Feminine Movement Volume 1

Blink and you miss things over at the Reallusion Content Store. Just by chance I was checking out the store and came across this new motion pack entitled Feminine Movement Volume 1. The pack contains 36 new feminine motions for the female figure and looks a really great addition to your motion library. Priced at $29.95 you can check it out here:

Free CloneCloth Casual Top

Something different today. I'm including a free texture set for Jane's CloneCloth Casual outfit.

To use the new top just click both the thumbnail images above and save them to your computer.

Then simply open up Jane's CloneCloth Casual Upper template. Switch to the Modify tab and import the diffuse and the opacity textures you downloaded in turn.

That's all there is to it. If you find this kind of freebie useful then let me know and I'll add some more over the coming weeks.

Fashion Gear Volume 1

Reallusion have released another great addition to its content store entitled Fashion Gear Volume 1. The pack contains 127 fashion items for your G2 characters. Available as a combo pack with everything in one or as individual packs if you only want certain items. The new release breaks down as follows:

• Fashion Gear Vol 1 Combo Pack (127 items) $79.95


• or in individual packs.


• Classic Cuts Vol 2 (20 new hair styles) $17.95


• Costume Jewellery Vol 1 (5 Jewellery sets) $5.95


• Urban Eyewear Vol 1 (26 pairs of glasses) $19.95


• Fancy Footwear Vol 1 (40 pairs of shoes) $29.95


• Packs, Bags and Cases Vol 1 (36 items) $29.95

You can find full information plus screenshots of all the items here:

New 3DXchange Tutorials Available

2 new excellent 3DXchange video tutorials are available from Reallusion. Check them out below:

3DXchange GUI overview



3DXchange Tutorial - Animated Jeep with moving wheels

Vista Patch, Where Art Thou?

Sometime in the next week or so should see the release of the iClone Vista patch that will finally mean I can move completely to my new Vista shod computer. I really can't wait as I'am so tired of having to switch computers to use iClone especially as the Vista powered machine has much better specs and will make my iClone experience so much better in every way.

I made the jump to Vista quite a while ago and overall I'm pleased with the Vista experience and really can't understand why so many people hate it. Since the release of the Crazytalk 4.6 patch I have moved CT over to my Vista computer and it runs great, so it's just iClone that is letting the side down now.

For about a week I ran iClone on the Vista PC and everything seemed ok at first, but then the dreaded crashes began when trying to open certain projects and I was forced to head back to my old PC. I really hope there won't be any further delays with the patch. Right now I've got everything I can crossed in the hope that it gets released next week. Then I can finally get the full WOW experience that Bill promised me all those months ago.

Jack Has Some Corrective Surgery

Reallusion recently released an updated CloneCloth Jack Casual model. The new v1.1 corrects a problem which caused some people to suggest that Jack had developed man-boobs. This must have hurt his feelings a little because Jack clearly works out and was probably proud of his pecs, but now he has had a little trimmed off to make his clothes hang better. Whatever next, suggestions that Jane's posterior looks big in her dresses. There will be hell to pay if that happens.

Joking aside, you can get the updated figure from here:

Swinging 60s Dress and Boot Pack

Well finally I have completed the content pack I was working on and have submitted it for review at Reallusion. I've been working to a deadline for this pack and it's been a bit of a struggle to to get it done in time because other work commitments have got in the way, but finally I got this one in the can and away. The pack is entitled the Swinging 60s Dress and Boots Pack and all being well it will be one of a batch of new CloneCloth packs coming to the Reallusion content store very soon.

I'm eagerly looking forward to seeing what the other developers are doing with CloneCloth because really the possibilities are endless with this fantastic new system, and I think the content store will be buzzing with new stuff real soon.

Anyway the image above is the promo pic for the new pack, so feel free to post a comment on it or on anything else iClone related. I welcome all comments, good or bad. You can check out the Reallusion Content Store here:

Furntiture Pack Vol 1 Released

It's been a busy couple of days for me which has kept me away from the blog sadly. I 've been preparing the final touches to a new clothing content pack that will (hopefully) be available soon from the Reallusion Content Store, that's as long as I make the deadline for submissions. I'll hopefully post a couple of teaser pics in a day or so as soon as I have the pack finalised and submitted.

