Just seeking opinions though  I will get the trial if a few fundamentals can be answered by users with experience.

1] Is Iclone a good "movie making Tool" what makes it so. I have no interest in exporting to game or other 3d applications for rendering
2] Why do Iclone and Character Creator need separate versions of Iray - as seen in the shop.
3] How good /easy to get realistic lipsinc results.
4] Is it correct CC3 can import Daz/Poser  characters directly but you still need 3D Exchange for assets ?
5] How easy to manipulate Cameras and render out scenes.
6] Is it a good lighting system with easy to apply effects.
7] Is the particle system robust - ie plenty of features for creating particles.
8] ]Any liquid simulations ? ie flowing  water, ocean waves etc.
9] Learning curve - is it reasonable ? 
Many more questions but better  stop here

ok , i am using iclone since 5.5 , participate from iclone 7 beta and i trying to use it since now. so i believe i can help so lets go

1 - iclone is the best character animation tool in market actual in my opnion for the price, you can get the same results as Maya for a fraction of price ( i am a autodesk user ) in iclone you have director tools for "movie making" to control and animate physical cams. with correct lens apertures. this make it powerfull for telling stories, puttin maya - 3dsmax to eat dust. in this area. for character animation is a beast tool to use with motion capture. using xsens or perception neuron and edit /clean and correct mocaps on iclone is a breezee. better than autodesk motionbuilder ( my opnion ) 
2 - iray is a external plug in integrated to iclone. but for me.. ( i am come from . octane /iray/mental ray. today i undestand i can get the same results with vxgi , you just want to know what you doing. yes iclone vxgi is better than unreal lightmass and unity progressive gi ( i can show it to you if you as i am a unity user ) and you can get similar results from iray with vxgi , but its not easy.
3 - i getting nice results with faceware for iclone ,its most afordable price and almost same power than the full version , for me today is the best way to make 
facial animations on iclone. 
4- today you only need 3dxchange for import assets. custom characters made from scratch. and animated props. all export can be made from iclone or cc3
5 - its easy and powerfull like i said in point one , its make other 3dcc aplications like 3dmax and maya or c4d eating dust. (c4d not much it have a nice camera
director ) , 
6 - you dont need iray to get "realistic results" but the barrier to get "realistic results in iclone is the poor PBR materials but with careffull  you can get it, the most
problematic thing is characters skin in my opnion. and answer your question , no , is not easy get good results with iclone , you need research and study it. now after 1 year + using iclone since beta i start getting results i have pride. and no, the light system its not the better you can find today.
7- is popcorn fx man , make a youtube search the particles are amazing.( its dont work with iray yet ) 
8 - you just have water asset and its limitated no liquid simulations just a plane with animated textures. me and some ppl from comunity asking for a alembic import for fluids simulation since iclone 7 beta. 
9 -  more easy than learn a game engine. or a 3d dcc tool like 3dmax maya c4d etc. its fun use iclone. 
i hope it can be helpfull. 
 

Most of your questions involve answers that are subjective.  It's like saying "Is a Honda a good make of car?"  Might be, might not be, just depends on what you want to use it for and your own style.

I, for example, would NEVER render with Iray.  And for me, character animation is the most important thing in the world.  There is nothing better on the planet than iClone for that.  If you buy Popcorn FX it has great particles, but no water to speak of (you can fake it a bit). The native renderer, the great lighting, the ease of camera movements, for me it's a perfect system.  I would never go outside the iClone universe for anything.

But for others?  Not so much (including the previous Wildstar, who is a completely different animation guy).  Who knows if it will be right for you?  Try the demo, but better than that, look at the samples produced by others.  That's the proof of the pudding.

(Just to give you a clue, though, I made this in less than a few hours AND rendered it in a few hours -- so perhaps a total of four.  Now I did use Anima 3 for the people.   And if you follow the link to my YouTube channel you'll see lots of lip sync stuff -- I won't dupe it here.  But I use the iPhone X and Live Face with iClone.  Hell, I'll also put a link to one of my animations done this way, although it took a bit longer to create and render -- let's say a total of a day or two):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nV26q5ghGkk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxHgPdrvFMQ&t=31s

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Alienware Aurora R12, Win 10, i9-119000KF, 3.5GHz CPU, 128GB RAM, RTX 3090 (24GB), Samsung 960 Pro 4TB M-2 SSD, TB+ Disk space
Mike "ex-genius" Kelley

Wildstar gave you already some useful answers.

