◇◇◇ Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it. ◇◇◇  - Charles R. Swindoll ...


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Please be patient with me ..... I don't always 'get it' the first time 'round - not even the 2nd time! :(  - yikes! ... 

● MSI GT72VR Laptop, i7 7700HQ 4-Core 3.8 GHz 16GB RAM; Nvidia 1070, 8GB Vram ● iClone-7.93 ● 3DXChange Pipeline 7.81 ● CC-3 Pipeline 3.44 ● Live Face ● HeadShot ● Brekel Pro-Body ● Popcorn FX ● iRAY ● Kinect V2 ● DaVinci Resolve17 ● Mixcraft 8.1

Yes, as you say -  I've noticed the difference between versions 6 and 7 re: system requirements.
I appreciate what you say about not wanting me to be 'disappointed' down the road ... yes we'd all like to perhaps have the best with what's available and I must admit that when you 'can't afford' the latest version of some app - it can leave you feeling - well - flat .....
I'm glad to hear your words about the mocap system requirements not being too high - to be honest, I've been 'sweating a bit' as to whether my laptop will be up to the task of handling the mocap ... BTW ... I really do thank you for getting me 'inspired' regarding mocap - Even if I do have to upgrade - I'm looking so much to this feature !!! - your friend - Steve.


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Please be patient with me ..... I don't always 'get it' the first time 'round - not even the 2nd time! :(  - yikes! ... 

● MSI GT72VR Laptop, i7 7700HQ 4-Core 3.8 GHz 16GB RAM; Nvidia 1070, 8GB Vram ● iClone-7.93 ● 3DXChange Pipeline 7.81 ● CC-3 Pipeline 3.44 ● Live Face ● HeadShot ● Brekel Pro-Body ● Popcorn FX ● iRAY ● Kinect V2 ● DaVinci Resolve17 ● Mixcraft 8.1

I just don't want you to be too disappointed down the road -- 7.2 (and further point updates) are going to be more and more demanding on our resources.  But, like you say, you have to do what you can with what you have.

I don't think mocap will be an issue with your laptop -- I still use a VERY old laptop as part of my iPisoft mocap system and it works very well (that particular Dell laptop isn't half as good as yours).  Kinect capture isn't very demanding as long as it can at least run the software for it.

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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

@ Kelleytoons - ... hello my friend from Florida !
Yes .... (as you say) ...Your "workaround" is to then reduce your scene until it's something your laptop can handle
That's what I was prepared to actually do! (I'm limited (dissability pension) - so there's always constraints financially - (unfortunately)).
Yes if it came to that - I would have to ...  but, as it turned out, that 'laundering' trick did work, and yes (this time 'round at least, there wasn't a problem for my  laptop. Yes, in the future it may not be the case - but I have got to do the best I can with what I've got - unfortunately....
That's not to say things can't change - I mean really, IF I was to find out that my future endeavors with that "MOCAP" device (the kinect v2) - was to fall flat on it's face due to an under capacity laptop - then yes, I'd probably 'bite the bullet' and upgrade - but at the risk of my wife's 'displeasure' due to the misappropriation of funds! 😉
But yes, my friend Kelley, if finances weren't a problem - I'd love to splash out and get a really decent desktop (wouldn't we all), - but I really DO like the laptop approach (ie: take it with you where ever you go)...
(I like talking with you)...


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Please be patient with me ..... I don't always 'get it' the first time 'round - not even the 2nd time! :(  - yikes! ... 

● MSI GT72VR Laptop, i7 7700HQ 4-Core 3.8 GHz 16GB RAM; Nvidia 1070, 8GB Vram ● iClone-7.93 ● 3DXChange Pipeline 7.81 ● CC-3 Pipeline 3.44 ● Live Face ● HeadShot ● Brekel Pro-Body ● Popcorn FX ● iRAY ● Kinect V2 ● DaVinci Resolve17 ● Mixcraft 8.1

Except -- you really should ditch that laptop.  The answer is still the same, you are trying to do something with a woefully inadequate resource.  Your "workaround" is to then reduce your scene until it's something your laptop can handle, but that answer is the same for anything (IOW, you can always reduce things to a point where even an underpowered system can handle things).

It's the black squares this time, next time it will be something else (maybe an inability to run Popcorn FX -- who knows?).  But as long as you realize your system limitations and understand you will run into all sorts of issues I guess you can live with that (for me I returned the laptop I bought and got another, more powerful one, although truth be told laptops are NOT the place to run iClone -- I just have that machine in case I want to play in the bedroom.  For anything serious my Titan XP graphics card is my go-to).

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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

Hi Famekrafts....
I don't have enough technical 'depth' to point to a cause for this.
I tend to work 'intuitively' and I have a 'gut feeling' about this problem (assuming it's the same problem as I had).
I don't think it's to do with the number of polys as much as the 'way the file is structured'.
If you've got (any) other software that you can run your scene components through (ie: import then export) - well you might get lucky...
In my case it was MANTIS that helped me out.
But 'Autodesk' have an app called 'Autodesk FBX Converter' (I think it's free too 😃)
It imports 3ds, dae, dxf, fbx and obj ..... and it can export dfx, obj, dae, and a host of fbx formats (2006, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013).

Maybe play with some of those conversions? ....... (all the best, - sorry I can't be more helpful - hope you get it to work!).
Steve.

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Please be patient with me ..... I don't always 'get it' the first time 'round - not even the 2nd time! :(  - yikes! ... 

