Skip to main content

Make Disney/Pixar Style Characters with Reallusion's Character Creator and Toon Figure Bases

The Extraordinary Tourist Classic Coat outfit
created using Reallusion's Toon Designer for CC3.
I've talked before how I've wanted to get into 3D Disney/Pixar style character animation since I first saw the animated cutscenes for the very first Tomb Raider game back in 1996.

It's why I initially bought Reallusion's iClone 3D studio app as soon as I could afford a computer that would run it.

But then Reallusion released their 3D Character Creator (CC) for iClone and I wanted to create my characters with that (and I did try with Bat Storm). But the focus of CC was realism, even with ToKoMotion's stylised body morphs.

Now with Reallusion's Cartoon Designer bundle for CC3 which features two packs, Toon Figures, and Toon Hair, designing Disney/Pixar style 3D characters just got a whole lot quicker.



The two packs are the bare essentials for creating Toon style characters. Five body morphs (2 male, 2 female, and one adolescent body morph that works as both a male or female pre teen), eleven hair style bases, with thirteen hair additions for further variation.

There are five head shapes with several variations for eyes, nose, and lip treatments and two different PBR skin textures too (one plain and one with some detail such as makeup).

Detailed breakdown of the various
character head/face options.

Those of you with a sharp eye for detail may notice a severe lack of cultural diversity in this line up. Which doesn't mean you're stuck with white characters only, it'll just take a bit more effort to change skin tones and other features to what you need.

My attempt at a non-white toon character. This hair
is not included in the Toon hair pack.

That's the beauty of Reallusion's Character Creator. Even though you may start with these body morphs you're not limited to what they have to offer. Mix it up with other body morphs and settings inside CC itself.

There's no actual character outfits included in the pack (like I said it's a bare bones starter pack for toon characters) but you can dress your characters in whatever outfits you have in your CC content library. Unfortunately that does mean you may have to work at toning down the realistic textures and styles. Hopefully Reallusion will release some additional Toon packs in the future with outfits and accessories designed in similar style.

A sample of hairstyles from
the Toon Hairs pack.
I also hope they'll release additional hairs for toon characters too. Whilst this first pack is a really good start it leans heavily toward more feminine styles once you include all the hair additions. As well, the male hairs are all quite modern styles. It would be nice to see a few more classic, timeless styles for men. Not all men fill their hair with 'product' (just sayin').

Overall, Reallusion's Cartoon Character Designer Bundle for Character Creator 3 is a welcome addition to my own CC3/iClone7 library. It makes it very quick to whip up a variety of toon style characters in a short time and they blend well with other body morphs and settings in CC3 for even more variety of design.

I certainly hope they'll prove popular for Reallusion because it would be great to see the range extended with more body morphs, outfits, and even scenes and props in the toon style.

Comments

  1. What hair did you use for the black character you created. I did figure out that just turning the brightness to -50 gets you a nice brown tone. Curious of the settings you used and any other recommendation.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The hair comes from the stylized 'Slacker' character that comes with CC3 as part of the learning resources. It's just called 'Slacker_Hair'. If you have it it'll be in the top menu of the Hair folder.

      Delete
  2. Replies
    1. All I did was select the Materials tab, select the skin material you want to change from the list, right click on the base color, and select 'Adjust Color' from the menu that comes up. From there adjust the brightness and contrast sliders to whatever shade you need.

      Delete
  3. Wow. Amazing! Who doesn't love the Pixar look, right? It's so dreamy. Probably the best animation to feed your eyes.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I just like it because it's kind of midway between 2D drawings and film. You still get that cartoon style but you can picture the characters walking around in the real world too - sort like your action figures coming to life.

      Delete

Post a Comment

This blog is monitored by a real human. Generic or unrelated spam comments with links to sites of dubious relativity may be DELETED.

I welcome, read, and respond to genuine comments relating to each post. If your comment isn't that save me some time by not posting it.

Popular posts from this blog

Eight 2D Animation Apps For Your Phone or Tablet Mobile Device

M obile productivity apps have become so capable that they can be great alternatives to their PC/MAC equivalents or serve as great tools in their own right when you're away from your desk. While some apps simply mimic their desktop counterparts, others offer well thought out, touch-friendly interfaces that are easier and more fun to use. Every so often I check out what's available for 2D animation for Android devices, since that's what I use, that can complement my workflow with Reallusion's Cartoon Animator 5. Some may be available for Apple devices as well. Below I've listed six free (F) apps (with optional paid (P) upgrades) on the Google Play Store that you might want to explore. Some are just fun apps on their own while others may be useful as part of your workflow on bigger animation projects. Not all are exclusively animation apps and could be used on any production. JotterPad (F/P) The name JotterPad makes this sound like a notepad application but it's ...

