BigAl3D

Just wondering if anyone has used the Drive! vehicle simulation plug-in? Really wondering if it's overkill vs. let's say Magic Car from Nitroman? I don't need to simulate a NASCAR race or heavy traffic, just relatively simple drivebys or a car turning into a scene and stopping next to it's price. That sort of thing. Thanks for any opinions. Yes, I see there's a demo, but if it's too complicated, didn't want to jump in.

I couldn't find a forum for Team Render, so... Yes, I have reached out to our IT guy to help with this, but in the mean time, maybe someone here can shed some light. I'd like to start using Team Render Server since I'm still stuck at home. I also have a VPN to the office network. I can mount the office server on my desktop. So, I'm trying to figure out how to get my three render clients to show up locally at home. I have the IPs and the port numbers, but it won't connect in Team Render Server. Anyone have experience in setting something like this up?

From my previous experience in Unreal Engine 4, the real-time aspect is for your on-screen feedback. Not sure if they've changed this since I used it a couple years ago. For example, I was into creating levels for Unreal Tournament (which they dropped after Fornite took off. Damn them.) and yes the better your PC the more real-time the feedback was. BUT, when I wanted to see the real version of my creation, I had to change the settings and compile the level which included all the rendering of light and shadow. This process is very similar to what the rest of the world does in traditional 3D apps. Now, I have not used Unreal Engine 5 so there may be a new workflow to save out the GPU renders. Question is, is that GPU raytraced with physically accurate effects? I don't personally know. The engine has come a long way though.

Funny that everyone complains that MAXON doesn't hint at what they're working on. Now that they have shown some of the future, now it's "why can't I have it now?" Just make great stuff with what you have now and look forward to the future.

Most of this high-end stuff is way over my head and what I do with C4D, but it did look impressive. I thought it very odd to show off Redshift in Maya instead of C4D. Why do that? I know Redshift is available for other apps, but this is a MAXON presentation. Also, as for the new Redshift RT, it was presented as a new feature (I think). Shouldn't that be presented as "Redshift will be way faster in the next upgrade!" Why would anyone ever use a slower setting and not always use the fastest? Also, someone needs to help out David McGavran's video setup. The man looked a little disheveled, poor quality video, lighting and audio. Call Rick Barrett for help! 😉

@teknow Very impressive indeed. What render engine did you use and which do you think is better for what task?

I too am impressed with some of the features in Blender and it now sports a much friendlier UI. I've been checking out the new Mantaflow Liquids simulation system and it's very impressive. Does anyone know of a way to get a liquid simulation mesh animation into C4D? If I export as Alembic, I can play the simulation inside C4D, but it's only dots and no mesh.

Very cool indeed. Funny since the industry we're in is so good now, at first I was asking myself if that was animated. Ha. I will always have a soft spot for Animusic though:

The Depth of Field is making me think this is a small model.

Word on the 3D street is that there was a bug in the updater and it was pulled until a fix is made. In my case, one render client was updated, so in order to use this fastest render box, we had to update our systems but could not. A workaround, if anyone else is on a deadline and needs to update, IF you had already updated at least one seat of C4D like us is to copy the guts of the second C4D app folder and paste it into the directory of the first seat. All the settings and most plugins and browser items now live in the other preferences folder so everything shows up as usual AND you'll get the latest version from the other station. Hackey, yes. Crude, check. Perhaps even grotesque, but it works.

If they're going to be offline for a while, anyone have the Mac and Windows updater files saved you can pass along?

Showed up in my Instagram feed this morning. Pretty funny if you're a dork like me.

The C4D update section of MAXON's site, as well as, the Updater in the Help menu have been down for several days. I assume I'm not the only one who can't access the updates right? Any insights into this?

Ha. I need to dig up my old copy of Vertex Pusher "Vol7 Xpresso Demystified." That looks so easy, I'm embarrassed I had to ask. Really the only trick is knowing you can drag a material directly into the window and get total access to everything. Thank you.

I know very little about XPresso, but do have a programmer part of my brain. I was wondering how difficult it would be, or if possible, to connect a toggle or slider to manipulate a field in a material? Even better would be to affect several at one time. For example, let's say you have a car with several different luminance materials and you wanted to animate or simplify the process of turning them on or off. I feel like XPresso could achieve this. Any thoughts how this could be done?

I know right? It's getting more and more difficult to keep using the Mac for high-end graphics and animation. I'm still holding out for a new tower this year (every digit is crossed) so I haven't gotten a new iMac Pro, which are indeed very fast. But alas, not very upgradable and no choice in GPU. So annoying.

First time I've heard your name Hrvoje procounced. Ha. I never would have gotten that right. Very cool to see this. I didn't know they gave out Oscars this early before the big show.

@Ayush From what I've seen, yes their system is a very deep, node-based material system. Reminds me of the Unreal Engine 4 material editor. C4D now has a node editor, but I'm not sure if it matches Substance, at least not yet. You can find many physically based rendering (PBR) materials. A set of Diffuse, Bump, Normal, Gloss, Reflection and Ambient Occlusion which can be used in standard C4D materials to get very nice results. Substance provides scalability and easy adjustments after you set it up.

The one thing to think about regarding "you cease to exist" is that mostly refers to competitive products. For example, Illustrator and Freehand, Dreamweaver and GoLive!. Those competitor apps were "merged" into Adobe's apps. I still think GoLive was better than Dreamweaver, but I digress. There is no reason for Adobe not to keep developing or keep the existing team together since they were not already in the 3D material business. They do have the consumer-based Dimension which would benefit. It uses Vray to render which is impressive. The problem there is the learning curve for Dimensions is pretty simple, but not so for Substance. If you only have CC then it's probably a good thing if they add it to the cloud. And of course AE has a direct link to C4D which would also benefit from Substance. There is some hope I think.

@vanderleden Her Gumroad link is still working, you just have to "pay" $0 and it should work. Can't remember if an e-mail is required. I'd PM it to you, but it's a little too big for the Cafe. I could Dropbox it for you if you still have problems getting the scenes. Can't imagine that would be a problem with Janine since it's free, but let's see if she replies here first.

Thanks for sharing. Very inspirational even if you don't use Octane. So I grabbed your files and did a quick go with Corona. I had to guess on the light colors since I can see any of your materials. It actually came out pretty nice I think. I'm still learning Corona, so I'm sure there are ways to make it better and faster. Interesting how the engines differ in the refraction of the drops. One thing I couldn't get exact was the nice glow you have on the petals beneath the little inside light. In Corona, if I crank up the light material very high, I get batter glow but more fireflies.

So you want to make them into meshes instead of fonts? If so, then I would right-click the MoText object and select "Current State to Object." This will make a mesh, but leave your original instact in case you need to change something. Keep in mind that your mesh letters will have separate pieces, rounding, caps and depth.

Gravel is a material with displacement. Not very well set up, but that's a lot of displacement. Even the sidewalls of the tires have either bump or displacement since I just dropped a model usually seen much closer than this example. Corona is amazing and they have recently released a daily build with improved displacement since this render was done. Currently though, they are trying to fix some issues with Multi-Instances and especially camera motion blur, but I'm sure it's coming soon.