Unity, Cry, or Unreal for external rendering?


https://forum.reallusion.com/Topic388997.aspx
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By eternityblue - 6 Years Ago
I'm considering learning a game engine to use for rendering animation, and I was wondering what users here preferred and why. I have installed all three in the past, Cry I dived deepest into but I was definitely no pro, so I have no big investment in any of the engines yet. 

What I'm really looking for is ease of use, compatibility with iClone exports, and a community of filmmakers that have figured all the details out and can offer guidance.Thoughts?
By sonic7 - 6 Years Ago

Excellent ..... I too would be interested in this (like you say - a straight forward 'easy' approach) ....
By akuei2 - 6 Years Ago
Hi, Unity are recommend. Easy & straight forward to learning,  visual quality against to UE4 without problem.
( Otherwise, you can achieve satisfy result by paid or free stuff  aid ). Free stuff done by Unity team powerful and friendly to use.
I you are interesting in film making, some one free stuff call cinemachine( camera system) will catching your eye.

https://forum.reallusion.com/uploads/images/affdf8b0-fd54-4ae2-8d26-28f5.jpg

Here a scene quality, I can achieve after learning unity 7 hours.
By 3d guy1 - 6 Years Ago
I can't find solid info on the unity assets.

Can the paid models in the Unity store be used in Films,  and/ or music videos?     Link to a license statement that confirms it?
How about the free unity models?

thanks


By 3d guy1 - 6 Years Ago
Here a scene quality, I can achieve after learning unity 7 hours.

I like the geometry,  but sorry,  I dont like that render.
By eternityblue - 6 Years Ago
With Unity, what do you need to buy? I mean, to render videos and whatnot? Same goes for Unreal. What I'd really love to see would be a package by either that is set up with terrains, environments, and all the settings you need specific to animation. I know the engines are free, but what does all the necessary nickel and dimes amount to? 
By AutoDidact - 6 Years Ago
Hi 
First and foremost any discussion about rendering your Iclone animated avatars in external environments is predicated upon the assumption that everyone involved,in the discussion,  has the pipeline version of Iclone with 
full export capabilities.

Second for those looking for a "straight forward" way to render your exported iclone people in external render engines, I am not sure what  "straight forward"means to you.

That said, I can tell you that you will need to have more than a beginners 
knowledge of the external rendering application as well as the various advantages&limitations of your chosen export method from iclone pipeline.
 
You only have two methods for animated characters , FBX or Alembic(.obj can be use for static props).

Now I render in both lightwave 3D & Maxon Cinema4D,however I 
imagine most here are looking to use a free solution like unity or unreal.

I have zero experience with Unreal thus have no comment on it

I have Unity 2018 installed and have experimented with bringing in FBX exported Daz people into Unity.
 
For unity I recommend getting the free "cinemachine" procedural camera system that was used in the much talked about "Adam " Seriesas well as the free timeline asset and the free  post processing stack.

Adam was made with both FBX ,for the robots, and Alembic for the 
humans & cloth simulation so if you plan to export any Iclone cloth physics or spring effects you will need the free Alembic importer for unity.

You will have to then educate yourself on how to use the camera 
lighting,timeline, materials shading and rendering system of Unity or Unreal or whatever to prepare your virtual sets to receive your pre animated people from  Iclone because everything you know about working in iclone becomes irrelevant when you leave the Iclone environment.

Develop your own personal multi-application filmmaking pipeline.Just as I have done with my Iclone/Daz-MDD/C4D pipeline and My icloneAlembic/Lightwave 2015 pipeline.
or Wildstar has done with his  Iclone to Unity pipeline.

This can be a daunting task for those who have trouble acquiring new skills
in an autodidactic fashion.

For me it is well worth the effort  obviously.

By akuei2 - 6 Years Ago
AutoDidact (10/18/2018)
Hi 
First and foremost any discussion about rendering your Iclone animated avatars in external environments is predicated upon the assumption that everyone involved,in the discussion,  has the pipeline version of Iclone with 
full export capabilities.

Second for those looking for a "straight forward" way to render your exported iclone people in external render engines, I am not sure what  "straight forward"means to you.

That said, I can tell you that you will need to have more than a beginners 
knowledge of the external rendering application as well as the various advantages&limitations of your chosen export method from iclone pipeline.
 
You only have two methods for animated characters , FBX or Alembic(.obj can be use for static props).

Now I render in both lightwave 3D & Maxon Cinema4D,however I 
imagine most here are looking to use a free solution like unity or unreal.

I have zero experience with Unreal thus have no comment on it

I have Unity 2018 installed and have experimented with bringing in FBX exported Daz people into Unity.
 
For unity I recommend getting the free "cinemachine" procedural camera system that was used in the much talked about "Adam " Seriesas well as the free timeline asset and the free  post processing stack.

