GazzaMataz

Thanks for replying peeps. I have attached the C4D file with textures. My refraction and reflection settings are fine. It seems that I only get the blackness when the transparent objects intersect. But my eye lens does not intersect so it should be transparent? Eye Transparency.zip

I am trying to make a lens for an eyeball that is transparent using a glass material. However when I place it on the eye lens everything behind it goes black... When I did this using standard renderer and materials I never had a problem but Red is playing silly or I am doing something wrong? It seems that if I create a glass item you can see through it but when you have it intersecting everything turns black. Tried looking in the setting but nothing jumps out at me.

OK can someone answer me this: when using standard renderer and materials if I create a glass object and render it as a pass if I drop it into AE it has transparency. However, when I create a glass object using Redshift and drop it into AE it has no transparency and treats the object as a solid matte. I am sure that I need to use AOVs or Puzzle Mattes but not sure how? I am rendering out as PNGs with alphas BTW. Any tips greatly appreciated 😀

Actually on the render front I find that some animations I work on render only a few seconds slower on my Mac mini M2 Pro compared to my PC with two RTX 2800ti GPUs. And yet others, which usually include glass and reflective materials are way quicker on my PC. Is this because my Mac mini does not support ray tracing wheras my two RTX 2800ti do? Would love to know.

@Kingcoma Thanks for those bench mark results on the M2 Ultra, the CPU scores on those machines is still impressive and I was surprised by the GPU being that high - is your Ultra a 76 GPU System? My little M2 Pro gets these results: GPU: 2800 CPU (single core): 122 CPU (multicore) 800 A trick that I have learned using C4D especially when using newer versions of the software with older files is to open the scene, select everything in that scene and paste it into a new one. I have found that otherwise control handles, HUD items and such disappear. I think it is all to do with drivers? But this was on PC but it still applies to Mac. I also have found that when rendering previews on my Mac a lot of my scenes render out at 11 secs per frame at a res of 720p with the sampling at 4 and 16 (default), whereas my PC with two RTX2800ti GPUs renders at 9 secs. But when I render at a res of 1080p with sampling at 16 and 128, my Mac will take 40 secs per frame whereas my PC takes on secs? Not sure why there is such a speed increase? But my Mac is fine for the low res rendering for now and I haven't had problems with fur. But I am using OS 13.7.2 Ventura, I have been told to upgrade to the newer version but I am always twitchy about updating software. I have been using Macs and PCs since 1990 so that's 35 years - god I feel old… 🙂

@Kingcoma Just out of curiosity m8 how do you find Redshift rendering on that M2 Ultra machine? Fast? Slow? Reasonable? I know PC is the way to go with Redshift but I do like working on my Mac more than my PC.

Actually I managed to find a video on YouTube where a Swedish chap was reviewing a Mac mini M4 Pro with the 20 GPU configuration and finally managed to get a Cinebench result - it was over 9,000. Comparable to an Nvidia RTX 3700ti and faster than my single RTX 2800ti - not bad. Especially considering my M2 Pro only scores 2800 with 16 GPU cores. Very tempting to get one of those new M4 Pros but I would like to see if they are going to bring out an M4 Studio later this year, I have a feeling that they won't... And by then a new range of PC parts will be available perhaps?

Hi All I have been working on a few game characters that need to be imported into the PlayCanvas game engine that have been exported as GLB files from Blender. Now I am pretty much a newbie with Blender so don't know my way around it like I do C4D. Play Canvas is saying for some reason the model files are not recognized by the root Armature node and therefore cannot infer the root bone for the model meshes. So none of the model meshes animate properly. This is gobble-de-gook to me being a Blender newbie so if anyone can shed some light I would be most grateful.

Hrvoje You wouldn't mind running a Cinebench R24 on your Mac mini Pro or if you already have done can you tell the results? I most interested in the GPU results on this machine. I have searched the internet but only get M4 results and the Pro version is much more enticing 🙂

Latest version of C4D?

Hi All For the past few months I have been using C4D 2024 on my Mac mini M2 Pro since my PC was playing silly buggers. I am running Mac OS Ventura 13.7.2 and most things run fine. However, I have noticed that things like controllers disappear in the viewport or textures go wonky. Normally the fix it to open another document and then flick back and it fixes the issue. I also notice that when I quit the app I get an error message saying that C4D has crashed unexpectedly. Now when I asked Maxon Support about this they said upgrade to macOS 14 but it seems the only one I can upgrade to is macOS 15 (I know that if I hunt around I could get macOS 14). I would be quite happy to do this but I always wonder that I will inherit a new load of bugs. So anyone out there using macOS 15 with any problems that I should be aware of? I am also wondering whether to upgrade to the latest version of C4D…

OK… My PC hasn't restarted once so I think this was what the problem was, I hope so! If this really was the problem then I think I need a new PC case or perhaps take a close look at the reset jumper to see if it has gone rust or there is a loose connection - happy as Larry now even thought I don't know any Larry's 🙂

Well it has been two days with my PC on with no spontaneous restarts since I disconnected the Reset Jumper. I won't hold my breath but if this is what has caused the problem I will be amazed… Doesn't quite explain why my computer would not boot at all until I replaced the thermal past but there's nothing weirder than computer problems!

If you want any tips on rigging and animating the horse I can give you a bit of guidance since I have been doing this sort of thing for years. I can seem to see the model? Where is the link?

