CINEMA 4D R15 announced - Kerning, Team Rendering ......

[Mylenium 0]

Out of interest, what big features were people hoping for?

 

Ask a hundred people, get a hundred different answers. ;-) There are a few obvious sore spots, though:

• (UV-) texturing - C4D/ BP simply isn't competitive any more and everybody uses other tools for that.
• C4D seriously needs a generalized and unified caching system - to memory, to disk, per scene, per object, per file, including smart ways of temporarily freezing generators, deformers or the overall hierarchy evaluation. This would also open up better ways for retiming simulations or animations, including sculpting simulations/ cleaning them up (see NewTek's new ChronoSculpt) and generally eliminate many performance problems.
• On the previous note, a better, also generalized dynamics/ simulation framework. TP is old and Bullet physics will soon be forgotten.
• A material system overhaul. Dealing with layered materials/ shaders in C4D is a nightmare.

Of course this list could go on endlessly...

 

Mylenium

Edited July 25, 2013 by Mylenium

[froj 0]

I would second all those. Agreed the caching is a mess, dynamics are per scene, mograph is per tag, baking to PLA is trickier than it should be and an unnecessary necessity most of the time. And unified/interactive dynamic/cloth/particles/hair that are all linked somehow would be a dream. I would rather they 'finished the job' in terms of their new pathway into character and overhauled UV/BP first though

 

I should really start documenting the feature requests I send, so many smaller things I forgot over the last year. Let's start sending our R16 wishlists in!

 

..And I did see Chronosculpt, its kind of a holy grail for me for animating sculpting!

[theta 0]

Granted I've only been using C4D for a few months on and off, coming from years of use in 3Ds Max, but I think the biggest thing it needs to improve on is viewport speed and playback. The way C4D handles all the objects and effectors in the heirarchy is great for making cool looking stuff, but horrible for interactive speed. What's so good about making something that looks cool, but is impossible to animate in realtime in the viewport? I've heard from Maxon employees that they are aware of the issue and it would require a ton of work, basically re-writing a lot of the architecture of how every object/effector is made. But, maybe the new multi-threading will help that.

 

 

Also, when you hide stuff, it doesn't make the scene any faster. it's like C4D is still trying to compute it. As soon as you delete it, then it helps speed things up.

Edited July 25, 2013 by theta

[eliss 0]

This should be an update for people that bought R14.

[superegophobia 0]

A material system overhaul. Dealing with layered materials/ shaders in C4D is a nightmare.

Agreed, I prefer the node based Hypershade in Maya especially when referencing the same file texture and splitting that out to multiple channels/shaders. Also agree Maxon needs to unify the dynamic systems. The last few years Autodesk has been introducing a new unified module each update, nHair, nCloth, nParticles via Nucleus. They have most of the modules, now if it just wasn't so damn buggy all the time...

 

I'm actually excited to see how well Team Render works. Sounds like that could save a ton of time and allow you to do test frames at a much higher quality. Has anyone used it yet?

[froj 0]

Granted I've only been using C4D for a few months on and off....

when you hide stuff, it doesn't make the scene any faster. it's like C4D is still trying to compute it. As soon as you delete it, then it helps speed things up.

 

I'm in the process of writing up an article on scene speed techniques. It is a legit complaint that things should be quicker, and there are steps taken in R15, but honestly there are more steps that users can take to help themselves rather than wait around for maxon to rewrite from the ground up. Watch this space, I will try and post it after the weekend...

 

Quick tip for you though, use the layer browser and as well as visbility turn off generators, deformers, xpressions. You think it's polygon/object numbers slowing your scene down? That's not even the half of it. of course there are some holes in the layer browser which I'll explain, but it's serviceable

Edited July 25, 2013 by froj

[theta 0]

I'm in the process of writing up an article on scene speed techniques. It is a legit complaint that things should be quicker, and there are steps taken in R15, but honestly there are more steps that users can take to help themselves rather than wait around for maxon to rewrite from the ground up. Watch this space, I will try and post it after the weekend...

