Hi,

Newbie to this forum and to IClone - and hoped to get everyone's advise on the feasibility of my project:

I’d like to create TV news-room style 3D videoanimations for professional education with a singlehuman character (initially) that’s fully animated (body, face, voice).My research led me to this combination: Iclone, CC, Crazy Talk and Perception Neuron. Haven't found compatible face performance tracking software compatible w/ IClone yet...Doable with limited amount of manual animation?

My inexperienced brain thinks: I overlay an IClone character with a filmed self (mo cap), face performance tracking recording (system/software?) and voice recording (crazy talk) and the rest (fine-tuning, rendering, etc.) in OClone 

Your comments are much appreciated!!

I think iClone would be a good choice for what you want to do. If you're after a more stylized 2D "look" Crazy Talk Animator Pro would be the way to go. I would prefer iClone look though.

I helped a guy the Scotland a few years ago who was doing some training and sales. He needed a basic "set" to  use for green screen shots. He was pretty clueless about iClone but had all the products so I just assembled them for him. As far as I know it went well.

I'm sure there are other options that might be more professional and much more expensive but I really think all the tools are available with the iClone family of products. If you are doing basic "presenter" type productions you might not even need a mocap device yet. I really think the basic presenter-type animations can easily be done in iClone as is and I think there are animation "packs" available in the Market Place that will do the job too.

As far as voice audio, many times I record my own voice and use that for my avatar and that really doesn't require a great deal of gear to pull off, maybe just a USB mic or at the worst a small digital audio recorder. I have yet to get great audio using a USB mic with my computer so many times I record into a ZOOM recorder and then load that audio clip into the computer. You can use a free program like Audicity...
http://audacityteam.org/download/

... to edit and clean up the audio if required...it's a great program. TTS voices are OK but will never beat a real voice and there is the question of copyright when you use TTS generated audio.

The "sets" can easily be created with the packs that are available for the Market Place or you can easily create and original using a free program like SketchUp ...
http://www.sketchup.com/download

...and thousands of items are available for free at the 3D Warehouse
https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/index.html

You will really need an NLE to edit all the clips you generate from iClone. I use SONY Vegas...
http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/vegaspro

... but there are many other video editing apps available that will do just fine and maybe cheaper too.

It's a very viable idea for sure and completely doable with iClone and a few extra tools.

Hope this helps!
mp



Click here to go to my YouTube Channel filled with iClone Tutes and Silly Stuff

Visit ANIMATED PROJECTIONS Powered by iCLONE

Intel Core i7 3960X @ 3300MHz Overclocked to 4999.7 MHz Sandy Bridge 24.0GB DDR3 @ 833MHz Graphic Display HP ZR30w 
GeForce GTX 980Ti 6GB  Microsoft Windows 7 Professional 64-bit SP1 ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. P9X79 WS (LGA2011)

Good write up by Mark with which I wholeheartedly agree (particularly on getting real voices vs TTS voices).  The only thing I might add is that you will need 3DExchange to import props from external places such as 3DWarehouse.  Its an extra purchase but the ability to import other models will save you money in the long run (as you wont have to buy everything from the marketplace).

PS - I use my iphone memo recorder to record my voice overs on many occasions.  Find a quiet room to record and then email the memo to yourself.  Use an online converter to convert the m4 file to mp3 or wave.  I use this one. 

Good luck!

...Ooops good catch Biz! Thanks!!!!



Click here to go to my YouTube Channel filled with iClone Tutes and Silly Stuff

Visit ANIMATED PROJECTIONS Powered by iCLONE

Intel Core i7 3960X @ 3300MHz Overclocked to 4999.7 MHz Sandy Bridge 24.0GB DDR3 @ 833MHz Graphic Display HP ZR30w 
GeForce GTX 980Ti 6GB  Microsoft Windows 7 Professional 64-bit SP1 ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. P9X79 WS (LGA2011)

mark,

this is unreal! thank you very much for your detailed answer! This is a huge help !
I really appreciate you took the time out to share your knowledge/experience.
(Also just realised I had subscribed to your youtube channel before I posted this question. Great stuff you do!)

With answers come more questions, but I don't want to take advantage of your generosity. So, I totally understand if this is asking too much.
If you did have a view, what would be the hardware (yep, starting from scratch!) to buy that'll keep my going for a while?
More specifically, what I should look out for - in terms of decent specs. A bit of googling gave me this:
Particularly (Indigo) Rendering seems to require quite a bit of muscle and I don't want to buy the wrong stuff, but also can't spend a fortune.

And, if I did decide on going with mo cap, at some stage, is Kinect (markerless) the way to go or something like Perception Neuron (markers) for IClone?

best,
manchma

Biz,

please see my reply to mark! Can't believe you guys gave me so many answers!

so, thank you too for adding to it!

It'll take me a bit of time to put everything in place.
But, I hope to close the loop in time and share what the 'first steps' look like.

thanks, again!
manchma

I guess I'm not the one for system specs info. There are many much more qualified to do that.

You can see my specs at the bottom of the post. My system is a good 3-4 years old and as such runs iC6 pretty poorly, I hope it is mostly due to the display card which could use an upgrade for sure...but that said it really doesn't run iC6 good at all, very sluggish. I have had to do most of my "serious" work in iC5 which, on this system, runs like butter!

As for Indigo I really have no experience. I got into iClone because of real-time and fast rendering. Indigo really defeats my original purpose, as far as I'm concerned, and as an animation rendering tool it seems to have a long way to go to make that a practical reality.

I did limited experimenting with the early XBox Kinect on my iC5 system and got usable but limited results. The newer systems you mentioned have the potential of being game-changers but still waiting to see what develops and how well it will be integrated with iC6.

That my 2cents for what it's worth!
mp



Click here to go to my YouTube Channel filled with iClone Tutes and Silly Stuff

Visit ANIMATED PROJECTIONS Powered by iCLONE

Intel Core i7 3960X @ 3300MHz Overclocked to 4999.7 MHz Sandy Bridge 24.0GB DDR3 @ 833MHz Graphic Display HP ZR30w 
GeForce GTX 980Ti 6GB  Microsoft Windows 7 Professional 64-bit SP1 ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. P9X79 WS (LGA2011)

Hi Mark,

thanks again!
I'll do a bit more digging on the hardware and will wait with mo cap until I understand what results I get with what's already available out-of-the-box and on the marketplace.

Will close the loop when I have something that's worth sharing :-)

best,
m

sw00000p,

Thank you for adding to the thread!
I'll keep you tips in mind for when I get stuck into.

quick question on mo cap, if that's alright:
which system did you decide to go with and why not any of the others?

best,
m

Thanks, sw000000p!

Sorry for the slow response - was kept a bit busy over the past few days..

So, takeaway from what I read about mocap: see how far out of the box + market place gets you, then keep it simple and build knowledge and experience over time...

cheers,
manchma