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By entropychef - 5 Years Ago
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So, I've become fairly good at understanding the Iclone setup but am blown away by unreal and it's ability to set a cinematic scene. I want cinematic characters and cinematic scenes.
Animating
I'm now trying to choose whether I want to export my actors into Iclone and be done with Iclone, or keep Iclone linked for animating the character.
If I've purchased lots of animations in Iclone...an advantage there? Keyframes in Iclone, Sequencing in Unreal...advantages either way?
Lighting
It certainly feels like lighting is best done in Unreal and manipulating things there.
Cameras
A draw - no advantage either way?
Character Creator Updates
I suppose if I'm making additional modifications to the character, I should keep Iclone linked as the export might require a bit of tweaking to get the character updated every time in Unreal?
So, workflow could be - 1) Keep Iclone for it's Character Creator ability and export and task is done. 2) Keep link active for advantages in X and Y (not sure what X and Y are).
Thanks
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By animagic - 5 Years Ago
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I don't use Unreal, but I would think that character development and animation are much easier in CC and iClone.
There is a very long thread about how things are done in Unreal, and it's not easy, but even there iClone and CC play a role.
A caution also: there is more to cinematic than just the look. The more you try to approach realism the higher the realism demands for the animation. So depending on your experience level that is something to consider.
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By mtakerkart - 5 Years Ago
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What do you mean by "cinematic scene"? realistic ? if so yes you better go to Unreal. But the learning curve is pharaonic compared to Iclone.
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By michaelrbarton - 5 Years Ago
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What do you mean by Cinematic Scenes? Are you saying Unreal has higher quality props than iClone?
You can use FBX and OBJ 3D file formats from CGTrader, Turbosquid, Free 3D etc... and bring them in to CC as an accessory.
Then you send the accessory to iClone where you detach it from the avatar and then it becomes a prop.
If you use the LUT effects included with iClone, or buy the 200+ LUT effects for $15 in the Content Store, they work quite well
for cinematic scenes. iClone7 - Amplify LUT 200+ (reallusion.com)
Here are some photos with atmosphere lighting (portraits), LUT (Fruit Basket, Woman In Back Yard ).
The red and yellow high poly car props are free from CGTrader, and I used CC to bring them into iClone.
You can download a lot of free stuff from online 3D sites.
   
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By mtakerkart - 5 Years Ago
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Are you saying Unreal has higher quality props than iClone?
May be ;)
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By mtakerkart - 5 Years Ago
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UDK 5 for "cinematic" scene
but don't get me wrong, for now i prefer Iclone because i am unable to understand how UDK works to make movies
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By michaelrbarton - 5 Years Ago
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Have you looked at the Unity Store where they sell their props? They use 4K textures and some 8K textures. CC3 and iClone do the same also.
Iclone is more of a free lance animation style. It is not a game engine. I think iClone offers you more freedom to make your movies and photos.
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By entropychef - 5 Years Ago
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Thanks. Cinematic would be Iray and whatever terms are being used to describe how light interacts with environment (Lumens in Unreal?) and assumption of highly detailed characters/props/scene.
My assumptions so far....and with cinematic you have wide angle, close ups, action shots, and a variety of camera shots (pans, zooms) that all 3d software tends to do a decent job with
Atmosphere - Unreal - hands down.
Camera - Iclone - I'm more comfortable with Iclones setup.
Characters - Character Creator & Substance Painter - this workflow won't ever change for me. I love Character Creator.
Props - Equal - but how the light interacts with those props - Unreal. So, props I treat as equal in any software as I buy models with high resolution.
Product shoot - Keyshot, easy decision. I guess I'd call this a cinematic product shot :-)
Example - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zx22UDdWgn0
Special Effects - Unreal - I purchased 3d effects in Iclone only to find out those aren't seen in Iray - that is a very big deal. I have Hitfilm for doing post-production, but if the 3d environment can get me special effects built it - a big win.
Animating/Interactions of Human Interactions - Unreal - I have CamTracker Ar to do Ipad scenes and it sets marker points. It output 1k or something like that, but I output to 4k using Image conversion software GigaPixel which does an outstanding job of increasing size to 4k with little loss in quality. So, Import the tracking data in Unreal and I've got a very efficient output for importing, er...humans into the environment.
Animating/Interactions of characters - this is really the big question. I am without a doubt more comfortable in Iclone and promised myself I'd avoid learning more software...but Unreal is amazing for scene setup. This could be 50% of the final output.
