With iClone Version 5.5, your character animation pipeline is finally complete! The New MotionPlus format allows you to easily save all of your facial, body, accessory, spring and constraint data all into a single MotionPlus file so that it can be reused and reapplied to other characters. In addition, you're now able to customize your own landscapes with the height map terrain, directly in iClone!

Click on Me to Know All the Cool New Features

Please leave your feedbacks about this update under this thread.

You might want to re-think posting your computer name and Windows KEY on a public forum.

Also, it's a huge picture that requires horizontal scrolling.  Please edit your post and take out the picture (and maybe replace it with a smaller one that hides any personal info).

CORRECTION:  It's your "Product ID" not the activation key for windows, but still, please replace the huge image with a smaller, cropped version of the picture that shows off the awe-inspiring rating for your Alienware computer.  Thanks.

Thanks, Reallusion team!  

Thanks Reallusion, another amazing upgrade

So far - All iC5.4 Projects have converted ok to iC5.5 Project Format.

And..... iC5 64Bit Program & Projects seem to load appreciably faster than before.

REALLUSION: STUNNING & Impressive. For whatever reason the functionality of 1 to 99,999 re: fog depth came back with the upgrade.  
Thankyou for this. Both the 32 and 64 were missing this but I did recall its temporary presence earlier in another update. 

1. SAVING AND RE-USING CHARACTER ANAIMTION: is a superb feature. Something that saves countless hours of work
and I like this greatly. Not because I have multiple characters on stage that need mimicry but because I change my characters a lot.

2. BAKE CONTRAINT KEYS: I didn't expect to see this; I don't remember it's request but now that its here it's actually very convenient
in use. One application I have immediately is the response of Chinese lowers to superior society in passing. It inserts very quickly.

But the icing on the cake for me is.... (Aside from my Mist and Distance haze controll   )
3. Modify Existing Material to Change the Landscape
& equally most best of all
4. Create Custom Terrain from the Height Map.
Oh boy, yes.
Retexturing the landmasses is beautiful and, with b2m, limitless.
The ability to reshape the ground, tho', is something we've waited a long time for.
I hadn't expected to have to manipulate a graphic to manipulate altitudal-difference but, now that its here, its actually very easy
AND has the benefits of being able to alter and re-scale chunks of the terrain by increasing or decreasing its selected-scale
comparatively to the rest of the map.

Height Scale, Height offset and Smoothing are excellent additions. Its finally totally changed the way the set is controlled. Ground shaping
makes or breaks the take. I think this is the most valuable element addition to me.  

And Finally,
5. H.264 Video Export.
I ran a few tests on this and the results are little less than stunning.
The saving I can enjoy is about 300%++ efficiency in space usage.
I created a 30fps 15 second take at a res of HD 1280x720.
The AVI crawled through at about  8fps on render.
The H.264 format charged off at about 42fps.

Stunningly, the output of the avi as usual is bad edged no anti-alias and the video studio I use has to chew that up which stalls iTS' output incredibly.
However, the quality and silky-fine edge of diagonals and transitioning diagonals / body skin edges using the H.264 is absolute. Perfect. I had to
keep double checking to make sure iClone hadn't slipped into a higher res. But it hadnt.

OK, so now we have two files. 
One Bad quality AVI of 1,389 Gigs.
And one H.264, same format, same FPS, of 62.1 Megs.
Disbelieving this, I created another test. One of my biggest sets. Over 800 props/trees and 19 avatars.

5 second take. 30fps. HD 720p (1280x720.) 879 Props/Plants 11 Avatars / 4 Particles / 3 mapped video props.
AVI Rendered at 1 FPS = 357 Megs.
H.264 Rendered at 2.6 FPS = 9.9 Megs.
How?
That's a 360% efficiency rating using H.264.
I didn't know this. Even forgetting the file size , the quality comparatively to AVI is breathtaking visually.
I love it. I WISH I knewe this before I started on the CDCG.
The speed H.264 runs at resolutions of 1980 x 1080 is like lightening. No system demand or audio lag.

So.... my summary is, not all of this upgrade is utilised by me as a priority in my work style, BUT the majority of what changes
my quality output is mindblowing. I'm very impressed with this update. It saves me great chunks of time and adds huge layers
of quality and streamlining to both
1. the way I work and
2. my output.

