Some info about myself:
I have zero experience when it comes to poly-models and 3-D art in general. Many of the terms, acronyms, and technical jargon I do not recognize. The closest I ever came to "3-D" was back in the Windows 98 days using a Descent II level editor to design levels by adding/manipulating 3-D cubes(some of the more exotic manipulations involved using trig) and designing textures for very basic animation(think 7-12 frames max.). Its been almost several years since I had integral calculus.
First thing I must determine is what I need.
I want to be able to generate characters ranging from life-like human to Forgotten Realms creatures(i.e. Beholders, undead, etc.) with pose manipulation for high-res screenshots. I'm not sure if animation is required for this, but I'm not interested in making movies or action scenes. Articulated limbs should not look like sausage links or end up going inside of each other.
Being able to import ready-made content is necessary(morphs, textures, etc.) since making this kind of stuff from scratch is probably well beyond my current skills & experience. Basically, I prefer to start with good templates, mix and match, and fiddle around with them. Its the "lets throw a bunch of stuff on the wall and see what sticks" approach for now. For importing, I want to strictly deal with iClone and its character creator for now, so being able to import/export to/from other 3D programs is not necessary.
In a sense, this is just a hobbie where I'll be able to give life to my puns and parodies among other things. Some of the other 3-D programs I've seen out there are definitely way over my budget, but it looks like iClone might fall under it and be a good place to start. I just need to figure out which version & modules/plugins I need.
Also, how much more math would I need to learn or relearn? Like I said, its been almost several years since I had my calculus courses and I haven't used it all that much since, but I do know it can be a very useful tool for tweaking 3-D objects.
Any help would be appreciated!

Hopefully Peter (who is a very nice admin in this regard) will not delete my post -- I love, love, LOVE RL products of all sorts and varieties, but I honestly think in this case iClone is a poor match for you.

iClone is first and foremost an animation program.  While it can certainly do stills like you are looking at doing, that's not where its strengths lie.  The program I think you ought to at least try is Daz.  It's free, and most of the content you are looking at using/doing is sold there.  Since you don't want to create stuff yourself you'd most likely have to buy it from them anyway, so you might as well stay in that environment.  It's optimized for stills (just like iClone can do stills, Daz *can* do animation, but I would never do any there).  And there's a whole community of folks doing more or less what you have in mind (again, we're mostly animators here).

Hopefully this will help.

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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

Yes I would agree with Kellytoons based on what it seems it is you that want to do.
The way I see it Daz and iClone are similar and opposite.
Daz is mostly for creating images but also has a lower ability to do motions
iClone is mostly for creating videos with lower ability to create images
Not 100% correct but it is along those
If you get into DAZ making sceens and at some stage want to create videoes then iClone is a good option and you can bring the contents you have in DAZ into iClone to use for animating.
So DAZ might be a good place for you to start.   Your choice though


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

To include an opposing and "perhaps" more costly opinion, I think that iClone, together with Character Creator and 3DXchange would suit your needs. There is a lot of content for DAZ, but that's where the money is made. I don't know how adjustable characters are in DAZ, but in my opinion Character Creator is more flexible.

But you could start with DAZ and see if you like it. I think scene building in iClone is easier and at least far more comprehensive and you can use it to create stills. An Iray renderer is on the horizon, which would be very suitable for you.

The problem you face with whatever program you choose is that there is a fairly steep learning curve.

A bonus also is that this forum is very nice and helpful. I have little experience with DAZ in that regard.

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I would just like to add that you might also like to consider Character Creator 3 Pipeline. This is a standalone product so you don't need iClone or 3DXchange but you can still render fantastic images, especially if you use the Iray plug-in. Plus in addition to being able to create your own characters in CC3, you can also import Daz 3D characters and convert them to CC Base and import almost any clothing in OBJ format and use it with your custom characters. Please do check it out HERE.

                                                                

Peter
Forum Administrator

www.reallusion.com

Thank you for all of the responses!
I was looking at just getting the CC3 by itself as a start, but when I was looking through some of the extra content you can purchase in the market place, particularly the bases for iClone character creator tool, I was seeing things like "100% compatibility with iClone character creator" in conjunction with "this pack requires iClone 7.01 or above", which gave me the impression that iClone 7 pro(for importing feature) would have to be purchased in a bundle with CC3. So based upon what you're saying, if I just get the Character Creator Studio 3 bundle(CC3 Pipeline, Iray Render plug-in, CC Essential Complete Bundle), it shouldn't be a problem, plus I'll have the added option of importing from Daz 3D if I ever decide to tinker around with it. $300 isn't a bad price to start out with compared to the cost of buying the pro bundle with CC3 and probably a bunch of other stuff that I won't use at this time.
I still have to drop around $3k into a new desktop(will have a GTX 1080) I'm getting to replace an Alienware 17 laptop from 2013. That laptop just won't do for this kind of work running an NVidia GTX 760 /w 1Gb VRAM, especially if I want to work at a higher resolution on an external monitor.

