Reallusion Launches Impactful Character Pipeline – Redefine Design to 3D Animation
Reallusion is again evolving Character Creator and iClone, the most user-friendly and dynamic character animation platform, with a monolithic leap in ability and creativity. The tandem release of iClone 8 (iC8) and Character Creator 4 (CC4) delivers an array of accessible 3d character tools for generating and animating scalable digital humans or humanoids. CC4 and iC8 aim to provide creators with a unified and dramatically simplified solution for character setup and 3D animation.
The evolution supports custom IP and imported models, benefitting users from studios to artists with an illustrious toolset that now can be applied to any character. CC4 and iC8 open the door to more storytellers and interactive designers with a system to provide professional tools blended with ease of access and ultimate power. Take any character or animation to the platform of choice, from AR, VR, or metaverse to games, films, and content for new emerging media.
Apart from a plethora of professional animation editing features, iClone 8 further innovates animation design with a next-level Play2Animate philosophy. One of the elite new tools in iC8 is Motion Director, revolutionizing character animation with a gameplay style of 3D animation and control interface utilizing gamepads, devices, and keyboard controls for characters, cameras, and UI operation allowing ultimate interactivity.
Seamless Integrated Workflow
Massive innovation inside iClone 8 and Character Creator 4 is helmed with the inclusion of new complete integration of 3DXchange that now seamlessly incorporates character setup and animation with drag and drop import, instant or custom retargeting, and a whole new Smart Content management system for fluid workflow.
- Smart Content Manager – users can directly download free resources or purchased assets within the content manager. The CC4/iClone8 shared folder design allows the same assets accessible from both programs, keyword searching and custom tagging for quick data access, Content Workgroup for team assets sharing, and the flexibility of central server access or multiple drive storage.
- 3DXchange seamlessly merges into CC and iClone, importing characters, motion, props, and more with drag and drop FBX or OBJ, characterizing and exporting to all platforms straight from CC4 or iC8.
- iClone 8 – Curve Editor, MotionLIVE are now standard features
- Total integration of CC4 character updates between CC and iClone
ELEVATE CHARACTER DESIGNS (CC4)
Character Creator 4 goes deeper into character development with bilateral features for a new version of CC4 digital humans and imported humanoids that support all the animation setup tools associated with CC4 native characters. The broader compatibility with any character to become a CC4 character and take advantage of the iC8 animation system is a big change to CC4 that opens the door to 3D artists allowing them to create and set up their characters to come to life through the real-time animation tools of iC8.
CC4 characters have the most customization for animation setup with custom blendshape import and assignment that unlocks the iC8 facial animation and lip-sync for any character model.
Extended Character Realism
The CC4 native character is upgraded with 140 blendshapes from 4D scanning for refined motion capture, face puppeteering, and lip-sync with iC8 AccuLips.
Create a custom face expression blendshape or morph setup from the Expression Profile Editor. Character artists have the freedom to create a unique personality for their own iconic character.
Enliven Any Character Rig
Whether humans, creatures, or props, creativity is no longer limited by the existing CC character base. Any rigged biped models can be imported, characterized, and facial rigged in Character Creator. New features now make any character compatible with thousands of motion assets, ready for natural lip-sync, motion capture, and animation controls in iClone. CC characters can also be optimized for low-poly, high-performance crowd simulation, AR, VR, and Metaverse.
Auto Import From Popular Character Types
Character Creator can auto-detect the imported character type when dragging in an FBX file made by popular vendors. Supported character standards include Maya HumanIK, 3ds Max Biped, Blender Meta-rig, Mixamo characters and motions, and Daz3D G3/G8 characters and motions.
Showcase Full-Motion Characters
The CC Animation Features let character designers see living characters inside Character Creator, helping to check imported character rigs, enhancing cloth skin weight and physics, and testing facial expression and lipsync assignment right after customization.
Character designers can use the turntable to real-time review character art or render it as video. Adjust settings for turn speed, cycles, and turn items. Free 3D turntable bases are included with customizable logo textures.
Glamorous realtime render with a library of realistic lighting, and lens flare effects optimized for the digital human shader.
DRAMATICALLY SIMPLIFY CHARACTER ANIMATION (iC8)
iClone 8 animation delivers a pro editing result with autonomous animation creativity. The Reallusion Play2Animate philosophy and Device LIVE features demystify the traditional animation complexities. Experience the balance of deeply refined editing controls blended with a new intuitive approach to animation. Mixing the best of both worlds between gameplay interactivity and professional animation, access editing tools to layout and lens scenes with devices for camera controls, and animate characters with ultimate interactive and hands-on direction using gamepads, 3d mouse, and assignable hotkeys.
Motion capture and animation editing in iClone 8 are refined with smart controls that assist in footstep/handprint reach-target locking for precise character performances with scenes and surroundings, character-to-object, or character-to-character animation.
Professional Motion Controls
iClone provides powerful Motion Editing Innovations while keeping the process simple and intuitive. Whether users are new to the 3D industry or a veteran of professional tools like Maya or MotionBuilder, iClone’s motion editing features and unparalleled simplicity can out-perform most animators’ expectations.
- Automatic root motion alignment between mocap clips
- Smooth Bidirectional Blending, and Directional Control over motion clips
- Optimal HIK Controls for accurate pose-to-pose editing and IK/FK blending
- Multiple Motion Layer Editing, a non-destructive workflow for adding blended motion options
- Character-centric Timeline, with switchable track numbers: body part level, body bone level, facial feature level, facial morph level, and IK/FK blend track
- Pro-level Curve Editing for professional cartoon performance and blendshape follow-through animation.
