ICLONE version 3 IS BORN.

OK, we finally have liftoff. Reallusion have released iClone three.

Personally I couldnt have cared if it was a complete year late. As long as they killed that disgusting motion editor. Which they HAVE. Amazingly. That is a hell of alot of work and for a simple 50 pound upgrade they've kept in with Tesco's psychologies by stacking it high and selling it cheap.

Don't let this make you think the quality is low in any way. On the contrary. As long as you can get past the patronizing few who whinge like Reallusions' sick parents , you'll be able to enjoy all the benefits of this tool and workshop, because that is exactly what it is now.

A toolbox that holds as many tools as you need even in its raw state to create some amazing animations.

My next task is to clear out Version 2 in the forum and start working with version three. Thi Mai has never looked so good and I'll make some stills for the Gallery as soon as I can format them. The beauty of this new software is that all the editing is done in the actual preview window.
YES, we have the unskilled POSER crew coming in and slandering fault left Right and centre, but aside form this, the winner always was resented, no?

I don't know how many of the old crew are still about, Ive waited for eight months for this software and now finally its come to light. I have much I need to do. And mostly, this software will keep me up till the Small hours now creating things that a couple of years ago were totally unheard and unbelievable.

I am impressed. Anyone who think iClone COULD be worth a purchase, let me say here that if Youve considered it, make the plunge. If you're wierd and an oddball, all the better, because imagination comes to life with software like this and for me, my book written in 1981, is so far more alive than I imaged it ever would be, it almost leaves Disney in the dust.

Heres a still from my first 30 minutes inside iClone 3 while I learned its interface commands again anew.

AND SO WE WAIT JUST A LITTLE MORE

SULKING? Get over it.
Well, what else are you going to do.
Sadly there are always the bellyachers who winge and cry that the software isn't ready still. I mean, who said they had the authority to demand anyway. So Reallusion got it wrong and couldnt release on the date they set.
Ah well. Too bad. And what?
Carry on working or stop and wait.

This image in all honesty is an amzing piece of achievement. The set here is so perfect for Chellah and Thi mai, I can't wait to restart
what was quite a fascination a year ago... but which had to stop because the motion editor seriously needed some revamping.

PATIENCE YOU "Rs"es
This is only one scene of the preview. The Village is perfect for the storyline we're working on.
Even though in the actual Reallusion forum there are those who criticize work here with Chellah and Thi mai in the Medieval era, but in all honesty, with the dungeon packs, the knights in Armour packs, al the Ceasarian packs (is that spelt correctly...  ;)  ) everything WE see here is back in the old days of English Country Dungeons.
And frankly, I know a lot of people who should be in there right now.

SIOUXIE SIOUX
I still don't see very much serious output form iClone and the software DOES have the ability to at least tell a story OR, as we've proved time and again, it has MASSIVE POTENTIAL to deliver STILLS.

See Siouxie Sioux's DIGITAL COMIC HERE!

ALONE!
Nobody else is doing stills or digital comics. Ah well, Looks like, as in real life, Siouxie is a one off, unmatched and a complete winner.


GOOD HEAVENS.. Superhero Siouxie is fighting the EULA? Well, who's to argue. And anyway, She has always been a one off and no one else that we know of has made a Digital Comic worthy of any attention.... unless you know of thema nd we dont.

WHERE ARE WE... WHERE AM I?
Where have I been these last 6 months? Well, across the world actually. Waiting for the latest iClone release.
Lets hope its worthwhile. Many things have been prepared for our work here in iClone ville. All we need now is VERSION THREE.

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The Magic Wishing Well.

Well, here it is... The Magic Wishing Well. It appears in the fourth chapter of Imagination's gate (The Gate Of Reallusion.) and the main element is that its a perfect typification of what people expect a Wishing Well to look like.

Not some dingy old hole in the ground, but a well crafter roofed quaint little thing secretly in the middle of nothing.

In the illustration we see a Woodtyke and Thi Mai, both of whom are about knee high and playing about the well with no concerns for its magical powers whatsoever.

