good comments, discussions, tips, suggestions and reminders going on here.

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

I bought iClone about a year ago as I wanted a film studio in my bedroom to compete with everyone and anyone, you know Hollywood, Bollwood, BBC whatever.  I also wanted to produce stuff real quick.  If you're gonna be ambitious might as well make it real big, nothing to lose eh!

It hasn't worked out that way as initially iclone was a nightmare probably due to computer driver issues (AMD 1700 processor) and iclone 7s initial instability (iclone 6.5 worked perfectly).

Now everything seems to be working well (iclone 7.2) but I have hit 2 problems.  My lack of skills and maybe iclones limitations.  The skills I am working on and we shall see.  I am getting better but its a process that cannot be rushed, a lot of practice, playing, discovering, tutorials and maybe luck that you discover certain things that work?  As for the product I have no regrets in buying it as I think I would have had to learn many applications to get the same results as I'm getting now and given how hard I have found this process, that was never going to happen.

The discussion is informative as I am barely getting to grips with iclone let alone how other products work.  From what I can see of how iclone has progressed over the years one day it might be possible for one person to produce something realistic in a reasonable time frame.  For instance iclone 7 seems to be a big improvement over iclone 6 in terms of final quality.  There is also the question of improvements in graphics cards, I think a war is now starting between nVidia , Radeon and Intel so even though I don't have much time for war something real good might pop out of it.

Mr Delema, I like the fact you posted your work as I want to see what others are doing.  It is limited as I know you are aware but after 4 hours a start.  I will be interested to see how it turns out.

Alan M, your knowledge of the industry is rather informative, I think I actually bought iClone partly because I saw you advertising a beginners iclone course in which you said nothing compares with its ease of use, or something like that.  I bought the course and have worked through half of it.  Very detailed, very useful, I hate courses and that sort of learning but I have realised it has to be done so I will likely do the rest.

Slightly off topic so back to business.  I have rarely seen anything in iclone that is photo realistic, not  a full production anyway but I have had glimpses of it, maybe a scene in something.  Can anyone point me in the direction of something as I would like to know what I am working towards / what is possibel or will continue to fumble along slightly in the dark.

In the spirit of sharing her is what I have manged

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfP2FARQ4uc

I think the TV studio at the beginning and the end shows some promise in terms of realism.  The curves were made in Blender as the basic shapes in iclone were not suitable, it took me months.  As for the rest some of the cartoony stuff works well and the animation is a start but needs a lot of work, that's what I am taking seriously now.  I also discovered a LUT which I applied generously which improved the colour enormously making it not so faded.  The nature scenes are OK but have a false feel which is most evident in the first one.  I could go on but I am sure others will see the deficiencies but overall I am amazed at the end result.  Whether or not I can improve it we shall see, I think the answer is alone its a no no but hey, I think I am beginning to have fun so who cares.

@Andrew .... your last comment >>>> ... I think the answer is alone its a no no but hey, I think I am beginning to have fun so who cares.... <<<<
Do you mean 'creating alone'?

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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

Do you guys honestly think that a team of iClone experienced users could create something like Adam in a few months, using the IC renderer?

Because I don't, but I would like to see evidence that support the opposite (maybe a video showcasing the boundaries of IC or something like that).

I also can't accept that Adam looks like this because of lighting. In IC7 we have the ability to create infinite lights. Why hasn't anyone come even close to re-creating unity renders? Are all Unity users pros and we are the noobs?

I also don't think it's about skill. I believe that most of us here (and first of all myself) need to learn very much to be called "good", and we need to stop thinking that throwing things into the viewport will create a quality render.
But even if we learn shot framing, tempo, cinematography etc, and even if we improve our technical skills, the renders will still look cartooney. Maybe the viewer will be content with what he saw, and maybe he will be entertained, but they certainly won't say that the resulting images were realistic. (When I say realistic I mean Unity realistic, not photo-realistic like Arnold or VRay, let's not get carried away).

IC native renderer has been the same since IC(don't know which, but old). Only minor improvements have been made. Isn't it time to be upgraded? Or at least choose another renderer and not iRay which frightens me because it will probably need around 10 minutes for each frame, and this will make it a redundant feature for those of us who want to make films.

Let me explain what I am talking about.



