First of all, is there any way I can pay someone to help me by phone?  This is like the most complicated thing I have ever tried to do.  I watched five hours of my IClone 5 training video.  I have IClone 7.1, so I watched more videos on Iclone 7.  I worked for about a year with Iclone 4 and it was much more intuitive.  For Iclone 7, you need to be a computer whiz or something.  First of all, I don't like the dark windows.  There's probably a way to change that, but it is depressing to look at to begin with.  And there's so many of them that it is totally confusing.  It took me hours to just get my bearings at all.  
   Anyway, I am doing all this so I can make great music videos with animation and live action.  My first problem is that I imported a Wave file that had my original music on it.  But as soon as I tried to produce animation it disappeared, so I undid it.  I also wanted to edit the audio file to begin with, because it had some clicks at the beginning and I needed to remove them.  So I got up the timeline, and highlighted the project section where the clicks were and tried to delete, but it would not do it.  Do I have to render something before it becomes something I can edit?  Can I bring up the audio and visual tracks like I can in Adobe Premiere Pro?  
    So, as I was saying, I tried to do some animation and the entire audio track disappeared.  Come to think of it, it never appeared in the timeline to begin with under "Sound."  Do I need to render it as a video before it becomes real?  How do I make it appear on the timeline and stay so I can edit the audio as an integral part of the animation? God, this is the most frustrating thing.  I've watched so many videos and I'm still completely clueless.
    I know I got some content with my purchase, but it took me hours to see anything that I purchased in those confusing windows.  But I don't think I have many of the things I need, and I'm not an artist, so I can't do it myself, because I don't have the first clue about creating the scenes I want from scratch. My first scene is going to be at a graduation ceremony, so I first looked on 3D Exchange for a graduation scene.  Then I discovered I have to learn a whole other program, because when I got the scene in 3D warehouse and imported it, I got an error message about needing to save it as sketchfab 2015.  Do I do that in the Warehouse?  How do I do that?  What the heck is sketchfab?????????????  So I will now have to watch all those videos too, but I might still feel clueless. 
  Please help.  Thanks.

   

Iclone won’t edit audio. There no assignable audio editor either. You’re way better off editing in a dedicated audio editor to get the final audio master. You can import the audio by assigning it to an object. For some reason I’ve run into issues that way. For me, I’ll put in a super low poly figure and assign the audio track to him as you would an audio track to make him talk. I can’t tell if it’s a click track you’re using for drums or if your track
just had clicks?

If making a music video do all your editing in Pro Tools/Logic/Abelton... whatever DAW you choose. Leave about 5 seconds of silence at the beginning and end. Do as stated above with a low poly character and assign the audio to his vocal track. On the first frame lower the character out of sight. Make sure you’re only working in the first frame when you move the character. If you by accident imported the character at a frame other than the first that will be a transform key frame and if you put him out of sight in the first frame he’ll slowly make his way back to the center at the later frame you imported him at. You should know that much though if you’re familiar with how iclone works. After you make your music video, render it out. Make sure to render it with the dead 5 seconds at the front and back.

Import the rendered file into your video editor of choice, premiere/Vegas or whatever you choose. Import you final audio master into the project as well. Line up your iclone movie clip and your audio clip so they start at the same point. Delete the audio file associated with the iclone movie and you should have a nice synced movie with your mastered audio file. The extra dead silence is something I like to use because you never know how much you may want to fade in or out from the movie. This gives you some flexibility. By keeping your final audio master and iclone file the exact same length, you ensure you won’t have any sync issues when your place into your film editor. If you make your iclone video and tweak the audio file in your DAW, then you’ll have to make sure the sound syncs up in your video editor. That can be a pain. Anyhow.... that’s how I work. Super wordy but hopefully it gets the point across. Anything else, fire away and I’ll help where I can.