Another pleasant element on its way from Reallusion is the addition of Flags.
Seems someone there has been working on making Flags that animate and wave in the breeze or gale.
We wondered here if the flag models could be inverted and used as curtains!!! or maybe sails for a ship.
We'll have to Wait and See as usual.
They were due at the end of December, well, we're in the 2nd day of January... but we don't mind the wait. Most other elements are worth the wait.
As far as we can see now even with an average machine spec, you can produce amazing animations. Movement is still not as streamlined as it might be, but there are many groupable motions available everywhere. And the converter is also a tool to adopt external files but it's still.......... not quite the better option.
Call me old fashioned, but we need something even better than Posers ease of use =motion editor even as far back as version 3 if anyone remembers poser version 3.
Probably not...

And onwards....
Reallusion are coming to town.... or so the mail says. Seems they're on their way round the world again. This in itself, in our opinion, is a great act. Where people are working on programs and animations and etc, projects in general which are very intense and time consuming, it's always a great treat to actually meet the people who make all this possible; discuss with them what you'd like to see in the software and share ideas and hear elements about what's up and coming.

To me, this is exceptional. I'm not aware of many others if at all any who adopt this manner. And in truth, when you're supplying users with a craft tool, you need to be in tune with how they work, what they do and where they need the software taken.

It's easy to say iCLone is a new tool; it's a little raw round the edges; the tools within it are a little rusty.... maybe this is the case with monsters like Poser and etc.... but in effect... how many Poser animations do you see on the web and how many children can use poser o the easy degree you can use iClone.

There's something magical about this software and in version 2.5 a whole host of elements came together making it almost a walk over to create animations.

Walt Disney on your desktop isn't just an idle comment, the quality of output matches Disney's middle-late era already.
And as for character creation, dress, hair, eyes, all these fiddly widdly little bits, they're already a standard piece of kit in iClone.
Oddly, after reading so many reports from so many apparent users of iClone, I don't see anywhere near the degree of tooling I anticipated with things such as editing facial features; use of expressions, modeling buildings and props in iClone that sort of thing and in truth, so many things are achievable if people would just stop marveling at what others are doing, and realise that this is all personally achievable yourself.

A year ago I'd have looked at the Well above and thought, "Wouldn't it be nice to model this kind of thing for yourself. "I would have assumed that something even as simple as that would demand years of 3DS Max use and training and etc.
iClone users can do this in a day.
The magic is fading from the old ways and methods and the new ones threaten to be so walkable, if we get the motion editor tweaked a little more..... things are really gonna start to rock around here. Educationally, promotionally and imaginatively, animations are the next step in Broadband technologies anyway.... I don't see any competition to this software pricewise or usewise.

Whats in the pipeline.
We need some IMAGINATION...
A tart comment in the Reallusion forum by some ass stated, "There's so much more to iClone than Fantasy and Gothic."
Nice dig "O unimaginative one."
But if we stop and think on this for a second.
This bit at Siouxiesioux.com and Thi-Mai.... what does it leave us?
There's so much more...... than Fantasy and Gothic.
Frankly, it leaves........ reality.

Reality?
Personally I don't see anything in Disney using solely Reality because if you think about it people go to the Pictures, the theater, the movies to escape the mundanity of reality and find some relief in a fantasy world of romance and whatever turns their little cranks.

Reality.
This is why we wonder here just how many people there are using iCLone and just how many people have an imagination...... because the fantasy element in IClone is beautiful and even for stills and etc, the software lends itself to amazing ease of use and manipulability.

The creatures and things we can make come alive is wonderful.
Let's just watch what 2008 puts on the table.

Armstrong.

iClone Tutorials Christmas Cottage.

Well, it's Christmas 2007. Happy Christmas callers.  Have you had a good time?

Just for the heck of it here I thought it might be nice if something was designed like a House, a Tudory House that could be split, cut, sliced, mixed and matched and played about with to look kind of different each time.

So I came up with this.

It's built using 100% iClone Studio. Nothing else.

It was constructed within iClone. The windows and doors all work as they should.

The layers can be edited and adapted as you wish.

All the pieces come in parts or assembled in floor merged blocks for ease of use if your system isn't overtaxed.

In all, it works fine here and suits the storyline of  REALLUSIONS GATE. (Originally imaginations Gate.).

