I am a long time C4D artist and I am thinking about doing some work from home, since C4D is very expensive I was thinking about learning Blender.
Is there a series of tutorial that can describe the migration from C4D to Blender, I am not talking about tutorials for a complete noob with interface knowhow, I am looking for something for pro that need to know where is the equivalent tool of each app.
I know I can go over the tutorials but I prefer something more organized, more like a course.
As a person who converted from C4D to blender 3 years ago,
I wouldnāt say itās a painless transition as C4D is a very unconventional application, so unfortunately, a lot of the stuff you learned in C4D, youāre going to have to unlearn, or ask for an equivalent
Really, itās just like learning from scratch, unfortunately.
I donĀ“t think that you need to unlearn anything. I am working with Cinema4D and started to use Blender for my private stuff. It is different, but not that extremly different. If you want to jump to Lightwave, the changes are similar (I personally found LW more alien, compared to Blender).
You can find a lot on Youtube, even courses, https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWWybvw9jnpOdJq_6wTHryA for example. If you donĀ“t mind to pay a few bucks, cgcookie.com might be of interest.
Yet another C4D user who switched over to Blender. I was introduced to the world of 3D through Cinema 4D, and really appreciated itās interface. Made a lot of cool stuff and got into character rigging, which led me to Cactus Danās plugins. Cactus Dan passing on actually led me to check out Blender, since C4D does a lot of things well, but character rigging is not one of them.
I actually found the switch to Blender shockingly easy. Perhaps my expectations of how difficult it would be were too high, because once you understand how Blender works in āroomsā or āmodesā (object mode/edit mode/sculpt mode, etc) it all comes together. Obviously learning the hotkeys was a big curve, but thatās true for any program.
A final note that may be of interest; Cinema 4D is often touted for itās fantastic MoGraph modifiers, but Iāve found similar modifiers within Blender for nearly every operation. Itās all there within Blender! Good luck.
I use Cinema 4D since R11, have R19 installled and donāt think it was hard to learn Blender. Actually, itās easier than people often say. My first day was a mess, but once I changed the right click select behavior, everything just worked out.
I think that Blender is a more rounded software in the end. Cinema 4D is great for mograph work, but not that great for modeling or uving. I donāt like the Physical Render and in general Blender has better rigging tools, specially for characters.
Just curious, what is āhappeningā in the Cinema 4D āworldā that people are jumping ship ?
Autodesk I can understand because of the whole subscription thing and how they increase the price of perpetual maintenance causing a lot of people to feel betrayed.
Whatās going on in the Cinema4D world ?
Iām originally a blender user and i learned for a few weeks c4d, i was curious about the software,
For mograph animation you have the similar thing for blender, itās an add-on called animation node, i never used xpresso or anything related with nodes in c4d but i think animation node is like the mograph tool mixed wih xpresso ( or thinking particles ) of C4D, correct me if iām wrong.
hereās a link where you can learn AN https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byi1oGsVTAA you have other videos in youtube and thereās a documentation about it, the link is the only ācourseā iām aware of for AN.
For the modifier well you have pretty the same thing, just a little bit different i think
Same thing for simulation in blender i think itās pretty straighforward, and thereās a lot of youtube tutorials
For Mograph style animation thereās Midge ( the mantissa ) https://www.youtube.com/user/T4ch1k0ma and he have a course in blender cloud about motion graphics.
same here
c4d felt too restraining for modeling, UV, texturing, shading, renderingā¦ jumped over in 2012 (after 8 years, back then Cycles was the deal) ā¦ then i also found Blender to be too restrained with particles and FX, so in 2016 i am also accompanied by Houdini
the basic thing, as with everything else is, is to just start observing, opening to, joining with every day (you got time to spare? meet it) & after couple of min. you get in the zoneā¦ 1-2 hours per dayā¦ then after couple of months you see cinema lacking more and more and voila you then meet animation nodesā¦ and sverchokā¦ pythonā¦ and the community!!!
you earned yourself freedom to create & share as your will pleases
and thatās the greatest reward since ancients: āImperare sibi maximum imperium est.ā
Hey, I donāt know Cinema 4D, but I came over to Blender from many years of mostly working with Max and Maya. The way I got used to Blender was to adopt it as my main modeling and UV tool working alongside the more familiar apps I was using day to day in the office.
Modeling is a really good entry point into Blender. And I think also the fact I was always jumping out of Blender into more familiar 3D apps helped me so much getting used to the interface and new approach to so many things. I found that itās best not to think of Blender as simply another 3D animation app. Itās more like a mini production suite with compositing and video editing and a whole host of other features. Itās very much itās own thing and has had a very different development path to many of the others and different perspectives and goals. So I would advise approaching it with an open mind and donāt fight with any of it. A lot of it works so well once grasped. Itās the fastest interface I ever worked with now Iām used to it.
I think you are making a great choice. Blender has shaped up to be so ideal for individual free lancers and independent creatives as well as small to medium sized studios and projects. The community is pretty great too.
