Zmotive

Meet the new list (pretty much the) same as the old list: Much better viewport / object manager performance. I.E. Rapid looks development whether 1 object with a million polys or a million objects with 1 poly (to use a cliche example). Don't care if it's CPU / multi-threaded or GPU-based, just want it to work much more smoothly than it does. Better UV, retopology worklows. Not really my gig but I know how many other people need this / tire of using third party patchwork of solutions. Proper symmetry modeling tools. I think virtually everyone can benefit from this whether you do Disney style animation, motion graphics, or something else. Continue to polish the new nodal materials system and integrating with available renderers, particularly ProRender. Continue to polish the new OpenVDB workflow. I'd be real happy with any 3 of those. I don't even care which 3 although #1 is far and away the most important and holds greatest potential benefit for all users IMHO. Hopefully the promise of the new core is realized in a couple months.

If you have time for a long-form class (i.e. can take your time and learn it fully), School of Motion is probably the best out there because you'll do real project-based learning, real interactions with instructors and other students, taught by people who have worked in the industry, lots of assets to work with and test out, etc. It's a little pricey but probably still less than a 1-on-1 trainer. Not as individualized attention obviously but you're going to get more out of it than a typical Lynda course. Especially if motion graphics and traditional animation is a big part of what you want to do. FXPHD used to be a good one for the same reasons but they've allowed their AE and C4D classes to languish for a long time now; I don't bother to check there anymore but can't hurt to look. Last I checked they were still offering R14 training as "current" recently as the R19 cycle. That said, I'm not sure what their AE library looks like right now. But my guess would be outdated. Can also recommend PluralSight. Better than Lynda IMO in terms of features and format but a similar "reference library of courses" type site. Their library isn't as large but it's more specialized. Their courses are more about how to handle real-world production workflows start to finish than generalized reference courses. That said haven't been to Lynda in a couple years so maybe they've changed. Never was a huge fan though. You can also learn a lot for free by going to Video Copilot, watching the tutorials then working through the examples. Only downside there is most of them are directly related to the products they sell, so those will be mostly useful if you want to use one of their plugins like optical flares. Also his style is very different. Bit of a ham / cornball type but very talented and tries to keep it fun and interesting. One of those guys you can tell really loves what he does.

Do I guess correctly that you are coming from a different 3D environment? :) You should submit a request to join MAXON's beta team; you've obviously willing to put in the details on the reporting side. Not only would you probably provide some perspective from other workflows but you would also learn why MAXON chose to do certain things they way they did.

Unless the people who uploaded it are Insydium, I doubt that it's legal. Someone probably had a copy from before the sale of the technology and posted it again when a friend or someone else requested they do so. That's just a guess though.

"While this 'answer of answers' functions it is fundamentally flawed, thus creating unchecked systemic anomolies in ProRender..." Besides my high school geometry teacher was a real-life leprechaun and assured us anytime we were unsure of a solution, that "the answer is 6." Never seemed to work on the quizzes though. Maybe MAXON is onto something with this 42 business.

Permission fix didn't do anything so decided to delete all things MAXON and start over again. I think I figured out the R19 part. The installer must've defaulted to "This User" instead of "All Users" or I accidentally hit an arrow key or something that caused that to switch. Hopefully the clean re-install (with permanent serial to start) will help. [Welp batting .500 on this day. That solved the unregistered message but not the Allow / Deny network access thing. Checked the Firewall settings C4D is in there with the green light. Not sure what else would cause that to persist from session to session but minor annoyance I guess.]

So a couple odd behaviors I don't recall seeing before. Normally when I receive a download link for a new installer, I run that, use the temporary serial number, register with MAXON and wait for the new permanent serial. When I get that I "Personalize" the app and the "Unregistered License" thing goes away thereafter. However after following this with R20, it goes away but then on each successive launch it comes back. Also I cannot seem to permanently allow C4D to access Network Connections, it asks every time I launch. Do you guys also "re-register" after receiving your permanent password? Shouldn't be necessary but maybe I'm missing something. Another strange thing is I had R19 going fine including registered and not constantly relaunching as unregistered and asking for network permissions, and weirdly the only difference: the installer did not put it in the main macOS Applications folder but the user Applications folder. I've never see a MAXON installer put the app in the user applications folder. Has anything changed WRT the default recommended install location from MAXON or registration process? Any reason to think R19 install and R20 are conflicting / maybe sharing preferences or something? Doesn't look like it to me / everything seems to be in its place.