I also liked the little Snowman Pauly gave away and that you can find at the reallusion forum or www.icloneuniverse.com

Many things are happening in Reallusions world of animation.
I just also tried out their Crazy Talk 5 which, while not being quite in tune with the style of iClone , does actually have many applications inside iClone for those who don't have the abilities to make trees, clouds, books and etc talk and animate.

By simply taking the output from Crazy talk and putting this as a layer into the movie at the footage compiling stage, (Or the cutting room, lets not mince words here) it works remarkably well.

Currently we're trying to do a shot of the moon talking to Chellah as he ponders Thi Mai.

I'd be interested in seeing what everybody else does inside iClone with regards to modeling.
I don't see alot except the cc mobs output and while this is pleasant enough, it might be good to see what other people are creating inside iClone itself because the architecture is stunning and just about allows you to do most things.

All the architecture is REALLY missing in iClone and Ive asked reallusion on many occasions if they can rectify the issue are things like a thin curved bar. Like a stem of a flower. The curve of a branch.

The angle of antennae and etc. The use would be amazing.

Another architectural advantage could be had from their paper object which I use to create the wings of Thi Mai.

If they made a reverse paper it would enable a More accurate method of flapping the wings stressing on the downbeat and flexing on the upbeat.

While I have gotton by with a simple reversal workaround with this model it doesn't quite hit the mark and I would really rally appreciate it if I could have an inverted version of model  Paper_A.

That gripe aside..... The new year somewhere in MARCH comes version THREE iCLone which promises to be even more stunning than version 2.5.

In this the work we hope will be even easier.

Lets see if it is.

happy Christmas to those who call by and see you very soon.

OH YES....

The Cottage is a Free item thats available HERE.

Best wishes for now.

Neil Armstrong.

Create your own visitor map

iClone Tutorials changes PHPBB to version three.

The finished version has many videos in it that are a good example of the degree of diversity in iClone available as it is standard.

Before you go lumping money out left right and centre make sure you know exactly what it is you're after otherwise you'll end up playing alone with all the props and accessories and the point here is this.
Make sure you can use your props. Many of the so called "FREE" items are not FREE at all.

They disallow commercial use which to me is ridiculously locking you into a "Purchase or else" threatening corner.
You have to be very careful where and what you download. While there are many places you can download items from and buy items for little money, just be aware that the small arrogant  print included with your downloads is a simple statement that says look, play but don't use. It's a difficult issue but one you should be warned about.

When we make movies and scenes here we make a few props and items and these we will issue in the forum in the woodshed section where they can be downloaded for free and can be used as you wish.

The movies we make here are about 800x300 px and the objects we make are perfect for this kind of size. They may not be replica models but when used online at the current average rate of broadband they look beautiful and have all been made inside iClone.

Its not difficult to make these things.

in a week or so the new forum will be live.

the news is a whole new way of making movies for iClone output and the tutes are alot of fun as well. many subtitled for the deaf as well as audio driven.
Have fun.

Armstrong.

Opening Anim taken from the new iClone Tutorials Digital Forum.

Since the outset I had a wish to see a Forum opened by a massive array of animations that defined each category. In order to do this I needed a rather severe crash course in PHP and the ability to write my own BB Codes.

Not that easy for me, I'm more of a flash and html and SQL misery... but in order to achieve this especially with PHPBB version 3, for which there are precious few, actually a scarce amount, of modifications for use, I needed to understand what the format was before I began.

The open interface is already live but not public and works a treat. By so allowing small movies like the one above (which makes reference to a category, not here yet!) the viewer gets a good idea as to how the Forum works and whats expected of them before they participate. It also displays, as time goes on, the morphing and evolution not just of Reallusions iClone Studio but also of the characters we work with. Primarily, Thi Mai and her protector, Chellah.

We'll be launching this on the weekend 4th October 2007.

I'm also holding a competition for the HORSE PACK. The rules will be published there and anyone can join in and try to win the horse pack for their armory of iClone Accessories and Props. keep your eyes peeled and we'll keep you posted.
The latest kit Reallusion have on offer is amazing. If you're into Horses in any way, these are alot of fun to animate. Their motion is very appealing and, in all conditions and lighting situations they just appear very valuable to scene weight. Whether riding loose or saddled up. These Horses will fill the part for anyone who needs a horse and you can even adjust the skins as well so you can have apaloosa'a and piebald and skewbald, Greys and Creams if you wish.

