shadd

I teach c4d and also use C4d. Even as a small time freelancer, the cost of C4d is not a big deal to me personally. For students, or someone looking into getting started with it. It is more problematic. Yes they have a student license, but once they graduate or their license expires they are no other options but full price. Not an easy thing to justify fresh out of school and looking for a job. Same thing for a hobbyist. An indie version could potentially solve this problem. I am sure MAXON has done some research into this, but to me if you can get students/hobbyists hooked and provide them with a cheaper license to get them started, hopefully they get to a point where they grow into the full/commercial license.

My MSA was just about up so I tried calling sales and no one called me back. I emailed sales and was told I could get a discount on a subscription with or without Redshift. The discount wasn't too bad (~$150) though pales in comparison to how much I got screwed over after they switched to subscription a few months after I paid for an MSA. I have no idea if I kept my perpetual or not. It was never made clear to me or even brought up. I can tell you R21 still works for me thankfully.

That must explain why I don't have access to S22 outside of the trial. I bought perpetual and an MSA a few months before they announced they were going subscription. My MSA is set to expire in the next month or so and I will have to figure out what my options are soon. I tried to give them a call last week, but with it being virtual NAB no one has gotten back to me yet (understandable I suppose). It seems like MAXON is really trying to push that subscription.

Thanks CBR! I should have mentioned I am aware of DEM earth and while it is way more than my current needs, its implementation of imagery from several different sources looks really handy, provided I could use them without attribution. It seems most sources want attribution directly on an image which is not something a client usually wants. --Shadd

Has anyone here worked with satellite imagery in commercial projects? I know the big boys like Google and Bing have really strict copyrights, and I am also aware of Open Street Map (doesn't have the detail I need). Are there any other options or has anyone gotten approval from Google or similar? I have a project that would certainly benefit from it, however I won't use anything I shouldn't. Any insight would be great as this isn't the first time I have ran into this problem and would love to find a solution.

I would double check your normals are facing the right way. I also think it could be an issue with your voxel size vs radius of the particles. I seem to recall hearing your voxel size needs to be smaller than the radius of the particles. A couple of "quick" tests I ran seemed to confirm that. I've never had much like getting x-particles to fill a glass very well/quickly. Would love to see your setup if you get it working! --Shadd

As a non-programmer artist I won't pretend to understand what is involved in adding new features, and while I have my own wish list of what I want improved, I know that everyone who uses C4d has their own as you stated. On it it's own I love the idea of the subscription model, I just wish I hadn't purchased studio for the first time earlier this year because I am getting screwed hardcore for not waiting 6 months, and as a small time freelancer that is devastating. I used to use 3ds max where I had to buy several plugins to get everything I needed (liquids, smoke, renderer, etc.) although that has changed quite a bit since I left. Cinema 4d seems to be going down this same road which makes me cringe. There are also some basic areas Cinema 4d lacks compared to other major 3d packages (modeling, UV's, Viewport, etc.) and I hope these areas will be addressed soon. I love cinema 4d for many reasons (Mograph, Animation, Sculpting, Takes, etc.) but having to wait extended periods of time for features that other packages have, and continue to improve upon will eventually make it harder to stay. R21 itself has plenty of small quality of life improvements that I look forward to using on a daily basis. The same was true for R20. At some point though, other 3d packages might become worth the gamble if Cinema 4d can't keep up or even gain ground. Personally, I hope that isn't the case as I have gone from Maya to 3ds max and now Cinema 4d. Ultimately I will use the best tool for the job, and while that is currently Cinema 4d for what I do, that could quickly change. --Shadd

Not sure which renderer you are using, but do you have something like a Mix Material (Octane)/Material Blender (Redshift)? You could plug multiple materials in and then adjust the amount, setup some simple xpresso, or user data to switch between them. --Shadd

Thank you! That did the trick!

Hi guys, I am trying to have a sound drive a specific parameter. Could be position, scale, light intensity it really doesn't matter. If I use xpresso and connect the sound effector to a sample node (object-->effector) and then connect the Strength from the sample node to my desired parameter it works! BUT it only works in R19. If i re-create this setup in R20 it doesn't work. If I open the R19 file in R20 it works. Any ideas why this might be happening?

I am in a slightly better place after reading the FAQ section on MAXON's site about what happens to existing MSA customers and I recommend everyone read it if they haven't. Having just purchased Studio (for myself) the first time in May I was initially really upset with the subscription model. I personally don't care about having a perpetual license (it's nice, don't get me wrong) I was more concerned that my initial investment was for nothing. Assuming MAXON doesn't drop the ball with discounts for existing MSA customers I will be moderately satisfied. With all that said...I am a bit disappointed in the feature list and was hoping for more. I was REALLY hoping Redshift would be included in the MSA. Considering it sounds like I will be getting R21 at a steep discount/free it makes it a bit easier to swallow. It sounds like a lot of the core has been updated, and hopefully more significant changes can happen now. One last thing. This subscription model does make Cinema 4d Studio cheaper which I am all for, but I suspect another reason for the change is to make it at least somewhat harder to pirate.

So I am an educator and freelancer. Here are my thoughts. From what I have seen more students are striking out on their own as opposed to getting hired by studios and companies. Contract work is becoming more common and having to purchase something as expensive as C4d Studio can be difficult. While I know Cinema 4d and Adobe products are quite different, I wish Cinema 4d's price was more in line with Creative Cloud pricing and if you really compared what you get, I would argue it is quite comparable. Even something closer to what Houdini does would be an improvement. I also like what Octane was doing (before V4). I think perpetual licenses are important, but offering a subscription is also beneficial. I think there should be an advantage (either monetarily or feature-wise) for perpetual licenses, but nothing that is too drastic.

Hey guys! I have been trying to get responses to quick survey that asks about Job Title, Experience, Preferred Input device, and preferred Renderer. I am using the data for personal reasons, though if anyone is interested I am more than happy to share the results. If you could help me out that would be great. The link is: https://goo.gl/forms/Bmqi5JdyZz0Zvuw22 . I apologize if you have seen me post this on other areas of the internet, but this is the last place I plan on posting. Thank you for your time! --Shadd

MagicMerge did the trick! Render times went from 8 minutes to 3.5 minutes. I should have also mentioned I was using Octane so I don't think Edgeshade would work. There were plenty of other projects I could have used that on though! Thanks for the help!

I do want the spheres to intersect each other, but I don't want the intersecting geometry. If part of a sphere is inside another sphere I want to get rid of that (like a boole union). Doing so should speed up renders as well as make the sss more accurate.

So I created this object and I am working on using SSS. It is made up of spheres in a cloner so there is a lot of intersecting geometry. I know I can use a boole to "union" objects, however given the amount of spheres (approximately 700) this doesn't seem terribly easy. Here are the ideas I have: 1. Make the cloner editable and combine spheres into 2 or 3 different objects that don't intersect. Then boole those 2. Use a skinner or mesher object from a plugin (x particles/real flow) to generate one continuous object. From what I have seen it doesn't look terribly easy to create something as smooth as this, not to mention I think the polygon count would be very high. Can anyone think of any better ideas?