|
By Alan_M - 8 Years Ago
|
I had a request for help from test17 about whether or not it is possible to make a mirror object in iClone 6. As we all know the mirror object that was in iClone 5 is not available in iClone 6 so you have to trick the effect. There are various ways I have seen including as pointed out by the author the fun of using a water surface and rotating your entire world to make it look like it is on a wall. I have just posted an example of my own take on a solution to my YouTube channel. If anyone feels they would like to know how this is done then I will do a how-to video.
Just let me know here in this topic.
All the best
|
|
By TheOldBuffer - 8 Years Ago
|
Yes please to the tutorial video.
Thank you
|
|
By Alan_M - 8 Years Ago
|
|
using a water surface and rotating your entire world to make it look like it is on a wall
You can do it!
The water surface trick has already been done by someone else which you can get in the market place if you wish, it also opens up a whole can or worms as some things in iClone stop working correctly when you rotate your environment. My method is fairly obvious and somewhat different and works for me.
...ask him to show you how to do it using PBR.
(adding white pixels to smoothness)
PBR support in the iClone 6 material editor is not released yet and this in not the beta forum so I am afraid it will not be a PBR solution, sorry.
I will make the video for you all and post it and you can make what you will of it. It is as I say a cheat because the real reflection parameter in iClone 6 just does not work well with flat surfaces as we all know you get an over sized pixelated mush.
I will let you know when the video is ready by posting here.
|
|
By Alan_M - 8 Years Ago
|
Hi one and all,
Sorry it took so long but I had to wait until the weekend outside of normal work hours to make the time to do this.
Anyhow, here it is, hope it is of some use.
All the best for now
|
|
By eternityblue - 8 Years Ago
|
|
I applaud your efforts, but man, that's a painful way to get a reflection in a mirror, unless it is a big part of the story, nope, not gonna do it. I really hope iC7 resolves this issue.
|
|
By Alan_M - 8 Years Ago
|
|
eternityblue (11/27/2016)
I applaud your efforts, but man, that's a painful way to get a reflection in a mirror, unless it is a big part of the story, nope, not gonna do it. I really hope iC7 resolves this issue.
I appreciate your point of view but as I said, it's cheat. And someone asked me how to do a mirror effect as they actually needed a solution right now. If you are happy to wait for iC7, iC8 etc then fine but as we know from this forum iC7 will not even be available until 2017 and even then there may not be a real mirror solution. Also using a water surface and rotating everything in your universe is even more painful so take your pick.
It is there for those that feel the need and by the way this is a VFX technique used in live action where a mirror cannot be used in the real world and you need to create a reflection.
All the best
|
|
By animagic - 8 Years Ago
|
Thanks for posting this Alan! I guess once the rig is set up it will be easier.
My own solution has been to render the actual mirror effect required by running iClone under DX9 (in which case IC5 mirrors do work), and then using as masking technique to keep just the mirrored image, which is then blended with the iClone 6 render under DX 11. This is also quite involved, obviously.
|
|
By eternityblue - 8 Years Ago
|
|
In Muvizu you can use a camera's real-time output as a texture for a plane and make a crude 'mirror', if iClone could project a camera onto a texture, with this method of rigging the camera, you could have the effect in real time. If Muvizu can pull this off, I would think it would be possible with iC7.
|
|
By Alan_M - 8 Years Ago
|
|
eternityblue (11/28/2016)
In Muvizu you can use a camera's real-time output as a texture for a plane and make a crude 'mirror', if iClone could project a camera onto a texture, with this method of rigging the camera, you could have the effect in real time. If Muvizu can pull this off, I would think it would be possible with iC7.
As you will be aware RL have removed features from iClone before, this maybe down to changes in the graphics API or just because they felt it was an unnecessary feature. A good example of this is shadow casting on a background image or photograph. I used to use this all the time for pre-viz as I could take location photographs and just drop iClone charters in and have their shadows on the ground. Now that is not possible in iC7. Real-time camera projection would indeed be wonderful as it would solve this issue too. The reality is that the iClone 6 developers have their own agenda and I happen to know from working with them during the creation of the Fundamentals series that there is a lot of legacy code in iC6. This is why to date we have not seen a full animation curves editor and also why my most requested feature, 'A button to turn off Auto Animate' could not be implemented. So sadly just because another program can do something does not mean that iClone can do so easily too.
I am very much hoping that iC7 brings a lot of new stuff to the table, they have stated it will include the fore mentioned curves editor. If you watch the Work In Progress video that was posted the other day you will see the new camera in the side pane of one section of the video complete with full film back controls and the other good news is it will have a Python API.
|
|
By Alan_M - 8 Years Ago
|
|
animagic (11/28/2016)
Thanks for posting this Alan! I guess once the rig is set up it will be easier.
My own solution has been to render the actual mirror effect required by running iClone under DX9 (in which case IC5 mirrors do work), and then using as masking technique to keep just the mirrored image, which is then blended with the iClone 6 render under DX 11. This is also quite involved, obviously.