Armstrong.

iClone Studio VERSION 2.5 is out now.
As well as an amazing Horse Pack.

Yes, the guys at Reallusion are in tune with the elements. And in their latest double whammy they released the iClone Studio version 2... as well as an astounding Horse pack that consists of a Shire, a Grey Cob and a Thoroughbred too.
Harnesses, saddles, carts and motions, this is one of the most impressive pieces of kit Reallusion have sprung on us to date.

The motions are beautiful, we need more, but perhaps in version 3 we can edit our own horses. I for one, would like a Blacksmith to be able to lift a hoof for shoeing. We'll see. Am I being greedy? Of course. :o)

For those interested in the e xciting elements available the iClone Tutorials forum also has a face lift with many opening interface Videos, exactly as you would expect a Video and Animation forum to look. The new forum is being launched this weekend. The date is the 4th of October...

Which reminds me, Siouxie Sioux's latest adventure is late. Ooops.

Well, I cant be everywhere at once. There are also some stunning fashion accessories and clothing available at the Reallusion store now and in the week Ill be displaying the best of the best.

Armstrong.

So what happens now?

 Here's a cute shot of SIouxie Ive been working on. Her clothing is sweeter now than it was, I wasnt happy with the original cloth and needed something wholly my own design.
Aside from the trousers that is, Well, I created them as leather but the basic design is Reallusions.

Well, we make an explanatory movie and set Siouxie up with her own URL (Done!) and start looking at the complexities and issues regarding Comic Design.
A fun arena and something not quite new to us but new digitally.

I still find it a little stunning that iClone Studio doesn't have more life behind it than it does, that, of the users are kinda secretive about it all. :) Which ever way, there are some movie appearing on the web which are both ingenious and appealing with lots of intrigue.

When I finally find the time Ill include them in the theater section of the Forum but until then we need to get both the Sioux's on the road and then restart projects phases of The Gate Of Reallusion. Big, massive and tricky.

I would have enjoyed seeing some serious stills work but as yet I don't find any. The stills shown on the web are high quality as far as iClone renders them but compositionally and in the adventure theme of including extreme lighting and posture etc.... it should be wilder than it is.

Reallusion have brought out some beautiful kit. Furniture, office chairs, home furnishings, tables and also a Jewelery pack, actually a Fashion pack but it was the jewelery that turned my head. Needed for the femmes of some scenes Ive been working on.
So now that iClone seems to have dug  its heels in and has started morphing into something that's recognized by the "now not so big boys" of the field, with the release of version 2 we're suddenly looking at a tool that handles al the major issues of graphic design character wise and also animation wise (If a little jiggery round the edges... motion editor etc...) but still a good tool that simply asks for a little time  though less than its competition, for mastery.

OK, so, onwards. More sharks teeth then.
Clone Cloth and the sale of Clone Cloth Fashion packs by users or designers.

Well, Clone Cloth is about 100 dollars. Now, to me logically if you cannot afford to buy it then you should be able to buy kit already made by others who can.
That said, these kits should be token priced.
Why? Because at the moment it seems if you buy three or four Fashion packs on offer at Reallusion you may as well but the Clone Cloth kit anyway.

Stack it high , sell it cheap philosophies regarding mass marketing on the web seems a .little off key at present and it might be an idea to realise that if and when Reallusion get into the ten million iClone sales league  then that 0.04% G/Sale margin suddenly  becomes very attractive but at the moment it's as if many have their foot in their mouth.
The quality of work is very good on offer. The variety and contrast of fashions also appealing. But the prices are greedy. They're almost based on an individual sale rather than the accepted potential of mass market sales. Which they currently deter I might add.
Sell 1 can of beans for a pound. Sell a thousand for a penny.
Nuff said.

