[NEWS] Cinema 4d r9 announced

[Guest firemind]

http://maxon.net/jumps/cinema4d_e.html

 

n-gons baby!! whhoooo!!!!

[Guest pixel_pimp]

Oh man my day is shot!

[Guest govinda]

From CGTalk:

'cookepuss':

Any timeline improvements? (maybe I missed something)

Nope, sorry.

Cheers

Srek [Maxon beta coordinator]

 

This update looks like it's about modeling, modeling, modeling again, some workflow, some CA and some dynamics. Not about animation workflow--our bread and butter. But wtf, I can't wait to use those Mesh Surgery like built-in tools. C4D already had an amazingly smooth workflow, and it's gotten ten times better with the HUD and tweak and and and...

 

Firemind: I've heard that n-gons are over-rated and that modeling in any app is still best done in quads except when absolutely necessary. But whutta I know? Max seems to be all tri's to my uninitiated eye.

[Guest firemind]

Well, most subd algorythms will nicely divide stuff into quads. The NGON thing means you can create topology freed from all those nasty supporting edges that kept muddying up the mesh. About damn time though, now let's see if modelling is good enough to make me forget about XSI

[Guest firemind]

Speaking of XSI. Avid have lowered the price of foundation to $495. It's amazing.

 

http://www.softimage.com/products/xsi/v4/

[Guest igorschmigor]

How much did it cost before?

[Guest SermonOfMockery]

i think it was like $1500-$2K before...

[Guest Sao_Bento]

SOFTIMAGE: It should be pointed out that $495 gets you SoftImage "Foundation". Nothing on their site gives any hints as to what differentiates their products (something they must have inherited from Avid).

 

SIGGRAPH: Saw a great demo by Charles Kourhy (sp?) of Imaginary Forces at the Maxon booth. He as showing how they did this spot

 

http://www.imaginaryforces.com/html/index....ects&q=7&id=253

 

Very cool stuff - lots of innovative approaches. Most impressive was the fire - the entire spot is CG.

[Guest fredcamino]

here's the comparison of the different versions of xsi from softimage's web site: http://www.softimage.com/products/Xsi/v4/c...son/default.asp

[Guest govinda]

Avid considers C4D to be competition it seems... But what a crazy cutthroat move. It pulls the rug out, and everyone has to follow. Price wars like this are good for the customer in the short-run, but leads to commoditized products, a shake-out, concentration around two or three apps and grindingly slow replacement cycles in the long run.

 

The facts shaking out seem to be that this base XSI is all that motion graphics people like us need. Oh, that and a Windows box. But watch in the next few months whether other apps don't cut prices also. Max can't keep its US$3,055 price point.

 

On whiteboards all over 3D programmer-land, the words 'Fuck Avid!' are now being penned by people whose salaries are now in danger of being considered a 'luxury' by their companies.

[Guest wing]

SOFTIMAGE: It should be pointed out that $495 gets you SoftImage "Foundation". Nothing on their site gives any hints as to what differentiates their products (something they must have inherited from Avid).

 

SIGGRAPH: Saw a great demo by Charles Kourhy (sp?) of Imaginary Forces at the Maxon booth. He as showing how they did this spot

 

http://www.imaginaryforces.com/html/index....ects&q=7&id=253

 

Very cool stuff - lots of innovative approaches. Most impressive was the fire - the entire spot is CG.

 

link doesn't work...

[Guest juicysauce]

Is it this project?

 

http://www.imaginaryforces.com/html/index....ects&q=7&id=253

[Guest juicysauce]

Here's a little hint about the IF site: They have a ton of great work that isn't directly linked. To see it, change the value of "id" in the URL.

 

For example, take this original URL:

 

http://www.imaginaryforces.com/html/index....ects&q=7&id=253

 

and change "id" to 254, like so:

 

http://www.imaginaryforces.com/html/index....ects&q=7&id=254

 

It looks like you can get up to 272 before the default content takes over.

[Guest juicysauce]

Interesting... has this trailer been released yet?

 

http://www.imaginaryforces.com/html/index....ects&q=7&id=270

 

This is fun.

[Guest firemind]

The reason why i thought it was amazing, is that really not a whole lot is cut from the foundation version of XSI. Most people I know can live without cloth, hardbody dynamics, etc. You get a fully operational Mental Ray license thrown in (whereas with c4d you'd have to pay extra for the advanced render module) too.

 

I agree with Govinda this could literally kill the smaller companies like Maxon and to a lesser degree Newtek. But in the end, isn't it up to them to innovate to such a degree to maintain their business?

 

Having toyed with the R9 siggraph demo of Cinema4D, while it's nice, a lot of stuff feels like catching up (ngons, micropoly displacement, cloth, improved IK) rather than innovation. The Maxon way seems to be to offer last year's innovations at a cheaper cost, so I'd like to see them try harder. Ditto with Newtek, who appear to have let everyone pass them by with new ideas and technologies.

 

As for Max, Discreet didn't respond last time either when Alias (Alias|Wavefront back then) dropped the price of Maya to 2k a few years back. Max to me is like Quark Xpress these days, outdated crappy overpriced software that remains in use simply because people are used to it.

[Guest govinda]

Then again, as machines get faster, you can sell more product and make up on volume what you lose in margin. But still, it's a big-time risk and a huge culture-shift to go from making Rolls Royces to making Audis.

 

Who's left standing is of big interest if your skillset is all in one app. Not everyone can survive such a massive price cut. Hence my purchase of a 3d party Maya book a few weeks and diddling around in the v5 and v6 PLEs.

 

The Maxon market appears to be the six-seat shop with a small render farm. They'd better hope there's a big market in that kind of small business because C4D's lack of an open renderer, shader trees and xrefs supposedly means they can't sell into the big studios, regardless of the amazing stability and brilliant workflow of the app.

[Guest firemind]

It's still amazing to me, 5 years ago Maya and Softimage were several tens of thousands of dollars.

 

Now, when do you expect we can pick up a copy of Flame/Inferno at the supermarket ;-)

[Guest govinda]

At least obsolete Moviolas have some retro value if you sit them on a shelf between some houseplants (required decorating element in Hollywood, by the way). Whaddaya do with an old Henry?

[Guest Sao_Bento]

Govinda,

 

Spielberg still refuses to edit on anything but Movieolas - Apparently he bought several + spare parts so they can live long into the future.

 

As far as SoftImage VS. Cinema 4D goes, C4D fits into our workflow really well (multipass, AE import, etc.). We also tend to look for people with eye skill vs. tech skill. C4D seems like it's easier to learn for 3D newbies. After watching the demo artist try to trouble shoot his render at Siggraph, I can't imagine that we'd ever get anything done with SI.

 

I agree Maxon should just abandon all the character animation crap - recognize the apps strengths in motion graphics, architecture, and cinematic matte painting.

[Guest paccollective]

the studio i work at to put food in my fams belly uses XSI (the studio has been with soft for 8 years) and it's intense. a deep and fully customizable program with no ceiling but it requires a LOT of support - even the most experienced animators run into issues on a weekly basis. we have a troubleshooter on staff who works on this stuff fulltime (thankfully i'm in post).

 

on my own stuff, and on all of the vids on my site, i use C4D because it's incredibly stable and so damn easy.

[Guest paccollective]

i almost forgot! the AE conduits for C4D is a huge deal - an easy composite pipline built into the program - it's friggin amazing, don't know where i would be without that.