The title is accurate, because it looks like much of the last year has been spent turning Cinema into what looks like a Blender knockoff, even the icons look similar.
There is something else in the second half of the video, but overall it looks like the development rate is going in the direction of Lightwave rather than of Houdini (though there’s allegations of Redshift being bundled this time, which some see as reason enough to upgrade). Still, this type of thing is not good at all for weakening the Autodesk monopoly, as a great amount of press on one thing after a year of development is often a sign of a dying application (for example, Newtek dedicating 90 percent of Lightwave’s 2018 release log to a new renderer). On top of that, does anyone know where the mythical new core went?
With Modo also on the decline, the only options in the future (as far as full DCC solutions go) will be Autodesk, SideFX, or Blender (with the only wildcards being the possibility of Epic Games and Adobe becoming players).
To conclude, another classic death spiral, or the beginning of a major comeback?
Not a Cinema 4D user but I see some inspiration from Bender. Not sure how to feel about it because in some instances the implementation feels better that in Blender.
I am also a sucker for good UI. Working in a nice environment is super important to me because you spend countless hours staring at a screen. This time should be pleasant and efficient.
On a side note I just recently started learning Houdini and I love the power it offers but the UX/UI is pretty terrible for the most part. Feels like Blender before 2.8. I was surprised to hear that Houdini veterans like Entagma feels the same in their recent nerd rant.
But overall I am pleased to see that Cinema 4D tries to improve its UI/UX. Hopefully it’ll nudge other software to get the memo why it’s important to make user expirience pleasant.
I watch rocket Lasso presentation…
So, as someone who use C4D for years I have some opinions. This is not so weak release. First, this is not full release, more 24.5… just like Blender 2.91, 2.92. So expectations must be appropriate for this increment update, just like in Blender case.
Also I have feeling that many C4D users ( current or former ), don’t fully understand Cinema and don’t use it in full potential.
C4D have brilliant design, I can’t stress how much I miss this in Blender. In Blender I have zero possibility of customization, again Zero ( 0 ), customization. During time I download couple Blender scenes, and because Blender almost always load scene with author custom UI although I uncheck this in menu… I see how different people organize his interface… Mess, pure mess. In C4D I can do whatever I want… And because all is so well organized I don’t need to memorize tons of shortcuts, to make “custom pie menus” and other trifle. I just use software, simple like that.
So C4D have good foundation, it’s easy to improve somethin which already are good.
Unfortunately Blender miss opportunity to make more clever design in 2.8. Instead ( as I hear somewhere ), they look to please Autodesk users, instead to make something, practical, customizable, logical… Even worse, I read couple clever suggestions, but this are attacked, mostly by people without any content in his gallery, in most cases new users.
Hmmmm. on YouTube easily can find couple C4D channels where people routinely recreate Houdini setups. And this take less time, effort and technical knowledge. With new node system, capsule, etc. this will be even more easily. Houdini remain as most powerful software in this field, but not all need this power. You don’t go in grocery with 12 wheeler, right?
For mere mortals which do common jobs C4D or Blender geometry nodes are enough in most cases.
Anyway this node stuff are not for me, whatever software are in question.
PS. Houdini interface maybe can be “improved” but I think that this is similar situation with ZBrush interface. Many people complain about ZBrush UI ( with reason ), but no one have exact idea how this can look. Mean how new interface must look to be good for ALL people. Sometime UI design is dictated by software itself. I don’t visit Entagma site long time, do they make some suggestion?
Bah, this is not Maxon or Blender issue. All 'modern" graphic design is… modern
Just compare old splash screens for C4D, 3Dmax, Maya with modern mediocre, generic, dull, boring mess.
…And not only graphic design. Earlier everyone can easily to see difference between cars, even if you was not interested in cars. Nowadays all car look very similar.
1 Like
Renzatic
(Professor Emeritus Billy H. Wafflesmith XIV Esq.)
7
If anyone needs proof that Blender is being taken a little more seriously these days, I would say that this is a good example thereof.
It’s not a complete ripoff, but I were to switch from Blender to C4D, the similarities between the two would make for a smoother transition.
Any software that was born on the Amiga will always have at least some sympathy from me.
In the light of this, the blueprint for Blender was also developed on an Amiga by Ton.
