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By GOETZIWOOD STUDIOS - 14 Years Ago
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Hello,
As I'm trying to overcome iClone rendering limitations, I've made a test using multi-passes approach as we often do in production.
This allows for more than four shadowed ligths, the correct use of ambient occlusion ( not in the diffuse ) but also this solves a big problem I had trying to get ambient occlusion maps into the 'Blend' material channel : memory ! Because using unique uvs imply using very high-def textures for baking diffuse, bump etc.. Up to a point I couldn't load this set into iClone. The set is 'UrbanFuture3' ( Daz3d/Stonmason ) that I've imported into Softimage|XSI. From there I was able to create a second set of UVs, bake ao maps, etc.. then export 2 versions ( one for each UVs set ) into iClone through 3DXchange :
You can download a short animation here :
iCloneMultiPassesTestA.mov ( 1280x546 | 2:35 | 24fps | 10527Ko )
As you can see I have anti-aliasing problems but that is to be expected with raw OpenGL anti-aliasing ( and perhaps my card is not enough ).
Would be great to have an 'enhanced' anti-aliasing mode into iClone though 
That said, multi-passes rendering is an option not to be forgotten, even with iClone, as this gives you far more power than straight rendering, albeit at the price of a 'little' more work.
Cheers,
Guy.
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By Illustrator Cathy - 14 Years Ago
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All I can say is "Wow." That video is amazing.
I am still not clear on how you achieved multi-pass rendering in iClone. Would you mind giving us some more details on how you achieved this? Thanks!
Cathy 
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By aknzrdude - 14 Years Ago
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very nice effect - multi-pass as in rendering as in layers and compositing ?
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By GOETZIWOOD STUDIOS - 14 Years Ago
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Hello,
Anim8torCathy (5/14/2010)
../.. I am still not clear on how you achieved multi-pass rendering in iClone. Would you mind giving us some more details on how you achieved this? Thanks!../..
aknzrdude (5/14/2010)
../.. multi-pass as in rendering as in layers and compositing ?
Yes indeed, sorry, I should have been more explicit on the procedure.
I've rendered several times the same scene/animation, but each time I change the 'appearence' of what's on screen to get specific information per render ( pass ). Then the passes are loaded in a compositing software ( this can be done in Blender, for instance ) and assembled in a specific way to obtain the final image.
Here is a little animation showing the involved passes ( I did not show the transparent surfaces though, that has to be treated separately, but I guess you'll get the idea ):
This is a technic largely used in production ( vfx, commercials, 3d animation movies, etc.. ) wich gives a lot of flexibility. You can for instance, re-render only the 'Albedo' passe if you are unhappy with your textures, then composite again. Re-rendering this pass is extremely quick as no lighting is involved. You can also add an unlimited number of 'Lighting' passes to overcome the 4 shadowed lights limitation in iClone, etc..
Here I only used a few passes, but I plan to add more for local lighting near some visible light sources. The 'Ambient Lighting' uses IBL, albeit IBL can also be used for main lighting ( without shadows though ).
The color coded lighting pass deserves some explanation I guess : With 3 lights in your scene that overlap somhow, it is very convenient to color code each light, one red, one green, one blue. This way, in the compositing software, you can separate the three ( by extracting each color component ) and adjust them independently ( level, color, .. ) but you only have to render once. This is an old production trick as well.
If you have more questions, don't hesitate.
Cheers,
Guy.
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By stuckon3d - 14 Years Ago
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Excellent job Guy, you do have some fantastic skills man, but you do realize that 95 % of the people here will not be able to do that, right? Not because they are not able but because in order to micromanage an image like that, requires a lot of experience in both 3d and 2d. There are way too many complex techniques here, from creating the compositing layers , to the remapping of uvs, to the baking, etc, etc, etc...
It is great that you are trying to use iclone as your rendering platform for making the layers, and the 2d/3d pros will see this as an advantage in some situations. I also believe you are correct about the antialiasing issue, at render time they should use a better algorithms to avoid the crawling semihorizontal artifacts. This is great experimentation. Thanks for sharing your findings.
sincerely,
Stuckon3d
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By Illustrator Cathy - 14 Years Ago
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Hi Guy-
I do understand what you are doing now and realized I could probably achieve something similar to break the 4 light limit by shooting multiple passes with green screen in iClone and compositing the shots in After Effects. BRILLIANT! I don't know why this never occurred to me! This opens-up whole new worlds of ideas.
Thanks so much!
Cathy
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By stuckon3d - 14 Years Ago
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Anim8torCathy (5/15/2010)
Hi Guy- I do understand what you are doing now and realized I could probably achieve something similar to break the 4 light limit by shooting multiple passes with green screen in iClone and compositing the shots in After Effects. BRILLIANT! I don't know why this never occurred to me! This opens-up whole new worlds of ideas. Thanks so much! Cathy
Hi Cathy,
if you are going to render in layers you are better off saving them as image sequences with alphas, it is much cleaner output than trying to do green screen and then trying to key out the green.
Also, when 4.2 comes out, layering will become much easier. 
Cheers,
Stuckon3d
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By Illustrator Cathy - 14 Years Ago
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" Also, when 4.2 comes out, layering will become much easier. "
Is that a hint? Is that a hint?? LOL
Cathy
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By bluemidget666 - 14 Years Ago
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Excellent job Guy, you do have some fantastic skills man, but you do realize that 95 % of the people here will not be able to do that, right? There are way too many complex techniques here that must be acquire with experience. From creating the compositing layers, to the remapping of uvs, to the baking, etc, etc, etc...
It is great that you are trying to use iclone as your rendering platform for making the layers, and the 2d/3d pros will see this as an advantage in some situations. I also believe you are correct about the antialiasing issue, at render time they should use a better algorithms to avoid the crawling semihorizontal artifacts. This is great experimentation. Thanks for sharing your findings.
you saying we are thick ?