 

Quick tip for you though, use the layer browser and as well as visbility turn off generators, deformers, xpressions. You think it's polygon/object numbers slowing your scene down? That's not even the half of it. of course there are some holes in the layer browser which I'll explain, but it's serviceable

 

Yes please write up something, because I've tried a lot of stuff, but it just seems impossible to work with. I have to be missing something.

[Mylenium 0]

Quick tip for you though, use the layer browser and as well as visbility turn off generators, deformers, xpressions.

Yepp, using layers is way to go. Also turning off computational intense options like merge points/ weld in items like the Connector and Symmetry objects or the collision evaluation in the Spline Dynamics tag help, despite seeming trivial. Another tip would be to always use splines with the Uniform setting, which also helps to get better and less geometry-heavy results with Extrude objects and all that.

 

Mylenium

[edrhine 0]

We use the Magic Solo script/plugin on projects and its freaking awesome for speeding up the viewport. You can also set up some simple xpresso to help on/off intensive viewport things and put it in the HUD. This would be a great thread to expand upon and sticky at the top of MOCentral

[J Montreuil 0]

Yepp, using layers is way to go. Also turning off computational intense options like merge points/ weld in items like the Connector and Symmetry objects or the collision evaluation in the Spline Dynamics tag help, despite seeming trivial. Another tip would be to always use splines with the Uniform setting, which also helps to get better and less geometry-heavy results with Extrude objects and all that.

 

Mylenium

 

I love layers but they are short a couple features:

 

1. When you have layers solo'd and add new objects to your scene, they are automatically hidden. There should be a generic layer that objects without layer designations go into.

2. You can't call up layer functions in Python. I love the Render Elements plugin but do most of my organization in layers so its pretty much useless for that. It would be nice to be able to do that.

[froj 0]

Exactly, already noted those 2 in my doc. There is a workaround for the auto add via a keyboard shortcut and an extra click...

I am regularly requesting those layer shortcomings via the form, hope you are as well!

 

Big article coming up, it's going to be a useful one if I do say so myself

[J Montreuil 0]

I actually spend my "feature request free time" lamenting the inability to name your object buffers.

[oeuf 0]

I actually spend my "feature request free time" lamenting the inability to name your object buffers.

I forgot to ask about this during the Siggraph presentation. So this has not been addressed?

[J Montreuil 0]

I forgot to ask about this during the Siggraph presentation. So this has not been addressed?

 

Not that I have heard. If I ever get a chance to directly talk with someone on the team, this is the first, second, third and probably fourth question I'm asking.

[Mylenium 0]

2. You can't call up layer functions in Python.

 

It's my understanding that layers are just a pseudo-class that wrap other internal functions in a new interface. I'm not even sure if it would be that useful to address it via Py. I would probably only want a query option that checks whether an object is on a specific layer and that layer is locked, then skip over it in my code or trigger a dialog...

 

Mylenium

[J Montreuil 0]

Someone passed this onto me: http://www.rendertom.com/plugins/renomi/

 

 

Thinking about picking it up. It's annoying that you have to have a work around for what should be a pretty simple feature but it's better than nothing.

[parallax 0]

Cinema 4D users are less tech- & efficiency centric, more focused on idea & design compared to Maya or Max users. That makes them 'lazy' therefor they really need viewport speed to compensate for bad habits.

Edited July 27, 2013 by parallax

[froj 0]

It's my understanding that layers are just a pseudo-class that wrap other internal functions in a new interface. I'm not even sure if it would be that useful to address it via Py. I would probably only want a query option that checks whether an object is on a specific layer and that layer is locked, then skip over it in my code or trigger a dialog...

