What this book covers

Chapter 1, Installing and Configuring iClone, goes through the installation and configuration process for iClone and discusses the Reallusion iClone community, where to get more assets, how to use the Content Store and City Marketplace, bringing outside content into iClone with import and drag-and-drop features, and exploring the iClone interface.

Chapter 2, Creating Your First Scene, we will explore the 3D workspace, create a basic scene with sky, terrain, water, and props, use Live Plants to create vegetation, work with standard, animated, and interactive props. We will build a gazebo prop from 3D building blocks and texture it, then we'll light the scene to get the mood right.

Chapter 3, Adding and Customizing Characters, we will add characters to the scene and customize these characters by altering their clothing and type of hair. While doing this, we will learn how iClone works with external image editors to modify the characters' clothing.

Chapter 4, Animating the Characters, this is a very important chapter in which the timeline will be discussed using key frames to animate our characters. We will work with interactive props, load and time the dialog between the characters, how to use paths, point-and-click and director mode for movement, and finally blending and editing motions on the timeline, which can create custom motions from existing motions.

Chapter 5, Enhancing Animation with Particles, this chapter is devoted to fun and eye candy. We will explore iClone's particle system. We will learn how to deploy the particles, attach or link them, and modify their settings. Each particle effect such as fire, rain, and dust have their own control panel with settings that can be modified for a variety of uses.

Chapter 6, Working with Cameras, a critical chapter in the iClone learning curve. This chapter devotes itself to the iClone camera system. We'll create cameras, name them, and deploy them as both animated and static to suit our needs. We will discuss clipping, depth of field, and the important camera switch that allows us to setup a long running shot between cameras of our choice as the scene plays out.

Chapter 7, Enhancing Scenes with Images and Videos, this is another fun and exciting chapter in which we will discover how we can use two dimensional planes, billboards, and objects with channel maps to create low poly backdrops and props for our scenes. We will learn to drag-and-drop video onto objects and why some objects don't want to work properly when dropping video or an image on them. We'll learn to enhance our scenes with imagery using opacity maps and other channels.

Chapter 8, Rendering our Work, an often overlooked but extremely important aspect of our journey in animation. We will discuss various types of renders for both still images and video. We will cover what video works best for our needs. We will learn what a codec is in comparison to a container file like AVI, WMV, or MP4, and what container files might fit our needs.

Chapter 9, Animating Outer Space, this exciting space scene challenges our skills and puts to use what we have covered in previous chapters. We will learn to plot a path for our spaceship that explodes as it crosses the screen, but not before we learn to animate a shuttle craft escaping from the exploding debris. We also learn to setup two dimensional planes to create a scene that is alive compared to flat background only starfields.

Appendix A, Using Personas, iProps, and Helpers, takes a close look at the Actionscript driven personas, AML templates and helpers. The section starts with a basic overview of AML after which we explore character Personas, AML driven templates, such as Sit Here and Grab It, along with helper objects like cars and planes.

Appendix B, Animating with iClone Physics, covers the basics of iClone physics, discusses rigid and soft body objects, their parameters and how to use them. Knock down, over or drop objects. Set up impact between objects. Impart energy to start a simulation and discusses physics as a simulation tool that enhances and helps our animation.

Appendix C, Exploring New Features, explores and discusses new visual enhancements, such as ambient occlusion and toon rendering. Looks at new performance improving features. Explores the new range of Post Effects such as Blur and Color Adjust. Also, takes a look at time saving features, such as the Multi-Duplicate dialog box.

Appendix D, Discovering New Animation Tools, discusses the MixMoves animation library along with the Motion Puppet and Direct Puppet features introduced in version 5. We will install and use the new Mocap Plug-in that allows us to use the Kinect sensor to pass simple motion data directly into iClone for animation. We will also be cleaning up that data for use, discuss and use the new Prop Puppet and Prop Look-At features, explore the newly licensed Human IK technology and its impact on animation with its bone control system.