Following the buzz of iClone 8’s release in May, the iClone 8.1 update also comes with the iClone Unreal Live Link 1.1v, and the Motion Director React to Surface. With this upgrade, we aim to enhance the users' experience from making animations to recording motions. That brings us to the 3 main features that will provide greater freedom, flexibility, and reliability than ever before. Here’s the release note for iClone 8 and iClone Unreal Live Link 1.1v.

Release Note : iClone 8, iClone Unreal Live Link 1.1v.

Unreal Live Link 1.1 - Watch More

Timecode Sync Support - Watch More

The worst-case scenario when it comes to traditional Live Link is frame dropping when recording a live data stream, especially when there are multiple animated objects in a scene. With iClone starting to support timecode recording, we make sure your data always sends out in full frame, no matter what your device performance is.

• Live Link Timeline Sync, provides Lossless Frame-By-Frame Recording.
• Supports Recording Live-Linkable Items including Character Animation, Facial Performance, Prop Animation, Cameraworks, and Light Animation.
• High Performance Crows Scene Production: Grouped animated characters in iClone can be full-frame recorded into Unreal Engine sequence files.

2 Ways Data Link - Watch More

Whether you want your character to interact with the scene or simply try to position your character in the right place, you’ll benefit from the scene transfer feature thanks to the power of 2 ways data link.

 2 Ways Data Link - Scene Transfer

With similar intent, these 3 different modes allow you to transfer your Unreal scene back to iClone for repositioning. From standard mesh to simplified mesh, You can place your character in your selected position and use the scene mesh as reference. On top of scene transfer, with the new feature from Motion Director 1.1 “Snap to Surface”, character movements can continuously adapt to terrain heights, including the elevation created by the displacement texture.

• Scene Transfer: Seamlessly Adapt iClone Animation To Unreal Engine Environment.
• Response to Terrain Height: Character moments will react to ground elevation. 
• Accurate Reach Target: One step target reach, Motion layer editing, and smooth IK/FK transition.

2 Ways Data Link - Motion Data Transfer

Meanwhile, many have suffered from exporting motion files through FBX back and forth from iClone to Unreal. Now, via Motion Transfer, iClone can directly send full-frame animation data to UE, supporting Character Body, Facial, and Prop animations, which can be edited in Level Sequencer immediately. Together, these two features offer you a whole new method of animating with iClone and Unreal.

• Direct Animations for iClone/CC Characters in UE: Transfer your character to UE and retain the same motion assets by using the same character name in iClone.

• Motion Retargeting for UE Characters & MetaHumans: iClone motions are reusable to UE characters & MetaHumans via standard UE IK Rig and Retargeting process.  Bring MetaHuman to life

• Transfer iClone Facial and Drive MetaHumans' Talking Animation: iClone facial animation can be full frame transferred to iClone/CC and MetaHuman characters.  Bring MetaHuman to life

• Prop Animation: The prop animation transfer includes animated objects, vehicles, and non-humanoid characters like animals.

Morph Animation Supports

• Live Link morph animation to UE via iClone Morph Animator.
• Achieve organic performances by applying morph animation to props or skin-bone characters.

Motion Director - Watch More

Motion Director is not only great for controlling your character to create personalized animation but also great for making NPC animations. In this update, we focus on bringing the ability for characters to move smoothly around platforms. 

React to Surface - Watch More

Now, your character will react according to changes in ground elevation, making sure the character is always on the ground surfaces, by tweaking the Surface Senser Setting, you can determine the climb/ fall limit when resting to height changes. Enable “React to Surface” in the MD Control Settings to the selected characters, supporting all MD control modes.

• Advanced Surface Sensor Settings : Adjust the sensor factors of height, damping, and timing to get ideal surface-reacting results. Here are four different settings you can play with.

• Supports Displacement Terrain : Even works for Irregular mesh generate by displacement texture.

• UE Live Link to Target Scene : Adapt iClone/CC animations to UE scenes via iClone Unreal Live Link.

Along with the Character Creator 4.1 update, you can now export your subdivided character model into USD, and FBX, then bring it to other major platforms like 3ds Max, MAYA, Blender, and Omniverse.

