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Manairons: How an Indie Game Team Brought a Catalan Legend to Life with Character Creator

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Gerard Martínez – 3D Character Artist & Lighting Lead at Jandusoft

I’m Gerard Martínez, a 3D artist from Barcelona specializing in cartoon-style characters. I am also a 3D instructor and teacher. I have the privilege of combining two of my greatest passions: 3D art and teaching.

This story is co-produced with 3CAT.

A Magical Story About Work, Tradition, and Freedom

Some stories are born from an idea. Others, from necessity.

Manairons, our video game, was born from both.

From day one, we knew we wanted to make something different: a game with soul that felt handmade and cultural, yet carried a powerful visual identity. But there was one small problem: time. Our schedule was tight, and our team was small.

If we wanted to build a world as alive as Vilamont, the small Pyrenean village where the story unfolds, we needed tools that could help us stay creative without slowing down production.

That is where Character Creator changed everything.

The Origin of Manairons

The story of Manairons is inspired by Catalan folklore and the tiny magical creatures known as “manairons,” said to accomplish any task in mere seconds.

In our game, the town’s mayor, Llorenç, discovers a magical container that holds a colony of these beings. Little by little, the village becomes trapped in an endless cycle of work. At first, the manairons seem like a blessing. Factories never stop, production grows, and Vilamont begins to thrive.

But as their magic spreads, the villagers lose their trades, their sense of purpose, and eventually, their freedom.

The player takes on the role of Nai, a manairó who decides to rebel against Llorenç’s orders and free the town from their absolute control.

At its core, Manairons is a story about balance: between progress and essence, technology and humanity, control and freedom.

A Vision with Soul

From the very beginning, we knew that Manairons had to move players emotionally before even explaining itself. We did not want players to understand the world through words, but to feel it at first sight.

That vision was made possible thanks to Ivet Macías, our Art Director, Producer, and 3D Artist, who became the visual heart of the project. Under her guidance, the art direction was built around three pillars: atmosphere, narrative tone, and emotion.

Working alongside her was Eliant Elias, our Concept Artist, whose sensitivity transformed abstract ideas into soulful images. Exaggerated silhouettes, faces that were both tender and unsettling, and colors that breathe nostalgia and mystery defined Manairons’ visual identity.

Together, they achieved a balance between the familiar and the uncanny, creating a world that feels close yet slightly off, inviting players to look twice.

Handcrafted and Painterly

Visually, Manairons merges a handcrafted aesthetic with painterly detail. Every texture looks as if it has been brushed by hand, and every light carries emotion. We wanted the player to feel as if they were walking inside a painting.

We took inspiration from Lost in Random, Little Nightmares, and Arcane, yet the final result became deeply personal, rooted in Catalan culture and in our own artistic language. Even though the tone is dark, the game ultimately tells a story of hope.

The Challenge: A Coherent, Fast, and Flexible Pipeline

The character pipeline was one of the most demanding yet rewarding parts of production. Only two people, Ivet and I, handled the entire process of modeling, rigging, and texturing. That meant we needed a workflow that was solid, fast, and predictable.

We started from a Character Creator 4 base mesh, one of the software’s biggest advantages.

Its templates come production-ready with optimized topology, clean UVs, and functional rigging right out of the box. That alone saved us weeks of work, which was invaluable in a project with such a limited schedule.

From there, the Ultimate Morph Pack became our key tool. With its extensive library of sliders, we could define proportions, musculature, and facial features without breaking rig compatibility. The result was a strong, expressive silhouette perfectly adapted to our stylized look.

Bernat Batum: A Character with a Heart (and a Story)

One of the clearest examples of this workflow is Bernat Batum, one of the game’s main bosses. From the start, we wanted him to convey humanity, even within his mechanical stiffness, which came from the manairons’ magic.

I began with a Character Creator 4 base and then sent the model to ZBrush via GoZ to sculpt finer details. Ivet supervised the overall balance to ensure every element stayed true to the project’s visual direction: a stylized and expressive cartoon style.

Once the sculpt was complete, we brought it back into Character Creator 4 with full compatibility, without losing weights or UVs. That seamless integration allowed us to iterate quickly, test materials, and maintain artistic consistency throughout the process.

The Painterly Touch of Eliant Elias

During texturing, collaboration was key. I handled the base materials in Substance Painter, focusing on general tones and physical properties. Then, Eliant added his painterly touch, with brushstrokes, stains, and small imperfections that gave each surface a handcrafted soul.

Thanks to Character Creator 4, we could re-import and preview textures with precision before integrating them into Unreal Engine, ensuring visual accuracy at every stage.

Cartoon Rigging and Animation in Blender

All rigging and animation were done in Blender. Even though Character Creator 4’s rig is robust, we decided to design our own to achieve a more cartoon-like movement, with elastic poses, broader expressions, and a more narrative body language.

This gave the characters life and reinforced the visual tone of the game: dark but full of humanity.

Once animation was complete, the characters were integrated into Unreal Engine 5, where I worked on lighting to highlight textures and maintain the balance between the magical and the handcrafted.

A Pipeline that Empowers Creativity

The combined workflow of Character Creator 4, ZBrush, Blender, Substance, and Unreal Engine gave us two things every artist values: coherence and creative freedom.

We reduced iteration time by more than 40% while maintaining full control over every artistic detail. For a small and focused team, that kind of efficiency makes all the difference.

Working with Character Creator 4 taught us that efficiency can also be creative.
It was not just about speed, but about building a stable, predictable workflow that encouraged experimentation without technical risks.

That reliability gave us the freedom to test new ideas while maintaining rig and texture compatibility. It allowed us to focus on what truly matters: the art, the emotion, and the soul of the characters.

A Philosophy of Creation

Through Manairons, we learned something that is now part of our creative DNA. When a tool offers both technical stability and artistic freedom, the result is not just efficiency but the space to create with purpose.

Character Creator 4 was not just another piece of software in our pipeline. It became the bridge between our artistic vision and technical execution. It allowed us to tell our story with sensitivity and detail.

A Glimpse at Character Creator 5


After wrapping up character production, I had the chance to test Character Creator 5, and the experience was incredible. Seeing how much the tool had evolved after spending so many months working with CC4 was truly surprising.

The first thing you notice is the fluidity of the system. Everything feels lighter, faster, and even more integrated with Unreal. The new facial rig immediately stood out to me: it is more expressive, more natural, and opens up exciting possibilities for storytelling and animation.

From an artistic standpoint, maintaining visual consistency across projects is now easier.
You can organize libraries, adapt characters to different art styles, and still keep production-level quality.

In short, Character Creator 5 strengthens exactly what artists value most: speed, stability, and creative freedom.

