Hey everyone I’ve been searching through Google but cannot have not found anything about which would be better for animating characters particularly DAZ Genesis. I know that iClone fully supports DAZ Genesis but I’ve been able to import Genesis characters into Autodesk Motionbuilder without any problems via FBX format. Since I’m still using iClone 5 Pro and 3dx Change 5 Pipeline and I can’t afford to buy nor pre-order both the new iClone 7 and new 3dx Change 7 along with the monthly subscription from Autodesk that includes Motionbuilder, 3ds Max, Maya, Mudbox, and their Character Generator at the same time I’m in need of some advice on this one. Basically I just want some advice from those of you who have been able to use Autodesk Motionbuilder or iClone 6 either with DAZ Genesis or your own characters made from scratch. NO fan boy or fan girl type of comments please and remember that I’m unable to afford to purchase both the Autodesk subscription which has all of their major 3d animation softwares along with purchasing the new version of iClone so I have no choice but to choose between the two of them.
iclone
I have purchased the preorder pack for iclone7 …Which gives iclone 6 for free, also the iclone 7/6 supports motion capture hardware from perception neuron. This is very useful and saves a lot of time if ur trying to seriously animate your character. I purchased the $799 pack (software only).
I would recommend Autodesk only for heavy production environments. If your purpose is rapid story building and decent output. This is the one to go. Also the learning curve is very easy on iclone.
Also Iclone 7.1 supports faceware in due course (demo out now). Hope this helps.
Well comparing iClone to Motion Builder would be like trying to compare Adobe Premier to Adobe After Effects. Both have a similar base functions but have different outputs based on a need. Motion Builder was originally developed as a front end application as to the popularity of motion capture devices coming out at the time and with newer MC products it’s not uncommon for a given application to also provided a device driver to take advantage of many of the nut and bolt features provided by MB as to it’s ability to manage a large block of animation data in bulk. With in the context MB would be comparable to After Effects and in turn has a rather large learning curve as to it’s place with in a productive pipeline and to be considered is FBX is the native file format so if a production application supports FBX then it has to and will work with FBX.
Daz Genesis works exceptionally well MB and the group that I’m working with have chose to purchase a license to make us of all Daz3d originals which also includes the Genesis 3 frame work which has solved a lot of problems between the needs of code and content.
iClone is more like Premier where you pay for convenience and easy of a much more direct A-B work flow for the purpose of character development as well as a much easier learning curve.
I would say if you need a solution today then iClone would get the job done but if you wish to future proof your projects then I would consider MB as being the better solution based on the need to be able to manage a large animation data base.
Something else to consider.
Since the release of UE4.15 there has been a marked improvement importing Genesis3 based models, including cluster and morph targets and materials, that suggests that Epic has plans as to including Daz Studio in general as part of a prefered application pipeline so in my opinion.
Daz Studio
Motion Builder
Unreal 4
Would future proof any character based project you plan on doing beyond on something that you would need to just work today.