filipstamate

Well, it may be unfair to compare the number of features, but I don't think it's unfair to compare the usability. Both Hodini and Geometry Nodes make way more sense to me than Scene Nodes. It just feels like a confusing mess with a lot of "adapter" nodes needed. Even the node UI itself is worse. But let's be realistic here. When you're introducing a feature that exists in other software you will get comparisons, fair or not. And you'll get people asking why should they bother with it if there are better alternatives available. Well, I could say that Scene Nodes is missing attributes, which seems pretty fundamental to me. But regardless of what fundamental things each of them is missing, I'd like to see something nice or at least useful made with Scene Nodes. People started creating really impressive stuff with Geometry Nodes quite fast after they've been introduced. Why isn't there anything like that with scene nodes? Not enough users or not enough features yet? You think that's not a fair comparison? I mean, Maxon could keep calling Scene Nodes a "tech preview" forever and keep saying that it's not fair to compare it with something else. At some point you have to stand behind what you're doing instead of going "work in progress, plz don't judge" forever. Edit: Where can I see find some instructions on how to create UIs for Scene Nodes? Which of the dozens of nodes that have no obvious use should I use? I attached a small example of the usability mess. 3 nodes needed for for a simple bend. Nodes that each need several, completely non-intuitive changes for the bend to actually work. Why is the Effector Op node needed? Why can't it be merged into the Bend node? Why is the Bounding Box node needed? Why can't we get the bounding box info straight form the mesh primitive node? Why does the Bend node need the bounding box info to work and can't work straight from the geometry? Why do you then need to check the Bounding Box checkbox in the Bend node and then switch the Effector Op to "Mesh". Why aren't the matrix settings in the effector op doing anything? How can I move or rotate the effector? Limit its influence? There's no visual representation of the effector, just have to guess its influence, I suppose? Why and why. On top of that, it only works with a "Mesh Primitive" node. If I use for example a geometry primitive like the plane node in this screenshot, then it won't work because geometry primitive nodes have no Op Output. No explanations anywhere whatsoever what is what and where to use it. Mesh primitive works, geometry primitive doesn't. Guess which does what! Oh yeah, and see the connection going from Bounding Box to Bend? It looks like it might be connected, but it's not. I wanted to show that you can actually connect it to the default "Bounding Box" input on the Bend node. The cursor just shows the stop sign, but the cursor doesn't show up in the screenshot. However, if you drop the connection over the Bend node then it creates another "Bounding Box" input and it connects to that, leaving the original one empty. Makes complete sense! The help file shows that you need to connect the Bounding Box node to the Bend node using the "Bounding Box" port and there's only one such port shown. But I guess users are just supposed to guess that the original port is there just for fun and you don't need to connect to that one. You're not supposed to think it's a bug when you drag the connection over it and it shows the stop sign, right?

Maybe Maxon should show some decent examples of its use. Everytime they show something, it's someone putting lots of holes in objects and stacking extrusions. I mean, I'd hardly be interested in a feature where pretty much the official use for it is: make lots of holes. But to be honest, I went a bit through them and I can't say I'm impressed. They're more confusing to work with than both Houdini and the Geometry Nodes in Blender, and they also offer far less features than either of those. Lots of nodes needed to do simple things and not displaying selections automatically when you have a selection node selected is also a huge overlook. I mean, I know you can click on the object in the viewport and then switch to the mode for which you want to see the selection, but that's just a pain in the ass. And I doesn't seem to properly show them all the time either, I've had it show more edges than there were actually selected. At the moment I really don't see any real use for them. Just the "capsules" which are actually quite useful to use in the standard object manager to have stuff like parametric extrusion. But then again, those could've just been regular deformers/generators, doesn't say anything about the node aspect. If I need a parametric asset, though, XPresso is way more useful. I built things in XPresso that I can't see possible right now with nodes. Not to mention that, as far as I can tell there's no user data equivalent in scene nodes. Maybe I missed it? That's another huge overlook for something that's supposed to be for creating assets. An asset in which you need to dig through dozens of nodes to find a parameter is hardly any use.