Adam was made with both FBX ,for the robots, and Alembic for the 
humans & cloth simulation so if you plan to export any Iclone cloth physics or spring effects you will need the free Alembic importer for unity.

You will have to then educate yourself on how to use the camera 
lighting,timeline, materials shading and rendering system of Unity or Unreal or whatever to prepare your virtual sets to receive your pre animated people from  Iclone because everything you know about working in iclone becomes irrelevant when you leave the Iclone environment.

Develop your own personal multi-application filmmaking pipeline.Just as I have done with my Iclone/Daz-MDD/C4D pipeline and My icloneAlembic/Lightwave 2015 pipeline.
or Wildstar has done with his  Iclone to Unity pipeline.

This can be a daunting task for those who have trouble acquiring new skills
in an autodidactic fashion.

For me it is well worth the effort  obviously.



Nice to see you again comment at here, very appreciate about experience sharing. 
As a AutoDidact said, if everyone seeking a pipeline method, make sure you had a clearly define on your target.

By justaviking - 6 Years Ago
@AutoDidact,

FBX versus Alembic.

I did a crude "animation test" when Alembic export was first available as an export option from iClone (I took it to Blender).  Does Alembic support textures, or do you need to move them all manually?  I think my test was "mesh-only" of a dancing character, with no textures.  I'm not certain if that was a "first release limitation," a limitation of the Alembic format, or just lack of knowledge on my part.

It is my understanding that FBX will contain *most* of the textures you need, but not all.  From reading the CC3 threads, I think two textures are not included (sorry I don't remember specifically which ones), but maybe that's only when going to a specific game engine.

Can you share some insight on that?  If you have to move textures manually, it could be a large chore.
By 3d guy1 - 6 Years Ago
AutoDidact 

assumption that everyone involved,in the discussion,  has the pipeline version of Iclone with 
full export capabilities.

yes have it

 
Now I render in both lightwave 3D


I own lightwave and octane.  BUT..............  I found importing DAZ into LW a nightmare.
Daz figures have up to hundreds of textures.  These all needed to be re-linked in Octane.
Too much work.    Would something like texture master solve this problem?

How about iclone figures to LW  >  Octane?

I have zero experience with Unreal thus have no comment on it

Ive seen some UNREAL VS UNITY render comparisons where UNREAL comes out on top.

I have Unity 2018 installed and have experimented with bringing in FBX exported Daz people into Unity.
 
How many textures?

Develop your own personal multi-application filmmaking pipeline

I think people are hoping for an "easy " tutorial



thanks

By AutoDidact - 6 Years Ago
Hi,
On the matter of Alembic vs FBX it will depend on how well your 
receiving App handles these formats the Alembic (ABC) format by Autodesk, does NOT automatically read 
multiple UV Assignments so your model will import grey without texturesso it is  best to perform an FBX export even when using an Alembic workflow as this will collect your  texture in one directroy 
 
This older Video from RL's Official YT page Details the process to send 
Alembic to Maya with cloth physics ,from the early 6.5 days



As in the video manually applying the textures are a bit of a hassle however 
it is a one time per sceen actor process.you will be able to send a new alembic cache files with new animation Data 
over to keep driving that   texturedalembic animated figure until his/her scenes are finished.

In C4D I send over new MDD data from Daz studio to keep driving my 
Genesis meshes in C4D with new animation Data and my textures are auto applied with Daz  mesh import via a third party  obj import plugin that asks for the location of the texures during import.

with FBX you are dealing with a rigged figure in the external rendering application and again wether the Unity or Unreal will auto detect the texures and assign them to imported FBX rigs is a matter for you to discover yourself.

 
 Even so
How will you get a new animated Data from iclone to a FBX rig after he is finished scene one/ take one??
Again you will have to discover your options to bring in BVH to an existing rig in Unity/Unreal .
 I know there are ***PAID** Plugins such as"Umotion" for unity that does this so you will have to consider the costs.

These are just few things to consider before the rendering in the other 
application even begins  ..no... there is no easy" send over to free other app and hit render" ,
solution.

It takes  much planning and work.
By urbanlamb - 6 Years Ago
I use Blender for some render ..although truth be known I am slowly phasing out iclone.  I was hanging on to see what CC3 would add but alas nope not for me either.   I love iclone and think its fun for many things, but I have kinda outgrown it or it didnt keep up with my direction or both or whatever.   

But with the introduction of eveee; blender will probablly be a good option for external render even if you are using iclone for the setup.    Octane was something else I have used but stopped using that when Iclone7 came out.   Now as time moves forward again I find myself moving to Blender for everything.   

(anyhow that is my "other" explanation)

Oh and I never bothered with Alembic but I dont spend a lot of time worrying about the most efficient way.   In my case if it works then that's great I dont try to "fix what aint broke" when it comes to that.  I find I end up spending more time looking for these shortcuts then if i just plodded ahead using the method that I found that works for me.  


