iClone 6 Pro From The Very Beginning - No Animation Experience

Novica

Well, the title says it all. I'm going to start from scratch with iClone 6 Pro and list the videos and the notes here. The purpose is not to do screenshotting and teach the material (that would slow me down too much) but rather to give both you and me an easy summary of information and notes. Feel free to copy for your own personal use. 

Anyone with experience with iClone 5 or 6 who can clarify / add to the information, please feel free.

For anyone posting, please note-  I want the thread to stay on track and NOT skip around to more advanced concepts. The iray thread is a disaster IMO because everyone asked questions and were at all different levels. This goes from the very start and will work forward. It may not be a perfect sequence, it depends on what I find, but I'll get it as close as possible. Some of it may be repetitious by different contributors, but that's okay, we learn by repetition. 

Anyone who knows of good printed tutorials, feel free to post those too. At this time, I don't need suggestions for videos, there's so many and I'll get to a lot of them. The title of the posts in blue will be videos and clickable links. You may see posts with only the video links, that tells you I am currently writing up the notes/viewing that video. It gives you the chance to watch the videos, then come back here and refresh your memory with the notes (and have them handy.)

I'm doing this primarily for me, but hope you enjoy it and can get motivated to take the leap into animation too. Here goes!

Novica

iClone 5 Quick Fix Tutorial - Scene Creation

It was suggested at Reallusion to start with the basics of iClone 5 to get familiar with the 6 version. Working on the notes for this right now.

Click Stage (top of screen, horizontal menu.)  In the horizontal menu directly below it, click 3D Scene.

Content Manager is on your left, and Template should be selected as the tab. (It is right below the word Content Manager.) In the text area you will see 3D Scene with Height Map_Large as a sub item listed under it. Click it. Next, click Canyon. You won't be keeping this, but you can practice how to scroll around.

These scenes are 9 times larger than previous iClone scenes (remember this is version 5.) 

Ctrl+G toggles the grid off and on.

Although he didn't mention it (not a good trainer frankly) I noticed when he rotated the scene around, he had the orbit-looking icon in use. Look directly above the viewport and you'll see a row of icons. This works like the rotation does in Daz Studio. I'm assuming he selected the icon then held down when he dragged his mouse around.

Hold down Shift to make zooms and rotations faster. He clicked another scene to scroll around, but it isn't necessary.

To create a new scene: (the one we are going to work on) The top horizontal menu: Select Project. In the horizontal menu below it click New Project. If you have a scene loaded, click NO if you don't want to save it, and Yes if you do. He selected NO so we will start from scratch.

Back to the top horizontal menu- Select Set. In the horizontal menu below that, select Terrain. To your left in Content Manager with Template tab, in Height Map_Large double click Hill. Go back up to the second horizontal menu section and click Sky. In Content Manager>Template click Clear Sky. Go back up to the horizontal menu and select Water, back in Content Manager select Gentle Water.

He clicked Play (but lousy again- no clue where that is at)  and zoomed in to add trees. SET tab was used and from Content Manager>Template>he clicked and dragged trees into the scene. To reposition an item, Ctrl+Q if it's not already on, then use the directional arrows to pull it into position. 

The Grass tab (horizontal menu, above viewport) also has flowers. He brought one in by clicking and dragging, then used his mouse scroll to increase the area of coverage.  In Modify panel, there's Size and Density sliders. He moved his mouse around and probably clicked to deposit the clumps of flowers.  

He opens a window (Explore or Explorer?) and clicks and drags the cabin into the scene. I don't know what he opened or where he opened it from. 

Stage tab (above viewport) >Light>Self Cast Shadow because presently there aren't any shadows. 

Scene tab (above viewport> Light> Blur Shadows to soften jagged edges.

Set>Actor to add the avatar (horse.)  Content Manager>Template>Character>Non-Human for the horse. Drag into scene.

Hotkey E will rotate the figure.  Right click the figure to get to the Action Menu. He selected Walk.

