iClone

3D Animation Movie Maker

If you have a tight budget but would like to make a movie which uses 3D animation, then you might want to consider using a 3D animation movie maker software such as iClone. Unlike most other Machinima tools, iClone is not a 3D game, but has been purpose built for people who specifically want to make a movie, but don't have the financial backing of a commercial movie studio behind them.

iClone is a product of Reallusion who make a number of computer graphic software products. The two main things that attracted me to it were:-

1. It was built with the specific purpose of allowing the general public to make 3D animated movies. The most basic form of iClone costs about the same amount as the average popular computer game.

2. For a long time I had been searching for a computer game that would let me make Machinima incorporating horses. When I first came across iClone, they had just released a Horse & Tack add-on pack, which was just what I was looking for.

I used the free trail version, which I downloaded from the Reallusion web site for a few days to convince myself it did most of what I wanted. As a result I made an online purchase of the iClone Standard Edition. At the time the latest version of iClone was iClone2. That was great, but the latest version iClone3, is a big step forward.

After a couple of days of using iClone2, I found that a major bit of functionality, which had been in the trial version and which I wanted, was not in the Standard edition. i.e. The animation timeline editor was missing. So while characters could be animated in terms of moving their arms, legs etc. using predefined motion sequences, they could not be made to move about in the scene. This would be fine if you wanted to make a movie of a news reader, or people sitting on a couch doing a chat show, or walking on a treadmill in a gymnasium, but it didn't meet my needs. I wanted shots of horses galloping across fields and people chasing other people through towns etc. I went back to the documentation on the web site and sure enough, the timeline editor was a feature that was in the Studio edition, but not the Standard edition. I immediately upgraded.

In fairness to Reallusion, their product comparison table did state that this feature was not in the Standard edition, I just failed to connect the description with it's significance. Also upgrading to the Studio edition from the Standard edition, only cost me the price of the difference, so I wasn't out of pocket as a result, although I did end up spending more than I had planned.

If I had any reservations about iClone, it would be that unless you are satisfied the very limited quantity of scenes, avatars, props, hair styles, clothing styles provided with the product, you will either end up purchasing them as add-on items or importing them. This can end up being quite an expensive. For example at the time of writing there are suggestions that you can build and import some of these items in and from 3DS Studio Max, which is not a product which is in the budget of most machinima enthusiasts. It is also possible to import these types of item from various sources on the internet and from certain computer games. Here you need to careful not to infringe copyrights of the third party sources. In order to import models from other sources you need to purchase the iClone add on product 3DXchange. Since writing about this reservation, I have found that it is possible to build sets, props etc. in iClone itself - even though some of their own publicity doesn't give that impression.

While I don't yet find all of the things you can do in iClone to be instantly intuitive, there is a lot of functionality hidden away which may not be apparent with just a few hours of use. There are helpful video tutorials and a web forum where you can seek help.

From much of what I've written above you may think I was disappointed with iClone. This is certainly not the case. You only have to study the Reallusion web site and view some of the sample clips to see what it is capable of - I just didn't see the point of re-iterating all that here. I am sure that just the ability to easily create a cast of characters using photos of the faces of family, friends and movie stars, will be enough to excite many people.

Most importantly iClone has been built as a comprehensive tool for making 3D animated sequences. For the machinima enthusiast this means you can focus on making the movie sequences you want rather than trying to trick a particular game into yielding up the material you need.

I am very pleased with my iClone purchase, all I need now is enough spare time to make full use of it. I will continue to add pages of hints and tips for using iClone as I gain more experience of using it. These iClone hints and tips can be accessed from the links above, near the top left side of this page.