iClone7, Brekel Body and Kinect 2 all look very interesting. Thanks. Races it shall be…
Regading Animation compression - it will just let you lower the memory footprint of the animation once loaded in memory as the game / app is playing.
Heavily compressed animation could perhaps have keyframes removed, introducing the feet sliding such as your problem with animations you mentioned.
As far as I know there are no good noob friendly animation tools in Unity. Every DCC would be more intuitive I think.
Sticking with the workflow idea workflow is not something that comes from a book but rather the context of what it is your trying to achieve. Since game requirements are not a concern then I can assume that in this case UE4 is being used as a rendering platform so maybe a forum focused on game design is not the place for these kinds of questions.
What I think is needed is a better understanding of how to move assets A to platform B with little or no impact to the fidelity of the working assets so you can work in a preferred application with little or no concern as to the requirements of the targeted platform for the purpose of rendering.
If me the first thing I would want to do is create a source chain, not to be confused with source control, where updates can be pushed to UE4 and updated with little or no interaction on your part. There are options in this area, DataSmith comes to mind, but for animation and staging you can create source folders under the content folder of the project so if you are using 3ds Max as the preferred application you can push your updates to that folder and your assets will update for you. With is type of connection the requirement pipeline begins to become a lot more transparent as to how you should do it as compared to the need of achieving the result, which I assume it the render, with the focus on what you need to do rather than the requirements on how to make something work.
I mention this as you are using 3ds Max and it’s been my experience so far that UE4 only offers tools where individuals don’t have access to power tools like Max or Maya and since you are experienced using 3ds Max then my suggestion, as a starting point, is to stick with what you know and learn what you need to make the desired result work for you.
That said everything else is the forest for the trees problem when the first step should be to get whats in A over to B with little effort as possible and the simple idea that UE4 can update with in the source chain. Everything else is like trying to tell you how to drive a car when there is no gas in the tank. 
Very well put and sage advice. I’ll take it to heart. I do use Datasmith and it does most everything I’ve asked it to so far. I’ve been playing with iClone7 too. I may just solve my needs. You have to be careful with it though. If you aren’t careful, you can wind up spending a fortune on it…lol…
Going back over the comments I noticed this.
As a cough cough skilled animator I noticed as media content the intention with in context is very clear as to the creators desired end result but does lack the fidelity that I assume was desired. This is what I mean by the forest for the trees problem of tackling the problem as a single problem from a “just make it work” bottom up stand point which is typical of most problems as to “workflow” that I’ve see as to a proper top down design pathway.
The bottom up approach is where the ideals as to proper workflow gets foggy as it is based on the need to produce a desired result rather than the focus required to get the result starting at point A as to what the changes needed via discovery that gets to point B. Whats missing is the idea that all digital art “must” follow the iteration process as to whats going to take a very long time as to what will be the final result.
I mention this as you seem to indicate that you don’t have an interest in doing the animations but indicate that you are willing to purchase iClone which I hate to say will not solve your “workflow” problem.
This is where the need for context comes in as part of the workflow which can and will change mid project as you can never preplan a project from start to finish with out including what needs to be done via discovery. It’s also a factor as to why such questions are hard to answer as in my experience, and for others to confirm, the only way through is to start by doing some thing besides nothing.
Using the video example I find it very interesting from a skilled animators stand point as a PSA type of video and see dozens of animations that I know I can improve but my questions as to making them better is how would my work could be introduced into the pipeline in a usable manner with out having to redo what should already be in place at this point.
I mentioned this as content and asset manager of a fair size team and the most common problem involving the art team is knowing where there art has to go and how it needs to be configured to be pushed in to pipeline as part of the workflow 
Yea, I appreciate the point you are making and I think your are mostly correct. Budget and manpower support has a lot to do with it as well. I’m a one-man shop and I have to be the best generalist I can be. The competition is too stiff these days to specialize if you want to work for yourself. Sure, there are exceptions but most of is will never have one-man studios and be sought the world over as a rigger. It’s not that I don’t want to animate characters (I think you misinterpreted my comments about that), it’s that I don’t have the time to invest into becoming outstanding at it. I’m trying to “not” turn work away in this Covid world that is decimating my small studio. I’ve just gotten a lot of requests for character animation this year and have had to turn them away.
