We received an interesting 2018 Roadmap notice from Reallusion yesterday. It would say the "Gauntlet is thrown" and Reallusion is going to compete directly with DAZ3D in the morphable prefab 3D Character market.

For those unaware, We animators who purchased the Full Iclone Pro/3Dxchange Pipeline version( $700 USD) Received a bundled application Called "Character creator " that includes base male Female Characters with Morph & Skin presets and a few base clothing and hairs for creation of more customized Iclone realtime avatars to use in Iclone as an alternative to the stock Icone Avatars.

This is all about to Change later this year.

"The Decision to Make CC a Standalone Product

CC, at its inception, was a plug-in for iClone to fulfill the needs of the animation industry. In order to export characters from CC to 3rd party tools, users were required to purchase 3DXchange Pro / Pipeline edition.

CC quickly became a market leader in the field of 3D character creation with its ability to morph the human body in boundless ways, dress and conform a variety of garments, supple implementation of facial expressions, support for body motions and much much more.

Over the last two plus years, we have received a lot of demand of the character generation features in CC from non-iClone users, spanning the field of 3D game development, AR/VR and other interactive applications. In response, we have decided to make CC a standalone application which can chart its own path and destiny. This has big implications in the way CC will take shape to support all of the necessary character import and export features, minimize its barriers to entry, and lower its dependency to outside 3D tools.

What to Expect for Character Creator 3

As a result of more research and development allocated to CC3, this year saw the rise of significant technological breakthroughs. They include optimization techniques relevant to game characters, deployment of physically accurate fine rendering, and marked enhancements to data exchange with 3rd party solutions. Using mesh optimization and remeshing technology, CC3 can satisfy the requirements of different gaming environments including first and third person perspective, non-player characters and crowd simulation among others.

In addition, the full integration of NVIDIA Iray fine render technology allows CC3 to deliver photorealistic still imagery.

All this comes with the benefit of working with one of the world's most interoperable and user friendly content creation pipeline. This ease of operation extends to the integration of ZBrush with GoZ - the dynamic bridge that allows for the sculpting of CC's quad based meshes for the body and other tangibles.

The asset creation pipeline has also been expedited with the ability to directly import any sort of OBJ file and using CC3 auto-skin and skin weight editing, create content that is 100% compatible with CC3."

( Autorigging self made clothing models much like Daz's transfer utility)

"Users who continue to use CC for iClone will also benefit from the new generation of character bases that will be released with CC3. Assets and garments already owned can be applied to this new generation base body,** as it is completely backwards compatible." **

This new stand alone version of Character creator will also feature a poly reduction feature much like the Decimator plugin for Daz studio It will also feature Iclones professional posing and animation tools with Iclone Foot & hand IK solver.

No word on pricing yet but certainly alot to ponder for us animators.

Interesting! Thanks for the post!

Be curious to see the price point for it, and what is included. I bought iClone a while back, and really liked the animation part, but the marketplace was nuts, and the figures from one generation to the next were limited. I got frustrated with pulling in DS characters. If this gets a good focus standalone it could compete, as (IMO) DS's animation is its weak spot now, since it resolved dynamics.

Then again, the free software model Daz has, will make it hard to lure hobbyists, and beginners.

You actually thought DAZ would allow a similar thread to remain upon its native forums?

Bud, they "nuked" it good! It ain't there no mo'!

Sincerely,

Bill

Interesting! Thanks for the post!

Be curious to see the price point for it, and what is included. >I bought iClone a while back, and really liked the animation >part, but the marketplace was nuts, and the figures from one >generation to the next were limited. I got frustrated with >pulling in DS characters.

This is a smart move by Reallusion IMHO. Apparently they realized that you need to bring new users completely into your content ecosystem with higher quality native figures. (are you listening Smith Micro??)

Also it looks like most of the import /export functionalty of the (still 32 bit),3DXchange pipeline tool will be folded into the new version of Character creator. I had decided not to upgrade from my Iclone 6.5/3DX pipeline suite because I make my own clothing for genesis 1,2,3 and am liberated from the Daz content hamster wheel.

I had not intention of jumping over to Reallusions Content $$$market$$$ however if their planned version of the transfer tool allows me to rig my own imported models as Icone clothing as easy I do with Daz genesi content ,..this will very tempting.

If this gets a good focus standalone it could compete, as >>(IMO) DS's animation is its weak spot now, since it resolved >dynamics.

Indeed and Daz seems to have very little interest in Adding a proper HumanIK solver to DS or any other rigid body physics as their focus remains on the one framers even with Dforce

Then again, the free software model Daz has, will make it >hard to lure hobbyists, and beginners.

There is the challenge for Reallusion. They already have a hardcore base of pure animators who do everything in iclone However if they choose the right price point and include Iclones animation tools as they have stated,

This will be very attractive to other animators&Game Devs who cannot justify the $700 USD price for the full pipeline suite just to get import/ export functionality of their own custom rigs. And the integration of Nvidia Iray may even bring in newbie one framers and other still Illustrators.

Interesting times ahead.