Hi nadiak,

Thanks for your comments, we understood what you tried to convey. It's not only about everything well-documented, but the product positioning strategy and the intuitive design. We won't say that we've done good enough, there is indeed a room to improve. We are looking forward to the good and professional interactions with you and all our users in the future. Thanks again!

Thank you. I still think there needs to be more clarity...

After all of this circus the answer is this:

1) The CC Essentials situation still makes no sense, but it doesn't apply at all to what I am doing.

2) Everything I need to do can be done with Substance. I don't need the Character Creator RGB Maps. I can bake all of that into a Substance sbsar. 

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It's amazing that there was early foresight to jump on the Substance train and have deep integration, but not to clearly state how things work. It wasn't until I took the time to look at Substance today that I finally got it. 

I am not an idiot. I am the .1% in a lot of different skills closely relating to the Reallusion product line. If I don't understand something, it is because it is not documented. I RTFM and search forums whenever possible. I can't know everything, and often with infrequently used skills of things I'm quite skilled at, like ZBrush, I have to spend a day refreshing my muscle memory on the keyboard. If the documentation is outright wrong, and the user base is small, it is not pretty. This is the case here. 

The reason I am participating on the forums is not only for the good of others, but myself so I can find the answer down the road. It's amazing how often years later I will find my own answer somewhere to remind myself how to do something. There is almost not outside discussion of RA product outside of this forum. There is no stack exchange base, no ZBrush base, no blender base, no cg forums base except for general questions about what the products are. It's amazing that my opinion on matters is so universal on the outside comments I do see. I'm not going crazy, but these things do make me put my MAGA hat on when I go outside. (3 more days, praise be upon our lord, Pepe LeKek)

I don't have a lot of 3D animation experience. It's was too time consuming previously to do side projects on my own, and it's a nightmare in blender unless you need to do things never done before, which will always be hard. The software is great. It's very sad though I couldn't make use of CTA3, and that's why I'm grinding iClone. CTA3 is crippled by design with the sour idea that animators don't want to create their own characters and want to buy add on packs. Good luck making a custom 360 G3 character there on your own, and good luck as a newcomer even understanding what G3 means. There are a few comparisons, but you have to go deep digging. You won't find it with a cursory search.

Invest in better documentation and then raise the prices. People here have $120,000 art degrees and rake in $15 an hour at Starbucks. Make them pay by all means, but not like you are currently doing.

Sorry for the confusion. I assumed it was the pack Character Creator prompts you to download after the installation. That's why all of the sneakiness and deception is so bad. The documentation says one thing, and then the programs are all named nearly the same thing. 

They spend a great deal of effort designating things like iHair, iProp, iTree, and iAvatar, but there is no distinction to add ons. 

I sent a message back to support. Given their documentation and presentation of materials, it's natural to assume it is included, so I am demanding a resolution to this issue. I am patient to await this result. One of the biggest problems I have now is that I am still confused. Nothing in the CC Essentials marketing or documentation mentions RGB maps. Peter's answer to the question is not complete, and I am leaving the possibility that he is mistaken himself on the matter.

If it is not resolved I will probably just pay the $69, and then sue them in small claims court to recover the money. If this were adobe it would be class actionable. I get the need to make a profit, but this (if true) is fraud plain and simple. 

He was the one who replied to my support ticket. Perhaps he is not in charge of the support program, but I doubt the company is organized enough to have this particular distinction.

Oh dont worry, I dont feel bad. Was only trying to help you. Besides, Peter said pretty much the same thing that Rampa said which i then reallised was why i now have the RGB mask.
Reread them and you will see all 3 posts say that you need to install the essentials pack in order to do this.


i7-3770 3.4GHz CPU 16 GB Ram   
GeForce GTX1080 TI 11GB
Windows 10 Pro 64bit

Peter is the forum moderator and not a person in charge of support. (There is a support link for that on the RL web site.) You may not like his answer, but it was to the point and accurate. You're obviously upset but don't take it out on Peter. 

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Oh, I didn't see you posted in this thread, I thought I had blocked you. Great to have such a poor relationship with the person in charge of support. It's extremely disappointing.  I don't like you at all, I think your tone and your replies are out of line. Your goal is to sell product, instead you insult customers. You clearly waited to reply to this thread passive aggressively and ignored the other bug submissions. 

Nope, everybody is wrong, don't feel bad. Peter replied this,

"To be able to use RGB Input Maps requires the CC Essentials add-on bundle. I have checked your account and don't see a purchase of the CC Essentials. Without this add-on you will not be able to use Input Maps unfortunately."

This after we got into over Reallusion marketing practices and their deception. I can't believe this was the answer. Totally disgusting. 

For the record, the Reallusion software is great. All of the add ons, including almost everything in the marketplace is stuff you don't sell. Very low quality. I think it's great there are some stock props to play around with, and base shapes. I don't need more crappy morph sliders, I need basic functionality advertised in the product documentation and tutorials. 

For all of those wondering who is right, read the documentation: http://manual.reallusion.com/Character_Creator/ENU/1/15_Substance/Divisions_by_RGB.htm

It says nothing about paying for a feature. Nothing.

Edit: I just checked, Reallusion is also in California. This would be a great small claims case. 

                                                                

Peter
Forum Administrator

www.reallusion.com