Cinema 4d r14

[Nizar]

Thanks for share your experience Sir Mathaeus

This forum need something like thanks button

What I like in modo is render engine, fast, without too much issue, a lot of nice done preset (not perfect but good for testing your scene). The modelling great capability of modo is hype for me, softimage has more, is more fast, robust and better organized.

Cinema is a perfect stranger, but I like how they work on it (or is their marketing/promotion who conquest my weak mind?

About ICE, is artist friendly? Really? Don't know, never felt the need to use

I like many of the blender approach but cannot force my mind on it... also I use to model complex character, and sometime have heavy meshes, blender viewport is weak and cannot edit more object at once. Excluding viewport performance, the other issue are only a question of habits, but my mind are too used to softimage...

I think blender is the only way for escape from this curse:

For the amount of money we pay its kinda insulting and depressing to look at other software houses at the same time.

[gaboraa]

As an ex Cinema 4d user let me say somethings or two for comparing C4D with Soft:

You don't want to rig and animate in cinema 4d; it has some cool features like showing the weighting value right beside the cursor and ability for reassigning weighting to other desired deformers BUT I always had issues while rigging like stupid bone orientation, they shift sometimes in the middle of the production and after creating the bones, you should align the bones every time you create them. And they constantly add and remove features that may be you are depending on like muscle deformers. They say that there is no need for such a system in Cinema but hey what if a studio started to use that functionality? But mighty Maxon says that there is no need to. If there is no need such a system in C4D then why did you add it in the first place??? It has a modern rigging and weighting architecture than SI but as a native C4D user I never wanted to go back to C4D for that purpose, SI is great in that respect but SI needs an overall overhaul.

Rendering is great in C4D, sky system is perfect but there is a flow: THERE ARE NO MATERIALS TO SIMULATE REAL WORLD SURFACES! you have just a stupid matarial system with a 90's feelings; even some game engines could do better surface shading than Cinema!

Mograph is a great addition for motion graphic artists and Bodypaint is one of the strongest points of C4D but it hasn't received much love since from 2000's so it is an outdated platform I may say compared to Modo and Blender.

It has a feature called VAMP, a ripoff of GATOR which Maxon did after GATOR had been announced by Avid. I have never got it to work man, it isn't usable! It cannot even transfer a sphere's uvs to another sphere!

C4D has many features that I could call them as junk but if you want to give it a try, just go and see for yourself but remember: maybe you won't find a feature in the next release of C4D for they have a tendency for changing the shape of the software with every release! You might not find a feature or a group of features under the animation menu cause for some reason Maxon don't like the idea of stable menus, they might put the feature that you are seeking for under the functions menu who knows or they might add that functionality as tags. For example they add a new menu called snap, they haven't realized the needs of such a menu and they add it in release 14.

[Ramon]

Ok. Cinema haven`t so powerful instruments for rigging, simulations and modeling, but it developed so fast that I`m sure in 2 released it has all powerful instrument from some 3d software.

[Rork]

a Nuke composite link, but still no proper passes system? Or am I looking in the wrong place?

[gaboraa]

a Nuke composite link, but still no proper passes system? Or am I looking in the wrong place?

Of course because a stupid wood shader is more important than a pass system, sometimes I really wonder what Maxon thinks!

[Nizar]

Thanks very much Gaboraa,
but you refer to some old cinema release, right? New one look better, and cinema community look like a happy island if compared to AD user communities. If excluding Blender and Modo communities, where many (too many) users is practical religious fanatics about their favourite software, the cinema community seems the only one happy for every release.

No Rork, no pass system, seems a cinema user can live without

[Maximus]

Because cinema its open and has integrated fully every other render engine on the market, so if you need passes you just go with vray, or other.
Beside that, it has the basic passes. We have passes because we have mental ray, which is a render engine that has passes.
Also because the advanced render is aimed for motion graphics, where you dont really need much custom passes.

[gaboraa]

Because cinema its open and has integrated fully every other render engine on the market, so if you need passes you just go with vray, or other.
Beside that, it has the basic passes. We have passes because we have mental ray, which is a render engine that has passes.
Also because the advanced render is aimed for motion graphics, where you dont really need much custom passes.

Cmon it is more expensive than Maya it should have had such functionality by now:) I wouldn't pay that much just for motion graphics.

Thanks very much Gaboraa,
but you refer to some old cinema release, right? New one look better, and cinema community look like a happy island if compared to AD user communities. If excluding Blender and Modo communities, where many (too many) users is practical religious fanatics about their favourite software, the cinema community seems the only one happy for every release.

No Rork, no pass system, seems a cinema user can live without

Having been said C4D is overpriced and limited software and I saw some dispute at CGTalk over Maxon's pricing structure and some of its features which hardly became useful.

[Nizar]

Yes, one point is sure: the full edition (studio) is very expensive.
Now bodypaint stand alone is more competitive (has the sculpt integrated)

[luceric]

Beside that, it has the basic passes. We have passes because we have mental ray, which is a render engine that has passes.

I don't want to nit pick there, but the passes in XSI are not related to mental ray. it's related to XSI's override and property propagation design and mental ray is totally unaware of what's going on, and not participating.

[Maximus]

Beside that, it has the basic passes. We have passes because we have mental ray, which is a render engine that has passes.

I don't want to nit pick there, but the passes in XSI are not related to mental ray. it's related to XSI's override and property propagation design and mental ray is totally unaware of what's going on, and not participating.

Ok but what is the uses of passes in XSI if you dont have a render engine that output those passes

@gaboraa you keep sayin its expensive as Maya, as far as i can see maya here is 5600€ and c4d studio is 3800€. So i dont know where you pulled those numbers.

[grahamef]

Ok but what is the uses of passes in XSI if you dont have a render engine that output those passes

XSI sends the renderer a set of data to render. When that's finished, it sends another set of data to render. Then it sends a third set of data, and so on.

The renderer doesn't need to know that each set of data is a "pass" with "overrides", etc.

Maybe you're thinking of framebuffers/render channels?

[gaboraa]

http://usa.autodesk.com/maya/how-to-buy/ -- $3,675

http://www.maxonshop.com/us/ps/CINEMA%204D%20CINEMA%204D%20Studio/1/s1/C100-CAT201 -- $3,695.00

These are general prizing just for US, in my country it is even more pricey than that.

[Nizar]

In Europa Maya is more expensive

In any case the version different by Studio seems to me very expensive (the basic one cost more than modo and doesn't have GI)

[Nizar]

siggraph (I think) video:
http://c4dlive.com/