3D-Pangel

You and I share a common love of the same music. So these sites should make you happy: Extreme Music | Production Music Designed to Inspire Note that of their stable of artists is Thomas Bergersen of Two Steps from Hell fame: Search for “THOMAS BERGERSEN” | Extreme Music Other artists at the site: Hans Zimmer, Michael Giacchino, Junkie XL (aka Tom Holkenberg), Mark Motherbaugh (from Devo), Brian Tyler, Harry Gregson-Williams, John Powell, Nick Phoenix (the other half of Two Steps from Hell). And for prestige there is Sir George Martin and Quincy Jones. Just an amazing collection of free music to stream and searchable based on mood, genre, and even tempo (e.g. beats per minute). This site has EVERYTHING: classical, pop, rock, grunge, along with accomplished film composers posting original works...all free for streaming without ads. My favorite categories are SpaceTone and EarthTones along with Director's Cuts. Other free music streaming sites (again .... no adds like on YouTube) are: Audiomachine Luminary Scores Albums - Gothic Storm | Label | Harmony Music (sourceaudio.com) Brand X Music Twelve Titans Music Albums List | EMVN (sourceaudio.com) Now, be aware that as this music is intended for multi-media production, some of the compositions are nothing more than a collection of "braaaahhhhmsss" and sound design more so than actual music. But there are amazing compositions to be found in what is essentially a bottomless pit of choices.....too many in fact for some people to want to bother with. As for me, I just pick a theme that suites my mood and hit play. If the music is not to my liking, I pick again. Enjoy, Dave To add to this list is AMAZING music from one of our very own: Jay Wood. But I cannot find his music anywhere anymore!!! Big sad.

Thank you for that further insight into the process of the Oscar selection committee (Honestly, how many people can speak to that in this world! Just being interviewed would be an award in and of itself). I would imagine that it was a bit of relief that the selection committee made the decision on who would be the award recipient as theirs was an unbiased decision that no one could argue with. What a relief. Also, as a Senior Manager for Cisco, I fully understand the challenges of leading in a technical company -- particularly a diverse team including people from many parts of the world (I have people in 4 different countries) and many ages (one employee - a data scientist going for his masters in AI - fresh from college). Sometimes it is hard to navigate the political waters of any company unless you have crashed your boat on the rocks a few times. Failure is a great educator. And sometimes you can't prevent those for whom you feel some responsibility for from driving their boat directly at those rocks at full speed. I have cringed at what some people have said to others and wished I could take away that moment but there are times when that may not be the best option. Jumping in can sometimes make things worse for everyone. It is sometimes better to just be quiet, let the moment pass, and wait for the "teachable moment" in the future. Also, it is always better to praise in public, but correct in private. Pretty confident that whatever the outcome or the events leading up to it, both you and Paul grew from those early days at Maxon. Thanks again for sharing! Dave As an aside, I need to try that mango juice! Really....that is your goal in 5 years! Must be good juice!!! 😁

Ericns, Did you also forget to include NOTA - Not a Text Animator in that lineage? Dave

Amazing interview! Overall, Per-Anders is a fascinating person, and his insights are amazing. There is a lot of wisdom there and not just about technology but about pride, ego, the pressure of success and how that pressure can be the antithesis of creativity. There is a lot to unpack in that interview so thank you! I also loved hearing about the birth of what everyone considers to be the jewel in the C4D crown: MoGraph. Funny that its humble beginnings were to make a parametric modeling tool. Good thing Per-Anders had other ideas! What I also did not realize was the level of Paul Everett's involvement in MoGraphs' development. The interview implied that Paul was an equal collaborator and developer and the two played off of each other's strengths to create something powerful but with an intuitive UI. At least that was my take-away from reading the interview. If so, then when the Oscar award was being announced, was there some discussion as to who would be receiving the award? I sense that in that semi-private technical awards ceremony (a far cry from the pageantry of the regular Oscar awards ceremony), they wanted to limit the number of people who could appear on stage. If so, that must have been an interesting discussion to determine who would appear on stage. How do you make that decision to everyone's satisfaction? But, to Per-Anders credit, he did a great job of recognizing everyone and while most people got mentioned by their first name (including Hrvoje), Per-Anders made sure to mention Paul using his first and last name. So Bravo! Dave