By illusionLAB - 6 Years Ago
On the matter of Alembic vs FBX it will depend on how well your receiving App handles these formats the Alembic (ABC) format by Autodesk, does NOT automatically read 
multiple UV Assignments so your model will import grey without texturesso it is  best to perform an FBX export even when using an Alembic workflow as this will collect your  texture in one directroy


A couple of corrections - first, Alembic has nothing to do with Autodesk, it's an open source format developed by Sony and Lucasfilm.  It's basically a "point cache" file of the animated vertices in your geometry to make an efficient animated model for lighting, simulation effects, rendering and so on - when you create an Alembic file you are basically committing to a 'final' animated character, as you can no longer 'tweak' the animation or geometry. (well, a little... timing for eg.).

Every animation studio is pretty much guaranteed to have a completely different 'pipeline' and will use a combination of 'bitmap textures' and 'procedural textures' as well as different bitmap formats 'TIFF or EXR etc." - so the 'norm' is to write a script to carry over any texture elements deemed necessary for their pipeline or task.  For example, if the character is dancing and "singing in the rain" the FX dept. won't bother with textures at all and just use the ABC model as a bounce/deflector for particles.  If the model is used by the lighting department they would want all the passes - diffuse, ambient occ, bumps, displacement etc.  Pro studios actually use Open EXR files for textures because they can embed ALL the different passes into one file - which requires a complex 'breakout' in order to represent all the channels in the correct place.  So, instead of trying to guess what every studio or 3D software package 'might' use it's more efficient to transfer the model without textures at all - leaving the decision of 'where textures go' to a studio's unique pipeline.

Second correction, you don't have to export an FBX model as a 'workaround' to get the necessary texture maps... the Alembic export in iClone does export all the textures (and a .INI file listing them), so a clever coder could easily write an IMPORT routine for their 3D package of choice.  I'm sure as iClone gains in popularity some bright spark will create, for instance, a Blender Add-On.  I've only just started using Blender for rendering, and based on what I've seen with importing to game engines... the task is no more difficult or time consuming.
By eternityblue - 6 Years Ago
Well, I'm installing Unreal now. I do understand there is still work involved, but for me it was the Nvidia Gameworks, especially the water sim, that determined it for me. Now just to learn.
By TonyDPrime - 6 Years Ago
eternityblue (10/19/2018)
Well, I'm installing Unreal now. I do understand there is still work involved, but for me it was the Nvidia Gameworks, especially the water sim, that determined it for me. Now just to learn.


Good choice.  I mean, you can do each and try yourself, you know, but I myself learned UE4 and think the workflow is more fun than Unity.
I like the node based mat setup, the effects, the lighting.  I haven't really ever seen too much good iClone to UE4 stuff, to me the avartars always will look 2nd rate compared to Octane, and now Iray, or even iClone's own native renderer.  But, the backgrounds can look really great.

Here is a UE4 I messed with recently:

https://forum.reallusion.com/uploads/images/7d167f11-855a-4afe-8e46-012d.jpg


https://forum.reallusion.com/uploads/images/dc5c1d53-4826-47e4-9141-eddb.jpg


https://forum.reallusion.com/uploads/images/72b0c9fb-9932-4b09-b372-5214.png

https://forum.reallusion.com/uploads/images/7a05e499-9f6a-49f8-8cd0-bc86.jpg
By sonic7 - 6 Years Ago

I feel 'shackled', as though my 'creativity' has a ball and chain attached, holding me down.
I search for a way to escape - to set myself 'free'.
I watch this (first) video -
and my spirits soar! - Yes! this is what I want! .... freedom - creative freedom!
Then I watch the second video - and 'reality' sets in - I'm bought back to earth - so much work - so much time .....
It's easy for me to dream - but - to do? - that's the hard part - so much effort, so much time - maybe if I was young again ....





But hey .... that's only me .... - we're all different - and others might be up to the task!
By mtakerkart - 6 Years Ago
@Eternityblue

It's a good thing to explore Udk. I use it only to export Props or characters (free or payed) and importing in Iclone.
Those game engine is really not a speed pipeline for a one man band to produce big projetct. 
In this picture on a left it's udk , on the right Iclone. Seriously for me difference are minors. Ok there's no volumetric light or sss
in Iclone. 

https://forum.reallusion.com/uploads/images/0ed3a0c1-84c4-45ef-bd4b-95d4.jpg
By mtakerkart - 6 Years Ago
Oh! I forgot to mention that texturing in UDk is like this . This is the Torso Crunch material. I can understand that when you understand the nodal
process it could be easy but clearly not fast.....

https://forum.reallusion.com/uploads/images/d4b8dc74-3c53-4ffe-af5d-6bab.jpg
By animagic - 6 Years Ago
@sonic7: I think you have to be careful not to become paralyzed as you may get into a situation where you don't create anything at all.

