Jops

You are right. Maybe it is just a happy conicidence. But i still have the impression that while some of the new concepts are technically verry impressive they somehow really don't get them translated into easy to understand and easy to use features anymore as they used to.

If i understand right this means, that every asset, that you store as a asset in your database can be included into a c4d file, while assets that are not included in your database have to be handled the old way. @srek is this correct?

I think that this new asset manager has the safety of maxons assets in mind. Maybe even a new revenue stream is planed with this. Where you can buy assets form some kind of store. I have the impression, that once more maxon interests where verry important, and the interests of the users baybe a bit less. I might be wrong, but i see a pattern there. Fortunately working with finder/explorer is a accepable way for me, but i am sad for all of those that are dependent of it. While i was always happy with the implementation of new features back in the days for me more and more newer features have some sort of academical feel to it. Just disconnected with the way many people work, implementing theoretically powerfull but hard or strange or unflexible workflows. Staring with team render server, over the overly complex material node system to the asset manager now. It feel much like discussing with my engeneering friends they often are so shure, that everyone thinks like them, while they basically just can talk to one another.

This topic is a snake pit and normally is the end of every thread 🙂 I for one can not see any difference in the results artists are achieving. No matter what OS they are using. And It looks like all type OSes are used regularly in production. Therefor they seem to be production worthy. I think that drivers, applications and plugins are by far the bigger problem.

Hi Alex, I dont't want to kill your dreams, but as a r20 can be updated to R25 for around 1600€ to 1800€ you can calculate the value of a R20 License yourself. But If you need them for teaching you can reach out to Maxon and see if they can provide you with something. best luck, Jops

Really I am slightly under shock. I am soooo happy I didn't buy it.

Oh this is great. Because they can't admit their mistake (Bug), they take themselves the opportunity to correct it in a service update, because that would be a new feature and that is illegal in an unpaid service update, as they never get tired to point out.

I Like this thread. many interesting things get said in a relatively unagitated was. But this sentence made me laugh. I mean really what features do you mean. There are quite some examples in this thread that people would love maxon to develop or enhance. And for all that features maxon would play the catch up game so hard that absolutely no confidentiality is needed. Blender on the other hand is so open as can get and they sometimes manage to innovate without all the other "super agile" DCC companies copying them (besides the UI of corse) .

I am working with S24 and octane for a client (its their license) The rest is vanilla. I find it stable. And if it is not stable it is clearly the fault of octane. I always have the impression that there are people that can handle octane and get beautiful, stable and fast sceens and then there are people who just click around purely driven by the result. and their scenes are slow and super unstable. For me s24 is much more stable then R23. I personally have R21 but often use R20 or 19. actually when ever I have to log in again, because i used it on a other computer or so. When I see the login screen I just open R20. It is stupide, but that is just the way it is. I dont like it to go online and change a license just to start my software ( I payed it and I am the only one using it of course and I have it on precisely 2 computers. As if I would do anything or unethical. Its a bit like not be able to play a legal game because of the security measures against piracy. As I am not working High dpi it is hardly any difference. I mean it really is not such a big deal to go online put in the credentials and change the license, but it is like it is. I just care to little if it is R20 or R21. R21 field forces is cool though. The UV tools are the best update they did in a long time (at least for me). Thats why I wanted to buy R25. But I am so turned down by the UI thing. Not because of the UI change as such more because it is the only feature that is supposed to be Production ready (but it is not). It basically just reduces my productivity. as a feature. and I really have my doubts that they will get R25 into a state with the update that is perpetual worthy. It really is a problem, that a version with just one update after 3 month is not necessary production ready. And here we are again at the beginning of the thread 🙂 If the last but one version would get a stability update after lets say 8-10 month, then it would be as it was back in the days of one year releases. I always liked it that way. normally it would wait for the second update to use it in production 🙂 And I know others that did it like this.

I have the impression, that things just go "faster". Faster in the way that everyone and everything must be in a state of alarm all the time. To be able to give a way several updates a Year (to sell a subscription) you have to change the working process to a "more agile" one. Things get developed and tested parallel. I am not shure if this really leads to faster developement. But I have the impression, that it leads to more sloppy developement. The software might work fine if it is installed newly and under controlled environment but when different kinds of software are dependent of another you get this mess. And when the problems get visible the new version already is out there and introduces new problems. It is absolutely not a cinema exclusive problem. But the yearly developement circle was already challenging and more then fast enough for me. But with the subscription circus the shortcomings of this strategy get visible. For the few real Features that get introduced there seem to be quite some bugs that come with them. It can be done differently. for example Moi 3D is rock solid when it comes out. But not every 5 month but every several years. I have the impression that today the self made Swirl of steam is sold as the product and the product itself is just the alibi. btw. I use the "its 2021 things should be different" phrase because and not although I am really quite old in this business.

As anything is going to be recreated as/with scene nodes my assumption was that core components as Object manager, materials, animation will get converted before features like particles, volumes, liquids that are somehow a bit more special interest. But I have absolutely no insight into this and all is just guessing.

field forces where the only update for particles for a long time. I really like them a lot and even find it easier to set up smooth particle action than in xparticles which often feels a but clumsy in the way the particles move (but I am not specialist what so ever). But without further updates the particle system stays in a very rudimentary position. even the pure basics are missing as e.g. a spline and a polygon emitter. MJV is right. There will be no new feature that is not based on sceene nodes. And the base features that already are there have to be rebuild too. I guess we will see small advancements in every aspect that will get replaced by sceene nodes, but my guess is that particles are at the end of the line and we will probably have to wait several years for them to come.

