Cerbera

Yeah I like that :) Couple of things struck me as a bit off though, if you don't mind some constructive crits... 1. Snow particles are quite big. 2. Snow is falling from a clear blue sky. 3. The flag sound needs to fade in as we approach it, rather than start once we get there. 4. The camera move at the end could be adjusted to keep the flag in shot. 5. (This one is really picky) There is no evidence or surrounding structures to support that flag being there - ie how it got there, who put it there, or why etc... 6. This sort of ident might benefit from some music as well as the soundtrack Don't get me wrong - these criticisms are all very minor, and the overall idea is a good one, and on the whole everything was nicely done. Thanks for sharing CBR

Yep - photo texture with a little bit of bump channel (or normal channel) and little bit of nice reflectance stacking (rough diffuse base with higher gloss beckmann layer over the top, possibly a scratch layer over the top of that). Possibly some subtle diffusion channel noise for a bit of break-up / wear ? CBR

That's quite a rewarding object :) If I did have one minor criticism it would be the slight lack of realism (too flawless) in the table texture, but otherwise that's great... keep up the good work ! CBR

Yeah ! That's some good foresting there...

That's very orange :) And beautiful geometry, as we've come to expect...

That is maximum awesome :) That illuminated canyon cloud fog at the end was particularly rewarding.

HDRI studio does require GI to light the scene, however, if you have a scene with lights in it already, it is still useful for quickly adding reflections. I think the latest version has a button in the HDRI object controls that says 'add render settings', which turns GI on if you use it's presets. Otherwise, you need to turn that on yourself in render settings. You'll know if it's installed wrongly because you'll get texture errors on render. Hope that helps CBR

Nope - AFAIK, you can't do it. Happy to be corrected by anyone who knows different...

Ha - very cool. Enjoyed that :)

The first one, with the reflections is better, once you've sorted your nuts out :)

I should hope so too - I think both Maya and Max have horribly cluttered UI's - C4D is so much nicer in that respect. Also MAXON do move menu items around to make them more logical, and occasionally rename something, but mostly they get it right first time, Hypernurbs being a notable exception :)

Do fish need stairs ? :)

I'd email and ask them directly why they didn't release anything last year, and what they'll be doing this year to justify your continued investment !

If you're on a PC.... Go to C:\Users\*Your username*\AppData\Roaming\MAXON\CINEMA 4D R17\library and you should find a Layouts Folder. Copy that into the equivalent path for R18. If you're on a mac I have no idea :) CBR

You can choose physical or download I think... I got sent a link to make a choice sometime last year.

That new knife toolset is properly awesome, once you get used to hitting escape to complete your cuts. Loop mode does some very clever stuff with mouse hovering to define what the new loop will look like. Wasn't expecting that ! :D

Woo hoo ! All good - now we just need to update the cafe so users can select R18 in their profiles :)

Fed up with random dots all over your scene ? Set Null Objects to display nothing rather than dots using 'Set As Default'.

Finally got your joint weighting right for that tricky section ? Lock the joint weights to never lose it. Then save.

Cel renders looking a bit weird ? Turn off displacement channels in materials to fix.

When using hi-res displacement + AO, consider turning AO off for the SD object with a compositing tag. Much faster renders.

Right-click the material preview, choose open window, then CTRL-TAB while mousing over it for full screen material preview.

Got perfect render settings, and suddenly need an ultra quick preview again ? Just change PR Shading Error Threshold to 50%.