Kelleytoons, 

I didn't want to hit the hey tonight before showing you a little example of what I was talking about with the DAZ Characters. The video I posted before was one from a while ago back when the character was done in Genesis 2. I updated her to Genesis 3, and I wanted to give you a little indication of why DAZ users are so keen on working with their models and not so apt to switch away from them. DAZ Genesis characters are not at their best in iClone but if you work out rendering the finished animations in Iray and DAZ, you get to take full advantage of the Joint Controlled Morphs and the subdivided detail that you don't get to use in iClone. It's just a quick walk cycle and pardon her attire but I chose something that would let you see what I was talking about. The figure detail in it's native application is perhaps better than any off the shelf figure you can purchase for a similar price. (I am not including professionally rigged models in Maya or Max --they are naturally out of scope for what I'm talking about.) This is just a quick walk cycle that I put together in Hitfilm and Posted to Youtube for the sake of demonstration. Watch it at fullscreen and you can see the little figure details that wouldn't be in the available in iClone. I will post the same walk cycle again in iClone tomorrow to demonstrate the difference. The thing is DAZ animation tools suck. Their render engine does not. If I were to go a step further and use Virtual World Dynamics, I could probably get even more out of the final result with her hair moving dynamically. In fact, I think tomorrow I'll take a stab at doing a dynamic hair version of the same walk cycle --I don't think there are very many good examples online. 

will2power71,

You are exactly right.

I believe many Daz users have ended up in iClone precisely because DS has not developed better animation tools in DAZ Studio.
Please keep us posted on your project.

Charles

I have zero doubt that Daz figures can look good rendered with other tools -- as I said earlier, that wasn't my question.  I wanted to know if, when rendering in iClone, I could get better results with them then CC characters, and I don't think that's true.  And I do NOT intend to render elsewhere -- that ship has sailed.  I spent decades of my life rendering professionally in Max and waiting weeks in order to get minutes usable animation.  I will NEVER go that route again.  Even iClone, at times, is a bit slow (because while I can review it in Real Time, I can't render it in *quite* that amount.  But it's close enough).

So I do appreciate your thoughts and examples and if it ever changes -- if Daz characters in iClone become superior to those I can get with CC -- I hope someone will post examples so I'll know when I have to switch.  In the meantime I'll leave this thread and sorry, again, for interrupting. 

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Alienware Aurora R12, Win 10, i9-119000KF, 3.5GHz CPU, 128GB RAM, RTX 3090 (24GB), Samsung 960 Pro 4TB M-2 SSD, TB+ Disk space
Mike "ex-genius" Kelley

Ooops, let me add one more thing (for you older folks here, that's a Columbo impression :>,

I also have some issues with the pursuit of "Real World" characters.  I'm sure most of you are familiar with the Uncanny Valley effect, but for those of you who aren't, it's when human characters appear almost, but not exactly, like real people that a revulsion sets in among viewers (it may or may not exactly express itself as revulsion, although it often does, but at the very least it is unsettling to the point of not being able to disengage and enjoy them in a story environment).  I feel like we are dangerously close to that even as it is with CC characters, and getting any closer is Not a Good Idea, given that we can't cross that valley (it's possible one day we might, but since even Hollywood has issues along that line I doubt whether we will for many, many years).

It's why we accept digital "actors" who aren't human -- robots and monsters are just fine -- and reject those attempts otherwise (they have made a few inroads putting digital faces on real actors, such as Carrie Fisher, but even those tend to approach that valley.  And it takes the entire resources of an SFX department, many folks whom I still know personally, to get decent results).

So there is a Goodness in keeping your characters a bit artificial, a goodness that I don't think most folks appreciate.  I would just offer this -- if you don't watch this, you may end up alienating your audience (at least all but the hard-core fanboys who are so invested in the technology they can't see the forest for the trees -- they tend to have a higher tolerance and their own "valley" is much further than nearly everyone else).

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Alienware Aurora R12, Win 10, i9-119000KF, 3.5GHz CPU, 128GB RAM, RTX 3090 (24GB), Samsung 960 Pro 4TB M-2 SSD, TB+ Disk space
Mike "ex-genius" Kelley

On that note, my wife frequently comments that some female news anchors look just like avatars (this is in the US), so I wonder if the Uncanny Valley is being approached from two directions...

Since we are reminiscing (I love Colombo!), there was a German show orchestra headed by James Last (Hans Last, really), where the violins in particular were sauced with a heavy dose of reverb. So people unfamiliar with how violins sound in an actual symphony orchestra would complain that they didn't sound "real"...

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Sorry but I'm new to iclone and 3dxchange. Could you be more precise in steps to modify fbx G2 imported to 3dxchange to enable unused bones please? I cannot get spring to activate on specific body parts in iclone.

interestingly someone asked the same thing in another thread and I shared this link
https://www.reallusion.com/iclone/help/3DXchange5/Pipeline/04_Modify_Page/Character_Section/Setting_Extend_Bones_Spring.htm

Thank you - this really helps.

Wow, I just stumbled upon this thread and I realize that I have independently (somewhat) followed the same process as will2power71.  It is uncanny.  My pipeline will closely resemble his.  I am not invested in Daz or iClone yet, but I completely agree that in its native format, Daz characters are unmatched.  In iClone, they kind of look the same as CC Characters.  So it's the technology within the Daz platform that makes the difference and I can't do without it.  I hope you Daz people can mentor me on your process of getting our characters out of Studio and back again.  I started a thread in the iClone7 thread so you'll know how I'm thinking.  Before I spend a lot of money on tools I will be living with for at least a year, I want to be aware of all the foibles.  Thanks a lot.  And it's good to see that Genesis 8 will come into iClone, though I don't see the need to use that figure for my own project.

Here is my thread:  https://forum.reallusion.com/331798/I-am-evaluating-iClone-7-for-my-project-I-have-questions  

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

sorry to disappoint but getting them back into DAZ studio is not possible, DAZ's FBX import is abysmal they will be a scrunchy pulled apart mess.
You can do BVH export but not for Genesis 3 or 8, they will not load it except for a couple weird bone movements.