Heh, Iām the opposite, Iāve been trying to learn some cinema4d coming from blender because cinema4d has support for a few 3rd party renders Iām interested in. One thing I think blender could learn from cinema4d is the UI, itās so easy to understand. The object/layer manager (not sure whatās itās calledā¦the outliner?) is so damn good, so easy to apply textures, organize objectsā¦
Iāve been lurking about blender artist for a while now and thought Iād take this opportunity to say hi and add my voice to this thread as a cinema 4d user who very interested in blender. I really enjoy working with C4d and use it at the studio I currently work for. They bought one license to use for small cg elements ( its a small studio ). I wanted a license of Cinema to use at home and since Maxon for some reason does not have a learning edition I bought a license or R17 Studio for around $3500 with two years of free upgrades. This was way beyond what I should have paid, I still think I was crazy. But what is crazier is that upgrades cost about $900 annually to stay up to date on new features or what I pay for is and MSA ( manufacturing service agreement ) of $650 annually, which allows me to install the program on 2 computers. Now the price of the MSA is being increased to $725 annually which is another blow to my wallet.
What is worse is that to do any particle work you need to buy x-particles or make due with the old particle system that comes with Cinema. I bought x-partilces 3 for $400 a couple years back, x-particles 4 now costs over $700 and an upgrade from my version to the new version would be around $350. If I want to do fluids or fire I would have to by Turbulence Fd, upgrader to x-partilce 4 or buy Realflow. I really donāt think Maxon will ever update their particle system or add fluids and fire fx to the native app. In addition Iāve heard they are stopping development on their physical renderer, so I guess that means you need to buy a third party renderer as well like Octane, Redshift Arnold or you can have Cycles4d for $400. If I was making tons of money freelancing Paying $3500 plus $750 MSA annually, plus $700-$1500 for particle/fluid plugins plus $400-$1000 for a third party renderer wouldnāt be an issue I guess. But with a family to feed I would have to be insane.
There are things I love about cinema, I love how organized it is, how fast it is to get things done, I love the render queue and take system. I love following Greyscale Gorilla and the folks a Barograph. The program is incredibly stable and I really like how I can use it on my laptop and easily navigate and get work done while I sit on the couch with no need for a mouse. Iām sure you can configure Blender to work that way, but that is something I need to figure out. I just donāt love the price of Cinema and the fact that you need to spend thousands of dollars to fill in all the missing gaps. Blender has smoke, fluids and fire and even though they have that ability, the developers are looking to improve in those areas anyway. I love how they create their own render engines and donāt expect you to go out and buy a third party renderer. Or buy a renderer and throw it into their program. Another telling sign is that you can pay $400 and get cycles for cinema4d now. The first piece of software I ever owned was modo 701, I upgraded to 801 and havenāt touched it since I started using Cinema. I donāt care for maya or Autodesk, nor their subscription only nonsense. I have always loved Houdini and Sidefx, I took a few classes and have had Houdini apprentice around since H11. I have the same respect for them as I do for Blender. They build their own tools and donāt expect you to have to buy plugins unless you want to, not because you need to.
Iāve just started learning Blender, with help from blender guru, blender cookie and udemy to name a few sources. Weāll see how it clicks with me.
Sorry this post was so long winded, but Iāve spent the last 5 years testing almost every software package under the sun. Driving myself, family and friends nuts with my constant flip flopping.
The same crisis like everywhere. Maxon is in the process of a core rewrite. Its underway since version 14 or 15 i think and it will take a little longer.
Previous versions like 17, 18 and 19 where underwhelming in regards to new features, while legacy stuff is lying around untouched since basically decades. The most painful one is the Unwrapping module (for me) and the material editor. They changed the material editor in 15 to add new physical reflection methods (GGX, Beckmann) but the UI is bad. Way too many clicks to create reflective materials.
There is no real node editor for materials and the idiots at Maxon actually donāt want one. Third party renders use C4ds internal expresso editor, but i think that thing is horrible to use. When Cycles4d has the best node editor of all renderers in C4d then there is something wrong in C4d-userland. Even octaneās implementation is horrible.
Rigging is fundamentally broken for more complex stuff, you need Cactus Danās plugin to do that properly.
You want to simulate fluids? You have to buy Realflow. You want to simulate smoke? You have to buy TurbulenceFD.
You want to do proper particle simulations for Mograph? You need to get X-particles.
You want a real proper renderer? There are lots of them available (nearly all of them), but you have to buy them additionally.
The studio version costs ~3000 bucks, with all the additional plugins its a couple of thousand more.
C4d has become a glorified plugin-hub. They also spent too much effort satisfying their apple customer (a minority of users) to the detriment of the others. For example: the implemented AMDās ProRender so that the apple-people have an GPU renderer, but the implementation is shoddy at best (worse than Mayaās and Blenders), Maxon like always does its own thing, and it isnāt good enough. Barely usable that thing, but they can advertise a ānext generation GPU rendererā. IMHO a publicity stunt to hold the apple user.