Just briefly about Iray: the store is confusing, there is only one plugin which is shared between iClone and CC, so only one plugin to buy. I like working with Iray, but the native iClone renderer can also give good results if you spend time with it.

I have been using iClone for movie-making since 2010 and every version has brought improvements. I like it a lot, but as with everything you have to give yourself time to learn the application.

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I will not contradict what the previous people said.  All were excellent points.  The only thing that's really missing from your list is "water simulation," as Wildstar pointed out.  If you want to model a waterfall or a flood going around buildings, you'll need to get creative.  There are ways to work around it, but the better results you want, the more work it will be.  But there is a "water plane" as already mentioned.  It won't let you go surfing, but is great for a lake and stuff like that.  Other than that limitation, iClone will do a great job for you.

I do not have any reasonable experience with other animation applications, so I cannot compare iClone to others.

Leaning curve?  That's up to you.  I will say, it never ends.  In addition to animation, there is quality lighting, camera placement, lens selection, editing, character creation, wardrobe, hair, sets and props, story, voice acting, sound effects, music... and then you get into the technology of modeling, textures, and the nuances of how they make things better and easier, or more difficult.  You don't need it all on day one, but there is always something new to learn or a skill to hone.  That's what makes it a great hobby for me.

Lastly, it's a fantastic community.  Very noob friendly.  We were all beginners once upon a time, and have not forgotten it.

What I can say, is my greatest limitation is... Me.  Not iClone.  It's me.

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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

Well done Wildstar.

Addition:

IC7 is fun and powerful, but IC7 also had a limit on rendering.
VGXI not a god, some stuff like mirror, volume light, sss or water, IC7 can't achieve now.( maybe in future with custom shader on open python)
Also the precision work like hair/cloth physic is limitation.
Soft-body totally impossible in IC7.

Please consider IC7 as a pipeline work to other 3D program, it will bring IC7 life again.

Hi Mybiz  ....
I'm a 'noob' myself (been here 12 months) - and still learning for sure (and  s-l-o-w-l-y --- yeah, it's just me ).
But I do agree with Dennis when he says that the learning curve never ends - and that's partly because so much is being 'added' to iClone all the time. But if you can *keep up* with this and 'assimilate' it, it's undoubtedly a great software. And Dennis made a very relevant remark, namely, 'we were all beginners once upon a time, and have not forgotten it'. I think that is what makes this an outstanding forum - it's not driven by 'egos' (not by enlarge), and that makes for a nice atmosphere where (and I'm still learning this), - where we can have 'no fear' in admitting our limitations or shortcomings, and call out for help when needed, - other forum members will be there for us .... it's great in that regard. And as Dennis also implied, it's sort of a matter of 'going with' what iClone can do - sure it's not 'perfect' - but if you work within it - (or go with it) - you can realize great results ....




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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

Yeah, there are many things told by everyone, as it was said, it depends on you, what do you like or dislike. One thing is : I think that you couldn't find another animation software "fast" and with affordable price like Iclone. Blender is free but learning Iclone and learning Blender mmmhhh... huge difference in my opinion. Iray is a very good tools for rendering with his "limitations" (rendering time, no particles, no water, no fog...) but in a difference with other users, I can no more render without iray, excepted when I need to use the "limitations" elements I've told about. So...You have to test it yourself and juge if it 's ok or not for you


     

Flat mirrors are not a VXGI feature or problem this is not the objective of the tech, is a GI feature
like Unity - progressive lightmapper dont generate reflections like mirrors. as along with unity realtime cache gi. GI is not the
same as "MIrrors" . perfect flat reflections(mirrors), are generated in game engines using a screen space effect called "screen space reflections" and its not perfect on unity and unreall.  so say vxgi is bad cause its dont generate "mirrors" show how much you dont know what you talking about. same goes to volumetric lights ( a shader trick on game engines ) SSS -FAKE ( is another shader trick ) about sofcloth simulations i want to remember you iclone and unity at low level are using the same technology. is Nvidia gameworks. so you wrong about cloths too. i make tests with unity cloth and iclone cloth and looks at same for me.the advange to make it on unity is for dont need to export a alembic from iclone for that. 
dont blame VXGI for iclone limitations on screen space effects. VXGI is better than all lightmapp solutions . and the game comunity knows that .  

I would just like to point out that hyper-realism is not the only acceptable look for animation. Things would be very boring otherwise. 

Whichever way you choose to go, iClone is a good start. I would advise to give yourself time to learn the application well before worrying too much about the "look".

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