Reallusion releases Character Creator 1.5
Part of Reallusion’s new series of video tutorials on using its Character Creator software as part of a character design pipeline alongside ZBrush, Blender and Substance Painter. See more tutorials on YouTube.
Reallusion has released Character Creator 1.5, the latest update to its free tool for creating fully rigged 3D human characters for use with its own iClone software or other DCC applications.
The update – it actually came out in July, but we didn’t manage to cover it at the time – improves Character Creator’s FBX export and clothing design capabilities.
So what is Character Creator?
On its release last year, Character Creator entered a pretty competitive market for character-generation tools.
Competitors include established rivals like Poser and DAZ Studio, and newer alternatives provided by major developers like Autodesk’s Character Generator and Adobe’s Fuse CC.
There are also a couple of open-source alternatives, including MakeHuman and Manuel Bastioni Lab.
Character Creator includes the standard features you’d expect in an application of this type, including full-body and facial morph systems and the option to generate conforming clothing.
Early reviewers also praised its ease of use and range of slider controls – which include more unusual options like suntan or tattoo decals, make-up effects, and dirt and rips in clothing.
Being designed for use with iClone, Reallusion’s real-time character animation software, Character Creator also integrates well with the company’s other tools: some of the features listed on the Character Creator product page actually require other Reallusion software or content packs.
However, it’s also possible to export characters in OBJ and FBX format for use in other DCC tools.
New in version 1.5: improved FBX export and clothing design
The 1.5 update also improves Character Creator’s compatibility with third-party applications, adding support for hair, clothing, accessories and morph sliders when exporting characters in FBX format.
Character meshes can also now be exported as all quads, as well as all tris.
The clothing design system has also been expanded, with support for layered clothing with physics-based collisions, plus the option to edit weight maps for clothing within Character Creator.
Other changes include a new Mesh Edit tool for editing faces, including Smooth and Relax options; and a new Pose Editor, including the option to import the first frame of an iClone motion as a custom pose.
Pricing and availability
Character Creator 1.5 is available for Windows 7 and above. The full version of the software is free to anyone with a licence of iClone 6 Pro, which currently costs $199.
There is also a free Lite edition of Character Creator, which includes all of the features of the commercial version, but limits users to five exports and a maximum of 30 seconds of animation in FBX files.
You can find a feature-comparison table of the different editions here.