I'll have to check out Daz 3D at home this weekend. For some odd reason, the site gets blocked here at work under the category "lingerie" whenever I try to access it!?!? What type of 3D rendering are they doing over there?

What kind of monitors(specs, not necessarily asking for brand) do you folks work with? I'm looking to get a 27" TN panel /w G-Sync @1440p to go along with the desktop. It won't be as pretty compared to IPS but I also game and like to have the higher refresh rate. The G-Sync IPS monitors were still a bit too dicey for my liking when I read up on them a few months ago(dead/dying pixels or just plain dying out after a year or two).

It sounds like you're getting ready to have a grand time.  :)

Great decision to include the "essentials" pack.  It really is essential since it is more than a "content" pack.  It include some added functionalty that helps with stuff like placing logos on shirts and tattoos on characters.

Regarding the monitors... You'll want TWO of them.  Other than that, iClone itself isn't that fussy, but support for 4k resolutions is still a challenge.  (iClone it not alone in that.)  Personally, I have a pair of mismatched 27-28" monitors.  One is 1920x1280 and the other is at a slightly different resolution (something by 1400 I think).  I can't get the colors to match exactly, which is a bit annoying, but they're fine for iClone.  I daydream of getting a matched pair of IPS panels that I would then color-caibrate, but I keep having other things higher on the priority list, like more software and more skill.  From an iClone perspective, I'd get "good" monitors that you're happy with, but not two $800 monitors.  Better to pour money into a great graphics card (GTX or the new RTX series, not the "professional" Quadro line.


There are a lot of great people here who will be happy to help you get started on this adventure.  WELCOME, and have fun.  :)

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iClone 7... Character Creator... Substance Designer/Painter... Blender... Audacity...
Desktop (homebuilt) - Windows 10, Ryzen 9 3900x CPU, GTX 1080 GPU (8GB), 32GB RAM, Asus X570 Pro motherboard, 2TB SSD, terabytes of disk space, dual  monitors.
Laptop - Windows 10, MSI GS63VR STEALTH-252, 16GB RAM, GTX 1060 (6GB), 256GB SSD and 1TB HDD

Thank you!
Yes, working with 2 different brand monitors doesn't work very well if you're needing consistent color display accuracy between the two. At that point, the best thing to do is either have exact matching(brand/series) color-calibrated monitors or go big/ultra-wide with a partitioned/split screen. I can't stand working on two different monitors where the colors and such don't match up... drives me crazy and strains my eyes.
I would never buy a Quadro, way too expensive! It would be like buying an X299 system with an 18-core processor to game on. I don't think these particular 3D programs are even optimized to take advantage of the full features of a Quadro graphics card. Now AutoCAD would be a different story...
The system I'm already set on is:
Intel Core i7-8700K (6-Core) 3.70GHz, MB: ASUS ROG STRIX Z370-E GAMING, RAM: 16GB DDR4 3000MHz, SSD M.2 (1TB Samsung 970 EVO), HDD: 2TB Western Digital - Black Edition, GeForce GTX 1080 8GB
This should be more than enough for now, and I'll have the option to upgrade in the future.

By the way, I spent a little time checking out Daz3D last night and I was very impressed! However, then I read this:
"Because of the complexity of the program and its storage needs for the content it uses, the installation process may not make sense to those new to Daz3D Studio. Daz3D Studio uses different content types and the organization of such is so important to the program’s functionality. There are guides and much information on the web to help users with the installation process but it can be very vexing to some even with such help."
Anyone able to elaborate on this from their own experience? Daz3D is something I would definitely want to use with iClone, but not if I have to worry about learning a multitude of file extensions, where to manually put them, setting up hard drive partitions or file trees, etc. Installation should be fairly cut and dry: Select a directory/location and everything goes where its suppose to, no?

If you don't want to be bothered worrying about the Daz file structure (which IS a bit insane -- I'm okay with it now, but in the beginning it just didn't make any sense to me) just use the Daz installer for all your content.  It will automagically put whatever you buy in the right directories and you'll never have to worry about it again.

(There are just a TON of different directories where they store stuff -- essentially they have a master content directory, and then sub directories so with sub directories off of that.  You can easily manually install stuff by just dragging the content folder over into your own content directory and it will handle all the subs, or you can let the auto installer do it all).

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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

About monitors: I have long contemplated whether to get one or two, but in the end I got one large 43" 4k monitor, which I'm quite happy with. Due to the large size, the pixels per inch value is more reasonable for actual work.

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