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Why use iClone with Unreal Engine for animated short?

Posted By barca-8 2 Years Ago
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barca-8
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I'm new to iClone and intend to use it to make animated shorts.
I see quite a few write-ups, tutorials, etc on using iClone in combination with Unreal Engine.
I certainly understand why Unreal Engine would be needed if one were making a game, but it's not as obvious to me why you'd want to use it for a short film.
Rendering quality, perhaps?
Other advantages?

Many thanks!

charly Rama
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charly Rama
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First of all, If you want to make short, Iclone can make it alone. UE isn't absolutely not essential. You have to work on your lighting, camera movements, animation (avoid basic errors like foot sliding, body hand penetration etc...) If you have big scene with many characters, Iclone is quickly limited. And if you want a different style of rendering, you have to use UE or blender or unity or omniverse


     


toystorylab
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As Unreal is primary a game engine, it becomes more and more an animation engine 
and is furthermore used for "virtual production" in filmmaking:
https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/solutions/film-television
Though as Charly said, you can do everything within iClone! And you surely can get very nice and cool results.
I made the decision to give Unreal + iClone a try 3 years ago and I am very happy about that.
You certainly will have some headaches (ask Charly :D ) at the beginning but once you find out how to use it,
it can be a very nice and cool addition to iClone...
I love the iClone core function of "easy and quick" animation and Unreal has some cool lighting/VFX/render features.
Also the Unreal Marketplace has some really nice environments/props/characters/animations, often to a really good price...
Both combined has become my favourite work-flow...


Toystorylab on Vimeo : https://forum.reallusion.com/uploads/images/ce44ea78-6984-47d8-9bf4-b783.png    Crassitudes (my "Alter Ego") on Youtube: https://forum.reallusion.com/uploads/images/fcc4df30-b3a8-40a5-a427-0735.png

charly Rama
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No no no no Toy, not only on the beginning, headaches are there all time :D:D:D but Doctor Bassline is there if you have troubles :D


     


animagic
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animagic
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If you just start out, I would suggest sticking with iClone as there is already a lot to learn.

I still stick with iClone for rendering as well, but the good news as that are now other options with various levels of headaches as Carly points out...:P


https://forum.reallusion.com/uploads/images/436b0ffd-1242-44d6-a876-d631.jpg

barca-8
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I guess it's a question of "what to do where?"
My hunch is that ALL character modeling and animation (including facial expressions and lip sync) can and should be done in iClone / CC.

Then it's a question of how to construct your sets / stages, along with non-character elements and associated animations. Seems like that part could be done in either iClone or UE.

However, if you were to do all of your character animation in iClone and build your sets in UE, you'd have to synchronize character positions etc with the set. Seems like it would be easier/simpler to have your characters and sets defined in the same tool, iClone (?).
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For really large complex& emersive environments(particularly outdoors)
Iclone is very limited compared to UE or even one of the major 3DCC’s like Blender.




RAG DOLL COLLISION ANIMATIONS FOR ICLONE 8 & 7
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ghost Origins
My latest Feature length film created with Iclone.
https://forum.reallusion.com/uploads/images/adf9b210-df59-4cb6-aa1b-9de5.jpg
My Sci- Fi Graphic Novel on Amazon: https://a.co/d/9k3cwoY


mtakerkart
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barca-8 (3/17/2023)
I'm new to iClone and intend to use it to make animated shorts.
I see quite a few write-ups, tutorials, etc on using iClone in combination with Unreal Engine.
I certainly understand why Unreal Engine would be needed if one were making a game, but it's not as obvious to me why you'd want to use it for a short film.
Rendering quality, perhaps?
Other advantages?

Many thanks!



Today, with Iclone 8, I would advise a beginner, alone, to use it alone to make a movie.
The learning curve is very short and you will get very satisfying results quickly.
You could do a large scene with Iclone if you do the same thing as the games engine: use LODs (Manually).
90% of my assets come from the UDK marketplace and they have their LOD version. I import them into Iclone.
I haven't seen any successful film, for the moment, produced with UDK with only one person.
The only productions that resulted with UDK were produced with large teams and a lot of money.
UDK's learning curve is abysmal. There are very few specific tutorials for making movies from A to Z with VFX,
And the little I found never gave the result I wanted.
Indeed Reallusion puts a lot of emphasis on the development towards UDK but it is especially for the production of video games.
Currently, it's the race for realistic rendering but once again everything I see produced with UDK transpires the animated film with a video game rendering.
If you are a good director you will make  good animated short with Iclone 8.

Ah! I forget to mention that now you can create/sell particles with Iclone 8.
https://marketplace.reallusion.com/iclone/author/Takerk'ART



barca-8
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Thank you for the response. Good info.

So even though you primarily use iClone, you say you get 90% of your assets from UDK marketplace (as opposed to Reallusion's marketplace)?
Is that because the UDK marketplace has more content / greater variety?

I'm only interested in film / cinematics, not developing games, so it doesn't seem like "exporting" from iClone to Unreal would provide any benefit, unless I needed higher-quality rendering, effects, and large-scale scenes with lots of characters (which I won't have).
mtakerkart
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barca-8 (3/18/2023)
Thank you for the response. Good info.

So even though you primarily use iClone, you say you get 90% of your assets from UDK marketplace (as opposed to Reallusion's marketplace)?
Is that because the UDK marketplace has more content / greater variety?

I'm only interested in film / cinematics, not developing games, so it doesn't seem like "exporting" from iClone to Unreal would provide any benefit, unless I needed higher-quality rendering, effects, and large-scale scenes with lots of characters (which I won't have).


I bought from Udk marketplace first for low price instead of Reallusion marketplace because of their new pricing which includes export by default.
Secondly the variety.
As I said before you can make large scenes in Iclone. Just follow this tutorial for every object/character  and you will be able to manage a lot of objects.
 For mid/close-ups, use the high resolution models.

About "Higher-quality rendering" it is for me  a subjective matter. Thinking that "ray trace" , "path trace" , "whatever trace" are Higher quality is a non sense.
All of this is to try to create realistic things like in a real life . Which, for me, has nothing to do with the quality of the rendering.

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