Inochi2D - Free Open Source 2D VTuber Avatar Rigging and Puppeteering Software (Part 1)

Inochi2D Creator - Free Open Source VTuber Software. If you've been looking for a way to live perform as a 2D cartoon avatar on camera, whether it be for a live stream or for pre-recorded content like educational videos, then VTuber software is a low cost (or even no cost) option worth looking into. In my previous post, How to Become a VTuber - 2D and 3D Software for Creating and Controlling Your Avatar , I took a brief look at the relatively new but completely free and open source Inochi2D  which I thought showed great potential for my own needs of creating a live performance character rig for my own TET Avatar that I use for all my promotional materials. While it is possible to live perform my character using Cartoon Animator itself, Reallusion's MotionLive2D capture system isn't great - with lip sync in particular. More importantly though, I can't exactly teach people how to use Cartoon Animator if I'm using Cartoon Animator to control my Avatar. What is Inochi2D...

LTX Studio (Beta): AI-Powered Visual Storytelling, From Script to Screen in One App.

LTX Studio can generate consistent characters across storyboard panels - even if one character is a dragon! W hile text to image, and text to video (and image to video) AI tend to be getting a lot of the press, the real exciting aspect of generative AI implementation is how it can be used to speed up creator workflow. Being able to realize your creative vision in a shorter length of time can lead to more ambitious projects. Particularly if you're a team of one, with a very limited budget, but you one day dream of creating your own epic animated feature film. LTX Studio (beta), a new 'all-in-one' AI film making tool, is not going to let you realize that dream from a single text prompt but, by bringing a bunch of generative AI technologies together, the developers have created a one platform workflow that can help anyone rapidly visualize and deliver a story from initial idea to finished film in days rather than weeks (depending upon how ambitious the project is). Even bette...

XP-Pen Artist 12 (2nd Gen) Pen Display Drawing Tablet Review - Portable and Robust Quality Ideal for Sketching on the Go!

XP-Pen's Artist 12 (2nd Gen) Pen Display Tablet. I've been looking for a more portable drawing solution for a while to work with my Samsung Galaxy Tab A, 8 inch, Android tablet, which is why, when XP-Pen invited me to collaborate on an animation project, I asked about trying their Artist 12 (2nd Gen) Pen Display Drawing Tablet . Does It Really Work With Android Devices? Having heard many of XP-Pen's mobile drawing displays could be connected to Android devices I, incorrectly, assumed wide compatibility. Unfortunately this isn't the case. There is a list of specific Android devices that work with XP-Pen's Pen Display tablets and none of them are any of the three Samsung devices I own. XP-Pen could definitely improve the compatibility of their displays with more Android devices if they're going to promote that as a feature (or make it more clear to check their device compatibility list before you buy). Also note the additional USB-C to USB-C video cable, needed to...

Tokkingheads - Make Anyone's Head Shot Talk with Artificial Intelligence

I'm increasingly fascinated by how artificial intelligence systems are being incorporated into more creative applications like visual effects, A.I. generated art, and particularly the development of human sounding voices that can interpret dialogue with more human intonation. Tokkingheads , by Rosebud AI is an interesting application available as a mobile app in both Apple and Play stores, as well as a browser based desktop version.  The simple premise is to upload a headshot image of any person (or use one of theirs), record yourself speaking anything, and then the A.I. will work out how to animate your image saying those words. There's the additional option of filming yourself speaking those words (or you can use one of their videos) and the A.I. will add the movement of your head and face into the mix to 'puppet' your image. The final animation is kind of like a budget light, deep fake video, except this was created in seconds and is relatively impressive with the ...

Review: Animaker - 10X Better than other Online Animation Video Making software (#DIY)... or is it?

Animaker's bold claim, right on its homepage is that it's  10X Better than other Online Animation Video Making software (#DIY). Also featured on their homepage is a cool promotional video that's dynamic, full of charming lip synced characters, with high quality animation that matches perfectly to the story being told. If I could make anything even half as good with their studio, I'll at least buy that they're better than most of their competitors. Let's see if they live up to their tagline 'Animated Videos, Done Right!' Animaker is a flash based, cloud animation studio application that gives you access to an entire library of thousands of characters, props, backgrounds, sounds and more, to create almost any kind of 2D animated video. In fact they make the bold claim that theirs is the largest animated library in the world of any similar online application (it's not... or if it actually is, it's not as versatile as other comparable librari...

The Ultimate Independent Animator's App and Resource List - Animation and Video Life

Image created with Cartoon Animator 4. Being an independent animator is not like a studio animation job. There's so much more to do that is indirectly related to the actual task of animating. Over the years I've sought out many apps, tools, and services that can help me achieve that one single task, expressing myself through animation. Below is my Ultimate Independent Animator's Resource List for 2024 (last updated Oct 2024). It started out as a list of free or low cost apps that could help you in every stage of producing either 2D or 3D animation, and then just kind of grew from there. You may not have been looking for a Time Management App as much as you needed something to get you started in 3D animation but when those commissioned projects start coming in you'll have a head start on maximizing your time. All the apps and services on this list had to meet two main criteria: They had to be useful and relevant to an Indy Animator/artist. The base app/se...