ONWARDS....
A designer called Shygirl has started posting her designs on the Free Art Gallery found HERE...  Her work is pleasantly displayed in environment not dissimilar to those found currently in Renderosity.com and the browse is refreshing especially as these are also on sale if you need a garment. I believe you can also request a garment if you're not adept with C.Cloth. There are also some nice period pieces in here to boot.

Siouxie Sioux is a pleasant contrast to the norm and complex. More complex than people imagine I believe as each frame has to be engineered sometimes in as many pieces as 5. Overlays, underlays, titling, explosions and speech balloons and on the whole, a very enjoyable cruise into a world we've really only manually skimmed in the, now  way distant, commercial past.
If you havent tried your hand at this then go ahead and have a blast.

Forums! Changes!
Yes, iCloneTutorials is changing again. Since we purchased iClone Tutorials.com we noticed a massive rush of basic tutorials and a sudden change of search terms to include intros such as , iClone Tutorials by ............  are available etc etc...."
And now, everywhere you look there are tutorials on how to walk, how to change hair colour, how to tie your shoes.............. so...

It seems the refined elements like making realistic mirrors, the art of correct camera driven conversation, Camera use, perspective control according to scene mood and associated  lighting transition, splicing, BG splice to vocal output when splicing and etc......are all areas these other arenas can't cover.
So, we ditched the idea of being "one of the rest"  and have since started a more in depth tutorials system visible online as the forum which teaches people how to make movies themselves from the lengths of footage output. Which is what the software is all about anyway.
We believe its a quick mastered tool, of course it is,  but its the inspirational elements and imaginative pushes that make the movies created appeal or flunk.
So we're into the advanced issues which, if you remember, we anticipated anyway as soon as we bought the URL iclonetutorials.com because we also started ICU, iClone Tutorials university.
The events having swung in our favour again we feel its time to start taking the educational side far more seriously than we were and start making output of a higher sophisticated level.

Hence the SIouxie SIoux issues and elements already underway. 

Movies and Digital Comics.
This is a vein very alive at the moment and the most satisfying arena of all is Renderosity.com where the masters and novices all meet.
One thing we found wierd despite all this competitive spirit, very little iClone Studio promotion going on at Renderosity. Maybe their work isn't up to showcasing there, huh?

Well, we've been pushing the boundaries as far as we can since we began, why should we act any diferently now and in all it seems gained alot of attention.
Our forum is only three months has seen 21,000 visits and climbing. Most corners of the world have been there but as there's only me.... its not as fast as the other two arenas (1???) so patience on both sides of the fence is required.
Exciting times.....
Armstrong.

And another 10 Beautiful Locations.

If things were getting a little dry on the ground regarding location work it seems Reallusion are releasing better World Wilderness Creations as time goes on.

Timerates...
Here, we're stuck on making The Gate Of Reallusion because alot of the footage has had to be remade. Timerates.... Frame per second we got it wrong... some effects didn't work visually on 15 frames per second when reduced from 20 fps. Standard output speed is now 30fps. We didn't know this at the time but lessons are always well learnt in this field. And now, we have the chance to make better scenes with refreshing content.

The treetops, only some, change colour.
One thing you must try is turning the Self Cast Shadows on (if you have Nvidea or equiv)  in any of the Locations and then use 3 or 4 lights but three of them hard coloured and slung very low or into the camera.

The treetops,
...only some, change colour with the lighting severely. That is, if you have three angles and three lights with three colours it is possible to shange only certain angles of the woodlands treetops and foliage in such a pattern that the atmosphere totally changes.

It can be fiddly sometimes especially if you're a long way "off center" with your characters... but it's worth it. Push the lights into the camera.

Flower Garden.
One of my favorites in the new series of World Wilderness vol.2 is the Flower Garden. This really is a rich colourful little gem and smacks of old English country gardens where His Lordship might stray his housemaids on long summer evenings...    

(There are about 50 1024x768-ish Demonstrations of all these new scenes which can be found HERE!. Take a look. If you've never seen inside a World Wilderness Pack before now's the time. )

Savanna.
Further enhancements have been made to Savanna which is particularly impressive with moody isolated tree growth and also Haunted Woods and Divine Tree catering for the Magical and Fantasy driven Machinematographers.

