I have seen some similar topics, but haven't seen some of my questions answered - though a new topic would be appropriate.

First off - hello. Brand new here. Looking at iClone 6 and think it might suit my needs. I have been playing with Carrara on and off for several years. My main desire is to make short animations. I am not really a modeler - I prefer "pre-made" content. I have a decent library of DAZ figures and props. From what I see, iClone may be better suited as an animation tool.

Question 1 is what software package do I need? It looks like iClone Pro + 3DXchange bundle might do it. Pipeline looks like a need only if I wanted to export everything back to Carrara. I am hoping that the iClone renderer is all I would need, and could simply render my video out from there.

3DXchange looks like it has everything needed to bring my DAZ library over to iClone. I have seen tutorials for figures such as "Genesis" people. What about other props - clothing, building, vehicles, scenery elements? What about animals - horse, dog, etc? Can these all be transferred to iClone and then animated? Do the textures translate as well?

I have been pretty happy with the render engine in Carrara. Can similar results be achieved in iClone? How is render speed for animations?

The big question is hardware. I am on a Mac (I know). With no Mac version of iClone, I would have to boot the machine into Windows. It is a MacPro tower - 2x2.4GHz Quad Core Xeon with 20GB RAM. ATI Radeon HD 5770 video card/1024MB.

Booting to windows, will this machine deliver acceptable iClone performance?  Also, which Windows OS should I run - 7, 8? Home, Professional, Ultimate?

I've nothing against windows, but do not relish learning a new OS. My hope is that iClone can deliver enough of a performance and functional benefit on this machine that it will be worth my while to run a separate OS for it.

Ideas?

Thanks in advance for any help.

--Joe