Yes at the moment there is no simple easy push button solution to this. Maybe PBR rendering will bring a solution we shall have to see there is a lot of nice stuff listed in the iC7 teaser video and page. As to the rig it is common practise to set-up and re-use rigs in all of the major DCC apps so once you find a way of doing something you can just load it up again and work with it. iClone does make even this difficult because to date you cannot merge iClone projects so you would have to keep this rig in a clean project all of its own and then build your scene into it. This has always been an issue with iClone for me.
|
|
By mark - 8 Years Ago
|
A very clever way to get the mirror Alan! Bravo! I think Rampa had a similar solution as well.
I, of course, being the lazy person that I am did the old "flip-the-set" 90 degrees to face the water plane for my animation at the 2:47 mark. Of course I had to attach/link everything and everybody to a dummy so they wouldn't fall over!!!
|
|
By justaviking - 8 Years Ago
|
|
mark (11/28/2016)
A very clever way to get the mirror Alan! Bravo! I think Rampa had a similar solution as well.
I, of course, being the lazy person that I am did the old "flip-the-set" 90 degrees to face the water plane for my animation at the 2:47 mark. Of course I had to attach/link everything and everybody to a dummy so they wouldn't fall over!!!
Could you have rotated gravity 90-degrees instead of doing all the attaching? I think you'd have to do that any way if you have any physics on for hair or soft cloth.
|
|
By Alan_M - 8 Years Ago
|
|
mark (11/28/2016)
A very clever way to get the mirror Alan! Bravo! I think Rampa had a similar solution as well.
Thanks for your kind comment. However I doubt you could regard you mirror trick as lazy as having a water surface seems necessary to get the ripple effect when he puts his hand into the mirror.
Great piece of work by the way, absolutely loved the style and the lighting. I will look forward to seeing more of your work.
|
|
By mark - 8 Years Ago
|
Thanks guys but for me it seemed the easy way out LOL!
Good thought Vik have to try that. I did have to bounce back and forth from iC5 to iC6 to get the shots I wanted since I seem to have an issue with the transparency of my "light-rays" in iC6. 
|
|
By Rampa - 8 Years Ago
|
That's right JVK, for the 90 degree trick, you rotate the gravity for the physics. You can do your whole scene, including animation, in "upright world" and then rotate the whole kit-&-kaboodle at frame 1 and create your appropriate camera.
The reason for all the attaching is so that you only need to rotate one object to 90 degrees. Link your characters as well, before you start. That way they will rotate too.
|
|
By Molecule_Bleu - 8 Years Ago
|
Thank you a lot!!!
regards
|
|
By Pollux - 8 Years Ago
|
|
Thanks Alan for the video tut, it's very interesting.
|
|
By mr_vidius - 8 Years Ago
|
alan_20090922165144871 (11/28/2016)
mark (11/28/2016)
A very clever way to get the mirror Alan! Bravo! I think Rampa had a similar solution as well.
Thanks for your kind comment. However I doubt you could regard you mirror trick as lazy as having a water surface seems necessary to get the ripple effect when he puts his hand into the mirror. Great piece of work by the way, absolutely loved the style and the lighting. I will look forward to seeing more of your work.
of course.. you could run iclone 6 in direct X 9 mode. creating mirrors are a breeze that way. for some reason.. when running in direct X 11. mirrors only seem to work doing Rampa's trick.
vidius
|
|
By Alan_M - 8 Years Ago
|
[/quote]
of course.. you could run iclone 6 in direct X 9 mode. creating mirrors are a breeze that way. for some reason.. when running in direct X 11. mirrors only seem to work doing Rampa's trick.
vidius
[/quote]
The DirectX 9 switch is perfectly valid the only downside is you loose a lot of the high end shading features of DX11. So you just need to choose what works best for your project until RL realise we would all love a proper mirror surface.
|
|
By pumeco - 8 Years Ago
|
Thanks for such an in-depth video, Alan, cause I'm one of those who has always been frustrated by the mirror situation.
It's a sobering thought that we still might not have one in iClone7, or even 8.
Curious though, is there a technical reason why RL couldn't just make the water-plane rotatable on the X-Axis?
If we could do that, it would solve a heck of a lot, because the water reflection is perfect and we could always cut our scenes to give the impression it's in more places. I've often wondered why they didn't do that in iClone 4 and 5, but even in 6 there's still no X-Axis rotation for the water-plane.
|
|
By Alan_M - 8 Years Ago
|
|
pumeco (11/29/2016)
Curious though, is there a technical reason why RL couldn't just make the water-plane rotatable on the X-Axis?
Difficult for me to answer as I do not work for RL. Yes I have some contact with their developers but the reality is even if I asked such a question and they gave me an answer either positive or negative they might not want it made public. The danger is that people then have an expectation that something might happen. As I mentioned earlier in this topic like a lot of software they have both legacy code and new code and there may be some restrictions on what they can do. But I am not a programmer by any means so even I would be speculating on why something like this cannot be implemented.
Also keep in mind that dev teams are only so big and they have bosses that decide what is a priority, so even if something is A). a good idea and B). possible to do, does not mean it may actually happen.
