This is a bit of a long read, so anyone who doesn't want to read a short novel, probably hit the 'back' button, I babble on a bit. But if you are up for the ride, please read on! :D
First up, I'm just a casual hobbyist animator, so this is all just from an amateur home animator point of view.
I've owned every version of iClone since version 1 (although I came on board late into v1 and took advantage of the deal of the free upgrade to v2 when it was released a couple of months later).
When I go back and look at some of the iC1 & iC2 avatars I still have in my collection, I realise just how far the software has progressed over the years!
Up until a few months ago, I was persisting with iC7 on a laptop with a GTX1060 GPU that really was struggling with more than one CC3+ character in the one scene. I had to use a lot of workarounds to make create anything with more than one character. I was fairly happy with iC7 - was the most capable and probably one of the most stable versions, but was constantly getting teased with all the extras iC8 had to offer. Unfortunately my budget couldn't accommodate both an expensive laptop upgrade and iC8 + CC4.
So eventually my trusty old ASUS ROG, laptop made that decision for me after several years of loyal service, finally went leg up - RIP.
I eventually ended up parting with around $4000 for another ASUS ROG Strix G18 with 13th Gen i9, Intel processor, 32GB RAM and RTX4080 with 12GB VRAM.
Needless to say it was stepping up from a VW Beetle to a Ferrari. Hardly works up a sweat for most stuff. It's a beast of a laptop that allows me a lot more freedom in iClone.
I gradually re-saved up the funds to finally purchase iC8 + CC4 a few months ago.
I've always been fairly impressed with what iClone has been capable of in context of when each version was released. I've never really expected 'uncanny valley evoking' level characters. With ultra realistic characters comes the demand to make everything else including props and backgrounds of the same quality, which requires far more time, and far more processing power.
I've only ever been interested from the outset in producing a good quality hobby grade animations inclusive of some custom characters that I create myself, tweaked to fairly precise proportions and features.I I do appreciate them appearing 'real' to an extent, so the wrinkles, lines, skin imperfections have been a very cool addition. I just don't expect the characters to be so real to the point to where it is difficult to relate to it being an animation.
Essentially I want to be able to bring my stories in my head to life. The introduction of Character Creator was the first positive step in this regard. It allowed a lot more freedom in creating customised characters. I spend a lot of time keyframing facial expressions as that to me is even more important in telling a story than body animations. Afterall we read peoples faces much more than body movements.
So the ability to express that as accurately as possible through the characters has been a priority. Up until maybe CC3+ and iC6 & 7, whilst the animation of the bodies of the characters were reasonably capable (thankfully they have become a lot less 'wooden' in movement with each version) the facial expressions & adjustment points were fairly chunky and crude. I generally had to avoid my characters smiling in particular, because they ended up looking more like Terminator trying to smile. It was just so unconvincing and not lifelike.
CC3+ characters really were the first to change the game. Especially once I purchased the extended character morph packs. It allowed a lot more detail in tweaking expressions to suit each character. And now with CC4, the capabilities have been further enhanced with a lot more control over smile lines, wrinkles etc. I can confidently produce a smile with my character and it actually can portray the look and emotion that I am looking for. And all the other expressions as well. Simply the ability to have the chin crinkle/pit (mouth shrug lower) a little when a character is sad or about to cry is just priceless. As are the subtle eyebrow movements. There are so many more adjustment points in all parts of the face now, that can be tweaked to far more accurately represent that emotion or reaction I am attempting to recreate.
Also the introduction of Acculips was very cool and brought about another level of realism to mouth movement with speech. The first version was a bit ordinary to be honest and still required a fair bit of tweaking, but the latest version, included with iC8, aided by the increased control points of the mouth and face, is quite literally awesome. It's very rare that I need to tweak any of the mouth movements during speech. I just found out about the awesome AccuFace add on. Damn would love to get my hands on that. But unfortunately it's a bit out of my reach at the moment (US to Australian dollar exchange rate almost doubles the price) But it's definitely on my wish list.
Although there is a great variety of realistic motions available from ActorCore, there are still motions I need to create myself. So I'm also keen on having a go at the rotoscope feature that was included with iC4. I've tried copying motions from short videos before without a lot of success. So I think the rotoscope feature might be something that will be very beneficial to me. And the recent addition to Motion Live where you can control characters real time with a gamepad - awesome!
A couple of things I still think need improvement:
1) I'd love to see improved sooner rather than later (and it's something I have been barking about since maybe version 6) is a better car/motor vehicle control system. The system they use is really crude, has unpredictable results and really is just crap. I end up keyframing my own it's that bad. t's still essentially a carry over of a legacy system from iC5. Surely with all this AI physics technology they could make it a lot easier to control a car and have it behave realistically. The ability to realistically have a vehicle tow an articulated trailer would be cool too. I love cars, and would love to do more car movies, but iClone is just too difficult to do anything decent in this regard without manually keyframing the car scenes, so unfortunately I have to avoid those type of movies. I'm not sure if motion live now allows you to control objects (cars) as well with a game pad ?
2) Paths - I haven't had the chance yet to play much with paths again in iC8. But previous versions I just get frustrated at the unpredictable, unexplainable results I get from using paths. I have objects randomy disappearing, flying up in the air/sinking under the ground, randomly spinning around 180 deg on commencement, moving randomly along the path, despite my best efforts to override. And then the dramas when you remove something from the path. I have read and watched the turorials and still can't figure out any sort of reliable, predictable use of the feature. Paths are a great concept, but they are so buggy or at the very least not user friendly. So once again I avoid them and just transform manually with keyframing
3) another thing I would love to include in my movies is ocean waves, including crashing breakers at the beach. Now I know there are some clever work arounds that some smart and experienced iClone users have been generous to post up for waves in the ocean using material physics etc, but it's a fairly awkward thing to setup and not overly flexible. So I would like a water feature that allows the automatic generation of breaking waves with whitewash (I know you can probably already create whitewash with particles) and general ocean waves. Of course it would be nice to have the usual sliders to control size, frequency, type etc. Maybe this could be a python plug in thing ? Although ultimately I'd love to see it as a native feature included with all the other water effects in iClone.
Bottom line I'm loving iC8 & CC4 and hope to complete a half decent short production using some of it's capabilities soon.
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