Welcome to the Forum and thewonderful world of iClone

Shy :)

Welcome to the forum.

My motto is: Better save than sorry :)

http://sketchup.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=39024

Firstly I wanted to see the graphics youre using for the lower clothing. That would be a help. originals and the edited perhaps.

Secondly, what editing software do you use for cutting iClone's output?

Also saving your projects SAVE every ten minutes. have a save set of scenesave1.ext and up to scenesave10.ext file names and just keep rolling through one to ten one to ten one to ten and if something in the scene glitches, youre always nine files in credit with only ten minutes work lost.
Patronising suggestion, but you'll kick your butt when you forget. :P

Regarding Sets and multiple sets in one scene, I HAVE done this. But as follows. I make forest or woodland scenes. I make the North, South, East and West view totally different and simply save this as a template if you liike.
Then I add in whatever I need and shoot at any angle I feel comfortable with. I LOVE Biosphere to bits. And time issues warrant GOOD Forestry work like in real life. Its the same. Compositionally panable and architecturally diverse means its a one set serves many. So your suggestion is as practical as you intended, just not QUITE the way you wished.

(I've got to add further, as soon as you start using solid light techniques and colour / seasonal hue variations, one landset might just as well serve as fifty, I'm not kidding!)

Anyway... All the other animators here are right as usual. I'm just doing a second hand fleshout. :P Greetings and I look forwards to your theories.
Armstrong.

No, don't misinterpret. This is simply one set. Every set has a North South East and West viewpoint / face.
Utilise your sets in such a fashion that, should you DO outside work, dress the set accordingly but remember that it may not always be worthwhile dressing behind identically like what's in front of the camera.

Anyway, your system will tell you when you've reached your maximum. Just thought I'd correct that misinterpretation a bit. I'd like to see what you come up with anyway. Set Stills and theories on them to me are as inspiring as the final outcome. It's all part of the same process, and to me, inspiring and an intrigue to hear the concepts of others.
Armstrong.

While the battle of the great minds is raging [:w00t: :crazy:] I thought I would chime in and answer this bit.  To make things look shiny try playing with the Glossiness and Specular settings.  It works pretty good.  The Reflection setting is used for mirrors and glass primarily.  Speaking of glass, to make something more transparent (such as a window) change the Opacity to less than 100.

Somewhat related to what the two gentlemen were discussing, in a film I am currently working on some scenes take place in a penthouse with several rooms.  I have the furnishings as separate objects and only the rooms that are actually in a scene are furnished. Due to needed detail, furniture and other objects can be quite expensive in terms of polygons.  I use a lot from 3D Warehouse and in the case of an interior that is already furnished, I export the items in the room separately. That way they can be reused and also be rearranged to suit the need of the scene. 

I agree with the idea of having a separate project for each scene. I find that as my skills improve, that I sometimes revisit scenes I did earlier.  Now I only have to rerender those scenes, not the whole movie.  I use Vegas to put it all together. 

aknzrdude (11/4/2009)

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great discussion on techniques

Hi people.....
Firstly, HOLY BADGERS WHISKERS.... :w00t: aknzrdude, I like this..... I would put a candle on the heffa, not good to find those down a narrow alley. :P

Well, Ive been bogged in with Forum header Movie stuff and really I want to crack on with my Short now rendering the sets.... BUT.... I have a moment free time now..... after playing with snow. :D

Set Building...
"Regarding Sets and multiple sets in one scene, I HAVE done this. But as follows.
I make forest or woodland scenes. I make the North, South, East and West view totally different and simply save this as a template if you liike."
Misinterpetation was perhaps too loose a term on my part as I didnt fully explain the volume of the environment I would do this within.  
Here is the procedure I use many times.

Take one land mass.
Edge design each of the four faces. In my case pretty much woodlands and forestry.
Instead of having four sets I CAN make one scene work as four.
The payoff of this is that many other elements are easily draggable into the "current" shot from the surrounds (As trees dont duplicate on CTRL click yet) but moreover by making four "sets"  (sets in so far as 'working environments for the characters LESS the characters)  I personally DONT have to wait for one set to close down as I open another blank set to clear ram BEFORE opening another chunky set.

For me on this machine with 2x2 gigs of nVidea ram on two cards and 4 gigs onboard I stuff it as full of trees as I can before I watch the memory manager start to choke on swapfile borderline.

