So We're new to CC3/IClone7, trying to figure out the best pipeline to create a characted in CC3, export an FBX with merged materials, then open it in IClone to apply mixamo or other animations , then export as allembic with cloth sim.  
After I've exported the fbx from CC3 with merged materials, I bring it into 3d exchange. It shows up as a prop. I'm guessing I then have to convert to non standard (wondering if this can just be seen as standard some how? since it's exported directly from CC3)  Next I assume I have to retarget the joints. Is there any predefined mapping? Since it's directly from CC3, I assume there should be an existing profile. After that's done I'm hoping I can just send to IClone and use existing animations, as well as bring in mixamo animations via 3Dexchange? Also make sure we are able to turn on cloth sim for any hair, dresses, etc. 
Thanks!
-Erik

So far I've been able to export a merged material fbx from CC3, bring it into 3D exchange (comes in as prop) I remap bones to convert to non standard skeleton (seems like this shouldn't need to be a step since it's from CC). If I animate an iclone character, i can replace that character with my 3dexchange character and it takes on the animation that was on that character (though i don't think I can add any more animation in iclone) Also it comes in as one mesh, so I can't apply cloth sim to hair or any clothing,even though I can see all the meshes in 3Dexchange and I can assign hair as softbody in 3D exchange. 

I'm not sure why this is your workflow, but I don't quite understand what your goal is.

In general, you want to keep the character as an iAvatar as long as possible.  In this way you can continue to edit the character correctly out of iClone.  So in CC3 you just "Export Character to iClone" (which leaves it as an avatar) and work with it there.  You can still bring it back to CC3, add hair, clothes, make adjustments, etc, and then export it back to iClone (as long as the avatar is selected still in iClone it will be "replaced" and not added as another character).  Then when you are FINALLY done with it you can bring it back one more time in CC3 and export as FBX (you can even export as Alembic from iClone as long as you own the export license for all the clothes and/or get them without DRM, like from Daz).

It seems to me your problem is somehow wanting to break this chain -- and as long as you don't, 3dXChange never comes into the picture.

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Mike "ex-genius" Kelley

Our end goal was to create animated crowds in Houdini, and we were trying to find best way to consolidate down our textures to a texture set per item. All skin/eyes/mouth etc as one texture in one uv space. each hair as one set of textures, each item of clothing as it's own (which seems to be default when it comes to clothes anyway) It's pretty straight forward if we just do fbx for animation. But we thought it would be cool to have hair sim on some of the long haired characters, which meant exporting alembic. So trying to find best to export alembic and use a merged material exported character. It seems the best way I can think of for that is to export alembic on standard CC/iClone character, then copy uvs from merged material body and hair on to the imported alembic in Maya. Due to time constraints and being new to iClone, I ended up just creating our characters with CC3 and applying pre existing crowd animations in Maya with Maya's Time Editor. No hair sim this time around. 
But this is our first week with CC and iClone so I'm sure there more efficient ways. When we are done aren't pressed for time I'll dig deeper into iClone and revisit/rebuild our pipeline for this particular task. 
Thanks. I'm sure I'll have some more questions soon