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What are those award-winning MetaHumans saying?

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Reallusion 2021 iClone Lip Sync Animation Contest Review

Image Credit : Lim Phong Hian. Petra Puljiz

Having received more than 450 entries around the world, Reallusion is happy to announce the final winners of the October, 2021 iClone Lip Sync Animation Contest from a line-up of very compelling artworks. Using 3D tools to represent real-world visuals is difficult, especially when it comes to human facial expressions, subtle behaviors, and expressive emotions. That’s in part why we find it fascinating to see the diversity of MetaHuman performances from the submitted entries. Especially those that have expressiveness and vivid acting, that not only demonstrates the efficient use of iClone animation tools, but also proves that creating realistic humans in 3D does not require one to sacrifice originality. In this article, we will offer five lessons that we have learned from the contest winners, underlining the tools they have used and their insights into animating MetaHumans. 

iClone Live Link – MetaHuman Animation Magic

Lesson One: Effortlessly achieving outstanding facial and body animations in iClone

Complex human emotions such as affection, nostalgia, indignation, are features that Metahumans must possess to give convincing performances. And in order to express those emotions in a life-like manner, artists need to have a keen eye for details, such as the interconnected musculature between the eyes and brows, the frequency of blinks accompanying a variety of motions, like dancing and talking, and even the digital actor’s relation with the environment and other props in the scene. It’s worth noting that most contest winners have integrated many different tools to overcome these challenges to deliver the most convincing performances. 

Petra Puljiz (HR)〈Love, Rosie〉Best Character Animation 3rd place

Tool: iClone7, Substance Painter, Marvelous Designer, Maya, Blender, Unreal Engine (MetaHuman), After Effects, Rokoko

In Petar’s WIP video, you can clearly see how he skillfully combines several critical animation techniques to complete a well balanced piece of animation. He was able to deploy the best practices of the iClone to MetaHuman animation pipeline⁠—a must watch you won’t want to miss!

Here are some key takeaways from Petar’s workflow: 

  • After refining the Rokoko mo-cap data, Petar used iClone’s Motion Layer Editor to create several natural body movements giving emphasis to the character’s talking animation, including hand contact on the table, grabbing and releasing the cup prop.
  • Like the other contestants, he used AccuLips to drive the main lip-sync animation, and observed the Unreal render in real-time via the iClone to Unreal Live Link.
  • Instead of using facial mo-cap, Petar cleverly chose to blend subtle emotional expressions using iClone’s Face Puppet, and made final detailed tweaks via MetaHuman’s facial controller.

He relied on Marvelous Designer to create the character’s unique dress, and give it a dynamic animation within an environment built up in Blender—clearly, Petar has all-round talent.

Jae Solina (US)〈Touch〉Special Award-Best MetaHuman. WIP

Tool: iClone7, Character Creator 3, Unreal Engine, Perception Neuron, Davinci Resolve

Apart from wearing a Rokoko Smartsuit for motion capture, Jae’s choice of using Perception Neuron is a prime example of the high degree of interoperability within the iClone pipeline.

Robert Suckrow (DE)〈Dieter tells jokes〉Special Award-Replica. WIP

Tool: iClone7, Replica Studios, Unreal Engine, HitFilm

“I used Replica Studio to import the voice. Then I used AccuLip sync to improve everything a bit, in collaboration with Replica Studio… it is simply fantastic”

Robert Suckrow, founder of rosuckmedia

Lesson Two: Taking advantage of useful software synergies

Quite a few entries have attempted to blend the MetaHuman system with Character Creator into one holistic scene. Some entrants chose to apply both tools to one character, like Farayi, who used Character Creator to create an African warrior’s armor. While others have created two different characters to interact with one another, like in “Beauty and the Beast” by Lim Phong Hian, who skillfully captured the essence of a tearful scene between the Methuman “Beauty” and the “Beast” made with CC3.

Farayi Chinyanga (ZA)〈Azania Rises: Chinyere〉Special Award- Best MetaHuman. WIP(2:30)

Tool: iClone7, Character Creator 3, Blender, Unreal Engine, After Effects

“iClone facial animation is a life-saver. iClone’s Live Link compatibility with Unreal Engine makes that part of the production pipeline seamless.”

Farayi Chinyanga, founder of Formation Animation

Lim Phong Hian (MA)〈Beauty and the Beast〉Special Award-Movie Remake. WIP

Tool: iClone7, Character Creator3, SkinGen Premium, Marvelous Designer, Unreal Engine, Daz 3D, Premiere

“AccuLips provides me with a highly efficient way to make my character talk. I learned so much from using the various software from Reallusion. This is not the end but a new beginning for me.”

Lim Phong Hian, founder of Betapuru Digital

Lesson Three: Fast talking with style

Rapid talking animations can be the bane of accurate lip-syncing. However, some participants went beyond mimicking the audible language, they also worked to capture  inaudible body language as well. In this aspect, CENIT Studio was able to reproduce the monologue performed by Woody Allen in Annie Hall, and layer upon it details that the original act did not have. On the other hand, we’re also impressed by Warren Gokul’s bold move to replicate the fast, but subtle, rap of Scatman John, well known in the 90s.

CENIT Studio (MX)〈Woddy Allen Monologue from Annie Hall〉Special Award- Movie Remake. WIP(1:36)

Tool: iClone7, Unreal Engine, Premiere, Rokoko

Compared to the long shot in 1977 Annie Hall, CENIT Studio was able to change the camera angles to sustain the audience’s interest, while Woody Allen’s character delivered jokes about his relationships with women over a symbolic background, which is a metaphor of loneliness and unease experienced by the character, exemplified by what was and was not spoken. 

Warren Gokul (ZA)〈Scatman〉Special Award- Best MetaHuman. WIP

Tool: iClone7, Character Creator 3, Unreal Engine, HitFilm

“Accu-lips is amazing. I managed to produce an almost perfect animation in less than a day —it is truly unbelievable!”

 Warren Gokul, Appifiny Games

Lesson Four: Imbuing personality and attitude

People around us express themselves by wearing different styles of clothing, adorning certain jewelry, and even undergoing body modifications, like getting piercings and tattoos. MetaHumans can also do the same! When given a small amount of time, artists can deploy these accessories to help personalize their characters and, in the process, garner attention. 