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By Dreamcube017 - 14 Years Ago
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Hmm it does LOOK complex... however I think if I knew how to seperate the layers it'd be a bit easier... it'd also be easier if I knew how to set up the UVs in XSI... however I think that's only for something you're importing from an external source. If I'm making the scene within iClone I don't think I should hav a real issue with UVs since most of it is a complex maze of 3D blocks anyway.
But I can't quite understand how you get all those different layers out of iClone... is that possible to do already? (multipassing I mean) hmm...
*caugh*tutorial*caugh*
and what's this I hear about 4.2?
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By stuckon3d - 14 Years Ago
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bluemidget666 (5/15/2010)
Excellent job Guy, you do have some fantastic skills man, but you do realize that 95 % of the people here will not be able to do that, right? There are way too many complex techniques here that must be acquire with experience. From creating the compositing layers, to the remapping of uvs, to the baking, etc, etc, etc...
It is great that you are trying to use iclone as your rendering platform for making the layers, and the 2d/3d pros will see this as an advantage in some situations. I also believe you are correct about the antialiasing issue, at render time they should use a better algorithms to avoid the crawling semihorizontal artifacts. This is great experimentation. Thanks for sharing your findings. you saying we are thick ?
No at all blue, all I'm saying is that what he did to get that image\animation is beyond anyone that just started using 3d or doing compositing for that matter, making all those layers work just right is not easy or intuitive.
Of course with proper training anyone can do this. But the key word here is knowhow. Not only of 3d but also in the art of compositing.
Cheers,
Stuckon3d
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By GOETZIWOOD STUDIOS - 14 Years Ago
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stuckon3d (5/15/2010)
Excellent job Guy, you do have some fantastic skills man, but you do realize that 95 % of the people here will not be able to do that, right? There are way too many complex techniques here that must be acquire with experience. From creating the compositing layers, to the remapping of uvs, to the baking, etc, etc, etc...
It is great that you are trying to use iclone as your rendering platform for making the layers, and the 2d/3d pros will see this as an advantage in some situations. I also believe you are correct about the antialiasing issue, at render time they should use a better algorithms to avoid the crawling semihorizontal artifacts. This is great experimentation. Thanks for sharing your findings.
sincerely,
Stuckon3d
Hey Cris,
Yes I understand it's a bit complex for the average hobbyist, but my concern here is how to overcome some iClone limitations ( regarding rendering here ) by using known production technics, to see if, ultimately, iClone can be used for what I intend to do.
If I hit a wall, a hard limitation, and then there is no workaround or upgrade from Reallusion, then I'll find another software/solution, simple as that.
I want to see if, technicaly - and I insist on the technical side here, I'm not speaking about artistical results - a certain level of quality can be achieved for the result to be considered by the main stream audience ( tv, movie, web-serie, etc.. ) as 'acceptable'.
The Machinima community is very tolerant regarding the technical quality of the result ( rendering, animation, .. ), the main stream audience is not, believe me.
So, if this goal can be achieved, then a all new world of ( indy ) entertainment can be opened, with commercial results ( albeit the goal here is not to create machinima to make money, but to make money to be able to create machinima movies, series, etc.. on a higher level ).
I believe there are some hobbyists here who ultimately share the idea of a professional development of their work, and dream to, or want to become professional directors/writers/animators/etc.. And machinima is certainly a good start to expose your talent as such.
On my side it's a bit different as I'm already a professional, what I'm trying to do is to find the right platform/pipeline/workflow to be able to propose, to the professional community, an alternative way to create 3d animation series, movies, etc.. I've also worked in the movie industry on set, and my ultimate goal is to bring back the on set 'magic' into the 3d animation world with a certain approach of realtime animation, wich is a bit what iClone propose in its 'Director' mode, but need to be opened with a SDK or scripting ( like Daz did ) in order to include procedural animation rather than being purely based on mocap or predefined animations.
So far, the only 'hard limit' or 'wall' or 'showstopper' if you want I've found with iClone are :
- the impossibility to keyframe smooth animation ( due to the lack of smooth key interpolation, only linear and the ease in/out modes are available ). I sincerely hope they will fix this because this is totaly unacceptable for any animation software.
- the need of a SDK/Scripting to deal with procedural animation ( crossing fingers.. ).
Regarding the rendering side, I'm pretty confident it's possible to get the needed quality results and that's what I'm experimenting with those tests.
On a side note, regarding the anti-aliasing problems I get in the animation : there are also some flickering, not due to aliasing problems but to modeling problems( sorry StoneMason.. ). In the UrbanFuture3 set, there are a lot of overlapping polygons that create flicking artifacts when the camera move, so I have to fix those polygons. For the antialiasing, there is still another possibility wich is an old trick too : rendering 4x time the size of the image then scale down after rendering. I did not tested this yet, but I will. Obviously, a native 'enhanced' anti-aliasing mode would be preferable ( StudioGPU is doing this without any problem ), but this is not a showstopper per say though.
So far on the rendering side, I'm quite happy with the possibilities, and the hints you gave about SSAO and layers show promises. The next step for me is to test this multi-passes rendering approach with characters.
Cheers,
Guy.
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By GOETZIWOOD STUDIOS - 14 Years Ago
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Dreamcube017 (5/16/2010)
Hmm it does LOOK complex... however I think if I knew how to seperate the layers it'd be a bit easier... it'd also be easier if I knew how to set up the UVs in XSI... however I think that's only for something you're importing from an external source. If I'm making the scene within iClone I don't think I should hav a real issue with UVs since most of it is a complex maze of 3D blocks anyway.
But I can't quite understand how you get all those different layers out of iClone... is that possible to do already? (multipassing I mean) hmm...
*caugh*tutorial*caugh*
and what's this I hear about 4.2?
