RBarrett

Presets (Render Settings, Gradients, Spline Curves, Cap Settings, etc) are not yet supported in the Asset Browser. Support for presets will be added in the future, but in the meantime the Content Browser can still be used to manage these in S24.

Regarding Redshift Assets I wanted to mention that while they're aren't any included currently in the MAXON-provided library, it's easy to add your own. The Asset Browser automatically tracks dependencies and will flag any Redshift materials with a special icon. You can build a smart search based on the dependency to for instance easily pull up Redshift metals. I'm sure in time we'll add Redshift materials to the online library as well.

I don't want to belabor this further, but MAXON's concern for the environment and association with Treedom predates the rise of popularity of NFTs. We were all gifted trees at the end of last year, and I'm getting regular updates on my Columbian coffee tree. While the relationship existed previously, the concerns over the environmental impact of NFTs prompted us to invest further and to use our platform to involve all of our environmental-conscious users in Treedom as well. Also, you seem to think we built this release around NFTs or around Beeple's workflow. It's true that many of the features are ideal for typical NFT workflows, as is Cinema 4D as a whole. I think many C4D artists have been successful in everydays and NFTs explicitly because Cinema 4D offers a fast, easy and integrated workflow that's ideal for completing projects in a short timeframe. Those same qualities are the reason the vast majority of our users have chosen Cinema 4D, so it was a natural choice to improve the workflow for finding and adding assets to user's scenes. And these features were conceived last summer, long before NFTs became a thing.

In the Node Editor - Edit Menu. Convert Current Scene State to Classic.

I'm afraid something got lost in translation. The message was and is that we want to encourage and cheer for any new opportunity for our artists to succeed, but we're also very aware of the environmental impact. We want to make a positive impact to counter the environmental effects of NFTs. As such we're making a donation to Treedom, which plants trees to offset carbon emissions.

It's a top priority to connect the support system to the MyMaxon infrastructure. Beyond the benefits to you in more easily submitting support requests it will help us greatly in managing our relationship with each of you. It's in the works - just a large effort. Rest assured our goal is to always break down barriers between MAXON and designers, and provide you all the tools and support we can to exercise your creativity.

I totally agree that we get outstanding feedback from users! While it's true we've not yet been able to deploy an improved system for collecting ideas, I want to assure you that the ideas are neither buried nor unaddressed. Our product management team reads and keeps track of all your ideas, and we've integrated lots of them - especially as part of R23's Animation Workflow Improvements. We do get a lot of great ideas via the form - honestly too many to address them all while still making progress on new features and strategic objectives. Still - we tackle as many as we can and most importantly incorporate the general feedback into future development plans. Thanks for the specific idea you posted yesterday - it was a great observation and we'll see what we can do.

Sorry you're running into issues getting your student entitlement. You shouldn't need an email response from the store (though you should've gotten a receipt). If the payment was successful, the MAXON One entitlement should be in your MyMaxon account. You can check this by logging on at my.MAXON.net. The entitlement should be immediately available for use in Cinema 4D or Red Giant App. If that's not the case, please send me a direct message with your MyMaxon email address and I'll track down the issue. Cheers, Rick

It's now in Preferences > Viewport Display

Scene nodes video here:

Hey everyone - I think many of you know me - I've been part of MAXON and around this and other C4D communities for 20 years. For the past year or so I've been part of the Product team helping to communicate what you as users need and prioritize development for Cinema 4D. First - you're absolutely right that we can improve in the way we collect ideas and the feedback we provide when ideas come in. I try sometimes to reply to ideas that come in via the support form, but that system isn't well designed to avoid duplicate ideas, discuss ideas and communicate status. It's a top priority for us to implement an improved system. Second - thanks to the folks that mentioned the difficulty of the task and timing involved. It's important to keep in mind that there's two types of ideas - major new features and smaller workflow tweaks. Major new features are especially tricky to fit into the roadmap, and typically we've got those mapped out a couple of years in advance. It's always great to hear your priorities, but typically we've got a pretty good idea of what we need here - it's a matter of piecing the puzzle together in the proper order to ensure you always have the best C4D possible. It's especially great when you point out the workflow tweaks - like @Intenditore. We're often able to fit these into the road map a bit quicker, and these can have a huge difference in improving your efficiency and enjoyment of Cinema 4D. @Intenditore - thanks for your specific suggestions. I'm very familiar with your suggestions, and sorry we haven't directly responded to your feedback. You've got some great ideas for improving the animation workflow. BTW - some color coding is already possible though a bit hidden. In the Timeline prefs, you can change Track Color from "No Color" to either "Pos/Scale/Rot" or "Track Color". The last option will allow you to set the color in the AM when selecting a track. Cheers, Rick

Yes - as Mike mentions we're not planning to update CV-VRCam to support R20 since C4D now offers a native spherical camera.

All the North & South America MSA fulfillments should now be complete (except for a few held for review). If you're still waiting in the Western Hemisphere, send me a PM or give us a call.

MSA fulfillments for customers in North and South America will begin to go out today. Unfortunately release day was a holiday for those of us in the United States, so we're a bit delayed. Sorry. The US also doesn't use the ePortfolio system, so don't worry about that - you'll be emailed serials and download links soon. In the meantime, I'd encourage you to download and activate the demo for full save capability. You will however need to download a separate commercial install once you receive your MSA fulfillment.

