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Today I was fooling around in the new release and the possibilites are certainly mind-boggling. Here's a particle stream that drives a volume builder which is displaced at rendertime for super-fine detail. Nothing special, but it was super-fun to make... and it plays in the viewport in the 20-30 fps range, which is very fine 🙂

It is true that you can't drive the creation of particles with map, shader or noise yet. But there are two workarounds. You can either drive a polygon selection with map/shaders/noise and use that to restrict the emission, or you can emit evenly and instantly kill particles based on a map/shader/noise. Here is an example. The shader field drives a vertex color tag which is then used to set the particle colors on emission. Particles are emitted into a first group where there color is checked. If the it is below a certain value the particle is killed right away, if not it is moved to a permanent group where it will happily continue it's particle life. In case you wondering where the animation is coming from, that's set in the Shader Field with the remapping graph to cycle through different grey values of the texture. This is not the most efficient way as the buffers need to be cleaned up more frequently than needed, but you can achieve the intended effect. kill_by_map.c4d

FFS, read what I said. I said that I didn't see the need for Maxon to focus on developing one themselves, and it's not high on the list of stuff Maxon needs to tidy up in C4D, as there are so many areas of C4D that have been left in the cupboard for years. We all know what they are. So I don't think Maxon needs to develop their own real-time renderer like Unreal has. There's a perfectly good real-time renderer available to everyone which I gather is getting a lot of traction and use in the film industry. It's called Unreal Engine and Maxon have a whole page up mentioning how they're continuing to improve C4D's integration with it. https://www.maxon.net/en/cinema-4d/features/unreal-integration I think I'd rather Maxon keep developing C4D, and also keep improving their integration with Unreal Engine, rather than spending their development resources trying to create a separate real-time renderer that competes with Unreal Engine. If I get really keen on real time rendering I'll probably (a) make sure I have a rig that can handle Unreal Engine, and then (b) spend time learning Unreal Engine, plus whatever integration methods work best with C4D (after I resub) rather than waiting around hoping that Maxon will develop their own real-time renderer designed to compete with whatever the Unreal Engine development budget has come up with. Unreal Engine is great and it will keep getting greater in 2025, 2026 and 2027. Meanwhile C4D's character rigging could use improvement, C4D can't do fluids yet, and C4D's Bodypaint is older than some of the women I see in Melbourne pushing around kids in baby strollers. So I think Maxon should probably sort a few of those issues out first before they try to develop a brand new real-time renderer designed to compete with Unreal Engine's place in the film production market.

the problem with real time rendering is that it will never match what unreal engine does. not because c4d isnt capable of doing such thing, it’s just that DCCs arent built the way game engines are built. the reason why unreal engine is so fast is because of the amount of viewport optimizatios it does to get rendering at that speed. these optimizations wouldnt work for a DCC, where accurate data is needed. for example, unreal, just like almost every other game engine of old, does insane amounts of LOD optimizations, eliminating alot of geometry data for performance gains. mesh shading is another use of this… combine with a bunch of other optimizations in the viewport and other areas, unreal can get those speeds. but these types of optimizations dont work well for any DCC because loss of data is not a good thing for a program where data is needed to operate on for modeling/animation/simulations. game engines are always built to look ‘good enough’. DCCs are built to look accurate. therefore, c4d cant truly compete with the real time market. its not its purpose and a market thats not really needed imo… techincally, if maxon wanted, they could make c4d into unreal more than any other DCC. it has directx12. and directx12 supports mesh shading… c4d also has multi instancing, which unreal uses a similar tech to make high geo environments… the tech is there, but the purpose is not…

dear members, we now have 7 videos on Youtube channel! Hop over and subscribe even if you are not into nodes, it will help the channel grow which will help us make more quality content, thank you!

I only watched Chris‘ video about particles so far... my first impression is really good! It's elegantly designed: a limited set of building blocks, but with endless possibilities. I love the shared use of forces, fields, vertex maps, it's so powerful and versatile. And I applaud the simple, visual setup in the object manager. Very well done! 🙂

If we added everything from the start you would have to wait months more. We delivered what we think is a great release that is very usable. Additional features will come.