Where Tradition Meets Technology

Thanks to Character Creator 4, Manairons was able to preserve its handcrafted essence without sacrificing efficiency. It became the tool that united tradition and technology, combining the sensitivity of handmade art with the power of a modern production pipeline.

For us, it was never just about building characters. It was about giving life to stories that move people, that speak of culture, identity, and the joy of creating.

Conclusion

If you are a creator or developer searching for that balance between control and freedom, between time and detail, then Character Creator 4, and now Character Creator 5, are the allies that truly make a difference.

They helped us bring a Catalan legend to life, a world filled with light, texture, and soul.

Thank you, Reallusion, for giving us the opportunity to create with heart.

Watch the trailer of Manairons

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Learning

From Everyday Clips to UE5 Cinematics with iClone Video Mocap

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Fast workflow for turning real-life footage into UE5-ready animation

How can an independent animator capture professional-grade motion without suits, markers, or a fully equipped studio? In this creator spotlight, Michael Tiedtke shows how the iClone Video Mocap plug-in can turn simple video footage into polished 3D animation ready for real-time production. With nothing more than a webcam, a smartphone, and a few stock clips, he constructs an entire cinematic sequence — demonstrating how AI-powered mocap can supercharge an animation pipeline for the modern creator.

Michael Tiedtke

Michael Tiedtke is a Pipeline Technical Director at Stiller Studios, where he develops advanced workflows and tools for real-time animated feature production. His work draws on deep expertise in character rigging, simulation, and the Unreal Engine. He is currently contributing to the film Handbok för Superhjältar – Röda Masken. Outside the studio, Michael runs a widely viewed YouTube channel with over a million views. There he shares practical, production-tested tutorials on 3D, VFX, and real-time animation for artists at all levels.

Follow Michael’s YouTube Channel

From Simple Video to Solid Mocap

Michael started with the most accessible recording setup possible: a webcam on a tripod and OBS Studio. Instead of worrying about cinematic lighting or composition, he focused on clarity—giving the AI what it needs to extract clean movement.

His guidelines for better results:

  • Keep the camera at chest or head height.
  • Stabilize the frame (no shaking).
  • If possible, turn off motion blur.
  • Don’t wear baggy clothes.
  • Keep the whole body in view as much as possible.

These small considerations help the Video Mocap tool track characters faithfully, even before any editing begins.

Video Mocap in iClone automatically detects performers, trims the clip, and processes the motion in the cloud. Despite using basic cameras, the results often show strong weight shifts, believable foot contact, and natural movement ready for refinement. The tool is free, and motion generation uses DA Points, offering an affordable, flexible alternative to hardware mocap and other services.

Polishing Motion Inside iClone

With motion applied to a character, iClone’s animation tools take over. Michael used Motion Modifier for quick posture adjustments, then fine-tunes details with the Motion Layer. Reach Target helped to keep hands locked convincingly to chairs, props, and table surfaces, while Motion Trail helps him sculpt smooth arcs for jumps and flips. Even a short cleanup session can turn raw AI tracking into a production-ready clip.

Recovering Tough Shots

To push the system, Michael intentionally used problematic footage, such as cropped legs, motion blur, fast flips, and a dancer in a white dress on a white background. When tracking failed, he repaired the missing moments with a mix of keyframing and iClone’s motion-editing tools, blending AI-generated and hand-adjusted motion into one seamless animation. Nearly any clip becomes usable with a bit of creative editing.

From iClone to Unreal Engine with Live Link

With his animation polished, Michael sent everything into Unreal Engine 5 through Unreal Live Link. This connection lets him see his iClone characters and motions inside Unreal instantly, making it easy to check timing and placement in the final scene. Any adjustments he made in iClone updated live in Unreal, and once the motion was transferred, he used UE Control Rig to fine-tune character positioning directly in the engine. When everything is lined up, he baked the animation into level sequences for rendering.

A Faster Path to Animation

Michael’s workflow showcases a new era of mocap. That is motion capture from everyday video, converted with the Video Mocap tool, refined in iClone, and finished through Unreal Live Link. The process is fast, flexible, and remarkably accessible, even for creators without studio equipment. His final short film, assembled entirely from these methods, demonstrates just how much can be achieved with a camera, iClone, and a modern real-time pipeline.

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In David Stapp's review, he disclosed that Character Creator 5 is truly compatible with his Unreal MetaHuman workflow. The softwrae is aimed at professionals who need an easy, intuitive workflow for creating custom characters from scratch.
Learning

Influencer Spotlight: Character Creator 5 Review by Virtual Production Insider

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In David Stapp's review, he disclosed that Character Creator 5 is truly compatible with his Unreal MetaHuman workflow. The softwrae is aimed at professionals who need an easy, intuitive workflow for creating custom characters from scratch.
In David Stapp’s review, he disclosed that Character Creator 5 is truly compatible with his Unreal MetaHuman workflow. The softwrae is aimed at professionals who need an easy, intuitive workflow for creating custom characters from scratch.

David Stapp / Virtual Production Insider

Hi everyone, I’m David Stapp. With over a decade of experience in the film industry, I’ve had many opportunities to hone my craft in post-production, VFX, and even cinematography. And over the past few years, I’ve been able to leverage the skills and insights I’ve gained from my experiences by channeling them into virtual production, which is a major passion of mine.

I now specialize in Unreal Engine environment creation and cinematics, along with ICVFX stage operation and supervision, blending creative vision with technical expertise. I’ve also launched a YouTube channel called “Virtual Production Insider” where the goal is to make virtual production as approachable as possible for people from all walks of life.

Virtual Production Insider YouTube

My Journey with Character Creation Tools

For the past few years, Metahumans have been the easiest way to create high-quality, realistic 3D characters. But now, Character Creator 5 is here, and it’s coming for the crown. And I’m not going to lie, it’s got me second-guessing my entire character workflow. I’m the director of virtual production at Form Studios. I use Metahumans a lot—like a whole lot. They really have been an integral part of my journey in Unreal Engine 5 and using it as a filmmaking tool.

We finally got some pretty big updates to MetaHumans in the recent release of Unreal Engine 5.6. I made a whole video that explores all of those upgrades and all those new features, so definitely go check that out. But there are still some areas where MetaHumans are lacking. I wanted to try out Character Creator 5 to see how it stacks up. Luckily, Reallusion hooked me up with a copy of Character Creator 5 and a lot of its plugins so that I could try it out. But I promise you that everything you’re about to read is my opinion. We’re going to dive deep into what this program can do, how it stacks up against the MetaHuman workflow, and honestly, who this program is for.

The Evolution: Major Upgrades from CC4

Before opening the program, I researched the upgrades from Character Creator 4. I’ve used CC4, but the quality wasn’t competitive with MetaHumans, and the transfer workflow to Unreal Engine wasn’t great. With Character Creator 5, they’ve heavily upgraded their character models. The new features include:

  • More subdivision options.
  • Skin textures that go up to 8K
  • Way more blend shapes for way more accurate facial animation.