Interesting tool from Autodesk but it still left a lot unsaid. For example, ngon creation, corrupt UV's, etc. You may get interesting shapes quickly, but what you are left with could be unusable during the texturing, sub-division or rigging process. IMHO, I think you would get more mileage with C4D's new bridge tool even though it would be a few more clicks but you would stand a better chance of preserving edge flow and quads. Dave

You are not that old unless this was your first graphical interface. Dave

Better to reference reality rather than other animations. Fortunately, YouTube is a good resource for this as found here: So as you can see, this has more to do with volume builders and solid shapes than with pyro blobs. You could start with two cylinders or two spheres, add a little randomness to their basic shapes so that they are not too perfect and then place them under a volume building. Now align both shapes exactly over each other and slowly animate them moving away from each other while at the same time keying down the connection radius in the volume builder to simulate the cells reconstituting as they pull apart (keyframes are set on the overall "Objects" menu under the volume builder). Just a thought. I hope this helps. Dave

So...........in three years all Maxon will do is update the shaders? Honestly, that is a very limited vision and understates the hiring that Maxon has been doing. The best way to figure out what Maxon is going to do is to follow Dave McGavran on Instagram. I think he leaked both pyro and the performance improvements to dynamics and general VP performance well in advance of their release. I keep watching Instagram for a vidoe of Mr. McGavran jumping into a pool with his arms in floaters, bathing cap on his head and a horse head inner tube around his gut. That will mean we are getting liquid fluid simulation. 😁 Do it Dave! Do it!! But.....I do like the incorporation of music ripped off from the Matrix movies. Don Davis did it much better with "Pale 3 - In My Head" though from Matrix Revolutions.

This is really impressive work. A couple of thoughts: 1) Some basic road design principles and/or design rules should be considered. For example, there has to be a minimum radius of a round-about for cars exiting a highway at a certain speed or a minimum length of off-ramp that allows a car to stop safely when coming off a highway. I tried to find a highway design rule book but while the internet has a lot of links, I could not find a simple list of design principles as a reference. But I did find this site from the US Highway Department on "Geometric Design". It just has lots of links to other documents. So, while nothing straight forward, it may be a good place to start. 2) Banking. You need to allow for the road to have a slight bank when making a turn --- especially if it is to be a highway with cars traveling at high speeds. 3) Libraries. While the freedom to create "anything" is great, consider pulling in and connecting pre-defined libraries of intersections, exit ramps, entrance ramps, merges, one-way, 2-way, 4-lane, 3 lane, etc pre-built assets. Allow the user to build their own libraries with the tools you have already developed. Here is where you could incorporate the necessary "banking" of a road or the highway design rules (if you can find them) as mentioned in 1 and 2. 4) You need to allow for the integration into the plugin "Real Traffic" which also starts with a spline. These two plugins together would be an outstanding combination. Real Traffic needs to have things defined to it as stops, turns, merges, etc. so it would be cool that as you "build" the road from you pre-defined assets (see Item 3), those assets also have the traffic rules built into them to get Real Traffic to simulate accurate traffic patterns. Dave