My "NEWEST" Latest:)  Movie Made With Amaaaazing iClone


—> High Noon”ish” in Narrow Valley<—

Hi, Thanks Kungphu for responding.  I have Premiere Pro.  I don't get why the audio isn't an integral part of the project.  Why can't I edit the audio at the same time that I am editing the animation?  I don't want to attach it to some insignificant character if I can help it, because I want it to look like different characters are singing the song.  But if I did, would I be able to then edit the animation and take out the 1, 2, 1, 2, 3, 4 clicks at the beginning, as the audio would then be part of the animation?  Why doesn't IClone give me the option of editing the audio, as it is so much a part of what I need to do.  This is going to be extremely unwieldy for me as far as making music videos, that I have to go back and forth.  I should be able to do everything in Iclone.  Also, the audio is already mastered, and powers that be advised me to take out the clicks at the beginning.  I suppose I can reload the master audio track into Real Band, and take out the clicks, and send it back, but there are preset effects in Real Band that would probably affect the sound.  I think I would be better off in Premiere, where I could just erase the clicks in the sound track, and that would leave the 5 second leader time, as I should be able to do in Iclone but apparently can't.  Please fix in future versions of IClone.
  1.  So do you suggest that I only do the animation and compositing in Iclone and finish up the editing in Premiere as a general procedure, considering that I will be mixing with live action on most videos?
   Thanks for your help.  Other questions:  2. What about the dark windows?  Can they be changed to the old white background?   3. How do I get the graduation scene converted to Sketchfab 2015 so I can import it to 3D Xchange?
4a. How do I make different characters look like they are singing the words to the song? Do I sing them into the mic in Iclone to get the mouth singing the song and then render and then eliminate those sounds in Premiere and add the master audio?  4b. Can I render a portion of the song and keep it within the Iclone project, and then edit over that, or is rendering exporting by definition?  If so, how would I do that; and what exactly is rendering anyway? In Real Band, I know it turns the project into a WAV or MP3 file or such. Is it basically the same thing in Iclone, just MP4 or AVI?
5.  I need to have the audio remain in the animation so I can align the lyrics to what is happening in the animation.  As soon as I do any animation, the sound track disappears.  What's up with that? Is that why I need to assign the audio to a character?  Is that the only way I can get the audio to appear on the timeline?  If the audio does appear on the timeline, why can't I then take out the clicks right there on the timeline?  Please make that possible next version.  Please explain in more detail exactly why the sound track disappears, exactly how assigning to a character helps, and the general characteristics of audio within Iclone. 
 6. Is there anyone anywhere who is in the business of helping clueless Iclone users by phone for a fee? Even chat support would be a huge help.  I am getting more frustrated and feeling more hopeless and disillusioned about the whole endeavor every day.  I really appreciate the help on the forum, but I have so many problems getting started that waiting for an answer on the forum will cost me months of time by the time I get it all answered. I could probably read the manual five times while I am waiting, which I'm sure would help, but I still think that I would be somewhat clueless because I only understand every fourth word and I need a dictionary for all of the acronyms; and it is all feeling very overwhelming for me right now.  If I could only hire phone support, I'd be off the ground already.  Now I fear that it will take forever just to get started. 
     I will take a breath and then do another round of learning, as doing music videos is super-important for me now as I am retired and this is what I want to do with the rest of my life.
   Thanks so much for all your help.  Andy T.

@Andy, audio editing has been discussed, but to do it well, it would greatly complicate the program, and would also open a Pandora's box of additional requests, such as VST support.

One suggestion that has been to make visualization available for other audio than just dialog. That might be be a useful feature request to enter into the Feedback Tracker.

Most of us always use a video editor, as that gives you far more flexibility in handling the audio.

---

76% of original size (was 661x19) - Click to enlarge

Fine, but what about my other 6 questions?  Can someone please respond to my other questions?  I really don't know exactly how all this works, but I understand that the forum is the recommended means of tech support.  I am trying to use your program and am totally confused and asking for help, and is that response all I get???????????????

Andy... I’m not sure what your background is, but that’sthe case with pretty much all software. You have to read manuals and watch tutorials and put in the time yourself to learn the software. Trying to learn all of iclone in a daywill overwhelm you and make you want to curl up in a ball for sure! Justtackle small pieces first. Start with basic tutorials online. Watch and apply it toiclone real time. You’re on your way at least where you have a project you needto work on. That's the first step (find something to work on that you want to complete start to finish).

Start with importing the assets. Watch tutorials and read the manualon 3d exchange and getting items into iclone. they need to be in FBX or obj format. After you get that step done,look at the materials. Does it look the way you want it to?  If not look up the material tutorials onlineand change the materials to suit. Next I’m assuming you will have charactersyou will be creating, look up character creation tutorials or importing fromwhatever other software you use for character creation. Once you have all theassets into iclone, you're ready to start tackling the timeline. Become extremelyfamiliar with it since it will be your lifeline in iclone projects.

For each specifictask you are trying to accomplish, do a simple google search first and you arebound to find a tutorial or forum thread where it’s discussed. I recall severalfor adding audio to dummy objects. If you want to make characters talk, google “iclone7 how to make a character talk.” You’ll get more help if you let people know whatthreads you read or videos you’ve watched and still are unclear on points A,B orC. It’ll be easier to help you that way with what you are struggling with. We’re allstill learning here! I know I won’t ever learn all that iclone can do, thereare new features added all the time. But just start off slow learning bits and piecesand have patience. You won’t be able to learn everything at once. That’sinformation overload!

