My test to create and  import a crowd from Anima2 to iclone
https://youtu.be/8iwjwae5uzQ

some tests in iclone

I used only the free version.

I was able to import the whole group into 3DXchange 6.5 (using the 4GB patch to get extra RAM), which comes to about 750k polys. The women have far more than the men (110k versus 22k), maybe because of the hair?

I first exported and imported at 30fps, but I found the animation jittery. I then did export at 12fps and had a much better result. So maybe the lower sample rate helps smooth the motions because iClone has room to interpolate.

I was about to show a render, but I just realized I did that in IC7, which we can't show here yet...:unsure:

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Loaded a female and male individually to check poly-count.

Female in dress with long hair. 9610


Male in suit. 9953


So they are quite reasonable.

I also set the texture to lowest quality in the Anima export. 3DX does not seem to share the materials on import, so it'll be loading a lot of them!

@Animagic,

Did you have a mostly girl group?

Thanks for your tests -- I was going to do something similar to see if this IS something I'm going to purchase.  While most of them look okay, some of it worries me because humans have a great ability to pick out patterns, and in some of those even with large numbers the repeating people can be a problem.  I guess this is one of those "manage your camera angles and expectations and closeness to camera carefully" things.

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Alienware Aurora R16, Win 11, i9-149000KF, 3.20GHz CPU, 64GB RAM, RTX 4090 (24GB), Samsung 870 Pro 8TB, Gen3 MVNe M-2 SSD, 4TBx2, 39" Alienware Widescreen Monitor
Mike "ex-genius" Kelley

SO many things I want to know here, Animagic.  First of all -- what the heck is the 4GB patch for XChange?  Is that something you can do in 7 (so I don't need to worry about it -- since I no longer have 6.x installed on my system). 

Bringing in "the whole group" -- you mean all 24 supplied characters, right?  I'm concerned about pattern repeats, so both the size of the file in iClone as well as the ability to load in custom characters (more in a moment) are important elements in determining for me whether this is worth purchasing.  I'll do some tests myself.

I wish I could get a custom character in, but it appears that's only for the paid version.  They say "load in the character file" but I don't have that in the lite version.  I've got a request in AXYZ for their help in this, but I'm guessing it's going to be a "pays your money and takes your chances" sort of thing.  What I have in mind is to use Mixamo to rig characters for use in Anima -- I'd rather not involve Max if I don't have to (their help files talk about Max but if I have to go back to rigging things there I'll fall into a rabbit hole I can't get out of again).

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Alienware Aurora R16, Win 11, i9-149000KF, 3.20GHz CPU, 64GB RAM, RTX 4090 (24GB), Samsung 870 Pro 8TB, Gen3 MVNe M-2 SSD, 4TBx2, 39" Alienware Widescreen Monitor
Mike "ex-genius" Kelley

The "Lite" version only allows 5 unique characters, but does allow them to repeat for as many as you want. The "Pro" is supposed to use the entire character library, or sub-sets you choose. You can also buy more characters, I think. So have a look at the character library, and see what you think. It looks like there are 24 by default.

There also is a character editing mode that is not fully functional in the Lite version. 



Just like CC, it needs specific models, I think. So I wouldn't count on importing your own creations.

No, the docs say you can import your own models, and they tell you exactly how to do it in Max, but I'd rather not fire up Max (I kind of hate rigging in Max anyway).

It also says you can take their own models into Mixamo for output (to then reinput) so the implication, at least, is that I could take a Mixamo rigged model into their program.  I'm waiting to hear from them to see if this is possible in the lite version but even if they just say it's possible in paid I'll be fine with it.

Mixamo just makes rigging SO much easier and for a crowd I really don't want to be getting back into rigging (but I don't want to use only their stuff and I certainly don't want to buy their characters, which are way overpriced).

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Alienware Aurora R16, Win 11, i9-149000KF, 3.20GHz CPU, 64GB RAM, RTX 4090 (24GB), Samsung 870 Pro 8TB, Gen3 MVNe M-2 SSD, 4TBx2, 39" Alienware Widescreen Monitor
Mike "ex-genius" Kelley

Oh, and again, I'm trying to balance this with what I could import into iClone.  Obviously there will be limits, and I don't want to bump up against them immediately.  I also don't want or need a crowd of thousands (unfortunately, what the OP wanted IIRC so this may not be helping him any <g>) but a few hundred unique looking folks (or unique enough -- let's say we have 50 completely unique ones repeated once or twice) would be plenty.

But it's fun -- I remember playing with it back in version 1 and thinking it had great potential.  This doesn't even touch the surface because there is an API and I suspect (haven't looked at it yet) that it allows you to tailor behaviors so you could have, for example, fights break out among folks, etc.  This could be another rabbit hole I never come out of again (sigh).

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Alienware Aurora R16, Win 11, i9-149000KF, 3.20GHz CPU, 64GB RAM, RTX 4090 (24GB), Samsung 870 Pro 8TB, Gen3 MVNe M-2 SSD, 4TBx2, 39" Alienware Widescreen Monitor
Mike "ex-genius" Kelley

Found it!

After a nice head-clearing bike ride, I figured it out. I new the skeleton was standard humanIK, but was not sure if bone names mattered. They don't. Anima even let's you re-target your imports.

Check the picture. You drag the bone from the left to the dot on the character, and it shows the mapping name-to-name on the right.



This means you can use your CC characters in your crowds!!!!!!! Provided you have 3DX Pipeline, of course.

Here's the page on doing it all. https://docs.axyz-design.com/article/importing-characters/

All interesting finds in this thread.

I redid my render test in IC6 so that it could be shared, and it shows (in this case at least) that exporting/importing at a lower FPS (e.g., 12 versus 30), gives a better result.

In the clip the first 4 sec is the 30-FPS version, which is then followed by the 12-FPS version. Note the woman on the far left in particular,

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