Derrick
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- Joined
- Nov 22, 2010
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Be prepared to hit a brick wall before too long if you plan on getting serious about your animation or want to create quality custom content from scratch.
For those of you unfamiliar with the term, machinima is the art of using an existing videogame engine and development tools (such as the Unreal Engine 3) to create a non-interactive short film, music video or any other animation. Machinima vary from hilarious ‘in’ jokes about the gaming industry to dramatic recreations of live-action films, all the while requiring that the creators have an in-depth knowledge of the development software and a keen eye for animation.
You may be surprised, then, (I know, I was) to discover iClone 3 – a dedicated tool that uses its own game engine, pre-built models and animations to deliver machinima creation tools to the user while requiring little actual game-editing ability to operate.
iClone offers the user a number of pre-built pieces, props, stages and characters with which to build their dream film. On the surface, the program is simple and quick to use, allowing users to throw together a decent looking short film in the space of a few
hours. The preset animations can all be tweaked and adjusted, and the useful Director mode allows you to animate your characters’ movement and basic actions in real time using the familiar WASD keys. Sadly, the ease of use ends here. Getting your characters to do much more than simple adjustments to the built-in animations is a pain, as the standard mode doesn’t offer any sort of layered timeline editing – what many would regard as the primary tool in any animation package.
Taking cues from Poser, iClone 3 also includes a number of physics based tools such as cloth simulation and soft bodies. On the flipside, the interface is largely reminiscent of 3DS Max (down to transforming hotkeys and a scrollable command panel), but misses out on the majority of complexity offered by Max. The back of the box bills iClone 3 as the perfect entry for 3D moviemaking - it’s not far off. For anyone who’s perhaps a little scared of traditional animation or is unwilling to learn and customise existing systems, you can’t really go wrong here. It accomplishes what it sets out to do admirably, but much like similar pre-build-focused tools like Bryce and Poser, it’s incredibly limiting when you find the need to dig a little deeper.
While there is a fair number of built-in models and animations, it’s difficult to create anything much more than “Generic Fight Scene 5” or “Guy Gets Into Car in Peaceful Neighbourhood.” It should do nicely for those looking to get started with animation, especially if you’ve played around with machinima tools or even played The Movies. But be prepared to hit a brick wall before too long if you plan on getting serious about your animation or want to create quality custom content from scratch.
For those of you unfamiliar with the term, machinima is the art of using an existing videogame engine and development tools (such as the Unreal Engine 3) to create a non-interactive short film, music video or any other animation. Machinima vary from hilarious ‘in’ jokes about the gaming industry to dramatic recreations of live-action films, all the while requiring that the creators have an in-depth knowledge of the development software and a keen eye for animation.
You may be surprised, then, (I know, I was) to discover iClone 3 – a dedicated tool that uses its own game engine, pre-built models and animations to deliver machinima creation tools to the user while requiring little actual game-editing ability to operate.
iClone offers the user a number of pre-built pieces, props, stages and characters with which to build their dream film. On the surface, the program is simple and quick to use, allowing users to throw together a decent looking short film in the space of a few
hours. The preset animations can all be tweaked and adjusted, and the useful Director mode allows you to animate your characters’ movement and basic actions in real time using the familiar WASD keys. Sadly, the ease of use ends here. Getting your characters to do much more than simple adjustments to the built-in animations is a pain, as the standard mode doesn’t offer any sort of layered timeline editing – what many would regard as the primary tool in any animation package.
Taking cues from Poser, iClone 3 also includes a number of physics based tools such as cloth simulation and soft bodies. On the flipside, the interface is largely reminiscent of 3DS Max (down to transforming hotkeys and a scrollable command panel), but misses out on the majority of complexity offered by Max. The back of the box bills iClone 3 as the perfect entry for 3D moviemaking - it’s not far off. For anyone who’s perhaps a little scared of traditional animation or is unwilling to learn and customise existing systems, you can’t really go wrong here. It accomplishes what it sets out to do admirably, but much like similar pre-build-focused tools like Bryce and Poser, it’s incredibly limiting when you find the need to dig a little deeper.
While there is a fair number of built-in models and animations, it’s difficult to create anything much more than “Generic Fight Scene 5” or “Guy Gets Into Car in Peaceful Neighbourhood.” It should do nicely for those looking to get started with animation, especially if you’ve played around with machinima tools or even played The Movies. But be prepared to hit a brick wall before too long if you plan on getting serious about your animation or want to create quality custom content from scratch.