Regarding Consistency in animation: Here's a test animation using Redshift's new Volume Displacement to add fine detail to a procedural cloud made with C4D's Volume Builder. I'm quite pleased with the outcome! I uploaded the project file here, so you can play around with different noises, etc: 1309818867_ProzeduraleVolume-Builder-WolkemitRS-Volume-Displacement_LY01.mp4

Ok, for anyone else using Octane, I discovered it works only if you select Render Instances in the Cloner settings as follows:

Not sure what currency that is but we haven't raised prices.

Actually they meant to add real sculpting features from Mudbox into Maya but the project was too complex with the DAG. there is even old videos floating around about a tech proof of concept. It was never even put in beta before they dropped it.. subsequently dropping Mudbox development too a couple years after that.

Yeah. No offence but Tbh a real-time renderer is the last thing I'm personally thinking of when I consider the fat list of stuff Maxon need to fix, tidy up, add or redo with C4D to sort out the years of inattention certain areas of the program have suffered from. But they're clearly on the way finally.

I didn't even began to try breaking the next NDA and you've already spilled the beans ! (kidding) Liquid sims for September's release everyone !!! hahhaahahaahahaha ok, enough... Personally I'm good without the liquid sims because with particles and volume displacement I can now fake visualizations like these:

*cough* liquid sim ?? That's one big area we are still 'missing'... CBR

This is an awesome release and I'll be re-subbing after the September release comes out.

The OM is arguably one of Cinema's greatest strengths, and its userbase are rather attached to it, not to mention, used to it, so I think it makes sense to introduce such a powerful new system via an innately familiar interface, and using its workflows and structures. I like having all the particle stuff there in the OM where I can always see it and (mostly) what it is doing without having extra windows floating about. That's not to say I couldn't also see it working in a nodal context, but I have to say I kinda like it where it is... CBR

It's a wonderful release, adding a boatload of functionality to simulation and a solid first step to bringing our particles up to date, and fully integrated with other simulation components - as Chris was at pains to point out the possibilities now are mind-boggling ! I think a lot of people will be very happy with this release, except possibly the guys who make X-Particles; it will be interesting to see where they pivot next. Of course all the attention is rightly focused mainly on the particles, but I was pleased that there have been good updates in other areas, a few of my own suggestions have been added to modelling functionality, and RS got a lot of love and improvements, not least being the toon shader stuff. The new Connectors functionality and workflows are so much easier to work with than the old system, so that is very welcome too. So all in all, I am loving this release... CBR

SOM too:

Hi Cebera I did cache the particles but now I am looking at the project (Surface Flow) with more time on my hands I realised I was being a complete doughnut! When I was rendering the first few frames I saw no particles in the scene so thought something was wrong (why do I always suspect bugs?). Now I realised that's because the particles didn't enter the scene until about frame 20 and I was preview rendering frame 76 where the particles are half way down the blob object! I gotta learn to slow down a bit… I feel a complete particle now… BTW what do you mean by PV - Preview?

This new Surface Attract is good for Ivy things too SurfaceAttract.avi

You gotta cache those puppies to get them out to PV full render... Do this in the Particle Group Cache tab. Or here's Chris, showing the other methods. CBR

Dear members We are happy to announce brand new Youtube channel with focus on C4D node system. In our research we realized that training content for nodes is very sparse and lacking in quality and depth. We already have two lessons available which will be part of ongoing series. Humble request from our side is that, even if you are not into nodes, please subscribe in order that the channel grows which will enable us to monetize it down the road. On longer timeline this can enable us to reduce the subscription period or even remove it alltogether and open up forum for many more artists. https://www.youtube.com/@CORE4D Thank you and enjoy the content! P.S. Any member willing to contribute to the channel is more than welcome - drop us a message : )

