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Viewport quality - how to improve it?


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I am mostly working in Blender nowadays, but I'm back at the office and I was asked to work on a Cinema4D file (using the latest version S24).

 

Perhaps an odd question, but is there a way to improve the viewport quality for modeling (hiding materials) to emulate the following quality or at least come close to it (view full image to see details):

 

blender_viewport.png.e996d73022f5a440456ff40118bd83a1.png

 

After turning on the viewport effects, adjusting the viewport light, playing with the SSAO settings, and increasing the anti-aliasing in the preferences, the best I can achieve is this:

 

c4d_viewport.png.e8da53333a08c07be8234dadc90078c5.png

 

But it comes at a cost: the viewport becomes more sluggish and is reduced to ~25-35fps. This does not happen in Blender, which happily cruises along at 60fps.

 

Both apps are set to default materials (well, in B's case a few objects are set to a different colour).

 

I am so used to B's viewport quality while modeling, that I now find it difficult to work in C4D.

 

Suggestions? Am I missing something?

 

PS this is not the model I have to work on, btw. Just a showcase of the differences in viewports.

 

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What is it that you find so different? IMHO theyre virtually identical with the exception that blender is using a light pale blue material compared to c4d's medium grey. Also for performance turn off transparency, thats known to slow things down a fair bit.

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1 hour ago, MighT said:

Did you try to increase texture resolution in Materials?

I don't think he's got any materials on to increase the resolution of !

 

The blender one seems more favourably lit, and a bit sharper, but otherwise I would call them 'generally comparable'.

 

12 hours ago, hvanderwegen said:

I am so used to B's viewport quality while modeling, that I now find it difficult to work in C4D.

 

That I don't get, because I think we're talking about minor 'prettification details' that are unimportant to modelling workflows in terms of seeing what you are doing, clearly and usefully. I have never had cause to consider Cinema's VP inadequate to that task, and certainly never felt that I can't see enough to work with ! On the contrary, I find myself often marvelling at just how good stuff can look in the viewport, especially once materials get involved. 

 

Honestly don't think we're that far behind ! But I don't think you are missing any specific tricks about how to make it better...

 

CBR

 

 

 

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On 7/15/2021 at 3:25 AM, imashination said:

What is it that you find so different? IMHO theyre virtually identical with the exception that blender is using a light pale blue material compared to c4d's medium grey. Also for performance turn off transparency, thats known to slow things down a fair bit.

 

The difference is quite marked, and mainly caused by cavity shader and the outline shader. But perhaps not so obvious in large screenshots like the ones I posted earlier. Here I post more detailed screenshots to clarify.

 

Ridges are indicated by an additional highlighted edge, which facilitates easier identifying of shapes and the outline assists in discovering topology issues (example below).

 

It really is more than just "prettification":

 

This is C4D's viewport with AO turned on:

 

c4d_viewpor_shaded_aot.png.1b2b61cd2646b0f223dc7238c0158412.png

 

This is Blender's viewport without the cavity or outline shader:

blender_viewport_none.png.a8900a5d21434d204d3ec1b39c05852e.png

 

AO is definitely helpful in understanding the shapes better in C4D's case.

 

Let's turn on the cavity shader:

blender_viewpor_cavityt.png.eabb84b6f9b2d34ad53efcf577476df9.png

 

A marked improvement. Also an improvement over C4D with the AO shader: the cavity shader adds highlighted edges as well as darker shaded cavities.

 

Notice how details jump out more. Paneling is much easier to distinguish. In C4D's viewport some of the paneling is hardly visible and blends into the grey surface of the saucer section.

 

In B even the tiny door details are quite easy to distinguish and understand.

 

Also, the cavity shader can be finely controlled: screen space, object space, or both applied simultaneously, with slider settings for both the ridges and the valleys to fine-tune.

 

In effect, B's viewport contrast is leagues ahead. And our eyes/brains need contrast to identify shapes.

 

Next, let's add the outline shader:

 

blender_viewport_outline.png.29eaaeed737ad737eff11fd31ec7fbab.png

 

@MighT thought that I had turned on textures here, which is not the case: the outline shader outlines separate objects. In this model parts of the top saucer section were modelled as individual objects, but because these connect seamlessly it is impossible to detect without the outline shader applied to the viewport.

 

Adding the outline also assists in understanding how some of the other parts work together, which was invisible to our eyes before.

 

Combined with the cavity shader these darker outlines further increase contrast and help our brain understand the shapes. Notice how even very small details such as the small dots on the top stand out. Compare to C4D's viewport, and those dots are hardly visible.

 

In UX design, if contrast is too low, it hurts usability and understanding. It hurts my eyes to identify details in C4D's muddy viewport. Which is not the case in B's contrast-rich display.

 

As it happens when I took these screenshots, I noticed a tiny topology error (if you open the above image the mistake is visible):

 

triangle.png.3f8725ee725a3a1c33c62635dd9773ad.png

 

One triangle is part of another object. Without this outline shader, it would have been very difficult to spot or check for.

 

...TBC in the next post due to max total post size limits. ( I wish WebP files would be accepted on this forum )

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What I usually do with more complex multi-part objects is also turn on the random object colours:

 

blender_viewport_random.png.c0ebf48ff006cb715de4998d192971ce.png

 

At one glance it becomes entirely clear how this object fits together. I find this extraordinarily useful in my own projects while constructing things, because everything is simple to distinguish, and I do not have to assign textures or viewport colours.

 

It saves time. Time is valuable - it's the only thing I can't get back.

I looked for a similar option in C4D, but came up short. It is possible to assign viewport colours manually, but why waste time? And B's colours are quite smartly chosen automatically.

 

Talking about the viewport, I regularly switch to wireframe mode for precise nudge operations in orthogonal views.

 

In C4D I get this:

 

c4d_viewport_wires.png.befa2e54fa60b823d15db138627196f9.png

 

In B I turn on random colours at all times:

 

blender_viewport_wires_opti.png.c899217d2c530d602ac4d16af118227c.png

 

Which allows me to differentiate easily between objects while nudging.

 

 

 

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And B goes one step further: the wireframe may be adjusted with a handy slider to get rid of mesh mush:

 

c4d_viewport_wires03.png.2396e1bddda9795b86839b840d6deb7b.png

 

Outlines remain visible as you can tell. And notice how 'deeper' objects are less brightly coloured, helping in depth perception.

Wireframe transparency is fully controllable using simple sliders.

 

Anyway, I am so used to these things, that when I opened an architecture project in C4D I really missed them while inspecting and fixing things. That is why I asked here if I am missing things. This is more than just prettification: these display options assist me while working with complex projects and save valuable time.

 

But it is what it is. Here's hoping Maxon will improve C4D's viewport display capabilities in upcoming versions.

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