As a current owner of iClone 7, Character Creator 3 and 3Dxchange 7, I will not be paying the current $599+ 20% VAT "upgrade offer" price. 
I will wait for a proper upgrade offer to come along. If I'm waiting for a long time, or indeed forever then so be it.
Perhaps iClone 9 will be a better proposition when it comes along. 

After trying the CC4 demo and the experience that has been purchasing Reallusion software I have to say that I will leave this echosystem too due to the selling practices of this company.

The first time I knew about CC3 and iClone 7 I was excited to see such a helping tool for character creation and animation, so I tried the software, liked it, found out it had a fair price and decided to buy it. But then the bad news started coming one after another, since Reallusion's echosystem wasn't and still isn't good enough as to be the only software you can use to create decent looking animations I tried to export my work to external programs like Blender and Unreal, just to find out I had to pay for another piece of software called 3dxchange to be able to export and import my models and animations. It was annoying to have to pay for a full software when I was only interested in a couple of features but those features were crucial for my workflow so I decided to purchase it anyways.

Once I invested in that and got my workflow running I decided to invest more money on additional features, like the Headshot plugin, SkinGen, the curve editor, iRay renderer, hair builder... and was excited about the announcement of the new features when CC4 and iClone 8 were announced, just to see that the upgrade would cost me 2 to 4 times as much money as I paid for the full software. I have never seen that an upgrade costs more than the original software, and even less 2 to 4 times that money. That's why they're called upgrades, because they add new features but customers have already paid for most of what the new version can do by purchasing the full software prior to the upgrade.

This is no different with CC4 and iClone 8, the new features might be great, but they're still additional features, not a new full software, and therefore shouldn't cost so much money. One of the given reasons for the price increasement was that 3dxchange and curve editor were now part of CC4 and iClone 8 when they were a separate purchase prior to the update, but what if you already paid for 3dxchange and the curve editor? why should we pay twice for the same features? I was hoping for a special offer for those customers like me, who already paid a good amount of money for them but this never happened.

So I was at least hoping for an interesting offfer even when it's unfair to ask customers who already paid for 3dxchange and the curve editor to pay the same as someone who hadn't based on the excuse that the upgrade is more expensive partly because of that exact reason. But the offers have been completely uninteresting for many of us loyal customers. We had to spend an very big sum of money on uninteresting content and in a very short time frame to get a "free" upgrade, there was never an offer for what we really wanted a discount, which is the upgrade itself and not some additional content or points to get that content in which many of us aren't interested at all.

And the worst of it is not only the price for the update itself and the lack of customer care from Reallusion towards their loyal customers, the worst thing is that this sets a precedent that makes many of us to distrust your company and not want to invest a single penny more in your business, because we cannot know what will happen if we decide to pay again for this update and get a similar situation when CC5 and iClone 9 are a thing, or if there is a basic missing feature in these new updates that will require another additional purchase that will become obsolete again with some new marketing tactic in the future.

And even after this I decided to download the CC4 demo and see how the new features are and see for myself if they're worth the money, but fortunately for my wallet I've found out they're not. They're nice additions but not worth the money you're asking for the upgrade, there are still missing features in your software and old problems that hasn't been solved. The prices are completely wrong and specially to those who had already paid for some of the "new" features by purchasing 3dxchange and the curve editor in the past.

I completely agree.

I think RL knows it is all about the price to existing customers we do love the software it just I think RL could have done more for their loyal customers 

By the way, I would like to point out that I certainly do not disparage these programs.
CC4 and iC8 are really excellent software.
The RL team produces successful programs.
I'm happy to have the iC8.

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https://www.youtube.com/yepkoo
https://dev.epicgames.com/community/profile/bxvo/Yepkoo#learning

I looked at Peter Bassline's threads.
However, I could not see any video or post with a quality close to the CC image transferred from CC to UE.
Not only Bassline's topics, I've looked at dozens of videos on youtube and zero results.

Apart from that, show a live video of Hair physics working in Unreal Engine the same way it works in iClone.

You can also test this on your own computer.
When you search the forum, you can see that many people have problems especially for hair.

It is true that some hairs are not a problem, but most of them are disastrous, especially parted hair.
I add tears with Skingen, but in Unreal Engine nothing appears as if I didn't add any.

When I import the characters into Blender with the Blender plugin, it looks perfect. But the same cannot be said for Unreal Engine.
Even actor core characters look better when you export the character to UE5 than the characters you import to UE5.

However, if you do not accept them, it seems that there will be no solution.

Frankly, there is no video about it even on your own youtube channel.
If you want to help you can post a tutorial video showing the CC4 character being realistically transferred to the UE.
I can see where I made a mistake and correct it.

I would really appreciate if there is a tutorial video showing the character transferring to UE5 in a texture close to CC.
I would have thought it was due to UE5 but metahuman characters look just as good as the CC character.

I was very hopeful that I would get out of this situation when CC4 came out.
But even CC3 and UE4 gave better results than that.
I changed the resolution of the textures from Skingen to 4096 but it didn't help.

I'm not saying it should be exactly the same. Even something close to that would have sufficed.





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https://www.youtube.com/yepkoo
https://dev.epicgames.com/community/profile/bxvo/Yepkoo#learning

Hi Yepkoo

If the results you are getting  in Unreal are bad then this is certainly not normal. You only have to look at the work done by power users like Bassline and others to know the Pipeline works from CC4 to Unreal. If you haven't already, I would advise spending some time reviewing Bassline's two threads for UE4 and UE5 in the Unreal forum. I'm sure then you will soon get better results.

https://forum.reallusion.com/3D-Pipelines/Unreal-45



                                                                

Peter
Forum Administrator

www.reallusion.com

I've already stopped content shopping.
I don't even buy weekly discounted products anymore.
Motion support of iC8 with CA4 has been discontinued, I no longer need to buy anything related to Cartoon Animator.
After transferring the characters to Unreal Engine, a disastrous image is created and I no longer have to spend any money on CC4. Now all I need is to create animations with iClone 8.
All the expenses (Hair, Clothes, etc.) I have made so far have been garbage.
At least I'll be safe from spending too much money from now on.



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https://www.youtube.com/yepkoo
https://dev.epicgames.com/community/profile/bxvo/Yepkoo#learning

Honestly it was never confusing for me. People talk about that email but even once clicking on that link and reading the offer details it was crystal clear. (Email was always clear for me ).

One will get CC4 for particular amount spent.
One will get Both for particular amount spent.
For 3dexhange users extra pack.
(Rightfully added later after hearing concerns)

Also it's Ancient History now.

I don't agree, I honestly feel I was taken. I guess I didn't spend enough with you all last year....i'm out