The things I have done over the years have many shortcomings that were often the result of a lack of skills and/or experience on my part.

What I could control was the story, so I made sure that that was satisfactory. Then, each project became a learning experience, where I tried to expand on what I already knew.

The main reason for me to stay within iClone is the amount of additional work, learning, and expense involved to get elaborate scenes into another program. I'm with mtakerkart on that. 
By sonic7 - 6 Years Ago

Yep .....  no more changing my mind ..... I concede defeat ..... I'll fly with little scaled down kites .....
By eternityblue - 6 Years Ago
SSS is a BIG f%^$ing deal for me, water that isn't a joke is a big deal, struggling to get iClone to do what iClone just can't do is a big deal, it eats up its own time and energy, I think it is time to augment it. Regarding materials, I'm used to node setups at least enough to plug in the maps to the different channels, and there is a Substance importer now for Unreal. 

Seriously, I would much rather Reallusion updated their engine to handle these things, but I could wait years and still not see it. I want to have light filtering through skin realistically, that's part of what I want graphically. I get that some things are just hard and will take some study. 

Here's the tutorial I'm starting on tonight. Baby steps.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZlv_N0_O1gaiA_sfpjATUprVW7B9FcK1
By Kelleytoons - 6 Years Ago
sonic7 (10/19/2018)

Yep .....  no more changing my mind ..... I concede defeat ..... I'll fly with little scaled down kites .....


Why look at it as a defeat?

iClone is a TERRIFIC program to create animation and stories.  I can only tell you that in a decade or so ago, when I was doing this for a living, we would have KILLED almost anyone and anything to have iClone 7.  Do other rendering engines look better?  Absolutely.  Do they do some things that iClone can't?  Again, yep.  Do they allow you to tell stories you can't tell with iClone?

Ah, that's the whole thing, isn't it?  OF COURSE they don't.  Not only that -- you are unlikely to ever be able to tell stories as quickly or as efficiently as you can using iClone.  The proof is in the pudding, so to speak -- you will seldom (if ever) find any one-man shops using these tools to put together the kinds of stories you can find folks using iClone to do.  Teams, yes.  And even if you do find a person determined (and lucky) enough to have stuck with it to tell an incredible story with one of these tools... odds are great that same very talented individual could have done the same in iClone in far less time.

So don't get discouraged at all.  You have in your hands a set of tools that can envision almost anything, and if it doesn't look *quite* as good as something else... well, you and I know very well that, in the words of the immortal bard, "The Play's the Thing".  Doesn't matter one little iota how you tell your story.  If your story is good enough, you can tell it on the back porch of a run down tenement house using unskilled folks who can barely speak, wearing nothing but the rags on their back and your audience will be enchanted and removed and taken to the places you want to take them.
By Daemonspike - 6 Years Ago
Very well said Kelleytoons  !
I for one needed to hear that : )
iClone is a great piece of software.

Not comparable at all, but I have to say this looks sexy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kw1lvyZ8f3A

https://nm.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/9olt21/i_made_the_shire_from_lord_of_the_rings_in_far/?st=jnfszl9h&sh=d9fbdd35



By eternityblue - 6 Years Ago
OK, I'm digging Unreal and it is not rocket science, I use multiple complex production tools all the time, and IMO some things are easier to get done using multiple tools for what they do best, and it is only because I can't get the output from iClone that I look elsewhere. Now, i own the Pipeline version and it is not sacrilege or a creative failing to use more than just iClone, I bought it specifically so I could get Alembic output, and it is NOT HARD. If you don't have something to say about actually using a game engine and how to get it done efficiently, maybe this thread isn't for you. I'd really like to hear from people with working experience in this particular area, thanks.
By eternityblue - 6 Years Ago
AND I have actual brain damage and I can grasp this, I dunno why this is considered so hard. It's really not. Unreal's curve editor and workflow is pretty slick too, all for nothing. I'm not that far from where I need to be on the learning curve, I just would appreciate experienced insight into how to actually get it done. 
By eternityblue - 6 Years Ago
Nvidia GameWorks is really what I'm excited about, it would be wonderful if Reallusion incorporated it.

By AutoDidact - 6 Years Ago
"Now, i own the Pipeline version and it is not sacrilege or a creative failing 
to use more than just iClone, I bought it specifically so I could get Alembic to use more than just iClone, I bought it specifically so I could get Alembic output, and it is NOT HARD. If you don't have something to say about output, and it is NOT HARD. If you don't have something to say about actually using a game engine and how to get it done efficiently, maybe this actually using a game engine and how to get it done efficiently, maybe this 
thread isn't for you."thread isn't for you."


Thank you for this reminder as the OP of this Poll/thread.

Also the lofty platitude of: "Iclone's  render output is good enough for us"
Seems to assume that every Iclone user here  is a casual hobbiest  only creating animations for himself.