Bamboo Forest...
is an amazingly dense ..... well.... Bamboo Forest and is exactly what it says on the tin. Not as many spiders as a real one but that might be a good thing and nothing that cant be fixed with iClone Studios' props and parts.
The Bamboo changes colour particularly well with extreme lighting useage.

Hollow Valley.
One of the most diverse Locations is one called Hollow Valley. Hollow Valley is literally a crevasse type pair of rock faces. Excellent design and, if we're talking real life it looks to be about 1000 feet high. Maybe more.  This is a serious location and slapping a couple of free climbers on one of the rock faces, lighting  allows their shadows to cast across the cliff face and some of the face bears out wards instead of being  a steep incline so perfect for freeclimbing scenes where the climber is hanging by his hands until he gets back from the 'ceiling' face to sheer again. Great camera angles and easily zoomable up and down the valley it seems to create.

Divine Tree.
Divine Tree itself is another interesting issue. A massive redwood sitting in the middle of a copse woodland. Plenty of room for campfires  with elfin folk scattered about and dark moonlit mysteries. As simple as this location is it's definitely one of my favorites because of its simplicity. It adds great scale and makes small characters look dwarfed even further.

Haunted Woods.
Haunted Woods is an arena for contrasty lighting. Its a dull dark skied arena that lends itself to extreme  colours very well and fires. You can't do anything in here subtly, its just to much fun with dark shadows and darker shapes against a gloomy sky. Your Vampires hideout.

Scorching Dessert.
Dry, hot and cactusy.
Here we see Liks-like-kitten (Yeah, I know... forget the wise cracks.. More about her later in Siouxie....) in the dessert location. It's perfect for wooden farms and sun scorched work and in this scene there are enough cactusses to go round.. right round no matter which angle you're shooting from. One interesting point about this particular dessert location is the scruffwood on the ground. Its white sunscorched bracken-like dead-growth and makes really good ground cover which is far more interesting when panning.

I think I rather enjoy the almost real appearance of things. At the moment with technology being what it is for the average household you can still create great theater with this software. Beautiful colours and with a little imagination anything is possible.  

There are about 50 1024x768-ish Demonstrations of all these new scenes which can be found HERE!. Take a look. If you've never seen inside a World Wilderness Pack before now's the time. 

Clone Cloth and fun things like that.

And we're no professional when it comes to toying with Clone Cloth. I guess to call it easy is... well, it all depends on how fluent you are with your Graphics editor.

In general its dead easy to sling in some wonderful colours and shadow up some folds and creases...

The main thing is that you can cut and chisel off parts of the cloth by editing an opacity map, rather, a black and white version of the material. Each outfit, when you change the colour and shape, becomes something wholly contrasting.

With one of the templates depending on how you shape and colour the 1 template, it can be formal rich girls gown or happy-go-lucky clubbing firecracker.  Yes, I know, My indian looks like he's weasring FlashBacks Trainers. They're being worked on. 

The thing that still gets me is...... well...... iClone Studio has only been out for a year. With the degree of time people spend shoveling up graphics to the web I would have thought this software would be like a non stop party. Stills, movies and a host of inbetweens.

Here we've already seen commercial interest and from companies who were, before, quite comfortable to part with thousands of pounds for a flat flash character with inane eyes that "followed the mouse". If you ever saw one of those! ......didn't miss much, anyway.

Perhaps it's because iClone Studio is so very young that word of mouth and that brushfire has only just started its crawl through the brushwood.
We still believe here that once the flames take hold some really exciting works are going to appear.

Not just animation. The Comic Zones are also healthy targets for this kind of Out Put. Which is why we spend so much time working on Siouxie now.
Siouxie threatens to be a weekly issue and we've already got the first 4 installments. Cartoons or Comic Characters are alive in peoples imagination. Everyone .likes a pre-work mystery. Those little three picture comic strips that we read in the rush hour on the train. Yes, you now what I mean, and some papers they're in rows of seven and more.

They last for generations, Peanuts, for one. So, perhaps we'll see a whole host of Comic Artists appearing from the forests and Reallusion will have to invest in some serious servers to host them.   Wel.... we can hope.

