cinomadic

Hello, I'm using R25 and wondering how to get my Animation Path handles? I have the Interpolation of the keys as 'Spline' and 'Auto Tangents' is disabled. In the past, disabling 'Auto Tangents' showed the handles. Am I missing something? Thank you!

It was my error in thinking that these were being pulled from the Database: I realized that the missing files were in a 'tex' folder so the paths were relative. I was able to relink them for R25 by going to Asset > Globalize Filenames in S24, saving, and opening in R25. Thank you for your help @Igor!

Hello, Using S24, I created a database with different categories for my current project. When I open a scene that uses those assets, the assets link correctly. When I open those project files in R25, the asset links are all broken. I don't see how to link my R25 Asset Browser to the database I created in S24. Can someone please help? Thank you. P.S. I have already gone to Edit > Preferences > Asset Browser and added the database folders, but the assets did not automatically relink.

Is the Building Generator used in the R25 Capsules video (or any other Building Generator) available? I don't see anything similar in the Asset Browser. This seems like an ideal use case for procedural modeling.

I found the right method: I don't completely understand it though. The documentation explains Normals Projection as such: Nearest Surface did nothing, so I assume it's because they aren't in the same global space.

Hello, I've been following the Cinema 4D documentation on VAMP, the Vertex Map Manager, but I'm unable to Transfer Maps. In this example, I have two planes bound to a joint chain. Plane 2's Weight Tag has weight information, while Plane 1's is weighted entirely to Joint 1. I have the Source and Target set correctly and "Joint Weights" checked. When I click "Transfer Maps", nothing happens. I have tried the other Evaluation Methods, Transforms, and Spaces, but haven't found the right combination for this to work. Can anyone please advise me on how to get the VAMP tool working with Joint Weight Tags? Example scene file: VAMP.c4d Thank you!

@IgorThanks! Looks like it's back up. That was quick!

Just trying to do some Cineversity tutorials this weekend and I'm getting this error. Anyone else?

I don't see the Track Modifier Tag in the list of new features. Am I missing it?

I definitely wasn't talking about you, @RBarrett, with regards to User Relations, but Maxon as a company compared to the Blender Foundation. You certainly have made yourself accessible. Thanks for that and I will message you about my personal workflow. The features I mentioned are relevant to your interest in user workflows. Also, the Feature Request & Developer transparency issues were raised prior to COVID and I imagine the Maxon-User exchange will always be most alive through online channels over in-person.