I can reply to your questions above after work later this evening. In the meantime you have to put in the work and start trying to learn on your own as well here. People will bend over backwards here to help others that are learning iclone. But you have to put the time in to learn the basics yourself. I'll post later this evening. I've made several music videos in iclone and other software. oh.. another word of advice, if you are going to be making primarily music videos you MUST have a dedicated audio editor that allows multi-tracking. 



My "NEWEST" Latest:)  Movie Made With Amaaaazing iClone


—> High Noon”ish” in Narrow Valley<—

I am not sure but possibly not how you want. At first I wasn't facinated with it myself but I didn't mind it either so I just put up with it. Now I am totally used to it and I quite like it. I think I read on the forum somewhere that it is possible to change the colors but I also think the possible changes are very limited.



Don't you mean sketchup? not sketchfab.
The thing here is that 3DExchange will only load sketchup files that are saved as version 2015 of sketchup
This image illustrates how you can download the correct version from 3D warehouse
76% of original size (was 661x19) - Click to enlarge

If the one you want to download dosn't have a 2015 version then you can download the free version of sketchup, load the file and then save it from sketchup as a 2015 version.
Nothing to learn here except how to load a file and resave it. That's pretty simple
You also need to note that some sketchup models might be very high polly which is not good for iclone (or game engines for that matter)
Something to be wary of.



I totally agree with Kungphu here
Watching videos can easily cause you to watch even more videos which can cause you to watch even more. Nothing wrong with that as an introduction to what is possible with iclone. But doing that to learn how to use iclone is very confusing because iClone has so many capabilities that you just get lost in them.

You need to focus on creating scenes (Better than using sketchup scenes in my opinion, but that's just an opinion)
You already have a project in mind. Build the scene for your project and watch videos but focus only on the things that help you with any confusion you have about creating scenes.
Once you have your scene made then move onto the next step, adding and animating the characters. Watch videos that help with that but focus only on what it is your working on.
When that's done look into adding the sound. That way your focused on a small iclone capability and your work will help make it more sensible.
If you cant find help from video tutorials then ask questions here that focus on that confusion. That will help us give you answers that will help you


I'm at work at the moment and I don't want to try give an answer to this until I get home tonight and test my thoughts before I answer them. If no answers are here then then I will try and show my opinions. Again they are only opinions based off how I do things. How you do them depends on how you want to work.  However I will suggest that because you want to have several characters singing the words of the song then I assume you want their lip syncing to the words. Loading the sound as you have wont work for that (as far as I know anyway). You will need to get the song words into separate files that you can add to each character so their lips move only to their words and no one elses. Also you wont want their lips moving with the music either. Creating Music Videos is not something I have worked with a lot in iclone so i'm just commenting based on what I do know in order to try and assist you with what you want to do







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

OK... World's longest post coming up. But I rember when I first started using iclone and I didn't even know about the forum. I was so friggin lost!

As Animagic mentions before, most of us use a dedicated audioeditor. There’s a reason for that. Audio editing is a skill/software all itsown; adding it to iClone would only muddy up the interface but also overcomplicate the software. If you’re already snowed under with iclone for animation, just imagine how complicated it would be with an audio editor embedded in the interface???  If you are going to be primailry making music videos you simply MUST have an audio editing program. Audacity is freeand Reaper used to be free (I’m not sure if it is these days).  I do audio on a semi-pro basis (meaning I have a day job but do audio work for money onthe side) and use ProTools extensively as my editor. Is RealBand part of Bandin a Box???  You should invest in something better than that for sure ifit is. You need an audio editor that will allow multi tracking and can render down audio from multi-tracks. There is no “fix for iclone with audio, because it isn’t “broken.” All audio editors don’t have video editors built in. They allow importing of video, but you can’t fully edit video in Pro Tools or logic.They assume if you are working with video you have a stand alone video editor so they can concentrate on what they do best audio editing. Same with iclone.

 

To answer your No. 1 Absolutely. Let iClone be the animation and compositing program and finish the editing in Premiere. In the future you could composite in After Effects or HitFilm but that’s more software to learn. Iclone does a lot of compositing type work inside iClone itself, so if there’s a particular effect you want post a specific query in the forum and someone is sure to help. I’m not sure about No. 2 I think you are stuck with the dark windows. There was a thread about changing them but it’s limited I believe. It’s a trend in software these days. You’ll get used to it after a while.

