This is my last machinima movie I've done. a few points should be improves but I will wait for next
update of Iclone....





This is my ascertainment after making this short movie.



Cons:

What I saw with iClone 6

-This software is not a tool for creativity improvisation, like I thought. we must seriously find out exactly what you

want to achieve movie fast because it is a big waste of time trying to change something that not pleases us for lack of preparation.

-Auto-keyframing is a disaster when you want to make a long animation with various moving props or mocap.
You have to know clearly what you want to put everything at the frame 1.

Most of the buttons' 'remove animations' have disappeared from the "modify" window.

proposition : right click in the "scene" window "remove object animation" for everything
and a big Red Button "on-off" (record) in the timeline bar for animation.

-I spent more time to fixe very bizarre behavior motion (blend, mixmove,root offset) rather than directing or creating.

-The "look at" or "look at camera" for the characters is buggy, the "set free" is inaccessible in my iclone 6.01 version ....

-The UV of regular sky could be animated but there no keyframe created....

-Many crash and neither had successfull recover ... I advise you to make your render in image sequence
and make lot of "save" before clicking "undo".I think my iprop physic gave stability problems.

Clearly iclone is really not designed to make character keyframing animation with poses I want.

It's lot of time waisting and impossible to exactly what I want .Iclone IK is not intuitive and have not natural behavior with my mouse.

. I rely heavily on the perception neuron system I pre-purchased, in order to make full character animation, scene by scene,
not one movement at a time,because the mocap have not a coherent position root.

-I do not understand why there is a '' Hide '' for the items in the "scene" window even if iClone compute it in invisble mode,
there is no gain in real time. If it is invisible Iclone Have to ignore it when playing.

The egg robot in the movie required a lot of resources because of the dynamic texture but even if I '' hide '' it, iClone compute it anyway ...

-The necessary to add lots of dummys for consistent and pleasant movements to the eye is a waste of time.

-Because the render is based on 30 fps and the project in 60fps , a one frame muzzle flash for exemple , is not rendered if it lights on on impaired frame.

-The "detail" texture on the heightmap terrain doesn't works as Iclone 5.

-iclone 6 is really a beta version. I understand that some people are disappointed. But for now it is easy for basic things , period.



The advantages:

it costed me only $ 99.

The possibility to import all your props-characters creation in a easy way (via 3dxchange)

I have managed to produce my "youth-dream" film in cgi. :-) (30 years ago!!!)

Although the rendering time is multiplied by 3 with full quality render but it is still very fast compare other free cgi tool.

The render is much better than iclone 5 ,thanks to the unlimited lights and realistic shadow.



Conclusions

I believe in this program and I am still willing to support it. Iclone 6 is today inbetween the toy tool versus professional.



Missing easy features to implement:

-PBR texture management which is today the standard in real time, I play with the beta version of the next

3D-coat release and I assure you that we very easily gets amazing paint results in minutes,

and Substance painter have a "wizard" export for UDK 4 , Cry engine, Unity 5.... Hope Iclone 6 !

-LOD for all the props and avatars which is a standard in real time CGI to create very wide scene.

-Motion blur on rendering



I hope this video will encourage new users to use it.



Marc

That was very well done, despite all the difficulties you ran into creating it. The motion of the human and the machine were really cool.

:D:D

I had another thought on the difficulty with the motion.

By default, iClone moves the root along with the avatar, thus recording it's position at every frame in a motion. That makes it impossible to edit. This can be turned off, and the avatar manually aligned motion to motion. The root will stay put in this case, and the avatar can be aligned manually or with the "align" feature in the timeline.

In iC6, it's in the "animation" menu under "Motion Setting Options". Uncheck the upper two things under that sub-menu.

Here is an iC5 tut of mine describing a bit of how and why. It may, or may not be helpful. :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nb3BJD2jwnA

WOW!!!!

This was really impressive. Very well done. Good animation, good story. It kept me watching until the end. Bravo.

One hint:

If you want to have a handhold camera, you should use an actor as a cameraman. Just link the camera to the head of the actor and animate him (idle, run, whatever you need). At the end you hid the actor and you have a very convincing handhold camera style ...

You can watch the result here:



Direx

Thank very much for your comments!! :)

@thedirector1974

I made this for my camera hand ! :) and use the facial puppeter....

Excellent story, very creative. Thank you for sharing your hard work with us. I enjoyed watching it and that was a great twist at the end.





Doug

_______

____________________

@rampa

Thank you for your tut , very useful for me . As I said, I have to figure out exactly the moves sequence for collecting clips whithout any props or scene before doing anything...

@Dragon
Thanks a lot !

My next project will be with my own characters ,Neuron perception mocap and lot of dialogues...:P

For me iClone has always been about figuring out the workarounds. Excellent animation!!!:D


Click here to go to my YouTube Channel filled with iClone Tutes and Silly Stuff

Visit ANIMATED PROJECTIONS Powered by iCLONE

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Fantastic film, great job! I really enjoyed watching it. Just keep in mind, Iclone is not visual effects software. Muzzle flashes, smoke, fire, flares, should all be done in after effects or a visual effects editor!

Edit: Rain, snow and weather effects makes more sense to use Iclone due to having so many angles and continuity but a lot of the effects just aren't great "Quality" so hence better effects in using AE or some other program for as much as you can.

IMDB: James Muia
Aviticus Dragon on YouTube

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Very nice, I like it. I had to watch it until the end :)

--
guy rabiller | GOETZIWOOD STUDIOS
"N.O.E." (Nations Of Earth) Sci-Fi TV Show, Showrunner.