Preparing Your Character in Character Creator

Getting your export settings right the first time saves you a lot of frustration — a wrong setting is usually the reason a character comes in missing textures, wrinkles, or hair detail. It only takes a minute once you know what to set, and you can reuse the same settings every time.

Which export — at a glance

The tool imports FBX or USD, from either Character Creator or iClone, chosen with the Import dropdown at the top of the node.

Using iClone? The character export settings match Character Creator's, just from a different menu. iClone-authored animation needs one extra step — see Exporting from iClone below.

Follow the section for your export: Character Creator USD or FBX, then iClone if that's your source.

Exporting as USD (recommended)

In Character Creator, go to File ▸ Export ▸ Export USD (Omniverse). In the Export USD panel:

• Export → Character — not All. "All" drags scene lights, cameras, and a shadow-catcher into the file. The tool copes with either, but Character keeps the file clean.
• Include Motion → ON, set to your Current Animation, to bring the animation in. Turn it off for a static character.
• Motion FPS — match your Houdini scene's FPS (24 if you haven't changed Houdini's default).
• Everything else (Render Mode, Unit: Centimeter, Post Effects: None) can stay default.

Character Creator's Delete Hidden Faces option (on by default, trims faces hidden under clothing) is fine to leave at its default — the tool fully handles it.

After export you'll have a .usd file with a Materials folder beside it, and — when motion was included — a Motions folder holding the animation as its own small .usd clip. Keep the .usd and its folders together; the tool resolves textures relative to the .usd. That Motions clip is also exactly what Add Animation takes as a lightweight animation-database clip, so a USD export doubles as a cheap way to bank motion clips. There's no .json sidecar in USD mode — Character Creator writes the material data (subsurface, displacement, eye/skin shader values, accessory colors) directly into the USD instead. That's it for USD — skip ahead to the Quick Start.

Exporting as FBX

In Character Creator, with your character ready, go to File ▸ Export ▸ Clothed Character ▸ FBX. Here's how to set the Export FBX panel, top to bottom.

Target Tool Preset — Maya

Set the preset to Maya. This exports a clean, standard FBX with the bone and material structure the tool expects, and writes the textures into a folder alongside the FBX.

FBX Options — Mesh and Motion

Choose Mesh and Motion to bring the character in with its animation. Mesh alone works if you only need the static character; Motion alone works if you're adding the motion separately. For most users, Mesh and Motion is right.

Subdivision Level — SubD 1

Set the subdivision level to SubD 1. It gives you smooth, render-quality geometry without the cost — SubD 2 quadruples the geometry for detail you won't see, and SubD 0 is too coarse for close-ups.

Texture Settings — Embed Textures OFF

Leave Embed Textures unchecked. The tool reads textures from the folders Character Creator writes next to the FBX (the .fbm folder and/or a loose textures folder), so nothing needs to be embedded — and leaving it off keeps the FBX smaller and re-importable back into Character Creator (embedding breaks that).

Leave the other texture options (Max Texture Size, Convert Image Format, Multiple SubD Normals) at their defaults.

Frame Rate — match your Houdini scene

Set the Frame Rate to match your Houdini scene's FPS. The Maya preset defaults this to 30, but Houdini's default scene is 24 fps — so set this to 24 unless your scene runs at something else. Getting this right keeps the animation playing at the correct speed after import.

Motion options

Under Include Motion, Current Animation ▸ All brings in the whole clip. Use Range if you only want part of it.

Other settings — leave at defaults

Everything else in the Export FBX panel can stay at its defaults. In particular, the defaults already bake skin and hair color into the diffuse maps the tool reads — Bake diffuse maps from skin color and Bake diffuse and specular from Digital Human Hair Shader are on by default, so leave them on (the hair re-dye system still lets you recolor afterward — see Hair).

One default is worth double-checking: Bake Wrinkles for Still Frame must stay OFF (its default).

Advanced export settings (the gear icon)

The ⚙ gear icon at the top of the Export FBX dialog opens an advanced panel. You normally don't need to touch it, but two of its defaults matter here, so it's worth a glance:

• Export JSON for Auto Material Setup (General section) — must stay on (the default). This writes the my_character.json the tool relies on for displacement, subsurface, wrinkles, and accessory colors. If an export ever comes out without a .json, check this switch.
• Normal — OpenGL (Y+) (Normal section) — must stay OpenGL (Y+), not DirectX (Y−). Houdini and Karma expect OpenGL-convention normal maps; DirectX flips the green channel and inverts fine surface detail like pores and wrinkles.