In fact I'm not 'separating' the layers at render time. I do create several versions of the same asset, but with different look for each.
For the 'Albedo' pass, I've created a version of the asset with all the materials setted to constant ( full white diffuse, self illumination 100% ) and with each Diffuse material channel setted to the color textures. This way you get the full color information of the asset without any lighting.
For the 'Ambient' and 'Lighting' passes, I've created another version of the asset with materials setted to their respective surface properties ( diffuse/specular color, no self-illumination of course, specular/glossiness ). The ambient color is irrelevant as no ambient color is used ( even for the 'Ambient' pass wich uses IBL in my case ). Materials have no diffuse textures, only 'Bump'/'Specular'.
For the 'Depth' pass, I've created another version of the asset with all material setted to constant black ( diffuse black, self-illumination 100% ) and no textures. The depth rendering from black ( near camera ) to white ( far camera ) is then created using white Fog.
For the 'Light' pass, I've created another version of the asset with anything other than lights setted as for the depth pass, constant black, and the lights recieve their diffuse and glow texture and strength, if any, and self-illumination at 100%.
For the 'Ambient Occlusion' pass, I've created another version of the asset, similar to the 'Albedo' but rather than using the color textures the baked ambient occlusion textures are used. This is also here where I have to use the asset with a different set of UVs ( unique UVs ), and this is the only reason why a second set of UVs has to be created ( in XSI, Blender, Max, whatever.. ).
So in all I have 6 versions of the asset that I switch in my project to render each pass. The project itself contains the fog settings ( for the depth pass ), the IBL settings ( for the ambient pass ) and the lights settings ( for the lighting pass ). I can save those setting as an 'Atmosphere', ableit if I use more than 4 shadowed lights I have to save several 'Atmosphere'/'Project' ( especialy if they are animated ). I can use several IBLs too, for the ambient.
So yes, it's a bit complex, albeit once you get used to it it's not that complex, but it's certainly a lot more work than straight rendering as you have to prepare your sets, props, characters, etc.. to create thoses versions prior to render. In the case of characters, I wont create several versions, just the materials presets. I have yet to solve the ambient occlusion problem on character, for wich, SSAO would be welcome
If anything is unclear, don't hesitate to ask for more details.
Cheers,
Guy.
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By Illustrator Cathy - 14 Years Ago
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Hey Guy-
One more question - pardon my insatiable curiosity.
Are you using levels of opacity or multiply or alpha channels when you blend each (pass) layer in your final composite? I'm trying to figure out how you do that.
Thanks-
Cathy
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By gizmo - 14 Years Ago
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To be honest Guy, for me . . . most of it is unclear, but I won't ask for further details. No, actually you have already written in good, understandable detail at a level I had not even thought about let alone considered striving for. Please continue with your work in this area because I love the notion of someone, or everyone being able to create machinima on a higher plane. I have no doubt however that this will be achieved. Lastly, I totally agree that animation does need to be vastly improved if iClone itself is to move forward. Regards,
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By Dulci - 14 Years Ago
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Thanks for sharing so much information with us - this is quite fascinating!
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By bluemidget666 - 14 Years Ago
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The results are AWSOME ! fingers crossed RL look at this and address some of the issues you raise . Though I am not chasing realistic results from my animation I am wanting better character animation tools .... 
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By kurzal - 14 Years Ago
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I am very bad at English, so I will try to convey my thoughts in simple words.
If you buy a car for passenger transportation, it is likely that you try to do everything possible to passengers in the car was comfortable to ride. And if you try to use this car for races, you will need to radically alter the car. And it is no longer a vehicle for carrying passengers.
In Russian, there is an expression 'to separate flies from cutlets' Why hammering nails with microscope?
iClone is designed for rendering movies in real time. In real time. Movies! And the movie is an idea, script, direction, etc. And sophisticated mastery of technology will not replace the lack of movie ideas or thoughts or, for example, composition rules for frame. It is a pity that in recent times the word "movie" becomes synonymous with the word "technique". The vacuum can be attractive as an indicator of excellent job of pumps, but it will always remain a vacuum.
And by the way, I did not see on the forum ongoing discussions about scripting techniques, stage directions etc. I doubt that all are born with such skills... but all is just about the technique. Is it really all you need to create a good movie? (It's a rhetorical question, of course )
As a technical trick - yes, your method is interesting, but... only as trick.
Really, I'm not trying to offend you. If so - my apologies and once again my apologies for the lousy english. All claims for bad translation can bring to Google-translator
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By Capemedia - 14 Years Ago
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Now that is impressive! I wish I had the time to do muti-pass and then composite everything in AE. Currently I might be working with 2 or 3 layers max. However after seeing this you have given me ideas. Thanks
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By bluemidget666 - 14 Years Ago
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If you buy a car for passenger transportation, it is likely that you try to do everything possible to passengers in the car
I know I do
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By animagic - 14 Years Ago
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kurzal, I'm with you on the subject of the importance of script development, but I think what Guy is trying to accomplish is a bit more than just "technique". There comes a time when you want to go beyond presenting your work on-line and when that happens you need another level of image quality and I think that is what Guy is trying to accomplish. The real-time aspect of iClone is useful in order to get a quick initial idea of what your move will look like, but I don't see a reason why there couldn't an additional render engine with higher quality. I like iClone to be as good as it can be.
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By peteradam6 - 14 Years Ago
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Could these multiple render settings eventually be added to iClone's "render video" panel options? So that we could all work as we do now, but when we're finished we'd just have iClone render multiple passes of a scene using automatic presets? The results would be a set of videos like we've seen in this thread.
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By Paumanok West - 14 Years Ago
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gizmo (5/16/2010)
Please continue with your work in this area because I love the notion of someone, or everyone being able to create machinima on a higher plane.
