Hey there – It’s great to see the pre-order open upon foriClone 7. I’m guessing most features are locked down now, but thought I mentiona few ‘last minute thoughts’. Sorry if these are already mentioned somehow…

An animation graph/curve editor – what it’s on the way?Hurry!

Pose editorS – ones which hold thumbnails of poses with mirroringoptions AND designed for a range of uses. E.g. poses for thebody/gestures/faces/hands.

A method for quickly creating LOOPED cycled animation, with automaticmatic matching of in/out motions (for smooth looping)

A resizable motion puppet window… no more scrolling, just allowthe window to resize.

More options to save looped animations directly from motionpuppet. i.e quick and direct exports for looped animations with a greater rangeof slider controls (eg head/wrists etc)

Styled motions – i.e. similar to taking a walk motion and editingit to create a stylised walk motion. But have this for a wider range of motions– walk/run/rump/stand/sit/lean etc

Save a preset for a characters style and have this layeronto the default motions.

Range of blended key face pose presets – e.g. laugh+nervousor laugh+excited

Motion manager for a wide range of animals…walks/cantor/trot/gallop/etc

Retiming/scaling of animations

Foot/hand placement tools

Skeleton characters – both single and segmented meshes

Semi transparent skin..? (and clothing)

OK that’s a bit of a long and quick list – Really looking forwardto PBR being standard for CC as well.
Personally I’m hoping that with more ‘pro-features’ iClones can start toreplace larger software packages by specialising at character animation(personally I’m not to worried about the rendering/etc, as I want iClone towork within a pipeline and not be a standalone product).

Great work – keep it up!

Dave

 

@Mind and Motion: A Graph Editor is in the works according to the Feedback Tracker (feature status is "Assigned").

Per RL comment: "Our Developer team is discussing the future of Timeline in iClone and we would add it to the next-generation of our product." Which is iClone 7.

I don't know why sw00000p thinks a graph editor in iClone will be mediocre, but he uses software costing thousands of dollars and is a bit snobbish sometimes... Anyway, I don't know why he would mind though, as he still uses iClone 5 so it doesn't concern him...

As to your feature ideas: development is ongoing so it's never too late. Some features will not be in the initial release, but in subsequent editions (7.1, etc.).

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Remember, I've learned animation in a multimedia course using 3DStudio Max 2.5... I could afford the student edition then... I still have it on an old Windows 2000 Dell workstation...

Later I bought Poser, which also has a graph editor. So yes, I have some experience...

I think we have to wait what RL comes up with. There may be a brilliant and less complicated approach...

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To be honest, if I were decision maker at Reallusion then you wouldn't even be getting a Curve Editor in iClone, or at least not with any priority, anyway.

Mouse smoothing and the ability to record each pass in a separate layer, would be a far more powerful, immediate, and enjoyable method of animating in iClone.  I'm very pleased for the people who want a Curve Editor, but I personally couldn't care less about it.  A far more 'productive' system could have been implemented (as described).  If you were to demonstrate the two methods side by side in a video, almost everyone would choose mouse smoothing with layered animation recording, over messing around with a Curve Editor.

No comparison!

In fact, those "Professional" programs having no way to animate with a mouse, demonstrates that their design treams are getting paid far too much.
Animating with a mouse is the way to go, not messing around with masses of curves and keyframes!

Mousie Mousie Mousie - hopefully iClone has it covered

... 'just for the record - I requested a curve editor, because I've used them a lot in the past and found them really useful. :-)

I'm pleased for the people who wanted a Curve Editor, it's needed in an animation program, so it'll be nice to know it's there.
I just see it as a tweaking tool though, so I would never give it priority over something like mouse smoothing with layered animation recording!

Anyway, don't mind my mood, I'm just anxious to see what they've got for us.

sw00000p, the point was whether I knew what a graph editor was and had used it in the past. The answer is yes. There's no need to elaborate further.

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My only disappointment, in going from iClone 5 to 6, is that, for the very first time, I am not able to put the huge collection of heads I've created onto the new bodies.  How wonderful it would be, if I could put my G5 heads onto the upcoming G7 bodies!  By the way, how on Earth do I bring an .mp3 file into a project as the background music in iClone 6?  In iClone 5, I just dragged it into the scene!

                                                                                                                               Bill Carey

That still seems to work. You will find the sound file on the timeline in the Project category, which has a Sound track:



The volume can be changed by clicking the music note icon right of the playback controls, which will open a slider. There is only the one track.

You can also add sound by drag/dropping a sound file on a prop, but in that case you will not able to adjust the volume.

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Could we also have Remove Object Animation as a button on the bottom of the UI, next to the player controls?  I keep forgetting to do it, and it's a pain to have to right click and find it every time, and you have to use it ALL the time, it's not like it's optional.  Would make my life easier anyway...


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