LogInDiscover how Alfonso Hinojosa created a top-notch 3D animated film with iClone, Character Creator, and Unreal Engine.
Intro
Alfonso Hinojosa, a 3D Generalist and Filmmaker from Monterrey, Mexico, is a recent Savannah College of Art and Design graduate specializing in Virtual Production. For his senior thesis film Songbirds, he sought to explore his cultural roots through innovative storytelling.
Facing time constraints and creative challenges, Alfonso turned to Character Creator 4 and iClone 8 as transformative production tools. These technologies enabled him to convert photogrammetry scans into detailed characters, seamlessly swap textures in Unreal Engine, and efficiently process motion capture animations. By leveraging these advanced platforms, Alfonso overcame traditional production limitations, expanding the creative potential of his storytelling and bringing his artistic vision to life with unprecedented flexibility.
"One of the best features for me was Character Creator's Headshot 2.0 plugin because it allowed me to create fully rigged characters from any mesh or image and I was then able to fine-tune details to get the stylized realism look I was looking for. Being able to drag and drop any asset from Reallusion's texture library was extremely valuable," Alfonso Hinojosa notes.
Songbirds – The Inspired History Behind It
Hello! My name is Alfonso Hinojosa, and I am a filmmaker and 3D generalist from Monterrey, Mexico. When I first began making movies in high school, I never imagined I would pursue this career path. My journey into visual effects felt almost subconscious; it came from my curiosity to experiment with new tools and ideas in my projects. This exploration continued throughout high school, and when I enrolled in my film degree program, I began to learn about different resources outside the film department that were also available to me as a part of SCAD, and I felt like there was no excuse to not make the most out of them while I could so I made it a point to incorporate these resources into the projects I created for my film classes whenever I could.
Eventually, I was invited to participate in the newly established Virtual Production classes within the film and animation department at SCAD. As I approached my senior year of college, I wanted my thesis film, Songbirds, to serve as a culmination of everything I had learned since becoming a filmmaker. I also originally came up with the idea for Songbirds because I wanted to honor my grandfather by telling a story set in the time and place he lived through and showing how these themes still resonate in Mexican culture today.
SCAD Professors Doubted a 10 Minute Film for Graduation Project
For me, it really came down to demonstrating that it was possible and communicating my process as clearly as possible. One thing that really helped was creating a breakdown alongside the project. This allowed me to show how my work fits into the overall workflow and aligned with the project’s timeline. After finishing the characters for Songbirds using Character Creator, the first thing I did was complete a single scene to prove that the timeline was achievable. Not only did I reassure my professors that I could finish my thesis on time, but it also gave me the confidence to keep moving forward with the project.
Breakdown From Concept to Creation of Songbirds
iClone & Character Creator: A Pivotal Moment in Production
After watching the Character Creator‘s animated character system video showcasing different tools, I started reading more about those I thought would be useful for Songbirds. The more I learned, the more I knew that not using Character Creator for the project would be a huge missed opportunity. However, it was the moment I found out about the plugin that allows you to apply all the work from Character Creator to a MetaHuman avatar that I committed to using Reallusion tools because of how much it would speed up production without sacrificing the quality of the outcome I wanted to achieve.
Once I started working on the main cast for Songbirds, one of the best features was Character Creator’s Headshot 2.0 plugin. This plugin allowed me to create fully rigged characters from any mesh or image, and I could then fine-tune details to achieve the stylized realism look I was looking for. Additionally, being able to drag and drop any asset from Reallusion’s texture library was extremely valuable, as I could create different sets of textures to correspond to different scenes.
Wonder Dynamics AI Mocap Combined with iClone for Motion Editing
Prior to this, I had absolutely zero experience cleaning up motion capture, so everything from concepts to practice was new to me. While overwhelming at first, iClone‘s user-friendly interface definitely made the process less intimidating. After reading about the general process for bringing data from Wonder Dynamics into iClone, I just had to figure out how to apply that data to my characters so that I could begin the cleanup. With the scenes fully recorded in Wonder Dynamics, I processed and downloaded all FBX files containing the recorded data and imported them into Character Creator.
All the animation data was then removed to get a clean T-Posed skeleton to generate an HIK profile containing all parameters for the skeletal structure.
Next, I opened the corresponding MetaHuman character, again in Character Creator, and applied the Wonder Dynamics animation with the HIK set as the motion profile. Once I had everything working as intended, it was only a matter of dragging and dropping my files before proceeding to the cleanup, which was my favorite part of the whole process. By the end, since I had everything set up and organized, I would go through an entire scene’s set of animations in only a matter of hours because of how easy it felt to clean up the data inside of iClone.
I had absolutely zero experience cleaning up motion capture, so everything from concepts to practice was new to me. iClone‘s user-friendly interface definitely made the process less intimidating. I would go through an entire scene’s set of animations in only a matter of hours because of how easy it felt to clean up the data inside of iClone.
Body Performance Cleanup
After generating the FBX file, I imported it into Character Creator, removing the animation data to leave a T-pose skeleton. I then created a HIK profile for the skeleton, establishing specific parameters and constraints for the character's structure. Opening a new Character Creator file, I imported the corresponding Metahuman dummy character and applied the Wonder Dynamics animation with the HIK motion profile.
The project is then sent to iClone, where I use the Motion Editor to clean up the mocap animation before exporting it to Unreal Engine. As a final refinement step, I smoothen out any mocap jitter using the curve editor, ensuring a polished final result.
Facial Performance Recording
I used the iClone LIVE FACE facial mocap app on my iPhone to record a performance video. After capturing the footage, I exported the mocap data and imported it directly into Unreal Engine. From there, I baked the animation onto my avatar's face, bringing the character's expressions to life with the nuanced details of my own performance.
Songbirds – a Very Distinct Visual Identity
One of my personal goals with Songbirds was to make it look completely different from the traditional Unreal Engine aesthetic. Something that really inspires me from current animation trends is the blend between 2D and 3D, as this always catches my attention. With this project, I wanted to crank up that aesthetic and have everything look as if it were a 3D painting. This ended up being one of the most challenging parts of the project as everything had to be created and organized with this final look in mind. Since all frames would have to be processed one by one to achieve the blend between 2D and 3D I was looking for.
Prior to beginning the stylization my friends and the project’s Technical Supervisor, Marcelo Benitez, also had to develop custom software to automatically sort and organize our frames before bringing them to the final timeline in DaVinci Resolve. Finally, each of the 4,455 final frames was uploaded and manually processed through Prismas Filters.
After all shots had been stylized, the original renders were combined with the stylized version to create a blend of 2D and 3D. Once all the frames were placed in their appropriate spots on the timeline, a deflicker pass and a dirt remove pass were added to remove any unwanted jitter caused by the stylization. Here you can see the final short film and a detailed walkthrough of the program.
Credits to the team and the support from Reallusion’s tools. It saved time and broadened the scope of storytelling possibilities, enabling us to fully realize our vision for Songbirds.