Reallusion Avis 58

Unbelievably exaggerated prices for the software alone. They should at least give discounts for indie developers, like they do for students. They charge money for every little thing and the software alone costs over $700 to use properly. If you want hair, beards, eyebrows, that's another $300–$500.
And then there are all the outfits you would need, which start at $20 each (which wouldn't be so bad if the software were cheap).
Daz3D & MetaHuman for example are free and HQ.

Software is great. Customer service stinks. Sounds like a company populated by computer geeks who don't know how to deal with real people. Downloading was unnecessarily difficult. And it was full of undisclosed traps leading to unwanted subscriptions and unexpected costs. Got the feeling they like the big corporate spenders and don't want to waste time with the hobbyists. I had difficulty even downloading the Hub which you need to get the apps to get started. The problem? Well, it could be one of a dozen possibilities. So, that's my first day.

The software itself is decent, but good luck if you ever need help.
I had a simple question about a promotion—just needed someone to check if my order qualified. After multiple exchanges, I still haven’t gotten a straight answer. Just the same templated response restating the promo rules, completely ignoring what I actually asked.
And it’s not just their ticket system. YouTube comments? Ignored. Forums? Ignored. X/Twitter? Ignored. There’s essentially no way to get real human help.
When you’re charging premium prices for your products, customers deserve actual support—not robotic non-answers. I shouldn’t have to fight this hard just to get someone to look at my order.
If you’re considering Reallusion, factor in that you’ll be completely on your own if anything goes wrong.

The most unstable "mainstream" software I've ever used.. and the most expensive! Just use the MUCH better Metahuman Creator for free

If you’re looking for reliable, professional software - pick anything but Cartoon Animator. It’s a toy, nothing more.

I’m a professional artist and animator. I spent 3 years working with CA4 and CA5, purchasing licenses and paying for courses from 2DAnimation101. The instructor seemed genuine and charismatic, but in the end, I wasted three years of my life, energy, and money.

Later, my mentor Mark Diaz openly said that he doesn’t even like Reallusion and works with them only for the steady quarterly payments he receives. Hearing that after years of learning and effort was extremely disappointing.

You will never see serious, professional-level projects made in Cartoon Animator. The software is aimed mostly at cartoonish, child-oriented content. Even the official CA contests often raise questions about judging fairness. According to Mark Diaz, “Reallusion cares more about money than quality.”

I’m deeply disappointed. I fell for the marketing and big promises that turned out to mean nothing.

CA itself is completely unsuitable for complex projects. Its functionality is awkward, unreliable, and full of bugs. What looks simple in the ads is far from it in practice - you’re constantly pushed to spend more money on extra content.

Maybe CA could have potential if the developers treated it as a professional tool. But right now, it’s software for hobbyists - people who can’t or don’t want to invest in more serious tools like Moho or Toon Boom Studio.

I once had a better opinion of Reallusion, but that trust is long gone. And what I’ve heard from their representative, Mark Diaz, only confirmed it.

[Professional animator & digital artist (working with CA since 2022).]

I purchased credits on Reallusion because I wanted to download a cartoon image from their website to use as a background and foreground in a video. The image was advertised as layered, which sounded ideal. However, instead of being able to download it in a standard format (like an Illustrator file), I was forced to install multiple pieces of software—none of which actually allowed me to access the image itself.

When I contacted support, I was told to reach out to the artist directly to request the file, which seemed unreasonable. Why not simply make the image available in a standard format? I was also informed that a refund would not be possible.

Over the course of a week of back-and-forth with support, I actually found an alternative image elsewhere and completed my project without using Reallusion’s products. In the end, their system and support only cost me time and money, while offering no usable result. Based on this experience, I cannot recommend Reallusion.

It's hard to find anything good to say about this product: terrible design and user experience, massively buggy, poorly documented, and priced like an enterprise application.

It's possible that large studios have dedicated staff creating custom pipeline implementations, but the consumer end-user experience is the worst I've seen. Definitely not recommended for any use case I can think of, there are far better alternatives.

I purchased Character Creator 4 with Headshot and SkinGen to create realistic avatars.
Unfortunately, many features do not work as shown in the tutorials:

Functions like the Image Matching Tools do not respond to mouse clicks.

Tutorials show buttons and options that are not even available in the software.

Even after installation and activation of the plugins, often nothing happens at all.

Customer support is slow and explanations are unclear.