Some of us create  animations for paying clients thus do not have the 
luxury of telling them " the Iclone render is good enough" or  that they will have to accept an exponetial increase in delivery times for Brute force path tracers like IRay.

Second correction, you don't have to export an FBX model as a 'workaround' to get the necessary texture maps... the Alembic export in iClone does export all the textures (and a .INI file listing them), so a clever coder could easily write an IMPORT routine for their 3D package of choice. 

 
No you dont **have*** to perfom anFBX export, however in the case of Maya The RL video guy Saved himself quite a bit of time  in gettin those exported textures into the Maya hypershade panel by using an FBX import in the video you watched.
and a clever coder writing an IMPORT routine is a "work around" to get textures quickly applied.

But as you said ,Alembic was created with the assumption that you will be using your own render engine native material/Shader sytem anyway and has no real need to use the textures from your exporting application.
Just as my realflow plugin for C4D assumes I will be texturing my fluid sim backs in C4D

I Personally prefer an animated Point cached mesh based workflow over FBX. because I use the Daz genesis Figures and PLA animated meshes retain all of the original mesh fidelity of the Joint control morphs. and my Daz optitex cloth sims can be easily sent to C4D Lightwave3d or Unity.


Additionally also My MDD animated genesis meshes can have the C4D native Dynamic Hair system grow hairs from the vertices.

By TonyDPrime - 6 Years Ago
I wouldn't set the Boy and His Kite as a benchmark for a good production.  Just realize yours could look like there's, after you learn it.  
With UE4, that node stuff does look menacing, but it's just a visual representation of current tweaks to a material, so it's not like you have to understand the whole thing from start, you can make it more complex as you move along.

Oh, as far as updating iClone's native realtime PBR - look at this discussion, too:
https://forum.reallusion.com/385872/Iray-with-iclone-a-game-changer?PageIndex=5

I never tried Alembic to UE4, I am wondering what benefits are involved, vs FBX export? 
The soft-cloth/hair collision movement on an animation?


By urbanlamb - 6 Years Ago

eternityblue (10/19/2018)
OK, I'm digging Unreal and it is not rocket science, I use multiple complex production tools all the time, and IMO some things are easier to get done using multiple tools for what they do best, and it is only because I can't get the output from iClone that I look elsewhere. Now, i own the Pipeline version and it is not sacrilege or a creative failing to use more than just iClone, I bought it specifically so I could get Alembic output, and it is NOT HARD. If you don't have something to say about actually using a game engine and how to get it done efficiently, maybe this thread isn't for you. I'd really like to hear from people with working experience in this particular area, thanks.


Okay dont get mad at me but I will give you some input on unreal and why I prefer to use blender for making movies.   Its the blueprint system and the fact its a real time game engine there are limitations around bones.  In fact Blender is simpler to use for movie making to me then unreal is.   I spent the last while working on a couple games with people and my take away from the entire situation is this.  Unreal is a game engine first and a movie making tool last.   I used unity eons ago as well but if i was to compare it to unreal.  Unreal is better, but it is a game engine.  Its unreal skeleton has a severe bone limit (way more limited then iclone) and I found the import pipeline well cumbersome because of its blueprint system.  If you dont use the unreal skeleton you have to create blueprints for all your little dudes you import.    They added a clothing system but this is another quandry unless your characters are prebuilt with clothing attached already, but I guess if you use the CC3 you can make lots of characters.    But if you make your own stuff or your stuff is atypical your going to run into constraints that iclone doesnt have.  So there is good and bad with them all.      

The biggest thing you will miss from all of them including Blender is speech engine.   But I am wierd and my fun is in the making not the end result.     

For movie making though in my opinion using something like unreal is more complex and limitting then just using a render plugin in a 3D software.  In short when people tell me "blender is hard" but they go and use Unreal I get puzzled lol.   

(and on that note when i mention speech engine.. I wonder why I havent scoured the internet to see if someone coded one for blender lol *goes to look* probably because i have been moving towards non talking stuff as I change my stories and interests) 
By illusionLAB - 6 Years Ago
In short when people tell me "blender is hard" but they go and use Unreal I get puzzled lol.


I totally agree!  Blender isn't difficult... it's different.  Making animated movies is a lot of work regardless of which system you use, and since the 'story' is the whole point of the animation in the first place I can't see the reason in using any system that will eventually will smack you in the face with it's limitations.  The guys making amazing productions with Unity/Unreal are doing 95% of the work in the most comprehensive 3D packages available - so, if they need better cloth simulations or fracture simulations etc. they are already using the best tools for the job.  Even the best "off the shelf" software like Maya/Max/Houdini/C4D have limits for the "big boys" (ILM, DreamWorks, Weta etc.) but they have the R+D teams/budgets to build tools they require - and almost always as tools for their prime 3D software.

Let's just say, you could export your scene with Alembic characters and get the 'same' result in UE4 and Blender's eevee - both involve similar amounts of manual labour and learning new stuff... so why would you choose the software that by the very nature of it's design will slam you in the face half way through your production?