Yes, Guy: what he said!
I think many of us are thrilled to have animation professionals trying advanced techniques to push the envelope with iClone.
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By Paumanok West - 14 Years Ago
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zuijlen (5/17/2010)
The real-time aspect of iClone is useful in order to get a quick initial idea of what your move will look like, but I don't see a reason why there couldn't an additional render engine with higher quality.
Hmmm... let's imagine it's December 2011, and we get the news that Daz or Carrara is precisely that engine?
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By GOETZIWOOD STUDIOS - 14 Years Ago
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Anim8torCathy (5/16/2010)
../.. Are you using levels of opacity or multiply or alpha channels when you blend each (pass) layer in your final composite? I'm trying to figure out how you do that../..
Hey Cathy,
Yes as it is shown in the gif animation, the combination of the passes is purely mathematical, when you see Albedo*Ambient*AmbientOcclusion it means that each pixel component value of one image is multiplied with each pixel component of the other. In photoshop it's like using 'product' as a layer mode. When you see AmbientLayer + Lighting, it is an addition, in photoshop it would be overlay. No alpha is involved here though. I do correct each layer prior blending though. You can play with the opacity level in the compositing software to balance the intensity of each layer, but I don't do that, I prefer to correct the layer first ( with curves and/or histograms ).
Hope this helps.
Cheers,
Guy.
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By GOETZIWOOD STUDIOS - 14 Years Ago
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Hello,
kurzal (5/16/2010)
../.. iClone is designed for rendering movies in real time. In real time. Movies! And the movie is an idea, script, direction, etc. And sophisticated mastery of technology will not replace the lack of movie ideas or thoughts or, for example, composition rules for frame. It is a pity that in recent times the word "movie" becomes synonymous with the word "technique". The vacuum can be attractive as an indicator of excellent job of pumps, but it will always remain a vacuum ../.. Really, I'm not trying to offend you. If so - my apologies and once again my apologies for the lousy english ../..
No offense taken, not at all, and in fact I tend to be agree with you. However, I believe the problem of poor creativity is not the technic in itself, but the balance of involvement between technic and creativity.
That said, any Art has its own technic. A very talented painter wouldn't be able to express himself without knowing painting technics. Like you said, a movie is an idea, script, direction but it is also *images* and *sounds*. Those who tend to forgot this are just recording performances. It's like creating a play with actors on stage then just use a camera to 'record' the play, without consideration for the framing or the lighting.
Personaly, when I watch a movie, I like to be 'transported', to feel emotions - and not only from the actors -, and I can't if the resulting image is bad, flat, horrible. Perhaps that's just me, but the rendering is part of the creative process, but, and I agree, not only. Idealy, the same amount of involment should be put into the idea, the script, the direction, the animation, the sound, etc..
Well, for me and for now, with iClone, my strategy is : One step at a time
When I'll be finished with my rendering experimentations up to a point I know I can have achive a sufficient technical quality for almost any situation, then I'll move on to the animation. Then I'll move on for the rest, as the rest is independent from iClone.
@zuijlen
@peteradam6
@Paumanok West
Idealy, what I'm doing here, I would love to be able to do it in real time ! And I also agree with kurzal on this one, iClone has been designed to be a realtime engine, so why not ?
That said, I guess there is nothing wrong to go to post-process to overcome the limitations of the engine.
But, nonetheless, all what I did by creating passes and using a compositing software is actualy doable in realtime, and it is up to the engine developers to raise the bar and give us the features we need to achieve that. The technology is known and available, there is nothing mysterious in all this.
Ultimately I guess it's a resource problem. iClone is not a $4k software, so is the RL intention to raise the bar up to a point it can compete with professional softwares while maintaining this price range ?
I don't know.
What I know, for sure, is that what you are presented with iClone is an approach of 3d animation that will be investigated by other developers ( and it is, currently, by some famous companies.. ), because this is an alternate way of creating 3d animation that is commercialy very interresting for producers and indies.
And as you can see, nowadays, there is a very thin line between a hobbyist toy and a professional tool.
It's just a question of mind switch in the head of the developers, and a question of including the right features, not the quantity of features.
That's what I meant, in another thread, when I was talking about 'Machinima taken seriously'.
Cheers,
Guy.
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By Dreamcube017 - 14 Years Ago
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Hm thanks Guy. This seems a bit more doable now that you've explained it... I don't think I can make AO maps... but I can do other things.
And yes... Most of this stuff can be done in real time... It goes back to a post I made about utilizing DirectX11 features. Ok maybe the price would raise up a bit... but as long as it's under or around 400 I could still afford it and if it had a few more things... maybe even a bit more.
Second Life now has a viewer that has post proccessing effects, SSAO, and simulated GI. (Kirsten viewer) however the frame rate is low... but I think that's because things are being streamed in realtime. iClone was made to be a realtime engine, so I hope that they can update some things with some more graphical enhancments.
To be honnest, they don't even have to move up to DirectX10 to do that. DirectX9 can still be used as there are a lot of things that can be done in it that iClone doesn't do yet. I know this because I'm on Window XP and have seen some very nice things rendered with DX9.
Also I agree, the storyline is important, but to really get the full experiance, the sound and visuals are equally important. If only the story is focused on and then everything else is sorta just tossed in as an after thought... sure it's ok... but I at least still feel that it's missing something.
I'll have to give this method a try though... minus the AO since I can't bake the maps. (unless I model things in a different program which I might not for this experiment. I may just use 3D blocks.
