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Cinema 4D Indie version - What's your opinion about this?


okazaky

Cinema 4D Indie version  

95 members have voted

  1. 1. Should there be a C4D Indie version?

    • Yes, Cinema 4D is too expensive compared to other packages and I've switched to another package or I am planning to do so.
      58
    • Yes, Cinema 4D is too expensive compared to other packages but I'm not planning to switch to another package.
      28
    • No, Cinema 4D is not too expensive and there's no need for a Indie version.
      4
    • I'm not sure about this / I don't care.
      5


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Over the last 20+ years, I've tried every 3D program that's come down the line. I've been a C4D user pretty much from the beginning. I tried it out and put it aside for about three years. Then I was hooked. It's definitely become expensive to operate as a one-person shop. I've also had Blender from its inception and still have no love for it. I keep updating it and trying it but so far, only for transferring my models to it format for sale. At some point I do hope that C4D figures out how to satisfy the indie market. 

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On 3/16/2021 at 5:39 AM, tdpubs said:

Over the last 20+ years, I've tried every 3D program that's come down the line. I've been a C4D user pretty much from the beginning. I tried it out and put it aside for about three years. Then I was hooked. It's definitely become expensive to operate as a one-person shop. I've also had Blender from its inception and still have no love for it. I keep updating it and trying it but so far, only for transferring my models to it format for sale. At some point I do hope that C4D figures out how to satisfy the indie market

Agreed and agreed!

 

But I do think it will be some time until MAXON considers the indie market simply because there is no compelling financial need for them to do so right now.  Listen to this podcast from Corridor Digital (at this point  - around 1:06:50) of their artists talking about C4D vs. Blender vs. Max and why they are moving to C4D.  Their biggest criticism is when companies stop investing in developing, growing and/or fixing issues with their programs.  They are drawn to C4D because they feel it is still being improved and is growing and well supported by tons of tutorials.  So as long as C4D has that type of draw, MAXON will do nothing.

 

Now, at some point in the future, C4D's core will be fully implemented, the gap in features between it and its competitors will be slim enough not to be factor in any decisions and the whole market begins to become a commodity.  Every package will only be differentiated by the loyalty of their user base rather than their feature set.  All markets reach this point.  I have no idea how many years away this will be, but it will happen.

 

It will ONLY be at that point that MAXON tries to expand their user base by going after indies because they will no longer be able to do it by its features.

 

In short, don't hold your breath until then.

 

Dave

Sorry...but I simply do not have enough faith to be an atheist.

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3 hours ago, 3D-Pangel said:

Their biggest criticism is when companies stop investing in developing, growing and/or fixing issues with their programs.  They are drawn to C4D because they feel it is still being improved and is growing and well supported by tons of tutorials.  So as long as C4D has that type of draw, MAXON will do nothing.

Agreed. I find it a bit surprising they say that about C4D especially as a channel that focus on VFX. There are much better options for a pure VFX workflow than C4D, which main usability comes from it's mograph toolset. I guess from the "Content Creator" perspective it's good to have a tool that your audience can grasp quickly should they want to start using it and I'm sure they have some sort of deal with MAXON like free licenses or something.

Personally haven't really seen much progress in some (IMO)necessary areas over the past few years. And their latest UV update is still a far cry from other tools(UDIMS anyone?). I've basically switched all general 3D tasks(UV+Modeling) to Blender plus some Addons(Like an excellent UVpacker addon) especially as a lot of my work starts moving towards real-time renderers like Unreal or Unity. 

Blender has been coming out with major updates almost every 4-6 months and on top of this have some of the most active plugin/addon Dev's in the 3D community. I think they may not have had used C4D long enough to be disappointed hah. It also doesn't help that MAXON is completely opaque about what they're working on. Every summer it's a guessing game for me about what's going to be updated or fixed and honestly as soon as they went subscription I stopped paying. Happy with R21 for now. I wonder how long it'll take for them to implement Scene Nodes? I feel like nearly every other program is beating them to the punch now including Autodesk. 


Ultimately though they're just tools. 3DSmax can do some insane stuff. Just look at what Chuvabak is doing.

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20 hours ago, 3D-Pangel said:

Listen to this podcast from Corridor Digital (at this point  - around 1:06:50) of their artists talking about C4D vs. Blender vs. Max and why they are moving to C4D. 

Interesting that they said they came to c4d because of the Community. I started c4d way before tit got "cool" to use. But ever since then I got the impression that cinema mainly grew a big community because of three things. First their UI and UX, basically the logic behind the user interface that is consistent through out the program. second the good accessibility. Blender was really no thing for a long time and all the other mayor packages where always more expensive. (MAXON back in the days was also super generous to students (much more than now). And Third because MAXON was really consistent and pleasant in the way they treated their customers.

The UI still is great, the price is still ok even though not as good as it was. But time has changed and c4d is not only competing against the other packages but also against blender. Which of course is the reason for the indi versions in the first place. And for point Three I have to say. The treatment of existing customers got worse unfortunately, in my opinion.

