Camerawork, or cinematography, is one of the most important aspects of visual storytelling. Effective cinematography can inspire emotions in your production ranging from suspense and fear to curiousity and comfort. The key to effective camera placement and movement is experimenting with different angles and lenses, and being familiar with the emotions each one of your camera choices convey. In this tutorial, you'll learn the basics of managing your camera placement and movement in iClone. You'll learn of a couple intuitive and easy ways to set up your camera for unique shots, and tell your story the way you want it told.

Very informative and clearly presented. Thanks

You are very welcome Jack238. Glad that you enjoyed the tutorial.

We try to upload one every Thursday in order to keep the forum interesting, and allow anyone to ask questions about iClone.

have a great weekend!

One thing I like about the iclone viewport navigation is the toggle between world and local transform gizmo. But it needs a Universal gizmo for more advanced users, like the one Daz studio has.

If IClone wants to attract more intermediate users (or cross app users from Daz or Poser) it needs to add 3Dconnexion support. This is a basic function many Sketchup or Blender or Lightwave or Maya users need to have, to not feel like they had to break their wrist to have fun in iClone.

Most DCC tools have 3D mouse support for good reasons. That's the reason why Poser and DS has 3D mouse support out of the box. Content creators love 3D mouse. Even 2D Photoshop supports 3D mouse. IClone is a 3D app that deals with scene setup and object manipulation.

Also a one click (double click?) to select whole figure/prop option (like Poser's posing camera) would make it more fun for even the novice.

I cannot imagine setting a small scene without these. Until then iClone 6 remains an expensive clicky wrist-breaker game not getting much serious animation use in my setup.

Just some constructive feedback. IClone is the edgiest anim-video app to watch in spite of some fundamental "lacks". Keep up the amazing improvements.

Dear Mythico,

Thank you so much for your suggestion. In the past we have considered the use of 3D mouses to work with iClone, but we just never got around to it. One thing that would really help our development team, would be if you or someone from this forum with 3D mouse experience, could name/map all the functions that you would like iClone to incorporate with a 3D mouse. That way we have a clear idea on what to add. =)

thank you again!

Realtimer posted at 1:07AM Tue, 23 February 2016 - #4255084

Thank you so much for your suggestion. In the past we have considered the use of 3D mouses to work with iClone, but we just never got around to it. One thing that would really help our development team, would be if you or someone from this forum with 3D mouse experience, could name/map all the functions that you would like iClone to incorporate with a 3D mouse. That way we have a clear idea on what to add. =)

Hi Realtimer, thank you for your openness and positivity.

FWIW I've used 3D mouse with Sketchup, open world games, Daz Studio, Octane, and Poser. Typical Earth Maps too.

I've also attempted hacking other app's 3D mouse XMLs to work with iClone, Carrara and Zbrush (which didn't work of course)

I've also peeped into Unity and Lightwave's 3D mouse panels (that's how crazy many 3D mouse addicts are LOL)

Lots of fancy options, I do realize... But I think for iClone, keeping it simple (Daz Studio) and generic (Unity) is sensible!

I suggest 3 modes for typical iClone usage:

1. Orbit mode (generic)
2. Orbit and Auto-Center Selected mode (mouse clicked Focus Object auto-snap to center along screen XY)
3. Cam Puppet mode (realtime Create Path along Terrain/ free flying; first person or third person Drive-an-avatar)

In Orbit mode 1 and 2, the 3D mouse cam must be able to move simultaneously with typical gaming mouse or stylus, the default 3D mouse behavior in all games, DCC and also Daz Studio. (Poser somehow failed at this). But this shouldn't be an issue in iClone, currently I could already zoom in out while transforming characters and props in iClone.

In Timeline, 3D mouse can be set to drive Scrubber (Twist rotate turn left right). And user may custom the other 2 pairs of axes: Nudge (scroll left right) and Zoom (tilt up down). to either horizontal zoom in/out, next/ previous Key, next/ previous Flag, next/previous layer, or Go to Start/ End.

Maybe a toggle hotkey to cycle between 3Dmouse cam mode 1 and 2 in Preview cam. 3D mouse implementation should be the same between all iClone plugins (except "Cam Puppet" mode of course).

Other iClone users please feel free to comment or make suggestions.

Thank you again Realtimer for considering this!

Oh, and I can also imagine 3D mouse making Avatar Toolkit even more interesting to play with... But first thing first...ability to orbit and manipulate the CC avatars at the same time.

**Hi Mythico, **

This was exactly what we needed! Thank you very much for being so elaborate in your answer. These are the details that we need to send to our development team in order to start getting this included in an upcoming iClone update. Hopefully this feature will be available soon.

        cheers,

Wow if this appears next point update it would be so awesome!!! Setting up collision mesh to test physics CC clothing will be 10 times more fun!! Can't wait!

Soem minor points just in case:

Both orbit modes 1 + 2 could snap to orbit selected body part in Character Creator and 3DX. Including individual children of parented (unmerged) items too.

If if if it's not too much to ask please also expose all hotkeys for customization!

Our developers are reading this thread, as we write.... thanks to you Mythico, thanks to you.

They've gotten priority to include this soon, yaaay! Here's to the power of community marketing!

Realtimer posted at 8:30AM Thu, 25 February 2016 - #4257046

Our developers are reading this thread, as we write.... thanks to you Mythico, thanks to you.

They've gotten priority to include this soon, yaaay! Here's to the power of community marketing!

Your positivity is so infectious... I hope the following could further assist your dev team:

I'm using current driver 3DXware 10.3.0.

Left is a popular "figure" software ABC (that I better not name now lest I get accused of trolling lol)

Middle is an old version of SketchUp

Right is another similar software XYZ.

All above cases 3D mouse work nicely out of the box. Not much adjustment needed, but I do tend to trun speed lower for close range face animation.

Tool ABC is set to Orbit Mode, with a gentle 'orbit framed object' feel. Locked to horizon. Speed turned way down for stability.

Sketchup is set to Object Mode by default, also locked to horizon; at the right speed for small to mid size scene.

Tool XYZ is not locked to horizon by default. So the camera "banks" when turning left right like a plane.

I managed to lock horizon manually from 3Dconnexion's main panel (Roll left right unchecked). Also turned down global sensitivity.

My suggested Cam Puppet/ Drive Avatar mode would be like Sketchup's Helicopter Mode, and other app's "Rotate" Mode.

I really like combining iClone's Follow Terrain using 3D mouse for outdoor scenes. But I also foresee sudden jump/ "staircasing" issue.

It's a common enough cam issue in open world games, when "fly gliding" over jagged rooftops of cities or Speedtrees collision meshes. Super jerky...

With that anticipated...

Cam Puppet mode, when Following Terrain, perhaps get 3 sub-modes: Fly/Walk/Path options.

Fly = smooth motion, even when flying over Made Terrain Buildings or Stairs.

Walk = classic follow terrain, can be "bumpy".

Path = simply draw a path then ask Cam Puppet to run along it with varying speed and "lookaround" rotation.

Hope that helps a bit.

If this really become real soon...many iClone users would be so thrilled...this is such a huge wrist saver!

Logitech will be very happy too lol.