Hi everyone,

I’m working on a project that requires me to turn around work on a very quick deadline. I’m currently using iclone for my character animation and rendering, but I’ve run into an issue:

I source most of my locations, clothing, props, etc. from the DAZ store as the Reallusion content store often doesn’t have what I need or is much more expensive. I’ve found that one of the more time consuming tasks with each new project is the preparation and transferring of assets from DAZ to Reallusion – if I can get them working at all. This got me thinking…

What if I could do all of my animating in iclone with stand-in characters, and then when I’m done animating, apply both the body and facial animations on Daz characters in Daz studio itself? That would allow me to bypass the hassles of importing assets and I could essentially use any character and costume – even ones that are difficult to import into iclone.

Would this work? Is there a workflow available to do this? I already own 3DXchange Pipeline if that factors in.

Thanks!

Mirror Valley
*Tales of the Strange and Unusual*
Mirror Valley on Youtube

RAG DOLL COLLISION ANIMATIONS FOR ICLONE 8 & 7
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ghost Origins

My latest Feature length film created with Iclone.

My Sci- Fi Graphic Novel on Amazon: https://a.co/d/9k3cwoY

My IMDB listing
Anabran Abdhul Quarnain - IMDb

Thanks for the reply.



 Sounds like this is the deal breaker right here... is there no way at all to get iClone facial animations out of iClone? Even with third party tools?


Mirror Valley
*Tales of the Strange and Unusual*
Mirror Valley on Youtube

RAG DOLL COLLISION ANIMATIONS FOR ICLONE 8 & 7
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ghost Origins

My latest Feature length film created with Iclone.

My Sci- Fi Graphic Novel on Amazon: https://a.co/d/9k3cwoY

My IMDB listing
Anabran Abdhul Quarnain - IMDb

DAZ FBX import is known to be not working and DAZ is not interesting in fixing it.

You might try to ask at the DAZ forums but you probably get an earful (not as friendly as the RL forum).

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Darn. Thank you both for the replies... not what I wanted to hear, but good to know. I'll definitely ask on the Daz forums, though in my research, it doesn't look promising (in fact, I think I even came across some threads you were participating in AutoDidact!)

I guess that leaves me with a different question: is there any other way of using Daz assets (especially clothing and characters with hair) in the Reallusion ecosystem without having to go through the sometimes painstaking process of using Transform in CC3, then editing meshes, etc? It seems like every clothing piece or outfit I bring in doesn't work very well without lots of tweaking (if it works at all). 

I have a week turnaround for each video I'm making and unfortunately that seems to be the main bottleneck in getting my work done in a timely manner. I've thought about trying to just stick to Reallusion content, but time and again it just doesn't have enough of a selection to suit my needs.

Thanks again.


Mirror Valley
*Tales of the Strange and Unusual*
Mirror Valley on Youtube

Mike Kelley is your man when it comes to advice on using DAZ clothing and such. He always says that using Transformer is easy...:unsure:

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A bit of a work around solution that you might try, I know i'll be doing a lot of this myself. I have many Daz assets in the form of locations and props that are simply easier to deal with in Daz.   Also, setting up lighting is easier to do in Daz in my experience.  No way to use a light as a camera in iClone - that I am aware of.  Surprisingly useful to be able to do that in Daz.

It's often possible to composite a background video of a location - rendered in Daz for example - with character animation rendered in iClone.  Not always possible, but it can work.   Easy enough to do a sphere capture of the scene in Daz to get a global illumination setup for inside of iClone.

I'll be experimenting with variations on this workflow soon. 

Thanks. Mike is great and everything I do know about importing through transformer I've learned from watching his tutorials - unfortunately there's just a certain amount of messing around with meshes, extruding, etc. that often comes with the process.  You can eventually get stuff working most times, but it becomes so time consuming that it just doesn't make sense for the tight deadlines I'm working under.

As an example, the episode I'm working on this week required a monk's robe. Bought one in DAZ no problem. Brought it in to CC using Transformer and the robe is all messed up, the hood doesn't sit right on the character's head, etc... all of these could likely be fixed if I had the time, but unfortunately, I need stuff that I can just apply and move forward with.  The exact same robe applies to characters directly in DAZ? Works great out of the box...


Mirror Valley
*Tales of the Strange and Unusual*
Mirror Valley on Youtube

RAG DOLL COLLISION ANIMATIONS FOR ICLONE 8 & 7
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ghost Origins

My latest Feature length film created with Iclone.

My Sci- Fi Graphic Novel on Amazon: https://a.co/d/9k3cwoY

My IMDB listing
Anabran Abdhul Quarnain - IMDb