This Video is so incredibly interesting. The way he uses super few functions and easy shapes to produce such a nice image makes it look so easy! There is so much to learn from it. it is absolutely not necessary to always look for the latest and grates functions. Limiting oneself to just a fraction of the possibilities can be so productive.

Thank you for the interesting video. rBool was capable of booling very complex geometries. I used it when a normal bool had no chance to work because of the complexity of the model. It was able to bool meshes that where imported from CAD Data of complex machinery and it also worked in animations. I don't think it was capable of displacement though

I don't know where it is, but you could try shift C to search for it.

the 3D/comositing/creator world is such a amazing place. it is so rich of tool and workflows. There is no ending in developement and therefor learning (which gets hard motivation wise after some decades of it 🙂. And there are still big things hiddn ( like e.g. the pixar tools) but there always seems something to come new. or something that was unreachable gets perfectly accessible (like resolve back then or weta now) It will be very interesting to see if unity keeps its philosophy to give their software away for free to individuals that don't earn a fortune 🙂 . But to be honest i doupt it 🙂

Here it is. it was called rBool in a quick google search I found a old link that is still working: http://cinema4dnews.blogspot.com/2012/11/plugins4cinema4d-rboole-plugin.html well the link goes to insydium but it is the prove that there was something 9 years ago. really I can not understand, why they didnt implement it considering that we didn't come far with poly bools in the last 9 years 🙂

It was for cinemas own renderer. it basically used the alpha channel (if I remember right) and calculated the maps considering the overlapping of the objects.

I have no r25 installed, but this looks much worse than I expected it. Did you setup the upper icon line to show a example of the problem, or is this your "normal" UI setup?

there was a plugin for that in cinema some years ago. it worked quite well. I always didn't understand why it wouldn't make its way into the main app or other render engines. it was such a relief to be able to cut complicated geometry in half without calculating time or bad meshes. For me this would be a big feature. I mean everyone wants to boole once in a while 😉

I started with R6 bought every second version or so till MSA then every version every year (all together a cabinet full of boxes 🙂. Till R21 when the MSA got canceled by maxon. They basically forced me to decide for every version again. But the higher price (compared with the MSA I had for years) in combination with little developement in areas that I needed did not stimulate me enough. I planed to update R25 (not because I saw the need, more because I wanted to stay somehow up to date. But I really don't see the need to learn a new UI If It doesn't come with any features I want. I can have everything (besides UVs) in a version I am UI fluent in. Its not that I have major problems with a UI change as such. I can imagine that it is better now. But if it is not combined with compelling features, for old users it is just a invented hurdle without benefit. I even might be able to accept that ( I am undecided) But If the new UI is not complete on top of that?! It really just makes no sense at all! And I din't say that it is the end of the world, or that no one ever could like it or be happy again. I just said, that I wait for the update to decide If I give Maxon 1600€ for a UV workflow I would pay 150€ somewhere else and a techpreview that might be of use to learn future workflows.

I will wait for the update that normaly comes after three month or so. As I would purchase a perpetual update I can not hope for anything after that. If the icons are complete and maybe even a possibility to switch to the old icons I might update. This UI thing really turned me a bit off and as I besides UV dont feel any difference between R20/R21 (that I have) and the S24 that I work on for a client I struggle to carve out 1600€ for basically nothing (subjective of course).

everyone should have a life besides the work that is true for artists and developers. And everyone has the right for this. I think that the discussion about harder work distracts from the real issue. I am convinced that a lot of work is done. But why do so many questions remain unanswered, many of which have nothing to do with development. The first question is why is so little of the work visible? That is easy to answer. It is because maxon is working on the new core and that is basically recreating the software from scratch. The rest of the questions are not that simple to answer - for example why is this transition so poorly communicated? Yes as a regular forum member you hear about it but people that are not part of such a community just see the "lack" of development. Capsules could have been presented super sexy (each capule is basically a new feature) with mind blowing examples and a view into the future also the rest of the marketing material is quite medioker. Marketing and customer communication do not need developers. Btw. I am not talking about better marketing blah blah or new logos. I am talking about communication with value. But as people do not directly pay for marketing I guess it is reduced to the bare minimum. An other question is: why is redshift not integrated into c4d. And if there are no plans to integrate it. why Is the material and reflectance mess not worked on. or - why are the development planes not communicated ( I understand the problems with that, but other companies seam to get it working quite well, they are even able to organize customer input in a way, that the customers feel valued and not ignored) And - Why is customer goodwill given away so easily by company decisions that make the impression that maxon could gain anything by punishing the old user base. Most of these points have little to do with development capacities and it is these questions that never get truly answered. The inability or unwillingness to answer these kind of questions fuel the displeasure that is visible not just on this forum and not just by a few. I basically have talked to NO college the last two years that is not aware this. And all of them look at it concerned. Customers do a s a group not magically decide to be unhappy about the product or its conditions. It is the company that it responsible for this through its decisions. And if the situation is, that the visible development can not keep up with the expectations or the competition, then a company needs to change something else. What I don't mean with this is trying to lock its customers in, wich seems to be the main measurement maxon has done.

I would have been 100% with you on rendertimes even 3 years ago. But with the new grafics cards and speed increases in octane it is really no thing anymore. You can of cource kill every sceene by doing unnecesarry things (push all boxes) but octane on modern hardware is fast enough for animation work without a doupt. You can still render faster in redshift, but then you will have to make the calculation how much money spare time is worth. optimizing a project for a day, or buy a additional grafics card.

if you are trying to archive realistic results (filmic) go for octane. It is by far the easiest render engine to achive realistic render results, If you need a versatile renderer for multi purpose go for redshift. it is much harder to get realistic looking results, but it is a full fledged production render and can basically do what ever you like. as both are available for subscription you can easily rent each for one month and decide yourselves.