Just like many of the effectors now have a Field Color option, and you can control the color with fields, the Target Effector now has a Field Direction option. So rather than specify the direction based on an object or the camera, you can define it via fields. This means that clones can point towards or away from a spline (or along the direction of the spline). Or the direction can be randomized or defined via tiles or other shaders. Or you can define the direction in a myriad of other ways. Orestis has some nice examples of this which he's planning to show at Siggraph, so make sure to tune in via C4DLive August 14-16.

I might not be the best to answer, because I'm still getting up to speed myself with a lot of the intricacies of nodal shading. But I'll take a stab anyway. 1. There's a Trace Ray node with inputs for origin, direction, max distance and options to ignore the same or other objects. So I think the answer is yes. 2. Not sure what you mean by this, but I've talked earlier about the asset system, which allows complex node networks to be packaged as materials which can be edited within the material editor. The Uber Material is the ultimate example, but there's also included assets for car paint, rocks, marble, wood, etc. 3. Yes, by mixing the inverse ambient occlusion with the phong normal. 4. Of a sort, using the trace ray node with a modified phong normal providing the origin and direction. Full disclosure - I'm providing the last two answers on the basis of example files I've been given, rather than an actual understanding (at this point) of how it works. I hope to provide some tutorials based on these samples once I've fully wrapped my head around them.

As I said earlier, there were technical reasons for supporting Physical first. This was the best way to get the node editor in your hands as part of R20, so you could start using it and providing us feedback.

Well, first - it's not my decision. If it were up to me I'd trim the portfolio to just 1 or 2 editions. I can say that pricing varies regionally and in some places BodyPaint 3D is a tad more expensive than Prime.

Yes, sorry. The promotion is just during the month of August. Though if you purchased in May it was likely during the flash sale promotion at a 30% discount. And you've gotten to use R19 for the past 3 months.

I'm not sure what he means exactly. My best guess is that he's referring to the current promotion where any upgrade includes the MSA as well. That works really well for upgraders, because you get the RX to R19 price (rather than the higher RX to R20 price) and you get R20 free. So for instance if you're currently on R18 you'd pay $995 to R19 now and R20 when it ships. After Sept 1st you'd be looking at the two version upgrade price from R18 to R20 (similar to the current pricing from R17 to R19). US pricing, but worldwide policy. Hope that makes sense.

The full product [edition] comparison is now online. The "simplified version" was a bit too simple so let me clarify especially that Volumes and ProRender are in all editions except Prime. Also there were some further questions about ProRender. Nodal materials are only supported through baking (like many of C4D's shaders). In practice, baking eliminates almost all of the benefit from nodal materials so for all intents and purposes nodes and ProRender aren't currently compatible. It's not a marketing decision, but a development hurdle that needs a bit more time. And someone said their CA/studio friends wouldn't use C4D because we include ProRender? That seems like a strange decision, given that it's an additional option which didn't remove our existing render solutions, and given that C4D enjoys some of the best integration with Octane, Redshift and other third-party engines.

Yeah, it's a very similar concept to Master Properties and also the Substance integration in C4D, though the UI options are much more extensive.

I'll keep that feedback in mind as we work on Node-Based Material tutorials for Cineversity. Have you watched my node quickstart video yet? I think there's a bit of that, in that I explained I was trying to get the lollipop stripes, and so I needed a way to feed a gradient with complementary colors. I probably could explain the thought process more fully, especially as the video goes deeper into the grid and context aspects. Also, if there's specific effects you'd like to see us work towards, I'd love to hear those ideas.

Don't worry so much about the Uber Material itself. The beauty is in what it represents. The most powerful aspect of the node system is the opportunity to package node groups as reusable assets, and these assets can be used directly in the node editor or a very flexible UI system allows them to be accessed directly in the Material Editor window without ever looking at a node. It's much like User Data in the Object System, but much more flexible. The Uber Material is the ultimate example of this. It wasn't created by our developers, but by our design team, using the same tools available to any C4D user. In fact, there's a number of these purpose-built node materials packaged with R20, which make it easy to create car paint, rocks, marble, wood, etc. It's much like the classic 3D shaders (Banji, Banzi, Danel, etc) except created completely in nodes by a non-developer. The Uber Material, with it's tabs, conditionally-visible parameters, drop-downs and more, show how incredibly flexible this UI system is. In fact, any Nodal Material can expose just certain parameters in UI mode just by propogating those parameters and choosing "Set Start Node". So you can create complex reusable nodal setups, and easily tweak parameters without opening the nodal interface each time.

That's a fair criticism, though I hope you'll allow me to clarify a bit. During the R18 cycle there was a blog post which communicated that OpenGL painting would be made available in the R18 cycle, and that UV editing are the next BP-related area of emphasis. The OpenGL painting was delivered as an open beta at the very tail end of the R18 cycle and included as a feature in R19. UV improvements are still next among BP-related features - it just isn't part of R20. If you take a look at my CAD import video, you can see there's tons of options available. You can combine objects based on assembly components, display color or mesh structure. Also instances of assembly components import as instances, which is huge. Also display colors and materials can be imported, and tessellation adjusted based on the object's relative size in the project. It's really robust. I'd say it's my favorite feature, but there's fields, VDB, Multi-Instances as well - and I'd risk sounding like Thanassis at Siggraph.