 A shovel can knock spikes into the ground as well as a hammer, but I wouldn't want to dig a hole with a hammer ;-)
By urbanlamb - 6 Years Ago
illusionLAB (10/19/2018)

Let's just say, you could export your scene with Alembic characters and get the 'same' result in UE4 and Blender's eevee - both involve similar amounts of manual labour and learning new stuff... so why would you choose the software that by the very nature of it's design will slam you in the face half way through your production?

 A shovel can knock spikes into the ground as well as a hammer, but I wouldn't want to dig a hole with a hammer ;-)



yup here is the thing.   Technology is making it possible to render in real time .. in any 3D package I can think of.    (okay blender it will be a few more months, but right now.. i can open up blender beta 2.8 and render something pre assembled in blender 2.79 or whatever number we are on now.  Its crashy, but it works)

Now we are only one person the time of game engines being an option is past I think.   They are game engines and at this point in time its adding a level of unnecesarry complexity for little to no gain.    If your going to remain with a real time engine using a real time game type skeleton your better off with iclone at this point in time.    (well the curve editor needs some work but i put in a feedback thingy and I think they are working on improving its functionality).   Unreal wont animate any better in fact it uses less bones and has a whole pile of restrictions in it.  Yes they made a thing to make movies with it, but its still a company trying to take a thing made for one purpose and crowbar it to be something else.    Visually you can achieve a lot in iclone any any gains you get in unreal will be handicapped by the fact its still a real time engine with a game skeleton animating.   And looking quickly at the CC3 skeleton used inside iclone now its far superior.   You will get less collapsing of meshes when you move things among other things.

So if you want a render solution that looks better than iclone why not just import it into blender (or whatever) and use a plugin its less complicated and your not stripping bones out of the skeleton to squeeze it into unreal.  Why are you spending time getting it into unreal?Smile 

Evee was built upon the unreal engine it is the unreal engine lol (basically) for render why then would i go yet one more step and spend my time putting it into unreal to lower the quality of the animation.    
If your gonna spend time using something as complicated as unreal for movie making better to spend the time on an actual package designed to make movies first.  ?

By musicaz - 6 Years Ago
     No where on the blender site do i read that Evee is based on the Unreal Engine . In fact anything i have researched is that Unreal is still far superior to Evee and its going to be a long time before Evee catches up with the unreal 4 engine which is constantly btw making  huge improvements. Many of us dont appreciate the quality of rendering in Iclone 7 . So using game engines like unreal or unity is a great option for us  and it only takes a little work to learn other tools . and well worth it . Also i agree that blender with Evee will eventually be an option but it has a long long ways to go yet . Film Engine is coming out soon i have read for the cry engine which should also offer another high quality rendering tool for us. 
It's just i think that people who have the standards that find iclone 7 to be acceptible quality for rendering dont get it that , others , dont agree and wouldnt be able to get at the very least the inspiration to create the stories and animate them.  This is only my humble opinion but if the quality is not  high end for the visuals then the story has no interest for me , as if i wanted just great stories i would read books etc . !!
  Dont forget a picture or video is worth a thousand words and crappy visuals  =  crud ! 
By urbanlamb - 6 Years Ago

musicaz (10/19/2018)
     No where on the blender site do i read that Evee is based on the Unreal Engine .  


You will just have to believe me on that one but yes they based it on unreal's PBR engine.    The info is there to find and I am a blender nerd I read everything LOL.   
They changed the name because of well reasons they dont want to be linked to PBR because in the future the all the rage PBR is not gonna be all the rage it will be some other letters LOL.  
I am also unsure about where you read its not as good as the unreal one.. i have seen nothing but praise for it. 
No matter there are plugins out there that plug into blender to make renders with other letters in the name so your not limited to the unreal thing. 

 Bottom line even if unreals' render engine was slightly better your still dealing with a game system that is gonna place all kinds of restrictions making the animation look worse then anything that can be achieved in blender even if Evee was not as good hands down and bonus it will render at similar speeds.   Plus it has an iray render as well and all that other "old fashioned" slower stuff.  

So the logic in the here and now to use something meant to create video games is lost on me, but then I have used both so I know the limitations of both.  ?   If you want better quality use blender and forget about these game engines they are not necessary these days.   (that's the bottom line) 

This is an old video it works better then this now.   Can do this way easier in blender then in unreal & faster without messing about with their game system to get it into the environment.  




By illusionLAB - 6 Years Ago
"real time" renderers are built on compromise and clever cheats... but when the time comes to 'up' the quality of your output, the game engine route does not offer a choice of "non-bias" renderers like Blender does - you can swap between eevee and Cycles and not need to convert all your materials - soon you'll be able to choose Octane 4 (free!) or Redshift among others... not to mention the ease of uploading your projects to be rendered by "online render farms".  Honestly, the list of advantages of using a complete 3D suite of software over a game engine is huge.
By TonyDPrime - 6 Years Ago
Fun Fact-
The guy who made Blender was co-founder of the game system Neo Geo in 1988.
That game making experience has led to him becoming a better animation producer.

