Performance
Other than the performance issues I've mentioned earlier,
the actual use of the program was pretty good, with things
behaving as you would expect, for the most part. The pretty
intelligent animation timeline helped keep things on track
for most of the use of this program and, as I mentioned
before, actual manipulation of 3D avatars was very painless.
Unfortunately,
where things got dicey were in the areas that you wouldn't
expect. Now, before I get into these issues, do be aware
that both of these issues may not end up being issues
for you, as the first issue refers to a somewhat specialized
type of user and the second issue may not effect all computers.
With that said, let's get into the dicier performance
issues.
First
off, as we mentioned in the review of CrazyTalk
4, no arrangements have been made for folks who
wish to use this program on a non-internet-connected machine.
While I understand that Reallusion wishes to discourage
piracy, the fact that there is no activation code that
can be called in is a big issue, especially considering
that almost every other software company--from Adobe to
Innoventive--uses them. For us at Microfilmmaker, this
meant we couldn't use our editing and effects computer,
as that is kept off-line for safety and stability reasons.
This meant we had to use one of our internet-based computers,
which became a real pain as we ran smack into the next
issue.
The
second issue was the issue of stability on certain computers.
After I installed iClone on the internet computer
that we reviewed CrazyTalk 4 on (and which is much
more powerful than the requirements for iClone
1.5), it simply would error out every time I tried
to run the program. I uninstalled it and reinstalled it
two more times, but that didn't help. I installed every
patch I could find from Reallusion's site, with no success.
I even upgraded all my DirectX drivers to the newest ones,
in case they were causing the issue. No luck.
As
such, I took it to our most powerful internet computer
and this one loaded up and worked. As I worked with it,
I discovered that, every three to six hours of use, iClone
would run into a glitch that would require it to shut
down. Annoying as that may be, it was nowhere near as
annoying as the issue I discovered whenever I tried to
render .AVI's of movies made in iClone. For some
reason, only one in three renders would go through successfully.
And that render would have flickers in which the main
avatar wasn't visible for part of the time. The other
two out of three renders, the software would cause my
machine to hard crash and completely reboot.
As
this clearly was not the way the program was intended
to run (and as it also prevented me from exporting a useable
.AVI for this review), I uninstalled the software completely
and re-installed it. It continued to have the same problems
and I was extremely frustrated. I decided to uninstall
it and re-install it one last time, as I hate running
into a software problem I can't get around. This time,
it loaded up perfectly and was completely stable, with
no hard crashes and no issues with rendering whatsoever.
I have no idea why it worked fine on the third attempt
and not the first two. (Or why it worked at all on the
second computer and not the first.)
While
it's possible that I somehow just happen to have the only
two machines that these glitches are occurring on, I would
definitely recommend that all filmmakers who read this
try out the demo of the software and make sure you won't
have the same issues on your computer.
Value
For what it does, iClone 1.5 is set at an
amazingly good price especially when compared with most
3D animation programs ranging from $500 - $10,000. $180
for a very powerful 3D animating program is pretty amazing,
even with its limitations and it's somewhat meager starting
package of goodies. Plus, they even throw in a handful
of extra models and backgrounds free for download after
you purchase the Studio, which further makes this
a nice value.
Additional
models with different clothing can be downloaded from
between $7.99 - $9.99 per model, which isn't too bad.
Final
Comments
A powerful yet economical 3D animating software, iClone
1.5 overcomes many of the issues it had in the past and
emerges with a host of new features. With it's ability
to make complex animated works makes it a really enticing
software for microfilmmakers interested in machinima or
basic animation. However, some of its stability issues
and special requirements make this a software package
that should have its demo downloaded and tried on your
individual machine before you buy.
To see a :10 second clip we created, click here.
