A lot of my subscribers have been after me to create something showing how I work, so here is a (relatively) long tutorial showing my workflow I made quickly yesterday.  Had I had more time I would have edited this better (and perhaps even done a better take - that was a "one-take" mocap) and I *still* didn't get to some aspects of what I do I want to cover - so hopefully I'll post a "Part 2" as soon as I'm well again.

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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

Hey Mike - nice one! ...... great to get an insight into your work flow!
That Scaniverse footage came out well too - most impressive. You know you've made me envious of you with your motion capture suit! - lol.
A person could get mighty creative with a suit like that AND get plenty of through-put compared to animating from scratch. Would there be any part of this work flow that *wouldn't* be possible if using iClone 7 instead of iClone 8? Hopefully not, 'cos one day I might be able to afford a suit - you never know .... 

But in any case - I sure hope everything goes well with your operation! Hopefully you'll be dancing again in no time!
So yeah - all the best with that. Don't think too much about the op - take your mind off it by entertaining the nurses 
Tell 'em some jokes as they wheel you in ..... and tell 'em some even better jokes when they wheel you out! 

But anyway - take care Mike .....

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Please be patient with me ..... I don't always 'get it' the first time 'round - not even the 2nd time!   - yikes! ... 

● MSI GT72VR Laptop, i7 7700HQ 4-Core 3.8 GHz 16GB RAM; Nvidia 1070, 8GB Vram ● iClone-7.93 ● 3DXChange Pipeline 7.81 ● CC-3 Pipeline 3.44 ● Live Face ● HeadShot ● Brekel Pro-Body ● Popcorn FX ● iRAY ● Kinect V2 ● DaVinci Resolve17 ● Mixcraft 8.1

The only two things that 7 couldn't do that I do in this video are volumentric lights AND the ability to only parse some of the text in Acculips (this was a much needed fix - you could work around this by doing a lot shorter sequences).

I actually capture using 7 - on my mocap machine I've never upgraded to 8 because, well, why fix what isn't broken?  I do think there are some good things in 8, though, and overall I'd certainly recommend upgrading, but there's no reason you can't do nearly all you need to do in 7 (it's just that 8 makes it easier).

A mocap suit makes a whole LOT of things easier.  But speaking of 8 - they have improved greatly the use of mocap files and transitions between them, so without a suit I would say 8 is your best bet for easy animation.  In the past it was really difficult to just animate, but with Motion Director and the way things blend between animations now I could see getting by without doing your own mocap.  It's just that my mind always works with the easiest solution - I find putting on the suit (about 10 minutes) and then just doing the animation the most straightforward process.  However, if you look at the very end of the video, where the terminator is walking around, that's all done with motion files and it looks pretty good, IMHO.

And thanks for the kind words - I'm ALWAYS trying to make people laugh, so I'm sure the nurses and tech will have some on Thursday.  There's almost no part of life (and death, I guess) I don't find *somewhat* amusing.  And overall I wouldn't mind the operation at all if I didn't have to be there (the same thing Woody Allen said about death).

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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

Hi Mike,

Great stuff and looking forward to Part 2 when you get around to it.  I would also like to see your PN3 Axis workflow.  As per your tutorial if I'm understanding, you are going directly into iClone with the suit.  I'll admit, I haven't seen the whole tutorial yet so maybe my question is answered in there.  But I would like to see all of the details around connecting the suit, do you need Axis Studio up and running, etc?

Thanks for all your great feedback and support.

Todd-Perpetual Newbie

Corsair Vengence - 12th gen Intel core i9 - 32GB RAM - NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080Ti  Windows 11

Axis studio does indeed run even when capturing into iClone - there's not too much I can add to the excellent Perception Neuron tutorials but when I get back I'll be glad to be more specific (not to the point of showing me in the suit, however - there are some things you cannot unsee).

I'll see if I can make it *real* basic for at least that part (I mostly want to cover what happens when you do NOT record your sound at the same time as mocap - this is my secondary and perhaps even preferred workflow).

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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

Since it's mentioned quite a bit in my tute - I had the knee replacement operation and I'm home and feeling fine.  There are a few issues but mostly relating to the fact my "caregiver", the beautiful and wonderful wife of 35+ years, Annie, suddenly developed terrible back pains and thus is really unable to do much.  Since she's my "ride" I may have some issues to deal with otherwise but we'll work things out.

So I'm alive and hopeful to be back to full capacity at least within four or five weeks, at which point I'll do another tutorial covering some things I didn't get to in this one.

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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

Oh well, like you say, you're 'alive' - that's the main thing .... Hope your humor didn't leave the nurses in stitches Mike - 

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Please be patient with me ..... I don't always 'get it' the first time 'round - not even the 2nd time!   - yikes! ... 

● MSI GT72VR Laptop, i7 7700HQ 4-Core 3.8 GHz 16GB RAM; Nvidia 1070, 8GB Vram ● iClone-7.93 ● 3DXChange Pipeline 7.81 ● CC-3 Pipeline 3.44 ● Live Face ● HeadShot ● Brekel Pro-Body ● Popcorn FX ● iRAY ● Kinect V2 ● DaVinci Resolve17 ● Mixcraft 8.1

I wish I could remember the line but I got off one that had both nurses laughing so hard they had to stop what they were doing (it wasn't forced it just came out of the situation but for the life of me I don't know it now).

I do find almost everything amusing, even things that perhaps seem in bad taste (or very morbid).  But, let's face it, life is pretty funny (although I always remember the line in "The Assignation Squad", a dark comedy starring Diana Rigg and Oliver Reed, where the Russians, always known for their sourness, say "Death is no laughing matter.  Life is not so humorous either."

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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

Glad it all went well, Mike. I love the Woody Allen quote. My grandfather always said to me " If I knew where I was going to die, I wouldn't go there"