To the realtime discussion as someone who just burned 2K EUR on a Renderfarm with broken renderings. This was 10 years ago: Go figure where it could have been today. Pixelberg was a huge chance Maxon missed back in the day. This is 4-5 years ahead of Eevee. The guy also relesead a normal editing tool a decade ago. He was a game TD who tried to bring realtime workflows to C4D and disappeared with R18 becasue he thought Maxon would go realtime with viewport rendering. Pixelberg needed a lot of work but it also used PBR game maps from Unreal and Unity so you had equal look in all three. Was a cool effort

EJ Hassenfratz just revealed that they are going to add more Tonemap options in RS Toon shader like crosshatch.

NAB has started

That's not the reason Autodesk put the sculpting tools in Maya. It was never meant to compete with Zbrush. They are there for editing Blendshapes for facial animation and Skinning Poses. Don't believe me? Just watch the videos they published when they released those tool. A hint: Both the Shape Editor (for Blendshapes) and the Pose Editor (to fix skinning problems with Pose Space Deformation) are in the Sculpting shelf with all the sculpting tools.

Thank you. I stand corrected. I had no idea D5render was available for C4D. I'll check it out when I have the time. My point was that it's weird that Maxon and Autodesk let Unreal take the lead on this, not that they can take it's place. Anyway, let's agree to disagree here.

Actually there is and I've tested it but I haven't used for a long time because I was too distracted with some other technical stuff and didn't care for renders. https://www.d5render.com/?_sasdk=dMThlZDY1MDAzOTMxM2I5LTAwMGNlYzQzYjQ2ZGQ4M2Y4LTI2MDAxYTUxLTIwNzM2MDAtMThlZDY1MDAzOTRhNTA I like it. But i'd prefer it being more integrated in C4D rather live-linked to D5. Usage of CPU and RAM skyrockets easy dealing with both apps open.

that's still a losing battle for c4d. there is no point on spending development time and resources on something that a billion or trillion dollar corporation like Epic is going to do way better than anyone else. They are focused on the real time market and pretty much are winning in that department. What you're asking for is the equivalent of when autodesk thought that integrating sculpting tools from mudbox into maya would actually compete against zbrush, failing to realise that part of what makes zbrush great is how fast its 'viewport' implementation is and how it can handle millions of polygons through its optimizations. Maya can't have that work for its viewport because sculpting has different requirements. Just because other DCCs are attempting to include real time rendering natively, doesnt make it a good decision for cinema4D. Rather than fomo'ing and chasing industry trends, Maxon is better off coming up with its own set of creative ideas to give it a unique place in the market. Things that other programs like unreal and blender cant provide well enough... Also improving on what c4d already does really well is way better than chasing some industry trend. As for blender being able to imitate close to unreal. 'Close' is not good enough. Unreal is winning that side of things and blender can add it without much fear of losing anything if it falls short.

I'm keeping my eye on Chaos Vantage for exactly what you're talking about. It's currently only serving up VRAY, but Corona is supposed to get support and accessibility in it's next release. So I'm hoping this is somewhere between Cinema and Unreal for client walkthroughs and quick animations. I know about Twinmotion, but the appeal of Vantage is not having to do any alterations to your normal Cinema scene in regards to lighting, materials and Cameras. Just waiting for that. I love Unreal, but it's a haul to get full scenes or interiors going properly.

It feels like there is still a long list of stuff C4D really needs to add and sort out but with this release I feel now that the development train is strong on track to get there. Particles must have taken a long time to develop, design, test and everything. Now that it's here they can furthe develop it and also turn their eye to the other areas that require improvement.