This is the video of Kevin.S (AnimateMyArt on Youtube) which is one of the greatest videos that showcase the power of IC. Even though the results are incredible (and for sure very far from what I can achieve), they are still not realistic. Look below for a comparison between some still shots from IC (4k) and the CC3 WIP 2 video, which talks about game engines.










You understand IMMEDIATELY which one is IC and which one is Unity. I don't see the lighting as a difference. I see the meshes being illustrated and depicted differently. Unity's renderer is more coherent, more structured. Iclone is more cartooney.

To Kevin: My friend if you are seeing this, I am sorry to be using your video like this and if you have a problem I will remove my post altogether. It's just that your video is hands down the best one I have seen in terms of quality and I would like to showcase that the tools put limits to us, and it's not just a matter of skill (which you have plenty). Thank you.


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My YouTube Channel
Phoenix  

Andrewlargin
You bought iClone a year ago, hey, for me that's not a bad effort. You made me watch it all and I even smiled a several times.
Some good music too.

Money.....its a gass….take it out in both hands and.....make a stash.   Or whatever the actual words are.
Had me dancing my head anyway


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

@Lamias .... you're right ..... I can see what you're saying - at the end of the day the 'Render Engine' will place the work in a distinctive "camp".....
No matter what skill level (though skill IS still important) - but none-the-less, the final 'stamp' will be the Render Engine Stamp.
Which is why I'm *hoping like crazy* iRay will prove workable - I know - yes - it'll 'take forever' to render but if you're putting months of work into a project anyway - what's another couple of weeks? ....

So Lamias --- how would you *rate* iRay (forgetting it's 'speed') - how would you rate it's 'Quality'?.....


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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, skill is extremely important, I can't stress that enough. But for me, it's not just a matter of skill. I wish it was, because getting better would depend only on myself and not on external factors.

I haven't evaluated personally iRay yet, because I am too afraid. Many users reported problems when they upgraded and I preferred not to spoil a project I have been working on for 3 months. Also I don't have the time currently.

From what I have seen though, I would say that the quality is probably good enough for me. What holds me back though is the relation between quality and render times. If it needs 10 minutes for a frame, I don't know if I will use it at all (and I mean a full working project with many characters, props, polygons, animation data, GI, cameras, PBR, HDRI etc).

But now that I think of it, what you said about those couple extra weeks seems like a correct statement to me. I may reconsider, although I hope with all my heart that the render times are not through the roof.


___________________________________________________________________

My YouTube Channel
Phoenix  

Me too Lamias .... to date I've found that acceptable 1080p 'frames' can be had for 45 seconds (150 iterations - no de-noising - with a GTX-1070).
But that's a very simple 'one avatar' - no extra sets or lights (which I'm guessing will multiply out to X4 or X8 that).
So my 'guesstimate' - on the 'favorable' side is 20 frames per hour.


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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

We do not have an Iray plug-in for iClone yet, so that would explain the lack of Iray "animations" here.

Sometime in 4Q18 we should have that capability.  (Remember everyone, the 4th Quarter runs all the way to December 31.)





Not to defend Indigo, but the "long export time" was not Indigo's fault.

I have often (and harshly) criticized Reallusion for their inefficient multi-frame export process.  iClone writes out each and every frame in its entirety, as if it was a stand-alone render.  That takes a long time and eats up a lot of disk space.  It is entirely possible to write the non-changing objects and textures one time, and simply reference them over and over again.  So for a city scene, you should not export the mesh and textures for the street, the parked cars, the signs, the buildings, and the fire hydrant 1,800 times for a 1-minute animation. But that is exactly what the iClone/Indigo plug-in does.




A COMMENT REGARDING THE IRAY PLUG-IN:

My assessment so far with the Iray plug-in in CC3 is that the "material mapping" from CC3 to Iray is excellent.  There are a few minor improvements that could be made, but it is vastly superior to what I saw in Indigo.  What you see in iClone is a good representation of what you will see in Iray, and with the Preview capability, you can have pretty good confidence that you will like your "final render."

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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

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Anyone who says they would not wait as long as 15 minutes for a render is not living in the real World when it comes to complex off-line rendering.  All you have to do is ask a few architectural visualisers how long they wait for their lovely still images of living rooms etc and I think you will find they will typically let those renders run all night to create just one high-res frame.  
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RAG DOLL COLLISION ANIMATIONS FOR ICLONE 8 & 7
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Ghost Origins

My latest Feature length film created with Iclone.

My IMDB listing
Anabran Abdhul Quarnain - IMDb