StyleMarshal (DE)〈Ex-Sicario〉Special Award- Best MetaHuman. WIP

Tool: iClone7, Character Creator 3, Cinema 4D, Unreal Engine, After Effects, Xsens

StyleMarshal’s “Ex-Sicario” is a great example imbuing a MetaHuman with lively personality with carefully selected clothing and accessories. Firstly, the physics simulations of the fluffy hood and the Parka makes his dance more dynamic and interesting. Secondly, his Eskimo suit is a dead give away of the cold, harsh environment where he is currently in hiding, while his tattoos, nose ring, and earring are telling accoutrements of his quirky personality. When combined, these elements present to us a very compelling character, which makes the piece really stand out. 

Giuseppe Vecchio (IT)〈War Cry〉Special Award- Best Student Artwork. WIP

Tool: iClone7, ZBrush, Substance Painter, Unreal Engine, Premiere

Another good example is Guiseppe’s “War Cry”, in which a primitive warrior is chanting and preparing to fight with an enemy. The tension is thick between the clean face intruders and the tribal hero, adorned in war paint, as they face off. This piece has the dramatic impact to draw the viewers in to watch further as the telling of the hero’s past unfolds.

Piero Varda (PE)〈I like to move it〉Special Award-Honorable Mention. WIP(1:20)

Tool: iClone7, Unreal Engine, Davinci Resolve

Last but not least, “I Like to Move It” makes a noteworthy appearance with eye-catching clothing and dance performance that is sure to arouse interest from the audience.

Lesson Five: Tribute to the Classics with a Twist

We’ve also noticed a trend of paying tribute to pop culture classics with a surprising twist. Either it’s a contemporary representation of the legendary sci-fi film “The Matrix”, or the satirical juxtaposition of an old lady lip-syncing to Britney’s “Oops!… I Did it Again” with impossibly nimble dance choreography, iClone animation tools makes it possible to communicate any artistic vision in a timely manner, while pushing boundaries beyond technical limitations.

Bijay Balia Hembram (IN)〈Matrix-Blue pill Red pill〉Special Award-Best Digital Double. WIP

Tool: iClone7, ZBrush, Blender, Unreal Engine, Davinci Resolve, Faceware

“iClone is really a very powerful software and is a boon for indie artists. The features in this software are amazing and it actually helped me by doing most of the heavy-lifting and allowing me more time to try many ideas in a short period of time.”

Bijay Balia Hembram

Cesar Turturro (AR)〈Yes, do it again!〉Special Award-Best MetaHuman. WIP(1:40)

Tool: iClone7, Character Creator 3, Blender, Unreal Engine, Premiere (3dDraper cloth simulation plugin)

“I never imagined finishing this type of work with this level of detail and quality, just in a matter of days! I tried to show how an older person looks when she is dancing and singing with a smile on her face. There is no age (limit) to do that. So yes, do it again!”

Cesar Turturro, Film director

If you haven’t had the chance to use iClone before, we highly recommend you to try it now. A 30-day trial of iClone includes  Unreal Live Link and MetaHuman Live Link Kit, which means you can animate MetaHumans in real-time for free in the Unreal Engine!

Also, with the aim of empowering the global 3D community, Reallusion encourages all the freelance developers, indie artists to apply for the Indie License Program, which grants free access to the premium Unreal Live Link plug-in to produce like a professional studio. Check if you’re eligible on the program page, or hone your craft today with free upgrade offers for iClone 8.

Featured Story

Humans in the metaverse (and how to create them)

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This article is featured on Creativebloq: https://www.creativebloq.com/inspiration/humans-in-the-metaverse

The metaverse is no longer science fiction.

3D simulation of an actual BMW factory using Omniverse.
(Image credit: NVIDIA)

The future is already here. A BMW factory in Germany now has its identical digital twin in the metaverse, designed and operated in a real-time 3D simulation where digital humans and robots perform various real-life tasks. 

The real factory is gigantic: it occupies 600,000 square feet, employs 57,000 people, contains tens of thousands of objects, thousands of materials, and produces hundreds of cars simultaneously. And the digital factory is an exact copy of the real one. 

The way it looks and functions, and even the materials, textures, and lighting are physically accurate – and obey the laws of physics. Thanks to such precision, BMW’s teams can now fully simulate complex workflows with humans, robots, and vehicles working in sync. 

Now the engineers can easily test new solutions and make quick iterations. They can also foresee the outcomes of their experiments before making any actual changes or moving a single screw. And these experiments don’t cause lengthy downtimes and high interruption expenses as they happen virtually, as though in a video game.

Building, refining, and iterating efficiently, these teams can find optimal solutions far earlier in the design process. This keeps operations smooth, saves time and resources for the company, and makes planning processes much more efficient. 

What is the metaverse, and how does it work?

All this is now possible in the metaverse – a virtual-reality space where users can interact with each other and a digital environment. This 3D space is like a combination of virtual reality, a multiplayer online game and the internet. Users (via avatars) can move around, work, play, and socialize in real time. The metaverse is becoming a reality fast, especially now when significant parts of our lives have moved online due to the pandemic. 

To illustrate interaction in the metaverse, let’s return to BMW’s digital factory. It ’employs’ 120 digital humans, whose job is to simulate and test ergonomics, efficiency, and workflows for the real workers. They can move around the factory and perform various tasks. These avatars were created using real-life data and are physically similar to the real workers (they have unique faces and features that reflect the diversity of real employees).

Virtual workers performing tasks in an Omniverse simulation.
Virtual workers performing tasks in a simulation (Image credit: NVIDIA)

Omniverse – a doorway to the metaverse

BMW’s digital factory is designed and run in Omniverse, an open metaverse platform for 3D simulation and collaboration. It makes such complex projects possible in the first place. And it also significantly speeds up production processes. To work in the Omniverse, you don’t need to switch from design and 3D apps that you are familiar with and love, because most of them already have integrations with the platform. For instance, designers can simultaneously work from such applications as 3ds Max, Blender, Character Creator, Maya, Unreal Engine, or Archicad, among others.

Interface of the Character Creator plugin in Omniverse.
Interface of the Character Creator plugin in Omniverse (Image credit: Reallusion)

In Omniverse, users can render characters, place them into a simulation, or collaborate with other people in real-time. For example, while you are focusing on characters, your team members can work on other elements of the environment. You can all work from different design applications simultaneously, and all the changes will be immediately reflected in Omniverse. These features would be incredibly valuable for distributed and remote teams.

