1. 
   I am not a modeller to this degree. So the concept is alien to me. So I ask. :doze:

I read this... "When creating a vector displacement map, your model’s currently selected subdivision level is compared with with the details of its highest level. It then calculates a map that represents the differences between the two levels, capturing the details of the high-level sculpt."

With that said will Vector Displacement Maps be of any use to an iClone user who does NOT model in 3DS or ZBrush or any of the multitudes of other hi level Modelling software?

W.E.C.S.
That is to say, from what I understand, Vector Displacement maps wont be something I can create myself from scratch using iClone. In much the same way as iClone's UV Ref. system is unbeneficial unless you model external to iClone.

Armstrong.

Maybe iClone 6?

Ive just watched the tessellation video about 6 times.  

and I have to say it's very exciting.

For the time it's been around there sure are pathetic few Displacement maps online. Actually about none.
The above image is impressive.

My excitement comes in with a question.

I would like to think that now at last we can have land masses that cavern, reach up and across and not just go upwards buit outwards as well.
Well tex'd these landmasses would surpass anything iClone has ever seen yet.

BUT...... as an animator NOT a modeller (in the true sense of the word) I must say that if someone doesn't make the landmass to begin with then the Vector Displacement map wont come to be either. :()

My question....
Does this mean that when buying (for instance) a landmass/landscape we simply buy the image that makes it become what it is?

I worry that iClone, from being a stand alone animation tool, beautiful in that it showed evolution as being an Animating engineering arena, seems hellbent on becoming some kind of accessorised appendage to modelling software ten times its price.
It careers in a strange direction to me. I want to animate but every time I see something that really inspires, like tessellation, it comes to light that, as an animator, your in this weird minority world of second priority creatures and the word "Economical production" dies death after death because modelling AND animation are two clocks running accumulatively doubling what should have been an appetiser to £$ potentials.

The scars and facial deformations in the tessalation iClone 6 progress video and the ability to texture in such a manner are very exciting but not if I have to make them in an external modelling software initially.
And time and again the animator has to wait extortionate amounts of time for Mud to put avatars on while everyone  is oohing and aahing at stubble and clonecloth textures.

Tessalation of course in the wide scope IS for the animator. But at the leisure of someone else being bothered.
I look forwards to the next instalment of iClone Work in Progress and really hope it has something for the animator wholly leaving him or her a degree of independence in creativity :crying: because while iClone is affordably economical, it's continually coming to light that, actually, to deploy and participate with productions that use all its features you actually have to spend quite a few more thousand pounds and dollars and clock out of the Working world for a few years to learn fluently a modelling program after which your sales tack just halved its effectivity against the clock.

The Animator is hanging by a thread of confidence that the independence they need will appear somewhere up ahead and wont keep designing itself at every turn around the whim of external modellers.

Armstrong.

(sigh! Here we go.)
(1) If all you can do is run round in circles Bitch-Slapping anyone who even so much as dares Question those at the top, don't waste my time. I don't kiss-up and hate those that do.

(2) "Sets, props, light, Characters & Animate?"
And that's your professional summary of something like iClone.
I cannot believe you have SO mis-conceived the most basic principles of the software and summarised it like a piece of used toilet paper.
What about primitive modelling?
Texturing in 6 or 7 layers?
Clone Cloth and garment fashioning?
Photo to Avatar Facial Mimicry?
Height mapped Landmasses.
AND ON AND ON AND ON.
Cool down and be more intellectually concise.

(3) Hmmm!!!!!

(4) YOU: Your car breaks down.
You call a £$ CaB £$.
A week later your car, after being towed $ away £ is fixed for you.
ME: My car breaks down.
I open the bonnet and replace a fuse.
I'm on my way 2 minutes later.



THIS IS MY ARGUMENT. TRY TO UNDERSTAND THAT THIS IS THE CORE OF MY POST
ME v. People like YOU!.
I demand.
YOU obey.
THAT is our difference.
I ask for even more.
YOU sit quiet.
(Strueth. God give me patience.)

(5) NOW Where are you going? STAY IN TUNE. I'M referencing the domain of Creative Independence.
TRY to understand... I am trying to clarify an intellectual point.
That point being...
"Is it correct for me to summarise Tesselation "wholly" as something I can manipulate with the importation of externally created elements beyond the control of iClone?

OR

Is Tesselation something I have control over 100% internally WITHIN iClone?

The very reason I can create in iClone in a day what it takes you a month to create is because my abilities have come from 24/7/365 x8 manipulation of iClone to the point I find professional-tedium in not being able to create even simplistic objects for my own sets.
I'll create another post defining what I perceive of iClone 6 and its not detrimental in any way...... as per usual.

Now go and Bitch-Slap Reallusion for tesselationally misleading Animators.

WENDY: Nice lateral thinking. Oceanic animation would be stunning. At least SOMEONE  still employs the grey pulp between their ears.

Armstrong.

"Intel, intel everywhere. Who's kicking up a stink?"

Don't make too big an issue of "Time" because my argument is simply time over money. Not the time it takes. I'll sit there as long as the next man in order to create what I need. I love it.  ESPECIALY when it comes out as I'd hoped. I never really thought I could do as much even with the primitives in iClone when I started out.

My line was... why make so much fuss and dance about the editability side to Animators?
Tesselation is a wonderful addition. Dont accuse me of killing this.
And I, like any other animator, will really appreciate seeing it in action on set or on Avatars come the time.

But I just wanted it clearly stated....
Is it an addition that holds controllability for the Modeller???
OR the Animator?

I presume the beneficiality of Tesselation is in System load aside from the Video-Stated benefits. 

I think Fluency in iClone at least as far as the Founder members of this forum are concerned means that it takes a fraction of time to create a superb looking set. Three or four extra  setting doesn't make any difference to time-output.

Wher the time DOES come in is in modelling. This is a sophisticated arena in what ever software you use. I would love to sit down and spend the time learning it inside out. but Im needed in two other areas at once elsewhere. And issueing animations to clients is a tight clock issue.

Where I see a need is for an arena like an agency if you liek of registered developers who are enabled in modelling for IClone and whom you can get in touch with and ssay.... "HERY, I need this by this dats asap???"
THEY come back with a price.
Monies change hands.
The object is made tomorrow.
On set emmediately.
Job done.

Sadly, as efficient and bog-basic as that sounds.... it apepars to be an impossibility and we just keep being told. Buy Cheap get cheap.

I dont agree with that B.S.
iClone has a niche it fits into very well in the commercial world.
It has multi faceted output now and it works very well.

What the ANIMATOR needs is to believe is that he/she still exists as the origin target for aimation  software in the first place and not as some secondary money pumping consumer who finances elements he has to buy but cannot use. 

Lets see the next WORK IN PROGRESS VIDEO. 

Armstrong.