Everything else in this panel can stay default.

Exporting from iClone

iClone is where you author and mocap animation. There are two things you might export from it: the character itself, and an animation you've built on it.

The character

You can export a character from iClone the same way as from Character Creator — same panels, reached from iClone's menus:

• FBX (File ▸ Export ▸ Export Clothed Character) — the reliable choice, identical to the FBX section above.
• USD via the NVIDIA Omniverse plugin (File ▸ Export ▸ Export USD (Omniverse)) — see the warning below.

Getting iClone animation into Houdini

To bring an iClone performance in as a motion clip for the animation database, you have two routes. Option B (the Character Creator round-trip) is the reliable one — Option A depends on iClone's experimental USD export above.

Option B — FBX round-trip through Character Creator (recommended)

Export your animation from iClone as FBX, then bring it onto the character in Character Creator, which re-exports it in a format this tool fully supports:

1. In Character Creator, go Import ▸ Import External Motion and choose the FBX you exported from iClone.
2. Wait while "Fetching Characterization Profile" finishes loading.
3. In the Motion Import Settings dialog that follows, leave the defaults and click Convert All.
4. Re-export the character from Character Creator — as USD (recommended) or FBX — with that motion, using the export sections above.

Option A — USD, via the NVIDIA Omniverse plugin (experimental)

To export USD straight from iClone, install Reallusion's iClone Omniverse plugin, following the official installation guide. It adds USD export to iClone directly, so you can export character and motion much as you would from Character Creator.

Animation

To bring the character's motion in with it, export with the animation baked in — the tool reads the embedded FBX animation automatically, and you can add more clips later. See Animation.

If you're exporting a long animation (hundreds of frames), it's worth doing a quick static-pose export first to confirm the character imports and shades correctly before committing to a long, heavy bake.

Keeping files together

After export you'll have:

my_character.fbx
my_character.json          (material data — REQUIRED, see below)
my_character.fbxkey        (Character Creator re-import key)
my_character.fbm/          (textures Character Creator writes beside the FBX)
textures/
    my_character/          (loose texture folders, if any)
        Std_Skin_Head/
        Std_Eye_L/
        Hair_Transparency/
        ...

Keep all of these together. If you move the FBX, move its .json, .fbm, and textures folder with it — the tool resolves everything relative to the FBX.

Keep filenames to letters, numbers, and underscores (e.g. aaron_talking.fbx) — the tool handles other characters, but plain names keep paths tidy across your pipeline.

A note on character versions

The tool is designed for Character Creator 5 / iClone 8, and should work with all CC3+ base meshes — best with characters built on Character Creator's standard base meshes. Some advanced features depend on what your character provides:

• Wrinkles require expression-wrinkle maps (most CC heads have them).
• Hair re-dye requires Character Creator's hair maps (root, ID, flow). Hair baked into a flat diffuse will still import and look correct, just won't be re-dyeable.
• Displacement requires exported displacement maps.

The tool detects what each character has and enables those features automatically — nothing to configure. If a feature's controls don't seem to do anything, your character probably doesn't carry the maps that feature needs.

Ready?

With your character exported correctly, head to the Quick Start to import it.

See also

Quick Start

This page gets you from a fresh Houdini scene to a shaded, rendered character in about five steps. Every control is explained in depth later, in Using the Asset.

Reallusion Importer for Houdini

Reallusion Importer for Houdini (v1.2.1) turns a Character Creator 5 or iClone 8 character into a fully shaded, animatable, render-ready character in Houdini's Solaris environment — in seconds instead of hours.

Requirements & Installation

Before you start, make sure you have:

Troubleshooting & FAQ

Common issues and their fixes. Most import problems trace back to either an export setting or a moved file.

USD vs FBX

Version 1.2 added a second way to import your character. At the very top of the node is an Import dropdown with two choices — USD (the default) and FBX.

Wrinkles

One of the tool's standout features is its animated expression-wrinkle system. Character Creator faces have a sophisticated wrinkle system — as a character frowns, squints, or opens their mouth, fine wrinkles appear in the right places.