Thanks for the reply Mash! I have updated the BIOS and it didn’t make any difference. Unplugging the reset switch doesn’t sound that silly since when the machine spontaneously reboots it is almost like it is sparking out and then back on again. Some else suggested this so I will give it a try. I am intending on using the machine as a render node in the mean time so if it does conk out occasionally it won’t hurt. My Mac mini is fine for modelling and animating on but yhe rendering is pants.

OK. When the problem first started I cleaned all the insides of the computer and fans using compressed air and a hoover - so no dust. Next I checked the power supply and Scan sent me a replacement since it was under warranty. So it’s not the PSU. Then I tested each of the four memory chips on their own in the appropriate slots and still got the same problem. I have two identical GPUs so I tested with each one individually and in different slots - same problem, so I doubt it was either GPU. I also had all drives apart from the OS one disconnected during all tests. The machine also rebooted when just running in BIOS so it’s not Windows either and I did update the BIOS. The computer then developed the problem of not booting up at all and the warning light was stuck on the CPU. So I took the cooler off and removed the CPU which looked fine and then applied new thermal paste and put it back together again and it worked fine… for a while… Now it is rebooting just occasionally so that is why I suspect the motherboard. It is tempting to buy a second hand mobo to see if stability comes back but I am thinking why throw money at a seven year old system but it renders real fast and I can use it as a render machine. I would love to know what the problem is.

I’m still dithering on buying a new PC since I am sure I can fix my wobbly Threadripper PC. I have asked on a lot of forums about what could be causing the fault but nothing seems to work. Can anyone here suggest a place where I might get a solution? Or am I flogging a dead horse. The machine makes a very faint noise when it reboots. I am pretty certain it is the motherboard, a circuit on it?

Glad to see some nice character work done in C4D! I was beginning to think I was one of the only ones who uses C4D for characters. Merry Christmas and happy holidays peeps 😀

Funny you should say that Mash. Four years ago when I bought my two RTX 2800ti GPUs I bought one of them there power gadgets that you plug into to show how much power was being used - it was nowhere near the 250w for each GPU when under load. So it's another bit of Apple marketing 😉 I bought a 1600w PSU since I was planning on installing four GPUs but nowadays that has all changed and the power of say a 4080 is the equivalent of four 2080ti so I might invest in one single GPU. Probably a 4090 when the 5090 come out since the prices might drop.

I am well aware of the slack GPU power of Mac Studios, I have been looking at the Ultra with 76 cores which scores the same as a single RTX2800ti (like I have) in Cinebench and is vintage 2018 - or is that 2017? It's still reasonable I suppose. I don't take too much notice of Cinebench scores since when I rendered a project on mine on my PC it was taking 25 frames per second (2x RTX 2800ti) compared to my M2 Pro which was taking 50 secs. Other projects varied… But when you think about it if you shell out £1,800 for a RTX 4090 and realise that it can use up to 750w of power that's quite demanding. Those Mac Studios are quite power efficient in comparison. Think I will always have a PC and a Mac but with comparable performance, especially now that xRefs works over Team Render I can have a mini render farm going - happy days!

Thanks for the reply Hrvoje. I should have realised that the components for motherboards are made in the same factories but just branded differently… Think I will go with the one that I liked. I think it is the CPU that is the thing I am dithering over the 7950 is about 35% faster on the multi core front but the same as the 7900 on the single core. My Mac mini Pro is also the same as those two on the single core front and don't I know it compared to my Threadripper. Not that I use multi core much these days - he says…

Hi All At the moment I am running an ageing Threadripper 1920x with two RTX 2800ti GPUs using primarily C4D and Adobe Creative Suite. Recently, it developed the habit of spontaneously re-booting for no reason. I tried all the usual tricks checking each individual RAM stick, changing the PSU and switching the GPUs to no avail. I investigated further by taking a look at the CPU, removing it and putting it back and since doing that it seems to be behaving??? So I temporarily switched to my Mac mini M2 Pro which I only bought as a secondary computer. But it is faster than my Threadripper except at GPU rendering. I was thinking of switching to Mac since I liked the silence and the lower power consumption but looking at the GPU results on even the faster Mac Studios they are disappointing. I don't think Apple will be releasing a new Mac Studio any time soon so I am thinking it is time to buy new PC components. So in short I was looking at a Ryzen 9 7950x or 9 7900x which would give me a lot faster single core and multicore performance, the single core is more appealing since I do a lot of animation. This I was thinking of plugging into a MSI AMD MPG X670E Carbon WIFI DDR5 ATX motherboard because I like all the USB ports. Anyone got any recommendations? I would keep the RTX 2800ti GPUS for the moment possibly upgrading to an RTX 4080 next spring which would also give me twice the speed. Looking forwards to peoples suggestions and I hope that I have posted this in the right place.

Cool! I wish I had discovered this a while back would have been very helpful. It's one of those little C4D nuggets innit 🙂

Mesh Checker? That's a new one on me… I looked for this and couldn't find it. Is it in C4D 2025? I am still on 2024…

OMG! I was wondering where my latest issue had gone… I never got no notification that it had ended? I loved getting this mag every month and the last two where very useful since I need a new PC. I have every issue ever printed sitting in my loft so that’s since 2000 and over 200 issues. Maybe they will become collectable one day 🤣