Relative to the actor and writer's strike, then yes for US movies it will be a lean 2024 summer season for VFX in the big blockbuster movies simply because live action production had to shut down. But with that said, it will NOT be that bad for feature length CG animations because those movies are planned well in advance with voice acting talents locked down ahead of time. Not sure what the ratio is of reshoots (or re-rather rewrites) for a CG animation is relative to a live action movie but I would have to imagine it is a lot less. Therefore, I have a higher expectation for character animation in a 100% CG movie to be less impacted than for VFX animation in a live action film. So, anything from Marvel (given that their process depends on re-shoots as they actually budget for it more than most other companies) will be impacted. ....and of course, anything with a short development timeline (like advertising and TV) will be less impacted that anything with a longer development timeline (like movies, etc). Plus, there is streaming which can tap into global content not impacted by the strikes in the US. The only big summer 2024 summer blockbuster I would bet on would be MI: Dead Reckoning Part II simply because live action finished on that prior to the strike. Dave As an aside and not intended to derail this thread: Is lack of Marvel content during the summer of 2024 necessarily a bad thing? I only mention that given how poorly MCU's recent movies have been doing along with the rest of the movies coming from Disney: $1B loss in 2023 for all Disney films across all of Lucasfilm, Marvel and Pixar with bigger losses in Disney+ AND nothing to base a big Christmas 2023 toy campaign on. These missteps do not just impact movie revenue. The bigger golden goose getting killed by making movies no one wants to see is the toy market driven by these IP's. In fact, the initial strategy of Disney buying Lucasfilm and Marvel was because Disney (while strong in the toy market for girls with all their Disney Princesses) had no strong presence in the toy market for boys. So, they give a Star Wars reboot in 2015 with very little Luke and lots of Rey and kill Han off right away. Sorry, I just don't see a big draw for little boys to play with Rey action characters. What were they thinking? Also, word is that when the Mandalorian Season 2 ended with Grogu going off with Luke Skywalker, Hasbro was pumped!!! Now there was a toy merchandising opportunity: Luke training Grogu!!!! Pure gold. Nope, killed that quickly in the "Book of Bobba Fett". Hasbro was pissed as they pay a premium to Disney for the license to sell those toys and they have nothing to sell. On the Marvel side, they killed off Iron Man, turned Captain America into an old man, made She-Hulk stronger and more in control than The Hulk in "She Hulk", and made Thor look like a buffoon in "Thor Love and Thunder" in comparison to Lady Thor. So not much useable IP left in the toy market for boys from Marvel. I think Disney forgot their market and the simple fact that young boys are more likely to want to live vicariously through strong male oriented hero action characters. If that was not case, then Mulan would be selling like hot cakes into that market. Again, what were they thinking? But getting back to movies.... Anyone pumped up for the "Marvels"? Yeah....my point exactly. This movie is projected to tank badly (based on pre-ticket sales and theater bookings) well below the worst performing MCU movie which was The Hulk in 2008 ($264M worldwide gross). This probably explains why Kevin Fiege is already "soft" announcing a re-boot of the MCU ahead of "The Marvel's" release in November. These execs are realizing that they killed the golden goose in Phase 4 (also known as the "M-She-U"). I guess Disney stock price hitting a 10-year low can be a bit of a wake-up call. Well, that is what happens when you lose sight of your market. Not sure that is possible with SW or any other Lucasfilm property given current management. So how do you make a million-dollar franchise? Easy. Buy a billion-dollar franchise and give it to Kathleen Kennedy.

Regardless this is what I heard: Are you sure that isn't you on the medical gurney? 😊 Dave

Nemetschek is the parent company of Maxon. Nemetschek's main businesses are in Architecture, Engineering and Construction software programs which makes up about 87% of the annual revenue ($800 M Euro). But Nemetschek does reference a "media" group in their financial statements. When you look at how Nemetschek lists their brands, you find that Maxon is the ONLY brand in that group: So, it is really easy to follow how Maxon is doing in Nemetschek's annual financial statements because all you have to do is search on "media". Now remember that Maxon is more than just C4D. So you while you can figure out how well Maxon is doing in Nemetschek, you can't determine how well C4D is doing in Maxon. But a rising tide lifts all boats, and Maxon's tide is rising. So I am not worried about the future of C4D. Solid program with a smart architecture in a strong company. You can learn more here Dave P.S. One thing you do hear in Nemetschek annual report is the move to "cloud" based computing. They are not saying that specifically about any of their brands other than the opportunity it represents. Something to keep your eye on going forward.