● MSI GT72VR Laptop, i7 7700HQ 4-Core 3.8 GHz 16GB RAM; Nvidia 1070, 8GB Vram ● iClone-7.93 ● 3DXChange Pipeline 7.81 ● CC-3 Pipeline 3.44 ● Live Face ● HeadShot ● Brekel Pro-Body ● Popcorn FX ● iRAY ● Kinect V2 ● DaVinci Resolve17 ● Mixcraft 8.1

I am having the similar problem but only part of the mesh is getting blackened, in my case skirt and hair and I have 8 GB VRAM.
So this could be some other problem even though the scene is a high poly mesh. I am trying to render and check how the final render looks like but it clearly shows in the dof region that both skirt and hair are for some reason not getting read by the camera dof which is weird.

75% of original size (was 670x19) - Click to enlarge

75% of original size (was 670x19) - Click to enlarge


CTA5, Iclone 7, 3D Exchange Pro, Character Creator 3, Popcornfx plugin, Zbrush, Blender, Vue 2014, Adobe cc suite, Spriter
Homebuild Workstation (Pretty old now but still working great) Win 10, Intel i7 950, 24 GB RAM DDR3, Gigabyte x58a-ud7 motherboard, AMD R9 390 sapphire 8GB VRAM.
Official Website  Reallusion Store  

Well persistence has seemingly paid off ....
Finally - I was able to get the DOF result I was looking for. (And to think - I was just about to turf my Laptop!  .... well - not really).

So this 'issue' - getting weird black blobs in my rendered files is manifest when rendering LARGE POLY scenes ....
In my case, (given I'm on a 2GB VRam laptop) - it happened with a scene of 825,000 polys.

Now here's the work around. I 'laundered' the 825,000 poly scene through 'MANTIS LOD'  (A low cost Decimator, coming in different forms. I went for the 'stand alone' version rather than as a 'plugin' variety. - $30 is all it cost me). I just set the slider to 50% - ie: I dialed the model back to around 400,000 polys - exported it, opened it in iClone7.2. (that is; from within the 3DXchange front door).
The previous version of the scene was still open in iClone7.2 so I simply 'hid' the old mesh so that the new version now displayed alone.
I then rendered it out with the DOF 'ON' - and bam ! - the black blobs were gone!

Feeling a bit braver I tried again - this time I used MANTIS at 90%, shedding just 10% of the polys .....
Got it into iClone, rendered with DOF - and bam !  - it worked again.
I had a 'gut' feeling by now - what if I just sent it through MANTIS and left the slider at 100% (no decimation)...
Yes - bam ! - worked again!

So what's going on here? - don't really know for sure...
All I know is that when trying to render this scene originally, the ONLY setting I could use on my laptop WITH THIS PARTICULAR FILE was the 'PREVIEW' setting, - anything else ('Final Render', 'Super Sampling 2x2', 'Super Sampling 3x3') - would all result in black blobs on my output image.

 Somehow, MANTIS is dishing up the file (even with NO decimation) in a way that iClone is happy with. Something's altered.

Obviously I'll need to do further testing (when I get time) - so DON'T rush off and buy MANTIS based on MY results.
Suffice to say that in this particular case, when importing a largish DAZ set, AND engaging the DOF in iClone7.2, the difference between success and failure all came down to MANTIS laundering.

Here's my render .... It's my first attempt at getting a 'Cine-Style' look out of iClone. (I'm far from happy with it - seems 'blotchy' somehow - maybe the bricks - don't know; the reds don't seem right 😞 - but I got to start somewhere ... 

75% of original size (was 670x19) - Click to enlarge


75% of original size (was 670x19) - Click to enlarge

◇◇◇ Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can. ◇◇◇  - Arthur Ashe


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Please be patient with me ..... I don't always 'get it' the first time 'round - not even the 2nd time! :(  - yikes! ... 

● MSI GT72VR Laptop, i7 7700HQ 4-Core 3.8 GHz 16GB RAM; Nvidia 1070, 8GB Vram ● iClone-7.93 ● 3DXChange Pipeline 7.81 ● CC-3 Pipeline 3.44 ● Live Face ● HeadShot ● Brekel Pro-Body ● Popcorn FX ● iRAY ● Kinect V2 ● DaVinci Resolve17 ● Mixcraft 8.1

Ahh ... now I see where you got that figure from 4u2ges.
Well isn't that strange, 'cos the laptop has the following sticker on it ...

75% of original size (was 670x19) - Click to enlarge


So ......... I guess the failed DOF renders -  tend to agree with the .5 GB 'reported Video memory'.
But it doesn't explain the 'sticker on the box' though ...
I guess I'll have to either:
1. Drop back to using version 6.5 (but l'll loose certain other ver7 features) ...  OR
2. Upgrade my PC to something more capable ... OR
3. Get the desired 'shallow DOF' look by using a different work flow?.

Mmmm .... decisions, decisions ....


◇◇◇ The difference between winning and losing is most often not quitting. ◇◇◇  - Walt Disney


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Please be patient with me ..... I don't always 'get it' the first time 'round - not even the 2nd time! :(  - yikes! ... 

● MSI GT72VR Laptop, i7 7700HQ 4-Core 3.8 GHz 16GB RAM; Nvidia 1070, 8GB Vram ● iClone-7.93 ● 3DXChange Pipeline 7.81 ● CC-3 Pipeline 3.44 ● Live Face ● HeadShot ● Brekel Pro-Body ● Popcorn FX ● iRAY ● Kinect V2 ● DaVinci Resolve17 ● Mixcraft 8.1

Steve, iClone reports only seeing 0.5GB VRAM (according to the very first screenshot).
AND 5 M430is on the other hand is an entry level adapter and most likely is not supported by iClone.
You were getting away with it in iClone 6. But iCLone 7 is much more demanding, when it comes to video processing.
You may open a support ticket with RL, but I am pretty sure you would get a similar answer from them.