The other day I was searching the web for something on Character Creator 3 when I came across an answer to a great question about CC3. Why do a lot of CC3 characters look the same? Reallusion's answer was something I had not considered.

In essence… and Reallusion did not, and never would, put it this way … a lot of us are being lazy with our use of the program.

Guilty as charged!

I tout CC3 as the only available, end-all answer to easy character creation and it still is but I've also fallen victim to its greatest strength.

It's ease of use.

Let me explain a bit further. Sadly, I didn't keep the link to the question and answer, so to heavily paraphrase:

Question:

"Why do most examples of CC3 characters I see look the same or close to the same?"

Reallusion's Answer:

CC3 is so powerful with so many options that a user can create a character in seconds thereby keeping many users from taking the time to dig in a little deeper and go past just a few sliders here and there to create a truly unique character.

Bingo!

Like I said earlier… guilty as charged with no defense other than lack of effort. Again… Reallusion did not say we were being lazy as that is my interpretation. According to them, we are just not digging in deep enough.

I must admit that I generally reset the default figure in the body submenu and sorta, kinda customize the face with a few sliders or maybe a morph. Because I sell my characters in the Reallusion Marketplace, I do not use any of the Essentials pack that adds even more morph sliders as I do not want my customers to have to purchase that pack to use my characters.

In fact, I am guilty of using the search bar utility on the interface to pull up certain morphs I know are Essential free, which leaves out the majority of the customization sliders!

I don't even get a glimpse of them with this bad work habit.

Wait! There are more than two sliders under the Face section? Oh, yeah… lots more when you turn off the search filter.

In the words of my hero, the immortal Homer Simpson: "…D'oh!"

To make matters worse my pipeline includes ZBrush, which is bridged via GoZ directly to the CC3 interface. I was getting to where I didn't even take the time go in there and tweak the mesh for even more unique results.

Which I could have then saved for even more customized morphs in CC3!

Instead… some of my characters look like inter-generational clones, and we ALL know where inbreeding ends up.

Oh, the inhumanity of it all!

And poor little CC3 suffers from the fallout of our combined transgressions each time we post another so-so, also-ran, sorta customized, sorta not CC3 based character to the web.

In fact… it's a lot like the "Dance Video" syndrome iClone had to suffer through before some decent examples of its power became available. When it first hit the street and the hands of general consumers, there was a tendency to gravitate towards making music videos. It didn't really help that Reallusion supplied all kinds of dance moves back then.

Also… a little side confession… a lot of us early users really didn't have a story to tell. I just wanted to make some "see what I did" examples. Show the world that I r an animator because I r smart and the default dance moves r superz cool.

So… and I'm only speaking for myself… I'm going to put on my big boy pants next time I sit down to CC3. Clear the search bar and use those fucking sliders like the program devs intended as they aren't all Essential based.

Reallusion worked hard and spent dev capital giving us these tools, so it's not their fault if we want to lay on the cyber couch and take the first thing that pops out of the oven.

M.D. McCallum, aka WarLord, is an international award-winning commercial graphics artist, 3D animator, published author, project director, and webmaster with a freelance career that spans over 20 years.  Now retired, M.D. is currently working part-time on writing and select character development projects. You can learn more about MD on his website.