They also offer a wide variety of plugins for customization. For example, the HD ultimate morphs pack adds quick definition and facial features. The new ActorMixer Core Library lets you mix and match features from different presets. This is similar to the MetaHuman Creator mixer, but CC5 definitely offers more customization beyond the starting point.

Character Creation in CC5: A Quick Demo

I want to give you a quick demo of how easy it is to get up and running. I loaded the HD-based Aaron clothed avatar, which is a full character with hair, clothing, and high-quality skin textures applied. If you click the morph button, you can start adjusting features. And with the morph button enabled, you can highlight over different body parts and drag them to adjust things like cheekbones, the tip of the nose, ears, and eye size. The “Edit Mesh” feature can modify the character, showing the wireframe and allowing you to grow, shrink, or use other tools to really dial in the mesh. This applies to the body as well.

While Unreal Engine 5.6 has the parametric body system, CC5 is the winner when it comes to manipulating the body and adding imperfections or tweaks to the skin. For example, the realistic human skin pack gives you tons of options for adding wrinkles, acne, moles, scars, and even tattoos. Between the plugins and the marketplace, there are thousands of objects to customize your character. This variety is an area where Metahumans have been lacking, as the built-in options in the Metahuman Creator are pretty limited. CC5 wins on the sheer amount of assets, but with the caveat that many are paid options.

“I think this was super smart by Reallusion. They’re not looking at Metahumans as a competitor, but an extension of Character Creator 5. The updated bone structure can match with MetaHumans when using their new export preset, and the Auto Setup tool makes it super easy to take your character to other DCC platforms like Unreal Engine, Unity, Maya, and even Blender.”

David Stapp / Virtual Production Insider and Lead Virtual Production Artist at Forms Studio

CC5’s Greatest Strength: The Metahuman Workflow

It is now so easy to take your character out of Character Creator 5, import it into Unreal Engine, and swap it out with your existing Metahuman. Here’s how:

Creating the Control Rig Assets

Once imported, find the skeletal mesh asset. Right-click on the skeletal mesh and select Create CC control rig. This creates a new rigs folder with the essential body and face control rig assets.

Export & Import Summary

  1. In CC5, go to File > Export > FBX > clothed character. (Note: If the export button is hidden, check your Windows display settings to ensure scaling is at 100%.)
  2. In the export dialogue, select the Unreal Engine UE5 skeleton preset. Uncheck embed textures. Choose a higher subdivision level (like 2) for a more detailed mesh. Hit export.
  3. In Unreal Engine, ensure the Reallusion Auto Setup tool is installed.
  4. Install the Character Creator UE control rig plugin from Fab and activate it in your project’s Plugins menu.
  5. Drag the exported FBX file into a content folder. The Auto Setup window will pop up—select high-quality shader and hit okay.
  6. In the traditional FBX import box, make sure use T0 as ref pos is unchecked and import morph targets is checked, then click import.

Final Swap

In Sequencer, I have a Metahuman talking to the camera. Now we replace it.

  1. Click the Metahuman, and hit edit in the blueprint.
  2. Delete all hair from the face component (a Reallusion recommendation). (Tip: Duplicate your Metahuman blueprint first!).
  3. Replace the Metahuman body mesh with the imported Aaron body mesh asset.
  4. Replace the face mesh with the imported Aaron face mesh asset.
  5. Hit compile and save.

Just like that, the Character Creator 5 avatar is in our Sequencer, with the body and face animation applied. This truly opens up the possibilities for creating custom characters and using them seamlessly in Unreal Engine.

My Conclusion: Metahuman Companion

Character Creator 5 is pretty amazing. It has so much customization and so much at your disposal—something that I feel has been missing from the MetaHuman creator. Who is this for? If you are a casual user who creates Metahumans occasionally, CC5 may not be right for you. This is aimed more at professionals who need an easy, intuitive workflow for creating custom characters from scratch. If you constantly create characters for your cinematics, I highly recommend checking it out with a Free Trial of Character Creator.

I don’t view this as a Metahuman killer; I think this is a Metahuman companion. It works really well in tandem with it. I’m excited to integrate this into my workflow because it will give me so many more options for customizing the face and body, and it’s amazing that I can easily bring them into the Metahuman blueprint with very little effort. But if you want to upgrade your workflow and easily customize characters, I recommend checking it out—it’s very low risk with the free trial.

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Riding the Digital Grid: David Sujono’s CC5 + Cinema 4D Workflow

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David Sujono

Freelance 3D Motion Designer David Sujono has built a reputation for cinematic, motion-driven visuals that fuse technical precision with artistic flair. Based in Sydney, Australia, David collaborates with agencies and studios worldwide — formerly serving as 3D Lead at Collider Studio, and earning top honors such as 1st place in Rokoko’s Perfect Loop Challenge and 2nd place in Pwnisher’s Chasm’s Call Challenge.

Today, he’s pushing his creative boundaries even further with Character Creator 5, iClone, and the CC4D Tools, crafting high-fidelity digital humans and dynamic animation workflows directly inside Cinema 4D + Redshift.

Building the Hero: From CC5 Base to Tron’s Digital Realm

David’s latest short film project revisits the visual language of Tron, with a reimagined protagonist inspired by actor Bruce Boxleitner. Using the new CC5 base character, he explored different head and body variations in the Character Creator 5 and its ActorMIXER feature, blending multiple morph sources to fine-tune ethnicity, facial structure, and overall proportions — all in a non-destructive, real-time workflow.

“It was awesome seeing how close I could get — CC5 has so many specific morphs that let me tweak every aspect I wanted,”

David Sujono, Freelance 3D Motion Designer

Armed with a side-by-side reference board, he focused on sculpting subtle details like the nose bridge, eye depth, and head silhouette, leveraging CC5’s new HD morphs and corrective systems. The improved eyelash system and HD eye shaders provided an extra layer of realism, while the new aging morphs opened creative possibilities for his next film — featuring a father-and-son narrative.

CC4D Integration: Seamless from iClone to Cinema 4D

The technical backbone of David’s project lies in the CC4D Tools 1.0.5, which now fully supports CC5’s HD facial rig and Redshift materials.

Using the Import Character feature within CC4D, David brought the entire rigged character into Cinema 4D — automatically linking the control rig, materials, and shaders in one go.

“The CC4D plugin is amazing — it automatically sets up Redshift materials and the control rig, saving me hours,” he said.
“The iClone HD face control rig transfers 1:1, and the new facial rig gives me insane control over nuance and expression.”

This seamless bridge allowed him to iterate on animation in iClone, export facial and body motion separately, and swap takes without breaking rigs — a huge efficiency gain for solo creators managing full CG productions.