No 3. I’m not sure what graduation scene you are talking about. Is it live video? Is it a 3dset?  If it’s a 3d asset convert it to an *.fbx or *.obj file and import into 3dXahnge then import into iclone. You may have to adjust textures etc.once in iclone. If it’s importing from sketchfab there’s agreat tutorial forthat on youtube. If it’s a google sketch item, be sure and follow Delerna’s advice about the version of sketchup to use.

 

4a. For the music videos and normal movies I’ve done this is my work flow, not necessarily “correct” but it works for me. If I have a final mastered song, I will take the multitracked vocals and render out a separate track per the character that will be singing the part of the song. Example: Ihave 20 tracks of music and 4 tracks for backing vocals for the chorus and a singletrack for the main singer. I’ll solo the main vocal track since there is only one character who will sing that. I render the audio out and now I have a wave fileof no music and silence until the main vocal is sung. I’ll do the same with the chorus and solo the 4 chorus backing vocal tracks then render a backing vocal only wav file. In iclone you select the character you want to sing the main vocal and then in the animation tab you select create script and then choose “wavefile.” Then you just choose the wave file on your computer. For all other characters that will be singing the chorus, you do the same but select the chorus wave file. You can do the same for your video but since you don’t have individual wave files for the vocals, you will have to create them yourself. To ensure timing is correct I would use a multitrack audio editor so you can physically see the wave files and make sure what you record isn’t leading or lagging and in perfect time with the music. You can always chop it and nudge the audio along so it syncs in your editor. For audio renders, as long as you keep all of your files the same length in duration, then everything will sync just fine once you render (video and audio) out of iclone and put together thepieces in Premiere.

 

5. When you say audio here I’m assuming it’s the singing audio that you want to remain in the video. As long as you use the external audio editor and ensure ALL audio files you render are the same length your video render will sync perfectly with your iclone video and you can delete theiclone audio in Premiere; you won’t have to match anything up. Hope that makes sense. Just for clarity, when you assign an audio file to a character or object in iclone, the audio will be rendered in time with the video. You final video render will have audio and video so if you need to, you can verify the iclone video/audio file is synced to your audio master. Like I stated earlier I always work off the master and make sure the lengths are perfectly the same in my audio editor first. If not there are tons of heach aches that you can create for yourself with sync issues and lining everything up. If you want to add an audio file you can assign it to a dummy object (google iclone assign audio to a dummyobject) or you can add background music to the timeline. In the timeline click on the icon on the very left. That will show what tracks are visible. Tick the box to make sure the “sound” track is visible. You can either drag and drop a sound file on the track or right click on the empty sound track and choose import to place your sound there. I’m not sure why your sound track disappears. Chances are it’s still there but just not visible. Be sure and click the far left icon on the timeline to make sure the track is actually visible. You really should watch the timeline tutorials online and read the manual under timeline with iclone open to get some hands on use and feel more comfortable with it. There are settings that will only show an active item in iclone in the timeline so if that is activated you may be wondering what in the world happened the rest of the assets in your scene.

 

As for No. 6 I can help you but you don’t want to pay my hourly rate. It’s one miiiiiiiiillllllion dollars!!!! :) OK… I’m kidding. Plan out the steps it will take to start and finish your project. Figure out what step you want to do first and do a google search on it. Chances are you’ll find you can do a few things just from reading a thread or watching a video. Once you get stumped post your specific questionhere. It’s easier to respond to one or two specific questions rather than AGHHH!  Help me make this entire video.  That’s a joke of course. I feel your pain, we all started somewhere so welcome to iclone! Oh and if you hate iclone’s interface let us know how you like Zbrush if you ever go down the route of making custom characters. I wanted to pull out all my hair and never understood what they were thinking when they made that software. Now… It’s like putting on an old comfortable sweater. But initially I had some very angry thoughts while using Zbrush! Best of luck.

My "NEWEST" Latest:)  Movie Made With Amaaaazing iClone


—> High Noon”ish” in Narrow Valley<—

I have zBrush too and yes I was exactly the same with its interface (still am actually but not like I used to)
I actually use Blender now for all character modelling I do and its interface was terrible when I started using it.
Now I am used to it and I actually find it very easy now. The point is, I find any software that has great functions to be highly confusing when I start.
It takes time and effort to learn anything that is worthwhile to learn. Iclones interface is actually one of the easiest I have ever had to learn, although I do admit I started with iClone 4.
Maybe I wouldn't feel that way if I started with iClone7....far more capabilities than iClone4 and all of them are worth learning........eventually.
There are tons I still need to get more familiar with in order to use them easily.




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

Sorry, but we are NOT Reallusion tech support. We are all volunteers with a life outside this forum and trying to help the best we can. But I will stay away if you prefer... My wrist hurts and typing is difficult.

---

76% of original size (was 661x19) - Click to enlarge