There are a lot of free assets in 3DWarehouse in Sketchup format, which you can import into iClone via 3DXchange.

Trimble has made it all a bit more difficult, because they did away with the desktop version of Sketchup, which you would need to save in a Sketchup version that 3DXchange can read (2015).

To download the free 2017 desktop version go here: https://help.sketchup.com/en/downloading-older-versions.

I've been an iClone user since 2006,so I just stick with it. I'm following what people do with Unreal here, but I think my brain is too small or too old to adapt!

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I'm with you on learning Unreal Animagic. These days I need a project that has a requirement to force me to use new software or features and that is how I learn new stuff. When I switched to Blender, I actually chose one of my commercial projects to do the switch on and here I am four years later with Blender as my core DCC app. I too will still use iClone for the fore stated reasons mainly because I know it well and find it really fast to do stuff in that would take me hours in Blender, especially the character work. I do however buy very little content for iClone from the marketplace as most projects I have worked on are bespoke and I end up creating all the assets myself anyway.


Alan M

It's true that Unreal has a huge learning curve, like Blender and iClone. However for cinematics 90% of Unreal can be ignored. I moved from Blender to Unreal because Blender just could not cope with large exterior environments. I use the Brushify packs to do landscaping and initialvegeation. They are a huge time saver. Assets and propes I create in Blender and texture them is Substance painter, or more often now with Quixel mixer, which is free to Unreal users.The part that was missing was character creation and animation, which lead me to look at iClone and character creator. 

Thanks fo the link to sketch up, I'll be investing that and the warehouse.

Cheers

Mike