Cinema 4D R21 Announced

Well you can do some great mograph completely in AE with element 3d & other plug in ( paticular, stardust, ect )

That is true but Iā€™d rather pull teeth than do 3D in AE.

Element 3D is nice. Back on topic thoughā€¦ I donā€™t think C4D is going anywhere. If anything I think theyā€™ll pull marketshare away from Autodesk. I donā€™t know anybody who is ā€œexcitedā€ to learn their(Autodeskā€™s) products. C4D has a realllly steep price point where as Houdini has a very steep learning curve.

You donā€™t have to be a math wizard to use Houdini though. I think people get overwhelmed when regular shelf-tools/basic Houdini will get you as far as you would in other 3D programs. Also I think the usability will only go up with future releases especially with more and more of the motion design field adopting H.

It would be awesome is blender got a more in depth motion toolset as well as decent Type tools. Personally I think a killer combo could be Blender, Houdini, ,Substance package.

And once you start making the big bucks throwing down 5k on a Houdini big boy license isnā€™t that hard a sell. Where as getting C4D when youā€™re just starting out can be daunting.

1 Like

Maybe Blender can gain some mograph crowd with the new Everything Nodes. Animation Nodes could had started, but Itā€™s too difficult compared to ā€œdrop sphere on cloner objectā€ with no real benefit to make someone to drop C4D in order to work with Blender. Everything Nodes + 2.8 can change the market (maybe not by a great margin though).

2 Likes

One of the things people seems to ignore here is that most of graphic designers that use C4D donā€™t want to go and learn full 3D. And thatā€™s a HUGE chunk of the user base, besides motion graphics.

Iā€™m currently doing a small introductory course for a group of graphic designers of a local ad agency; they cannot afford to keep paying for the C4D license, so Blender is the obvious choice. They donā€™t do animation, just stills, and most of the time the renders are heavily modified in Photohsop. So when explaining UI, basic navigation and object editing the first thing I heard from them was: ā€œdo we really need to learn all that technical stuff to work in Blender?ā€. The mindset changes because the UI affects greatly how you feel about learning a program for the first time. (Showing them the 2.8 UI made them feel better about using Blender btw).

See, in C4D is very, very easy to get started and do simple things fast. Even if you go a bit more advanced and start doing motion stuff, nothing is as easy as add a cloner to the scene, drag and drop a mesh in it and start messing around with the settings. Almost every other 3d program is more advanced that C4D in terms of features, but that doesnā€™t matter, because at the end of the day the type of user that chooses it as itā€™s main 3d program needs ease of use first and foremost. And, as others already mentioned here, when a user gets more advanced and wants more control it usually ends up looking for other software options.

On the first class I started with a little presentation showing examples of what Blender can do, just to get them pumped about what will be possible for them, and after I finished they all started to ask me for specific things they want or need to do, mostly from Behance, and most of it actually very easy.
So I modified the course a bit and decided to do several demos, showing them how to do those things they were asking for, simple characters, typography stuff, abstract designs, what you usually see in instagram or behance.
So, one of them would show me how they would do it in C4D, and I would show the Blender way; and not surprisingly, the C4D way was quicker in many cases, specially typography; Blender would be faster for any sculpt or modeling task, though.
They are finally starting to see that Blender offers them a lot of possibilities, but the learning curve is too steep, even after I explained how to modify some of the preferences (Iā€™m looking at you right click select from hell). Again, keep in mind that these are users that wonā€™t be doing 3D all the time, and donā€™t want (or need) to learn everything about 3D.

So, thinking just about this part of the user base, I donā€™t see C4D going anywhere or losing much of their users, because there isnā€™t really any other 3D program like it.

6 Likes

The users at CGsociety are really starting to test the features now, like the node materials.
https://forums.cgsociety.org/t/r20-node-materials-first-impressions-discussion-questions/2046664

Unfortunately, the node system right now is limited in a few areas and it will likely take next yearā€™s release to make it into a truly complete material builder. The feedback towards the VDB remesher meanwhile is a bit more positive now that people are getting accustomed to it (because of features like adaptive resolution).

Back to the discussed feature though, it has been Maxonā€™s style to only put out one or two patch releases a year (with minor enhancements at most) between the major revisions, but nowadays it means taking far longer to deliver improvements and even bugfixes to users (in the age where competitors have moved towards 3-4 updates or even releases a year).