When I open and close a set I can sometimes wait up to 40 seconds to over a minute or so for a good three gig set to open. Also some sets crash and thats a full 2 minute crash report and memory dump issue WITH a reboot and blue screen if it hits me hard enough. (Just love those olden days dossy blue screens!!!)
 
Flicking in one and out to another can rake up the hours. So, my solutionwas, expand the land masses. Make a four viewpoint landmass. And work inside that.

IN PRACTICE!!!!
Using this system means I dont wait for file opena nd close.
It also means I can sit back and wait while memory management cuts in and frees up say 300 megs free into a stonking 1.5 gigs free ram as it plays with the mass.
Now I can work, not always, but mostly, in at least three arenas on one board. I add characters as I need them, play with lights as I need them and simply work un stalled by open/close timelags.

This should work for anyone who uses alot of kit in their scenes and wants to skip set switching when theyre working hard.
For me, I can sit down here and commercially work for anything up to twelve hours in a stint.
If I can cut down three or four  set changes an hour  I can save almost an hour in a day.
That might sound tight, but believe me, some sets I put together suck the clock dry.

Currently I am working thin on my MCPE... but I hope this explains where I was coming from.

It isnt practical in all cases as sometimes you need to shoot long and compress the elements and the lenses in iClone work exactly as they do in real life. And if you cant back up far enough because of another quarter set, youre stuffed.
... but working tight, it IS effective.

Armstrong.

2) Reguarding your second advice. And I quote: "Anyway, your system will tell you when you've reached your maximum."
Seriously? are you advicing to create a set until your computer tells you no more? what about the rest of the movie.

OH Yes. Stuff it full. Pile it high! Stick in everything you need.  If theres room! 
Else, go as FAR as you can.
If you DONT, someone else will. And if you DONT someone else will deliver a more impressive set than yours and win the box office basically.
Wheres the beenfit of that.
Play hard, study long, deliver best.
Memory Managers like CACHEMAN will take your system and shunt the mass about until it frees up alot of Ram again. But in the mean time, YES.  Dont play easy safe. Wheres the excitement in that.
Wheres the sense of achievement by making sure youre working nice and fast because a gig of ram is free or you couldnt wait a few seconds to pan round the set!!!!!!
You HAVE to work hard and tear your hair out or you'll deliver dilute.
I work all out or nothing. The fans on the cards cut in and start whining and all Im doing is panning round with the camera. Theres SO MUCH STUFF sometimes they complain and whine like tiny jet engines. :D
Theyre my lil early  warning that I am getting close to the limit. HAH!
Of COURSE leave enough for your characters... :P  But if they take, say, 1 gig and youre on a three gig system.... !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You know your playing field size.

I COULD turn shadows down, I COULD work Vertex instead of Pixel, i COULD hide a load of kit on set.... but in all honesty!!!!!????? I absolutely LOVE the way it looks on a 24 inch flatscreen monitor and it really inspires me to see this amazing Disney World on my desktop... it really makes my heart sing.
It IS amazing. I remember in 1994 wondering If I would live long enough to see this happen.

Walt Disney would be absolutely blown away!

Long post BUT................................................................ I use short words!!! :P

NOTE!
Newcomers must realise that iClone is NOT as memory hungry as posts may imply. One of the beauties of iClone is that it is UNdemanding and my purpose working hard with iClone is not simply to make money but to display the Maximum output from using 100% iClone only products as best I can n the most ultimately beautiful alternative environments possible.
No imports.
No conversion.
No sketchups.
No Poser Converters.
No 3DXchange.
Simply 100% (99.9999999%) home grown Reallusion iClone products in an attempt to disolve the visual myth that it's just a shell awaiting mass external expense of props and accessories. They're there. But not the be all and end all.
This also assists those who work hard to earn Affiliate reward from promoting Reallusion from similar advantageously oriented promotion styles as mine.
end:

In the end, it's the story that matters.  Pixar looks great, I think; I recently watched a few films I hadn't seen before, but without a strong story it would just be eye-candy.  So I know that there are films out there that look better than mine in a way, but what would be the point of imitating Pixar, or anybody else for that matter? 

It's already past my bedtime, so I don't know if I make any sense...  But my advise to newcomers would be to start simple and build on that.  And don't forget to have fun and also don't forget to learn about film-making.  That is, use of camera, lighting, and editing.  Also, besides your visuals, you have sound and music at your disposal to tell your story.