Reallusion iClone 3 PRO

Reallusion's impressive 3D animation application, iClone 3 Pro 3D Filmmaking studio, is back in a significantly improved and enhanced edition. A full-featured digital 3D animation and machinima filmmaking, Reallusion iClone 3 Pro has long been considered one of the most impressive and versatile digital filmmaking applications available.

IClone 3 Pro features an even greater range of digital characters, a huge database of full-3D settings and environments, and fluid and realistic digital movements and animation loops. Designed to appeal to both the beginner and expert machinima animator, Reallusion iClone 3 Pro is a worthwhile filmmaking and encoding app for digital animators.

Built with a significantly different interface than previous versions of iClone, iClone 3 Pro is split into two different production and recording modes. The first, editor's mode, is arranged as a full-featured customization and set management mode. Users can control lighting sources, type, and intensity, position their characters on the set, and lay out basic motion paths and scene information.

In the second mode, director's mode, users can easily control their characters using their keyboard and mouse. Set out using a video game-style engine , users are free to move their target character throughout the set. This combination of two distinctly different editing modes gives users extra control over their digital films, allowing users to quickly edit motion paths and set design on the fly.

IClone 3 Pro's interface is user-friendly and simple to navigate, offering the standard range of digital animation options without feeling cluttered and difficult. Saving and editing films is simple, as animation data is arranged similarly to real digital film data in an editing suite. Users can easily pick and choose scenes to include, and quickly crop scenes for length.

A number of encoding options are available, along with several tools for rendering 3D movies. HD rendering modes are available, but are typically slow and somewhat unstable for users without high-end PCs.

Reallusion iClone PRO: What We Liked

• Brand new interface and animation tools keep iClone 3 Pro user-friendly and simple to operate.
• 'Director' and 'Editor' mode give users greater control over their 3D films, and allow quick changes to setting and characters.
• 3D videos can be encoded and exported in full HD.

Reallusion iClone PRO: What We Didn't Like

• Encoding and rendering can be sluggish, especially on low-end PC hardware.

Reallusion Support

Online support is available for iClone 3 Pro users via Reallusion's website. Software FAQs, knowledge base articles, and a full discussion and support forum are available, along with email-based technical support.

About Reallusion

One of the most well-known and highly regarded companies in the digital multimedia space, Reallusion Inc. offer a wide range of multimedia applications, voice and video encoding tools, and digital animation suites. Their most well-known product, iClone 3 Pro 3d Filmmaking Studio, has received support from Google 3D Warehouse, along with a number of large unofficial communities.

     

iClone 3.0 PRO is the ultimate edition of iClone, intended for those who are serious about productivity and quality output. Its exclusive features include advanced timeline editors to fine tune all movie elements with precise timing, speed, parameter change and loop control. iClone 3 actors can converse with the multiple actor facial animation and lip-synch tracks for sophisticated dialog management. The actor motion building system layers poses with motion clips, and provides smooth blending results for fluid actor animation. The more advanced DramaScript capability combines export animation segments with a set of directions to build custom interactive 3D content.

iClone 3.0, an innovative yet easy-to-use software application that makes it simple to add animation to your video projects, whether you are an aspiring filmmaker or just someone who would like to add talking 3D actors and, SIMS-like content to your latest YouTube offering, podcast, blog, corporate presentation, or school project.

iClone 3.0 simplifies the animation process to two production modes: Editor Mode and Director Mode. Editor Mode allows you to create and refine your scene and actors, and Director Mode to command how your actors behave with the ease of moving around in your favourite videogame.

The enhancements in iClone 3.0 begin with the most elemental of all filmmaking tools, the camera. iClone's camera system is revised to allow you to add as a many cameras to a scene as you require and actively switch the live camera view throughout your animation enabling you to record an animated scene much like real-world filmmaking.

The camera system also has capabilities to support first-person recording with FlyCam and WalkCam cameras that follow terrain or soar through the sky with adjustable speeds. Cameras can be directed to follow or look-at any object in the scene and track the movement of actors and props. Cameras can also display Depth of Field and Vertigo Lens effects for producing dramatic shots in real-time without post-production processing.

Advanced Timeline Generator

• Full Avatar Track Management for multi-actor dialog and sophisticated motion editing.
• Play-to-Create Live Motion Recording.
• Complete motion editing with advanced Timeline Motion Tracks.
• Flexible Clip Collection which allows you to precisely define the animation output range and build libraries of animation assets.
• Advanced Multiple Camera Timeline System.
• Full featured Lighting System and Timeline Control.
• Two additional sound tracks allow users to easily add SoundFX to movies with dedicated music and effect tracks.

Production Environment

• Interactive Play-to-Create movie directing mode.
• Complete scene and actor editing mode.
• Collapsible user interface and full screen operation.
• Scene Manager for total project asset list and access.
• In-screen object editing, faster object transformation, multiple select, model
  copy, and save to library.
• Record live footage inside iClone3 as Action Captures.
• Multiple actor selection and management tool.

Casting & Actor Style

• G3 Avatar - fast performance and higher quality with fine texture detail.
• Photo-to-3D face fitting for generating custom actors.
• Design custom actor faces with facial feature morphing.
• Define faces with Normal Maps and multiple textures for aging and skin texture.
• Customizable 3D actor face shape morphing including eyes, teeth and skin color.
• Body shaping with individual bone size scaling.
• CloneCloth - Custom actor clothing to cut and design.
• Persona - Apply personality and direct your target actor by live keyboard control (W,S,A,D keys for actor puppeteering).

Motion & Interactivity

• Live puppeteering controls actors and vehicles with hotkeys and right-click action menu.
• Multi-actor dialog timeline for actor conversations.
• Select, pose and animate actors with layered motion editing.
• Camera and actor follow with look-at constraint.
• DramaScript open source for writing actor and object interactivity.
• Instant prop interaction with iProp Helpers.

Props & Scenes

• Load and customize props, terrain, sky, grass and water.
• Automatic real-time Flying Surface simulation with FLEX technology.
• Water features ripple movement with reflection and refraction.
• Landscape designer adds trees, flowers, plants and grass to any terrain.
• iClone3 atmosphere can be made with 3D scene, sky, light, fog and weather particle settings.
• Load 2D photos as image layers and backgrounds.

Camera & Lighting

• Add multiple cameras to scenes with live view switching.
• Live camera recording using fly, walk and follow cameras with videogame-like hotkey and mouse-look interaction.
• Real-time advanced camera effects including depth of field and lens animation.
• Camera keyframe smoothing for automatic camera correction.
• Lighting system with directional, point and spotlight.
• Quick track editing for cameras, lights and their attributes.

Special Effects

• Particle system special effects for fog, fire, smoke and more.
• Actor and object particle system linkage for attached effects.
• Material effects for glow, reflection, bump, opacity, specular, normal and diffuse.
• Advanced material effects - reflection & refraction.
• Instantly spice up your movie with music and soundFX tracks.
• Audio blending with fade in, fade out, and volume settings.

Rendering & Output

• Multiple shader selection for performance enhancing preview options.
• Real-time preview, in and out markers and playback looping.
• Select and render previewing for isolated area rendering.
• High speed rendering for fast footage production.
• Flexible output for sharing or post-production (HD & DVD video, AVI, WMV, Flash, MPEG-4).