Also, as I’m anticipating a return to macOS, C4D supports that platform better than Blender does, unless that’s not the case anymore lately?
I’d really love to see Maxon get really competitive by introducing an affordable Indie version for small freelancers and small studios, just like the 3ds Max and Maya Indie versions.
I hear you. Tried Houdini about half a year ago or so, and found myself repeatedly cursing at the UI / UX complexity / lack of accessibility within 20 minutes, and ran back to Blender. I’m sure Houdini is a super-powerful tool for non-destructive 3D creations and special effects, but as I’m primarily interested in sculpting and rendering, Blender is much more suitable for me (as is the combination of MoI 3D, ZBrush and Keyshot by the way ).
With its status of Free Open Source Software, Blender is a natural place for brainstorming of 3D community.
There is nothing surprising that interesting ideas freely shared are adopted by commercial software.
That is one of Blender’s goal.
But that would be clearly an unfair behaviour from Maxon to deny that Blender’s 2.8 project was a source of inspiration.
Maxon is not legally constrained to recompense Blender’s community for its intellectual work.
But it is a fact that Maxon is attributing to itself as its intellectual property the work done by volunteers sharing their ideas, here or on right click select.
The least that Maxon should morally do is to give something back to Blender’s community.
They should allow Blender to get rid of last operator panel and allow such panel as a tab in Properties Editor.
Or they should give a part of their benefits from this release to Blender Foundation.
Blender is free. A part of its users are using it because they are broke and can not afford even an indie license. If such guy is making a proposal on right click select, and this proposal is made by an enterprise that has more money and man power than Blender’s foundation.
The end result, whatever the law is saying, is that a poor guy or a kid is contributing to enrich somebody else by making a pertinent and smart request about a design issue that would not be solved for him.
Recognizing that Blender’s contributors ideas are worthy to be integrated to their software but not making a donation to Blender Foundation is the contrary of a mark of respect.
That could sound completely crazy to ask Maxon to contribute to Blender’s development fund, if you think that Blender is a competitor.
But reality is that Blender is not the competitor of any 3D software.
It is outside of competition because it does not have the means to compete.
Other software will always have a cleaner plus compared to Blender.
Blender is a melting pot where any company can bring something and collect gold from.
The minimum decency is to let a coin to the creator of the melting pot after using it.
If you are interested into Cinema 4D because of this new interface, you should ask them to make a donation to Blender Foundation.
Blender users should not just be proud to have been copied.
They should rise their voices to ask for respect that should be translated as a little recompense.
Yeah, it’s pretty much how I feel about it. It’s great to see Blender ideas implemented in other, commercial, software. But if Blender tries to borrow best practices from commercial softwares it’ll get in legal trouble.
There’s probably nothing that can be done about it.
But I agree that supporting Blender fund would be a decent thing to do. Probably won’t happen though.
This is where Adobe Substance behaves in a respectable manner. At least they donate technology in a way of free addons to enrich Blender’s ecosystem.
While the Blender code is OpenSource, I understand that Blender has the intellectual property rights to other matters such as GUI. So I suppose that the fact that others may have copied Blender design, this puts the Blender Foundation in a better negotiating position if others initiate any legal action for copying the design or features.
I think it is pretty funny tbh. Would have been nice if they gave a nod to blender though. (Maybe stick a blender logo in the background announcement video )
I wonder if this is an attempt to attract some of the professionals who left Max, Maya, modo, etc… for blender.
We all know blender is not perfect and people are willing to use other tools to complement their blender workflow, (Zbush, substance, etc…) maybe they are trying to attract those people. Similar GUI to help with the transition.
I think it’s only logical for a commercial product to try to grab users from other bleeding apps like Max and Modo. Don’t know about Maya though. Cinema 4D can close a lot of production needs or even the complete pipeline for certain industries.
There is a lot of intersections with design industry with Cinema 4D so I see why they also try to appeal to aesthetics. Again, only logical to expand their market share. If I weren’t pretty happy with Blender I’d definitely look at Cinema 4D. But Blender covers most of my needs for now. And where I expect to expand Houdini looks much more interesting and I hope Blender will have easier workflow integrations in near future. And maybe Houdini will follow the example of Cinema and refresh it’s UI as well . There’s a ton possibilities to make it way more streamlined.
