guess that's where my frustration is. iClone has a lot of unpredictable results which does make animating difficult at times.....

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1) With wheels attached to car body, any Transforms made to car body affect the wheels. Prob could be with Car body, Try Linking instead of Attaching.

2) Presumably from iCar Bodyshop iC5 Program Bonus Download? BTW - There are additional Wheel Helper Motions in iMotions Folder.

4) Go to Scene Manager & Select the wheels & Link to car. That should get them back in view. If you Select Wheels Toolbar Home Icon, you'll see that they are on the World Axis on the Grid (select both).

5) You need to check car's Follow Path Axis at that point & re-set to -Y.

BTW - You could try Linking Car Body to front axle & have that Following A Path,  then the front wheels should turn, Following The Path. 

Checkout iC5 Bonus Jeep Prop. Have that Follow A Path. Front wheels turn, Following the Path.

AS prev Posted, you really can't do this without successive reciprocal Screenshots or Video TUT.

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Darren,

Plan B:  If you can't fix the problem, simply avoid it.

What if you cut to a different camera angle so you don't see the problem with the wheels?  Maybe it would be a nice time to show a close-up (or medium shot) of the driver?

The wheels could fall off entirely, and your audience will never know.

This is also a great way to "fix" foot sliding.  Just use a "waist-up" shot and you don't see the feet.

Think about how many hours you could spend making your avatar go up a stairway.  Or you could see the feet miss steps, pass through others, and say, "Close enough," zoom in a bit with the camera, and be done in 15 minutes.

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i get the same glitch with the physics props - sometimes i think the only way to fix it is to start over - not sure why it gets like that ...it's like one of those hidden values that doesn't show up on the timeline. Just happened to me on a project i was working on , i had to make a turntable to exhibit a prop....it started fine, then suddenly just starts dropping - hopefully those things will be addressed in an update. sometimes it's easier to do it the old fashioned way and just keyframe it.

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yup that was my workaround lol
and it often is

but that's the point of my thread - it's probably more a whinge post (I didn't actually expect to resolve the problem because even though I'm no expert, the randomness of these sort of problems in iClone leads me to believe some of these issues are software related rather than user related). But the point I was making is that I wish RL would work more on making iClone far more stable without the unpredictable results. Most of my time seems to be spent trying to fix or work around (eg camera angles) problems that really shouldn't be problems

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