Animating the Light Cycle: Rokoko Meets iClone

To bring the iconic Light Cycle sequence to life, David used his Rokoko Smartsuit Pro II with a custom saddle setup — simulating motorcycle posture for realistic performance capture.

He captured multiple takes while referencing a previz timeline to sync motion with camera beats, then brought the mocap data into iClone, where he refined movement using reach targets for the hands and feet.

“Capturing movement was crucial. Doing this all by hand would’ve taken weeks,” David explained.

The Motion Layer system helped fine-tune subtle movements — adjusting neck rotations, torso lean, and timing for cinematic emphasis. After smoothing and baking, the results delivered an authentic, weighty performance for the Tron rider.

Facial Motion & Lip Sync: Precision with Dollars Link and AccuLips

Facial performance was handled via Dollars Link, pairing David’s iPhone Live Link app directly with iClone to capture real-time facial mocap. He carefully tuned brow, cheek, and eye movements to keep the performance expressive yet natural.

For speech, David relied on AccuLips to manually refine visemes and enhance lip-sync precision.

“AccuLips is a lifesaver. Facial mocap alone never nails dialogue perfectly — being able to hand-adjust visemes brings the realism up a notch.”

The final animation pass was polished using iClone’s new HD Face Controls, then imported seamlessly back into Cinema 4D via CC4D Tools, maintaining perfect alignment and material fidelity.

Designing the Tron Universe: Procedural Worlds in Cinema 4D

David’s film unfolds across two primary environments: a mountainous tunnel and a vast digital landscape.


He built the terrain using Cinema 4D splines and procedural noises, shaping the tunnel path and animating the Light Cycle along it. For the open-world shots, he combined spline extrusions, displacements, and greeble generators to create depth and complexity with minimal manual modeling.

Textures generated in JSplacement added a futuristic edge through emission maps and digital noise patterns. He layered volumetric lighting, VDB clouds, and soft atmospheric gradients to achieve the film’s signature neon glow.

Final compositing in After Effects involved film grain, glow effects, lens dirt, and cinematic color grading, delivering a look that feels both nostalgic and modern.

Reflections on Workflow & What’s Next

“The fidelity I can achieve with CC5 is incredible — and CC4D makes it effortless to move between tools,” David noted.
“Having materials auto-convert to Redshift saves so much time, and iClone gives me the flexibility to iterate animation faster than ever.”

Looking ahead, David is developing a new short film slated for next year — a heartfelt father-and-son story. He plans to push realism even further using ZBrush detailing, CC5 HD morphs, and iClone’s performance capture tools to create his most photorealistic characters yet.

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CC4D Tools 1.0.5 is Now Released — Bringing CC5 Characters to Life in Cinema 4D

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A Smarter Bridge Between Character Creator and Cinema 4D

The wait is over — CC4D Tools 1.0.5 is now released, delivering the most powerful bridge yet between Character Creator 5 (CC5) and Cinema 4D.

Developed by Reallusion partner Benjamin Broschinski, the CC4D plugin has become the go-to solution for Cinema 4D artists who want to import, rig, and animate Reallusion characters with professional precision.

What was once a tedious import and rigging process has evolved into a seamless, production-ready workflow, allowing artists to transfer, rig, and animate characters faster than ever.

This new update introduces full support for CC5 characters and the advanced CC5 HD facial profile, bringing next-generation facial detail and animation control right into Cinema 4D.

Face Rig HD — Next-Level Facial Animation

The headline feature in this update is the CC4D Face Rig HD, bringing Metahuman-style facial control straight into Cinema 4D.

Built for CC5’s HD facial profile, the rig lets you drive micro-expressions, corrective morphs, and constraint-based deformations using predefined Xpresso setups.

In practice, this means you can now animate complex facial movements in Cinema 4D with the same fine-tuned precision you’d expect directly inside Character Creator 5. It’s a game-changer for anyone focusing on cinematic storytelling or realistic character performances.

Sharper, More Realistic Eye Shader

Visual realism takes a noticeable leap forward with two new shader templates: EyeTearline Plus and EyeOcclusion Plus.

These subtle but crucial additions smooth out the transition between the eyeball and eye socket, creating a soft fade that eliminates harsh edges and prevents visible mesh intersections.

The result: a more natural, polished look, especially in close-up shots where every pixel counts.

Complete Character Pipeline for Cinema 4D Artists

Beyond the new headline features, CC4D Tools 1.0.5 continues to deliver a comprehensive, artist-friendly pipeline that connects your Reallusion characters with Cinema 4D in just a few clicks.

  • Import Character – Automatically imports FBX files with optimized joints, cleaned morph targets, and optional rig and material setups.
  • Control & Face Rigs – Attach fully-featured FK/IK control rigs or facial systems directly to your character—no manual rigging required.
  • Auto Material Setup – Convert imported textures into Redshift materials in seconds, complete with wrinkle maps and properly configured parameters.
  • Motion Import Tools – Bring in body and facial animation seamlessly from Character Creator, iClone, ActorCore, Mixamo, Rokoko, or Moves by Maxon.

A Refined Workflow for Artists

With version 1.0.5, the CC4D Tools not only keep pace with Character Creator 5—they fully embrace its next-gen capabilities.

Whether you’re an independent creator refining cinematic performances or part of a studio pipeline, CC4D Tools 1.0.5 ensures a consistent, efficient workflow from Character Creator to Cinema 4D—ready for animation, lighting, and rendering in minutes.

FAQ

What’s new in CC4D Tools 1.0.5?

The update introduces full support for CC5 characters, HD facial rigging, and new eye shaders for enhanced realism in Cinema 4D.

Can I import animations from iClone or ActorCore?

Yes. Motion import is supported from iClone, ActorCore, Mixamo, Rokoko, and Moves by Maxon.

Which render engine does it support?

The Auto Material Setup creates materials for Redshift, ensuring instant compatibility and realistic renders.

Do I still need to rig manually?

No. CC4D Tools automatically apply full FK/IK and facial rigs — no manual setup required.

Are CC4 characters still compatible?

Absolutely. CC4D 1.0.5 supports CC4, CC5, and AccuRig characters for a unified workflow.

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Featured Story

The Making of 3D Gorilla Animations: Capturing the Beast in Motion

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Over 130 lifelike gorilla movements, professionally performed and motion-captured.

About ActorCore

Reallusion ActorCore is a premium motion capture library designed for professional 3D production, offering over 4,700 high-quality animations spanning a wide range of themes, from everyday actions and conversations to combat, stunts, and paired performances. Constantly pushing creative boundaries, ActorCore holds a reputation for delivering mocap animations that are often difficult, time-consuming, or costly for studios to produce on their own, while making them accessible and affordable to everyone.

