Evolver Characters to iClone4

iClone Avatar Builder allows you to build your custom avatar in real 3D using our builder. All the magic happens on our servers so there is no need for any plugins or fancy graphics cards. To merge G-Evolver Characters into iClone4 seamlessly, there are some rules for you to follow when you are importing characters from iClone Avatar Builder.

• Comparison between iClone Characters and G-Evolver Characters

  • Character Mesh Topology

  • Texture Arrangement

• Fine Tune G-Evolver Character for iClone Display

  • G-Evolver_Hair_is_Accessory

  • Enable_2-side_Hair

  • Adjust Body Proportion

  • Replace Texture Map Resolution

  • Modify eyes and teeth

  • Save as a Custom Character

• Exchange Body parts between iClone Character and G-Evolver Characters

  • Apply iClone Hair to G-Evolver Characters

  • Apply G-Evolver Hair to iClone Character

  • Apply iClone Head to Evolver Character

  • Apply G-Evolver Head to iClone Character

  • Fix Skin Tone

Please note the iClone Avatar Builder service only works with iClone4.12 or above.

Comparison between iClone Characters and G-Evolver Characters

The following table gives an overview between iClone and G-Evolver Characters:

	iClone4 Standard Character (5 Parts)	G-Evolver Standard Avatar (5 Parts)	G-Evolver Non-Standard Character (1 Piece)
Topology Comparison (image)
Character Spec	Made by 5 body parts (head, hands, upper body, lower body, shoes). All parts are exchangeable between iClone G3 characters.	Made by 5 body parts (head, hands, upper body, lower body, shoes). The topology and connecting points are not fully compatible with iClone G3 character but they are able exchangeable within G-Evolver Standard Avatars.	3D characters are rigged with iClone bone, designed in one piece of mesh.
Body Part Switch	Yes	Yes	N/A
Hair	Hair	Hair as Accessory, or part of the head model	Hair as Accessory, or part of the head model
Motion File and Motion Editing	Yes	Yes	Yes
Persona	Yes	Yes	Yes
Hand Gesture	Yes	Yes	Yes
Head Standard	Rigged with iClone G4 Head standard, be able to exchange with iClone standard characters.	Rigged with iClone G4 Head standard, be able to exchange with iClone standard characters.	N/A
Facial Animation Editing and Puppet Control	Yes	Yes	N/A

Character Mesh Topology

The points of the mesh border are different in G-Evolver and iClone, so when you exchange the body parts with iClone characters the borders do not fit that perfect. Thus, when you fit the two meshes with different points, the gap appears. Under this circumstances, the bigger the difference in body, the more visible the gap. Compare to the body parts, evolver head and iClone head can be replaced, because they are both 24 points.

G-Evolver Character	Exchange Evolver Body	Exchange Evolver Body with iClone Character

Therefore, we do not recommend you to change body parts from iClone to G-Evolver or G-Evolver to iClone Characters.

The mesh border points are different in G-Evolver and iClone, so when you exchange body parts with iClone characters the borders do not fit perfectly. Thus, when you fit the two meshes with different points, the gap appears. Under these circumstances, the bigger the difference in body, the more visible the gap. On the other hand, Evolver heads and iClone heads can be replaced, because they both contain 24 points.

Therefore, we do not recommend that you change body parts from iClone to G-Evolver Characters or from G-Evolver to iClone characters. When replacing G-Evolver character body parts with other G-Evolver body parts, please try to choose similar skin color tones.

Texture Arrangement

• iClone Character Texture vs. G-Evolver Character Texture

iClone Character Texture (All the UV textures are separated into different parts: Head, Hair, Upper, Lower and Shoes.)	G-Evolver Character Texture (All the body parts share one UV map.)

Fine Tune G-Evolver Character for iClone Display

There are still slight differences (hair mesh, material color and body proportion) that require further enhancements.

G-Evolver Hair is an Accessory

There are two types of hair for evolver characters. One is an accessory hair and one is part of the head. 

Evolver Hair is iClone Accessory	Hair is part of the head model

Enable 2-side Hair

In the comparison table below, you can see that hair of G-Evolver characters have single side material and they look like transparent material.