For now... there are a few dedicated designers out there and a rabble of vultures. Whatever your design theme and what ever your wishes in the Graphics World, despite all the odds nd despite all the put downs and criticisms you'll get along the way, you just have to chug on in your own direction and slowly people will come round to understanding where you're coming from.
Many an artist Ive seen squashed because they didn't have the strength of character for criticism and they shriveled at a single one.

iClone Studio not only lets you get on with your own thing, but it makes it so that it's almost impossible to fail. I love Art, Graphics and anything in between. I'm really looking forwards to the coming year, not just because of the new advances Reallusion will make with this software but to the new Artists who until now have been scratching away with inferior software because the Giants were just too elitistly priced. Now it's in their back garden and Walt Disney is on their Desktop. It's got to be a good thing.
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iClone and Clone Cloth.

Fashion &  Design.

It takes a Little while but today I needed to create a suite of something in the new iClone Fashion line.


New Clothing.
With the new clothing models out in iClone Studio, the forum iCloneTutorials.com needed something pretty substantial to kick off with regarding Fashion design.


I saw a design yesterday
which played on my mind and I was curious to see if this could be easily duplicated, improved, whatever. It takes a little while if you're really out to fine tune the edges but in all its a simple process bettered by using the diffuse pattern as the opacity pattern initially.


Moving Cloth.
Its very clever the way the cloth moves with the characters and I imagine that was one of the hurdles they had to overcome when creating this for models that are otherwise so low on bones? do they call them.

Either way..........
the results are beautiful and as far as Comic design goes and creating magazines like the anime craze thats hitting Britain at the moment this software now has about everything.

Quite stunning.
I havent seen anyone use it yet for Comic creation but I think the comics we've created should get an airing soon. It works perfectly and as long as your fluent with your graphics software ( of course you would be) the end results are delicious.


Colour and lighting and the mix of both is total. There are only 4 lights but at the most I only need to use three.  The models at the moment are Jack and Jane. What else. But the fashion accessories they have with them are very varied and quite entertaining regarding design and etc.

Easily edited,
but this being said you need a fair degree of competence with your Art Software. And easily cut and trimmed with the opacity masks. Almost any garment can be created with the new Essential Human pack that just came out.

It's a shame.
I'm exceptionally convinced that this software Will open doors for the new and coming commercial markets but what I don't see is the amount of output I thought there would be. I anticipated there being a huge surge of purchasers taking this on board. But it doesn't seem to be happening . Either that, or the people using it are keeping their works locally.

The one thing thats stunned me here
is the ability to bring to life the character I wrote about in 1981. Ti-Mai. (Mighty. Migh - Ty. Tee-My.)  The wings I created I , at the time, thought were beyond me. When I actually sat down and started making them myself I realized that the quality available was stunning. And from that point iCloneTutorials.com was born because, if this takes off as fast as we imagine it will here, commercial markets Will have a million diverse applications for it.

Creating Clothing.

And suddenly we're all fashion designers also.

You know, it's one thing creating animations, but this software is turning into a complete environment/workshop/rag trade/carpentry shed...... you name it.

You end up having to think about the beams of a roof, the hinges of a window,
the seams of a dress, the shoes that Will match it, the hair style to suit the characters personality, the building they're shot in.... sometimes in both senses of the word, the animals around them, the time of day and the colour of the sunshine, the weather and time of year,

This software seems to allow it all
and , I'll be quite honest here, I get p****d off with those ***holes who whinge and whine about "It doesn't do this" and "Why cant the software do that?"
Well, I think the software's only been on the market for a year? And looking left, I love that design. I'm going to make some for myself today. With cave paintings on.

To me, left is a perfect graphic ready for animating and character tuning.
If I picked up a pencil and crayons I don't think I could create anything anywhere near as close as this to a Marvel Comic Character and yet in an hour or so I can create AND animate several. Currently I work on the seams and finer details of clothing. Seams and folds actually. I need to make the cloth appear as if its draped a little more and on the web there's precious little material shots for this purpose so......  that old drawing board again..... scratch '1'. It would be interesting to put this software into a classroom and see what the kids did with it.

