Why a “better” render engine in Iclone won’t matter…

iClone General
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…unless you have better model assets and professional post production.
I have noticed that most Iclone animated productions made with unreal engine are only marginally better looking than the Iclone native engine ,and to be very frank, most are not even visually superior to the iclone native engine IMHO

The reason for this are clearly demonstrated in this video where Blur studios used the exact same Unreal Engine that every Iclone user can access .

They made an episode for the Netflix series “Secret Level” with custom Character models converted to metahumans .
Created many in camera visual effects with the “Niagra” particle system of UE5
Rendered with Lumen (not path traced)
and further post lighting effects added with Nuke.

Its not just about the render engine !!!

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agreed - i noticed that years ago - when i realized that the most popular animations were anything but real - and if anything the more realistic people tried to make their animations the more there was to complain about and it wasn’t about the story anymore. it actually became a distraction from the story because “the shadows looked funny” or “was this low budget, because everything looked so fake” - meanwhile you have all these comic book anime’s with cult followings made from simple sketches because they loved the story lol - your visuals are supposed to tell a story, not compete with it.

ironically what i found mattered more than the visuals was the voice acting - if the voice acting is bad - it’s game over, no matter how good your story and visuals are.

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For clarification I am not opposed to the idea of a more realistic render engine however what good is it when you do not have realistic Dynamic hair/fur or cloth simulation to go with it?
or “realistic" smoke & pyro effects
Its good that Reallusion is cranking up the face Details in the upcoming CC5
But what about “realistic” joint deformations and muscle simulation and other soft body physics?

All of these elements need to be present if you want “realism”

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I think it is a uniquely frustrating aspect of our work (especially if it’s not stylized 3D) that when people watch it, they are measuring its realism (in a visual sense of the word) and it is a deciding factor of how quality it is.

Meanwhile, like you said, if it’s a stylized, very simplistic 2D animation, people instantly see it as more professional (I’m not saying any 2D animation looks professional but I do think it’s easier to get away with it) and since it’s a “choice of style”, it’s not really an aspect that would affect the overall assessment of the work’s quality. And from the smallest “mistake” (which could be just a limitation of the engine) people can come to the conclusion that not enough effort was put into it, even if it was much more in reality.

I think another reason is that people often associate 3D with videogames so they kind of imagine the process of creating 3D animated films as just recording a videogame session. At least that’s what I got from people’s occasional comments when they talk about 3D animated movies or CGI elements in a live action film.

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i think that’s just psychology - human tendency to pick the best from choices - we know real, we live real…so we pick the best of real…where as in stylyzed 2D - there really isn’t a comparison - unless you made a bunch of copycats - ie - vector graphic animations - since so many people do that style, there is now a standard and a “best of the best” and i personally do not enjoy “the best of the best” in vector graphics because it looks so polished that it doesn’t even look like fun art anymore. I get stressed just looking at it lol - art would be much better if people would simply enjoy different and diverse, and stop looking for best of the best, “don’t let perfection be the enemy of good”

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I would pose that even 3D animation often is not photo-realistic and that the audience has no problems with that by and large.

There is just different looks: the mainstream Disney/Pixar, etc. look and then everything outside that, which is much broader in look and often more interesting.

Netflix offers a lot of animation that is like a mixture of Anime and 3D. I was inspired by the look of “Ghost in the Shell SAC_2045”.

That’s why I’m not stressing out anymore about people’s comments. If they don’t like it, that’s fine.

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Doing car chases using the provided tools in physics sucks, also UE5 has better assets to whereas Reallusion makes you pay for everything and something’s should just be included into the software like the proudly boasted “Time Code” plugin and at this point I’m well into a few thousand of dollars invested into this software, Now Character Creator 4 is awesome but for some odd reason every time I see Mocap software promo’s or any 3D animation promotional content , I never see anyone boasting about iClone and it being on the list of an industry standard like Blender, Cinema 4D, Maya, Houdini.

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You are welcome to go elsewhere.

I’m just reading that Blender may be in financial trouble so this so-called FREE atitude is unsustainable in the long run. There has to be cash flow, that’s how the world works, unless you want to sleep in the streets.

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I see Mocap software promo’s or any 3D animation promotional content , I never see anyone boasting about iClone and it being on the list of an industry standard like Blender, Cinema 4D, Maya, Houdini.

Well to be honest Blender is not an
“industry standard” either as its native VFX tools and its render engine are not up to the standards of major Hollywood studios as they all use Maya along with Houdini

At this point I have ZERO sympathy for Daz or Iclone users crying about how much they have spent on these programs
“and they still don’t have this or that feature”

If you are too lazy to learn one of the many FREE external option for which Reallusion or even Daz provides exporters to send your animated characters over for a better rendering VFX environment ( UE5, Blender etc)
well that is your fault is it not?

Step outside of your comfort bubble or stay inside the Reallusion ecosystem and learn to cope with whatever you feel are it’s limitations

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I agree with that. I have probably spent more than most since I started with iClone 1.58, and I have learned to work with what I have and accept the limitations, as I have my own. I use post-processing to get what I want.

NO professional pipeline uses only a single program or for that matter a single render pass. Look at the credits of an animated feature film. There are hundreds of people involved from many different departments, and a typical production may take years to complete.

Maybe users should set realistic goals and try to produce a story that people can watch.

I have to find it, but at a seminar about VFX they showed an example of a short sci-fi movie (live action) that looked great. And then they showed how it was done, which was even more impressive. Being inventive is an important skill.

