Exactly.... My concern.  So, we have a thousand dollar plugin pack for mocap facial expressions.  Top that off with the other mocap stuff and we are priced beyond Indie. 

Will RL push us to all the expensive plugins, quit further development of those types of tools for IClone basically forcing us to professional plugins.

I suspect this will not go well long term, if that is their thinking. 

I will be looking for alternatives.

Adobe is now making headway into animation and character software. I can buy a license for $50 a month for everything in their creative suite and $30 a month on sale.

My experience with Adobe has been sketchy, but since Sony Vegas and SourceForge were bought by another company,  The Vegas Pro is just one program and it has to be updated approximately every two years has been my experience.,
I have version 13, but I don't plan to update it at the prices offered.  I can pay $50 dollars per month or $600 per year and have Photoshop, Premier, Audition, After Effects and updates are included with the subscription.  So, I won't be updating my Sony Vegas Pro hereafter.  I recently got email offer to upgrade my SV pro to version 14 for $249, version 15 just released and it is similarly priced.... and that is only one application.  



Adobe Premier is very similar to Sony Vegas so it won't be difficult move.  I can get 20+ Adobe applications applicable to my work.  No, I don't like to be locked in for $50 per month, but I really think leasing software is the future. Companies want consistent cash flows, and marketing costs are significantly lower.

Look for adobe.com creative cloud.  Scroll through the choices you will understand my thinking on this.


 

  

@will2power71

Yeah- I agree. But I would like to note that Faceware had something to do with the price. Let us not all take it out on RL.

And after all, the Perception Neuron thing was twice the price.

Call me crazy, but I'm actually pleased with the price. It's expensive, yes, but not overly so. I spend about as much as I do on my daughter's clarinet stuff for the year because she's in high school band. I understand people don't have a lot of money to spend in a lot of cases, but it doesn't stop you when you want something. I see the price tag and I don't have that kind of money lying around, but I just get a jar, put a label on it for Facial Mocap and whenever I have a few free bucks, or I opt not to go to Arby's  and spend 15 dollars on a sandwich, drink, fries and a coke --I put that money in the jar. I don't have the money right now, but that doesn't mean I can't save up and get it with a little willpower and ingenuity. If I really wanted to get it faster, I might even do something like get a second job to earn the money. 

My point is is that purchasing is a choice. Reallusion gets to set the price, but I make the choice on whether or not to purchase something or not. I think in this case, Reallusion spent quite a lot of time and resources into developing a product that you can have for a quarter of the price that it can be had by the public.
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With the price from Faceware of the Live Server, I'm very happy that I can get a version that will work in iClone for %75 off the list price. To make it even better, you don't have to go through all the setup that you have to do in Faceware --which can be substantial because you have to configure each character before you can use it. This means that they've done all the work for us, the user, and made it so you can get to animating your characters facial performances in a matter of minutes vs hours of setup per character. To me, that's worth the cost because I would rather spend my time animating and not doing setups over and over and over. Reallusion put all this time and effort into bringing us something truly easy to use, and that's worth something. I would, of course, prefer that the cost be $199 dollars or less; but I realize that all that time and effort costs them money and they expect to be paid for it. You have to judge for yourself whether or not the value is worth it, but for me --I've already got the jar labeled and I'm starting to work on saving up for my personal self Christmas Present.

$699 buy price! Pity they didn't mention that last year when they were asking for our money for version 7! I might have thought twice about buying something that was then going to cost me many hundreds more dollars to get a Plug-in that I thought was actually going to just be part of iClone 7.

My own fault. Didn't read the small print. Didn't ask enough questions on here before I bought.

Such a shame! But there you go. You live, you learn!

Hi Delerna

I agree very much with your point. South Park is terrible for animation.

But the characters, the storylines, the voice actors carry the series.

I'm not trying saying high level/reallistic graphics is not a good thing to have. I have iClone7 and highly appreciate its graphics. I now also have the faceware mocap software and have watched the tutorials just published and am very impressed and keen to start working with it.

However I see lots of very popular animations ....... everywhere ......... that convinces me that high level graphics are nice to have but are not necessary to make popular animations.

75% of original size (was 669x19) - Click to enlarge
75% of original size (was 669x19) - Click to enlarge
75% of original size (was 669x19) - Click to enlarge

i7-3770 3.4GHz CPU 16 GB Ram   
GeForce GTX1080 TI 11GB
Windows 10 Pro 64bit

@ but0fc0ursee

Steven Spielberg spelled it out inso many words ---- great movies are made from great stories.

You're fooling yourself if you think that means "the Story" is themost import aspect to create a "Great  Movie."
~ Story, Sound, Animation,... Post
NONE is more important than the other.

It's a fine-tuned balance of:
~ Story
~ Animation
~ Sound / Lighting (Post)

A "Great Movie" is only as good as its weakest link.
All Balanced = Great Movie

Edited
Yesterday by but0fc0ursee

We are not in any position to assert such certainties.

If Hollywood knew what made A Great Movie there would be alot more of them.

"Not one person in the entire motion picturefield knows for acertainty what's going to work.Every time out it's a guess and, if you'relucky, an educated one.”.― William Goldman, Adventures in the Screen Trade.”


I'm with William Goldsmith.

Home Built in Coolermaster ATX case with GigabyteGA-Z170X-GAMING 7 MoBo, i7-6700 @ 3.4 Ghz, Asus GeForce GTX 970 Graphics Card, 32GbDDR4 RAM, 4K & HD monitors, Huion H610 Pro Graphics Tablet, Kinect v2, LogitechWebcam, Win 10 64 Bit OS

 

As John Martin stated, "Affordable for all levels."
It's not in everyone's budget, but if one really wants it.... one can save and eventually get it. It's not out of reach.


Welcome To CGI ...using (Pro Tools)
This is the tip of the iceberg.... wait until the motion graph editor comes.
As with all Reallusion tools.... the basics are easy.

The advanced steps requires:
~ Knowledge of "Production Proven"... Standard Industry Methods and Techniques.

Example:
~ A rotation curve (slops upward)... to its peak, then descends to zero.
~ A position curve moves forward, until rotation is added, then it (slops upward)... to its peak, then descends to zero.

But... the curves direction is opposite for (Backwards) motion. 
(Walk cycle)
~ As on foot is moving forward... the other foot is moving backward. (Opposite Tangent):w00t:
~ Very confusing... if not understood.

Yeah, it always bothers me when someone says 'sound is more important than picture'. It's all important. No one will stay to watch a movie with bad picture quality either. It is a movie after all, not a radio play. That's not to say sound isn't important. Again, it's all important. Same with story. You could have a great story with great actors, but I wouldn't place those actors in a 'bland setting' or in front of a white wall. Locations/sets are important too. Imagine watching a movie with actors shot in front of a greenscreen without it being keyed out and replaced with the proper FX. I don't think anyone would stand for that no matter how great the story and actors are.

It really is a 'fine tuned' balance of all those elements. It is all those elements that, to me, makes moviemaking interesting.

I don't really see how expanding iClone's capabilities will be its detriment. You can still use iClone the old way, but for those who want to go beyond that there are now options. Lack of facial expression of characters has been a valid criticism and it's now possible to do something about that and about sub-par lip-syncing.  

As an indie filmmaker, it doesn't cost me thousands to create something. Compare that to the budget needed for a life-action movie, even if it's an indie production. 

As has been said, all elements of a film are important, and with iClone we are now reaching a point where some quality work can be produced. I for one would really like to get beyond just showing stuff on YouTube.

---

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