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By Illustrator Cathy - 14 Years Ago
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grabiller (5/17/2010)
Anim8torCathy (5/16/2010)
../.. Are you using levels of opacity or multiply or alpha channels when you blend each (pass) layer in your final composite? I'm trying to figure out how you do that../..Hey Cathy, Yes as it is shown in the gif animation, the combination of the passes is purely mathematical, when you see Albedo*Ambient*AmbientOcclusion it means that each pixel component value of one image is multiplied with each pixel component of the other. In photoshop it's like using 'product' as a layer mode. When you see AmbientLayer + Lighting, it is an addition, in photoshop it would be overlay. No alpha is involved here though. I do correct each layer prior blending though. You can play with the opacity level in the compositing software to balance the intensity of each layer, but I don't do that, I prefer to correct the layer first ( with curves and/or histograms ). Hope this helps. Cheers, Guy.
Thank you so much Guy! I get it now!
I want to reiterate what has been said here: that I believe it is vital to the growth of this software and our growth as filmmakers that folks like yourself push the boundaries of this software and real-time animation in general. I've been with iClone since version 1 when nobody took it seriously, but there was a handful of us who saw the 'promise' in this program and stuck with it over the years, exploring each new possibility as it evolved. I am convinced we are only at the 'tip of the iceberg' regarding what can be ultimately achieved.
Thanks Again!
Cathy
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By Paumanok West - 14 Years Ago
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OR, in the meantime, if you don't have the talent and training Guy has in 3D production... you could lean on iClone as a artistic crutch for doing old-fashioned matte painting.
In this video, I show 4 camera angles of Walt's room under six radical lighting treatments:
1. pitch dark
2. dark with wallpaper FX
3. warmly lit with whale oil
4. bluewhite lightning
5. rosy dawn
6. green "omen" light.
Of course now I have the following restrictions:
1. Camera is locked down to only 4 set angles
2. Furniture will have to be manually cut out as alpha planes
Walt Whitman's bedroom--color keys from Mitch Gould on Vimeo.
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By Dreamcube017 - 14 Years Ago
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Hey West that's not a bad idea.
Hm I think for the textures though it shouldn't be TOO hard as long as you don't get them mixed up.
I'm think ing the hardest part would be not getting things mixed up in all the assets.
Actually my suggestion would probably be to make a folder and then make a project, animate everything and once all the animation and lighting (basic lighting I mean) is done, then you go and save the project as another project like (room-ambient, room-light room-depth) or something, then you can change things in each project with out fear of messing something up.
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By Capemedia - 14 Years Ago
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Guy what you are doing is amazing and I totally support it. In fact I would love you to do a more indepth tutorial on how you made the opening video. I will learn from it and I'm sure others would. Also we are making motion pictures, that means that the images dictate our interest. I'm one of the first to argue about a good story, but without amazing visuals you are not going to get noticed. Keep up the amazing work, I look forward to more. Thanks Cape!
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By Paumanok West - 14 Years Ago
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Capemedia (5/17/2010)
I'm one of the first to argue about a good story, but without amazing visuals you are not going to get noticed.
Exactly.
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By Dreamcube017 - 14 Years Ago
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That post two posts above... = best post ever.
That's why I continue to make suggestions.
I know you guys don't EVER see anything I make so to most it seems like I don't really do anything, but I assure you I run lots of test in iClone and other software as well so I'm still doing stuff on the back end.
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By Capemedia - 14 Years Ago
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Dreamcube017 (5/17/2010)
That post two posts above... = best post ever.
That's why I continue to make suggestions.
I know you guys don't EVER see anything I make so to most it seems like I don't really do anything, but I assure you I run lots of test in iClone and other software as well so I'm still doing stuff on the back end.Not to sound eager, but did you mean mine? And if so thanks, if not....just forget this post
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By GOETZIWOOD STUDIOS - 14 Years Ago
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Anim8torCathy (5/17/2010)
../.. I want to reiterate what has been said here: that I believe it is vital to the growth of this software and our growth as filmmakers that folks like yourself push the boundaries of this software and real-time animation in general. I've been with iClone since version 1 when nobody took it seriously, but there was a handful of us who saw the 'promise' in this program and stuck with it over the years, exploring each new possibility as it evolved. I am convinced we are only at the 'tip of the iceberg' regarding what can be ultimately achieved../..
Indeed, and I would like to add that I really like iClone, actualy.
Despite my rants and wining, wich are biased because I'm used to professional tools, I think iClone is right on the spot and they did a great job to simplify ( too much for my test, but.. ) the complexity of the underlying processes.
I think the way Avatars are organised with their sub-parts and materials is really great, plus if you count on CloneCloth & CloneBot you have a great latitude of customization.
I'm agree with you regarding the 'tip of the iceberg' and I believe the rest of the iceberg can be unleashed with only 10% or 20% more effort on iClone features, inlcuding a way for us to script/code automated tasks ( like placing set blocks proceduraly, etc.. ) and do procedural animations.
I've endorsed the 'mission' to push iClone as far as I can with my professional background to show to the iClone developers what is really missing or the real issues that have to be adressed in order to reach a higher technical level of quality.
I'm not sure they will listen to me, but this is my way of helping the community and at least I'll have done something. The rest is in their hands.
Cheers,
Guy.
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By Dreamcube017 - 14 Years Ago
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grabiller (5/20/2010)
Anim8torCathy (5/17/2010)
../.. I want to reiterate what has been said here: that I believe it is vital to the growth of this software and our growth as filmmakers that folks like yourself push the boundaries of this software and real-time animation in general. I've been with iClone since version 1 when nobody took it seriously, but there was a handful of us who saw the 'promise' in this program and stuck with it over the years, exploring each new possibility as it evolved. I am convinced we are only at the 'tip of the iceberg' regarding what can be ultimately achieved../..Indeed, and I would like to add that I really like iClone, actualy. Despite my rants and wining, wich are biased because I'm used to professional tools, I think iClone is right on the spot and they did a great job to simplify ( too much for my test, but.. ) the complexity of the underlying processes. I think the way Avatars are organised with their sub-parts and materials is really great, plus if you count on CloneCloth & CloneBot you have a great latitude of customization. I'm agree with you regarding the 'tip of the iceberg' and I believe the rest of the iceberg can be unleashed with only 10% or 20% more effort on iClone features, inlcuding a way for us to script/code automated tasks ( like placing set blocks proceduraly, etc.. ) and do procedural animations. I've endorsed the 'mission' to push iClone as far as I can with my professional background to show to the iClone developers what is really missing or the real issues that have to be adressed in order to reach a higher technical level of quality. I'm not sure they will listen to me, but this is my way of helping the community and at least I'll have done something. The rest is in their hands. Cheers, Guy.