The volume displacement is behaving nicely in animation. You can even animate the displacing noise itself, which - again - offers so many new possibilities. A bit slow to iterate on, because you need a full rendering of the animation to assess the animation, but cool nevertheless... Only downside, it's totally not-intuitive to setup 😕

Dave's trolling powers have also levelled up. https://x.com/dmcgavra/status/1778434672134914467?s=61

Try implementing it. And make sure it runs on CPU, GPU (not just on NVIDIA), ARM processors, all operating system, correctly deals with ACEs,...

it is completely possible to build ur own particle system using scene nodes. however, this current particle system is built to work with the unified simulation system that cinema4d has built. this allows the particles to interact with cloth, pyro, rigid and soft bodies. these use a system known as position based dynamics, which if it were a node, would have everything connected to it. bifrost in maya has a node that does pbd. right now the philosophy of cinema4d is to provide the intuitive tools in the object manager, and allow for more custom systems built by technical artists in scene nodes. c4d users are used to object manager so it is still valuable for alot of these things to be implemented in object manager. but if the user requires more advanced setup, scene nodes is available and works really well with the overall c4d architecture.

Really cool release, with lots of goof stuff! EDIT - Holy S***, this release is even chunkier than usual. Hats off to the devs, they've done a great job with this one. RocketLasso is doing a live stream with some Maxon folk (probably Rick?) later today.

That looks like a splendid release! Particles! Volumes! Toon Shader! I hope Chris Schmidt will make another one of his in-depth-videos for this one.

Maxon feature iterates these days with releases due to subscription. Cloth, Sim, Pyro etc all where updated after release frequently over 2-4 releases.

My guesses and expectations for the new particles: Good performance Properly embedded in the new universal simulation system Somewhat basic feature set at launch, but deepened in the next releases Natural behaviour (I hope for good presets/starting points) Easy, intuitive UI As for x-particles - in hindsight, it makes a lot of sense that they broadened their portfolio with Terraform, Taiao, Cycles, Meshtools, etc. Perhaps they knew or anticipated this move by Maxon. Yeah, well, it's quite obvious actually, as particles are so immensely useful. in comparison to my expectations above, i think of x-particles: Performance is mediocre at best, even with the GPU-Nexus-Acceleration It's somewhat isolated in C4D, interactivity is possible, but it often requires jumping through extra hoops It's packed with features, to the point where it's all too much. I kept learning and forgetting stuff at the same pace 😕. I guess it will take some years until C4D's new particles fully replace x-particles. But maybe it's a lot faster with a fresh new concept. We'll see soon 🙂 In my experience, it's a lot of work to make things behave natural. Just some rain with turbulence? It never feels quite right, I feel like I always have to fight that damn thing Watching Bob Walmsley's great tutorials make it look easy, but I keep getting lost in the tabs and sub-tabs of this plugin. It doesn't help that there is no translation for my native language available, which sucks at this price.

