This is my last machinima movie I've done. a few points should be improves but I will wait for next
update of Iclone....





This is my ascertainment after making this short movie.



Cons:

What I saw with iClone 6

-This software is not a tool for creativity improvisation, like I thought. we must seriously find out exactly what you

want to achieve movie fast because it is a big waste of time trying to change something that not pleases us for lack of preparation.

-Auto-keyframing is a disaster when you want to make a long animation with various moving props or mocap.
You have to know clearly what you want to put everything at the frame 1.

Most of the buttons' 'remove animations' have disappeared from the "modify" window.

proposition : right click in the "scene" window "remove object animation" for everything
and a big Red Button "on-off" (record) in the timeline bar for animation.

-I spent more time to fixe very bizarre behavior motion (blend, mixmove,root offset) rather than directing or creating.

-The "look at" or "look at camera" for the characters is buggy, the "set free" is inaccessible in my iclone 6.01 version ....

-The UV of regular sky could be animated but there no keyframe created....

-Many crash and neither had successfull recover ... I advise you to make your render in image sequence
and make lot of "save" before clicking "undo".I think my iprop physic gave stability problems.

Clearly iclone is really not designed to make character keyframing animation with poses I want.

It's lot of time waisting and impossible to exactly what I want .Iclone IK is not intuitive and have not natural behavior with my mouse.

. I rely heavily on the perception neuron system I pre-purchased, in order to make full character animation, scene by scene,
not one movement at a time,because the mocap have not a coherent position root.

-I do not understand why there is a '' Hide '' for the items in the "scene" window even if iClone compute it in invisble mode,
there is no gain in real time. If it is invisible Iclone Have to ignore it when playing.

The egg robot in the movie required a lot of resources because of the dynamic texture but even if I '' hide '' it, iClone compute it anyway ...

-The necessary to add lots of dummys for consistent and pleasant movements to the eye is a waste of time.

-Because the render is based on 30 fps and the project in 60fps , a one frame muzzle flash for exemple , is not rendered if it lights on on impaired frame.

-The "detail" texture on the heightmap terrain doesn't works as Iclone 5.

-iclone 6 is really a beta version. I understand that some people are disappointed. But for now it is easy for basic things , period.



The advantages:

it costed me only $ 99.

The possibility to import all your props-characters creation in a easy way (via 3dxchange)

I have managed to produce my "youth-dream" film in cgi. :-) (30 years ago!!!)

Although the rendering time is multiplied by 3 with full quality render but it is still very fast compare other free cgi tool.

The render is much better than iclone 5 ,thanks to the unlimited lights and realistic shadow.



Conclusions

I believe in this program and I am still willing to support it. Iclone 6 is today inbetween the toy tool versus professional.



Missing easy features to implement:

-PBR texture management which is today the standard in real time, I play with the beta version of the next

3D-coat release and I assure you that we very easily gets amazing paint results in minutes,

and Substance painter have a "wizard" export for UDK 4 , Cry engine, Unity 5.... Hope Iclone 6 !

-LOD for all the props and avatars which is a standard in real time CGI to create very wide scene.

-Motion blur on rendering



I hope this video will encourage new users to use it.



Marc