That's great and I agree... as long as it doesn't get overly complicated... I opened 3DS Max and I'm like.... wtf is this? Maya is actually more intuitive because I can kind of tell what things do by looking at the icons... most of the times.
And at Capemedia... yes I meant your's.
I normally just make tech demos and "sparkly graphics" because my character designing skills aren't the best YET. If I had some really great characters to start with, I'd be set and I know there are some good ones out there... just nothign I can incorperate yet I don't think.
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By GOETZIWOOD STUDIOS - 14 Years Ago
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Hello,
Capemedia (5/17/2010)
Guy what you are doing is amazing and I totally support it../..
Thanks a lot for your kind words and support ( and aknzrdude, Cathy, blue, Cris, gizmo, Dulci, zuijlen, Paumanok, and all the others I forgot, thanks ! ).
Capemedia (5/17/2010)
../.. In fact I would love you to do a more indepth tutorial on how you made the opening video. I will learn from it and I'm sure others would../..
I would love to create tutorials but right now I don't have much time and also as english is not my native tongue, I can't really speak english well so either you'll get bored or you wont understand a thing
I'm trying to create a short movie right now for submission to the Sci-Fi contest, but I'm unsure I'll be able to finish it in time. Will see. Not a big deal though, just for me to work 'under pressure' while experimenting everything I can until the deadline.
After that I'll look into it, and find a way to create tutorials for iClone with iClone ( perhaps with synthesized voices, or something.. ).
Capemedia (5/17/2010)
../.. Keep up the amazing work, I look forward to more../..
I'll try !
Cheers,
Guy.
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By Illustrator Cathy - 14 Years Ago
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"After that I'll look into it, and find a way to create tutorials for iClone with iClone ( perhaps with synthesized voices, or something.. )."
Hey Guy-
There are a ton of seasoned voice actors among us who would be glad to lend their voices to your projects. I should know - I'm one of them. Don't hesitate to ask.
Cathy
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By Dreamcube017 - 14 Years Ago
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Agreed. I'm willing to help you if you need it as well.
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By Capemedia - 14 Years Ago
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Same here Guy, if you need anything just ask Taking iClone to the next level of quailty is something I am fully into.
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By Paumanok West - 14 Years Ago
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"Sounds like a job for..." Mitch strolls over to the BatSpotlight, trains it on the threatening clouds, and flips the switch: "STUCKON3D." 
Cue the French horns.
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By GOETZIWOOD STUDIOS - 14 Years Ago
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Hello,
Anim8torCathy (5/20/2010)
../.. There are a ton of seasoned voice actors among us who would be glad to lend their voices to your projects. I should know - I'm one of them. Don't hesitate to ask ../..
Dreamcube017 (5/21/2010)
Agreed. I'm willing to help you if you need it as well.
Capemedia (5/21/2010)
Same here Guy, if you need anything just ask ../..
That's very kind of you !
I'll certainly ask for your help then, when the time comes.
Thanks a lot !
Cheers,
Guy.
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By GOETZIWOOD STUDIOS - 14 Years Ago
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Mainwhile I've done another test, this time with some characters :
And you can view/download the animation here :
iCloneMultiPassesTestB.mov
Don't pay attention too much to the animation, it's a render test, not an animation test
Aside the usual aliasing artefacts I have a little problem with the shadow wich I did not managed to avoid yet. I'll look into that.
Regarding the characters, I've discovered that you can switch a character even if it has animation. That's great. I could prepare my albedo, ambient, etc.. character versions, then just switch them, after having animated them, at render time. Really cool.
I've also discovered that we don't have a 'Self-Illumination' parameter on the eye. Also, the 'Glow' only work on one side of a 2-sided item ( and doesn't work behind transparent surfaces too ).
I've used 2 ambient passes and 3 lighting passes here aside the other usual 'technical' passes.
I'll have to test facial animation next time
Cheers,
Guy.
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By bluemidget666 - 14 Years Ago
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WOW ......
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By Paumanok West - 14 Years Ago
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grabiller (5/24/2010)
I've also discovered that we don't have a 'Self-Illumination' parameter on the eye.
Yes, and this is a serious problem for me, since I rely upon self-illumination to toon my characters. I certainly hope Reallusion will give us Self-Illumination for eyes.
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By Illustrator Cathy - 14 Years Ago
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Again - Totally Amazing.
Cathy
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By Christy0 - 14 Years Ago
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Now That looks awsome. I wish I had the time these days to spend in iClone, as iClone is progressing at such a rapid pace. The quality and ingenuity of the users work these days is just, well fab.
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By Paumanok West - 14 Years Ago
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Amazing film-look. There are some frames you'd swear could have only been captured on film.
For example, the fogginess in the atmosphere is very convincing.
You haven't mentioned how you're doing motion blur--and that adds so much!
Did you also add film grain?
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By Dreamcube017 - 14 Years Ago
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Wow I must take this into consideration while I'm making my set. (building completly out of 3D blocks)
Hmm... From what Guy said, I think the fog is probably from a mix of the fog that's actually there plus the depth map he added in. I'm going to have to go back and look at that post.
Oh, should I start worrying about all the texture layers now or should I wait till I make the whole set?... hmmm...
