The double character, as vepop suggested, is probably your best bet. Duplicate the character and move its z axis back a couple clicks. Place the stage prop in between the two characters, change sprites to null except hand and arm on the back most character. Should be easier than what I showed.

Jeff




Get my Plugin Manager and TaskNotes plugins for iClone.
Check out EZColors and Other products for CTA/CA. EZColors: the easy way to change Render Styled (RS) colors!
See my CTA Tutorials on the YouTube channel CTAStepByStep

Thanks for those suggestions - the change of camera wont work for what I'm doing, but it's a very good idea I could use in future.  Adding an extra arm/hand could be an alternative though.

Thanks!

Hi,
How about having a different camera viewpoint?
Once prop is placed, camera moves to something else (not showing the prop).

Or
Duplicate the character. Then delete the rest of the body parts except the arm and hand.

My 2-cent.




YouTube Tutorials Here

Hi Jeff - many thanks for that.  I see what you mean about having to re-position each frame, and my example is worse because the prop size means it takes longer for the hands to be clear of it.  I'll have to think about using it smaller.

Here is a quick test of a character prop dropped, turned invisible and then a stage prop turned visible to replace it.
The prop is not replaced until the characters hands are clear of the dropped prop so as to avoid the layering issue.

It's a pain to do because you have to reposition the prop every frame after the prop is "dropped" since as the character moves the prop moves with the character (attached to hand in this case).
You will see a slight wobble to the prop before the stage prop replaces it. I'm sure this can be reduce some with more adjustments to the props rotation.

Jeff



Get my Plugin Manager and TaskNotes plugins for iClone.
Check out EZColors and Other products for CTA/CA. EZColors: the easy way to change Render Styled (RS) colors!
See my CTA Tutorials on the YouTube channel CTAStepByStep

Yes, I understand that suggestion, but it would look crap because it's not possible to place the prop BETWEEN the characters hands, so it either has to go in front of the whole character or behind it.  Either way looks it looks like a very poor piece of animation...

As vepop suggested, you need to make the character prop invisible at the drop and at the same frame make a stage prop visible.

Jeff


Get my Plugin Manager and TaskNotes plugins for iClone.
Check out EZColors and Other products for CTA/CA. EZColors: the easy way to change Render Styled (RS) colors!
See my CTA Tutorials on the YouTube channel CTAStepByStep

Thanks jlittle for that info - I think I understand it a little better now. 

Do you know how I can achieve the effect I'm looking for?  The 'carry' and 'place' motions are part of the Reallusion 'G3 Human Motions - Occupation Animations' pack, so I'm assuming that it must be possible to make this work...

When you add a prop to a character, in composer mode, you are adding it to the characters object.
This means that the prop is actually another part of the character like a hand, arm or a foot which allows you to layer the prop between other parts of the character.
The prop is also linked to some part of the character, just as all parts of the character are linked together.
This also means that the prop will always move with the character. You can't drop or leave it behind anymore than you could a hand, foot or arm.

On the stage, a character is seen as a single layer just as any other object and can be behind or in front of other objects.
This is why other objects can not appear between parts of the characters.
Using the internal layers of the character you can re-arrange the layering of the parts of a character with each other but not external objects.

Jeff





Get my Plugin Manager and TaskNotes plugins for iClone.
Check out EZColors and Other products for CTA/CA. EZColors: the easy way to change Render Styled (RS) colors!
See my CTA Tutorials on the YouTube channel CTAStepByStep

D'oh!
So sorry...  I used the "Latest" view for the forum, and forgot to notice this is a CrazyTalk thread, not iClone.  :blush:

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