Hi Animagic.

I agree that iClone needs some huge improvement to make animations easy and fun for people. I also want to really make movies and films with Reallusion software, after all, many good things to say about it!

placing the feet for footsteps sound like a great idea from 3D Studio Max, hope it will be implemented something similar in iClone

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Best regards
Albin
(AlbinosGambit)

Hey Albin,

No worries with the job and heart thing, all of that is behind me now. I’m gainfully employed and after I give my employer 55 hrs, then the rest of the week is mine. 

I might have some extra time this weekend to post a test video with iPhone and Live Face results. 

I haven’t experimented with the Xbox Kinect. It will be interesting to hear what you discover with it.  I know the mocap suit is on the spendy side. I was considering using Motion Library from Rokoko but their app, which is integrated into Unity, seems to have some issues. It seems like it could be an inexpensive way to get studio mocap, all recorded with the expensive mocap suits and actors, into the project(s).

Yes, I’ve been following the ‘walking down and up stairs’. It is an interesting topic and nice to see different strategies to solve the problem. I have not tried to tackle that before but I was thinking maybe I would find some time and experiment. My solution would be different because I’m using a game engine.

It sounds like we have similar goals. You want to make a Toy Story movie and I want to make feature length animated movies. The only way that I see this happening is by finding ways to monetize along the way, get a few passive income streams so I can lose the full-time job, and then gradually build a studio. One must be willing to play the long game. 

Regarding Unreal, I went over there and put in a few hours with it. The plugin, Live Link, is free now. My experience with it was bad. It crashed the engine every time I tried to use it. They are supposed to be doing an update in a few months. Megascans was the other reason why I seriously considered going to Unreal. But hey, what can I say, I like Unity.

I will be starting a blog soon. You are welcome to make a guest post if you like. I think it would be particularly interesting if you wrote something about the stairs problem and what solution you went with in the end. I think it was Mike Kelley that talked about just animating the parts you need for your shots. I am paraphrasing but it was something to that effect. It took me awhile to discover that. In the beginning I was thinking the entire story would be one full, flawless, animation. LOL, not too realistic.

Hi Dan.

Nice to hear back from you!

A test video of iPhone and Faceware would be indeed interesting to see. So, you obviously need an iPhone 10 or higher, but what else? Total cost for all the other stuff except the iPhone? 

In time I will try out the Xbox Kinect Mocap and I can let you know and make a demo video of some animation. I really hope this could be an additional asset for my animations to help my life to become easier.

When you mention Rokoko Motion Library, you mean to just buy ready motions from their website below for usage in Unity only, or are those motions also possible to use in iClone?

https://www.motionlibrary.com/

The "walking down and up stairs"  forum thread spiked many interesting ideas, tips, tricks from all over the place. I didn't expect this kind of response and discussion at all, but glad to see so many people participating to try help one another:-) You say your solution would be different because you use Unity. What do you mean by that? You don't use iClone at all, you make animations in Unity and import into iClone again or?

Unreal got my attention when I discovered Quixel Megascans as well, I have spent some time there but not enough to really know if that's the way to go. Same thing with Unity as well, and attended some basic courses with Udemy, just to see which software would be the right fit. But for now, I am focused on using only iClone since I already invested the money, I want to learn it inside and out before I move on to trying other software. I may combine the learning though:-)

Nice to hear we have similar goals with the animation! If one is going to be serious about making an animation film, then sacrifices have to be made somewhere, that's for sure. So getting some passive income sounds nice to lose a full-time job. What kind of passive income do you have in mind? For me, it would be to continue to make digital chess courses, because this is one of my many big passions in life, and Chess I know! So, spend a month or 2 to make a steady income for a year making several chess courses is my plan. Then I can spend some money to invest in the equipment I need and spend spare time on animation learning. I hope ha ha... Or I have to combine everything, and spend sleepless nights and sacrifice other things to achieve my dreams. One way or the other I am going to make it! 

The plugin, Live Link is free? For iClone?

Starting a blog sounds interesting! About animation right? I would gladly make some post on it for sure, but I have to warn you I am not sure I will manage to animate the walking down or up the stairs. I do not have enough skin in the game yet, but I will definitively do my best to learn everything I can in the shortest amount of time! You can say I have maybe spent maybe 15-25 hours on this software, but only watching tutorials, learning from forums, but not made any animations yet, just dabbling and testing from the basic tutorials and some webinars. Just to get the feel of the UI and how the software works, the basic stuff. If I feel I have come far enough and have built up enough knowledge and confidence, I would love to write a piece of my story in your blog or better yet make a video.