So... Many gratitiudes for my lifes new efficiency levels in animation and many many thanks for the massive ingenuity of this update
and particularly for the streamlining of the complex working environment we now have. 

Now........  I need some dinner.
Armstrong.

EDIT:::: Also I can now open all my massive Gardens in the iClone 64bit version.

vidi (8/8/2013)

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In this video, I'm in love with the guy with the green shirt

At 1:30, when the guy in the gray T-shirt comes back on, I realized... Oh my God, it's Chuck the avatar!!!

Here's to a new wave of videos to come

Peace

Gerskey

Luna

pete

Much appreciated! 

@Peter:

Was the 3DX5 Character Designer's Resource Pack updated from 5.4 to 5.5?  I'm seeing two links with different file size details - one indicating 3DX5 Character Designer's Resource Pack 5.4 but they point reference the same file download:

3DX5 Character Designer's Resource Pack (102 MB)
http://.../3DX5_Character_Designer_Resource_for540.exe

3DX5 Character Designer's Resource Pack for Version5.4 (84.2 MB)
http://.../3DX5_Character_Designer_Resource_for540.exe

Also, was the 3DX5 Character Designer's Resource Pack (FBX Format) updated as well?  Would be helpful to see revision dates on the Bonus content.

Cheers,

mark (8/12/2013)

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By Jove, I think she's.... I mean they got it!!!!

...................and; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4lJUzrgSJA 

planetstardragon (8/12/2013)

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@Pollux - my pleasure, I hope you enjoy!

Oh...yes, so much that I'm using it to make the title of my new video clip

mark (8/13/2013)

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Ditto on not being able to load an iClone 5.5 rendered .wmv into SONY Vegas. Rats!!

And while on that topic thought I would do a quick non-scientific test of a scene, from an old project idea, rendered as an MP4 and as an uncompressed AVI. Then do a side by side ...

You be the judge

Well - IMO, Uncompressed RAW AVI is going to beat any Compressed Video Format, Mark. But IMO, it can't be transported over the Internet, hence Compressed File Formats.

So what would give me these results? Everything is updated.

Foggy thoughts and misted outlooks cleared with 5.5's "1 to ∞" value in Fog Setting.

Talking of Mist and Distance Haze.... as I inevitably do from time to time often from behind compressed temper... I'm pleased to say that with Iclones Mist control returning to 99,999 at the infinite balancing planes and "quick fixing" global smoothing as it were is a lot easier now.

For rough example...

Pushing the bases of distant mountains into white is a lot easier now as the planes "ground collision" seems to soften with the addition of a global mass of universal mist using the IClone system.

Above is mistless & fogless.

Above we see the massive difference of being able to infinitize the mists distance level away from the camera. A smooth overall which disappears as we approach the landmass. Mist planes cannot do this. But.... it's still not enough and we see the mountains as kind of flat still.

Above I've started to use very short depthless and "white transition x mountain width" controlled planes to isolate the fall off into white bases. So the planes drift from 0% - 20% to 35% - 0% opacity from core to edge in very low / short ovals.

 (ABOVE) Without the global IClone controlled mist the skies are too bold  but because I can now add a global degree of haze without having to worry about rebalancing the mountain specific planes it saves extortions of time by simply adding volume haze rather than plane haze.

Above Which is what I've done here at 3000 - 78555. I don't want to get into overkill regarding Misting out elements but this is a Chinese Garden and I need the mountains to look as they do in the Chinese Paintings traditionally so out of respect the effort wont be missed.

The westerner wouldn't bother with it, but the traditionalist might enjoy its observation.  So it stays.

And tooned (which is its first birth on screen which afterwards transitions into normal un-tooned mode) it makes me happy to see the above.
Each Mountain Range has its base-fog pulling the detail into white as mist which contrasts with the clouding above.

The above displaying one of the broad planes oblique to the lscape with the alpha threshold set to zero so's we can see its recessive curvature away from the lens. (which helps when there are many and AO being used.)

Probably doesn't mean much to many... but as with most peculiarities of animators, it means a lot to me.

Armstrong.

This is much better.

The other superior element to it is that definition stays now; no greasy smeared ground surfaces.

Armstrong.