For example, round some corners inside an existing topology. And it's good that it keeps the shape of the objects (slides the edges on the surface). I think the main use is setting up topology for further extrusions and such, not necessarily have a specific use on its own. It's just a modeling tools like all the others

Yep, that did it. Thank you very much! Very weird that otherwise it shows the windows cursor. Doesn't make sense to me. Whatever that option does I don't think it should affect how the cursor looks. Plus the fact that the first brush stroke on an object without subdiv levels still shows the crosshair even with that option off. Is this some new (ish) option? I don't remember having to do this before and I'm pretty sure I had a crosshair when I did some sculpting before... maybe around R20-R21 Anyway, thanks again!

Yeah, latest version. Pretty sure the problem is somewhere with me. I figured out sort of a "pattern"... the first brush stroke in a new document will show the crosshair. Any subsequent ones will be the windows cursor. But only if there are no subdiv levels on the object. If there are, first brush stroke will also show the windows cursor. Really weird. It somehow felt like a video driver issue to me, so I updated to the latest ones, but nothing changed.

I haven't messed around with sculpting in some time, but tried it recently (S24) and noticed that while sculpting the brush turns into the windows cursor. I thought that wasn't normal and I searched for is and you can see here: It should turn into a crosshair. I thought maybe it was changed in later versions for some bizarre reason (wouldn't be the first), but occasionally I would get the crosshair as well. Not sure how or why, but most of the time it's the windows cursor which is quite distracting. Any ideas? Thanks.

Well, on their main page it says this: It's pretty vague, and could be read as what you said. On the other hand, Insydium for example stopped existing, payed for, licenses from working. Wouldn't be too far off to assume Maxon did the same. Even if not, your payment includes support too, right? It's not like support is a favor Maxon is doing for you just because they're so nice. Stopping support is a breach of contract as well. Of course, you could say that Maxon support isn't worth anything in the first place so no loss there, but still. And at least Redshift support is quite good, because of the forum, instead of filing a form that's as hidden as possible (in typical soulless corporation style) and maybe get a reply two weeks later that amounts to "did you try turning it off and on again?" like with Maxon support.

I think it should be the place for it if said politics makes the company in question steal and breach contracts. It's quite important to know that they can just stop access to stuff you paid for it they suddenly stop liking you or even worse if they stop liking your country. One more example of how great subscriptions are for customers, right? Step on someone's toes, or happen to be born in the wrong country? Too bad, we're cutting you off. It seems nothing is more important than virtue signaling and being a hero on the internet. Not even fulfilling your contracts with people who, more than likely, have nothing to do with your political stance. Did Maxon refund those customers? I would bet not. I would bet they have no problem keeping the money they got from them, even thinking they're heroes for technically stealing. Hey, every Russian is evil so it doesn't matter if you steal from them, right? Maxon and all other companies who behave like this should be sued with no mercy rather than being applauded. It's abuse of their customers, nothing more. And it does absolutely nothing to help stop the war. Believe me, Putin doesn't know what C4D is. Nor will the customers which Maxon is abusing have any impact on the conflict. Well, if the intention was to help and not just to show off how virtuous and progressive they are, of course.

Thank you. I don't have good experiences with their customer support. Are the bugs object highlight and deformer bugs I mentioned above known/reported?

It's not exactly that angle and only that. You can move the camera a bit and it will still happen. I didn't do anything in particular to find that angle. I found such an angle several times when modeling various objects. I don't know if there's a specific angle or range of angles that cause it. I just did some experimenting now with it and found some really weird stuff. So, with the axis on the face in it's default position (the center of the face) the jump happens if you try to move the face. Now try this: Press F5 to go into quad-view. Then press L and in the Front View move the axis of the selected face. If the axis is in -Y, same thing, the face jumps when moving it. If the axis in +Y, and -X, the face doesn't jump, but the movement is reversed. And finally, with the axis in +Y and +X, everything works as it should. Resetting the axis to the center brings back the jumping of course. I'm also fairly sure I've had this happen with points and edges too, not just polygons. Possibly in object mode too, when moving an entire object. Anyway it shows up in my modeling enough to be annoying and I can reliably reproduce it. For this scene which I used just as an example of the bug, I simply rotated the camera around a bit until I found it. It really didn't take much. It's an empty scene from the start, with just the cube added. Nothing else. I did not report it to Maxon, but I think I posted about it here before. Reporting anything to Maxon's customer service is pretty much as useful as slamming your face into the keyboard. But as I said, seeing how often it happens to me, I find it hard to believe they're not aware of it. Unless I have some backwards way of modeling that it only happens to me. I rather think it's just difficult to track down because of its weirdness and they don't consider it important.

