How to Achieve Natural Interactions for Background Characters With iClone & UE5

Intro

José Tijerín, digital illustrator and 3D sculptor, is the creator of the video game ‘Dear Althea’ on Steam and the content pack ‘We're Besties’ available on the Reallusion Content Store. 

In this showcase, he will show how to customize actions for multiple actors for the simulation scenario, enabling them to interact authentically with their environment using iClone Motion Director props (MD Props).

Bring Scenes to Life With iClone

People often notice the autonomous behaviors of characters in simulation games like Civilization or Age of Empires. Animating the characters that inhabit 3D scenery, even if they are just background characters, is essential to showcasing good work. When a set is inhabited by characters that interact with it, it conveys a sense of authenticity and life that really makes a difference to the final result. 

The challenge for animators has always been the hours of work that would be required to animate hundreds of characters, and they have been forced to find a balance between manual control and automation. This is no small effort, however, as it is necessary to achieve natural movements and behaviours in these characters. The integration of advanced tools such as iClone Crowd Simulation and Prop Interaction (with MD Props) have transformed the way we can address this challenge, offering innovative and accurate solutions to create more natural and realistic interactions in a very short time.

MD Prop: Expanding Simulation Possibilities

MD Prop (Prop Interaction) stands as a revolutionary extension to iClone Crowd Simulation, providing a new tool that multiplies our possibilities in creating animations with objects. It gives us the ability to add realism and depth to multiple scenes or scenarios, and it is an intuitive and efficient system.

5 MD templates are available to easily customize interactive props:

The key to this tool lies in its ability to generate realistic reactions based on the proximity of props and context of the scene, allowing characters to dynamically adapt to their environment. If you create interactive worlds, you know that this system has been used extensively for background NPCs (non-player characters) in major video games. This system takes that idea and improves on it, allowing for fantastic customisation and a huge number of interactive possibilities with both portable and static objects.

Using Morph Animation in iClone to simulate the dynamic shapes of mud mixing:

For example, being able to modify the emissive properties of an object's material or its morphs allows us to find new ways of interacting with objects. Also, remember that you are not limited to iClone and that you can render the final result in game engines like Unreal, where these options look great. If you can, take a look at the final render of the tutorial to see the result without needing advanced knowledge in rendering or animation.

Different Object Animation types for prop interaction in iClone:

The flexibility of iClone Prop Interaction technology also allows even non-animators who rely on movements from the ActorCore gallery to easily customize interactions. By doing so, they fit seamlessly into our scenes and with the objects that are needed. Whether it's a modern construction project, a medieval marketplace, or a futuristic city, this tool offers a scalable and efficient solution for populating scenes with believable background characters.

Using Hand Reach to create precise lamp light operation and controlling the light intensity by altering the glow map strength:

iClone Crowd Sim: Simulating Crowds With Precision

iClone Crowd Sim is a powerful tool that enables fast and efficient crowd simulation with surprising results. By integrating with MD Prop, it offers the ability to create complex scenes where background characters interact coherently with their environment and with each other, adding an extra layer of realism to productions.

One of the highlights of iClone Crowd Simulation is the system that allows you to define behavioural patterns for each character in the scene. This means that, instead of repeating preset movements, it creates a much more immersive visual experience.

Easily define behavioural patterns for each background character using iClone:

Creating Our Own MD Props

Using the animations we already have in our motion gallery, we can generate our own custom MD Props. As you may already know, these are moments of interaction with specific animations for different types of events within the simulation. Once we create an MD prop, we can scatter it around various places in various scenes in a smart way and with just a couple of clicks. Characters zoom in and blend in with the animations of our MD props, eliminating the rigidity of reprogrammed movements and bringing an organic feel to scenes populated by large numbers of characters. I was surprised when I started the simulation at how a large number of characters move and interact with the scenery. When you see something like this, I can't imagine what it would be like if you had to animate the characters individually and correct their animations to adapt them to the environment.

Using Actionable (Tool #1 of MD templates) to pick up the onions and place them in the basket:

Using Portable (Tool #4 of MD templates) to pick up the box, carry, and place it in a designated area:

Using Light Options (Object Animation) in iClone to turn lights on or off:

Smarter Content Search

In this way, we save an enormous amount of time in the animation process, but we can also save time in the search for suitable resources, which is crucial. Tools like Deep Search in iClone facilitate this task, allowing us to quickly find characters, plug-ins, and objects. This is really necessary when we manage large crowds and want to avoid the unpleasant feeling that all the characters are clones of each other, and offer us a much-needed variety in the population we manage. This search optimization helps to speed up the workflow and maintain consistency in the quality of the resources used.

Deep Search also allows us to use images that ensure that the selected objects and characters perfectly match what we are looking for without wasting time. Thanks to its visual recognition algorithm, one can find items of specific aesthetics with a simple image search, making it an indispensable tool in the digital animation ecosystem.

Directly apply the result to the character using Deep Search in iClone:

Integration for More Efficient Workflows

The synergy between iClone Prop Interaction, Crowd Simulation, and Deep Search creates an efficient workflow for animators. Automating certain processes within these tools also frees animators to focus on the creative aspects, rather than spending time manually adjusting each background character. This not only increases the efficiency of the project but also raises the overall quality of the animation. You can find out more about the full process of the creation here.

The adoption of these advanced tools is redefining the standards of background character animation. These innovations not only improve visual quality but also enrich the narrative experience, offering viewers more immersive and authentic worlds. With the constant advancement of digital animation technology, tools such as these will continue to evolve to offer creators even greater flexibility in constructing vivid and realistic scenarios.