Possible solution - keep any closeups or medium close-ups purely in Iclone. Get angle, take 4k screenshot out of Unreal, import to Iclone and make it shallow depth of field with background blurred. I love Iclone's lighting for characters - it's like what Keyshot is for products. Hmm...maybe I answered my own question but I'm leaning towards that. On that note, it would be great if I could leave out the Live Link entirely as I remember playing with live link last year and it was problematic getting it working. That might be asking too much, though.
Scene breakdown - A woman walks into a cafe and meets a guy for coffee. They sit down and chat. She leaves.
Going into, leaving cafe might be Unreal. Wide angle shots or various shots in the cafe might be Unreal, but 4 or 5 fixed camera shots as they are sitting - Iclone? A few props might be in both environments.
So, I guess it comes back to IClone's involvement in this workflow and is Live Link worthwhile? It might be easier if I simply keep both environments separate and assign work based on camera shot.
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By cepheistudios - 5 Years Ago
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I agree Unreal Engine is the way to go. I believe CC3 is unparalleled in its ability to easily create very detailed character models, especially when you consider hiring a modeler to do it could cost anywhere from $1K-$5K not including concept artwork. But what really appealed to me was CC3 characters can be exported to Unreal Engine. I've seen the Iclone animation videos on YouTube and, not throw shade at anyone, but the UE stuff looks far more cinematic to me. Plus, my animator works in UE so we're using UE. We're on a budget of next to nothing (which is what I can afford). And, as much as I love Reallusion, they're software isn't as compatible with other packages as I thought it would be. My modeler was creating props for the model made in CC3 and he wrote me this looooooong email about how the props couldn't be imported into CC3 because of software issues, but they can be imported into UE4 with no issues. The whole idea is we need to be able to make animation as part of the pitch deck to get some real money so we can make a real animation, so for my two cents (which is about my budget size) the CC3/UE combo is the way to go.
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By michaelrbarton - 5 Years Ago
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The Unreal videos that you see are probably done by professionals. Iclone has more amatures posting videos than Unreal I do believe.
If you created a video in Unreal, would it be as good as the professionals'. It is hard to say.
I am no video expert, but here is an ocean scene I did by using a free untextured mountain terrain and adding an ocean video to the terrain.
I animated the terrain every 100 frames to try and match the ocean waves up and down movement.
It barely used any resources at all.
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By animagic - 5 Years Ago
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Everyone has to make their own decisions in this. One is not necessarily better than the other. Does your audience really care if your light bounces perfectly?
Most animation that is produced and successful is far from "realistic", which doesn't mean that you shouldn't strive for it, but it is important to understand that it is not a necessity.
For me it was educational to see what independently produced animation made it into the major festivals this year, such as the Toronto Animation Festival (Taafi). It was interesting but it wasn't "realistic' in the sense of emulating live footage.
I keep producing in iClone and CC with some help in post-production for many practical reasons and it suits me. I have even had some moderate success in movies being picked up.
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By cepheistudios - 5 Years Ago
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That's amazing work!!! And, yeah, there's a far greater wealth of talent and experience to draw from when it comes to Unreal Engine. There are just far more users.
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By entropychef - 5 Years Ago
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I have to make judgments on the environment and have struggled mightily to get one working with spheres, cones, sky modules that I need to adjust scale, etc...and if there is one area that I can firmly say one is better than the other - it's Unreal for it's environment and atmosphere.
If I can keep everything small scale and work directly with characters and close-ups, Iclone is my preference....In this scene I used Icone - if she's animated and I keep this angle, it can stay Iclone (background is jpg). If I pan or capture more of the scene, I've got to go with Unreal. My workflow must take Iclone's shortcomings of the environment (or if you prefer, Unreal's huge advantages). Either way, I'd like to aim high whilst keeping things efficient.
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By animagic - 5 Years Ago
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cepheistudios (6/21/2021)
That's amazing work!!! And, yeah, there's a far greater wealth of talent and experience to draw from when it comes to Unreal Engine. There are just far more users.
That remains to be seen of course. How many do actually make animated films?
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By nikofilm - 5 Years Ago
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These are my movies! The characters are made in CC3, the animation in iClone, and everything else in Unreal Engine. And I'm not a professional. I only do it in my free time. And don't be afraid of Unreal. You need to get used to it a little and it will be very easy for you.
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