Maxon has become the latest CG software developer to receive an Epic MegaGrant. The $200,000 award will go towards strengthening integration between Cinema 4D and Unreal Engine.
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Interesting…
It looks like the new Maxon’s CEO is in a “make c4d great again” kind of mood lol… I like that… 
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Why though?
Doesn’t Maxon has enough money to develop their stuff without help of Epic?
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I agree with Romanji. The Epic MegaGrant is a joke. They only give the money to people who don’t need it like a giant company like MAXON or the game Bebylon after they already raised over $2.5 million. They should give it to indy games that look like they need a boost not these places that already have tons of cash.
The only thing C4D has over Blender is Mograph and Mograph is not really used to make games so this makes no sense at all. How about give $200k to blender so it can have a better link to Unreal?
I am confused. Do you mean he is looking to destroy c4d like Trump is doing to the US or actually make it better?
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LOL… I see your point, but I mean 
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Just in case you aren’t aware, Epic gave Blender a 1.2 million dollar mega grant.
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I was not aware. That is great news. $200k more to Blender or some indy devs to make some awesome Blender plugins would be good.
They could probably give way less than $200k to the guy that made the plugin below so he could give it away to everyone for free. I already bought it, but other people could benifit.
That plugin is great for working with Unreal.
UE4 isn’t just targeting the games industry, and hasn’t for a long time. It’s branched out to vfx/film/Archvis/product adverts/Automotive. This link up with Maxon is a move to entice Mograph studios and makes perfect sense.
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but they already have tons of money. Why not give it to someone that would take the money and say hey now we can do things? Instead they give it to someone that says throw that dollar on the mountain of dollars we already have. We do like seeing the pile grow bigger, though we are never going to do anything with it.
Bah… Why they do not give money to Blender boohoo 
guys, guys do you realize how pathetic you sound.
… he, he… internet can endure all kind of stuff . So what is next? Some crazy theory about Chinese evil master plan?
This is not place for childish politics, anyway.
TL;DR like @Musashidan say Epic have his own goals. C4D is versatile software, there are many good artists which use it, artists which work in specific fields… So Epic simply want to push things, nothing more, nothing less.
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Epic is still a business, not a philanthropy society. They grant to avenues that will benefit their ecosystem as well as the field of CG as whole.
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Yes, it certainly sounds like you are confused.
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This is called a “mega grant” to give each other a little publicity, but it is different from those towards open source software …
It is probably more of a financing-agreement to direct Maxon developers to develop some features that favor good communication with Epic Tools.
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Awww, crap. Here we go.
£200k doesn’t pay for many high quality developers for very long so it’s probably more cost effective for Epic to hand out money with conditions to the likes of Maxon to pull their finger out and make data exchange better.
It would probably cost Epic a lot more and take longer to make a C4D plugin which may be more limited than an in-house tool.
Blender’s Mega Grant didn’t come with any conditions that were made public at least. Blender’s path to UE exchange is via USD which will have wider and more profound benefits.
I think it’s rather telling that Maxon need an incentive to get off their arses to better support UE. Maxon have a long history of not supporting the gaming industry and not listening to game developers.
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Megagrants were also given to Godot, Armorpaint, and a few other FOSS projects, all of them sound like the “now we can do things” type. That is not to mention the large grant given to the BF.
I believe I read that they actually attached a statement on what they want the money to be used for (ie. a better bridge to Unreal), which makes sense if you are to give that type of dev. money to a billion-dollar company.
IIRC the Blender Epic Grant came with no strings attached.
That statement was about the grant to Maxon, not Blender.
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C4D is popular among small to medium studios to do previz. Funding the bridge specifically is probably a nudge to make sure Maxon continues developing near real time previz technology that game engines are being used for more and more. That would be in line with what is a buzz here on the streets of Hollywood and SoCal.