Another thing, who thought it was a great idea to show a disabled state by highlighting it? I mean of course the 3 axis buttons. It used to be that the active axes were highlighted, but now it's the disabled ones, completely opposite to how it used to be since like forever. Highlighting disabled states with the exact same color that all buttons show an an active/enabled state. Absolutely not confusing at all. What I am confused is too many licensing options. But this? No way. This is genius.

Talking about factual critique... Open the attached file and try to move the selected face by clicking and dragging in the viewport. It will jump... seemingly random distances. From tens of centimeters to sometimes meters. This bug is present in R23 and it's still there in R25. I'm not sure if it wasn't even in R21, I forgot, but let's say it started in R23. I can't believe this bug is not known, anyone who models in C4D must have encountered it. It is a weird bug since it's very random, and seems to depend on the position of the camera because if you move the camera to look from another angle it will not happen. But still, random as it is, that's at least 3 versions of C4D with this annoying bug. And speaking of R25, object highlighting doesn't work. Also deformers are not visible through the objects they're attached to anymore. Like the arrows of a bend deformer for example, making them completely useless. So far R25 looks like yet another R23 in terms of bugs. movebug.c4d

Fascinating. Just to annoy you then, I'll go back to your "subscriptions are better all the time and for everyone" thing. Because I'd like someone to explain to me why, if these subscriptions are only made with the user in mind and definitely not for bigger profit, then why some companies even go as far as offering more features for subscription licenses than for perpetual licenses, or if not more features then more benefits. Or, if subscriptions are so much better for everyone, why the need to force them on the users and not just offer then as an option? What, companies love their customers so much that they don't want them to suffer the horrible pain of perpetual licenses so they just force them to move to subscriptions because they're too stupid to know what's better for them? You're saying that since subscriptions are so "obviously" much more affordable, companies willingly lose money just to make it more affordable to people? Yeah, sorry, I'm not buying that the point of subscriptions isn't primarily increased profit. Companies are too desperate to move to subscriptions for this to be mainly for the users. In fact, when a company does something for increased profits, it's very rare that the users are not disadvantaged, let alone for it be beneficial to them. No, the point of subscriptions is increased profit. And, to lock people into paying even when they wouldn't need to. It's very simple, if you can't put out enough new features to entice people to upgrade, then you're not making money. Subscriptions are the solution to this. People will be forced to pay even if you don't add any useful features for them. It's even understandable. You can't always add enough features for everyone to be happy. The more features there are, the harder to maintain everything is. The software gets bigger and bigger. You need more people to work on it. Obviously that requires more money. You can't keep working on the same amount of money forever when the scope gets bigger and bigger. You need new users. And you need to keep the old users paying. But it would be nice if at least someone admitted it instead of always trying to make it sound like some completely selfless act that is made only for the users. Or even worse, make it sound like the people who don't like it are just some idiots who don't get how good subscriptions are for them. Like how you, or Maxon's marketing tries to make it sound like. And arguably, even Maxon treats subscriptions customers better than their perpetual ones, with their "S" releases. Take as an example the R23 release. The initial release was so buggy that it's not even supported by Redshift. And the last patch received still left it in a very buggy state. People on subscriptions could've gotten S24, but people on permanent licenses, who cares about them? But, I'd argue that given that sad state R23 was left in, not even the subscription people got it so well. Maybe you can't update, because you're in the middle of a project, or your plugins are not working yet in the new version. So you're forced to continue using the buggy version because the devs have already moved on. See, the much touted advantage of subscriptions, that of being able to update and get the latest updates and fixes is completely missing when the new version breaks your pipeline. Really, if you need plugins (and who doesn't, especially for C4D) none of the latest C4D versions are usable on release date. Hey, but you can update, so get subscriptions now, who cares if it's actually usable or not, right? How is that for "factual critique"? Is it a fact or not the terrible state that R23 was left in? So, what do you propose? As I said, if these criticisms arise it's because of how your work is perceived by the people who criticize you. Nobody can know how hard a stranger they never met works. What we have is the results, and it's the results that are criticized. Help me "comprehend" how somebody is supposed to know how hard you work if not by the results of your work? What does that even mean? Sounds like some passive-aggressive insult. It's completely irrelevant what "resources" are required when Maxon people have tried to make this release sound better by saying that more stock assets have been added. You're basically saying "hey, we have plenty of new features, here, more stock assets". And now you're telling me that the stock assets are not features? Well, then it's even worse, isn't it? If different resources are used, then on what were the resources for features used? And you know, it's pretty amusing that you (not specifically you, but Maxon in general and people from Maxon) get upset and offended when people are more... vocal in their critiques, but you have no problem treating your users like idiots or straight out insulting them. You can only take "factual critique"? And who decides what is fact or not? Because it looks like pretty much nothing is factual seeing the usual way Maxon hand-waves critique. Pretty much anything is down-played as "well, you can't please everyone" or "what you see as a priority is not a priority for someone else". That last is particularly funny, because it basically implies that nothing is a priority. So, really, if you aren't able to acknowledge any mistakes or wrong-doings and can only downplay criticism and respond by being offended, then there's little point in even engaging in "factual critique".

