Character creation software?

#1

Hi!

I’m looking for a tool for charcater creation. I don’t have any experience with modeling and sculpting and only very basic rigging. So I was thinking of something which already had basic figures which could have the body and face customized by morphing sliders or something along these lines. Something I could customize a character and export it to use in animation movies made in Blender or Unreal Engine.

If the character could be exported ready to animate with rig, skin etc it would be great. I might be using preset animation such as from Adobe Mixamo wih the characters too. My goal is to make a simple animated cartoon. So the characters don’t need to e photo realistic humnas. Clothing can be basically “drawn” on them. Hair doesn’t necessarily need to be hair, but again could maybe be drawn or painted on. Think kids 3D cartoon style. Face would also need to have basic animated expressions. But nothing too complex. No need for example for realistic mouth moves for dialog sync.

First I thought Daz 3D was this application. But after looking at it a bit, it doesn’t seem to be exactly what I need. Unless I missed something. I also heard of Poser. But again, not sure it does what I need.

Is there such a program? Of course free is always better. But a commercial program is also not a problem, as long as we are not looking at something like the cost of Maya etc. The most important thing is easy of use . I don’t have any character modeling skills.

Thanks in advance.

#2

Reallusion Character Creator and iClone

#3

Another tool is Autodesk Charater Generator.

https://charactergenerator.autodesk.com/

In the open source section there is Makehuman.

http://www.makehumancommunity.org/

For facial animation and animation in general you could use the already suggested iClone then.

One word to animation, there is no easy solution really. The more control you want the more complex it gets …

#4

Thanks for the suggestion. Reallusion Character Creator looks interesting. But I would only need iClone if I want to animate right? Since I will either use Mixamo and other mocap animations or animate in Blender and possibly UE5, I guess I don’t really need iClone? One thing I couldn’t clear it is if I can use characters created in Character Creator for commercial projects. Meaning commercial films. Do you know?

Makehuman seems good too. But seems like Character Creator is better?

Another option I came across is Metahuman. But it seems it works with UE only? I didn’t look much into it yet.

#5

What is better for your needs is your decision. Just try them out :slight_smile:

I don’t see what would stop you to use Character Creator characters in your commercial project. That’s what it is meant for. See Licensing: https://www.reallusion.com/license/content.html

And yes, Metahuman is a realtime solution to use inside of UE5.

#6

That’s good to know. I will download the demo for Character Creator and give it a try. Then I will report back. :slight_smile: Thanks for all the help guys.

#7

I started watching some tutorials. I thought it would be smart, before even installing the demo. So I can hit the ground running and better use the 30 days for the evaluation.

One thing I’m still not sure is that I will not need iClone. I thought iClone was only if you want to animate the character and export the animation. But I have seen a few tutorials now where they export the character to Blender and UE from iClone. So do I need iClone to export rigged ready characters?

I tried their live chat but it was not available. Another thing that caught my eye is, their forums look like a ghost town with many threads going without any replies. Never a good thing. The great thing about Resolve, Fusion, Blender etc is that the userbase is so wide and active that it’s so easy to get help.

#8

In the regular version you are required to use a plugin called 3DXchange to do the im- and exports. This was once a extra purchase. And the reason why i never investigated into the Reallusion tools. I found it plain crazy that you have to pay extra money for im- and export.

But i think they made it finally part of the iClone bundle. This is why you see this pipeline mentioned in videos. And nowadays there seems to be a character creator version that can do the export directly. A 3DXchange Pipeline Version. They mention it here:

https://manual.reallusion.com/Character_Creator_3/ENU/3/Content/Character_Creator_3/3.1/17_Export/Exporting_FBX_Avatars.htm

Maybe jessifer knows more. As told, i never used it. Makehuman was always enough for me. And when i am in need of something non human then i simply model it.

#9

The reason they charge for export is that people are redistributing the meshes when using them in games. That wasn’t such a problem for Daz/Poser as those meshes weren’t optimized for game use and, until fairly recently, tended to be very dense. Reallusion were trying to separate users who were creating animations in iClone from those exporting the models to Unity or UE. You can look at it as charging one group more, but you could also look at it as charging one group less.

#10

If you have already decided to use blender for rendering and animating maybe this would be useful to you:
https://mblab.dev/download/

Although it does look like you will need to use an older version of blender.

#11

Thanks for all the replies. :slight_smile:

What I’m doing is, making a 3D cartoon, in the Pixar style if you will, although much less elaborated. I haven’t decided yet, but I will either do it in Blender or UE. I have no interest in creating a game character whatsoever though.

Hence my question about the licensing in Character Creator to use the original character’s I created in a cartoon which might be commercial.

So I need an easy to use character creation software where I can create and export fully finished, rigged and ready to animate characters to Blender or UE.

But so, do I need iClone too just to export it? Or the mentioned plug-in will still work with CC4? If I need iClone, I might indeed look elsewhere.

#12

You can export a character in FBX format in order to animate it in your favorite 3D tools, such as 3Ds Max or Maya instead of sending the character to 3DXchange for exporting. 3DXchange Pipeline Version is required.

https://manual.reallusion.com/Character_Creator_3/ENU/3/Content/Character_Creator_3/3.1/17_Export/Exporting_FBX_Avatars.htm

This means though, this is just the mesh. The rig is made in iClone. Or you rig it in Blender. Where you can’t rig it is UE.

EDIT, when in doubt, simply contact their support.

#13

I have used the demo version of Character Creator and exported characters, fully rigged and ready to go , with no problem. Did not need iClone.

#14

Thanks again for all the replies. I tried to contact them, but as soon as I click contact or support, the site takes me to a log-in page and tries to make me open an account. So I googled an email address and foud a support email address for them and wrote to that. Let’s see if they reply.