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Since xpresso isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, why not give it some love? After all, this is what people are using for the foreseeable future. As@hikarubrsuggested, proper scaling UI, colored ports, mini-map navigation, etc. Just some small tweaks really. Or just keep developing a system that people aren’t using 😑 Just look at material nodes. They look really nice, but what percentage of folks are actually using them? Hardly anyone, because people are using Octane, Redshift, etc. I fear the same exact thing will happen with scene nodes.

Can we get some clarification on this from anyone who works at Maxon? Is the Asset browser going the way of Cineversity for perpetual license holders (eg. not available)? Honestly, most companies operate under the philosophy that creating customer loyalty via providing outstanding products and services is the key to their success. How often do we hear the words "unparalleled customer service is what we strive to provide". Well, making training and assets free to perpetual license holders is definitely one way to make them "unparalleled" services to the customer. Unfortunately, I fear Maxon no longer thinks of us all as "customers". We are licenses and we come in two classes: subscription and perpetual. The subscription class is more valued to Maxon than the perpetual class. Perpetual license holders are the lower class and that is why things are taken away from them in favor of the subscription class. Why the disparity? Why are the two classes treated differently? Well, you can monetize every service with a subscription license on an annual basis. If you want to keep using the software, you are forced to accept this monetization of services in a subscription license. That could be their end-game once ALL licenses are subscription. The people who don't think that will ever happen probably also thought that Cineversity would always be available to perpetual license holders. Honestly, if Maxon is doing this, then why are people thinking that an "Indie" license is a realistic expectation? When companies lose touch with "customer care" and only think about product and service monetization, then they also risk losing big to their competitors that do put the customer first. Blender's rapid development schedule definitely speaks to their customer commitment. How we have wished the same from Maxon and the comments on this thread such as "how long have I waited for..." again support this point. Dave

Are they?... I just gave myself the simple task of making the X movement of a cube control the Y movement of a sphere. I can do this with 'set driver' in 5 seconds. I can do this manually in xpresso nodes in 20 seconds So far I've spent far longer than I'd like to admit in scene nodes and haven't yet worked out how to do it. I agree that xpresso is dead and shouldn't be further developed, but please, let's not pretend scene nodes is a clean upgrade from xpresso.

A render engine : )

Xpresso draws its power from controlling other features, while some structural improvements might be nice it is more important that new features are supported by it than that it gains new features by itself. Since it’s introduction in R8 Xpresso has always grown in power and it is still relevant.

Thanks for an official clarification from someone at Maxon. But if Scene Nodes are not an expression system like Xpresso, why are you guys ditching Xpresso? Why not update Xpresso with Scene Nodes behind the scenes? Doesn't Maxon realize that killing Xpresso (or just abandoning it) is a good reason for us to NOT learn the Scene Nodes? Why should I learn if it could be abandoned a few years from now? Scene Nodes are much more akin to Max Creation Graph or Softimage's ICE - which is much more complex than the typical Cinema4D user wants. Just gives us a multi-threaded Xpresso, a proper scaling of Xpresso UI. Xpresso has not been ditched and afaik there are no plans to get rid of it any time soon. As long as the old object system has a part to play in Cinema 4D it makes sense to keep Xpresso. Please do not take the unfounded assumptions of some people as actual fact. Anything else regarding the Xpresso interface is mostly a question of priorities. Scene Nodes are actually closest to how Houdini works, max as well as XSI have a core that is not node based, the nodes come on top. With Scene nodes you are really directly working with the scene graph. I would not clamp but remap, that way you avoid visible clustering.

Are they really?... Xpresso is a basic, easy, clear piping of position X into position Y that mortals can comprehend. Scenes nodes is.... decomposing a global matrix, splitting a matrix into individual vectors, swapping the x vector into a y vector, combining the xyz values into a vector then recomposing the vectors into a matrix before feeding it into the sphere and finally sending the op output back into the scene.

@hobbyist, so perpetual users no longer get access to the asset/content browser? First Cineversity, now this. And for $3500… 🤦🏼‍♂️ @HrvojeJust because it’s possible to do these things, doesn’t mean people are actually adopting that workflow. A quick Google search for “rigging C4D scene nodes” returned pretty much nothing. The learning curve for scene nodes is much higher and you need a lot more nodes to do the same tasks compared to xpresso. The ease of use just isn’t there. Also from what I’ve been told, a separate expression system will eventually be developed for the new core. Which is essentially an xpresso 2.0? So scene nodes can’t really be compared to xpresso ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Like I said, maybe another 15 years, when all that stuff is completed. What about the people that are actually using the current system?

But how? I don’t see anyone using scene nodes in their projects. People are using Xpresso right now, not scene nodes. Just give us an xpresso update, instead of making people wait another 15 years for scene nodes to be completed. Quit stringing people along with this “new core” marketing fluff.

Well, I don't have much expectations, and am not really looking forward to R25, as I am happy with using my R20. But if they provide an Indie/Hobbyist license -without too much stripped down features- I might be tempted to reconsider and upgrade.