Such is the wonders of commercial software development.
|
|
By pumeco - 8 Years Ago
|
Cheers Alan, I just meant is there a known technical reason for it, like a restriction in DX9 and DX11 rendering technology, something like that.
If not, and mirrors turn out to still be a problem, then giving us that control would solve a lot.
|
|
By Rampa - 8 Years Ago
|
The reflection tech that the water plain uses is somewhat limited, I believe. Currently it can only reflect on flat, horizontal. You can rotate the plain if you turn off the gizmo and select the rotate tool, but it will still only reflect flat, horizontal.
They've been working on the new engine, and all their products, probably since iC6 went to DX11. So, more pressing issues. We get soft specular reflections with the GI in realtime. VXGI computes its lighting and specular on a voxelized version of the scene for greater efficiency, but at the cost of being super sharp. So we might need to keep playing tricks a little longer.
|
|
By pumeco - 8 Years Ago
|
At the cost of being super sharp? ... but isn't that what we want for a mirror? 
BTW, that stuff on the first page about PBR materials not being released for iClone6 yet, being in beta.
Is that a mistake or did I miss an announcement somewhere?
Reason I ask is because if they're planning to release PBR materials in iClone6, that would definitely ease the pain while I can get a new graphics card sorted 
|
|
By justaviking - 8 Years Ago
|
pumeco (11/30/2016)
BTW, that stuff on the first page about PBR materials not being released for iClone6 yet, being in beta. Is that a mistake or did I miss an announcement somewhere? Reason I ask is because if they're planning to release PBR materials in iClone6, that would definitely ease the pain while I can get a new graphics card sorted
iClone 6 has support for "Substances" but not PBR.
That means you can have Substances where you do cool things like move sliders to "age" a prop, adjusting the amount of rust or crinkles and stuff like that, but the textures use the diffuse/glossy renderer that iClone has had for a long time. In iClone 7 we will be able to use a much better looking PBR engine for the rendering.
I hope that helps.
|
|
By pumeco - 8 Years Ago
|
alan_20090922165144871 (11/24/2016)
PBR support in the iClone 6 material editor is not released yet and this in not the beta forum so I am afraid it will not be a PBR solution, sorry.
Cheers Dennis, I'm understanding the Substance thing but I meant the part quoted here, sounds as if PBR materials are coming to iClone6, it's the part that says "yet"
|
|
By Delerna - 8 Years Ago
|
Great tutorial Alan. I think it also provides a good introduction for using object linking for achieving difficult animations like the one below done by stuckon3d back in 2011 .
There is a lot to do in the process of achieving this and hopefully iClone 7 will have decent mirrors that removes the need for this kind of work.
But if it doesn't and if the api for iclone7 will do the kind of things that I am hoping for, then this long set of procedures could be put together into a script to make it much simpler.
So, this is good stuff to become familiar with. I will be using your tutorial to help me finish something I am working on that needs 3 or 4 mirrors along a wall.
Or maybe I will go with curved surfaces behind holes in the wall which was my original plan for these mirrors. But your way looks like better mirrors.
|
|
By 3DxHome - 8 Years Ago
|
|
Thanks for sharing. I was wondering how this was done exactly.
|
|
By Alan_M - 8 Years Ago
|
pumeco (11/30/2016)
alan_20090922165144871 (11/24/2016)
PBR support in the iClone 6 material editor is not released yet and this in not the beta forum so I am afraid it will not be a PBR solution, sorry. Cheers Dennis, I'm understanding the Substance thing but I meant the part quoted here, sounds as if PBR materials are coming to iClone6, it's the part that says "yet"
Hi pumeco. PBR materials will not be in iClone 6 they are destined for iClone 7 as per previous statements on this forum as well as the teaser videos released by RL. Here is the most recent one showing the wonders of PBR along with a lot of other stuff.
So we will have to await iClone 7 next year for access to PBR materials.
|
|
By Alan_M - 8 Years Ago
|
[quote]Delerna (11/30/2016)
Great tutorial Alan. I think it also provides a good introduction for using object linking for achieving difficult animations like the one below done by stuckon3d back in 2011 .
Thanks for your kind comments Delema. I too am so looking forward not only to the API but also Python, I am so hoping that the Phython implementation is deep enough to do some serious stuff because you are spot on, writing scripts to create rigs like these would be a breeze.
|
|
By Alan_M - 8 Years Ago
|
RLD69Art (11/30/2016)
Thanks for sharing. I was wondering how this was done exactly.
No worries I hope it helps some people out.
Cheers
|
|
By pumeco - 8 Years Ago
|
|
alan_20090922165144871 (11/30/2016)
Hi pumeco. PBR materials will not be in iClone 6 they are destined for iClone 7 as per previous statements on this forum as well as the teaser videos released by RL. Here is the most recent one showing the wonders of PBR along with a lot of other stuff.
So we will have to await iClone 7 next year for access to PBR materials.
Sure, I know about the PBR stuff they mentioned, I even have a self-designed fake of the system I worked-out for use in iClone5 (and 6), and very cool stuff it is too!
I was just puzzled by what you said, that's all, sounded as if PBR material support was in beta for iClone6, but not released yet - but thanks for the clarification.
|