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

I use Blender for some render ..although truth be known I am slowly phasing out iclone.  I was hanging on to see what CC3 would add but alas nope not for me either.   I love iclone and think its fun for many things, but I have kinda outgrown it or it didnt keep up with my direction or both or whatever.   

But with the introduction of eveee; blender will probablly be a good option for external render even if you are using iclone for the setup.    Octane was something else I have used but stopped using that when Iclone7 came out.   Now as time moves forward again I find myself moving to Blender for everything.   

(anyhow that is my "other" explanation)

Oh and I never bothered with Alembic but I dont spend a lot of time worrying about the most efficient way.   In my case if it works then that's great I dont try to "fix what aint broke" when it comes to that.  I find I end up spending more time looking for these shortcuts then if i just plodded ahead using the method that I found that works for me.  




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"You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself in any direction you choose. You're on your own, and you know what you know. And you are the guy who'll decide where to go."
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     Dr. Seuss

A couple of corrections - first, Alembic has nothing to do with Autodesk, it's an open source format developed by Sony and Lucasfilm.  It's basically a "point cache" file of the animated vertices in your geometry to make an efficient animated model for lighting, simulation effects, rendering and so on - when you create an Alembic file you are basically committing to a 'final' animated character, as you can no longer 'tweak' the animation or geometry. (well, a little... timing for eg.).

Every animation studio is pretty much guaranteed to have a completely different 'pipeline' and will use a combination of 'bitmap textures' and 'procedural textures' as well as different bitmap formats 'TIFF or EXR etc." - so the 'norm' is to write a script to carry over any texture elements deemed necessary for their pipeline or task.  For example, if the character is dancing and "singing in the rain" the FX dept. won't bother with textures at all and just use the ABC model as a bounce/deflector for particles.  If the model is used by the lighting department they would want all the passes - diffuse, ambient occ, bumps, displacement etc.  Pro studios actually use Open EXR files for textures because they can embed ALL the different passes into one file - which requires a complex 'breakout' in order to represent all the channels in the correct place.  So, instead of trying to guess what every studio or 3D software package 'might' use it's more efficient to transfer the model without textures at all - leaving the decision of 'where textures go' to a studio's unique pipeline.

Second correction, you don't have to export an FBX model as a 'workaround' to get the necessary texture maps... the Alembic export in iClone does export all the textures (and a .INI file listing them), so a clever coder could easily write an IMPORT routine for their 3D package of choice.  I'm sure as iClone gains in popularity some bright spark will create, for instance, a Blender Add-On.  I've only just started using Blender for rendering, and based on what I've seen with importing to game engines... the task is no more difficult or time consuming.

Well, I'm installing Unreal now. I do understand there is still work involved, but for me it was the Nvidia Gameworks, especially the water sim, that determined it for me. Now just to learn.

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My system: i7 3770 Gtx1060 6GB

Good choice.  I mean, you can do each and try yourself, you know, but I myself learned UE4 and think the workflow is more fun than Unity.
I like the node based mat setup, the effects, the lighting.  I haven't really ever seen too much good iClone to UE4 stuff, to me the avartars always will look 2nd rate compared to Octane, and now Iray, or even iClone's own native renderer.  But, the backgrounds can look really great.

Here is a UE4 I messed with recently:

I feel 'shackled', as though my 'creativity' has a ball and chain attached, holding me down.
I search for a way to escape - to set myself 'free'.
I watch this (first) video - and my spirits soar! - Yes! this is what I want! .... freedom - creative freedom!
Then I watch the second video - and 'reality' sets in - I'm bought back to earth - so much work - so much time .....
It's easy for me to dream - but - to do? - that's the hard part - so much effort, so much time - maybe if I was young again ....





But hey .... that's only me .... - we're all different - and others might be up to the task!

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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

@Eternityblue

It's a good thing to explore Udk. I use it only to export Props or characters (free or payed) and importing in Iclone.
Those game engine is really not a speed pipeline for a one man band to produce big projetct. 
In this picture on a left it's udk , on the right Iclone. Seriously for me difference are minors. Ok there's no volumetric light or sss
in Iclone. 

Oh! I forgot to mention that texturing in UDk is like this . This is the Torso Crunch material. I can understand that when you understand the nodal
process it could be easy but clearly not fast.....

@sonic7: I think you have to be careful not to become paralyzed as you may get into a situation where you don't create anything at all.

The things I have done over the years have many shortcomings that were often the result of a lack of skills and/or experience on my part.

What I could control was the story, so I made sure that that was satisfactory. Then, each project became a learning experience, where I tried to expand on what I already knew.

The main reason for me to stay within iClone is the amount of additional work, learning, and expense involved to get elaborate scenes into another program. I'm with mtakerkart on that. 

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Yep .....  no more changing my mind ..... I concede defeat ..... I'll fly with little scaled down kites .....

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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