Needless to say: users are getting pissed that nothing changes where it counts, while Maxon always teases the ānextā version as the big thing. That didnāt work out for the last 2 version and if it doesnāt come fast enough, more people will go to Blender and Houdini.
I foresaw that dilemma and jumped ship. Life is too short to waste your time with a tool which is not the best in his category. I do mostly modelling so jumping to Blender made my work faster and more fun.
Also C4d is like a walled garden. Once you hit the glass ceiling, the program is not pushing you further in your abilities, its actually trying to guard you from the more complex stuff. It hinders your growth. Leaving its protected space will free you in a way, but you have to make a leap of faith.
Talking for myself, Iām a freelancer 3D generalist and motion designer. Cinema 4D is way to expensive to work with, specially if youāre from a third world country with weak economy like Brazil in my case. Even worse if you have family, like myself.
If you go to Maxonās site, Cinema 4D is shown as a great piece of software. But if you look with some attention, you will see that more than half of what is done with Cinema 4D on the big houses actually arenāt Cinema 4D at all. Itās X-Particles, itās Octane, Itās Redshift, Itās Houdini (with Houdini Engine). Do the Math and nowadays Cinema 4D is pretty expensive for a freelancer to do some mid to high end stuff.
There is no indie and apprentice versions as well. So, their target appears to be only (medium to big) studios not individuals/freelancers.
Hi @Kelthor , Iām still beginer with Blender , but I was curious to know why you say " ā¦ since C4D does a lot of things well, but character rigging is not one of them " ?
Iāve been using C4D for the last 12y now and I think I 'll switch 100% not too far in the future on Blender for some reasons which has been listed like old tools never been updated ā¦ lack of good roadpath imo and totally hidden to customers ā¦ bugs in the last versions which makes me stuck and feel more confortable, on c4D R15 ā¦so a 5y old version ā¦which will be abandonned by 3rd party renderer ( I own an Octane + Redshift licence) in a close future so Iām facing the C4D limits in use ā¦time to change ) ā¦but ! Rigging is something I find almost excellent in C4D . I do CA since almost my begining in 3D and if Iām not wrong for example C4D offers you some character animation tools that you donāt have in Blender ( no rotational morphing ā¦ no softIKs ? ā¦ the blender bendy bones are just c4d splineIKs but in a more complicated worflow I think ā¦well from some vids over Iāve seen ) ā¦Xpresso in C4D is fabulous ( old nodal stuff yes but life saver to make any math/transform/link between objects etc ā¦I didnāt see any tool like that in Blender if Iām not wrong ā¦ maybe āanimation nodesā addon ? etc ). But Iām curious to have feedback on this character animation tools compare experience ( I donāt have one yet on Blender ā¦only saw some tutorials ) itās important to me to know this too if itāll become my new working package .
thx
I totally agree @Binke . The Blender Outliner is far behind C4D one (āobject managerā ). Hope this Outliner will be updated to become more āuser friendlyā
In short, you reach a certain level of complexity and stuff breaks, behaves incorrectly, does not what it suppose to do, often irreversible. UI becomes messy, not enough ways do debug.
Missing functionality for complex interaction of animation and simulation tools.
Bad viewport playback on top of it.
thx for your reply Romanji . I know that we are on a Blender forum , but could you show me examples of thoses problems you have ? Maybe Iām not aware of those problems or could give some tips/workarround .
I recently watched the Nathan Vegdahl rigging vids (āHuman riggingā vids ) and from I 've seen Iām almost sure C4D rigging is far simple and userfriendly/intuitive than Blender but maybe those vids are a bit old and Blender rigging tools have been upgraded so I canāt be sure ) . To give an example , from what I saw in the Nathanās vids : it seems that we have to use lot of bones , overlapping each others , with lot of hidden parenting linking in any directions ā¦ I found this horrific and not user friendly at all . I know we can reach the wanted goal of course but what a messy stuff for basic rigging goals ā¦ in C4D youād have one joints chain ( C4D used to have bones system like that too , long time ago but removed it to upgraded to a more modern approach using joints ( pivot points ) like maya, instead of bone objects ) and so the squeleton keep simple and clean ā¦all is made with the controlers for the functionalities. Another thing that I donāt find userfriendly is the Outliner which doesnāt allow you to rearrange the bones for example itās disturbing too
(again Iām not here to āsellā c4d , as Iād like to switch to Blender , but Iād like to know the limits of each one to know where Iām coming . So saying c4d rigging is not good I donāt agree as I donāt see similar things in Blender )
What is the differenct between a joint and a bone in C4D or Maya? 3d programs often use their own jargon but acutally mean the same thing.
The way I understand it a bone is simply the visual representation of a joint. A bone can (but doesnĀ“t have to) have some properties besides representation (like deriving vertex weights from its size) but generally a bone is just a āstickā indicating where and how individual joints are connected to each other.