OK, so I read the same from the Redshift developers, whining that people don't get how hard they work. Well, some people say you don't, you say you do. Someone has to be wrong. Maybe those complaining are exaggerating, or they're a "vocal minority" or whatever other corporate term you want to use. But, if they're just a "vocal minority" why does it bother you so much? Maybe they're not such a minority? And if there's more of them than you want to admit, then maybe that's why it bothers you? I also hardly ever see a company taking responsibility or admitting any wrong-doings or mistakes. So, really, I wouldn't expect you or any other company to say "yeah, this release wasn't much" or "yeah, we're sitting back and collecting subscription money". Though you could tone down the silly attempts at making it look like it's worth it. Really, if you have to make a release sound better by saying you added more stock assets then something is wrong. I mean, C4D needs plugins for things that are basic, standard features in all competing products, but hurray, more stock assets! So what's your point? Just saying "no, really believe me, we're working hard" doesn't really mean much to people who obviously think you're not. If they feel the way the do it's because of your actions not what you're saying.

Honestly, they reek of desperation. All they do is trying so squeeze more money out of the clients they still have. Oh, yeah, and I don't care for Blender at all. There are too many areas in which it simply can't replace C4D, at least for me. Sure, there are things it does better than C4D, or does things that C4D doesn't do at all, but there are way more areas where C4D wins. But, that doesn't mean it will always be the case, and obviously for other people it's easier to switch so it would be good for Maxon if they stopped bean-counting and do some real development instead of wasting time of features they drop without notice after like 2 versions.

But a hybrid system is not a replacement for Xpresso. That's my point. People asking for XPresso improvements have been told in this thread that there's no need for them when you can just use nodes instead. Like there's literally no functional difference. And what's even the point of using Scene Nodes if you need to have a hybrid system? Sure, if you need something that Scene Nodes offer, like creating geometry, but otherwise is just jumping through hoops to reproduce Xpresso functionality into Scene Nodes and use Xpresso when you can't. Might as well just stick to Xpresso. So, yeah, unless they can implement everything you can do with Xpresso in Scene Nodes, it would be nice if there were at least some QoL improvements to XPresso. But obviously they don't have any intention to do that and just want to motivate it by trying to make people believe that Scene Nodes is a replacement. I don't think it's outlandish to ask for XPresso improvements if their intention is to keep it and have it usable together with the Scene Nodes.