How were BMW’s digital workers created? 

Users can turn a single photo into a 3D human in seconds in Character Creator, an all-in-one AI software for character development. The designers used it to create and animate the factory workers. Once you convert a photo into 3D, you can fully customize the character: change the shape of their head, add photo-realistic details and skin features, dress them, and, finally, animate. Plus, the software comes with massive asset and motion libraries to choose from.

To personify the workers, the designers used AI-generated images from Generated Photos. In this library, you can choose from 2.6M strikingly realistic headshots of people of all colours and ages. You can also generate unique faces in real-time by setting desired parameters, or find synthetic look-alikes to keep the privacy of real people. These tools would be especially handy when looking for peculiar character features or demographics. 

AI photos and search filters on the Generated Photos website.
AI photos and search filters on the Generated Photos website  (Image credit: Generated Photos)

This step-by-step guide illustrates how to create a full-body 3D character from a single headshot.

The combination of Character Creator and Generated Photos is a big time saver. Generating a single character from scratch would take around five days. With a ready-made model and unique life-like face, it would take from a few hours to one day depending on how elaborate the character is; thus, it saves nearly 80-90% of the time and effort without compromising the quality. 

Once the characters are ready, you can export them into Omniverse for further editing, rendering, simulation, and working with others. Character Creator Connector, a special plugin for Omniverse, also supports drag-and-drop export of motions and accessories.

Are there other uses for digital avatars? 

Besides the use in large industrial projects such as the BMW factory, the demand for digital avatars is growing across many other fields, particularly in animation, game development, visualizations, AR/VR, and interactive design.

Brands like Samsung, IBM and Gucci are already deploying AI avatars that interact with their audiences and make communication more human and personalized. Other businesses use AI avatars for online learning and training their staff. For example, Walmart introduced them to train and prepare their employees for challenging retail situations (like the Black Friday rush).

Digital avatars are now also a global phenomenon in the media and entertainment. Virtual influencers like Lu do Magalu and Lil Miquela attract millions of followers. And several real musicians, including Ariana Grande and Travis Scott, have recently given massive virtual concerts where their digital avatars represented them.

Gaming and animation are some of the main consumers of digital characters. With Character Creator and Generated Photos, makers can develop protagonists in great detail as well as create secondary characters at scale. Using Generated Photos and ready-made assets, such as morphs, hair, clothes, and skin textures, they can make hundreds or even a thousand secondary characters in a day. 

Architects and property developers use digital crowds to make their visualizations appealing, vibrant, and life-like. And there is now a constantly increasing demand for diversity in the field.

Not only large corporations and producers can benefit from the AI tools – small teams and amateurs can join in, too. The toolset combining Omniverse, Character Creator, and Generated Photos, saves a great deal of time and effort. Even creators on a tight budget can now be in line with the industry leaders. They can also focus more on creative tasks while the AI is doing all the heavy lifting. 

Learning

A Quick Way to Create a 3D Cartoon Animation with ActorCore and Blender

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Greetings, my name is Peter Alexander. I’m a digital freelancer specializing in illustration, graphic design, and 3D modelling.   

I have been using Blender for years.  It is definitely a great tool for 3D productions; however, I have found it is not so easy when I use it to create animations, particularly to set up motions for 3D characters.  Recently I have discovered an online content library called ActorCore which offers 3D characters with loads of motions ready for use.   In the video below,  I’m going to show you how to use the character and animation assets I have got from ActorCore to quickly complete a short cartoon video in Blender.

Some of the key elements of this demonstration will include: how to use the ActorCore website to download and target assets, how to get set up in Blender, how to import and organize animations, and how to use the Timeline, Dope Sheet, Action Editor, and Non-Linear Animation menu to put together a scene.

Getting Assets from ActorCore

First, from the ActorCore website, I’m going to download the characters and animations I need. I’m going to use Toon Hyde and Toon Hopkins for this sequence. I’m also going to use the Classical Cartoon Motions.

Downloading characters and animations from ActorCore.

When you download animations, there’s an option to auto-adjust them to accommodate specific characters. In addition, there’s Zero Root and Mirror options. Zero Root will remove the location keys from the animations, allowing you to control the placement of the character.  In my case, the default setting works for me so I will keep this option off.

Downloading animations from ActorCore.

Getting Started in Blender

With the assets downloaded and organized into a few folders, I’m going to set up a few collections in Blender to better manage my scene. For each character, I’m going to create a collection.

Although it’s not necessary, I am going to use the Blender Auto Setup add-on to import my characters. ActorCore characters are not really compatible with it at the moment*, but I do like how it sets up a few material options. 

(*Blender Auto Setup has been updated and now it is fully compatible with ActorCore.) 

Setting up the character in Blender.

Setting up Your Characters

You can use Blender Auto Setup, or import and attach the metalness and roughness maps manually, and this only takes a second.

Now I’m going to import the animations. I would recommend setting up another collection for animation imports.

For animation imports, just use the regular FBX importer and select the files you downloaded from ActorCore. You can import multiple FBX files at once. I have a scenario in mind, so I’m only selecting the ones I think will be suited to it.

Importing animation downloaded from ActorCore into Blender.

All these armatures have bones that represent the character rigging and animations. However, the data now exists within my scene, so I can delete these armatures after importing them. Right-click on the collection and delete the hierarchy.

Using the Dope Sheet and Action Editor

Switch to your Dope Sheet, then switch to Action Editor. With your target armature selected, assign an animation from the Actions menu. Do not assign animations labelled CC_Base_Tongue, as it will distort your character’s scale and probably cause other issues.

Using the dope sheet and action editor in Blender.

Viewing Your Animations

You probably won’t be able to preview your animations in real-time unless you switch to a less intensive view-port option, so I’m switching to the MatCap shader. This is also how I’ll be editing most of my animations.

I want one character to be chasing the other, so I’m choosing the animations which I already examined during my preparation for this video.

Viewing your animations in Blender.

Using the NLA (Non-Linear Animation) Editor

A very important part of my process involves using the Nonlinear Animation panel. From here you can move the animations you sample in the Action Editor and adjust them almost exactly as you would in iClone. NLA clips can be split by moving your timeline navigator to a chosen point, right-clicking and choosing the split option. You can also directly tweak NLA clips by selecting a bone and going to the Action Editor. 

Blender's non-linear animation editor.

