why not cinema 4d?

[Eugen]

You picked maybe the single best example that c4d can do in the same way ;)
In c4d you would use the MoExtrude Objetc as a deformer to get the same effect while keeping the setup completely parametric.
My guess here is that there is not much of a fundamental difference but more a difference in which operations are available and how powerfull they are.

Aha!
So 'deformers' in C4D can also introduce topology changes?

In the SI terminology, deformers, as I have already elaborated twice, only moves vertices.
Topology operators change the component count, or at least re-sort them.

The toolset is not the problem I see. That can be extended. What is much more difficult, is change low-level workflow paradigms.
I'm interested in testing C4D's limits in that regard, the quick way (every program has them).

Btw., no point in going in a shoot-out about who has got the 'coolest' tools. That's totally not my point.

[luchifer]

this is a great learning experience

[angus_davidson]

Indeed very informative ;)

[Eugen]

Yeah... I hope something similar will happen on the Modo side... =)

As a sidenote, I hate all the secrecy about roadmaps... Modo, C4D... same as Autodesk. Darn!

[luchifer]

Yeah... I hope something similar will happen on the Modo side... =)

As a sidenote, I hate all the secrecy about roadmaps... Modo, C4D... same as Autodesk. Darn!

dont worry, autodesk also hates not knowing what their competition is doing.

[Srek]

You picked maybe the single best example that c4d can do in the same way ;)
In c4d you would use the MoExtrude Objetc as a deformer to get the same effect while keeping the setup completely parametric.
My guess here is that there is not much of a fundamental difference but more a difference in which operations are available and how powerfull they are.

Aha!
So 'deformers' in C4D can also introduce topology changes?

In the SI terminology, deformers, as I have already elaborated twice, only moves vertices.
Topology operators change the component count, or at least re-sort them.

The toolset is not the problem I see. That can be extended. What is much more difficult, is change low-level workflow paradigms.
I'm interested in testing C4D's limits in that regard, the quick way (every program has them).

Btw., no point in going in a shoot-out about who has got the 'coolest' tools. That's totally not my point.

This is actually one of the few inconsistencies we have. MoExtrude should be a generator in principle. For practical reasons it was implemented as a deformer.

[Eugen]

This is actually one of the few inconsistencies we have. MoExtrude should be a generator in principle. For practical reasons it was implemented as a deformer.

Could you elaborate what a 'deformer' is capable of in C4D?
Are there other exceptions like MoExtrude?

[Letterbox]

This was an interesting read...

http://forums.cgsociety.org/archive/index.php/t-893642.html

I would hope Srek could add to it here in saying what's changed from 2010 to 2014+.

Sadly not that much. Thanks to the pretty powerfull XPresso functionality of the new Dynamics the combination of TP and Dynamics offers a lot of possibilities, similar to what was possible before with TP and Hair. You can create forces that make these components interact, it's not a common physics system tough.
The main drawback of TP is still the limited object count, since TP uses object instances for particles.
For many c4d users the need to use nodes to create larger TP setups was a reason to avoid it. It shouldn't be much of an obstacle for XSI users though. Many c4d users prefer XParticles, which relies on the object manager instead.
Cheers
Björn

Thanks for that Björn.

I see that Xparticles is a 3rd party plugin. So the question is, xsi has http://rray.de/xsi to showing the scope of what's available - both paid and free. Is there a repository page like that for all of c4d plugins?

Additionally like Xparticles, can you recommend a list of "must haves".

[Srek]

This is actually one of the few inconsistencies we have. MoExtrude should be a generator in principle. For practical reasons it was implemented as a deformer.

Could you elaborate what a 'deformer' is capable of in C4D?
Are there other exceptions like MoExtrude?

Another exception would be PolyFX, like the MoExtrude a member of the MoGraph family of objects.
In general a deformer is really just what you expect, a function to change the position of the points of an object. No topolgy changes etc.

This was an interesting read...

http://forums.cgsociety.org/archive/index.php/t-893642.html

I would hope Srek could add to it here in saying what's changed from 2010 to 2014+.

Sadly not that much. Thanks to the pretty powerfull XPresso functionality of the new Dynamics the combination of TP and Dynamics offers a lot of possibilities, similar to what was possible before with TP and Hair. You can create forces that make these components interact, it's not a common physics system tough.
The main drawback of TP is still the limited object count, since TP uses object instances for particles.
For many c4d users the need to use nodes to create larger TP setups was a reason to avoid it. It shouldn't be much of an obstacle for XSI users though. Many c4d users prefer XParticles, which relies on the object manager instead.
Cheers
Björn

Thanks for that Björn.

I see that Xparticles is a 3rd party plugin. So the question is, xsi has http://rray.de/xsi to showing the scope of what's available - both paid and free. Is there a repository page like that for all of c4d plugins?

Additionally like Xparticles, can you recommend a list of "must haves".

