Hello! New to iClone and new to PCs having worked only on Macs for many years. I am switching a project to iClone and in doing so, having to purchase PC's. Looking for recommendations for either a Desktop or Laptop best for 3D Animation I do not need the capability for Character Creator as we are having our characters created by an outside company.

In looking online for good systems focused on 3D Animation, the google results are not consistent, so have been unable to find a consensus between lists. When looking at some of the recommendations, all have been out of stock (either are actually 2020 models or earlier, or are on major backlog due to Covid). So, I thought I would check with the most logical place - users of iClone.

My project is a fairly simple web series. Two Animated characters in one room (3 walls, floor and ceiling). Live lip-sync - iPhone facial capture. Recording live audio in a sound booth, so I can keep a loud computer outside the door and use a wireless keyboard and mouse, etc. Final edited shows run around 20 minutes. Shoot 2 to 3 a week.

Due to the costs to migrate our whole project into iClone, we are looking for a solid performer that is affordable versus just buying the fastest system regardless of cost. If I can keep closer to the $1500-$2500 range rather than the $3500 or higher range, well, that would great.  If not, well, then we have to buy what we gotta buy.

Any recommendations on specific systems would be highly appreciated. Recommending things like "get something with an intel i7 9750H and an NVIDIA GTX 1660ti" is great, but will just get too overwhelming for us. We're really hoping someone will say this is the specific model(s) we use and it works fine, etc. Will do what you need, etc. 

Thanks in advance!!

First of all, forget about laptops if you can. You'll pay more for less performance and laptops are also hard to upgrade.

For the GPU, look for something with an Nvidia 3000 series GPU. You want to this to be future proof (at least for a bit). 

The performance requirements for Character Creator would be less than for iClone, so if you can run iClone comfortably, you'll be OK with CC.

I usually build my own systems but as it is impossible to find any Nvidia 3000 or even 2000 series GPU for a somewhat reasonable price, I ordered myself a Dell Alienware Aurora R12. (The weird names are to please the gamers...)

I got the top of the line with an RTX 3090, which will be outside of your budget, but they start lower.

The minimum that I think suitable would be a version with 16GB of RAM and an RTX 3070 with 8GB of VRAM, here.

Next up is a version with 32 GB of RAM and an RTX 3080 with 10GB of VRAM, here.

It can be a bit overwhelming with all the options (especially when coming from a Mac), but we're here to help!

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Thank you so much!! Looking into those now. I know a lot of what I have researched meets or exceeds the requirements, but having specific recommendations by actual users instills a lot more confidence in what to purchase, so... Thank you!!!

You were wise to ask here...

For years we have been trying for RL to change the so-called "minimum" system requirements to something more realistic, but in vain. "Minimum" seems to mean that you can open the program, but that's about it.

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