Honestly folks....Maxon is doing EXTREMELY WELL! This is not based on speculation but rather an analysis of Nemetschek's 2022 annual report (released in March 23, 2023). I have posted these numbers before, but the updated 2022 numbers for their "Media" segment (of which Maxon is the only member) are pretty impressive: This may explain the brand new 2024 BMW 8 Series that Srek is driving around in!!!! The man is just rolling in cash!!!😊 Plus when you read the various sections of the financial report, the outlook for their "Media" segment is nothing but roses and raindrops in comparison to their core business (AEC/O or Architecture, Engineering and Construction). A few choice excerpts are below:

I do have a semi-related question to the educators on this thread: What is the direction for DCC education given the insurgence of such AI based tools as Stable Diffusion, Dalle, Picsi AI, Insight Face AI, the list goes on. On top of all this is Unreal Engine with its free standard license that has modules for doing pretty much everything from fluids to facial animation via their Metahuman model. So, what are students looking to do digitally? Make digital assets (models, shaders, etc) or tell stories? I only offer those two choices because the entire DCC pipeline is extremely fungible right now with the advent of AI (just look at Wonder Studio). In short, are the days of the "3D generalist" becoming short lived simply because new tools are coming along that have automated vast portions of that pipeline? So what "career" guidance would you give to a freshman student wanting to learn 3D? Given the pace of technological development and the growth of AI, do students face the risk that what they have learned will be negatively impacted by changes to the entire DCC pipeline which could be made before they graduate? Thorny issues to be sure and (IMHO) far more perplexing than a low cost of entry to a "traditional" DCC application. Honestly.....my advice would be to learn "3D Theory" first. That is focus on the core concepts behind digital content creation independent of any application. Go deep on knowing the basics (e.g. topology, color space, studio lighting, rendering concepts, camera work) right down to the algorithms behind some of the most common 3D techniques. They will need this base to successfully navigate the constantly shifting CG landscape. Then I would steer the student into learning how to create the assets (e.g., modeling, retopology, and texturing) simply because whatever direction the technology moves in you will need a 3D asset. So far, they have yet to create a version of ChatGPT that creates models (though they are trying, and the results are laughably bad). Just my 2 cents. Dave

Your animations are getting better, and you are definitely developing a unique style. I loved the handheld camera work and the black and white photography. Given the gothic horror themes, I think black and white animation works best but there were at times it made everything appear a bit too flat. Subtle shading, soft shadows and strategic uses of color could really add a lot to the story. Or approach your next work with the mindset that it is being filmed in color but it is just a very black and white world that you are shooting in. Weird concept, but the best example I can think of is from an old animation called "Eroica" made back in 1998 on 3DS Max: Note the blue to the fog, the red in the characters eyes. A slight blue key light from the moon. But for most of everything else (until the end scenes), it is very black and white. Dave P.S. I have to ask....those names on the tomb stone. Are they friends and family? If still alive, did they want to be a name on a tomb stone? I would catch hell from my family if I did that.

I only have the "Center Axis To" command in my layout so it hard to messy click "Center Object To". Now this is a rather random issue and tends to occur more with models converted from FBX files that were made up a bunch of separate objects that were then converted to one "object" in C4D. The Millenium Falcon model I worked on was a good example where I was kit bashing pieces of it together. So that piece I wanted needed to be split and disconnected from the original object but in doing that they picked up the Axis Center location of the original parent model. So for placement, scaling, etc. I needed to use the "Center Axis To" command but then ran into the issue of the object moving to the axis rather than vice versa as expected. I wonder if this could an FBX conversion issue as when you try to duplicate this issue with C4D primitives in various combinations of hierarchies (objects under objects, object under separate nulls), it all works as expected. When I find something, I will post it. Dave

Very informative. One other issue that I keep coming across is using the Axis Center command and rather than having the axis move to the center of the object, the object's center moves to the existing location of the axis. This happens regardless of the axis center command settings (or so I think) but only on rare occasions. Any ideas why? Thank you in advance!! Dave

I think Redshift 3.15.19 will improve CPU performance based on this comment in the MaxonOne release notes: Now, this only applies to CPU with 6 or more cores (12 threads) but I would imagine there are very few 4 core processors on the market these days. You can find out what version of Redshift you are running in the Preferences section. Dave