Gorilla Series

Following the acclaimed success of the Wire Stunts and Legendary Heroes series, Reallusion is now venturing beyond standard human motion with a new collection that explores primeval behaviors. Inspired by films such as Planet of the Apes, Tarzan, King Kong, and Warcraft, and supported by industry expertise and the production-scale resources of a major studio, this ambitious project captures authentic gorilla movements. While primate themes often appear on the big screen, this kind of motion data has been largely out of reach for 3D creators… until now.

In collaboration with Quantum Stage, a professional motion capture studio in Switzerland renowned for its directing expertise and stunt performers capable of simulating realistic primal behaviors, Reallusion creates the Gorilla Series—a distinctive collection of high-quality 3D animations available on the ActorCore 3D asset store. These animations authentically capture the strength, movement, and personality of hulking gorillas, making them perfect for wildlife documentaries, zoo simulations, or cinematic storytelling.

See how the Quantum Stage process and professional mocap acting replicate lifelike gorilla movement:

Research and Planning

To achieve natural movement, Reallusion and Quantum Stage conducted extensive research on gorilla behavior. The study organized actions into key categories: daily routines such as walking, running, crawling, and jumping; alert behaviors like scanning the environment and responding to threats; terrain navigation across different levels; and social interactions, including attacking, taunting, defending, and escaping. Together, the study has captured the full range of gorilla motion for use as a production reference.

Imitation of Gorilla Motion

Creating realistic gorilla animation involved two key steps. First, the mocap studio captured the human performer’s body and skeletal motion, much like a traditional motion capture session. The second step focused on accurately adapting these movements to a gorilla’s anatomy. Although gorillas share a similar skeletal structure with humans, their body proportions differ significantly: their hips, chest, and shoulders are much broader, their upper arms and forearms are considerably longer, and their legs are noticeably shorter. By carefully adjusting these proportions, the final animation preserves both anatomical accuracy and authentic primate movement.

“When we shot this animation we specifically observed gorilla motion and behavior from movies such as the King Kong series and Planet of the Apes, and also nature documentaries about how the primates behave with other animals and with each other. It is a very big part of the whole makeup of a gorilla and that shows in the performance. We tried to replicate these as closely as possible,”

Tobias Baumann, Founder, Quantum Stage

Preparing for Action

The most crucial element in capturing authentic gorilla motion is the performer. The actor must combine physical prowess with the creative ability to understand, visualize, and embody gorilla behavior and movement. With high-quality motion capture, every subtle emotion and intention of the performer is recorded, translating directly into the animated character’s movements and expressions.

For this project, the studio collaborated with Ophir Raray, a stunt actor and motion capture artist specializing in creature performances, wire stunts, and movement-based roles. With a background in gymnastics, capoeira, and military training, he brought both life and realism to the gorilla performance. The capture process was physically demanding and technically challenging, requiring the actor to maintain consistent energy, posture, and motion, so that all movements flowed naturally from a precise starting point.

“The preparation involves a lot of research, including researches of animals, apes, and gorillas, their movements, also their psychology, sounds and breath, which are some of the most important things for the performance, to give a life-like performance that the audience can really feel,”

Ophir Raray, creature performer and movement expert

The Right Tool for the Job

To ensure accurate kinesthetics, the team used arm extensions, allowing Raray to mimic the true skeletal proportions of a gorilla. This tool enabled him to move with the correct weight, rhythm, and balance, fully transforming his performance into that of a believable primate. These techniques and tools were essential in bridging human expression and performance with animal motion and behavior, ensuring that the animation captured not only anatomical accuracy but also conveyed personality and emotion.

“Using arm extensions is a very specialized skill, and it requires the body parts, muscles and movements that you normally don’t use. It’s a behavior that you as a human never really experience but the tools allow you to actually move like a gorilla and you can really feel that you are becoming a gorilla,”

Ophir Raray, creature performer and movement expert

Available Now on ActorCore

A product of hours of dedication and passion, the Gorilla Series is now available on ActorCore. The pack includes four motion categories: Routines, Locomotion, Aggression, and Evasion. The full collection features 131 mocap motions designed for jungle scenes, wildlife simulations, educational content, or any project that requires realistic gorilla movement and behavior.

Whether you’re creating games, cinematic animations, or storytelling sequences, this motion set provides the versatility needed to bring your scenes to life. The collection also includes core poses, instinctual reactions, expressive gestures, combat responses, and terrain-based movements. The Gorilla Series offers the perfect mocap content to bring wildlife adventures into your productions. 

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The Ultimate CC5 3D Lighting Guide: Create Cinematic Realism with Free Presets

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Lighting is one of the most powerful tools for defining mood, realism, and style in Character Creator 5 (CC5). The free 3D lighting presets give you an excellent foundation to start with — but to truly make your character shine, you’ll want to move beyond simply applying a preset. Fine-tune the lighting to match your character, theme, and camera angle for the best visual results.

This guide walks you through how to make the most of CC5’s Lightrooms and how to adjust presets so they perfectly complement your scene.

Corresponding Lightrooms to CC5 Key Visuals

Reallusion’s Lightrooms are designed to reflect the aesthetics of CC5’s promotional visuals, making them ideal reference points for achieving professional-quality lighting. Each Lightroom offers a ready-made setup that you can adapt to your own scene instead of starting from scratch.

Before making adjustments, take a moment to study the Lightroom you’re using — observe the direction of the key light, how the fill balances the shadows, and whether rim lights are adding separation and depth to your character.

Refer to the Content Resource Page for related examples and presets.

Drag and Drop to Switch Light Presets

Switching between lighting setups in Character Creator 5 is as simple as dragging and dropping. Each preset instantly updates your lighting, letting you preview different moods and angles without manual tweaking.

Apply the Same Light Preset to Different Characters

Apply one light preset to multiple characters to keep a consistent visual tone. Subtle differences in skin tone, facial shape, and materials will still stand out—keeping your renders unified yet distinctive.

Using Lightrooms Effectively

1. Break Down the Lighting Setup

Understanding the default lighting setup is essential. Open the Scene Manager and toggle each light on or off to observe how it shapes the scene. Notice which light defines the face, which adds depth to the shoulders, and how they interact to create balance. Once you understand each light’s role, refining the look becomes much easier.

2. Troubleshoot with On/Off Toggles

If your character appears too bright, flat, or lacks shadow definition, toggle off one light at a time to identify the cause. This method helps isolate problem lights quickly and prevents overcorrecting with unnecessary adjustments.

3. Adjust Light to Match Character Height

Lighting presets are designed for average proportions. If your character is taller, shorter, or posed differently, the light may hit at the wrong angle. Raise or lower the lights so they illuminate the character’s face naturally.

4. Rotate Lights Around the Character

Pivot your lights around the subject to refine highlight and shadow balance. Even a subtle 15–30° rotation can dramatically shift the mood and emphasize your character’s best features.