Purely anecdotal using people in the most populous C4D forums as a cross-section of the larger community. Basically the trend I noticed comes from this and other forums. But not scientific by any means nor any guarantee the trend holds (I think it probably won't). Hope not, anyway. :)

Yeah I would think the CAD import improvements are the main thing, possibly nodal materials depending on what you like to render with. Works with Physical Renderer in C4D, but not sure which third party renderers if any. Instances improvements could come into play for things like grass, trees, stones, shag carpet, etc. Possibly motion tracking if you're adding elements to a recorded scene of an existing structure?

Seems like a trend started with R16, where every other version there's a large contingent of people who decide not to renew. Many people followed the R16, R18, and now R20 upgrade path (seems like). But perhaps with the new core being complete, there's a good chance R21 breaks the cycle and continues with a mix of big modernizations and substantial expansions of existing feature-sets, like we see in R20.

While I understand what you're saying about the hardware, the other part of what you're saying doesn't make a lot of sense. Part of what a benchmark does, is provide a means of estimating how a given hardware setup will perform with a certain type of rendering software (in this case the R15 OpenGL viewport engine — or a version of it). Either way, obviously the benchmark doesn't say anything about how a given C4D command or tool performs. Maybe there is a bad assumption on my part, which is that Cinebench is basically emulating the R15 OpenGL viewport. In other words they create a reference scene with a certain number of polygons, reflective materials and so forth and let it run using the same R15 viewport engine. And the better your OpenGL hardware, the better your frame rate will be. My initial thought was, IF that is the case, and IF the OpenGL viewport in R19+ is substantially different (or is slowly becoming substantially different with each iteration), at some point the engine in Cinebench needs to be updated. Otherwise you could say that today's scores are still valid relative to yesterday's scores (hardware), but not valid as a measure of how your hardware would perform with today's OpenGL viewport. Right? Or is it the case Cinebench really has no ties to what we use in C4D, other than the name? If that's the case then I retract my concern, but do agree with hvanderwegen's comments above in principle. Again I don't consider Cinebench to be any kind of big priority. I asked mostly out of curiosity as I've been testing GPUs lately and got to thinking about all this stuff.

My thought was possibility that he used a third party renderer, but I'm not sure if that is feasible without the render-devs updating their apps to support R20 nodality (aka noderificality, node-itude, etc)

Two questions: 1) Is that the green body color for the "Compose Color A" pedal? Seems darker than all the green pedals but I'm guessing there's some type of lighting impact that brightens it up. 2) This scene rendered in R20 Physical Renderer?

Where can we find the "Nodes Like You're 15" video? I prefer 3x as much detail and also some irrational rage and emotionality. ; ) Seriously, thanks for posting these videos in general. Something for everyone.

Yup. A roadmap that shows the big picture priorities in upcoming releases, without showing how the features work or exactly when they'll be available, would provide some piece of mind without harming them competitively. I think quite a few people who balk at the MSA and upgrade every other release or every couple releases, would just bite the bullet and say "OK, I know now the things I need to be addressed are being addressed and I'll get them at some point in the next couple years, so I'm just going to support MAXON via MSA with the knowledge that money will help to build the better workflow I want, rather than jumping ship or using C4D less of the time." That being said, R20 is definitely a better upgrade than R17 or R19 IMO. Just making a general point that from a communication standpoint, the new CEO would be wise to consider working with his team to publish a blog post with a nice roadmap like this. Would be an immediate sign he's listening and cares about providing some piece of mind, which should in turn provide him with more MSA signups from year to year as the new core gets fully integrated through the app, new materials, new rendering, etc.