Will the feedback indicate C4D being in great health in the future, it really depends on whether you need very complex scenes in motion because core areas have still not seen a major optimization and multithreading push.

Nice r20 stuff on this siggraph presentations videos playlist

C4D R21 is around the cornerā€¦ :wink:

2 Likes

For the first time, 2 main DCC are released on the same day

That video is too long for me to watch all the way (Iā€™ve never used C4d anyway). But I read over on the Modo forums that itā€™s apparently full featured at $59.99/mo.

More on their site.
https://www.maxon.net/en/products/cinema-4d/new-in-release-21/overview/

4 Likes

I would be jealous of those juicy particle effects if not for the videos from Jaques. It also looks like thereā€™s a lot of new OpenVDB stuff and bevel profiles with clipping.

Fortunately in that last case, the bevel profile project for Blender is doing pretty well, though I donā€™t think it has clipping.

Iā€™m sure the Mograph people, VFX people, some of the rendering people, and the modelers will go bonkers over R21, those that animate characters got something at least, but it looks like there wasnā€™t near as much focus there.

Though seeing the denoiser part of that video, it looks like details in that plant render, especially in the rocks, were killed off. I hope thatā€™s just bad inputs.

As a counterpoint to an otherwise good looking release, there are some users on CGsociety who are actually disappointed that the rumors about their app. eventually becoming subscription-based is now reality.

I would argue that around 60 dollars a month somewhat contradicts the idea of ā€œ3D for the whole worldā€, because for a sizable percentage of the global population, Blender will remain the only DCC option in their reach. Good for the BF at least in that area, especially if the subscription means you get locked out of C4D and your files altogether if you forget to or can no longer pay.

I used to use Cinema4D a lot, but Iā€™m not as excited with its news as I am with blender improvements.

60$ / month itā€™s excelent, tho.

The only thing I miss in Blender which doesnā€™t allow me to completely drop C4D, is something that does what MoGraph does. Animation Nodes is amazing and has great potential, but for simple things (like scattering a bunch of instances randomly on an object surface) requires too much ā€œnode-codingā€.

Hope ā€œeverything nodesā€ project adresses this gap somedayā€¦

1 Like

The heat is on!

Blender vs Cinema 4Dā€¦ Round oneā€¦ FIGHT!

Cycles vs Octane / Prorenderā€¦ Round oneā€¦ FIGHT! :grin:

2 Likes

The perpetual license is still available (3538ā‚¬!), but I like how the 49.99ā‚¬ becomes 60.99ā‚¬ with VAT @22% here, so, from paying 599,88ā‚¬ you are going to pay 737,88ā‚¬.

This price is similar to a perpetual license for Prime (675ā‚¬ at the moment), thatā€™s why they removed all the other options.

Still, itā€™s cheaper than Maya, 256ā‚¬ every month (I remember it was at ~130), which is CRAZY.

1 Like

That custom curve for bevels looks amazing :heart_eyes:

The prices are really good too (compared to Autodesk). Letā€™s hope the everything nodes project helps Blender in the MoGraph area, which is the weakest point compared to C4D.

2 Likes

Autodesk is now doing a limited-time offer that significantly undercuts Maxon, believe it or not.

In addition, Maya just got a souped up version of Bifrost, so theyā€™re trying to take on Houdini as well. However, itā€™s still subscription only, limited to a small number of countries, and might contain other gotchas.

You donā€™t need animation nodes for that.

Object Scatter addon is provided with 2.80.

2 Likes

Many veteran C4D users beg to differ with you - some are calling it one of the worst upgrades, worse than v17! Maxonā€™s hyperbole is to blame here partly too, though.

On both CGtalk as well as C4dCafe several long-term users are planning the move to Blender. I noticed one user offering his Studio license for sale today. Which is a smart move, since the perpetual licenses are devalued in one fell swoop.

There is a LOT of unrest and disappointment in the C4D crowd right now.

Studios seem quite happy, though.

1 Like

For modeling hard surface I switched already to Blender. No UV enhancements sealed the deal for me, although project anorigami from painter seems real nice for that. I still donā€™t use hardops / boxcutter though.

I just got tired of waiting for the new core.