Adding Key-frames

With a joint selected, you can set key-frames for rotations, transition, or scale by pressing ‘I’.

If you select the main mesh for the character’s body, you can go down to the Shape Keys section under Object Data Properties. All of your facial morphs are located here. To key a facial morph, adjust the slider for the shape key and click the diamond next to it. Material properties can be animated in much the same way.

Any keys you add to an action strip will appear above the NLA tracks and will remain there until you choose the Push Down option. This will turn those key-frames into a new NLA Track. Once you push down action editor keys to an NLA track, your action editor will reset, allowing you to repeat the process and create new keys and another NLA track.

Adding animation key-frames in Blender.

Key-framing Other Properties

To make a character’s eyes glow, first, you’ll need to isolate the eyes either through textures or by assigning a new material to the eye mesh. Then adjust the properties of emission and emission strength. These can be keyed by clicking the diamond on the side of the property.

Key-framing other animation properties for ActorCore characters in Blender.

Using Facial Morphs

Facial morphs can be keyed in much the same way. Select the main mesh, go to the Object Data Properties. Here you can see all of the morphs associated with the mesh, which are called Shape Keys in Blender. These can be dialed in and keyed by adjusting the property and clicking the diamond next to the slider value.

Adjusting facial morphs for ActorCore characters in Blender

Creating an Atmosphere

Finally, for the background and atmosphere, I simply created cylinders and bent them slightly, UV unwrapped them, then attached a tree bark texture I found online. The ground is simply a 4 sided plane with some very basic texturing. And for the backdrop, I found another image online and imported it as an image plane. The fog was added through an add-on called EV Express, which has a number of lightning and atmosphere tools, and which can be purchased through BlenderMarket.


Creating an atmosphere in Blender.

Conclusion

As you can see in the video, by using ActorCore’s ready cartoon characters and cartoon motions, I was able to make a 3D animation fairly quick, without spending too much time crafting the exact characters and cartoon motions.  This is definitely a simpler way for someone like myself who wants to save time and hassles on 3D productions.  ActorCore offers free 3D characters and content for users to try. You can download and test them out.

ActorCore characters animated in Blender and rendered in iClone.
Fast Animation with Commercial Quality Rendering through iClone Omniverse Connector
Product Release

Reallusion Releases iClone Connector for NVIDIA Omniverse

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Breakthrough Character Animation Workflow Comes to NVIDIA Omniverse with the New Reallusion iClone Connector.

Fast animation with commercial quality rendering.

Reallusion has released the iClone Connector for NVIDIA Omniverse. The new Omniverse Connector adds a complete character animation pipeline to Omniverse Create and Omniverse Machinima applications.

When the Character Creator (CC) Omniverse Connector launched in April 2021, creators of all skill levels could efficiently and easily create digital humans for any type of project. Reallusion now enhances the pipeline to give the tools for a full character performance with easy facial and body controls through the new iClone Omniverse Connector.

Experience the tools now and see it live during NVIDIA GTC, Nov 8th to Nov 11th. At the show, Reallusion will present an exclusive session about the debut of the iClone Omniverse Connector. Reallusion will also speak at the NVIDIA Omniverse User Group, demonstrating and answering questions about the iClone character animation workflow for Omniverse.

For further information, demos, downloads, and video tutorials for iClone 7 and Omniverse visit https://www.reallusion.com/iclone/nvidia-omniverse/

The Powerhouse of Animation Production

Digital humans play an important role in the Metaverse, but the creation of character animations is often accompanied by a significant expertise barrier and price tag. iClone provides an innovative way to personalize animation for different styles of characters with its fast and intuitive animation production system. 

Not only human characters, all creatures, vehicles, robots, or animated objects can be directly transferred from iClone to Omniverse to enliven the Metaverse.

The iClone Omniverse Connector simplifies character facial morph animation, body animation, props, camera, lights, and scene setup while exporting everything to Omniverse. Combining iClone 7 and Omniverse, individuals or design teams can create, animate, and deploy digital humans and 3D characters for simulations and visualizations.

Omniverse is an incredible addition allowing live coordination with other 3D tools, or with other workstations via the USD data interchange standard.

Collaboration with Photorealistic Simulation

NVIDIA Omniverse is an open platform built for virtual collaboration and real-time photorealistic simulation. Thanks to the USD and Omniverse Nucleus service technology, creators can connect different USD-compatible applications and interact in the same Omniverse render viewport, or virtually collaborate across the world without boundaries.

iClone and Omniverse collaboration with Photorealistic simulation.

Full Character Performance with Easy Facial and Body Controls 

Whether producing a functional crowd sim or embarking on cinematic storytelling, iClone gives the power to enliven scenes with rich character assets and provides the tools to let creators animate more freely. 

The iClone character animation system consists of lip-syncing, facial expression, and body animation tools. Empowered with main-stream mocap gear and a massive library of high-quality character assets and motions from ActorCore, creators can generate character animations easily in this all-in-one platform. 

iClone offers full character performance with easy facial and body controls.

Creators can send the whole iClone project to Omniverse in one click, or selectively update a specific item in an iterative design process to have creators’ work path-trace rendered with elevated visuals in Omniverse, near real-time.

Creators can send the whole iClone project to Omniverse in one click.

Tightly Integrated with Omniverse Audio2Face – Multi-Language, AI-Driven Voice to Animation

iClone and Omniverse in combination help a variety of industries to access and deploy characters as workplace performers, virtual hosts, or citizens for simulations and visualizations. In this streamlined integration, Audio2Face simplifies the head mesh wrapping process with presets of CC characters. Audio2Face generates expressive point cache lip-sync animations from voices, with optional facial styles and adjustable strength levels. Finally, the facial animation can be baked to iClone facial morphs, and loaded back to iClone. Creators can further refine the lips details with iClone’s native lip-sync technology, and add natural facial expressions or body motions to complete the full character animation.

Photorealistic Lighting and Real-time Post Effects

Automatically transfer iClone lights and properties – IBL, directional light, spotlight, point light, light shapes, and emissive materials. The physically accurate Omniverse path-traced lighting gives increasing realism through global illumination, natural light bounce, accurate shadow, scalable light shapes, and time-of-a-day simulation. More advanced visual effects can be achieved by Omniverse Post Processing.

Photo-realistic lighting and real-time post effects are available in Omniverse.