Again, lousy video- doesn't say how he got the popup menu to select where to get the horse to walk to. It does appear he clicked on the horse. He selected Move then a sub-slider appeared > Walk A. The horse completed the walk, he right clicked and selected Pesade (rear.) 

Hot key F selects the object (how does it know which one if there are multiple items in the scene?) and I assume he zoomed into it by scrolling.

Stage>Atmosphere for sun settings. Back over in Content Manager, select Sunny. (Template will be open.) 

To change the hue of the sky, go back up to Set>Sky and over in the Modify section, simply slide Hue.

To change the direction of the sun, Hot Key Forward Slash  /  and pulling the globe with your mouse. If you move the timeline forward a bit and change the direction of the sun, it will move as the animation is played.

 

bigh

look forward to see what you do with iClone !

Novica

LOL, apparently not much at this rate. I did manage to FINALLY get the right serial number/download links (bought on Thursday, took until yesterday for support to get Reallusion straightened out) and when I installed the Pro 6 version, it looks NOTHING like the 5 (from video above.) So I might see if there are indeed better Pro 6 versions. 

 

WendyLuvsCatz

I started 3D with iClone 3  in 2009

Novica

JaguarElla said:

I started 3D with iClone 3  in 2009

And it shows- you have expertise! I've enjoyed surfing in to your videos. Do you have standard, pro, pipeline? I think I have to get pipeline to create my own characters.

Right now I'm watching a video by stuckon3D, Christian Moras,  who is a certified instructor for iClone. It's for Version 4 but within the first minute, I've already learned that the Empty Wide means widescreen, whereas Empty Stage is more square. Not sure if I'll write it up as I want version 6,  but it looks interesting.

This video builds a castle- what I learned was how to move cameras, selecting, moving, scaling, rotating items. Also how to duplicate items, what snap to grid and snap to angle does,  change the pivot point and what that does so far as aligning things around the outside of a circle, etc. A fun point was turning off the gizmo- the advantages!

I did learn the following because this wasn't where he said it was- in Version 6, Preferences is under Edit.

To orbit the camera, Alt + Right Mouse

To pan the camera, Alt + Left Mouse

To zoom in and out  Alt + Both Left and Right Mouse

If you get lost on the grid and don't know where the center of it is, simply press Home key.

It's important to use the Alt hotkey because anytime you have an object selected to move it, if you decide to pan, zoom, rotate around, the move function becomes undone. You end up clicking alot back and forth.

Hotkeys:   Move  W        Rotate  E       Scale  R

The red, green blue lined box is called the "Gizmo."

1. Red is X axis (left and right and right is positive, left is negative. It will show you the positive, starting from the center.) 

2. Green is the Y axis and goes from the center to the back. The line shows the positive value.

3. Blue is the Z axis and goes up for the positive values.

Snap to grid- in Preferences, you can increase the grid size, which means your item will cover more area as you travel it along the grid.

Duplicate An Object: Ctrl + Drag Mouse  Do this because it's more efficient than double clicking another item- iClone knows to share the texture from the first one to the second, saves memory.

Select the object + T brings the Modify panel and Tranform boxes up to the top. Useful for if you want to move an item closer to the other one on X axis. Type the number in Move, the X text box. Has MOVE, ROTATE, SCALE in the Transform section.

Turn on or off Snap To Grid   Ctrl + W

Pixel Shading is the solid shading. (as opposed to wireframe)

At 16:09 in the video: To quickly build a row of blocks, select one, then Ctrl+Click+Drag and you will get the blocks.

To multiple select, Ctrl + Click. Then Ctrl Drag the middle one and you'll get a connected row. Ctrl + works with scaling (R) and rotation (E) too. 

Hotkey Q and Ctrl + Drag (you'll see a yellow highlight go over the items) to select a row of objects. Can use to delete large sections.