Very interesting. I used C4D years ago - when the native renderer really sucked. It was fast-ish, but holy hell it was mushy and blurry - you had to render large and scale images down to sharpen them up (the “good ol’ days”).
I like seeing the bar raised across the spectrum - competition refines the species. It’s sad, though, that sometimes the better ideas are killed off to protect the entrenched (RIP Softimage … FU Autodesk).
I will say that after using ~ten 3D packages professionally over the years, I’m really surprised at how much I enjoy using Blender - and watching it mature has been really refreshing. Reminds me of the days when software version upgrades required a book (not just a pamphlet) to describe the changes and improvements.
3 Likes
Renzatic
(Professor Emeritus Billy H. Wafflesmith XIV Esq.)
17
That’s one reason why I prefer the quicker, more incremental updates we get these days. It’s a lot easier to wrap your head around a bunch of small changes distributed across 3-4 updates a year, rather than waiting 2 or so years between versions, and having to come to terms with a bunch of changes dumped on you all at once.
Here we go again… Thy stole from Blender reeeeeee give us credit and MONEY!!!1
Nope, there are similarity… but this is only because Maxon decide to use same design style, which are not Blender patent. Just look around and you will see same boring, dull, faceless, generic “design” everywhere. So please people, stop to behave like… child. Constantly looking for reason to be offended.
Not to mention amount of stuff in Blender which are “inspired” by other software. If we look on this way BF can close shop immediately. Blender do fine, but his users fall behind and become internet meme with constant QWERTUYW!!
But when talk about Maxon “design” choice… no one ask for it… NO ONE. C4D have so many stuff which deserve attention, wasting time / resourceon such frivolous stuff like icons are …finger in eye.
Same is for Blender. But in Maxon case I understand that they are bloated with useless people which try to earn his salary And usually only make damage and mess. In Blender case this is … finger in eye.
Ewen worse, in C4D you can change icon size, and most of user do this. So icons are less than 1/4 of Blender size. Now take another look on this “design”. Dull, low contrast grey on grey. Totally unreadable. Even “color” icons are not better, very very poor choice. When I study graphic design there is Golden Rule : function over form. So some amateurish “designer” make some “modern” fancy “design” and call it a day. I don’t talk about aesthetic ( this is matter of personal preferences, anyway ), I talk about Functionality. Personally I don’t believe that Cinema developers are happy with this, but in public they must cheer management decisions. Sound familiar?
Well, this is Blender not Maxon forum. So I will talk something about Blender. C4D have best design - logic on market ( UI is only part of this ). Love to see more logic, practicality, sense in Blender.
Many people talk how Blender need UIX designers… Meh… Maxon make Cinema good from start, remember in this time UIX design don’t exist as profession. Someone only need little logic and sane practicality. Not rocket -brain -surgery -science
On the other side Maxon make couple step backward in last couple releases, mean began to implement same “logic” as Blender. I guess that mindset of developers change. Instead to make stuff for other people they … do personal trips, to say it polite.
I am a generalist but please keep in mind while reading that I am talking mainly about modelling here.
I have been using 3dsmax since version 3 and know Maya, Lightwave (worst of all 3d software I ever used for modelling) and Modo (to some extends). I am interested in Houdini but didn’t find the opportunity to learn it so far. Lately I was told by my company to switch to Cinema 4D mainly because of cost issues.
I remember Cinema 4D releases were quite impressive about 7-8 years ago. My first impression with version 24 was also very good but after a while I found the workflow really outdated and not intuitive. Also the general user experience was sometimes very good and sometimes really disappointing. (Again, I am not talking about FX or Motion Graphics tools and workflows, just modelling)
I tried Blender several times in version 2.5, 2.6 and 2.7 and I was not interested. But was really impressed since version 2.8. So after one month of using Cinema 4D and doing some more researches and practices I told them that I would rather switch to Blender instead of Cinema 4D and I am very happy with my choice so far.
In my opinion 3ds max was the best for modelling before but now Blender has even an edge of intuitiveness over 3dsmax I would say. There is certainly places to improve but the current state of amazing.
one big negative point for Cinema 4D is it’s limited learning channels.
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It’s sad, though, that sometimes the better ideas are killed off to protect the entrenched (RIP Softimage … FU Autodesk).
And usually only make damage and mess. In Blender case this is … finger in eye.