Thanks for the info blutz. I wasn't sure how simple or difficult a task it is to update Cinebench. But yeah, getting all the primary modeling tools and other go-to components core-ified is more important obviously.

Wondering if Rick or other MAXON guru can comment on whether the new core and rendering technologies will mean an updated Cinebench utility sometime in the relatively near future. If the idea is for the test to mimic how a piece of hardware would perform with the real application, using todays materials and so forth, seems like it would be due for an overhaul? I realize that it's all relative to the speed of today's GPUs and so you can still guage from a FPS result which GPU is better than the next, but I am curious.

Nice. Thanks for putting in the time to answer these questions for everyone Rick. Great to have a MAXON presence here. (Not that you're the only presence, but in general... very helpful.)

Almost missed this one. It sounds almost like the new feature in AE where you can package a series of effect parameters and expose just those parameters in a panel or in Premiere Pro. Basically you set up a network of nodes and then when you package it as an asset you can view it in the standard editor window as checkboxes, sliders, etc?

Thanks for the clarifications Rick. The CAD import improvements do look fairly robust. I think I'm going to have to try a couple test files and see what I get. Certainly looks easier than the third party plugins I've researched and tried though.

h Szalam. I did see some of that veideo earlier. I think I just haven't wrapped my brain around it fully and once I see a few more working examples I'll have a full sense of what it can do beyond expanding the type of falloffs that exist. Here's another question: Uber Material... the intent is that this will eventually replace the standard C4D Material (which Rick mentioned is still in there) right? I'm assuming there may be a means to add anything from any of the 150 nodes to that window that is mocked up on MAXON's site (bottom of the nodal section) but maybe I'm not getting the intent there. IOW it's basically the "check box and sliders version" of any given nodal material 'network' you create... but you can also start from the other side with standard settings shown there... and add more by virtue of going into the editor and adding a node then switching back to the window view when you're done? That's where the "expose only the parameters you want" aspect comes into play?

Got a nice surprise at lunch today when I saw the feature list for R20 had been announced a bit early. Spent some time looking through the features and improvements, big and small. My initial gut reaction is that this is a nice upgrade and about what I expected in the sense that I knew we weren't going to get something like nodal materials, new UV workflow, fully complete ProRender, etc all wrapped in one release. That's just not how MAXON operates in terms of guarding against instability and in terms of the number of hours in a day and development days in a year. I will say MAXON deserves a little dig because after R19 was released there was some communication going on to the effect of interim BodyPaint developments underway, and that they would be available at some interim point (unspecified), and that never materialized. And then here again with R20 nothing for those folks, so I don't blame them for negative posts on the BodyPaint side. That said it's good to know from Rick's prior posts that it's not dead / off the radar, although from a workflow perspective it might as well be in practical terms. Back to R20... NODAL SYSTEM: I think it looks pretty impressive, minus the unfortunate omission of SSS. Maybe that's an interim update we'll get? Adding nodes as a part of bug fix updates a possibility? I don't get the people who are saying "sure we finally got the nodal system but it's x years overdue, so 'no credit for you!'" Of course MAXON deserves credit on that. Isn't that the point of all these damn discussions we have every year?? We tell them where the major pain points are, they set to delivering a solution, and when they do we show some appreciation and satisfaction that we are now operating with -1 pain point? (Nod your head and say "Yes, Scoob, that is correct. We are pleased to have -1 pain point.") Seems like a few people are in serious Negative Nancy / Norman territory right now. Criticizing remaining weak points is OK if done constructively but otherwise Lighten up and give credit in the spots where it's due, folks. OpenVDB Modeling: Also seems like a pretty nice addition to me although remains to be seen how clean the models are, etc. But I see this as our MeshFusion and I'm happy we've got it. Boolean modeling improvements was another area people asked for, although not one of the huge items. But I could see myself using this all the time, based on what I know so far. Looks like a pretty seamless and snappy workflow from the demo videos. Mo' Fields: I'm a little hazy on these and I'll defer judgement till I see some more examples and tutorials from our vaunted admin. I will be honest my initial impression was a little bit "this is going to become the Takes of R20" where it's certainly useful in some instances and makes some things much quicker than before but not a "hang your hat on it" kind of feature. That said I am eager to be proven wrong. If they're anywhere near as useful as stated, then this is MAXON re-asserting leadership in the mograph field, which no one should blame them. They want to hold on to that title of being the best mograph dcc out there. Nothing wrong with working on strong and weak edges in the same release. Mo' Instances: this may be MAXON's way of improving object management and viewport performance for a particular workflow, but it's not the end of this story I don't think. I may not be understanding the full implications here but until we can get to rapid prototyping with big particle systems as well as cloned object instances, it's still a pain point. Also I would like to here whether this feature is GPU-aware and could benefit from eGPUs or systems with more than one GPU, etc. Generally, there's very little info in the feature list that talks about GPU-aware features. Would be cool to hear from MAXON on that in general. I think others would agree. Pro Render: as I've never used it I'll reserve judgement but certainly seems like a lot of the "missing features" are no longer missing. Again I think this is 100% MAXON guarding against stability issues last time around if I had to guess. They probably could've added a bunch of these items last time but it would've been too buggy probably. On the speed part, let's see it. I want to see some stuff with a ton of these attributes applied to a scene and the viewport being rotated, panned, etc. I'm prepared to give MAXON credit on this expansion of a prime feature but I want to see proof first that this component is really showing up as advertised. CAD Import: I gotta say this one surprised me and am very glad to see MAXON paying attention to it. I all but gave up on trying to find non-klunky / inexpensive solutions to bringing Solidworks files into C4D to animate them. One thing I'd like to know: when working with SolidWorks files is C4D aware of the assembly components that make up a file and allow them to be handled individually after import, or is it a monolithic object where the only thing you can see and interact with is what you see on the outside? Thanks to MAXON for providing a solution (hopefully). [I tried animating with SolidWorks it a few times and about threw myself off a bridge.]