Directing Cinematic Cameras – DOF, Motion Blur

Automatically transfer iClone camera properties and DOF settings, with an option of baking iClone multi-camera sequences into an animated Omniverse camera. More camera effects such as Motion Blur can be added by Omniverse.

Automatically transfer iClone camera properties and DOF settings to Omniverse.

Give Believable Looks to Any Object

Auto-convert iClone PBR materials, SSS, and Digital Human shaders to Omniverse MDL materials. Corresponding textures and material attributes will be mapped accordingly.

Massive Character Assets & Motions for USD

ActorCore allows creators to quickly search, view, and download photorealistic 3D people for AEC (architecture, engineering, and construction) crowd simulation. ActorCore also provides thousands of AAA quality, well-themed mocap motions, which can be further edited in iClone, and transferred into USD for Omniverse.

Link to Reallusion iClone Omniverse Connector landing page.

http://www.reallusion.com/iclone/nvidia-omniverse/

Download iClone 7 & Character Creator 3

Get the tools to create Omniverse-ready digital humans and character animation. Download a full evaluation trial of iClone and Character Creator to design custom characters and create character animation with ease. Learn from free video training to get started. 

Download Omniverse and the Reallusion Connectors

Get started by downloading the launcher for NVIDIA Omniverse, iClone Connector, and Character Creator Connector. Use the Omniverse Exporter from iClone 7 and Character Creator 3 to export and transfer characters, motions, lights, cameras, and props as USD to Omniverse.

https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/omniverse/

Product Release

Character Creator 4 New Features Introduction

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The main focus of Character Creator 4 (CC4) is to enliven and give personality to any biped humanoid, whether they are humans or creatures.

In version 4.0, imagination and creativity are no longer limited by an existing character base. Instead, any rigged character can be imported, characterized, and optimized in Character Creator 4.  Characters will be fully compatible with iClone for lip-syncing, facial/body animation, and also be ready for ActorCore mocap animations to save time in production.

To present a character’s personality, Character Creator 4 supports customizing facial expression morphs to create vivid, and unique facial expressions. Users can further check talking and body animation, cloth/hair physics, spring dynamics, and preview animations directly in Character Creator 4.

You can check the 3D Character Creation & Animation webpage for more information about presale orders, feature comparison, and FAQs.

The following are the new features revealed in Part One of Work-in-Progress Preview:

  • Enliven Any Character Rig
  • Animation Preview, Display and Render
  • Advanced Facial Performance
  • Custom Expression Blendshapes
  • Asset Import, Prop Editing, and Optimization Using InstaLOD
  • Other Enhancements

Let’s take you for a tour for a new feature highlight….

If you are interested in diving deep into the details, you can refer to this document.

More information – Feature comparison of CC4 and CC3.

Character Creator 4 vs Character Creator 3 comparison chart.

Enliven Any Character Rig

Introducing a fast way to bring your character into animation, with thousands of ActorCore mo-cap motions, with added support from iClone facial and body animation system. 

Any rigged biped humanoid character can be imported, and converted to a Non-Standard character, while any rigged model can be converted to a Non-Human character.

Creating Non-Standard Characters with HumanIK Rig: When importing a biped character rig, you can characterize the character by mapping bones to be compatible with the HIK system for body animation.

Bringing in Custom Facial Blendshapes to Non-Standard Character: Bring in custom morphs to the embedded facial system.

Setting Up Spring Dynamics: Define character’ parts as spring bones to create vivid animation.

Auto Import Character with Standard Profiles: If the imported FBX belongs to standard profiles (i.g. Daz G3/G4, Maximo, Maya HIK, 3ds Max Biped, Blender Human Meta Rig, and Unreal UE4), Character Creator 4 will detect the file, and automatically convert it to Non-Standard character with mapped bones and activated HIK.

Creating Non-Human Character with Custom Bones: Any object with custom bones can also be imported into Character Creator for pose editing, defining spring bones, refining skin weights, and applying its custom motions for preview.

Animation Preview, Display and Render

Make a live display of your character, check its body rig, lip-sync, facial and body animation, cloth and hair physics, and finally present your character with animated renders.

The preset motions include customized facial and body motions for male, female, neutral, and children. Different camera angles are designed for each preset motion for easier observation.

Advanced Facial Performance

There will be an advanced facial expression set that includes 140+ morphs to give your CC3+ characters authentic facial expressions.

  • Optimized Base Level Control (facial control, nasal & cheek movement, lip & ear options)
  • Advanced Eye, Pupil and Eyelash Controls (eyeball rotation, eye widening, eye blink crease lines, pupil size)
  • Advanced Mouth and Lip Controls (lip roll in & out, push & pucker, asymmetrical control quadrants)

Custom Expression Blendshapes

Customizing Expression Morphs via GoZ: Exporting a character model to a sculpting tool, and updating the results in Character Creator 4 as customized facial expression morphs. For ZBrush users, you can use the GoZ function to send the model and update the resulting morphs efficiently. 

Asset Import, Prop Editing, and Optimization Using InstaLOD

Character Creator 4 supports importing any mesh data. The Scene Manager not only displays the objects in the scene, but also child nodes, and mesh data for each object. Users are allowed to:

  • Organize meshes by converting them to be sub-items (either group them as a node, or single mesh as a content)
  • Convert node or mesh to accessory, clothes, facial hair content
  • Edit mesh
  • Optimize mesh and material by using InstaLOD
  • Attach and detach bones
  • Merge props
  • Export selected item(s) in OBJ

Batch Import Character Assets: Import a multi-mesh model, re-organize meshes and convert meshes into several reusable assets.

Bringing in Objects as Independent Accessories: Create props by importing the external sources. Every imported mesh is editable and each sub-prop can be attached/detached freely to make different combinations, as independent accessories. 

Flexibly Setup Props and Animate in iClone 8: Two methods for creating props. One is to import it as a whole, by which the user can animate the object by editing the Motion Layers. The other way is to break up the meshes into sub-props while importing the object. By doing so, the user not only can apply the Transform function to animate each sub-prop separately but can also easily add Constraints in iClone 8 to achieve lifelike animations. 

Other Enhancements

Smart Human Skin Color: quickly change skin color by adjusting the color of blend maps, or applying colors with ease. Common default colors are also available.

*Note: This is also achievable in SkinGen, which is a powerful skin layering and editing tool.  However, using SkinGen to simply change a character’s skin tone might be excessive.