True that Mike Kelley that talked about just animating the parts you need for your shots , and it hit me like a streak of lightning! It is so true what he said, for the most part, you really don't need to see full animations and mostly people fake it if you can't make, not because they can't do it though. The most important is to get your story told in some way or another.

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Best regards
Albin
(AlbinosGambit)

AlbinosGambit

A test video of iPhone and Faceware would be…

@danmiller (4/2/2020)

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Hi.

plus LIVE FACE Profile for Motion LIVE Plugin
What is that? Is that also for iClone?

Rokoko ML is a Unity plugin
I see, so the plugin is free but how and where do you buy the motions, they say they are the largest mocap library, I couldn't see any motions for purchase.
Import their animations into iClone and then back to unity? Then you will need a 3DXchange pipeline or else it will not allow exporting right?

By the way, the mixamo descend stairs motion is not working, as discussed in our topic at the forums animating and walking down the stairs. The ascend motion work, but needs further editing because of the stairs in the loft scene are not geometrically correct made.

Yes, me too, just starting out and dabbling a bit with the software. So not done any real animations. Got some good advice though from a potential teacher that do private lessons in iClone Benjamin Tuttle. He told me that the way he learned and I quote:

"Learning from scratch, basically when I started with version four, all I did was basically mess around and make something. I took advice from a filmmaker who created a giant post detailing everything wrong with it and how to correct it. I applied what he said to a project which took six months to make. I looked at what common errors people make when it comes to iClone productions. For example, most of them at the time never used an idle animation or they never filmed from the waist up when a character was walking, so you saw the feet slide. There is always continuous improvement with each project, so that is something to consider."

So, I will be taking his advice, several people have told me similar things, so I believe this is the way to go. I am now going to start focusing on-camera work, making an animation with 3 different camera angles of a person walking on a road, with buildings on both sides.

Making a blog that documents your progress is a good idea! I did the same thing when I became serious about chess, but the problem was that it also takes too much time to write and update the content. So, I made a more basic excel sheet with date, time spent, what I did, What I learned, goals, etc, by doing it this way I had more time to the actual training and I succeeded and beat a very strong player in The Nordic Chess Champion Ship with the best performance ever in my life. I am rated 1719, and I beat a player with 2300 FIDE Rating!

I would gladly be a part of your blog together we can produce some content and follow our progress together. But if you are a noob as well, maybe we could be work buddies? I think the best way is to actually make video content for the blog as well to actually show people in practice how we solved and learned the software, much easier for people to see and also it's more interesting than just writing a post.-)

The unreal live link is not free it costs 990USD if that's what you mean? 

So, you are a LOTR fan? You actually contacted Peter Jackson to ask for permission to write a continued story of Silmarillion? Yes, you are right about learning how to tell a story is maybe also a very hard part, I am not sure I am any good at it but I have been told before I have a good imagination. I know I have seen some tools to help you come up with ideas in a video on YouTube somewhere, yes here is the link: 

, fast forward to 4.17 then he talks about this:-) He uses a word generator to come up with ideas to get your mind started!
Besides being a LOTR fan I have always been a huge Star Wars fan as well, I remember I was amazed when I first saw the original movie from 1977. I remember I borrowed a copy on VHS from an older friend of the family and I watched several hundred times! Those were the days. So regards to making animation films, I love the genre of Fantasy, Science Fiction and Animated 3D Cartoon Movies like Toy Story, etc. you?

By the way, I set up my Kinect V2 to my PC, downloaded the Kinect plugin from Reallusion and tested it out. I have to say I am not at all impressed. Yes, it does basic body animations, but no fingers or facial, and the animation itself is almost worthless. to shaky and sketchy. I think it's unethical to sell a plugin that so outdated and charge 99 USD for something that's not usable.

I was told their plugin has not been updated at all since its release, that's a shame, because I have done some research, and the Kinect Camera could actually be used for capturing Facial, fingers and full-body animations! Many software choices for this, but I have to test them out one by one to see which is the best and also the price tag.

Software such as:

iPi Mocap Studio

Brekel Kinect Pro

Cinema Suite

And you can also set upyour own mocap studio with Blender, save and export it as .obj or fbx fromBlender to use with iClone.

Software and Resources:

• Kinect SDK: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/downl...

