Q1: is it possible to use these in 6.5? How exactly?
Q2: if no to Q1, will it be possible in 7?



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My system: i7 3770 Gtx1060 6GB

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liebe Grüße vidi

meet us here

The 2nd iC7 progress video is slated to show the upcoming timeline morph system. You cannot currently use morphs (blendshapes) on the timeline, unless you set them up as "facial" morphs) in 3DX. 

You can create blendshapes from the CC base that can be converted to CC morphs. You need to bring in each one individually though, like as an OBJ.

EDIT
I cross-posted with you Vidi. :)

Yeah, I understand what Blender's shape keys are :) just not how to implement them in CC and iClone. I tried in 3dXchange and as long as I use ASCII 6.1 converter out of Blender and scale to 100, it works, so that's cool. I think I understand how people make wave planes now, I'll be trying that ASAP. 

In CC, I'm still not seeing how to import shape keys directly, I know how to create and import individual morphs, but if I have a character with a few shape keys, it would be nice to just import the FBX with multiple morphs included and have them appear in CC as sliders. Vidi, you seem to indicate that's possible, if that's correct, and if so, can you explain how? Thanks!


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My system: i7 3770 Gtx1060 6GB

Alrighty then, for anyone wondering how to make a detailed ocean in Blender for iClone, here's my steps:

1. In Blender, create an ocean with animation using the ocean modifier. Here's a tutorial.

2. Export the sequence as an .mdd file. Good explanation is here.

3. Once Blender is set up with the new mdd file, create a base shape key on frame one.

4. Create a morph shape key, set the animation to frame 250 (or whatever your end is).

5. In the Mesh Cache modifier, click 'apply as shape key.

Note: create as many shape keys as you want to represent different wave patterns. 

Anyhow, this had me scratching my head for a while, and it is really good to finally figure it out. It really opens up a lot of possibilities. Thanks guys for your help.





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My system: i7 3770 Gtx1060 6GB

Oh,  sorry,  I should add that after getting your ocean ready, while in Blender,   import the base fbx and attach the ocean to the armature as an object. Then export the whooshing as fbx 6.1 ascii so 3dxchange can see the morphs,  and then map the morphs like any other face expression. Then in iclone you hide the base fbx textures. I still need to fiddling scaling,  but the hard part is figured out now ☺ I can't wait to see how well the manual morph keying will be. Anyhow,  this is one of the things I always want,  like a second or so shot of men at the bow of a ship as they head off on an odyssey. Just doesn't give the oomph when the water is all flat ☺

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My system: i7 3770 Gtx1060 6GB

Thanks for sharing that!

I've had some luck doing waves using the displacement channel with a video in it. There is a trick to setting it up, as it won't let you adjust the tessalation settings on video. But if set your tessalation settings with a JPG first, then you can load a video in the channel and it retains the settings.

Steps:
add tessalation plain
double-click displacement channel and add a picture
set tessalation settings to 10, with base all the way left, and multpilier at 50%
double-click displacement channel and add a video
reduce strength of displacement using the strength slider.

Yeah,  I bet a combination of tessalation and a morph object would get the best of both techniques,  and since it isn't a water plane,  you can just use a video file straight away,  which is what I'm doing. Right now the tricky bit is actually manually animating without mouse smoothing apparently,  so it is hard to get the right feeling,  a graph editor sure would be sweet for setting this all up. I can't wait 😀

Actually, just checked, I should say displacement, not tessalation, but I am also experimenting with still maps using tessalation with a normal map video in the bump channel. Anyhow, I am seeing different things give different effects, so there is a lot of artistic flexibility I think.

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My system: i7 3770 Gtx1060 6GB

The trick there is to put an RL skeleton in your ocean so it can be a non-standard character. You don't need any rigging. Ii's just there so you can set it up as an avatar to use the expression editor. Then you can set your different ocean morphs to muscle morphs that can be keyed using the face key in the iClone timeline.

Warlord did a werewolf transition for a Dazzie by putting the morph as jaw opening.

Yeah,  that's what I meant when referring to the base fbx,  and hiding it. Anyhow,  it is all fine tuning now,  I might release a freebie of this soon. 

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My system: i7 3770 Gtx1060 6GB