Facial Animation Editing
Whether humanizing realistic digital doubles or dramatizing toon/stylized characters; iClone provides time-saving Facial Expression Editing tools that can help anyone direct their 3D actors’ facial performances to the highest productivity.
- Works with various facial profiles, Traditional, CC4 Basic 60+, CC4 Extended 140+
- Enhanced Face Puppet and Muscle Edit with secondary-level facial feature options
- Facial curve editing for facial bones and blendshape animation
- Facial-centric timeline-track editing down to Feature Level (63 tracks), and Morph Level (60-150 tracks)
AccuLips lipsync animation works for both standard CC3+ characters and imported Humanoid characters with CC4 facial setup.
Mocap Motion Correction
- Motion capture and animation editing in iClone 8 are refined with smart controls that assist in footstep and handprint systems
- Reach-target locking for precise character performances with scenes and surroundings, character-to-object, or character-to-character animation.
- Motion key sampling, smooth filter, key reduction, and curve editing
Motion Director
The Motion Director system debuts gameplay controls to drive characters and applies motion triggers and dynamic cameras to direct scenes in real-time. Implemented with motion matching technology, the new feature provides smooth speed change, turns, and seamless motion transitions.
- Game-like Actor Control – steer characters with a regular game controller, mouse-click waypoints, or conventional WASD keys.
- NPC AI Animation – give autonomous idle, walk animation on the path, in the zone, or follow an animated object
- Camera Switch – be able to switch up to nine camera views when steering the actor
- Macro Recorder and Sequencer – record device input events and replay in user-defined sequence, or bake to timeline
- Behavior Expansion – allow adding new behavior to actors
Custom Hotkeys & Device LIVE
Intuitively engage in directing and editing with Live Switching, Trigger Effects, Slider fader, Jog Dial timeline scrubbing, Drone Camera navigation, and so much more. Almost all functions in iClone can map to custom hotkeys for assigning devices that interact as physical interfaces for ultimate scene control. Users from Maya, Max, or Blender can also choose their preferred mouse-keyboard convention for viewport control.
- Camera Switch & Navigation
- Motion & Timeline Editing
- 3D Object Transformation
- Lighting & Perform Triggers
Directing features above can be triggered by regular XBOX or PS game controllers, 3DConnexion SpaceMouse, MIDI slider, Monogram Creative Console, Tourbox, Stream Deck, and other Windows compatible devices.
Other New Features
There are hundreds of requested features being answered in CC4 and iClone8, here are some other noticeable highlights.
iClone 8
- Cinematic real-time visuals – volumetric light, motion blur, lens flare, auto exposure, mirror shader
- Flexible frame rate systems, allow frame-accurate timeline editing and video composting
- Enhanced performance and new productivity design, new scene manager with modular Collection design, be able to toggle collection visibility, make group transformation, material and mesh instancing, and project merge.
Character Creator 4
- Turn skin-bone props into animatable Creatures characters
- Prop editing for hierarchical animation setup, included mesh extraction, mesh to sub-item, attach/detach subitems
- Polygon reduction to props, creatures, or selected subitems
Character Production Pipeline
Now there is more power than ever to the Reallusion pipeline from both CC4 and iC8 including features enabling creators to generate and export characters and animation in FBX or USD for the most popular platforms. Export CC4 and iC8 scene assets and characters for path-traced rendering in Omniverse, game output and virtual production in Unreal and Unity, roundtrip editing with 3D digital creation tools, and making next-level metaverse avatars.
CC4 Pipeline | iC8 Pipeline & Add-ons
▎UE5 AutoSetup and iClone Unreal Livelink
▎Blender 3 – CC to Blender Tool
▎NVIDIA Omniverse
Paid Content Packs – expand the power of iClone 8 and CC4
- Lens Flare 200+ (for both CC4 and iClone8)
- A complete collection of Reallusion’s Lens Flare library for cinematic realtime rendering with dynamic optical effects.
- https://www.reallusion.com/ContentStore/iClone/pack/lens-flare-200-plus/default.html
- Digital Soul 100+ (for both CC4 and iClone8)
- Instantly inject believable souls to your digital actors, a total of 25 minutes long, 146 facial sequences meticulously produced at different conscious levels and emotional states.
- https://www.reallusion.com/ContentStore/iClone/pack/digital-soul-100/default.html
- Pedestrian Actions (for iClone8 – Motion Director)
- Quickly enliven a crowd simulation scene with 14 automatic walking styles, and 11 idle motion styles. Supports both player control mode and ai-control mode with Motion Director.
- https://www.reallusion.com/ContentStore/iClone/pack/Pedestrian-Actions/default.html
- Athletic Run (for iClone8 – Motion Director)
- Add an interactive Run and Dash mode to your characters, with both iMD standalone and extension data to existing iClone8 Casual Movement
- https://www.reallusion.com/ContentStore/iClone/pack/Athletic-Run/default.html
Learn more about Character Creator 4 and iClone 8
Character Creator 4 :
https://www.reallusion.com/character-creator/
iClone 8:
https://www.reallusion.com/iclone/
Get complete information and extensive new feature details at www.Reallusion.com
Price Information:
Products are available now to integrate into a complete character production workflow or for standalone creativity and development. https://www.reallusion.com/store/product.html?l=1&p=3d