In separate news the new Furniture Pack Volume 1 that I mentioned a few days ago has been released. Priced at a very reasonable $39.95 you get 70 items of furniture, suitable for both home and office settings. These are real quality props and well worth checking out. Go here for a slideshow of all the items available in the pack and to purchase.

Stay tuned. Normal service will resume soon.

Motion Library Growth

In an ideal world whenever I wanted a particular animation for a movie I would go to the Motion Library and there it would be looking right at me, all ready to add to the scene. Now as things stand right now we are long way off that dream becoming a reality. You can't really knock Reallusion for the shortage of motions because they have given us the Motion Editor and the BVH Motion Converter (plus a few Motion Content Packs) so every iClone Media Studio user has the tools to create their own animations and poses when required.

The problems are that the BVH Motion Converter is still a little clunky and requires quite a bit of tinkering with the profile editor to get a lot of BVH files to work correctly. Add to that the learning curve in creating quality animations in the Motion Editor, which probably puts a lot of people off and then there is my own favourite moan and groan which is the inability to use the large library of motions that were previously available with It's Me.

The end result is that there is still a shortage of motions available and this does slow down workflow dramatically when movie making, as there is always a constant need to head to the Motion Editor to tweak or create the desired animations required and that can be a lengthy time consuming process.

Now iClone is still a relatively young product and I really hope that over the coming months (and years) we will see a large growth in iClone ready motions that can cover a good percentage of everyday animation needs and build that ideal world library I desperately want. I think that would really set iClone apart as a movie maker from anything else out there.

iClone Furniture Pack Vol 1

Visconti over at the Reallusion forum posted a sneak peek at a new content pack coming soon for iClone. Entitled simply Furniture Pack Vol 1, the pack will contain 70 new furniture items for your props library. From the screenshots that Visconti posted this looks a real high quality pack with some really nicely textured items in the collection.

Check out the screenshots here. I think you will be impressed.

Crazytalk 4.6 Vista Patch Available

The thing I love about Reallusion is that they constantly spring surprises on us and thankfully most are of the good variety. An extra good surprise was finding that they had issued a v4.6 patch for Crazytalk out of the blue. This wasn't any old patch mind you, this was a patch to make Crazytalk Vista compatible.

Now I don't think Crazytalk will be classed as fully supporting Vista until it reaches version 5, which is due out later this year, but in the meantime this is one upgrade I was so happy to see. The results of the upgrade have so far been really positive with all the issues I had prior to v4.6 gone and Crazytalk running seemingly perfectly on my main Vista setup now. Now of course I'm not saying everyone will be problem free after installing the patch but for anyone who has Vista and has been forced to do without Crazytalk for a while, then this a vital upgrade.

You can download the patch here:

3DXchange Full Version Released

Great news today with the release of the full version of 3DXchange. Priced at $49.95 for existing iClone owners or $69.95 for those without. 3DXchange let's you generate massive model libraries by converting 3DS and OBJ files into the VNS format used by iClone. So now you'll be able to convert any models you may have created yourself or those that you have downloaded from the many free resources across the net and use them in iClone as props, accessories or 3D scenes. Not only that but you can also edit and make changes to existing VNS files you already have in your collection. Check out all the info and purchase here:

C3PO Sends iClone Crazy

Before iClone came along we had its predecessor "It's Me". Now "It's Me" was a million miles away from iClone in terms of content and what it could do, but there is one thing I miss a lot about "It's Me" and that is the motions that were available for it. There literally were 100's of brilliant motions that through the purchase of additional packs and free downloads made for a really substantial library.

So when iClone was released I was really looking forward to being able to import all those fun motions for my new iClone characters. Sadly I soon found that it wasn't possible and they couldn't be imported. I had already realised that they wouldn't work perfectly with the new G1 figures but I hoped through the Motion Editor they could have been adapted for use but sadly it was no go.