5. Extend Portrait Lighting to Full Body

Most presets are tuned for upper-body shots. For full-body renders, extend the light range downward so the legs, feet, and shadows are properly illuminated. This ensures the character doesn’t appear to be floating under inconsistent lighting.

5-1. Duplicate Existing Lights with Dummies

If one light works well but doesn’t cover enough area, duplicate it and link the copy to a light dummy. This extends coverage while keeping the original lighting balance intact.

5-2. Add a Shadow Catcher

Ground shadows add realism. Use a shadow catcher plane to anchor your character in the scene—without it, even good lighting can look artificial.

5-3. Adjust Shadow Darkness and Range

Avoid setting shadow darkness to zero or your scene will appear flat. Increase intensity for more weight, and extend the range so shadows fade naturally to the ground.

5-4. Duplicate the Full-Body Light to Add a Fill Light

Duplicate the main light to create a soft fill. This secondary light reduces harsh shadows and adds surface detail while keeping the key light dominant.

5-5. Reduce Fill-Light Shadow and Adjust Intensity

Lower the fill light’s shadow strength to prevent double shadows, then fine-tune brightness until it complements the key light smoothly.

5-6. Use PCSS as an Optional Choice

PSCC (Percentage-Closer Soft Shadows) softens shadows farther from the object for a more natural falloff. It may, however, cause visual artifacts—use selectively and check results from different angles before final rendering.

6. Enhance Eye Reflections

Eyes bring characters to life. Slightly adjust the light position to create strong catchlights in the eyes. This subtle touch adds realism and enhances the emotional depth of your character.

7. Post Effects

Lightrooms and iAtmosphere include built-in post effects for instant visual enhancement. Free LUT resources can be added, removed, or adjusted to refine color tone and elevate the overall mood and atmosphere.

8. Use Depth of Field (DOF) for Focus

DOF not only adds a photographic touch but also draws attention to your character’s face. A subtle background blur enhances the mood and helps separate your subject from the scene.

9. Don’t Forget Shader Adjustments

Lighting alone won’t achieve realism if shaders aren’t properly set. Adjust skin, hair, and clothing shaders to respond correctly to your light setup. For example, fine-tuning roughness or specular levels helps prevent skin from looking plastic or overly shiny.

GreaseMicro Roughness Scale: -0.4

MatteMicro Roughness Scale: 0.2

NaturalMicro Roughness Scale: -0.2

Final Thoughts

The free lighting presets in Character Creator 5 are more than quick solutions—they’re powerful starting points for creative customization. By breaking them down, adjusting for character proportions, extending their range, and fine-tuning shadows, reflections, and shaders, you can achieve cinematic, expressive lighting that feels uniquely yours.

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Learning

CC5 – Big Step Up for Beginners & Pros

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Character Creator 5 has been released, and it was well worth the wait, and a welcome release to beginners and pros with its usual ease of use we have come to expect from Reallusion products. Over the past five releases, Reallusion has brought some of the most time-consuming and difficult animation tasks, character creation and rigging, to anyone that wants to make a character.

No technical experience necessary.

This release brings characters to a new level from gaming to cinematic needs as it includes High-Definition Characters, High-Definition morphs, and High-Definition facial animation by including Subdivision levels from 0 (lowest to 2 (highest), providing three levels of mesh density to suit a wide range of needs.

With three levels, this also brings up another interesting and much-needed new feature: baking normal maps to transfer features from a high-poly character to a low-poly character (projecting) using maps, not mesh. I’ll get more into this later on in the article, but I can say they have made it a simple process as usual.

CC5 Launch Bundle

For those not familiar with all this the CC5 Launch Bundle consists of CC5 Deluxe, the new ActorMIXER Pro plugin with the core library.

ActorMIXER Core Library includes 44 HD scanned head shapes and textures across four ethnicities: Asian, Caucasian, African, and Middle Eastern. (It will cost you hundreds if you purchase 3D-scanned heads in the market)

HD Ultimate Morphs is different from the Ultimate Morphs Pack currently available for CC3+, it includes fine-tuned, realistic body parts and facial features. Users can refine facial details to full-body shape with built-in sliders, even baking the details into normal maps on lower base meshes.

HD Human Anatomy Set includes 12 avatars across diverse anatomy features that are animation-ready and customizable with ActorMIXER.

HD Characters & Morphs

Character Creator 5 introduces a major advancement with its new HD Character Base that supports up to 16 times more mesh detail through subdivision for cinematic-quality visuals and real-time performance. The system bridges game-ready characters with film-quality rendering by combining enhanced shaders, high-resolution eyes with a new eyelash system, and full support for displacement maps to achieve real geometric depth even in close-ups.

The upgraded HD morph system allows detailed anatomical adjustments without changing the character’s bone structure, enabling variations like muscular builds, feminine curves, or aging effects.

Character Creator 5 also features a next-generation facial animation system with an expanded HD Expression Profile that drives more blend shapes for subtle micro-expressions. A corrective constraint system ensures all facial movements remain anatomically accurate, preventing distortion and providing more lifelike emotional detail.

Overall, Character Creator 5 sets a new standard for real-time HD character creation, combining flexibility and fidelity for games, film, and VFX production.

HD Facial Animation

Reallusion’s Character Creator 5 introduces a next-generation HD Facial Animation system designed to deliver cinematic realism. Built on 262 blendshapes and 128 corrective morphs, the new rig captures everything from subtle micro-expressions to complex lip-sync with film-quality precision. The result is more lifelike characters that move beyond the uncanny valley and bring digital performances to a new level of believability.

Seamless integration with iClone tools like Face Puppet, Face Key Editor, and Motion LIVE ensures intuitive control and flexibility. The system also supports mocap pipelines such as iPhone and AccuFACE, and aligns with Epic’s MetaHuman Animator for high-fidelity performance capture. Even legacy CC3+ models benefit from the Extended-Plus Profile, which adds corrective morphs and mocap compatibility, making Character Creator 5 a powerful hub for animators seeking both realism and efficiency.

  • Next-gen HD Facial Animation with 262 blendshapes + 128 corrective morphs capturing detailed micro-expressions and lip-sync
  • Seamless iClone Face Puppet, Face Key, and Motion LIVE mocap support
  • Compatibility with iPhone mocap, AccuFACE, and MetaHuman Animator
  • Extended-Plus Profile upgrades legacy CC3+ models, boosting corrective morphs and mocap compatibility
  • Enhanced mesh detail, HD morphs, and displacement maps for cinematic realism

Baking and Projecting High Poly Maps

Baking maps refers to the process of pre-calculating and storing complex information about an object’s surface into texture maps. These maps can include details like lighting, shadows, and other surface characteristics. By embedding this information into the maps, the rendering process becomes more efficient, as the computer doesn’t have to calculate these details in real-time. This technique helps achieve high-quality visuals while optimizing performance, significantly reducing the computational load when scenes are rendered.