Yeah, by importing a "legacy" or "classic" object into it. And such a "classic" object can only have outputs as far as I can tell, so you can't affect its parameters with other nodes. Oh yeah, and think about rigging. Imagine rigging without XPresso. Even the premade rigs make heavy use of XPresso. But then you have people from Maxon telling you how you can just dump XPresso and move to nodes seamlessly, and the only reason you don't do it is because you're dumb and don't want to use new things. Amazing. Just like how they keep saying that people should use the new node materials for Redshift even though they lack functionality that is present in the Xpresso based materials. Is the black materials issue when doing an animation preview fixed in S24 at least? An issue that made node materials completely useless for anyone doing any kind of animation and was (I wouldn't be surprised if still is) present for several versions C4D while they kept telling people to use the node materials. Makes you wonder if they even know how people use their software.

Exactly. They are different things. I don't see how one could say that the nodes can replace Xpresso. They simply can't. Not in the current implementation at least. Their purpose is even different. Only the fact that you import objects as "legacy" into the nodes is a pretty big tell that they simply serve different purposes. And what about user data for example? I see no way of using that with nodes. A big part of Xpresso is how you can create user data to control paramaters of objects, deformers and pretty much everything in the scene. No such thing with nodes. Nodes are just not a replacement for Xpresso, and no, you can't just move to nodes. It's not about nodes being "new". It's about basic functionality.

Hi, Is is possible to iterate through the Bend deformers in this scene and set the strength of each to something else? I can't figure out how to iterate through them using the object hierarchy node. I tried various path settings, but could only access the first Bend deformer. I don't know how to get back up in the hierarchy and then continue down. Is it even possible? Iterating through only the planes was easy, as a test I made each of them have a different number of segments. I attached the scene if anyone wants to take a look. iteration.c4d

Amazing how people can be against an indie version or actually want it to be limited in ways that indie versions of other programs aren't. Well, then, I guess SideFX and Autodesk are complete clueless morons to have their indie licenses set up as they are. Those idiots who care about selling licenses instead of getting sleepless nights over not everyone respecting the license 100%. This is up there with the new concept of "lack of features is actually a feature". But sure, why sell to people who maybe, god forbid, go a little over the $100K limit, or well, not at all really, because they're just freelancers or hobbyists. It's obviously way better if they use pirated versions because otherwise they can't justify the cost since it would cost them the same as it would cost a professional. Oh yeah, and since we're here the C4D+Redshift subscription price is hilarious. You only get the C4D plugin, while if you just rent C4D and Redshift separately it's cheaper and you get all the plugins. But no, clearly SideFX and Autodesk have no idea what they're doing. That's why C4D is growing like crazy while SideFX and Autodesk are stagnating.

I'd rather have it outdated than not at all. And you know, there's something to be said about committing to a feature when you implement it. Like considering if you're going to be able to keep it and not remove it after a couple of versions. But it is what it is. Yet another reason to move away from C4D. Funny though that the manager of the main C4D community is transitioning to Houdini.

There might be good reasons for them, not for the users. And regardless of the reason, they could have the decency to announce when they remove features. It won't sound good, but I'd say it's worse when they do it quietly and people find it for themselves that the tools they were using are gone. Honestly, I'd be livid if I was on subscription and used Houdini Engine and found that it's gone. What are you supposed to do then... you just paid a subscription for something you can't use. Good stuff. I didn't really care about it, but they did the same thing with ProRender, no mention of it whatsoever. Just gone. Well, except for some leftovers in the UI in some places that don't do anything. A "hack-job" if I've ever seen one. As for how I use it, just as an example, I built myself a "quad capper". Since, obviously, there's nothing like that built in C4D. But that's just a small thing, compared to the amount of stuff you could bring in from Houdini into C4D.

Well, good thing I'm not on subscription. I wouldn't appreciate paying to have features removed. Looks like MAXON are set on alienating as much of their old users as possible. Now, maybe the rather cool looking placement tool will bring in new customers, but removing the Houdini Engine means I'm out. Guess I'll have to stay on my current version. I mean hey, why give the users a cheap and easy way to cover up the many missing features of C4D? Let's just remove it, I'm sure they will appreciate that!

I don't have a subscription to try but I understand the Houdini Engine was removed. Anyone knows what's going on?

I don't think it's just an OGL preview bug. The resulting object also renders wrong. Pressing C on the Spline Mask is not good either, I need the Spline Mask to be active to animate the splines inside of it.