Other New Features

Bake Morph Supprots

• iClone 8.1 allows users to bake the current morph result, then apply the morph state to the model.

Displacement Texture Supports 

The iClone Live Link Auto Setup 1.25 will create a Displacement Texture channel for you so it can be displayed correctly.

Our approach shortens the animation-making procedure for you so you can really invest your time in creativity and productivity.  We appreciate your love for iClone and will see you guys in the next post.

First test

Snap to Surface
scene transfer
timecode recording

Reviews:
Motion Director provides great convenience for animation production.
Foot contact may not be very smooth on sloping areas or on very frequent steps.
For this, animation corrections must be made manually after the animation is completed.
However, fixing these issues seems to be more difficult than using the motion direction control.
I hope some more improvement can be made on this.

Timecode recording of animations is a big plus.
It also makes your work easier by easily transferring your UE map to iClone.

I will add other tests as soon as possible.

Other technical issues I've had:
I had frequent program crashes when I minimized the program and then maximized it again.
I could never open the Behavior Manager after defining the MD animation. The program freezes and crashes.

Of course I'm sure how difficult these software developments are.
Anyway, thanks to the RL technical team for these excellent improvements.
iClone is a great program.

This video has been removed because it has been revised.
I shared the newly prepared test video on page 2.

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https://www.youtube.com/yepkoo
https://dev.epicgames.com/community/profile/bxvo/Yepkoo#learning

Hi Yepkoo,

While recording with Motion Director you will not get foot contact, but when you play it back again, the foot contact will then kick in, if you checked the box for it in the Modify panel. But another thing to note is that foot contact only works on terrain (mesh or heightmap) while the MD snap to surface works on any mesh the character encounters.

Yepkoo,
Nice demonstration video. However, at the end, I’m sorry to say that the character’s feet are sliding horribly.

My latest movie THE GOLDEN MAN, and a few others: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIl1EqVCKitZzLqaNnLK0BA

Hi Rampa,
Thanks for information.
A good result can be obtained by slightly changing the Transpose and Forecast settings when the character is moving on lighter steps, slightly uneven roads or downhill.
However, when you move the character uphill, on narrow or high steps, and at the first contact of the character, the toe of the character enters the static mesh and then straightens. This makes it very difficult to fix later.
Maybe it's best to hide the feet from the camera in the problematic parts. As a result, it looks pretty good if you don't see the character's feet.

@argus1000 you are right about that.
Foot slippage happens a lot when recording with timecode.
The reason may be related to my computer, I could not restart my computer for a long time. I prepared a 2nd test video.
I didn't use timecode for recording because the foot slippage was too much in this video.


If I evaluate the result;

I don't need to show the characters' feet too much on camera. Therefore, if there are parts that have problems in foot contact, I still have the chance to create difficult animations by using the motion direction feature.
Motion direction control is an excellent option for parts where I need to show the character's feet.

This is the best until I see better
I'm happy with the results.

Test video 2
Snap to Surface test using Mouse Way point and Path trace







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https://www.youtube.com/yepkoo
https://dev.epicgames.com/community/profile/bxvo/Yepkoo#learning

Wow, great new features! Thanx to RL development Team...

Toystorylab on Vimeo :     Crassitudes (my "Alter Ego") on Youtube: 

Thanks for the comment @rosuckmedia
Bake resets the slider of the morph I created to the state I changed. I'm not sure if this is something useful.
I wanted to make a test video about this by creating a morph for a non-standard character.
I used the accurig feature in CC4.
Animation works perfectly in iClone and CC4.
But animation with livelink does not work.
If we export the animation directly to Unreal Engine, it works fine.
I hope an improvement is made so that this plugin also supports non-standard characters.

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https://www.youtube.com/yepkoo
https://dev.epicgames.com/community/profile/bxvo/Yepkoo#learning

Hi, Yepkoo
Thanks for the video
Time code should get better results, after watching your video I found a setting that may have gone wrong.


I see that your clock setting is "relative time code" instead of "time code", can you try changing this setting and see if the foot slide problem is solved?


And there is my test video


thanks,