 

Mylenium

Actually my colleague made me a user data to animate a layer at one point. I don't understand scripting, I wish layers would be available via xpresso for those things... But they are accessible somehow by python

 

...and about the lazy thing. I'm not sure who you are blaming with that comment haha. Can we really expect to be owed something because we can't be bothered optimising? The 'slow' speed is a side effect of all that damn flexibility we get. All those generators everyone is obsessed with keeping parametric while using maxons default values for everything are creating unrealistic expectations. I absolutely want faster handling of everything but C4D users cannot plead ignorance and expect to be spoon fed speed.

 

I also think C4D users cannot all be put in one category. For example most the folks here use it in a different way to those at C4D Cafe, it's a broad software and its (thankfully) expanding further away from the shiny balls era with each release!

[Mylenium 0]

Cinema 4D users are less tech- & efficiency centric, more focused on idea & design compared to Maya or Max users. That makes them 'lazy' therefor they really need viewport speed to compensate for bad habits.

 

I don't think so. Some of those speed issues are inherent in C4D's scene graph evaluation model and its parametric-ity, combined with its lack of controllable caching. If I wanted to call C4D users "lazy", then I'd sooner wind up myself all day about sloppy polygonal modeling techniques. Some stuff shown to demo the new Bevel tool makes my toe nails curl up... Anyway, I'm sure Maya and MAX users could say a thing or two about performance issues, too, and having used a ton of 3D programs in my 20 years of doing this stuff, experience tells me that you can screw any program by hitting the wrong button at the wrong moment...

 

Mylenium

[Mylenium 0]

Actually my colleague made me a user data to animate a layer at one point. I don't understand scripting, I wish layers would be available via xpresso for those things... But they are accessible somehow by python

 

 

Yepp, just looked it up. They are a minor sub-part of the generic list API and seem to have no magic of their own beyond triggering the buttons the program provides. Well, perhaps I'll use it one they when I have a handle on the other Py stuff and better understand C4D's modules and all that...

 

Mylenium

[froj 0]

Speaking of that kind of thing, it would be really nice to have a master override hotkey that would stop all animation, simulations etc. just 'STOP' and go to frame 0. No doubt easier said than done

Edited July 27, 2013 by froj

[AromaKat 1]

Someone passed this onto me: http://www.rendertom...plugins/renomi/

Thinking about picking it up. It's annoying that you have to have a work around for what should be a pretty simple feature but it's better than nothing.

 

Woah! Thanks for the tip! Buying now.

[anothername 0]

 

 

Quote

Someone passed this onto me: http://www.rendertom...plugins/renomi/

Thinking about picking it up. It's annoying that you have to have a work around for what should be a pretty simple feature but it's better than nothing.

Woah! Thanks for the tip! Buying now.

 

 

Holy shit, I think I am more excited about this than any of the new features in C4D. Thanks for the tip. I guess new features sell software but from my point of view as a working stiff slogging his way through projects everyday these kind of workflow features are more important than a lot of new tools. For 20$ this is a no brainer to pick up.

[Mylenium 0]

Holy shit, I think I am more excited about this than any of the new features in C4D. Thanks for the tip. I guess new features sell software but from my point of view as a working stiff slogging his way through projects everyday these kind of workflow features are more important than a lot of new tools. For 20$ this is a no brainer to pick up.

 

You can of course do all of that with a bit of command line magic or tools like BulkRenamer as well for totally free... ;-)

 

Mylenium

[AromaKat 1]

You can of course do all of that with a bit of command line magic or tools like BulkRenamer as well for totally free... ;-)

Mylenium

 

That was what I had been doing. But it still requires a bit of work matching up names to pass numbers. And I haven't found a solution that renames and puts each pass in it's own folder without having to fux with the script every time. It opens the opporunity for user error that I think this would help prevent.

 

Yes, its just a simple batch rename utility built into C4D but I still think its well worth $20. I'll make that money back in time saved within a month.

 

I'm still not able to import image sequences from a terrablock without having each pass in their own folder, so that feature in particular is the huge time saver for me.