Using the Z and pulling up, all the blocks will rise. You can then select one and pull it down and because Snap To Grid is on, you know it will line up. He doesn't mention how to scale it, but remember it is the hotkey R. When he scaled, he used the cube at the end of each of the XYZ lines.

To make things attach, select all (Q+Ctrl+Drag) then right click on one of them and select Attach in the popup. Then click on what you want the objects to attach to. Then you can scale it, Ctrl+Drag and you've copied the wall and have a second one!

Angle Snap: like grid snap only it helps when rotating items. It's also in Preferences. 45 degrees is a nice amount. Ctrl+E

Use of a cylinder to make a tower: Cylinder 001 is 90 polygons vs 60 with 004. If seen from a distance, select the cylinder with 60 polygons.

Hotkey Y  Material and Textures Settings

TIP: Bring a person into the scene so you can scale the surroundings appropriately. Tab above viewport is Actor.

TIP To move item to World Center, hit T (Transform) then set MOVE X and Y to 0.

If you want to turn the shadow off, go to Scene Manager>Lights, select any light, then go to Shadows> Shadow Type>None. Or you can extend the Light section as the last column (hidden) is Shadows and you can unclick it from there.

To attach squares to a circle:  Have circle at World Center. Set>Props>Cube. Scale (R) the cube. Ctrl + W to turn off snap to grid so you can get more to the edge of the circle. You want the pivot point to be World Center so go to Modify Panel>Pivot. Choices are Center, Bottom Center, Scene Root. Select Scene Root. (Question- is Scene Root always World Center?)  Hit E (Rotation), Ctrl+Drag, the boxes will form around the curve, equi-distance from World Center. You could also Ctrl+Click and select the items and Ctrl+Drag and they will appear.

Press Q to select the squares, then right click on one and tell it to attach to the circular base. If your items which are grouped are floating on the base,  press Q and click one of the group, then W to move them down, then click on the parent.

If you want to duplicate those squares again, you need to turn off Snap To Angle (Ctrl+E)  

To deselect an item in a group, Ctrl+Select then Ctrl+Click.

Ctrl+Q turns off the gizmo. Very handy for when you don't want to move your camera to get the gizmo in view to move your item. Once the gizmo is off, you can click anywhere and move your mouse and it will pull the item. Use the mouse wheel to move it vertically- or use Ctrl+up and down arrows. For bigger increments, Ctrl+up and down arrows + Shift. When you are in Move mode without the gizmo, it is multifunctional- it will also rotate. (It does different things with the left, right, and both mouse buttons.)   You can left click and scale too!

In Transform, Reset will put the item back to World Center if that's where it loaded into the scene.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WendyLuvsCatz

I only had iC3 std for years as had a crappy laptop with sad graphics but once I got my desktop went pro and pipeline

iclone introduced me to 3D but I soon moved to Carrara but after getting a better PC went back to it as well

DAZ studio was rarely used as just crashed untill new PC and DS4+ even works now on craptop too so only been using that last couple years otherwise was mainly a Carrara user with a bit of Poser and iclone,

for a new user iClone very easy and intuative but you prolly need to unlearn DAZ ways of doing stuff as quite different.

Novica

I love it- craptop!? Well said. 

Yeah, the first thing I wondered was the difference in the XYZ axis- instead of Y being up and down, the above video is showing Z. I do really like Christian Moras as a video instructor, learning a LOT. (Then again, he's worked on Star Trek: Voyager and Deep Space Nine, worked for Disney and Nickelodeon. I can tell he really lknows his stuff, and he's kinda humorous too.)  Don't know what he charges but at least the student(s) would learn a great deal. I'm going to research and see if he has any series online, other than this first part from Vimeo.

Novica

Shark Attack video by stuckon3D. Researching, and yes, he's done a great many tutorials, including iclone 5. From that video link you can get to his channel and see some wonderful animations!

bigh

you don't need pipeline to create my own characters.

if you are talking about using DS models .

just 3dxchange .

tut. - look at ones from Real - Warload - smallwstudio

start with this one

then this

then this