And worthy of a separate comment to keep things in proper perspective: keep fighting Dan and get better. I'm sure it's tough and you get tired of hearing stuff like that, but obviously a lot of people here behind you. Hang in there. Hopefully R20 will give you some stuff to distract from health concerns for a bit and put the proverbial spring in your step.

That's all very encouraging (to see you have that level of confidence in the release). I'm sure I'll be throwing a few questions your way. For my part it's always been a two-part equation: 1) when is Apple going to provide some pro hardware that doesn't suck for this kind of work; 2) does C4D itself see improvements that help Apple's hardware of the day perform on par with PCs? Also less a "I am absolutely leaving if I don't get ____; I'll go use ____ instead," and more like a "I see no reason to upgrade here in terms of innovation and efficiency so I'll just keep using what I have." Been known to skip a release here and there. lol That said I have been spending some time with Houdini and Blender this year. My opinion remains the same: I like their capabilities and rapid-fire progress and hope for same with C4D's weak edges, but I really dislike their UI in some respects (for different reasons). So I'm rooting for R20 to make me "not care" about those other products. I'm also taking a more holistic view this year. Knowing that there are 4 or 5 big "staple" feature improvements that are needed, [even if it's more geared towards other workflows than my own overall,] I'd still take that as a good sign. I still support MAXON with my hard-earned money in that case. That means the base stays stable, MAXON continues to be successful and grow. [As tempted as I am to believe it based on posts like yours, I know it's unlikely all of the big ticket items end up in one release; the main thing is to see big progress in the directions people have been asking for even if not my personal favorites in all cases. If it IS that big of a release, I'm going to take at least 1 vacation day to check out the new release in September when it arrives. Maybe 2. heheh] Main thing for me is the ole object manager / viewport dynamic that often prevents working rapid iteration with high object counts or particle counts, and then from there a variety of other things I won't re-hash. I also agree it would be fantastic if if there's more information there about a clear path ahead, meaning less speculation threads [in 2019 and beyond and less] worrying about stuff there's no point in worrying about. Would rather be talking to people about how to use some amazing new feature or optimizing workflow with a greatly imroved feature. Less than a week out! Excited to see what's next.