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(More customer reviews)iClone 4.0 Pro is the latest version of a unique user-friendly Windows 3D animation package. Unlike fiendishly complex 3D modelling/animation software apps (3D Studio, Maya, Blender, Lightwave, etc), iClone is geared for the skilled amateur and semi-pro user. It has something in common with Poser. But iClone has grown up out of the machinima scene, where fans used commercial videogame engines to create footage for dynamic fan movies. So iClone is uniquely based around game-engine rendering, and the whole set-up is designed for "anything that gets the job done" animators who want to work _fast_. Drag-and-drop props make scenes very easy to set up, and rendering (if you need to do any at all) is very quick compared to the CPU-melting week-long animation renders output by old-style 3D software. The one drawback to that is that your 3D models need to be low-poly, and models with more than 50,000 faces are frowned on. You can't just drop in a huge highly-detailed DAZ architectural scene/model and not expect see iClone to slow down to a crawl. But the iClone engine is hardware optimised - for NVIDIA, so you'll get the best performance response on a Windows PC with a good 9600 series NVIDIA gaming card or higher. Out of the box, you may feel that iClone's default anti-aliasing needs a boost to get rid of the jaggies. I know I did. But a combination of tweaking the NVIDIA Control Panel settings and the free nHancer software served me well here. I've found iClone's user interface to be clean and well designed, although the content library's interface-panel might be much better. Your workflow quickly becomes easy and smooth, although there's certainly a lot to learn here. Some people will feel that the learning curve is very steep, especially if your only prior experience of working in 3D is something like Spore's Creature Creator. Coming from dabbling in Poser, I didn't feel the learning curve was so bad. Invest a few weeks in learning it, and read the printed manual that's in the boxed version, and you'll soon realise that iClone Pro has all the depth and raw horsepower of the early 4.0 version of Photoshop. It's a very exciting creative program, even if it does take a presets approach. There are many powerful features, of which I'll mention just a few (the manual is free online as a PDF, if you want the 500+ pages of fine details). Lighting is good once you take it out of the bland default mode, although it can be fiddly to set up and control lights if you want to step beyond the limited amount of presets. HDR and image-based lighting is available. Cameras are standard (50mm, 200mm etc.). There are many material, reflection and texture combinations and these are well implemented. Some props can bounce and spring, but only female characters can er... take advantage of this. The extra Natural Human Base retail add-on pack offers a wider range of realistic human types and ages, if needed. In the default library there are a good range of drag-and-drop plants, characters, particles and atmospheric effects, and 2D backgrounds. Alpha-channel cut-outs (as either video or stills) can be placed on many types of surfaces - so iClone plays nicely with green-screened Poser animations or Marlin's cut-out tree libraries. Working with characters and clothes is speedier than it is in Poser, but you still have a lot of configuration options. It's easy to create your own library content, but this is neatly kept separate from the default libraries - which reduces clutter over time. Once you've set up your scene - lit it, arranged all the props and characters - you can start animating. You have a basic scrub line, a far more detailed timeline with keyframes and cut/paste if you need it, and also a unique option to "drive" your characters and props in real-time as if you were playing a videogame. There are also preset right-click scripts which have characters automatically interact with props (e.g.: "walk to and get in car"). The Carnegie-Mellon library of 2,500 drag-and-drop animations is freely available online in iClone VNS format. There's full-blown facial puppeteering, and the polished automatic lip-synching technology taken from iClone's sister product CrazyTalk (which you won't need to buy if you have Pro). There's also full Poser-style control of the body and hands, although the option to open up that panel tends to get a little buried in the interface and you may not find it for a while. Video export options are extensive, including HD widescreen. Quicktime output is not supported, but the other popular video formats are. There's a large (though not particularly navigable) range of retail add-on content packs at the online Reallusion shop, but the iClone Pro boxed version comes with a robust 3D model conversion application called 3DXchange. This lets you tap into the millions of free models at the Google 3D Warehouse, and will easily convert most standard 3DS and OBJ model files while (usually) retaining any textures. iClone has several uses besides animated storytelling. For some, it will be an easy way to rapidly produce reference stills or finished panels for comic books and graphic novels. For others, it will be a speedy alternative to Poser for creating stills of epic battle vistas that have many models. It can also be used for sketching out and lighting ideas for exhibition stands, window displays, and theatre set-designs. Like Photoshop, iClone works best in the presence of other add-on software. You'll need a good basic video editor such as Premiere Elements. You'll probably need royalty-free sound effects and music (Sonicfire being the best royalty-free option there). Maybe a good USB microphone (a Samson 3 perhaps), and even some voice-changing software such as the royalty-free MorphVox. There's also plenty of useful free apps out there to stand alongside it such as: Audacity; Blender; SmartSound; MeshLab; Wintermute; and DAZ Studio. Lastly, all the content and retail add-on packs for iClone are royalty-free. That means that (as long as you're not swiping backgrounds from Disney films) _you_ own the final video - and can do whatever you want with it. Even enter competitions or sell episodes. There's a free but limited "iClone 4 EX" version, for those who want to try before they buy.
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