Leaderboard

I have to disagree. Look at the material node system. It is super powerful, but even though it is around for quite some time now extremely few people are using it (in my experience). The reason is not that people didn't want to get a material node system (they really did), but in order to make everything possible maxon over complicated the system. No matter how long you propagate this system people will use easier systems for 99.8% of their tasks and will only use the node system, when they need to achieve something that is not possible with less complex systems (if they even know, that the nodes are capable of it). The basics of python are learned fast (it is really not that complicated), the challenge is to know the thousands of modules and functions that come with C4D. Scene nodes it basically just programming without the need to write it as a text. That of course is very convenient, but it still is programming. And that is a different profession. Xpresso is more limited, but it can achieve a lot that people need. Much of this is not so complex stuff like setting up user data and connecting it with different parameters in the scene. The beauty of xpresso is, that it is exactly on the edge of complexity that at least some artists are willing to master. It is a very good compromise between usability and power. Maxon has a good reputation for their user interface. But that is basically true for the foundation of the program many years ago. Some elements that came later are not that generically user friendly. As I said material nodes have a nice node editor but over complex and reflectance is still a mess after so many years. Sceene nodes represent the whole scene tree they are very complex out of principal and even though it is fantastic that they will be accessible they (in their end form) will be way to complex for 95% of the c4d users. That is the reason why maxon will reinvent the object manager. And now we are at the base of the discussion (as I see it). Sceene nodes as such will be much to complicated to be viable alternative for xpresso. We will see how maxon will try to solve this (and if they learned somthing from their material nodes) I don't know how long sceene nodes will take exchange the old core. But I think that maxon will not update anything that is related to it in order not to make double the work. When I interprete the last releases correctly they basically put all their efforts into the new core and so long we can not expect any big features besides it.

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.

that of course limits the user base further, but there are still quite some people working with physical. The node system should be a reason to use physical or standard, as it offers possibilities that go further then many third party render engines. But it doesn't seem to be a reason for many people. I can't comment on the redshift node system, but octanes nodes are way easier to use then C4D material nodes. More limited to, but that doesn't bother me 99,9% of the time. I don't want to get bothered by complexity every day, that I just need once all three years. To find a good compromise is the real Art.

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.