What's on the books then regarding the coming movie  "The Gate Of Reallusion"?
Well, I've created the "Roof Lifting" scene. Nuff said. :o) 
And now there's a very cute scene, funny actually, where the warriors of the forest confront Chellah who stands eleven feet tall, and they..... well....... they're not perhaps quite as big. 
Using the G2 models I have a limit on how many I can incorporate so I will have to use G1's for this scene as they're all weaponed up and etc. G2 would be good but for the scene itself, we're not focusing on any particular one and the CPU strain and rendering times would increase by about  200% so economy on bones is the key at this stage in the movie.

It's exciting creating your own costumes. I don't think there's anything more satisfying than making something which is unique. OK, it may not be perfect, who cares, it's unique and looks colourful. SO what. The scene isn't a fashion show, its a character exercise.
We need to remember where the real focus is and will the viewer be watching a crooked hem? Or will they hate the villain and wish the hero escape?
With clothing control now we can make clothes that better suit the themes and characters and moods and etc. What's next?

One of the fun issues with iClone....
is that you can shrink someone down in size. Save them as a special character in your custom folder, and then when you bring them into the scene from that custom folder you can shrink them down again in size, or the other way areound.......
Quite diverse.

Anxiously Awaiting...... something.  ( iClone Tutorials.com Blog. )   Ti-Mai and the Midnight Prayer.

Walt Disney.

Reallusion seem to be marching on wards behind the scenes at a good pace. We assume!!! We're all awaiting the clone cloth release.  Though in honesty I have yet to see people using all the facilities in iClone in a Disney Fashion. It takes time. Yesterday we worked on candles, cups, candle holders, chests, wardrobes, windows, books and quills. Even in the basic format we make them in as "get by's" props in the true sense of the word, it took about eleven hours. And that was using iClone Studio.   That said, it's fantastic fun creating furniture. Couple the candles together with some particle flame effects and animated they look like sputtering flames. Very much required. Like a pinch of salt in a cook broth, polish for the final movie.

People are calling by and peering at whats going on (not much externally so far as we're in the middle of making a movie...) but someone said to me, "Isn't it weird. Statistically, even in a worst end case scenario, you should get at the very least a 20% curiosity fall off from surrounding arenas focused on the same topic."

What that means is, that if one forum  has 4000 members, falloff interest/curiosity for the iCloneTutorials.com assuming the content is of a similar interest field should statistically be without fail (unless everyone died suddenly of the black death) 800.

I pointed out that sales tactics, promotional tactics and  feel good licensing made this kind of thing acceptable. Left right and center people are making objects to sell. This again is a good thing. Exciting times demand exciting changes and exciting options. Let's hope it doesn't turn into an IMVU issue where one had to trawl through hundreds of items before finding one that was of a better quality.

On the issue of quality Sets are not being built as sets.

A SET in the real world is a "get by". It "does the job". Looks fairly real until someone slams a door and the 4 foot thick apparent stone wall judders as if its made of polystyrene.   iClone Tutorials is really trying hard to create fast sets that are functional and look good enough on camera to get away with being real. 

Sadly, people seem to assume they need to be a china-shelf modeler. Now, don't get me wrong, scale models are fine. But if they aren't functional, that is, if you cant remove a wall or two, and if they can't be re textured because they've been supplied in parts, whats their use? Whats the point. Why make your movie to look like anyone Else's.

This is one of the reasons why, as far as time is possible, we make sets that can be re textured, resized,, remade, from bits. In the wood shed. Otherwise if you see a set in one movie and then another it loses a pinch of interest and becomes boring and you'll begin to compare one video with the previous one and judge and on and on. Its a negativity.

A set is not a scale model for the china shelf. Its a working model of something thats s'posed to be real. I'm not seeing Sets. I'm seeing empty fixed buildings that do not handle as a set should.

And terminologies also are being misused. Props??? For sets.  Scene for Location?  It might be scenery but it isn't a scene. Seems to me someone isn't in the real movie making industry and thats one book you cannot rewrite.

Either way if you've never turned your hand to iCLone Studio, and you're into the graphic arts, you're missing out on a brand new journey and one you as an artist should be embarking upon.

I'm sure it will all come together in the end. When people start to understand how Hollywood came about but until then we have a film to make and time is crawling on.

Thanks for calling in.  

Armstrong