My whole intent for this post was successful in that I think I’ve learned that there really isn’t some amazing program out there that will allow us to do very high level character animation without paying the dues. One day I think there will be. Fifteen years ago who would have thought we’d have photo-real real-time rendering? It was a tantalizing pipe dream for us back in the day but we didn’t think we’d see it anytime in the near future.
No doubt workflow and a proper pipeline are critical to a projects success. But, we little guys, in order to compete, have to charge less and crank things out overnight sometimes just to get the work. It just an odd perceptual thing. I have clients who would complain about me charging them $90 an hour but would never raise and eyebrow when paying a large studio $150 an hour for the same quality product. It’s a fight I’ve fought for over 20-years now. We little guys have no pipeline really, it’s just ourselves. And we have to find creative ways to crank out higher quality looking work in shorter times. So finding a program for a few hundred bucks that skips months of tutorial watching is a wonderful thing. I buy them all the time. I look forward to the day I can animate a character just like the big boys by dropping $1000 on some new program.
Drop the clients. You may incorrectly think that cheapskates are worth retaining for whatever reason.
They aren’t.
Not only that, they are detrimental to the community as a whole, scamming people of their personal time in order to accomplish what they should actually be paying market price for.
When they say they can get it done cheaper tell them: good luck.
And when they come back tell them: I won’t work with you anymore, you aren’t the type of client our industry needs. What’s that? You are? My price is $300 an hour if you are.
but thats double before? Correct, because I have to deal with you.
If you are getting reallusion software(iclone), please check and double check for hidden requirements. You might be ending up spending a small fortune.
I understand that sentiment but the reality in the real world, especially now, is that we don’t have the luxury of turning away work. I don’t fall for any begging for rates below $90/hr, but beyond that, I can’t turn the work away and still survive. There’s just way too much competition these days. Not all of them complain about my rates and then engage a full service studio. But enough do that I know it’s some kind of strange perceptual thing. I’ve seen it all my career and tried to disassemble it but it I need a psychologist to explain it fully…lol…
When I first started out in Baltimore, I was one of one 3 people who did good 3d work and we had no trouble keeping out plates full. Then the internet came and instead of competing with 2 guys, I now had to compete with 100s of 1000s of guys and gals. It’s just the reality for a tiny studio. I wish I could take your ‘Black and White’ vision of the scenario but I’d be out of business to be honest. I’m the only cashflow stream and no one pays me a paycheck. I have to take any legitimate work I can get without question as long as my minimum rate is adhered to.
I’m not buying it even as I was impressed by the demo. I can get really expensive really quickly. The a’la carte nature of it is somewhat hidden until you start to dig in and look closer. If you aren’t careful, as you know, you can end up spending many 1000s of dollars very quickly. Thanks for verifying the same thing I had determined as well…
btw they are having 50% discount on their software right now for their 20th anniversary.
Reading all the thread, I think that your best bet would be to get either a mocap suit or an optical tracking setup, and just create the entire thing starting from there, so that the animation side of the project can be done by yourself, controlling pretty much everything, A to Z.
Also, if you’re aiming for movie quality animations, be prepared to spend tons of hours doing mocap cleanup, because either if you’re using a 2k mocap suit, or a 30k optical setup, you will still need to modify/tweak/optimize the animation output.
So if you don’t have or know how to manage the “animation side” of the project, then don’t put yourself in a situation where you can get screwed easily.
Either get the gear, spend 1-2 months learning what is needed, then get the clients for that specific job.
Otherwise, if you try to just give all those animations to different people, you will probably end up spending way more money, having very different results, and an angry customer, so think about it very carefully.