Paul established a US-based entity for Maxon, to serve North and South America and introduced Cinema 4D to The Americas in 1998, His initiatives included strategic partnerships with industry-leading production studios and design firms, along with orchestrating product bundles with Adobe After Effects and Apple Final Cut Pro. Paul's leadership and strategic planning played a pivotal role in Maxon's unprecedented growth. Today, Cinema 4D stands out as one of the fastest-growing and widely-used 3D products for digital content creation. He takes pride in being part of a team that facilitated the emergence of 3D in the motion graphics industry. In 2016, Paul was honored with the Studio Daily 50 award, recognizing influential creatives and technologists. Known for his creative energy, customer service advocacy, and support for training and education, Paul is often invited to speak at industry events, particularly on the subject of motion graphics. Describe yourself in a single word Enabler (the good kind 🙂 ) How did you get into C4D/ Maxon and 3D in general? In the early 90’s I got my first job in the 3D industry – marketing managerfor ElectricImage (a 3D animation product on Mac). This was in the early days of 3D. I was there for a few years (learned a lot about the industry, artists and studios). They were purchased by the company Play (wellknown for the Snappy). Play was formed by former marketing people from Newtek. I was pretty sure my position was redundant, so, I went back into freelance marketing. Maxon started out as one of those freelance jobs. Which area interests you most? Facilitating, inspiring, motivating and helping creatives be successful in achieving their vision. What other apps are you using and what for? I assume this question is more geared towards artists. How about I tell you one of the things I find really interesting out there? I think Rive (https://rive.app/) is an extremely innovative and unique new offering and a significant breakthrough in the creation of real time vector graphics. At its core, Rive is a new graphics format. Rive graphics are not just static; they can be animated, interactive, and functional. The format and its players are open source so designers can create interactive content forproducts, apps, websites, and games - and Rive runs anywhere (web,iOS, Android, Windows, Unreal, Unity, C++, etc.). A huge advantage is how greatly it speeds up workflow by reducing designer-developer handoff. Which learning resources you used and would recommend? This forum of course, Cineversity, of course! School of Motion, Linkedin Learning, and YouTube/Google searches for anything useful. Do you think talent is overrated and can be offset with a lot of hard work? I’ve always felt there were two types of 3D animators and digital artists ingeneral - those who are naturally artistic and less technical, and those who are more technical with less artistic background. We used to call it right and left brained, (but I’ve recently read some scientists call that a fallacy). And there are those amazing exceptions – the people who seem to have both artistic “talent” and an innate understanding of technology. Talent is an intrinsic skill (as in something that comes natural to you). But it is a skill. So yes, I do think those not born with it can develop artistic sensibility. Your best advice for newcomers, tip or trick to pick up regarding marketing and industry? Create. Even with talent, nothing comes without practice and execution. Create what you love, what inspires you. Be inspired by others. Inspire others. Thoughts on AI? Artists worrying about how AI is going to affect the industry and their careers is completely understandable. But it cannot be ignored. It’s here and it’s not going away. The best thing to do is figure out how it canultimately serve and empower you. Part of being a creative professional is adapting to what is thrown at you, whether it be a client’s desires or technology advancements. Top 3 wishes for C4D a. That it will continue to humbly serve the artistic community. b. That it will continue to innovate and impact the industry. c. That it will be remembered as having a positive impact on the industry and secure a place in design history. Message for Core4D Stay positive, stay passionate and keep the community spirit. Tell us something we could not possibly know about you but you find important or funny : ) In my early 20’s I was an actor. I did mostly stage musicals, but I did doone film. I was a pirate in the movie Hook. I was also in the Hook Coke commercial – like everything else it can still be found on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUIAPbXevaA For fun, I still perform in a band with my buddy and my daughter https://thelaurelcanyonband.com/ Plans after a long journey with Maxon? Clear my head, look out into the horizon of the industry and get a good idea of what’s happening in the industry and where it’s going. Hopefully, I will find something where I can focus my passion and energy. Yes, I am actually looking for a job (it’s been rumored I am retiring – no way!! I have too much energy left.) – hopefully, it will besomewhere in the industry. This industry is my family. Also, some exciting news. This week I've accepted an invitation to be an Advisor for the team at Rive. It’s not a job. I took an advisory position for a product I think has a tremendous amount of potential in the interactive design industry. I encourage everyone to check it out. Really innovative and fun. If people want to contact you https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulbabb/

It really isn't a port of any kind, it is a new development from the ground up and any similarities to TP are simply due to it being a particle system as well.

Yeah nothing in the world will matter by 2028.