Projecting was at one time an advanced skill. I use it in ZBrush, and the process was already simplified a lot by then. Now Reallusion has made it even easier by giving us a simple, straightforward method of projecting details from, for example, a 500K mesh to a 50K mesh with little to no loss of detail. Let that sink in. Less polys, same look.

The general idea behind projecting is taking at least two versions of the same mesh—one very high poly and the other very low poly. We do the work on the high poly mesh with the detailed character, then use the High-Definition maps to create detail instead of mesh for use on the low poly character. This allows us to dramatically alter and lower the mesh density (poly count).

In simpler terms, imagine you have a very detailed 3D model (high poly) with lots of tiny details. This model can be quite complex and heavy for computers to handle in real-time. To make it easier to work with, we create a simpler version (low poly) with fewer mesh details and more map details. The projection process transfers the detailed information from the high poly model onto the low poly model by creating texture maps that capture intricate details like bumps, shadows, and textures. These maps are then applied to the low-poly model, making it look as detailed as the high-poly model but with much less computational load.

By using these techniques, artists can create highly detailed and realistic 3D models without the need for complex and resource-intensive calculations during rendering. Character Creator now has a simple process to create up to three levels of mesh density. If you can click a button or check a box, you can bake. Overall, baking and projecting maps are crucial techniques in 3D animation and computer graphics that enhance both the visual quality and performance of rendered scenes.

ActorMIXER Plugin

ActorMIXER is a valuable tool in itself and worth the upgrade for a lot of creators who need unique characters, particularly if they can make those new characters from existing assets. It is beginner-friendly with ease of use. We can even drag in custom morphs for all sorts of possibilities.

Reallusion released a free and a Pro version of the plugin. This opens up new possibilities of combining our current characters to create even more characters with the mixer wheel. It is a very simple and intuitive way to mix existing character parts including heads for more unique characters.

We can mix the body or facial parts, including the Head, Head Shape, Eyes, Nose, Mouth, Forehead, Ears, and Chin. With this enhanced morphing via the ActorMIXER wheel, we can easily and quickly produce unique characters from our existing character base. ActorMIXER Pro comes with random face generation too.

Not only can we use the ActorMIXER wheel to create unique heads, but we can also apply the same principles to the body morph. This includes adjustments to the Body, Bone Scale, and Body Shape. By manipulating these parameters, we can achieve a wide range of body types and proportions, allowing for the creation of truly unique and diverse characters.

Whether you’re aiming for a more muscular build, a slender frame, or anything in between, the body morph options provide the flexibility needed to bring your vision to life. This level of customization ensures that each character can be tailored to fit specific artistic or narrative requirements, enhancing the overall creative process.

ActorMIXER

ActorMIXER Pro

Auto Setup for Marmoset, Maya, and Blender

Maya – Auto Setup for Maya is a free plugin designed to streamline the import and rendering of high-definition characters and animations from Character Creator, iClone, and ActorCore directly into Autodesk Maya. The tool automates rigging, facial animation controls, material assignments, and offers integrated lighting presets, helping artists create cinematic-quality renders with minimal manual setup.

Blender – Auto Setup for Blender is a free plugin that connects Blender with Character Creator, iClone, and ActorCore to enable a smooth workflow for 3D character and animation development. The tool eliminates the need for manual FBX imports by providing real-time, two-way data synchronization called Data Link, allowing artists to transfer character models, morphs, poses, animations, lights, and cameras between platforms with a single click.

Marmoset Toolbag – Auto Setup for Marmoset Toolbag is a free plugin that simplifies the process of importing and rendering high-definition characters and animations from Character Creator, iClone, and ActorCore into Marmoset Toolbag 5.0 and above. This tool automates the assignment and baking of Reallusion’s Digital Human Shaders, enabling photorealistic ray-traced rendering with full control over skin, wrinkles, hair, eyes, and teeth materials.

MetaHuman Support

Reallusion offers a comprehensive MetaHuman integration pipeline that connects its Character Creator and iClone software with Unreal Engine’s MetaHuman Creator and animation system.

This pipeline enables seamless transfer of customized head shapes, skin textures, high-resolution body textures, and dynamic wrinkles from Character Creator to MetaHuman, ensuring ultra-realistic character representation in Unreal Engine.

iClone 8.6 Update

The iClone 8.6 update is packed with features and improvements for character realism, animation control, and export flexibility, especially when paired with Character Creator 5 (CC5). Now, you can import MetaHuman facial animations and use CC5’s HD and Extended-Plus profiles for more detailed corrective shapes and better subdivision control. The eye shaders got an upgrade too, with new occlusion and tearline systems that get rid of mesh intersections and make tear ducts look super realistic.

On the animation side, there’s a new facial parts strength option and expanded Motion LIVE functionality, which lets you do non-linear curve editing for characters with corrective facial profiles. Exporting is smoother now with new FBX presets for Marmoset Toolbag, Unreal Engine 5 skeletons, and UEFN. Other updates include better eye modeling, optimized file compression, and bug fixes for crash scenarios and Unreal control rig mappings.

Summary

There is far too much to cover with the CC5 release and subsequent articles will look at some of these tools in more detail. CC5 is so feature-packed that it just can’t be adequately described in one article.

It doesn’t matter if you are a beginner or seasoned professional, CC5 can help you achieve even more unique characters than previous versions, and is a next-level step above CC4, which was a character powerhouse in its own right.

If you have never tried Character Creator, then version 5 is a perfect time to start. You will be creating characters almost as soon as you download and install it.  Then you will be wondering why you wasted so much time on other methods.

Don’t wait… try the free trial and explore a new world of 3D character possibilities all with full facial and lip sync features!

Manual

Character Creator 5

Manual

ActorMIXER Pro

Tutorials

CC5 Courses

Relevant Web Pages :

Character Creator 5

HD Characters

ActorMIXER

Blender Pipeline

Maya Character Pipeline

Free Auto Setup for Blender Pipeline

Free Auto Setup for Marmoset Toolbag

MetaHuman Pipeline

MD McCallum - WarLord

MD McCallum – WarLord

Digital Artist MD “Mike” McCallum, aka WarLord, is a longtime iClone user. Having authored free tutorials for iClone in its early years and selected to write the iClone Beginners Guide from Packt Publishing in 2011, he was fortunate enough to meet and exchange tricks and tips with users from all over the world and loves to share this information with other users. He has authored hundreds of articles on iClone and digital art in general while reviewing some of the most popular software and hardware in the world. He has been published in many of the leading 3D online and print magazines while staying true to his biggest passion, 3D animation. For more information click here.