The Community we have now results of the work done the last 10 to 20 years. In 10 to 20 Years we will see how things played out.

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4 hours ago, Jops said:

Interesting that they said they came to c4d because of the Community. I started c4d way before tit got "cool" to use. But ever since then I got the impression that cinema mainly grew a big community because of three things. First their UI and UX, basically the logic behind the user interface that is consistent through out the program. second the good accessibility. Blender was really no thing for a long time and all the other mayor packages where always more expensive. (MAXON back in the days was also super generous to students (much more than now). And Third because MAXON was really consistent and pleasant in the way they treated their customers.

The UI still is great, the price is still ok even though not as good as it was. But time has changed and c4d is not only competing against the other packages but also against blender. Which of course is the reason for the indi versions in the first place. And for point Three I have to say. The treatment of existing customers got worse unfortunately, in my opinion.

The Community we have now results of the work done the last 10 to 20 years. In 10 to 20 Years we will see how things played out.

Yes and quite honestly the Blender community is immense. I'm constantly amazed by their output. 

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Why is it that Houdini, 3ds Max and Maya all have very affordable and powerful indie versions and C4d does not?

 

When I purchased c4D studio (R17) it came with two years of MSA free. So I paid $3500 and didn’t have to pay a cent for two years. And then the MSA was $650 which as a good deal amount of money but I owned the program, it was mine.

 

Now you can still have a perpetual license but the price isn’t even featured on the ‘Buy’ page. And for upgrades you need to contact MAXON. I feel that it’s just a matter of time before perpetual is done away with completely.

 

Now you need to rent the program, stop paying for the price to rent and you can’t use the program anymore.

 

Now instead of a $650 a year MSA you need to pay $719 a year to rent it. And if you want a modern render engine like every other program comes with (redshift) you need to pay $983.00 a year  or pay $719 and rent either Octane, Arnold or something else for $400 - $800 more a year.

 

The last 4 out of 5 smaller vfx and animation studios I have worked with in Los Angeles have artists using Blender for one task of another. Nobody was using C4d, some had in the past but switched. These are generally smaller indie studios and not tied to huge pipelines so they have the freedom to choose what makes sense to them financially, ethically and personally.

 

The majority of the younger artists coming in where raised on blender and Youtube. Or learned Maya in school.

Why should they use c4d except if they want to get a job that requires it? Usually at a high end motion graphics studio?

 

While I love c4d, as a freelance artist and hobbyist who wants to continue to play and experiment with a tool for the rest of my life it is absurd to me when I think I will be paying to rent something forever.

 

With Blender the tool is completely mine, though there are a ton of things that make no sense to me in the program such as no logical way of copying a modifier from one object to another without remembering a weird shortcut. Bizarre unintuitive spline tools and the lack of a decent picture viewer. There are tutorials on how to make anything I can dream of whether it is a weekend spent making a spaceship, castle,dinosaur, dragon or modeling characters. There are hundreds of free tutorials for that. Or a subscription to CG Cookie or something. For c4d there isn’t a single tutorial for either of the  mentioned things even after decades of the program being around. Maybe a simple gummy bear or dancing hotdog. If I want to make a hundred cubes undulate, well there are a million tutorials for that. Removing Cineversity for anyone not on the subscription was another slap in the face.

 

Do I switch to Blender and Houdini indie and donate a couple hundred bucks a year to blender cloud with millions of great tutorials, assets, movies and tools and helping the program grow? Keep my perpetual R21 and buy a decent render engine and UV tool and be left behind in a few years? Or pay $719 - $1000 a year for a c4d subscription for the rest of my life.

 

Offering an indie license or keeping perpetual with decent yearly upgrade prices would be a decent thing for MAXON to do as well as attract new users.

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6 hours ago, briankoko said:

such as no logical way of copying a modifier from one object to another without remembering a weird shortcut

 

Rejoice! In the latest version of Blender it is now possible to drag a modifier to another object in the outliner to copy it!

 

Blasphemy!  🤩

 

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18 hours ago, briankoko said:

... Removing Cineversity for anyone not on the subscription was another slap in the face.

 

Not allowing perpetual users to access Cineversity in full - or even to subscribe to it at a reasonable price - is just about the biggest middle finger gesture 'Mr MAXON' could make. It tells me everything I need to know.

 

 

 

 

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2 minutes ago, Mike A said:

 

Not allowing perpetual users to access Cineversity in full - or even to subscribe to it at a reasonable price - is just about the biggest middle finger gesture 'Mr MAXON' could make. It tells me everything I need to know.

 

 

 

 

Jup in every possible way perpetual is deprived. it is obvious where things are going 😞

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There's such a big world of 3d out there.

 

Blender, Houdini Indie, UnReal, glTF...and because I've had decades of experience in interactive web stuff, I've started to get curious in Three.js. (I learned fair bit of javascript this past year)

 

For anyone curious: https://threejs.org/

 

I'll still use R20 as long as it functions, but I'm not losing sleep over MAXON and it's decisions.

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