Go to Accessories Modify to turn on.

2-sided: Unchecked	2-sided: Checked

Adjust Body Proportion

Evolver uses a morph system to change the shape of the body. Whereas iClone uses a bone system to enlarge and size-down the body parts. Because of this, G-Evolver characters tend to change to normal body weight when when they are brought into iClone. This issue is a side-effect of the special avatar cutting process, as the Evolver system needs to size down its mesh in order to fit into the iClone standard body mesh. This is a technical limitation in order to achieve swappable body parts.

E.g. Big belly man to small belly man. To correct this issue you can use iClone's Adjust Body Proportion to re-size the character's body proportions.

Original G-Evolver Character	G-Evolver Character in iClone	After Refinement

Replace Texture Map Resolution

After you Unzip the downloaded character, you will find one iAvatar and three 2K (higher resolution) texture maps. When you load avatar into iClone, you may notice that the character has 1K texture maps on them with lower resolution. If you want to apply higher resolution of 2K texture maps you can just load three types of maps in the each material channel: Diffuse, Normal and Specular.

Lower Resolution (1024*1024 = 1K)	Higher Resolution (2048*2048 = 2K)

Note: When you have a G-Evolver character with accessory hair, you will have six 2K high-resolution texture maps included in the zip file.

But, when the hair is part of the head, the zip file only contains three texture maps.

There are two ways to change texture maps:

• Load each body part texture maps in material channels.

• Right-click to drag and drop texture maps onto the character and select a material type.

Head Morph

Head Morph cannot be applied to G-Evolver Characters.

Modify eyes and teeth

• You can do transformation on the G-Evolver Character eyes like eye convergence. 

Note: No eyelashes are included for G-Evolver Characters.

• Since the texture and mesh arrangement of G-Evolver Characters are different from iClone, you cannot apply default iClone eyes and teeth templates, nor do color adjustment.

iClone Mesh	Evolver Mesh

iClone Mesh	Evolver Mesh

Save as a Custom Character

After you have fine-tune the color of the skin and adjust the body proportion of the character, you can then save the character to the Custom Library.

1. Have the character selected.

2. Go to the Actor > Avatar > Custom Library and click the "Plus" button to save your character.

Exchange Body parts between iClone Character and G-Evolver Characters

Apply iClone Hair to G-Evolver Characters 

Once you import the character from iClone Avatar Builder with Evolver, the hair of the G-Evolver Character is defined as an accessory. Thus, you can remove the G-Evolver hair from the Accessory sub menu and then replace the character with iClone's hair from Actor > Hair's Content Manager Template.

To remove the hair from G-Evolver in iClone:

1. Select the character you want to remove the hair.

2. Go to the Scene Manager and select the hair.

3. Click the Remove button from the Accessory modify panel.

4. You may then apply iClone hair to G-Evolver Characters.

Apply G-Evolver Hair to iClone Character

You can also save G-Evolver Character's hair as an iClone accessory and apply it to any of the iClone characters.

Original	Apply to iClone Character

Apply iClone Head to Evolver Character

Since the number of points of the G-Evolver and iClone Standard Character's neck are the same (24 points), thus you can freely exchange heads between two character standards.

But there are skin tone matching problem to be solved.

When you apply iClone Heads to G-Evolver Characters, matching skin tone mechanism does not working because of the difference in texture arrangement.

After you apply an iClone head to the G-Evolver character, you can then go to Skin modify panel. Select Face material, then use Color Balance and Adjust Color to match the head color to the skin color of entire body.

Before	After

Apply G-Evolver Head to iClone Character

When you apply G-Evolver heads to iClone characters, the overall skin tone does not match right and all the skins look reddish.

Fix Skin Tone

1. Export the face texture from iClone to an image editor.

2. In iClone, character's body color is defined from the top left corner of the texture map within the 10 * 10 pixel range. Now, when you want to change the color of the overall skin body tone, you may pick a color from the face and fill it in the 10*10 pixel range.

3. Save the material map and update the texture in iClone.

4. Save the face to the Custom Template Library and apply the face to the character again.

  

   *Please remember you must apply the saved head to your character again to see the result.