For such a high price, I expected a functional and user-friendly software. Instead, most of the time is wasted troubleshooting.
I will try to get a refund and can only warn others not to purchase at this point.

I have been using CC4 basically since it came out. I have tried to use it video games. That was a mistake. The licensing is the worst in the business. The program itself is not adequate for the job and it is way overpriced. Mesh conforming is awful, weight painting is awful, getting blendshapes to look natural is awful. Don't even get me started on custom hair.

Add-on programs like headshot are obviously just third-rate cash grabs. Unreal live link is $1700 for no good reason since Unreal does most of the work.

In the end it can be useful for a handful of things that can be done in other programs (rigging mostly). If you need to create a bunch of plasticy generic NPCs quickly and are already going to be using other programs for their clothing and animations, it's fine.

Otherwise, I have nothing but regrets about dealing with this company or their products.

I paid $99 for Animation 5, thinking it would be easy to use. I am not a professional and English is not my first language. I didn’t understand how the app works, and I didn’t use it at all.

I contacted Reallusion for a refund, but they refused to help me. I feel helpless and disappointed. I just wanted a tool I could use, and now I lost my money for something I never used.

This is not fair and I hope the company will respond and do the right thing.

Even Reallusions own community says their products suck and to get free to use stuff instead lol its a joke of a company and a community

I just bought two animations but the download feature for them does not work and now I cant even login to my account anymore due to technical issues they have with google connect. There is no customer support!!! for something this expensive is ridiculous.

Evil company overcharges for barely functioning applications of which blender can do everything it can do for free or 1/100th of the price

It is incredible that after uninstalling all their products, they leave spyware in C:/ProgramData/Reallusion that you can't delete because they are ALWAYS in use. Unbelievable this garbage program.

Absolutely not intuitive, it takes you 2 hours to find something. (I searched a man seated and they said "look at this idle man who eat". In Iclone, 4 panels that do the same thing :/
Buggy software and a bit expensive too.

uptdate
I've been using iClone and CC5 for over a year now, and I have to say, I'm still constantly searching for the things I use every day. It's easy to get lost among the “Items,” “Packs,” “Templates,” and “Custom” panels. It's so completely unintuitive that you're constantly searching for everything; it's impossible to get your brain used to it.
The Reallusion store is sorely lacking in assets, and while there are tons of animations on Actorcore, simple animations just don’t exist...
It’s a real shame.

It is the worst product for a professional 2d animation. Dont recommend it. Its also expensive.

I have character creator 3 which cost a lot and I get packs from there content store...and low and behold they never show up in the software and downloading them seems to be an impossible task. This is coming from a dude who can literally make a whole video game from scratch by himself. This software makes adobe look good and that's saying a lot. Its bloated overly complicated garbage.

Check their EULA before buying. They are sneaky and not worth the time wasted if you're coming from the games industry. You basically cant use the output characters for anything typically found in games. Their clause about 'Character Generation' is legally sneaky and really its outrageous. It does not effect Reallusion WHAT SO EVER if you have character creation within a video game.

They are greedy money grabbers at this stage.

Absolutely terrible customer service and timing. It can take them days to weeks to reply. Also if you want the enterprise license. Well, I guess just don't even try. They lead you on and then basically say they are not interested.

Id say they are even worse then Adobe. And that is a crazy statement.

FIX THE DAM EULA REALLUSION. AND LET PEOPLE MAKE GAMES WITH YOUR STUFF OR YOU WILL FAIL!

If you're considering purchasing reallusion software, proceed with caution. I recently bought character creator that never worked on my high-end PC. Initially, I attempted to contact support via email, but due to a mistake on my part, I used the wrong address. Eventually, I discovered they use a weird ticket system.

The software wreaked havoc on my computer, necessitating a complete reinstall. When I requested a refund, they informed me that refunds are only available within 14 days of purchase.

I tried to issue a chargeback, but since I used a debit card, neither Visa nor my bank was helpful. Unfortunately, I lost $295 of my hard-earned money. Be careful out there and think twice befor you give them your cash!

Reallusion has the worst customer service ever, To resolve your issue, they make you put in a ticket. You will wait days for a super thin generic response that does not solve your issue. This forces you to spend more days waiting for reallusion to respond again. Too often they won't respond at all. Meanwhile, your projects are at a dead stop.
But the worst is when instead of telling you that there is a bug in the program, they string you along and waste your time.