• Delicode's NI Mate& Add-on: https://ni-mate.com/

• Remington's NI MateRig: https://remington.pro/resources/asset...

I am going to try now and see if I also can join the challenge of walking down the stairs!

Have a great weekend my friend.

Take care.
Albin

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Best regards
Albin
(AlbinosGambit)

@AlbinGambit

Hi.

plus LIVE FACE Profile for Motion LIVE Plugin

What is that? Is that also for iClone?

Hey Albin,

Regarding LIVE FACE Profile for Motion LIVE Plugin. CLICK HERE

Rokoko ML is a Unity plugin. So, you only see the animations when using it within Unity. The concept is to use the animations directly in Unity, but that workflow doesn’t work when using iClone for animating. To get around that would be to bring their animations into iClone 7, blend with other animations, then back to Unity. To this point all I’ve done is clarify the licensing to make sure it was fine with them to do it. I haven’t tried it so I can’t answer your question too well on the exact process. I would have to reference RL videos to see just how to do it. Likely it would be going through 3DXchange.

Yes, I’m aware of the problem with the Mixamo descend stairs animation. However, my mind isn’t working the problem from the point of forward kinematics. I’m giving thought to using any stairs and any step size. So, if you put a character on stairs to descend and ascend, then replace the stairs with completely different step sizes and length so the rise and run are completely different, will the character still be able to negotiate the stairs? The answer would seem to be of course not. But, maybe it is possible through scripting. I have a C# programmer looking into it for me. The stairs is a great question and I’m glad you brought it up. It’s sort of a new one for game engine users too because for games you would likely use a ramp and simplify the entire thing. Gamers just want to get up those stairs and shoot some more stuff. For film, I can see how this would be important.

Yep, I agree with project-based learning. Gain a few fundamentals in the beginning but then try to make something. The camera work should be fun. I would be interested to know how that goes for you. At some point I will be getting into Cinemachine which is just virtual cameras. I figured I would hold off on that until after the filmmaking master classes so I have a better idea of what I’m trying to achieve.

Yes, blogs do take a lot of time. And running the blog will lengthen my overall learning process because I could be just diving into my own projects and not bother with it. However, it is a good way to help others while monetizing along the way. I appreciate your offer to partner on the blog, but I would prefer to remain solo on that. I am always happy to accept guest posts from anyone interested in posting something within animated filmmaking. And I’m always up for sharing ideas along the way and helping each other out.

It sounds like they are charging again for the Unreal LiveLink. For awhile it was free so I jumped on that one. That was most of the reason I tried out Unreal. Unfortunately, it just crashed the engine all the time.

Yes, I am a LOTR fan for sure. I started reading the books when I was around 12 or so. After reading the trilogy several times I also tackled the Silmarillion but only got halfway through. No, I didn’t contact Peter, but I did contact Middle Earth Enterprises which was founded by Tolkien’s family. 

Thanks for the word generator; I bookmarked it. I’ve never been a big Star Wars fan myself but I’m with you on the genres that you mentioned. I do like Star Wars but I prefer Star Trek.

Sorry to hear you got bad results with the Kinect. That could have been a good low-cost solution. Yeah, the plugin should be free rather than $90.

Ok, best of luck with your stairs challenge. I started a project this weekend to do a 30 second animated video with Unity. I ran into a problem already where the RL script does not support Unity 2019.3, but my assets for the project require 2019.3. I’m finding this to be another issue with iClone in the pipeline; I must wait on RL to update their scripts. They seem to be slow at this. Have a good weekend.

Hey Dan.

So you mean this:

iPhone ( LIVE FACE )

Connect iPhone with Motion LIVE  Bonus: LIVE FACE Profile for Cartoon Animator's Motion LIVE 2D

I really can't understand that the Unreal Live Link plugin was free at some point?? Really? Sorry I missed that one:-)

Regards to Rokoko Plugin for Unity, it seems very good if you are allowed to add motion in iClone and to send it back to Unity and use it there. Let me know if this is 100% allowed. It seems to me that if you bring motions from the Rokoko library to iClone, add motions from inside iClone, then you will need 3DXchange to be allowed to export it out again for usage for Unity, no?

Do you have a close friend that knows C#? I used to work with that software ages ago and knew how to program, but I am not sure I remember much from 20+ years ago ha ha! Its always nice to have some connections and friend who knows other fields that may help you out!

Cinemachine looks great, a good intro is here:



Film making masterclasses you say? What course are you attending?

