Reallusion, 3D Animation Magnate from Silicon Valley, Strikes Again with iClone 7
About: Headquartered in Silicon Valley, Reallusion is a leader in the development of 2D and 3D cinematic animation tools since 2000.
Reallusion has two main product lines; CrazyTalk for 2D animation, and iClone for 3D animation; which provide both casual and professional consumers with easy-to-use avatar animation, facial morphing and voice lip-sync solutions for real-time 2D and 3D animation. The Reallusion Content Store also features virtual assets developed by their Art and Content divisions to accelerate users’ production cycles.
Honored to be working with this global enterprise, VeeR invited Enoc Burgos, Partnership Marketing Manager at Reallusion, to enlighten us on the company’s latest product——iClone 7.
For more information, visit www.reallusion.com.
Introducing iClone 7
iClone 7 is a fast and intuitive video content creation pipeline. Compared to game engines enhanced with cinematic timelines, iClone 7 is, according to Reallusion, “much easier to start or include into an existing production pipeline as there is no need to have specific game development knowledge or coding capabilities.”
Setting up a project is fast and easy with drag and drop placement and editing objects to your scene. Use content from the Reallusion Marketplace, or import your own 3D models or import 3D models from other libraries like 3D Warehouse, 3ds Max, Daz, Maya, and more to fill your scene.
iClone cameras can all become VR 360 cameras that are able to render VR video that can be shared instantly to VeeR, Youtube, Facebook, or viewed on your head mounted display (HMD) of choice: HTC Vive, GearVR, Oculus, Google Cardboard and more.
For more instructions on how to use the software, visit Reallusion’s iClone 7 – Tutorials playlist.
The beauty of iClone is its logical, user-friendly approach. That and the fact that you do not need to model, sculpt, or build anything from scratch. So naturally, would-be animators do not need to know any kind of game development knowledge or coding skills to start off with iClone. iClone’s learning curve is also another huge advantage as newcomers can learn to use the application in just a couple weeks, and not years like other 3D tools. iClone’s power comes mostly from its real-time capabilities, which allow users with little-to-no experience to instantly create their first 3D animations in a matter of hours instead of months. Along the way iClone picked up a following through early Machinima artists who longed to create their own 3D animations without having the intellectual property challenges of video game companies and their content.
——Enoc Burgos
New features of iClone 7
Over the years, iClone’s real-time engine gradually adopted more capabilities such as custom clothing creation, material editing, particle effects, Editor and Director Modes, puppeteering tools, multi-cameras, HDR, IBL, HumanIK, cross-compatibility, soft-cloth physics, Ambient Occlusion, mocap plug-ins, Global Illumination, PBR, Motion Graph, and now VR 360 video export.
Enoc explains to us: “Way before iClone 7, our development teams were already heading into the direction of transforming iClone into a full-blown professional studio suite. iClone comes with a wealth of content and tools made to empower the dreamer in all of us. We’ve long believed that everybody has a story to tell but not everyone has had the chance, or time, to accumulate all the necessary skills to work with traditional 3D tools.”
- PBR Physically-Based Rendering
- NVIDIA Global Illumination (VXGI)
- 60-morph facial animation rig
- Character pipeline for Unity and Unreal
- Live Mocap – Total Body Motion Capture solution
- Techviz & Previz with Real Camera System & Camera Switch (RED, Alexa, Canon)
- Morph Creator & Morph Animation
- LUT library with Film Looks
- IBL Bake 360° Capture
- HBAO+ (Enhanced Horizon Based Ambient Occlusion)
- Motion Curves with Graph Editor (7.1)
Feature Breakdown
Physically-Based Render (PBR)
iClone 7 introduces PBR as the new real-time renderer for iClone users. Not only does it deliver amazingly realistic visuals, but it also serves as the new material content standard that helps maintain a consistent look between iClone 7, 3D game engines, and popular PBR design applications like Substance Painter.
Global Illumination (GI)
Utilizing NVIDIA’s leading real-time Voxel Cone Tracing Technology, iClone 7 significantly improves the visual system by including secondary light reflections over Diffuse and Specular surfaces. Users can quickly and easily level-up their existing projects to achieve superbly-fine video renders in a fraction of the time, even when using slower GPU systems. Global Illumination or GI is ideal for realistic interiors and architectural visualization and, obviously, for many other things related to lighting.
Multi-camera & Cam Switch
You can freely manage up to 30 different cameras using the Camera Switchtrack in the timeline, and you can edit scenes by using the Preview Camera while at the same time using the Mini Viewport to track how it appears in other cameras. You may even ease-in-out animate cameras with motion curves, set your focus range to create DOF effects, or alter the lens for dynamic vertigo results.
Pro facial Animation
To fully deliver facial movement details for mouth, cheeks and eyes, CC Characters’ facial morph count increased from 30 to 60 morphs. Face Key editing now also enhanced to three level, including facial muscle nodes, a library of expression presets, and detailed blend shape slider adjustment.
Motion Layer Editing
Instantly animate any character with intuitive animation tools that record face and body animation with a unique puppeteering engine. Freely control body parts with HumanIK, and use motion layer editing to quickly fine-tune characteristics of your animation.
Dynamic prop animations utilize industry-leading NVIDIA PhysX for natural rigid body dynamics and soft cloth simulations. Morphs and blend shapes expand your options for animating both characters and props, while a new and long-awaited Curve Editor now allows you to fine-tune motions for dynamic and exaggerated motions.
Morph Animation
Achieve dynamic and organic animation performance with a series of morphs added to props or skin-bone characters. This is a simple technique that adds incredible performance enhancing animation options that can be keyed and controlled inside iClone 7. The Morph Manager edits morph groups from a hierarchical model, and you can import OBJ morphs from 3D modeling or sculpting tools. Link selected morphs to adjust them individually using the iClone 7 Morph Manage interface. All imported blend shapes are available in the timeline with individual morph tracks. You can set keys and tweak values for each morph track in order to achieve organic movements between morphs.
- Character Morph Animation: Body morphs can be applied to exaggerate a character’s secondary actions.
- Prop Morph Animation: Props with several morph alternatives can turn a simple shape into a lively actor.
VR/360 Export
Since the first appearance of virtual reality headsets a few years ago, Reallusion was already being contacted by VR hardware developers like HTC Vive, and Oculus Rift. Content creators were also seeing the enormous potential of using fast, real-time tools to generate 360 videos with iClone. Reallusion’s team was quick to develop VR 360 video export into iClone’s 3D engine.
Click here to download the iClone 7 Trial with full features!
2D, 2D Animation, 360, 3D, 3D Animation, Animation, California, Game Engine, iClone, iClone 7, Silicon Valley, Software, Unity, Unreal, Virtual Reality, VR
You actually make it look so easy with your performance but I find this matter to be actually something which I think I would never comprehend. It seems too complicated and extremely broad for me. I’m looking forward for your next post, I’ll try to get the hang of it!