For me, a simple way of distinguishing between Xpresso and scene nodes/capsules when referring to their strengths and the best way to apply them to your workflow is as follows: Scene nodes/capsules gives you the tools to build the assets. Xpresso gives you the tools you need to help manipulate them. Now this is NOT 100% accurate and there are of course exceptions because there are always more ways to do the same thing in C4D. But viewing them this way helps me breakdown how to approach them when problem solving. Just my humble opinion. Dave

Excellent point and I never looked at it that way. I would imagine optimizing such a vastly complicated set of code was a hard slog and filled with frustration because there are so many connection points to other major code functions that the developers were faced with unintended consequences each time they changed something. All of this also points to the architecture of the program and the methodical way Maxon connected features to that new core over each release while "still" implementing new features....further increasing the programs complexity and interconnections. I get a headache just thinking about it. To use a construction analogy, they have essentially been rebuilding the foundation while still adding new floors on an ever-rising tower. That is no easy trick. Now...does this mean a rapid increase in new features and/or the much-needed revamp of aging portions of the program like TP and BP? I don't want to say that because it will lead to over-speculation and increased expectations. What I will say is that Maxon program management has obviously been pretty methodical over the years. It had to be given what they have accomplished. Most likely, that methodical approach will continue. Also.....capsules are amazing. I could not see the benefit of Neutron in its initial release and the back and forth on how to implement its capabilities was a bit confusing. But they nailed it with Capsules. Each is a non-destructive mini-plugin that provides more flexibility than any single plugin could ever provide. I could not have created some of the things posted on this forum without them and they certainly have come "into-their-own" in the past year. So, while they seem like such small things in the release notes, we do forget what each brings to the table in terms of flexibility and creative capability. Dave

Interesting comments in this thread. It appears that the thirst for new features outweighs the thirst for performance improvements. Now, no disagreement from me that both are great but let's not understate the effort required to re-engineer and optimize the underlying foundation of a program to improve its performance while still trying to add new stuff to it. Kind of like mounting new tires while still maintaining your lead in the car race. It can be done (we've all seen pit crews) but requires a lot of planning or else it will result in disaster. So let's give some credit to the Maxon developers for attempting to do both and pulling it off. I am actually quite impressed with the performance improvements, but I look at it a different way. Rather than ask "what new features did I NOT get because they were focusing on performance improvements?" I would ask "how much of a hardware upgrade would I need to make to my PC to get the same level performance improvements using R2023". If those hardware upgrades cost you more than the annual subscription price than consider yourself ahead of the game because you not only were saved the cost of that hardware upgrade with this release, but you did get some new tools as well. Just a thought, Dave

Kind of surprised to see R2024 not announced on the main Core4D page. Did I miss it? .....well...with the expansion to Houdini and Blender threads on the site and the loss of "C4D" in the sites title, I guess Maxon releases are not big news anymore. Even though I understand why...it is kind of sad actually. Dave

Many thanks to HappyPolygon for these links. Who would have thought that a Sketchfab model would could be so impressive. They offered it in an FBX format as well and so I downloaded it and went to work. While not modeled in quads with any polygon flow to consider what-so-ever, the modeling was solid with excellent UV's. There was very little corrupted geometry for me to correct. I think it was game rip, so there were some details that were just not adequate as textures and needed to be replaced. The Engine intakes and radar dish needed to be replaced. Likewise, there was no landing gear and the corruption of the geometry around the landing bays was pretty bad so that needed to be replaced as well. Landing gear rigging was added. Engine glow was added. Interior cockpit lights were added. The whole model was converted to Redshift. And now the finished model: Very happy to get that monkey off my back. Now I can start on the DS tunnel. Dave

Screw what the audience sees, whichever camera was "live" is where they switched the background to match that camera's position. Also, I agree that while the size of the screen and its "projection" method (front, back or self...meaning LED) is not defined, to do this all-in post is a bit of a challenge on a weekly show unless it is REALLY more fake than we all believe. Fake audience reactions, fake judge reactions, all of it. Plus, at some point particularly towards the end of the season, the acts start to appear on the same stage. None of that can be determined ahead of time because no one knows who those acts will be. So is it THAT FAKE (predetermined winners and losers) just because we can't accept the size of the screen? We accept real time rendering but we can't accept a big screen? Really? Dave