Creating ActorBUILD Characters for Crowd Rendering: Converting a standard CC character to an ActorBUILD character for crowd rendering.

You can check the 3D Character Creation & Animation webpage for more information about pre-sales orders, feature comparison, and FAQs. If you have further questions, please contact our Support Team, or join the discussion at Reallusion Forum.

Product Release

iClone 8 New Features Introduction

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For iClone 8, we strove to keep strengthening the core values of character animation with Motion Director game-play controls and powerful editing capabilities, such as animation layer editing, bi-directional blending, reach target offset for interactive motion, end effector editing, and more. With the latest innovative update, iClone 8 makes it easy to create animation in an enjoyable and productive manner. 

Besides providing a smooth pipeline to mainstream animation and game engines, iClone’s real-time render has been enhanced. iClone 8 can also connect to NVIDIA Omniverse – a RTX GPU-based path-trace render engine, which supports USD (Universal Scene Description) data architecture for collaborative design projects. With it, users will be able to generate commercial-quality visuals directly from iClone 8.

You can check the 3D Character Creation & Animation webpage for more information about presale orders, feature comparison, and FAQs.

The following are the new features revealed in Part One of Work-in-Progress Preview:

  • Motion Director – Play to Animate
  • Motion-based Innovations
  • Enhanced Real-time Visuals
  • Performance & Productivity
  • Real-time / Path-Traced Render with NVIDIA Omniverse

Let’s take you for a tour for a new feature highlight…

If you are interested in diving deep into the details, you can refer to this document.

iClone 8 New Features Introduction.

More information – Feature comparison of iClone 8 and iClone 7.

Motion Director – Play to Animate

The new Motion Director system debuts game-play controls to drive characters, apply motion triggers and dynamic cameras to direct scenes in real-time.

Motion-based Innovations

iClone 8 offers massive innovation for motion creation and editing. It provides powerful editing capabilities while keeping the process simple and intuitive. No matter if you are new to the 3D industry or if you are a veteran of professional tools like Maya or MotionBuilder, you will find the best of worlds in the powerful motion functionalities of iClone 8.

Auto Motion Alignment: Have the motions flow smoothly from one to another.

Motion Direction Control: Use the transform gizmo to directly adjust the direction and position of the character during motion clip transitions.

Bi-directional Blending for Smooth Clip Transition: Allow vastly different motion clips to blend seamlessly in a more natural sequence of transitions.

Motion Blending: Showcase the practical applications for the three aforementioned functionalities. The character in the video automatically transitions from walking to snapping a camera. In the cleanup phase, the motions can be trimmed and matched to create one smooth connected motion. 

Auto-extend Looping Animation: Automatically extend the hip motion and perform position matching.

Multiple Animation Layer Editing: Movement will be pivoted at the hips with the ability to adjust the pelvic floor. You will be able to add as many layers as you desire for maximum flexibility, and freely inspect all aspects of the motions for simplified management.

Mirror Motion: Helps when the motion pivot goes astray during motion chaining.

New Control Rig: Comes with a new look and added control range to increase handiness.

End Effector: Designed for professional hand-key motion and non-realistic animation creation.

Reach Target Editing for Interactive Motion: For creating reach offset, offset layer key transitions, and creating dummies.

Motion Correction: Reach target prevents over-extension and determines the duration of the locked effectors, which is useful to prevent slipping.

Curve Editor: Curve Editor used with effector controls, makes for a powerful combination. It supports HIK effectors, and it’s useful in fixing animations such as foot slippage, off-kilter walk, off-pacing, etc.

Motion Pipeline: Drag and drop! Any FBX motion data format is compatible, which largely removes platform barriers for motion data and makes it all compatible.

Enhanced Real-time Visuals

iClone 8 real-time render has been enhanced with the following updates:

Volumetric Light: Added visible volume to directional, spot, and point lights. Not only can light illuminate, it can also add a sense of atmosphere to the scene.

Light Enhancement: Light and shadow strength multipliers offer greater flexibility.

Lens Flare: Quickly apply various cinematic lighting effects to add visual tension.

Mirror Reflection: Simulate realistic mirror reflection with various control settings like opacity and blur.

Motion Blur: Blur for fast-moving objects is a common technique in movies and animations. Adjustments for blur intensity and frame-blend effect is also available.

Performance & Productivity

The software architecture of iClone 8 has been optimized, and more new features will be introduced to handle big-scale projects.

  • Support for GPU computation for skin bone character animations. 
  • Hidden objects will not be processed in the background.
  • Support isolating object(s) – a quick way to isolate selected objects for editing.

Long known as a professional animation production tool, iClone has been missing some basic functional requirements for a while. In this version, we have worked tirelessly to make up for this with one function at a time, in order to improve the overall productivity for its dedicated users. The added functionalities include:

  • Flexible frame-rate for virtual production: export with any frame-rate, frame-accurate video compositing, and match move.
  • Merge Project: merge objects across different projects, which will benefit collaboration, and facilitates working with existing projects.
  • Collection Manager: freely categorize objects in the Scene Manager, so users can quickly and easily show/hide defined groups. 
  • Addition of Hotkey Manager.
  • Device mapping for cameras and object-based transformations (R.T.S.)

Real-time & Path-Traced Render with NVIDIA Omniverse

iClone 8 and Character Creator 4 can connect to NVIDIA Omniverse – an RTX GPU-based path-traced render engine, which supports USD (Universal Scene Description) data architecture for collaborative design projects. With it, users will be able to generate commercial-quality visuals directly from iC8 and CC4.

Watch this video for an overview of Omniverse rendering.

Those who have purchased iC8 and CC4 will have free access to Omniverse Connector, and a preliminary version will be provided for early experience.

For more details:

You can check the 3D Character Creation & Animation webpage for more information about pre-sales orders, feature comparison, and FAQs. If you have further questions, please contact our Support Team, or join the discussion at Reallusion Forum.

Product Release

iClone 8 and Character Creator 4: Work-in-Progress Preview – Part One

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Dear Reallusioners,

Many of you have high expectations for iClone 8 (iC8) and Character Creator 4 (CC4), and after a long wait, we are happy to announce that they are ready for preview. In this first look into the future of character production, we’ll show off the BIGGEST feature-packed release ever, slated for release in 2022. We here at Reallusion have not only listened closely to your requests, but we have also continually strived to innovate beyond your expectation.