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By Wolfzone Digital - 14 Years Ago
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I can say nothing other than fantastic.
Seeing you professionals apply your skills and experience to iclone to show what it's capable of doing is inspirational to the rest of us and gives us something to aspire to.
Now all we have to do is learn how with many hours of practice
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By GOETZIWOOD STUDIOS - 14 Years Ago
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Hello,
Paumanok West (5/24/2010)
../.. Yes, and this is a serious problem for me, since I rely upon self-illumination to toon my characters. I certainly hope Reallusion will give us Self-Illumination for eyes.
What I did as a workaround is to use the Eyes reflection texture channel, with a little picture with a constant color. This way it looks like a constant color in the eyes, not affected by illumination. Perhaps in your case you could use this workaround to adjust the illumination of your eyes textures ?
Dreamcube017 (5/25/2010)
../.. Hmm... From what Guy said, I think the fog is probably from a mix of the fog that's actually there plus the depth map he added in. I'm going to have to go back and look at that post ../..
Just the depth pass. This pass is then used in post, with correction ( to adjust its near/far effect ) with either a solid color, or an animated clip ( an animated actual fog but I didn't used that in this case ). I just used the iClone fog to create the depth pass not the fog itself, even if it is a bit confusing because this depth pass is used to create the fog
This depth pass can have many other uses, for instance depth of field. I didn't do that here, but I certainly will in the future. The problem with the iClone DOF is that it is very ruff, and even if you set a nearly infinite range you can still see a harsh 'halo' around every objects, even if nothing is blurred, so I prefer to avoid it, except for extremes effects perhaps.
Paumanok West (5/25/2010)
../.. You haven't mentioned how you're doing motion blur--and that adds so much! ../..
I use a Softimage|XSI plugin from RE:Vision Effects wich is called ReelSmart Motion Blur and is used in the compositing part, the 'FXTree', of XSI. Albeit this plugin is available for other softwares as well ( After Effects, Combustion, Fusion, Nuke, etc.. ).
I know well this plugin because when I was head of R&D at 'LaMaison' ( a french VFX company ) we helped RE:Vision to port their tools to XSI and we actualy coded this XSI plugin.
Paumanok West (5/25/2010)
../.. Did you also add film grain? ../..
Not in this case.
Wolfzone (5/25/2010)
../.. Seeing you professionals apply your skills and experience to iclone to show what it's capable of doing is inspirational to the rest of us and gives us something to aspire to ../..
I'm very glad you find it inspirational and this is exactly my intention, and to point to the fact that a tool can always be pushed harder than it's known results, albeit always with a lot more work.
I'm jumping on the occasion to add this :
One may have the feeling that I'm perhaps 'jaded' ( not sure if this is the right word ) and that what I'm showing on in this thread is easy for me.
Well, technicaly, for me, it's easy yes, regarding the procedures. I have no merit though, because I'm 'just a professional' who know this kind of stuff from quite some time now.
It doesn't mean it doesn't require a lot of work though. I guess patience come with experience as well, and it is certainly the key to achieve this and a lot of other things.
It's a long process to prepare your characters and sets to create all the needed versions. You have to go through all the surfaces and materials, change everything several times, eventualy create a second set of UVs, bake ambient occlusion, etc.. Fortunately, this is a one time job. Once you have all your versions, then you can use them on an unlimited number of shots and rendering can be done relatively quickly then.
Also, I'm not showing this kind of rendering thinking everybody should do this. I don't despise work done with iClone because it does not have a 'film look', not at all. It's just the way I intend to go when it comes to rendering, but as kurzal pointed it earlier, ultimately, what's important is the script and performances. The rest is 'cherry on the cake', but it happens I'm at a point where I'm as much concerned by the cake as by the cherry ( I hope this is the right english expression ).
Lastly, lets hope the iClone developers are as much inspired as you are and will help us push the limits by working on the right features.
Cheers,
Guy.
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By Paumanok West - 14 Years Ago
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grabiller (5/25/2010)
Paumanok West (5/24/2010)
../.. Yes, and this is a serious problem for me, since I rely upon self-illumination to toon my characters. I certainly hope Reallusion will give us Self-Illumination for eyes.What I did as a workaround is to use the Eyes reflection texture channel, with a little picture with a constant color. This way it looks like a constant color in the eyes, not affected by illumination. Perhaps in your case you could use this workaround to adjust the illumination of your eyes textures ?
Yes.
I didn't mention that I have previously tried the same trick, and under the right ambient lighting conditions it works for me. I used partial opacity to enable the eyes to show through.
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By Capemedia - 14 Years Ago
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Holly sh!tting COW!!!!!! Guy that was absolutely stunning and the best thing I have ever seen done with iClone. No disrespect to the great directors, actors, musicians, script writers and the like, but visually this floors everything done in iClone to date Yes there are a few shadding questions and anti-aliasing issues but my GOD....WOW!!!!! Brilliant, just brilliant!!!!!!
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By Bigboss - 14 Years Ago
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Oh, I almost missed this one... (You should post in the showcase yourself thread!) Amazing work Guy !
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By GOETZIWOOD STUDIOS - 14 Years Ago
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Hey guys, thanks a lot !
BigBoss40 (5/25/2010)
../.. You should post in the showcase yourself thread! ../..
You are right, I posted here first as this started as an experiment to see if it was doable with iClone but you are right, I'll continue in the "Showcase Yourself" forum.
I'll create a thread for the movie I'm trying to do for the Sci-Fi contest.
( -> [RADFAC] Sci-Fi - Remember.. )
Cheers,
Guy.
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By steven_20090922190316893 - 14 Years Ago
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Amazing results guy. so are you saying use various atmosphere settings, rendering out each of this passes separately....them composite those renders together in a third party app such as after effects. Then if thats what your saying, which blending mode do you arrive at as being best for this task. Again, my hats off impressive rendering for Iclone. Might you consider a video tutorial on YouTube?