@RBarrett @DMcGavran I don't know about why others on this forum haven't switched to another app already, but I've been needing to stick with Cinema 4D because I started a personal project with it a while ago. I have to keep my C4D license alive until I finish. I'm a character modeler, rigger, and animator. Those haven't been priority disciplines for Maxon when compared to Motion Graphics (though R23 did give a lot of love to character animation). To keep myself from feeling too trapped, I've also gotten a Maya Indie license and installed the latest version of Blender. I have used these three apps extensively. Here are my observations: Cinema 4D vs. Maya vs. Blender User Experience Cinema 4D C4D still benefits from the UX decisions made long ago: the Object Manager/Tags model is still the best of the three. As others on this thread have stated, no one was complaining about the UI...the tabbed documents are cool, but do you really want to force people to relearn your UI right now? Doesn't that just beg people to learn a new (potentially FREE) application just as easily? I didn't understand this move. People aren't switching to Blender because of its UI. Maya Using Maya, its efforts in Parallel Rig evaluation show that Maya's primary function is for character rigging & animation. Being the industry standard for so long, most of the commercial rigs and rigging/animation courses are for Maya. The Arnold GPU implementation doesn't work any better in the Viewport than Octane/Redshift in C4D's. If Cinema 4D's multi-threaded scene nodes can remove the need for Constraints/Deformers that use Priorities, Character Rigging in C4D would take a huge leap forward when compared to Maya. Blender When I do start to work in Blender, it's never comfortable. Blender's 'Industry Compatible' hotkeys don't get covered in most tutorials, so I'm left pecking at my keyboard trying to get things to work. I feel like I'd have to learn the native key commands to learn the software. Also, its Viewport doesn't seem to be any faster than Cinema 4D in any area yet. Being able to use the same materials with Eevee and Cycles is genius though and with Cycles X, this makes its Viewport my favorite. Animation I, surprisingly, find Cinema's F-Curve / Graph Editor with its latest improvements the best of the three. Maya's rig playback speed still beats Cinema 4D and Blender, however. Character Rigging As for Character Rigging, I haven't worked much in Blender, but Cinema 4D's Character Object is miles better than Maya's Quick Rig (though the rigs are still way faster in Maya). mGear is good, but not currently caught up to the Python 3 release of Maya 2022. Weight painting sucks in both Maya and Cinema 4D, so I can't pick a favorite. I really like the Maya plugin ngSkinTools' User Experience and wish Cinema 4D could make their weights work like this. xRefs Cinema 4D's xRefs are incredibly buggy (I have probably reported 50+ bugs for it) and have been the bane of my character animation life. Maya and Blender's are amazingly stable. Without good character/prop referencing, Cinema 4D isn't a viable character animation tool for teams or long-format animation. I was told by customer support that a new referencing system is coming, but I'm not sure I'll still be around by then. Sculpting Blender's sculpting looks like a strength from all of the additions Pablo Dobarro made to it. Cinema's sculpting workflow is pretty good, though it's missing things like a Cloth brush (I am aware of the workaround, but it's not as predictable and requires a Deformer). Cloth seems like a primary need for sculpting to me. Also, Normal/Displacement Maps get baked into standard C4D materials. It would be time-saving to integrate this with Substance Painter or GPU/PBR materials. Texture Painting C4D's Bodypaint would benefit from working with materials other than standard C4D materials. Just as with sculpting, if texture painting worked better with Redshift or a PBR workflow, I think it would fit the needs of modern 3D much better. Materials Cinema has material schizophrenia: Node-based materials, PBR Materials, Standard Materials, and Redshift Materials. And none of them really look great in the Viewport compared to Eevee. UVs Cinema's gotten much better in this regard since S22. The UV Unwrap, Rectangularize, etc. were great improvements and I really like UV editing in Cinema 4D as compared to Maya and Blender. Innovations With Blender, things like Grease Pencil and Eevee make me really want to switch to Blender because they seem like artist-first innovations (over Motion Design & technical 3D animation). Before GPU rendering, Sketch & Toon was an incredible innovation! Fun features like this made Cinema 4D special! Now it's long in the tooth (like Bodypaint) and tied to the Standard materials/renderer. @RBarrett, you mentioned procedural workflow innovations, which benefit Motion Designers, but what about innovations like Sketch & Toon, Bodypaint, Projection Man, etc., that made Cinema 4D cutting edge for non-photorealistic 3D artists? Those tools haven't been touched in over a decade! User Relations Blender's Developers are easily accessible by forums and chats. I've raised the issue on this forum many times that Maxon seems uninterested in its users' feature requests based on their lack of investment in collecting them. Users don't feel valued. Maxon: COMMUNICATE WITH YOUR USERS! We've been holding on to this app for a long time with little reason to continue. Obviously leadership need to make the call when there are tough decisions and they know the budgetary implications, but C4D's roadmap currently feels very broken. It's only revealed at these release dates and sets the users up for a letdown. The employees/users lacked enthusiasm/beautiful artwork from new features in their 3D Motion Show presentations. Social Media / 3D Motion Show Blender Today on YouTube feels like an organic program with real human beings talking openly about the future of Blender and current improvements. Blender's constantly being improved and the momentum is huge. The 3D Motion Show and Maxon's Social Media presence seems like Maxon keeps rolling out artists that bought in back when C4D was the hot app (2010s). It's also surprisingly unprofessional: the mics sound like crap (even from the Chief Marketing Officer!), the banter either seems unprepared or super-canned, and no one has any genuine enthusiasm. It's like Maxon in LA gave up. Also, having presentations from all of the Maxon products makes the 3D Motion Show unwatchable. You really need individual shows for each product. I used to be able to watch C4D Live with glee. People's time is too valuable - who is going to willingly be force-fed all of your marketing for all of your products on YouTube where competition is so high? As soon as a Red Giant Magic Bullet Looks hour-long tutorial starts, I bet your drop-off rate is huge! Buying other Apps Buying Redshift made sense to me because it was a much better product than the ProRender feature. If well-integrated, Redshift would improve C4D. Buying Red Giant and Forger are starting to make me feel like Maxon is diversifying its offering for stockholders. It feels like it's letting C4D be one of many Maxon apps in case Cinema 4D fails. I understand that Maxon is a business, but why not put that money into product research, more developers, etc. & making Cinema 4D better? Regardless of intention, it feels like Cinema 4D is being left to die on the vine. Price In my opinion (and seemingly others as well) C4D is too expensive for what differentiates it from Maya and Blender. Last year I did the math and C4D was the most expensive for an Indie artist. Cinema 4D: $719.04/yr modo: $629/yr Houdini: $269.99/yr Maya: $265/yr 3DS Max: $265/yr Blender: Free Summary For me, Cinema 4D still shines with the Object Manager, Character Object, F-Curve Editor, & UV Editing, and those are huge parts of my 3D workflow. However, the lack of enthusiasm about the product, poor communication, and the dryness of updates feel like a kick in the stomach for the future. Currently, as soon as I finish my project started with C4D, I'm planning to switch to using Maya with an Indie License & Blender. That would be some time next year. I do hope scene-nodes, pricing plans, and key feature updates change my mind in that time because I loved using C4D. Currently, it's trending downwards.