Maybe some students are okay to pay $100 for a year of Maxon One? I get that every student claims poverty but they'll also probably be spending five times that on their new iPhone. So this won't change anything then. I agree with you here for sure. It was a long WTF? moment and an apology from top brass didn't really change much. Maybe they could have waited till the semester break? If they're learning animation to go work at Pixar or something, do they need to learn C4D? Maya would be the better bet there. Equally, if they're one of the various students who really wants to learn C4D and AE so they can do cool Mograph all day, is the $100 for Maxon One for a year really going to put them off? It's a once a year thing, so maybe they could ask their parents to help with that one? Fair point. ZBrush looks like a useful purchase for Maxon, so it seems even smarter here to just push everyone towards Maxon One. The ZBrush nerds get C4D with it, the scattered C4D folk here and there get ZBrush on their available apps. That would probably be more enticing than all the Adobe apps I get but never touch because I'm subbing to the Adobe Suite. It's now getting bundled with an app you just described as a 3D cash cow, and you think this means it'll be going the way of Lightwave 3D? Not sure if I see the logic. You make an excellent argument in many respects but realistically anyone who will dump their choice of app over a $100 annual Maxon One sub was probably always destined to go to Blender anyway. Anyone who is already keenly using C4D on a student level and wants, uses or needs the Maxon One stuff, isn't going to be put out by a $100 fee annually to get it. I'd love to pay $100 annually for Maxon One. I'm about to go to the grocery shop shortly, to buy some more groceries, and if I add up the costs of the groceries I also bought yesterday, I'm pretty sure it's over $100. This time next week I won't have much to show for those grocery purchases, and I'll still be without Maxon One. Ultimately, like many other things Maxon does, the biggest visible impact will be on some message board threads where people rant for a bit, otherwise folks on both the "I like this!" and "I hate this!' sides of the fence will all shrug and probably just get on with their lives over the next week or so. If C4D is not an option to teach compared to the wonderful alternatives of Maya and Blender, you probably shouldn't be teaching the students C4D. Alternatively, set up some classes where if folks are really into doing high end FX with nodes, they can use Houdini Apprentice, and if they really want to be a Pixar animation rigger, they can try out Maya, and if they really want to spend all day posting colourful abstract GIF's of swirling circles on Instagram, they can shell out the $100 and sign up for Maxon One. I'm not sure why any of these options need to be accompanied with much angst.

They get all of Maxon One for that hundred bucks, including all the Red Giant stuff, Redshift, ZBrush and whatever else gets chucked in there. And I actually do see the logic of it as a business decision. Clearly less people will be signing up to this higher price than before. The people that do sign up will be paying higher than before. Those people will probably also be more keen on sticking with C4D and using it as a career, versus the percentage (I won't say 'handful' as it could be many) of people who wanted to test the waters, were half interested, but view the hundred bucks as an obstacle. So they go away, Maxon has less work to deal with managing it, and they probably still kinda / sorta make the same dollars. I could be wrong. Dave can pop in here with a big spreadsheet showing earnings and interest and projections if anyone really wants to get into the dollar logic of why they put the price up. When I sub again it won't be at the educational rate so in a number of ways I don't really care about this. There are a few references to Blender in that Reddit thread but I would frankly view it as newsworthy if a C4D comments thread pops up anywhere online without at least three guys telling us how wonderful Blender is. Blender is pretty cool, and I have this on a lot of authority because the past five years of scrolling C4D threads everywhere have usually carried a handful of folks giving one sentence comments or five words or even just two words mentioning Blender, like "There's always Blender...." "You could always use Blender..." "Or, there's Blender..." "Blender is free!" and so on. This was all useful info the first time I heard it but is maybe less effective reading it the 5000th time, but this is just me. And I do think Blender is cool. But it's very janky and even the non-janky bits sit tightly alongside the bits that are janky, all of it managed and sorted out by a particularly janky Object manager. The Reddit thread does have a quite fair comment from a teacher who noted, in NZ a lot of the kids at the school where he teaches are poor and $100 is a week's groceries. This is fair enough and if he's going to learn and then teach them all Blender, I guess they'll all be learning Blender. If this is a good thing for everyone I'm not sure what the problem is. People say we live in a world of dramatic exciting change with AI and new free software apps and entire industries changing, and who knows where we will be in five years etc etc? In reality I know exactly where we will be in five years, threads will still be bubbling along at a low rate with some folks expressing satisfaction and some dissatisfaction at whatever Maxon has just done, every online comments thread here and on Youtube and elsewhere will have another five to ten guys writing "There's always Blender..", "You could just use Blender", "Maybe it's time for Blender?", and this will be the state of affairs for the rest of our lives, with neither Maxon nor the excitable Blender fans ever changing.

@hyyde There is an issue related to the use of custom layouts. Are you using any of those? If it's an option in your case, maybe you can use the standard layouts until a fix is released.