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Agreed, the render is often better than reality. Life imitates art, when it can.

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when it comes to rendering nvidia omniverse is very obvious to be superior even without pathtrace . OV is the quickest to give true render superiority. as an individual or small team of 2

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You’re missing the point. Unreal Engine (UE) is what iClone should have been: a comprehensive ecosystem. UE’s MetaHuman, though not easily exported, keeps users within its environment. Indie developers can’t afford and don’t have the manpower to learn and subscribe to numerous external tools to achieve a single result. As a small team or individual using iClone, needing to export CC files for simulations, physics, textures, rendering, sculpting, and particle effects requires learning too many other software packages. Is constantly buying new plugins just to compensate for iClone’s limitations a sustainable solution?

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Blender is capable of producing professional-quality movies entirely within the software. While Hollywood uses multiple specialized programs due to large budgets, smaller and independent filmmakers often rely on iClone. Therefore, it’s crucial to make iclone even more robust. for any improvement made in iclone the company will sell you a plugin its all business nothing in the interest of users

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Unreal Engine (UE) is what iClone should have been: a comprehensive ecosystem.

Unreal engine is primarily for AAA game development
and always has been since the days of the old “unreal tournament” video game
Iclone orginaly was a “machinima” type animation app for
previs and low budget animated movie making like the old “movie storm” software.

Indie developers can’t afford and don’t have the manpower to learn and subscribe to numerous external tools to achieve a single result. As a small team or individual using iClone, needing to export CC files for simulations, physics, textures, rendering, sculpting, and particle effects requires learning too many other software packages.

Well there is no getting around that for game dev or even high quality film making, in 2025, unless you commit to a true 3DCC software like Maya or Blender(with some pro addons)
and build & rig your characters and environments from scratch
and even then you are probably going to need Zbrush
and substance painter

Iclone/CC4 is not a 3DCC
you kid yourselves if you believe otherwise.
At its core it is a 3D prefab figure p software much like Daz studio or even the vestigial poser, all be it with far better human IK and motion clip system AND unlike Daz/Poser you have very easy tools to import your own characters and make them easily functional inside Iclone via Accurig.

Smaller and independent filmmakers often rely on iClone. Therefore, it’s crucial to make Iclone even more robust.

Iclone has been made more “robust” even since the days of iclone 5.5 when I started with it as merely an animation retarget tool for my Daz/Poser animation projects that were rendered in Maxon C4D.

The problem with the complainers ,as I see it, is the same old entrenched ecosystem comfort bubble mentality.
people don’t want to have to step outside of Iclone even if the external options are FREE!! (omniverse,UE5,Blender)

Thats fine, but you are not going to get rendering or VFX
on the same level as a true 3DCC or game engine, all packed into Iclone/CC4
at a perpetual price of $900.

for any improvement made in iclone the company will sell you a plugin its all business nothing in the interest of users

Well Reallusion has to finance the continued development of the software and you don’t want to pay monthly subscriptions
so where is the money going to come from?

and BTW NONE of the paid plugins are necessary to make animated films or animation for game development with Iclone.

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Is iClone’s robustness just a facade? Many core features remain neglected: soft body and rigid body physics haven’t been updated, instead they push you to go and learn and buy marvelous designer, PopcornFX is gone and no replacement. Is this due to underfunding? Now, paid plugins dominate. iClone needs polished rendering to achieve AAA status. CC5’s perceived good rendering was its only real draw. they have even neglected soft physics export for nvidia omniverse. all because its not going to fetch them money till they make a plugin for 200$.

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Well if you look at Actor core, Reallusion’s primary business
is selling motion Data and with Iclone acting as Motion Data exchange app much like Motion builder is.

creating a new high quality internal render engine from scratch as well as new cloth and rigid/soft body physics engine would explode the cost of Iclone and make it unaffordable for most users.

It would need to be several thousand dollars for Iclone
so who is going to buy it??

It would not grow the user base enough to recover the investment because Autodesk users will not switch to Reallusion due to entrenched pipeline with custom tools.

Houdini users will not switch because, whatever Reallsuion does with new cloth and rigid/soft body physics it wont be close to Houdini’s system

There are a few Maxon C4D users in this community
and they don’t care about better new cloth and rigid/soft body physics or render engine in Iclone because they import character to C4D where they have all these features.

Blender users largely are not willing to buy Iclone/CC4 at the current price thus are not going to pay thousands for some new version with new cloth and rigid/soft body physics
they will just make do with Blenders system and buy a few addons.

And Daz users are mostly NOT animators and will never leave the FREE Daz studio and it’s genesis models and Iray at the current Iclone/CC4 pricing much less pay thousands more.

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PopcornFX is NOT gone.

I have made several movies rendered with iClone and then additional post-processing to get a graphic-novel look, which have been shown before audiences at film festivals. I have NEVER heard anyone complain about the rendering.

But “you have to do the work” as Autodidact once remarked, and that goes for ANY software. I have tried Unreal and to me it’s a hassle and that goes for other “alternatives” as well.

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yRaytracing implementation isn’t a major financial burden, as Nvidia provides kits. iClone could embed Omniverse for seamless rendering, eliminating file exports and multiple windows. Major iClone updates necessitate rendering engine updates. If Reallusion won’t update the engine, they should announce the end of rendering support. Abandoning features like physics, without updates, is unacceptable.

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You fail to understand it’s about money, not creative freedom.