Leaderboard

Yep, definitely. But I didn't mentioned it because of severe instability. We had a relatively big project with character animations, done in R23. The tools were great, but otherwise the project was an absolut nightmare. Constant crashes, all-day-long. And we where already animating in small parts, baking what-possible in alembic files, to get the stuff rendered. And I don't need - I don't WANT - releases every half a year (especially if they change lot's of good stuff without reason to the bad). Why should I? Give me stability upgrades all-year-long, and make a release, when it's worth it.

No one's mentioned it (I think) , but the cumulative improvments in R20-R25 for character animation have been really good & useful. The pose library, the character definition re-targetting system, things like auto-keys only being made on channels where a key is already set, timeline improvments. Where I work, we use Cinema 4D for previs animation (among many other things). Not the most elaborate stuff but lots of re-use of rigs, libraries of animations, always working in small teams. The accumulated quality of life improvements across these last releases has really allowed us to be more efficient. I know it's not an area that many Cinema users work in, but there has been substantial improvment.

R20: Gave us node materials, fields, volumes and the CAD importer, 9/10 R21: Cheap versions removed, Subscriptions added. new extrude bevels and Windows 4k support, 3/10 R22: Lots of smaller bits and general improvements, 5/10 R23: Nodes, but nobody uses them, USD, but nobody uses it, Magic bullet but poorly implemented, 2/10 R24: Online content browser, placement tools, currently useless scene browser, 3/10 R25: So bad, they didn't even give it it's own press release, 1/10 R26: X implemented, X overhauled, X overhauled, dozens of new X tools, X also implemented, 9/10 You can see why so many perpetual owners all stopped at R20. Everything since then has been a bit of an anti climax. Useful bits, but nothing that's going to change your life. R20 was nice for its 4k support, but the job is only 80% finished, too many elements are still low res. You can add bonus points if you happen to need USD support or GLtf export, but they're not complete enough implementations imho. "We don't talk about R25, no no no..."

and... https://www.synthesia.io/

You are missing one of the most visually uninspired UI in all of the released versions of C4D (the ones that I have used: XLR5 - R25). I actually get depressed using R25 and have to go back to R24 to get happy. All of that gray just makes me sad, but for some reason, I start to get hungry when using R25. Maybe it's the gray and purple hi-lights that's doing it to me. Taco Bell uses the same color scheme.

Thanks for taking the time to answer this question ! It's extremely reassuring since I have the same opinion about R21 to R25.

my experience: i am c4d user since v6/v7, atm i have r19 still in use for converting some old stuff, all real work in r25 meanwhile . r25 is the most stable for me since r19. despite several other people for me c4d improved in good ways, for our big scenes (4gb+) it is many times faster in many ways, rendering, and interface than in 19,20,21,23. many small and partly also bigger things improved. i had issues first with the r25 gui , but now i prefer it a lot over the old one. for me it is a pain to go back to r23 or even 19 for some conversion tasks. of course i hope too for improvements (modelling for me mostly)

https://blenderartists.org/t/procedural-abandoned-house-with-geometry-nodes/1363024

https://generated.photos

Plus, I remember seeing an Adobe tech demo with a piece of software where you can have a recording of someone's voice then it creates the text. You can then cut, move and, move disturbingly, add totally NEW text and it creates the new audio from the existing voice in the other text. It was very convincing. This was a few years ago, so maybe they buried it for fear of potential abuse. Imaging if you use that audio tech plus a metahuman of a real world leader and have them say anything you want. Scary.

Yeah, maybe you're right. I don't know if a 3rd-party-render-engine can crash Cinema while it's not used in any form in a scene, but I suspected this, too. Unfortunately Cinema 4D is pretty useless without a 3rd-party-render-engine. But back to your main point: Yes, the character improvements are very cool, indeed. PS: With lightweight scenes and only one character on screen everything was pretty smooth. But as soon als two complex characters were on screen - and at some point I had to animate a bunch of six characters interacting with each other - it got pretty shaky, whereas the older versions remaind stable.

We never really had much instability in those releases. As I say, we weren't pushing the envelope in terms of deformations, complex interactions with simulation etc. We were rendering the previs with the viewport, which has mostly been improving. The biggest instability in my experience has been 3rd party render engines. I use Octane for concept work & I'd say it's the cause of 9/10 crashes. Still love it for stills work though. The little I've dabbled with Cycles it seemed equally unstable & I hear Redshift is a bit shakey too. Maybe that's just GPU rendering, I don't know. As dated as they are, Standard/ Physical are more stable than anything else I've used. I guess it always depends which bits of the program you're touching & what work you're doing.

At the same time, it should be noted that we have the release every six months since the R21. Therefore, you should count them twice. Considering @imashination rating, it would look like this: R20 = 9/10 R21 = 3/10 R22 + R23 = 7/10 R24 + R25 = 4/10 So there is some dependence that better releases come every other year. Of course, probably it is by accident, but this is how it is currently presented according to the announcement of what will be in the R26. 🙂

Thanks so much, I will upgrade my support soon ❤️

Yes, turn down IoR in transparency channel to something like 1.01 CBR

I have no idea... His DoF changes a lot, could be post. Do it in post it's easier and faster and you can makes changes for best visual appeal.

I'm not surprised to hear you are getting such a good value there. Here in the U.S. the providers just charge whatever they want. There is no relation to operational or labor costs. They rake in the cash. In most markets true competition is suppressed by corrupt politicians and their arbitrary self-serving policies. I hate these internet providers and it's one reason I don't go for the big TV channel bundles. I've got Netflix for the occasional show I watch. Grateful to find decent internet that isn't one penny over $50 per month.

I dont think that threats like this need to end in personal attacks ever time. It is just a discussion about a software. I don't see that purchaising a special version makes someone better or worse. This is a forum it is about discussing 3d software. And if software is worth its update price or subscription is definately one aspect of using any software. This discussion is no offence against anybody here in the forum. If someone just cant stand this kind of discussions thoug then this is unfortunate but not justified.

I like the idea, though i fear i can't contribute much over all i would like to kick it off with this Antiprism setup Any D>=3 is supported, the setup does not generate UVs. Antiprism.c4d

I agree that won't help here. Doesn't matter how the FFD is told to move (Poses or direct animation) it still has to influence that very high density spring and calculate it per-frame in real-time (unless you are rendering), which takes as long as it takes ! You can call it untenable all you like, but you have to remember that the goal of Cinema is not to produce real time frame rate in the viewport ! Of course it will if it can, but when it can't there isn't really much you can do about that without reducing Level of detail settings, using low res proxy objects, or baking simulations. That is why we have an animation preview feature, or can do VP rendering, so you can test stuff at full speed before rendering properly. But if you are building a scene, and something you already finished is slowing it down, and your creation of new stuff depends on your seeing it faster, the usual answer is just to turn off the bit that causes the slowdown until render time ! For anything you are showing clients, that shouldn't be live from a viewport !! CBR