Over time it seemed everyone (including me) forgot about the "It's Me" motions but with the release of iClone 2.0 I decided to have another go at importing them. Much to my surprise this time they did import into iClone 2.0 and for a few minutes I was on cloud nine until I realised that although the motion had loaded and my character was now walking like C3PO (that was the motion) it sent iClone totally crazy and I could no longer load any other motions at all and was stuck with the C3PO pose.

Disappointed I reset iClone and found that my default character was now standing in a rather strange pose, and not the normal default one. It seemed that nothing could be done to stop this strange behaviour which persisted, even though the imported "It's Me" motions were not loaded. All I could do was remove the offending imported motions, which I had saved, and then thankfully all was well again.

I've not given up on these old motions and will continue to see if anything can be done to get them working again, but all this hassle made me think. Why after all this time haven't all the fabulous motions that were available for "It's Me" been converted and re-released for iClone. I know for one I would purchase a new motion pack that made all those classics usable again. Am I the only one who still misses those old fun motions?

CCD Program Relaunch

I'm really excited about the Reallusion CCD program which enables iCloners to create new content for re-sale. With the release of iClone 2.0 and CloneCloth the CCD program is going through something of a relaunch.

Last year I created a couple of characters for iClone 1.0 which are still available in the Reallusion Content Store. These were Kat and the Club Hostess (for anyone interested). I intended to submit more but time constraints plus my reservations about the copyright situation with the G1 figures led me to refrain from doing so.

The copyright issue with the G1 figures concerned me because there didn't seem to be a clear definition of what was copyright to the creator and what wasn't. The problem was that the VNS files sold contained the mesh and the texture in one file. For example if I created a new mesh figure in 3DS Max which was then sold in the Reallusion Content Store and purchased by someone else, they could then re-texture the figure and then share this with others meaning that the mesh was being exchanged freely and there was no protection on the creators work. Now as anyone who works in 3D modelling knows, the mesh can be the most time consuming part of the process and if these could be freely shared then the incentive to develop new work diminishes.

Well now things are changing and it will no longer be legal to share the VNS files of copyright work and instead only the textures can be sold meaning that the customer will need to already have (or purchase) the correct mesh VNS file to use the texture. This will apply also to CloneCloth creations, where the purchaser will need the correct CloneCloth garment to be able to use the texture. This process has long been used successfully with Poser and Daz content.

So now I and others who are trying to make a career developing new content will know that if they spend many, many hours working on a new mesh figure for re-sale they will not see it being re-textured and shared legally and anyone doing so will now be doing it illegally. This to me is an important step forward for Reallusion and one that should see an increase of quality new content arriving for iClone in the coming months.

Can you take the strain?

One thing I haven't thought about too much with iClone is the system requirements. I've been lucky enough to have a computer that has been able to run iClone well since its initial v1 release. Like everyone with a PC I have had my fair share of disappointments when purchasing software (normally games). You load it up eagerly only to find it runs like an absolute snail.

With PC's it's a constant game of upgrading followed by a short lull followed by more upgrades and in my experience it's always been that way and I have long given up complaining about it. The simple truth is, if you want to run cutting edge software you need a powerful computer to do it.

Only recently have I noticed a few people complaining about poor performance from iClone 2.0 and it made me think, because I have never really thought of iClone as a resource heavy program. On reflection though, the many new additions to v2.0 may be pushing it that way. iClone 2.0 has seen the introduction of the highly realistic G2 figures, LivePlants, LiveProps, CloneCloth and a combination of all these elements in your projects will certainly stretch even a powerful computer to keep everything running at a good frame rate in real-time.

The bottom line is however, that I wouldn't want to lose any of the new features to gain a few fps. The fact that iClone can do what it does and run real-time is an amazing achievement in itself (try doing the same in Poser). To get the best out of iClone right now you need a fairly powerful computer with a good graphics card and I've no doubt that by the time iClone 3.0 is released I will need to be dipping into my pockets again to get the best performance. Very frustrating it is but a fact of life for computer users.