WarLord’s Workshop
Learning

From CC5 to Marmoset Viewer: Bring Characters to Life on the Web

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ÓSCAR FERNÁNDEZ / DIGITAL SCULPTOR

Óscar Fernández is a freelance digital sculptor from Spain, specializing in creating figures for 3D printing. With deep expertise in ZBrush, he is known for crafting highly expressive characters that capture both personality and motion. His work stands out through the meticulous attention to facial expression, muscle definition, and dynamic posing, giving each sculpt a strong sense of tension and storytelling power.

Check Oscar’s ArtStation

Oscar Fernandez’s HD Alien MIXER pack is available now!

Overview

Character Creator 5 (CC5) continues to expand its creative ecosystem with the addition of new free plugins that streamline workflows with leading industry tools. One of the latest integrations, Auto Setup for Marmoset, makes it easier than ever to render and showcase your characters with professional quality.

In this article, we’ll take a closer look at how Marmoset Toolbag—and specifically Marmoset Viewer—can enhance your CC5 projects. From real-time rendering to interactive presentation, we’ll explore how these tools work together to bring your creations to life with both speed and style.

Setting Up Our Scene

We’ll start by setting up the scene: importing the mesh using Auto Setup for Marmoset, applying its materials, and adjusting the lighting, camera, and post-processing effects, just as we did in the previous video. 

It’s important to keep in mind that Marmoset Viewer is designed to run smoothly on a wide variety of devices, so there are some limitations. For example, shadow-casting lights are limited to three (you can use more lights, but only the first three will cast shadows), omni lights don’t cast shadows, and certain shading models, post-processing effects, and rendering features are not yet supported.

We’ll make sure the camera is centered to make navigation and scene rotation easier. Usually, to do this, we select the main mesh and go to View → Frame Selected (Ctrl+F).

Export the .mview File

To export the .mview file, go to File → Export → Viewer, or simply press Shift + Ctrl + V.

You can also add artist credits and a link to your portfolio by filling out the Title, Author, and Link fields.

As you’d expect, the texture quality setting has a significant impact on the file size. Here you can choose between Low, High, or Unreasonable quality — a very fitting name for this viewer’s purpose, corresponding to 4K textures.

Once everything is ready, just click the Export button to generate the file.

After exporting, you can view the file locally using Marmoset Viewer, which is installed for free  alongside Marmoset Toolbag, but can also be downloaded separately from the Marmoset  website.

Once opened, you can switch to full-screen mode and also isolate different layers such as normal  maps, color information, roughness, metalness, and mesh topology independently — all with the advantage of being able to view your model in real-time 3D.

Upload to Artstation 

This same file can be shared directly on several 3D communities, such as ArtStation, just as easily as adding an image to a new project, and with the same viewing advantages we saw earlier.

Embedding On Our Website 

When exporting, you can also choose the HTML option. Once you’ve defined the size and a few additional parameters, you can hit Export. However, if you’re going to embed the viewer inside an iframe, it’s important to select Full Frame. This way, Marmoset Viewer will ignore the  height and width values and automatically fit the iframe size. 

This will generate a simple HTML file that displays your scene. It’s very handy if you want to embed or showcase the scene on your personal website. You’ll just need some basic HTML  knowledge, but it’s very straightforward. 

I’ve created this super simple HTML file, and we’re going to embed the code by simply copying  and pasting it where we want: 

<iframe src="yourscene1.html" allowfullscreen="true" height="467" width="830"></iframe>

We replace the example HTML with our own file, adjust the iframe dimensions, and that’s it! 

Keep in mind that for this to work, the file must be uploaded to a server, since it won’t display correctly when viewed locally.  Another very interesting option is to create a gallery on your own website. 

We’ll create a pose for each character in Character Creator to give them a bit more personality,  export each one as FBX files (as we already know how to do), and then load them into Marmoset using the Auto Setup plugin, on a previously configured but empty scene — just like we did in the previous video. Finally, we’ll export a Marmoset Viewer (.mview) for each character using the HTML export option we just saw. We’ll also render some images of each character to use as thumbnails for  our gallery. 

Using the same template as before, we’ll copy the following base code:

<iframe src="yourscene1.html" name="viewerframe" allowfullscreen="true" height="467"  width="830"></iframe>

Here, we can assign any name we like — in this case, “viewerframe”.

We replace the example HTML with the scene we want to display by default, make sure  allowfullscreen is set to “true”, and define the viewer size. To create clickable thumbnails, we’ll copy the following code: 

<a href="yourscene1.html" target="viewerframe"><img src=" yourscene1.jpg"  alt=" yourscene1"></a> 
<a href=" yourscene2.html" target="viewerframe"><img src=" yourscene2.jpg"  alt=" yourscene2"></a> 
<a href=" yourscene3.html" target="viewerframe"><img src=" yourscene3.jpg"  alt=" yourscene3"></a>

Replacing each HTML reference with one of our own. Make sure that the target matches the name we defined earlier (viewerframe) and replace the images with our custom thumbnails.

I’ve also added a stylesheet to the gallery to make it look a bit more modern and appealing — and this is what the final result looks like once uploaded to our website. 

<style> 
.gallery-section { 
display: flex; 
flex-direction: column; 
align-items: center; /* aling iframe horizontally*/ 
gap: 10px; /* space between the iframe and the thumbnails */ 
margin-top: 20px; 
} 
.thumbnail-bar { 
display: flex; 
justify-content: center; /* center the thumbnails */ 
flex-wrap: wrap; /* allows them to go down the line if there are many */  gap: 10px; /* space between images */ 
} 
.thumbnail-bar a img { 
width: 295px; /* thumbnail size */ 
height: auto; 
border-radius: 8px; 
cursor: pointer; 
transition: transform 0.2s, box-shadow 0.2s; 
} 
.thumbnail-bar a img:hover { 
transform: scale(1.05); 
box-shadow: 0 0 10px rgba(0,0,0,0.3); 
} 
iframe { 
border: none; 
border-radius: 12px; 
box-shadow: 0 0 20px rgba(0,0,0,0.3); 
} 
</style>

And finally, this is the part of the code connected to the style sheet:

<div class="gallery-section"> 
<iframe src=" yourscene1.html" name="viewerframe" allowfullscreen height="600"  width="900"></iframe> 
<div class="thumbnail-bar"> 
<a href=" yourscene1.html" target="viewerframe"><img src=" yourscene1.jpg" alt="  yourscene1"></a> 
<a href=" yourscene2.html" target="viewerframe"><img src=" yourscene2.jpg" alt="  yourscene2"></a> 
<a href=" yourscene3.html" target="viewerframe"><img src=" yourscene3.jpg" alt="  yourscene3"></a> 
</div> 
</div>

I hope this tutorial has helped you enhance your project presentations using the new tools in Character Creator 5.

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