I will let you know how my camera project will go and make a video of the result:-)

Yes, I think the word generator was a good idea to help out with brainstorming some ideas! You are most welcome:-)

Let me know when you start your blog and I am glad to make some post if it can help out in any way. Also, its always good to learn from one another. You may know something I don't and vice versa.

I have to get started working on my projects with camera and stairs, thanks for wishing me good luck, I think I will need it ha ha:-)

Let's keep in touch, nice to get to know you Dan 

Best regards
Albin

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WIN 10, COOLERMASTER MASTERCASE 500H, MSI GAMING PRO CARBON X470 RGB, AMD Ryzen 7 2700X CPU, MSI GeForce GTX 1650 GAMING X - 4GB GDDR5 RAM GPU, Corsair Vengeance RGB PRO DDR4 3200MHz 16GB RAM, SSD M.2 Corsair Force Series MP510 480 GB, SEAGATE BARRACUDA 3.5 HDD 4 TB.

Best regards
Albin
(AlbinosGambit)

@AlbinosGambit

Hey Albin,

Yes, that looks like the correct link to iPhone (Live Face).

Yep, the Unreal Live Link was free but I think the deal was you had to have purchased a minimum amount, or something like that.

Yes, Rokoko animations are 100% allowed by Rokoko licensing.At least the way I’m using it, meaning it is edited in iClone 7 and finds itsway back to Unity. It is intended for use in Unity so Unity should be at the end of the pipeline. If you are planning to use a Unity plugin to get it and then use in your iClone 7 projects, then you would want to inquire before doing so.

I don’t have any C# friends. Just hired someone on Fiverr to do the work. However, he found the task to be too difficult and bowed out. I inquired with another developer and waiting to hear back from him. I’m trying to get a script where you can use any stairs and you can adjust the speed within the editor. This would be helpful.

Yeah, Cinemachine is pretty cool. I see you found Brackey’s video, he does a nice job teaching.

Yes, at masterclass.com. I haven’t done much with it yet,too many other things to do. But I will start down that path soon. Basically learning from people like Ron Howard, Jody Foster, etc. I don’t think it will answer all of my questions but it could be interesting to gain insight and have a better idea of what I’m trying to achieve. I would think that traditional filmmaking fundamentals can be applied with animated filmmaking.

Cool, yeah, I look forward to seeing a video with the camerawork. I made a video for you this evening. You wanted a video with the iPhone X facial mocap from a YouTube video. So, the YouTube video was playing full screen on one monitor and the iPhone was capturing the person speaking in the video. It was something like 27,000 frames. I forgot to trim off the end. The render time was approximately 15 minutes. If you were doing this for production it would take longer to prepare because you would need to export in png sequence, import into something like Da Vinci resolve, add the audio, and then export. Also the audio that I ripped from the YouTube video was compressed so I basically compressed twice; something you really shouldn’t do. But for testing it worked fine.

But also for production, you would spend quite a bit of time tweaking the facial animations, all I did here was lay the track down and try to find something close to sync. That’s another thing I don’t quite like with this workflow, no way to sync the audio. When recording your own facial animations, not using the video, then it is typically off by around 4 frames. So, here is a link to the video. What I would really like is if iClone 7 recorded audio from my iPhone (non Viseme track), then with the use of a clapper (or just clap my hands), I could sync with a quality audio track and have the audio synced. Rather than trying to figure out where it is.

Sounds good, I will let you know on the blog. I agree, sharing ideas and learning can help out for sure. Part of my motivation for doing the blog and getting things out there as I learn, is because I find the process confusing. I came from an aviation background and the training path is well documented. If you want to hold a specific certificate or rating, then everything you need to learn is clear. I think this field needs a bit more of that. Something where new people can see a clear path and understand what they need to learn to ultimately become an animated filmmaker.

Sounds good Albin, you can DM anytime as well.

New to this Reallusion software (but been on computer graphics for 36 years...) and I'm having a problem getting LIVE Face to connect with iClone. It's a super easy process, except it's not working for me. Just bought all the software this month, and I'm using an iPhone 11 ProMax PC is definately on the wifi here at home... Hell, I was able to download all the software easily, but after I type in the modem address, and try a multitude of last numbers, the Live Face radial buttin in iClone never clicks on. Closes I've got it the occasional "No Connect". I'm new to this, and have watched all the vids, so I'm assunig I'm missing something simple. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks! - KK

Screenshots might be helpful here.

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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