PS - UE4 has excellent rendering capabilities, it actually renders several frames per second at 1080p, I do not know how it does this, but it can! 
So it actually can beat iClone as far as speed in rendering. 
I am interested to see what capabilities lie in UE4 with alembic.
By musicaz - 6 Years Ago
  well to urbanlamb  and illusionLab  that is very exciting news and information you offer about Blender with Evee  . ! Definitely when the new blender is released i will be willing to put much work into learning it and look forward to this. !  oh yeah and getting octane  4 free to use in blender is an absolute win win situation  ! 
By urbanlamb - 6 Years Ago

TonyDPrime (10/19/2018)
Fun Fact-
The guy who made Blender was co-founder of the game system Neo Geo in 1988.
That game making experience has led to him becoming a better animation producer.

PS - UE4 has excellent rendering capabilities, it actually renders several frames per second at 1080p, I do not know how it does this, but it can! 
So it actually can beat iClone as far as speed in rendering. 
I am interested to see what capabilities lie in UE4 with alembic.


oh this reminded me for anyone interested in blender's game engine.  Its being removed.  It has been broken for a long time... it did get a repair many many years ago but with the invention of things like unity and unreal its been neglected as a usable solution.    They did make some noise about replacing it in the future, but they had a ceremony a few months back removing the code for this engine.  I watched .. there were both tears and cheers.   Smile

By 3d guy1 - 6 Years Ago
ternityblue

I'm digging Unreal


I like that tutorial series you posted.  I like the non linear design ,  not sure if Unity has that.

 something to say about actually using a game engine

I'm an Octane User.   That puts me square in line to use Unity.   Sounds like Octane in unity may be free.   would like
to see more tutorials on UE 4 cinema rendering, to compare..

But I'm still wondering about:

1.  License to use PAID ./ FREE models in films / music videos in UE 4,  or Unity.

{  there's talk of these Cinema engines,  but no info for the assets for a film. }




By animagic - 6 Years Ago
Thank you urbanlamb for adding another point of view, although some may not like it.

Nobody here can dictate what is a valuable contribution to this thread. This is still a public forum after all. I may not do client work, but that doesn't mean I take my filmmaking any less seriously and just fool around.
By eternityblue - 6 Years Ago
I use Blender, I'm very comfortable with it, but it doesn't support the Nvidia works stuff, at least not yet, so I will have to wait till 2.8 is released to even know if it will handle real time rendering some of the stuff I want to do. I know right now the ocean sum is still not very fast, I would love Waveworks in Blender. I would prefer Blender over Unreal etc simply because I could model whatever I needed, change a UV or whatever. So that's my end game hopefully. But that is still maybe six months away at least, and I don't think the bones issue will be that big a deal for me, I will use fbx for distant characters on ships and alembic for any closer animation. But I want a huge mountain, and a tumultuous sea, and that isn't very doable in iClone and may actually be easier to pull off in Unreal than Blender unless I want to make or buy a bunch of plant assets and maybe an addon. And on top of it all, I see value in knowing at least on a high level how to navigate Unreal, I was having a great time with the cameras and rendering last night, it was more intuitive than I found Cryengine, I need to do a bit more focused study instead of late night insomnia haze playing with it, but that is true if I want success with any tool. I think after you get familiar with software, skills and knowledge applies across apps, you get used to using nodes, or how UVs work etc. Anyhow, I saw Reallusion has a new video on Cc3 to Unreal, so that looks interesting. 
By urbanlamb - 6 Years Ago
Hair improvements are coming for 2.8 (its there just not.. all released).   Everything else is pretty easy in Blender.  I installed an addon awhile back that makes crazy plants etc for free but doing it manually is also not so hard. 

  As for unreal there is no doubt its a cool software and I used to use nothing but game engines until a couple years ago including things like opensim (well that's not a game engine i guess dunno? use that a lot).   However I had some people I was working with try to convince me as i was making things for the game project how cool unreal was for movies.  So I opened up the packages released and I came to the same conclusion as I had drawn since the newest advanncements.  Unless its a premade game already installed and running with all the assets and stuff (so like your making a movie using some game or other) its actually way more time consuming, harder and less pleasing then some 3D suite.  This didnt used to be the case but over the last couple of years times have changed.  

