My Review of Reallusion BuildingGen

[@biggstrek]

I think you nailed it with the comment about it not being tested (if it was, then they need new testers!) I'd say they pushed this product out the door waaay too quickly. Hope it's not a sign that the company is struggling and desperate. And what the heck happened to the roof/s!?!? Crazy. Good review, though. And good advice. I'll save my money until/unless they fix/upgrade it to something useable and useful.

[@bishopmediatvl.l.c.517]

Thanks for the review Mike. I’ve purchased this with the French building add on when they first premiered. I haven’t attempted to make use of external modular models yet because it does seem time consuming and thanks to your review it seems like it would have been a waste of time to do so. I’ll have to stick to Blender and Daz. I’ll expect that this add on will be better when Reallusion creates an update for it.

[@MikeDKelley]

Yeah, I bought it with the French one as well. Honestly, I think the entire premise is flawed, but that's because they are set up to sell content. And I'm not sure how (or even IF) they can ever expand this to work outside of its paradigm. Then again, early iClone was primitive and I KNOW they are committed to selling this thing (I was actually contacted by TWO devs who wanted my feedback prior to my review, so it's not as if I'm publishing this without some knowledge).

[@ActorswithStrings]

thanks for the bottom line up front - I thought it was too expensive to begin with even with the discount - they have a lot of other really good stuff but this is just a miss for now - you saved me money - thanks

[@C4DRS4U]

Thanks for that brief look at BuidlingGen. While I buy the majority of the content RL puts out, I decided to skip this when I saw the promo video (and before I even heard about the issues), for the following reasons: I don't really want to "model" my own buildings even when using a modular system; any kind of modular system will usually have limitations because they need to follow some kind of grid system so that the modules fit together (as you explained about the size of doors and windows); if I have to export any building created in iClone (and I do), I have to contend with the issues that brings with it. I'd rather buy ready-made building models created by people who are far more skilled and talented at that then I'll ever be (or want to be). Just out of curiosity: can you also create the interiors of buildings, such as inner walls, staircases, etc.? (Obviously I'm not talking about furniture and so on, just the building structure itself.) Now, I also realize that RL need to make money to stay in business. But I think they should stick closer to their core strengths which are character creation and animation, i.e. by (a) putting out high-quality avatars, clothing and props, and, in particular, professionally done motions and (b) by improving the pretty basic functionality such as for importing meshes from third-party sources as clothing. Yesterday, I spent a couple of hours with the help of tutorials and Q&A with the creator of one of these tutorials trying to get a pair of high heels into CC4 (which is apparently more difficult than getting the same model into CC3). And, yes, they need better testing and quality control, as also the new Horse and Tack pack shows. BTW: You have a decent computer, so why is this video 720p (which makes the text in the screenshots more difficult to read)?

[@MikeDKelley]

I had noticed the 720 thing as well - doesn't make any sense, as all the videos I upload are captured at far higher res. Unless - hmm, this is my new computer and perhaps my settings on my capture software are that low. I'll check it out. Interiors are created kind of by default - IOW, you aren't going to get any interior walls except you do get the interiors of the outside walls (and your outside walls could have a different texture for the inside, if that makes sense. Now - that's all the automagic: one of the things that Kai shows is that you can edit the building and manually do a lot but that's true of almost anything and you don't need BuildingGen to help (and it will not). Are your high heels coming from Daz? If so, I've made at least one or two videos showing some fixes for the issues there in CC4.

[@C4DRS4U]

@@MikeDKelley No, the high heels are models I got from cgtrader. I don't really use Daz (neither the software nor the marketplace). Regarding the 720p: So far, I have never had KZbin reduce the maximum resolution of my uploads. Of course, if I upload 4K, YT will create lower resolutions from that automatically, but if your software (browser/YT app) allows it, you can get to watch the 4K I uploaded even with HDR (which a lot of my content has). So I'm thinking that it's the settings on your machine.

[@MikeDKelley]

@@C4DRS4UYeah, it turned out to be my capture software, which I installed on this new machine but defaulted to 720 (I have no idea why it would do that but there you go). I reset it now to 4K so the next video should be good again. Thanks for pointing this out (I would have missed it otherwise).

[@C4DRS4U]

@@MikeDKelley You are welcome. 🙂

[@justaviking]

THANK YOU for the analysis and conclusion. Was it beta tested? I agree it probably was not. If it was, then the testers were incompetent (not likely), Reallusion ignored their feedback (plausible), or Reallusion was unable to address their concerns due to technical limitations in the s/w (very likely). Bottom line? I agree the use case is too limited to be work buying. I prefer to buy iClone assets directly from Reallusion, but I would not spend my money on the current offering (base s/w plus one(!) building module) with the hope of being able to buy more building modules in the future (at some unknown price). Better to simply buy existing models available today elsewhere.

[@dylanwiley537]

hey Mike one Thing I have always wanted to know how to do? is get a character like batman or Xmens Wolverine with a mask that covers their face with white eyes that move with face in character creator 3 since I don't have character creator 4 yet and don't think I ever ever can afford it but anyways is their a way to get the mask to move with face like eyes widening or thining nothing too crazy anything helps

[@MikeDKelley]

You mean something like this? kzbin.info/www/bejne/nICoeKycd76HoLc&ab_channel=MikeKelley

[@dylanwiley537]

@@MikeDKelley yes basically

[@dylanwiley537]

I'm trying to make a fan film of batman and wolverine arguing

[@MikeDKelley]

@@dylanwiley537 Well, essentially what I did there was use a bitmap that represented the mask over his face. Not really all that difficult - and it will then behave exactly as a face behaves. If you need me to make a video about this I'd be glad to do so (not sure I have a Wolverine but I'm pretty sure I have a Batman I can do this with).

[@dylanwiley537]

@@MikeDKelley yes please do a video I'm a visual learner always appreciate your help

[@asadmondol1393]

nice and thanks

[@jhonjairoquinterovergara202]

genial

[@jeanrenaudviers]

Reallusion is a money pump.

[@MikeDKelley]

Well to be fair those of us who use and love iClone/CC want them to stay in business, and there are only so many ways they can do that. How much more they can add to their two primary products in order to charge for an upgrade is a big question, now - like Microsoft Word, there are diminishing returns and eventually you have all you can do and no need for anything else. So I don't mind them trying to have something else to earn money. I just wish they had actually tested this out.

[@gregoryhoward7594]

Thanks. I was on the site a minute ago and after a brief moment of excitement... questions started coming in. Many of them you touched on. I kind of figured house structures were limited. As you said this is mainly for structures with repetitious layouts like condo, apartments, office buildings, etc. You are correct about testing. A lot could have been addressed had they pushed it out for testing and people provided feedback. I kinda knew from the limited samples of examples and tutorial that it was limited in scope. I guess it is okay for a quick scene in the city. Hopefully, it will expand with more upgrades/updates.