SKaiser

Personally, I think you've been sold the dream. Is X-particles useful? - Yes it can be, but don't be blinded by all the bells and whistles its fancy marketing team provide. Not to long ago I was taken in by all that too, only to find that al that glisters is not gold. Awful technical support, a community that was basically non existent and a very expensive and somewhat buggy product. It's almost as if all Bob's videos were to give an outward projection of a company that wasn't as prolific and well put together as they would like you to believe. Yeah, the 'Particles' side to X-Particles is somewhat functional, but woe betide you if you're naive enough to use their dynamics, fire and water sims in a commercial production pipeline....they just don't work as well as they say it does. I stopped using their plugin for a good few years, finding suitable alternatives in After Effects to fill the particles hole. Honestly if it wasn't for the fact that my current role demanded it, I still would not be using it. Granted, X-particles has become a lot better and less buggy since then, I'm still not stupid enough to use anything but their particle functionality though. In contrast Cinema 4D actually does what they say it can. It's a very reliable tool, and the product speaks for itself, they don't need all the fancy marketing as a selling technique, the application just works.

My comment wasn't meant to diminish the amazing work you guys have done, that being said - I am looking forward to what's to come - Thank you. I will give this a go - Thanks!

This latest Particle addition is a welcomed update. Pretty sure Maxon have probably been working on this for a while , I applaud them for their persistent and hard work. The particle capabilities are very thorough. Though after watching Chris Schmidt's 4hr preview, I noticed a few important aspects were 'missing' so to speak. Maybe I missed them or maybe the functionality is there but not as obvious as it is in X-particles for example. One aspect was the ability to emit from a texture, this is something I'd imagine is easy to implement and also something I use a lot. Very surprised this functionality isn't there from the start. Secondly was the ability for particles to follow a 'flow path'. I'm amazed this wasn't included and I do hope that this functionality will be available in a recent update. While I will use the new particle system wherever I can, I don't think I'll give up on X-particles just yet unfortunately.

Are we going to get a tutorial course on the new C4D particle engine? from the showcase it looks fully featured. I would really like to see how it compares to X-particles.

Well, a new particle system is coming for sure! I'll be very surprised if it can replace X-Particles outright from launch....I really don't think it will be able to but it's a step in the right direction by Maxon, I do hope they continue development in this area past the initial release.

That's perfect! Thank you!

I've been off the C4D rigging scene for a while. I learnt to rig using the tutorials from the C4DCafe rigging series, these are over 10 years old now and I'm wondering has there been any dramatic advancement in this area? If I were to make a custom (non mammalian) rig, should I use the rigging system in C4D or should I make my own custom rig using the skills I learnt >10 years ago? Thanks!

Ah yes, I thought this would currently be the case, it's still early days. Will this be possible in the future perhaps?

I'm a little confused as to what this means and what the implications are. Are scene nodes separate from 'Standard Cinema 4D'? Standard Cinema 4D can not react with Scene Nodes but can Scene Nodes be used to create a scene of many 3D objects that are not procedurally generated? Am I able to import/create objects to be referenced by Scene Nodes? I'm trying to see if Scene Nodes can help with an issue I have that often arises when I work with Cinema 4D. Namely, the viewport and playback lags whenever I create a heavy scene made up of many different components. This occurs in scenes created via mograph (which Scene Nodes look like they can handle), and also custom made 'modelled' geometry which I'm not sure if Scene Nodes can help in any way.

I have an example which isn't so much a system or builder but more to see if Scene Nodes lends itself to working in a certain type of way. Currently I have a scene composed of many different elements . All elements I've modelled separately and combined into the one scene. Together, all these elements make cinema grind to a halt so I've separated them out to layers. I can only turn one layer on at a time to navigate the scene with any effectiveness. Often though I do need all elements visible and the Cinema viewport lag is immense. I'm not talking about thousands of objects here.... What can scene nodes do to help? Say there is a high poly robot is built with certain parts sectioned off (head, body, arms legs - these represent a typical scene I would use in Cinema) Can you import those individual high poly elements through scene nodes and enable them to interact as in a scene with no viewport lag in Cinema 4D?

So Xpresso will not be phased out then...? Will Scene Nodes will run alongside Xpresso? r23 is a great update. I applaud the devs at MAXON. They are obviously listening to users and are most likely using Scene Nodes to retain users shifting to Houdini. I for one will be sticking around to see how this plays out. What needs to happen is to be able to use Scene Nodes to create particle and fluid effects. Scene Nodes are obviously capable of doing a better job than the badly built X-particles plugin, they should replace the need for it entirely. On another note, I am surprised that there was no UDIM functionality in this update...and no one seems to be demanding it either. Does no one UV medium to high res models with C4D? I have moved to Maya for modelling and UVing recently. Maya has arguably better tools in those areas (though C4D is close). But then, Maya has UDIM support. I need a reason to not use Maya. One thing though, having used another 3D app I can now see that C4D is better built and gives a better user experience. With Scene nodes they seem to have gone from the ground up, integrating it into all aspects of C4D rather than just tacking it on to the top. Once again, I applaud the devs - well done!