The new platform for character creation and animation is defining the future of 3D characters ready for any given render engine and 3D application. We aim to provide a character solution fit for every environment that can be enlivened by digital actors.

The innovations presented in Character Creator 4 and iClone 8 make these two technologies the pillars of power for creation and animation. New tools provide ease of use, the ability to animate with precision and bring characters to life. 

For more information, see the 3D Character Creation & Animation webpage.

What’s New in iClone 8 and Character Creator 4

iClone 8

For iClone 8, we strove to keep strengthening the core values of character animation with Motion Director game-play controls and powerful editing capabilities, such as animation layer editing, bi-directional blending, reach target offset for interactive motion, end effector editing, and more. With the latest innovative update, iClone 8 makes it easy to create animation enjoyably and productively. 

We expect users who are new to the 3D industry or who are veterans of professional tools like Maya and MotionBuilder to find the best of worlds in the powerful motion functionalities available in iClone 8. And to them we say: Give it a try, you just might find it indispensable for your next production! 

For more information, take a look at the new features in Clone 8.

Character Creator 4

The main focus of Character Creator 4 is to enliven and give personality to any biped humanoid, whether they are humans or creatures.

In version 4.0, imagination and creativity are no longer limited by an existing character base. Instead, any rigged character can be imported, characterized, and optimized in Character Creator 4.  Characters will be fully compatible with iClone for lip-syncing, facial/body animation, and also be ready for ActorCore mocap animations to save time in production.

To present a character’s personality, Character Creator 4 supports customizing facial expression morphs to create vivid, and unique facial expressions. Users can further check talking and body animation, cloth/hair physics, spring dynamics, and preview animations directly in Character Creator 4.

For more information, take a look at the new features in Character Creator 4.

RTX GPU Based Path-Traced Renderer with NVIDIA Omniverse

iClone 8 and Character Creator 4 can connect to NVIDIA Omniverse – an RTX GPU-based path-traced render engine, which supports USD (Universal Scene Description) data architecture for collaborative design projects. With it, users will be able to generate commercial-quality visuals directly from iC8 and CC4.

You may refer to this video for an overview of Omniverse rendering.

Those who have purchased iC8 and CC4 will have free access to Omniverse Connector, and a preliminary version will be provided for early experience.

For more details:

How to Get iClone 8 and Character Creator 4

To receive the upcoming release of iClone 8 and/or Character Creator 4 for FREE, all you need to do is purchase to build an Accumulated Order Value of over US$399 to US$799 during the 2021 Year End Treats event from November 1st to December 31st, 2021. 

Go check the Reallusion Year-End Treats to get the best deal.

Product Portfolio Change

To ease the path to 3D production, we will simplify our product portfolio to make iClone 8 and Character Creator 4 work independently, while seamlessly compatible with one another. That means:

  • iClone 8 will come in the pipeline version only. No 3DXchange is required in order to export FBX, OBJ, etc.
  • 3DXchange will be discontinued. All related features will be integrated into iClone 8 or Character Creator 4.
    • iClone 8: any motion FBX files imported into iClone 8 can be automatically retargeted to standard CC characters or non-standard characters.
    • Character Creator 4: besides the characterization features mentioned above, CC4 allows importing any object, editing mesh elements to sub-nodes, and easily turning objects into props, accessories, clothes, hair, shoes, etc.
  • Motion LIVE and Curve Editor functions will be built-in in iClone 8 without extra purchases, and the End Effector animation and facial animation curves will be added.
  • Only the pipeline edition of Character Creator 4 exists; there will no longer be a free version for iClone 8 users.

Frequently Asked Questions

Question: Will the existing plug-ins be compatible with iClone 8 and Character Creator 4?

Question: What are the key features of iClone 8 and Character Creator 4 compared to the previous versions?

If you own the following iClone 7 and Character Creator 3 paid plug-ins, you will get a free upgrade version to be compatible with iClone 8 and Character Creator 4.

  • iClone: All mocap profiles for Motion LIVE Plug-in, iClone Unreal Live Link, PopcornFX, Iray Render Plug-in
  • Character Creator: Headshot Plugin, SkinGen Premium Plug-in, Iray Render Plug-in

* iClone 8 comes integrated with built-in Motion LIVE and Curve Editor, absent the need to install plugins.

Please check the full feature comparison table:

Question: When will iClone 8 and Character Creator 4 be released? Can I get early access to iClone 8 and Character Creator 4?

The official launch date is scheduled for Spring of 2022. No early access is planned at the moment.

Question: Will the existing iClone 7 python plug-ins be compatible with iClone 8?

Due to some function changes, some Python scripts will require an update by Python developers. We will contact Python developers in early 2022, so developers can adjust their scripts accordingly. As a developer, you have the right to decide to release your script as a free or paid update.

If you have further questions, please contact our Support Team, or join the discussion at Reallusion Forum.

Featured Story

Digital Artist takes Comic skills to Video game and Content Creation with Character Creator & iClone

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Digital artist takes comic skills to video game and content creation with character creator and iClone.
Jose Tijerin's Dear Althea game on Steam.

José Antonio Tijerín

José Antonio Tijerín was born in Spain in 1996, where he started studying at a drawing school in Madrid with the intention of becoming a comic illustrator. After finishing his studies he decided to learn how to sculpt in 3D to make video games.

For several years, he has specialized in the production of 3D sculptures and has just published his first video game – “Dear Althea” on STEAM, where he used Character Creator and iClone with Unreal Engine.

José Antonio Tijerín also started working as a content developer in the Reallusion content store, after learning about Character Creator and iClone in a live webinar at Libel Academy.

“I discovered all the new possibilities that Character Creator and iClone offered when creating great works without the help of a large team.”

José Antonio Tijerín – Digital Artist, Comic Illustrator, 3D Sculptor

Read More “Digital Artist takes Comic skills to Video game and Content Creation with Character Creator & iClone”

Featured Story

Turn 3D Scans into Fully-Controllable Next-Gen Virtual Actors

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With Reallusion’s “Scan to Animation” character creation pipeline, 3D scan studios and professionals can transform scanned images into fully-rigged, AI-controllable avatars.

3D scanned people are widely used to create visualizations in many industries beyond games and films. From manufacturing, business, archviz, to digital twins and media entertainment, 3D scanned people are key elements to bringing simulations closer to realism, making any virtual scenario more convincing. 

