Reallusion’s real-time animation and creation tools empower creators to achieve their dreams

[News Bot]

In more than a decade working at Reallusion – a 3D and 2D software and content developer that specializes in Windows-based real-time animation and creation tools – Enoc Burgos has seen a lot of changes in the industry, but one thing is consistent in his role as director of partnership marketing: being able to support and empower up-and-coming creators who lack skills and/or resources to develop their vision. Authors use Reallusion software to make trailers for their books, students and professors tap into the technology to create more realistic training sessions and movie studios find the company’s iClone -- an animated storyboard that helps preview scenes that need to be filmed -- to be the right tool for pre-visualization purposes. With Reallusion tools, creators don't have to start from scratch. They’re able to create something based off of already existing assets. They can grab a base character, modify it with a photograph and then stack layers for the skin textures to create something that's very high quality, without having to be an expert in the entire process of 3D modeling.

iClone, launched in the early 2000s, is one of Reallusion’s most popular tools, incorporating real-time computer graphics engines to create cinematic production. Anyone can use it with pre-made assets, such as characters and built-in motions. Users can also apply their own voices and use their mouse to animate characters. This gives creators the freedom to come up with their own animations – and own them. “The moment I felt that the industry really started to shift is when we launched iClone 5 (about 10 years ago),” says Burgos, who adds that was the first time the company offered motion capture, something previously reserved for high-end studios equipped with $100,000 computer rigs with dozens of cameras. What made that iteration of iClone stand out was its pairing with Microsoft Kinect, using that product’s infrared sensor to generate basic body animation. This device, which cost $79, opened the doors for an entire ecosystem of future developments with other partners and other tools. [caption id=attachment_175855" align="aligncenter" width="1024]https://blogs.windows.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/sites/2/2021/06/SkinGen-UI-1024x576.jpg Character Creator's skin layering mechanism allows artists to easily create intricate skin details through multiple material channels like diffuse, roughness, specular, normal maps and more.[/caption] Recently, Reallusion has been working with NVIDIA to build a Connector to the Omniverse platform, which enables virtual collaboration and real-time simulation for 3D workflows. With the Omniverse Character Creator Connector, Reallusion brings the power of a full character generation system, complete with motions and unlimited creative variations, to the Omniverse platform. Artists and designers can now easily design and transfer characters and motions directly into Omniverse and its connected ecosystem. This is done through the Universal Scene Description framework (an open standard originally developed by Pixar). “The idea behind this is that you could have a collaborative effort from artists and studios from around the world, each jumping into this virtual platform, creating and iterating in real time,” he says. “You could have someone in Japan using Unreal Engine to create the layout of your scene with the props and the vehicles. Then you can have someone in France using Character Creator to create a character in real time, dropping the character into the Omniverse, into that Unreal Engine scene. At the same time, someone in India could use a motion capture suit, or a motion capture system, to animate that same character that is being plugged into Omniverse.” In 2020, which Burgos notes was “an extremely challenging year for everyone around the globe, "Reallusion saw a spike in the influx of users who were starting to use more of their tools. People from different communities – Blender and Unreal, for instance – were starting to connect with Reallusion applications, connecting all these different tool sets together. Reallusion received a grant from Epic Games and decided to use it to give back to the community, in the form of the Pitch & Produce Program. Reallusion helps identify projects and provide creators with software, technical assistance, financial and promotional support. “This has given us an insight into how many people in the world have this amazing vision for a project. And with a little bit of help, they're able to achieve that,” Burgos says. “And of course, it's so gratifying to see that we were able to be part of that, to give back to the community and see the community flourish on those efforts.” Lead photo: Reallusion's Director of Partnership Marketing Enoc Burgos, with Character Creator on Razer's Blade Studio laptops with Nvidia RTX cards. All photos courtesy of Reallusion.

 

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