iClone5 Pro Box (PC)

I've used iClone 5 now for just over a year and I find it one of the most absorbing and sometimes frustrating tools in my video creation tool box. iClone is a content based animation tool, which means you buy content from RealLusion and use that content to create your own films, or inserts for going into live action. For example I created a scene that required a large MechBot to gun down some live action actors, all that was needed was for me to create the short animation of the Mechbot in iClone, render it out with a greenscreen background, then import that into my Premiere Pro CS6 project. The animation sequence was under 30 seconds and it really worked well, blending in nicely (once it had been filtered a bit in CS6) with the live action. This is iclone working to its strengths. Some problems occur however if you want to make a complete animated movie using iClone. It's possible, don't get me wrong, in fact there are plenty of people out there doing a great job of creating animated movies using iClone 5, but you will need a large portion of patience when you use this program. You'll also need to buy the only book on iClone in order to learn the interface ( iClone 4.31 3D Animation Beginner's Guide ). iClone 5 isn't complex, but there are some areas that you will find hard to understand without expert guidance. Of course there are always the official iClone forums, where the thriving fan base is always willing to help you out. A new 64 bit version of iClone is available as a free upgrade to all registered users, so buy the box set and once you install you will get a better version upgraded to your computer automatically (assuming you are connected to the internet). Assuming of course you have a 64bit system! The 64bit is a more stable build than the 32bit and doesn't suffer the same slow downs and crashes that plagued the 32bit version. It's all a question of available memory though, so if you have a system with less than 4gb of memory, installing the 64bit version probably won't help you out that much. My big problem with iClone is the variable nature of the content that can be bought from the on-line market place. For a start it tends to be very expensive, and secondly the quality is not always that great, even on stuff that costs lots. This seems to be down to content being produced sometime ago and not being updated to use the newer, better features of the latest version. It's a case of buyer beware! I bought the Rock Band set from the market place because I wanted to simulate a concert being filmed by 9 cameras (for a Premiere Pro CS6 book I was writing at the time Mastering Adobe Premiere Pro CS6 Hotshot ), and I found the figures and their instruments to be hard work in terms of creating a realistic animation. Often hands would pass through instruments the figure was supposed to be playing, even though the movements I was using came with the pack! I fixed it, it was hard work, I nearly gave up. Having said all that, there is no animation program out there with an "easy" button. iClone 5 is hard work to learn, sometimes very hard to get exactly the effect you are looking for, but if you persevere, you will find that iClone has the potential to create some truly cool stuff. You just need to stick with it.

Well up to my expectations.