Thousands of 3D people can be easily found online. As realistic as they look, most 3D characters tend to lack the natural movement of real human beings, either in static poses, emotionless faces, or stiff body animations. How to transform scanned people into naturally animated subjects requires not only skills and experience, but also the right technology for character creation.

Reallusion, the developer of iClone and Character Creator, now offers a new “Scan to Animation Pipeline”, adding details, realism, and performance to scanned images. In collaboration with The Scan Truck, a Hollywood-based 3D scanning service company, and ICVR, a global creative and digital production studio, Reallusion has successfully turned scanned models into lively animated 3D characters that are fully controllable which can be exported to major 3D tools for any productions.

The Scan Truck, a professional 3D scanning service company in Hollywood, California.
The Scan Truck, a professional 3D scanning service company in Hollywood CA. 

Scan Experts Meet Leaders in Character Creation

Located in Los Angeles the heart of the American entertainment industry – The Scan Truck and ICVR  have partnered with major Hollywood studios and international corporations including Warner Brothers, FOX, Universal Studio, SONY pictures, Apple, Netflix, and many more; to create avatars and digital content for famous films, games, and marketing campaigns. Their recent successes include creating digital doubles for Grand Theft Auto 5, Xbox video games, and feature films including Marvel’s Black Window, Dune, and Terminator: Dark Fate.

Internationally acclaimed projects by The Scan Truck and ICVR.
Internationally acclaimed projects by The Scan Truck and ICVR

It was an instant click between The Scan Truck, ICVR, and Reallusion, each with a long list of credentials on character creations. Impressed by the character creation technology of Reallusion’s “Scan to Animation Pipeline”, and with little hesitation, The Scan Truck and ICVR took part in a new 3D character creation workflow with Reallusion.

Creative leaders behind The Scan Truck.
Creative leaders behind The Scan Truck

From recruiting 15 people for a shooting day inside their studio truck in LA, The Scan Truck captured the likeness of each model using their high-end scanning technology. 

Shooting day inside the Scan Truck's studio.
Shooting day inside The Scan Truck’s studio
The Scan Truck's photogrammetry precisely captured the likeness of models.
The Scan Truck’s photogrammetry precisely captured the likeness of models.

Next, a multidisciplinary team of technologists, artists, and engineers in ICVR constructed the scanned images into high-quality 3D models through detailed data processing.  

We as content creators feel the pain of people out there, having these high-quality models but  not accessible for most usages,” said Chris Swiatek, Chief of Product, ICVR. “It is fantastic to see our 3D content turned into vivid 3D characters with controllable animation and deployed in a wide range of applications beyond games and films. We’re very excited to be among the early testers of this pipeline and to see the increased efficiency it brings to art production as a whole.

ICVR is a professional team with highly skilled artists and engineers.
ICVR is a professional team with highly skilled artists and engineers.
Cleaning and refining model details in ZBrush (by ICVR).
Cleaning and refining model details in ZBrush (by ICVR).
Test rendering results in Mari software (by ICVR).
Test rendering results in Mari software (by ICVR).

From Creation to Content Animation – Reallusion Redefines 3D Characters 

Constantly evolving their products to keep pace with next-generation technology while providing unique implementations that adapt their tools to all levels of creators; Reallusion is setting a new industry standard for real-time character creation. The company’s “Scan to Animation Pipeline” provides the highest realism and control over 3D people, aiming to effectively level up business visualization for archviz, digital twins (manufacturing, construction), traffic, and crowd simulations. At the same time, the new pipeline synchronizes with the rapid growth of real-time visualization offered by GPU and game engines including NVIDIA Omniverse™.

Reallusion's character creation technology.
Reallusion’s character creation technology.
Reallusion's SkinGen Plugin technology inside Character Creator software.
Reallusion’s SkinGen plugin technology inside Character Creator software.
Refining facial expressions inside Reallusion's iClone animation software.
Refining facial expressions inside Reallusion’s iClone animation software.

Deploying its advanced technology on facial and body rigging, morphing, and lip-sync animations, Reallusion’s new pipeline can generate two unique outputs from 3D scanned images:

actorORIGIN: High-res Digital Humans from Character Creator 

These ultra-realistic digital humans deliver the highest details for close-up performances, fully customizable with hair, facial and body morph, skin layers, and outfit systems that are suitable for real-time film and AAA game projects. Character Creator’s native character format (CC3+) involves a large number of assets including body shapes, appearances, outfits, and accessories for mixing and matching.

ActorORIGINs are digital humans with the highest details.
ActorORIGINs are digital humans with the highest details.
ActorORIGIN characters with different outfits and hairstyles.
ActorORIGIN characters with different outfits and hairstyles.

ActorSCAN: Photo-realistic 3D People for Crowd Rendering

The one-mesh, fully-dressed lightweight models are designed to enliven business simulations with fully rigged, controllable, true-to-life digital crowds. These models can be worked with facial expressions and lip-sync animations that make them suitable from long to medium camera ranges.

ActorSCAN characters with optimized topology and character rigs.
ActorSCAN characters with optimized topology and character rigs.
ActorSCAN character collections available in actorcore.reallusion.com
ActorSCAN character collections available in actorcore.reallusion.com.
ActorSCAN characters in middle to long ranges for lightweight crowd scenes.
ActorSCAN characters in middle to long ranges for lightweight crowd scenes

Live Scanned Actors on Any Stage Productions

Reallusion animated 3D avatars are fully compatible with thousands of AAA quality motions available on ActorCore – Reallusion’s premium online 3D asset library, allowing one character to be used for multiple applications. (business, training, archviz, films, games) All content is compatible with major 3D programs including Unreal Engine, Unity, Blender, Maya, MotionBuilder, 3ds Max, Cinema4D, and iClone . 

Reallusion 3D avatars are fully compatible with ActorCore motions.
Reallusion 3D avatars are fully compatible with ActorCore motions
Reallusion 3D avatars are fully compatible with major 3D programs.
Reallusion 3D avatars are fully compatible with major 3D programs

Join the Incredible “Scan to Animation” Pipeline

With a never-ending passion to bring CG characters to life, Reallusion is looking for partners who excel in 3D scanning and character design to join ActorCore. Enabling designers from all backgrounds to easily enliven their game, movie, and interactive projects with rich asset selections. Contact marketing@reallusion.com for more information.

Market your assets on ActorCore and get featured.