From what I learn, the advantages of G2 character is that they can have 10 angles. but hard to create and less charismatic unless you're a passionate artist
and the advantages of G3 Character is, its easy to create, animate, and may have charismatic character. but no different angle is a big minus if you're creating an animated series

I would like to create a multi angle G3 character is that possible? can i use a 3d Program to create a multi angle G3 character?   Create the various angles then make a multi angle character.

The G3 Character is less flexible, but I think the intent was to make it easier to animate. They are just basically paper puppets.

Not sure if you need 10 angles. Although I do wish it has a back angle in addition to the front and side. All the characters and motions Reallusion sells is just front and side. You obvious can create back and motions for them, but it's a lot of work.

As for the various angles, you can just take a side character and create a bunch of sprite of various angles and replace the sprite in the timeline. Might have to adjust the motion/transform to make it more fluid/natural. 

Was this issue ever addressed?

What particular issue are you referring to?

Multi angle characters are available if you need them, but as already mentioned creating them is a much longer process because you need multiple body part sprites for all 10 angles. To help this we supply content packs full of different clothing styles and body parts so you can customise your characters easily and quickly.

For those who wish to create your own characters you will find the new G3 characters are the better option. You are limited to front and side facing characters but creation is much quicker and more versatile. In CTA3 you can also animate literally anything using the new Free Bone character system.

So whichever type of character you want, the options are there to create it.


                                                                

Peter
Forum Administrator

www.reallusion.com

Hi Peter,

It's just a very arduous venture to create a G2+ character. The benefits of the character in a series are enormous, but the conversion of photoshop to SWF to CTA3 is daunting. This is especially true when you've got 10- 15 characters to create as well as any incidental characters per episode. The characters are all built in Photoshop, CTA3 can import PSD files, is there a way to utilize that format and ingest the PSD for the file format? Since the G3 cannot have multiple head and body angles it's kludgy to use for larger projects. 

The other key feature would be the addition of blur to layers. 

I see both of these requests on several forums and websites. 
Thanks

Hi Seabat,

Sadly there is no quick way to create G2 multi-angle characters apart from customising existing G2 characters using the many body parts available in our add-on pack selection. If you want to create a character from scratch, then you will need to invest some time to create all the sprites needed for all 10 angles.

It is because we listened to the feedback about easier character creation that we created G3 characters which are much easier to create. For standard G3 characters you are limited to front and side facing characters, but custom character creation is now a more viable option for many. We also added the option to create "Free Bone" characters meaning it is literally possible to animate any image or drawing simply by adding a custom bone structure with a few clicks.

So basically you now have a number of character creation options depending on what you wish to create and how much time you want to put into it. 


                                                                

Peter
Forum Administrator

www.reallusion.com

You can build your entire character template within photoshop, import PSD to Flash/Animate. Do the rigging in Flash, and import to CTA. Its really not that difficult. Gary Pye's Wendy character was done this way. Also plenty other professional artists are doing it this way as well. In Wendy's case the bitmapped data was vectorized using flash built in bitmap trace function. Converts the image to vector. In other cases, from what I seen they just use the bitmap sprites "as is".

The image below is from one of artist Nadia Khuzina who builds her characters inside of Photoshop, all angles, imports the psd into flash, and uses my Puppet Producer plugin for quickly rigging up the characters before importing them into CTA. 



In terms of efficiency. I recommend optimizing your character design to use similar constructions in bodies etc. You can create 3 or 4 unique bodies that fit what you need. Then the 20 or so heads that that you drop on top of the bodies. Honestly with 3 or 4 heads you can easily create hundreds of configurations as well. Maybe just changing up the hairs designs would be the most to make all the derivative characters unique.


Ibis Fernandez   |   (available for hire)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Professional Animator, Filmmaker | Creator of the highest quality (modular) G2 rigs for cartoon animator and developer of Toon Titan and Puppet Producer 
Author of Flash Animation and Cartooning: A Creative Guide
>>> be sure to check out http://toontitan.com for professional grade assets, templates, and custom tools for Cartoon Animator and more.

Hi Ibis,
I was, also, hopping that CTA3 would support multi-angled characters, which I believe was the core feature for the effectiveness of CTA2 animation engine. Since CTA3 made a huge step back regarding this very feature, the lack of it became the main reason to me for not upgrading into version 3 of CTA and, sincerely, If I knew this from the beggining, I wouldn't have bought even CTA2. I still hope, though, that future versions of CTA will eventually bring back all the angles of G2 characters, starting with the two completely necessary angles between the frontal and side positions of G3 characters. We also need PSD to animation-design export/import of multiangled characters, for convenient creation of the many angles, since not all of us are willing or have the money to rent every month Photoshop and Flash from Adobe, nor have the time to learn and work with aditional programms, just because Reallusion did not give us this functionallity. Also the art-style of vector graphics of Flash that you propose to turn our PSD files into, does not fit to the art-style of animation some of us have in mind. The argument that CTA 3 gives now an easier way for creating G3 characters is half-correct. People now have indeed this functionallity at their disposal, to easily draw and move simplified G3 characters. But why on earth they took from the rest of us, who desperatly need multiangled characters for their projects, drawn in PSD ff, the ability to easily draw and effectively move in 3d space such characters, as well? 

Hi Peter,
Including G2 characters into CTA3 does not mean at all that multiangled characters are still supported, since they are only left burried somewhere inside the program. Multiangled characters are trully supported, only when they evolve by programmers to G3, G4, G5... multiangled characters, with PSD to animation design export/inport functionallity, for example, and in each new version a better mocap support. Otherwise, true and convincing multiangled animation in CTA3 is already in a dead end. Sorry, but not all people would like to create simplified characters and not convincing animation, just seeking their own convenience. Some of us prefer the little more difficult route of hard work. Reallusion could have given G3 multiangled character support at least in CTA3 Pipeline version, letting the other two versions to people who are seeking their own convenience and only that. Please see also my answer to Ibis.