Thanks
Steven
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By GOETZIWOOD STUDIOS - 14 Years Ago
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Hello Steven, thanks.
steven_20090922190316893 (6/2/2010)
../.. so are you saying use various atmosphere settings, rendering out each of this passes separately....them composite those renders together in a third party app such as after effects. ./..
I'm not just using several atmosphere settings, I have first to prepare several versions of each asset used in a scene. Check this post for more informations :
Post50670
steven_20090922190316893 (6/2/2010)
../.. which blending mode do you arrive at as being best for this task ../..
You can check this post where I sumarize the blending modes in an animated gif:
Post50623
And here for more informations :
Post50752
steven_20090922190316893 (6/2/2010)
../.. Might you consider a video tutorial on YouTube? ../..
When I'll time, sure. Check this post for more informations :
Post51107
Feel free to ask for more informations if you find those unclear.
Thanks again.
Cheers,
Guy.
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By particleboy - 14 Years Ago
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Hi Guy,
I just dropped by to say a heartfelt thanks. Your work is very inspiring. I split your animated gif into frames and tried to get them into Blender and then use the compositing tool to make a basic pipeline. I quickly gave up (Blender is very hard to learn).
Now I'm trying to make shapes in Sketchup and import them into iclone - I think this pipeline will be easier. I don't want to go through each material and manually turn off textures, etc. I'm hoping I can do this in Sketchup somehow and then import the different passes into iclone.
Did you turn off the various attributes globally in XSI for each pass before you imported the meshes into iclone?
Thanks
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By GOETZIWOOD STUDIOS - 14 Years Ago
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Hello,
particleboy (6/8/2010)
../.. Did you turn off the various attributes globally in XSI for each pass before you imported the meshes into iclone? ../..
No, I only use XSI to create the second set of UVs for baking an ambient occlusion map per object, wich means in this case there is only one material or surface for the entier object, constant white.
For Daz3d objects, I export them from DazStudio in *.obj then import them directly through 3DXchange. I import them also into XSI to create the second set of UVs and bake the aoc map. For object I'm creating from scratch into XSI, I export 2 versions, one for the usual maps with a first set of UVs, one for the aoc map with a second set of UVs, unique uvs.
I don't set the materials in XSI because I have no real way to see how it will look into iClone. This could be possible, eventualy, but I would have to create realtime XSI shaders that would replicate iClone rendering. I did that a while ago for the game Supreme Commander, but it was easy because the sources of the shaders were available into the game install directory. The compiled iClone shaders are embedded into the iClone executable so I can't retrieve the sources, and recreating thoses realtime shaders would take some times.
I don't deal with material settings from 3DXchange either, for a very specific reason :
There is no 'session' you can save/load in 3DXchange, wich means if you import an *.obj file into 3DXchange, then start setting materials, then if 3DXchange crashes, you loose everything and you have to redo it all again. This happened to me several times, so I gave up settings materials there. I just smooth the normals, set pivots if needed then export to iClone.
Then in iClone I set the materials. Here I can save a project so if iClone crashes for any reason while I'm setting materials, I don't have to redo it all again.
I create a 'full' version with all material settings and textures channels, then I create the different versions needed for each pass from there, by removing textures and setting the right attributes for each version.
I always use external textures, for memory efficiency.
Cheers,
Guy.
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By particleboy - 14 Years Ago
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Thanks very much for your reply Guy,
I always use external textures, for memory efficiency.
Unfortunately this is about all I understand And that took me about 24 hours of thinking before I understood it.
do I understand you properly - you move all preloaded content out of the default directories and start iclone with very little default content. I guess this gives you better performance?
I'll keep at it - I'm keen to understand what you do and produce similar results myself.
thanks again.
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By GOETZIWOOD STUDIOS - 14 Years Ago
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Hello,
I'm not sure to follow you here, but no, I've not removed the defaults assets from their install path.
Cheers,
Guy.
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By Dreamcube017 - 14 Years Ago
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particleboy (6/10/2010)
Thanks very much for your reply Guy, I always use external textures, for memory efficiency. Unfortunately this is about all I understand And that took me about 24 hours of thinking before I understood it. do I understand you properly - you move all preloaded content out of the default directories and start iclone with very little default content. I guess this gives you better performance? I'll keep at it - I'm keen to understand what you do and produce similar results myself. thanks again. The one part you understood was the one part I didn't quite get. External textures?... as apposed to the shaders that are there already? As for the other parts. I think Guy is saying that he created a set of UV maps to bake ambiant Occlusion into the objects. For those maps, NO UV coordanates can be overlapping as it states on the first page. The other UV maps (the ones that came with the objects) is what he used for the textures. I'm guesing with the DAZ objects, at least the deffuse map carried over I think. Too bad iClone can't read .mtl files. Oh well. So I'm guessing he had to remake the bump and specular maps. For objects he made from scratch, I don't think he needs TWO sets of UVs, because he can just make a set of UVs that don't overlap from the start and he'd be just fine. I also don't THINK he has to make different physical versions of the city thing... just different versions of the textures so he can compile them later. So he could just be modifying all the textures and saving it as a different project so that he can render each one and compile them. Gee... sorry if that didn't help much. I hope I could make at lest some of it a bit clearer. I've not tried this yet, but let's hope a future version of iClone will just let us do this in realtime with SSAO (Screen spaced Ambient Occlusion) and other techniques that current game engines use... yes it's not AS good as pre-rendered stuff YET, but it'd be a LOT closer. Take a look at Heavy Rain for the PlayStation 3. That has some pretty nice lighting and effects and all that's rendered in OpenGL.
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By kilik - 10 Years Ago
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hi it's possible to render normal map passe please
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