That's great @everfresh, I'm glad you worked with MAXON for this functionality. Do you mean the Face Rig tutorial for your old template? (btw - I've actually rigged a cartoon character using that body and face rig - but have been sidelined with so may other projects I haven't had a chance to use it yet :/)

Hey @everfresh, I noticed you were the author of the toon rig included in this release. Is this what happened to the rig you released for general use a few years ago (now pulled)? What differences exist if so?

I feel that Insydium are great at being showmen and not so much at building efficient software. I've been using X-particles for 3-4 updates and Xplosia can not be used in production in any of those releases. I get skipped frames, crashes extremely slow sims and sims that seem to stop working for no good reason. On top of that, their support system SUCKS! It takes about 3-4 days to be responded to (if at all). I'm often working on sims for clients, I can't tell them to wait 3-4 days before I can continue working, usually by the time they' get back to me I've found an alternative way of working. After so many repeatedly awful experiences using X-Particles Xplosia, it's clear to me that their system is broken., especially after I've used other smoke and flame sims that work FLAWLESSY. I won't buy into these flashy demos any more. Insydium, fix your freaking product and stop rolling out Bob Whalmsley to say a few flashy words words to woo people. Just make Xplosia work.

Congratulations and well done!

Wow! Do you think MAXON and Redshift can just click their fingers and make things happen? The merger was announced a few months ago, Redshift had a list of deliverable to achieve even before the merger unrelated to c4d and they're hitting each one. Redshift for Mac is on it's way but I'm sure it's no easy task. Maybe you don't realize that MAXON isn't as large as Apple inc. Things take time.

A fully fledged 3D application will never buy a 3D 'lite' plugin - not going to happen! It does seem to me as if MAXON are positioning themselves to look more attractive to be bought by Adobe. I don't want it to happen, but this merger makes no sense at all. I was excited after the Redshift buy out, this one worries me.

This is another issue I have with XP. If you create a low res simulation and then up res, the physics and interactions change COMPLETELY! it's a joke! I've wasted many hours perfecting a low res sim only to up res it and realise I've wasted my time. Can you imagine what that's like when you have a deadline!

I guess this is the answer I need. Don't bother using Dyanmics in XP, better to use the native C4D dynamics.

One of the first major issues I had with XP is with their dynamics system, which wasn't working as it should. Yes, you say that C4D native already has dynamics but I figured that as we pay for it with XP and it interacts with the XP system, I'll use the XP dynamics. Simple collisions did not work as they should and whenever I adjusted the values to a state where it should work, the system crashed. In this instance I resorted back to native C4D dynamics and it worked fine. This was when I started to notice the inadequacies of XP.

Interesting to hear that it's not just me with these issues. I guess I'll have to ride the wave of the crashes. @DasFrodo while I was using Xparticles as a "hobbyist" (i.e. not working on any client projects) I had no issues with it. As soon as I was in a real word scenario, I quickly saw its flaws.

Sorry if this turns into a bit of a rant. I've been using Xparticles on and off for a few years now. This year I really tried to get deep into to plugin and use it a lot. I must say I have found the experience problematic and wanted to online my findings here in the hope that maybe someone could sympathize and possibly offer some solutions or best practices? What does everyone feel about Xparticles? Personally I find the plugin buggy as hell. I often find a new bug or finding that something doesn't work the way it should each time I use Xparticles. Simulations not reading from cache, simulations not working for some unknown reason only to work fine when I rebuild from scratch. System crashes often, slow particle simulations. On top of this their tech support are slow to respond. Often taking weeks to get back to me. Redshift on the other hand take hours...a few days at the most (before they were bought out by MAXON). This is simply unacceptable when you're working in production and you need a solution fast or the project cannot proceed. Their forum also sucks! hardly anyone is on it, no questions answered to common problems (and there are many). Apparently you can get a faster response on their discord channel but there are no solutions there either. I have never seen a plugin that has so many issues and no resolutions from the devs such as Xparticles. It's almost a joke and makes me very wary of using it in production. What are your thoughts and experiences?

I had the same issue with Xparticles and uploading to Rebus render farm. In the end I had to convert the Xparticles to an alembic. Not sure if that's an option for you but saving the Xparticles Cache internally may work.

I've almost got it using Motion Builder, I just need to offset the animation. Using mopgraph doesn't lend itself well to be given to someone who doesn't know C4d well in my experience.

Hi there, I'm using character builder to create a cascading animation rig. My client wants a 'panels unfolding animation' that is customisable and tweakable. I've used character builder to create a system where a user can place panels adjacent to each other where they see fit. As for the unfolding , I would like this to cascade across the panels. currently all animations starts and ends at the same time (as each component has animation starting at 0 on timeline and ending at frame 20) Is there anyway that I can use character builder to offset the animation of each component (say by 10 frames each time the component is added) so they don't all shoot off at the same time? Thanks for your help!