But its always fun to learn I was simply pointing out that the results in any game engine will always be less then a 3D package and if the issue is quality then that is the solution 

anyhow that's my two cents on the issue.    Didnt used to be this way, but it is now so I have changed with the times BigGrin 

(edited to remove smiley overload ^^)
By musicaz - 6 Years Ago
    I am very gratefull to reallusion for making a new tutorial Character Creator 3 Tutorial Importing CC3 Characters to Unreal . As i said before i really like character creator 3 and i  prefer the base avatars over any Daz characters. etc.  I own the CC3 pipeline version . I no longer have an expectation to do everything in one piece of software and i enjoy learning new software programs .  This is only my opinion but i dont think there is any software program out there that can beat what CC3 can actually do . And also for ease of use . etc etc . 
By TonyDPrime - 6 Years Ago
Every time someone refers to the amazing visuals of Blender Eevee and Unity, I just laugh and think of this:


By VirtualMedia - 6 Years Ago
mtakerkart (10/19/2018)
Oh! I forgot to mention that texturing in UDk is like this . This is the Torso Crunch material. I can understand that when you understand the nodal
process it could be easy but clearly not fast.....

https://forum.reallusion.com/uploads/images/d4b8dc74-3c53-4ffe-af5d-6bab.jpg

That was enough for me to reconsider alternative rendering, the render difference was negligible, In some way I liked IC better.

Animagic said it perfectly' I think you have to be careful not to become paralyzed as you may get into a situation where you don't create anything at all.' Analysis paralysis has taken so much time, creating content is beginning to loosing appeal.

RL filled the creative - 'not overly technical nitch'  If only we could get decent IRAY renders down to less than 60 seconds a frame.. that would be a game changer!



By danielswright2311_182877 - 6 Years Ago
15 years ago I asked the same question, but for creating games not rendering animations.

After years of learning I now create my own games through coding I have found it much better to render with my own engine using my own framed per second renderer. Easy to code. 

I say this because I was in the same boat as you not satisfied with any body else engines. 

But If I had to choose? 

I would choose unity as its drag and drop and easy to bring in your own models. 


By eternityblue - 6 Years Ago
Ok, well after some soul searching before I invested much time into Unreal, I have decided to go with Blender and Eevee, which I'm already comfortable modeling in, the node system etc already makes some sense to me, and my volumetric tests today were good. They fixed some issue recently with dynamic painting and now my oceans are rendering fast and accurately in Eevee too, so even at alpha 2 I can use it for some things I can't do in iClone. I need to figure out importing and adding sss to iClone characters, but otherwise I think I am good to go. Blender makes the most sense in the long run. 
By 3d guy1 - 6 Years Ago
 Blender and Eevee,

sounds good.   keep us updated.

 I need to figure out importing

How are tests with FBX, and Alembic, working?    I found Pro formats never could be relied on with a blender pipeline.

I would be more interested in blender if you could buy Quality Pro level assets for it.   But blend swap always strikes me as a yard sale.



By eternityblue - 6 Years Ago
I haven't tried Alembic in Eevee yet, it worked fine for me in 2.79 but I never used it much because Cycles is slow. I don't think you can import into Eevee yet, but I do believe you can save a 2.79 project with your assets and open in 2.8, I will have to try that. And Blender can handle any assets pretty much, so importing obj or fbx from, say, Daz, works fine. You need to deal with materials but as long as you are up for that, it isn't hard. Node wrangler and the principled shader make it easy to get pbr workflow going. 
By 3d guy1 - 6 Years Ago
Ill have to check the newer FBX plugins, and Alembic.     In the past these could be " gotchas."    I thought it partly
had to do with the Blender Foundation licensing,  VS commercial apps licensing.  Of course some big commercial companies
may not be too thrilled with the Blender approach in general,  and wouldn't necessarily help with formats.   Just a guess.
By animagic - 6 Years Ago
I saw a tutorial on EEVEE in Blender 2.8 (alpha), and it looks really good. The guy was a master in working with shader nodes, which was very instructive, but would require a lot of learning if that's new to you.



So maybe. Blender is at least a 3D application, which is somewhat familiar terrain.

EDIT: Moved this from the other thread on rendering...
By danielswright2311_182877 - 6 Years Ago
Blender is a really good choice, I love blender myself for creating worlds. 
By urbanlamb - 6 Years Ago
eternityblue (10/21/2018)
Ok, well after some soul searching before I invested much time into Unreal, I have decided to go with Blender and Eevee, which I'm already comfortable modeling in, the node system etc already makes some sense to me, and my volumetric tests today were good. They fixed some issue recently with dynamic painting and now my oceans are rendering fast and accurately in Eevee too, so even at alpha 2 I can use it for some things I can't do in iClone. I need to figure out importing and adding sss to iClone characters, but otherwise I think I am good to go. Blender makes the most sense in the long run. 


Its very crashy still so what you need to do is well do all the work except the shaders in blender 2.79 set up cycles in 2.79 and then save and open in 2.8.    My last tries to actually do more then that resulted in a crash after a few keystrokes since its still in alpha its not really usable yet.     But you can use the render abilities although I wouldnt push that yet.. its simply not stable enough yet but its getting there.