This video was helpful.

Hello, I have a material with a Bitmap Shader. How can I get this to play a random frame within the Movie Start Frame and Movie End Frame at the Movie Frame Rate? So if the Movie Frame Rate is 12 (and the project is at 24fps), how can I get this shader to choose a different frame every 2 frames? Thank you.

I heard back from Maxon Customer Support about this:

Hello, Does anyone know how to insert XRef object from the Asset Browser with the Modify Transform, User Data, and Parameters options? From what I can tell, the XRefs from the Asset Browser come in as one object without any children or ability to modify the contents.

Hi @Cerbera, Thanks for the reply. Is it in the Preferences folder? I didn't see it there. When I asked about deleting the Viewport Presets on this forum in the past, I was told to use the Content Browser to find the file. I agree that it's not an asset, but I'm suggesting that the user experience is not intuitive for where to find these files. If it's a preference, I think either the UI should change to allow users to delete user-generated presets from the Viewport Filter menu or there's a clearly-labeled folder (similar to user layouts) for a consistent user experience. I honestly don't care where it is...I just want to be able to find/edit it easily. Hi @Igor, same as my answer to @Cerbera, the filter presets don't need to be in the Asset Browser. They just need to be more discoverable.

Thank you for the reply, @Igor. To any of the C4D team, it seems premature to label the Content Browser "Legacy" if it is still needed.

Hello, I'm using S24 and I've saved a Viewport Filter Preset. In the legacy Content Browser, these would be found in the 'User > Viewport Filter Presets' folder. Where can I find them in the new Asset Browser? Thank you.

Hello, In my project, I’m tethering a balloon to a Cube with a cord. I want the balloon to blow around but to never extend beyond the length of the cord that is connecting it to the Cube. To blow the balloon around, I’m using a Dynamics Body tag and a Wind object. I’m connecting the balloon to the Cube with a Spring object. What are some other ways to go about this? Would I get better balloon motion-esque results using Aerodynamics or just a light Custom Mass and strong Wind? Here is as far as I’ve gotten with my scene file: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RKSIMyHykl83w5lUAAXvyG7vtwbs8RNA/view?usp=sharing I found this topic that was trying to achieve the same concept: Thank you!

Hi @Cerbera and @bezo, I'm so sorry, I didn't get any notification that there was a response on this thread and I'm just seeing these. Thank you both very much!

Hi, I'm recording a video tutorial and I'm unsure what this button is called. Can anyone tell me? Also what is the mode it's activating called - is it "Pick session"? Thank you!

Hello, I just posted a suggestion using MAXON's ticket system. I'm not seeing much difference in this from the issue I saw in my original post over a year ago. Feature recommendations are still very buried and unaddressed, even though there may be a new support system internally. Could you please offer a better solution for customers to suggest, vote on, and discuss new features with product managers & developers? For example, there are some missing features in the Timeline and XRef systems that could greatly benefit Cinema 4D and make it much more usable in animation pipelines. It's free market research. It's also tough when you see it happening for other applications and not Cinema 4D. I love you guys and Cinema 4D, so this is coming from a place of wanting things to be better. Thank you!

Hello, I have my project's Key Interpolation set to Step, but when I click on the Record Animated button, I am getting keys with Spline Interpolation. Can anyone help me set the default interpolation to Step? Thank you!

Thank you for the reply, @deck 😀 That works perfectly for my needs! Thank you!

Hello, Is it possible to get Materials with Camera Mapping projection to pin to an object? I want to be able to move & deform my object that has a projected texture. I have tried the Pin Material tag, but it doesn't work. Thank you!