I hope other c4d users can step up here since i am highly unqualified to recommend plugins, personally i never use them. Not because there are to few or because they are bad, but simply because i had to do my QA job with just the on board tools for the last decade.
C4D Cafe has a database on available plugins http://www.c4dcafe.com/ipb/c4dplugins.html and in any of the c4d forums you will find ready help on which plugin does what job how well.
Cheers
Björn

[luchifer]

A must have for modeling in C4D is magic solo from nitro man, because C4D does not have an isolate mode, and this free plugin does the trick.

http://nitro4d.com/blog/freebie/magicsolo/

[3DKiwi]

Another essential plugin is chamfer maker. This applies a non destructive edge bevel to edge selections.

http://irisvfx.com/blog/addons/chamfer-maker-r15/

Another one is rBoole. Render time booleans. A common problem with animatable booleans is a visible popping / shading artifacts. You don't get this with render booleans. Also a much lower CPU overhead.

http://www.plugins4cinema4d.com/downloads.html

[Letterbox]

Thanks, please do keep them coming...

Also on the c4d page listing all the plugins, am I right in saying you can only use the R15 plugins, eg it has to be compiled for a specific version of c4d. ie. no using R12 plugins in R15?

[Srek]

Thanks, please do keep them coming...

Also on the c4d page listing all the plugins, am I right in saying you can only use the R15 plugins, eg it has to be compiled for a specific version of c4d. ie. no using R12 plugins in R15?

This depends.
Maxon tries to only make substantial changes to the SDK, that need a recompile, every couple of versions. Most of the time the SDK is extended, but existing functions are left untouched so old plugins can work. Every couple of years however it is necessary to replace or modify old functions, in those cases some small adjustments and a recompile might be needed. Maxon tries to do these changes in larger chunks so the code does not have to be touched to often.
It is different for plugins that depend on the customers serial number, in those cases you often need a version specific plugin and a new plugin serial number. This is usually not a problem since the plugin developers do take good care.
Cheers
Björn

[3DKiwi]

Re plugin compatibility.

Many R12 plugins will work with R15. However it's pretty common for plugins to be version specific and only work for that version. If you're lucky the plugin developer will make a new version / recompile.

Every few years Maxon will change the internal structure of Cinema 4D e.g. move to double precision integers. This then means that no plugins will work with the new version. The last couple of versions haven't had any changes that break all plugins. I'm still using an old plugin "Geomcheck" to check for bad geometry.

[3D-Django]

Here's another example of what you can do with Cinema 4D's deformers:
Particle sculpting using the camera deformer. In the video I want to illustrate that deformers work very well with mograph, particles, and the other way round mograph effectors work well with geometry etc. Plus, I've added dynamics, just because it's fun



Unfortunately without sound again, but I've added a description on the vimeo page for those who are interested in the details of the setup.

@ Eugen: Yes, just send me a PM whenever you want!

cheers
Günter

[Cutman]

While Cinema4D is an excellent application in many regards there are some things that will be quite a shock to a Softimage user.

While C4D's viewport is very fast and able to throw a lot of polygons around its object handling is very poor. It will not take long to completely bind up the viewport when using Mograph cloners and fracture objects. It's a long time frustration to most users because it is holding the application back from realising its full potential.

The big problem C4D has is that for the most part it is single threaded and for as long as I've been a user 6+ years there have been calls for Maxon to multithread the application but in their infinite wisdom they've largely ignored their users. There's a very good reason for people turning to X-Particles over C4D's built in standard and Thinking Particles is because those developers had the temerity to multithread their plugin and consequently it is much better for doing jobs with massive particle counts than the standard tools and they have created their own particle rendering shader while no Krakatoa it's very fast indeed. X-Particles is an excellent plugin developed by some bloody good blokes that fills a gaping hole left by Maxon. That's why many prefer X-Particles as Xpresso/TP is no ICE unfortunately as you'll very quickly hit the performance barrier of single bloody threadedness.

There are a lot of good things in C4D but there's a lot of dated baggage that Maxon appears not to have any interest in bringing up to date, their once market leading painting tools, Bodypaint, has been criminally overlooked. It looks even more dated since the inclusion of C4D's Sculpting tools which are pretty fantastic for a built in toolset. You'll find C4D is an application of contrasts, some areas absolutely wonderful, some ridiculously dated. It's worth pointing out C4D is probably the most stable application I've used in production, a crash is a very rare occurrence but this is often used as a cop out by Maxon to justify their lack of development. The pace of development in C4D is glacial luckily there are a plethora of plugin developers kicking out really affordable high quality tools to enhance all areas of your workflow.

I think C4D would be a good fit for many XSI users but the very heavy ICE/TD crowd might be better served with Houdini as C4D is a tier or two below that sort of capability unless you're a plugin developer.

The C4D community is a very giving community, with loads of free and cheap tutorials to help your migration easily particularly in the Mograph area.

A lot of really good work gets done in C4D and for that reason I would say a download of the demo is probably well worth your while.

HTH.