R12 Splash Screen

Well it’s that time of year again. The new release of Cinema4D has been announced. What an amazing release it is too. I have been fortunate enough to be part of the beta team and have been testing the new features for a while now. It is difficult to know where to start, but the most important update for me has to be the new dynamics module.

Restructured GUI - Dynamics Menu

Dynamics is incredible! The old dynamics module was slow, unreliable and quite honestly an unpleasant experience to work with. The new dynamics is an absolute joy to work with. In fact work can quite easily become play!

Those of you familiar with MoDynamics, introduced with r11, will be pleased to hear that the new dynamics is a huge extension beyond this. Maxon have taken Dynamics to a whole new level. Instead of being restricted to rigid bodies that only will work with MoGraph objects, we now have have the addition of Soft Bodies, Springs, Joints (hinges, etc) and Motors. They all work together, and even better they all work with or without the MoGraph module. If you want a stand alone dynamics simulation you can easily create this, but if you want to then duplicate it 500 times, drop it in a Cloner and away you go.

Rigid and Soft Bodies working together - click for movie

Dynamics will function as a fantastic feature in it’s own right, it will also work with MoGraph if you desire. For instance you can create a Soft Body, but you can also create a Soft Body of clones. Imagine virtual springs between all your cloned objects. You can link Soft and Rigid bodies together with the huge number of connector objects, these allow you to create hinges, cardon joints, ragdoll, sliders, the list goes on. Springs can be linear, radial or both, expect to see a lot of bouncing around in your scenes when you get hold of this.

Rigid Bodies, Soft Bodies and Hinges in action - click for movie

All you Xpresso heads will be pleased to hear that Dynamics comes with some new Xpresso nodes, so you can link Dynamics to other elements in your scene, such as Thinking Particles, allowing you to create particles upon collision and plenty more besides.

All in all Dynamics has finally received the upgrade we have all been waiting for. To be honest, I’ve just touched upon the features, you should really check out the Maxon webpage for full details of the new featureset.

Alongside Dynamics there are plenty of other improvements to be in awe of. We have now got a bundle of new deformers and a new morphing system. The new Pose Morph is a hybrid of Pose to Pose and Morph. So you can mix and match between position, scale, rotation and point level morphing. On top of the obvious morph parameters, Pose Morph supports UVs, Maps, Hierarchy, Parameters and User Data. Yes! I did say UVs, now you can morph your UV maps as well as geometry.  How awesome is that?

New Deformers

The Camera Deformer allows you to deform objects from the Camera viewpoint, some crazy stuff is going to come from this deformer alone. You set the grid resolution and then you can drag and keyframe points on the grid looking straight out onto your scene (and it has falloff built in too). If you link Pose Morph up to Camera Deformer with some Displacement and Cloth in between, then you can start to understand the power that can be harnessed.

Mesh Deformer is another new deformer. Take a low poly cage and use it control a high poly version. Something I know a lot of users have been asking for. You can even set your low poly mesh deformer work as a Dynamic Soft Body and as the low poly cage deforms, it then passes that deformation on to the high poly mesh.

I cannot finish this without mentioning Linear Workflow. Cinema4D now has the option to include Linear Workflow in your projects. Those of you who have been using DeGamma will be glad to see LWF as part of the core application. The new openGL (which is a fantastic improvement) supports Linear Workflow, so you see an accurate preview of your lighting and materials in the editor. We can use Colour Profiles for input and output now. This means we finally have the ability to work in Linear, and use Colour Management.

An alternative use for the new MoSpline L-System - click for movie

Well I really have only touched on the new features. I haven’t mentioned the new Render Queue, Smoothing Deformer, Correction Deformer, Surface Deformer, GUI enhancements, Freeze Transformations, IES lighting, Weight Manager, L-System (OMG!), Python…

I love this release, it is huge and I am sure you will all love it too. Check out the Maxon website for the full details and visit Cineversity for all the video highlights.

As for learning those new features. Watch this space, helloluxx will soon be updating our tutorials, to offer you an intensive and comprehensive collection of training that will cover many of the new features in depth. Something you definitely won’t want to miss out on.

I was recently contacted by Envy Studio who asked if I’d make a blog post regarding a new product they’d released for Cinema4D. Being the charitable type and always looking to support independent entrepreneurs, I agreed.   Plus it looks like a pretty good deal to me.  So here it is…

ENVY: C4D INTERIORS FOR ADVANCED RENDER 3 AND VRAY – volume 1.

These products are available as a downloadable version on the ENVY website.

- 10 professional interior scenes
- various light setups
- incorporates Linear Workflow for gamma correct results
- high quality lighting and render settings for optimum results
- 10 scenes for only 40 euros

I was recently contacted by Envy Studio who asked if I’d make a blog post regarding a new product they’d released for Cinema4D. Being the charitable type and always looking to support independent entrepreneurs, I agreed.   Plus it looks like a pretty good deal to me.  So here it is…

ENVY: C4D INTERIORS FOR ADVANCED RENDER 3 AND VRAY – volume 1.

These products are available as a downloadable version on the ENVY website.

- 10 professional interior scenes
- various light setups
- incorporates Linear Workflow for gamma correct results
- high quality lighting and render settings for optimum results
- 10 scenes for only 40 euros

Making It Look Great 7 and HDRI Light Kit Pro are now available in a THREE day sale.

For only 3 days, Motionworks and Greyscalegorilla are getting together to bring you a bundle designed to help you get the most out of Cinema 4D. Learn real-world Cinema 4D MoGraph techniques and workflows with MILG07 and light your scene with realistic lights and studios with the HDRI LightKitPro.

Get both of these products for only $129 which is over 20% off. This bundle will expire this Wednesday, April 28th. Watch your mograph skill set jump and your lighting shine with the Making It Look Great 7 and HDRI LightKitPro Bundle.

Buy The Bundle Now

Learn More about HDRI LightKitPro

Learn More about MILG7

I am often asked the question “What is the difference between a Straight and a Premultiplied Alpha Channel?”

In this tutorial I discuss the differences between a Straight and a Premultiplied Alpha channel.  How to spot the difference and ensure you interpret your files correctly when setting up your composite.

I also cover the Straight Alpha parameter that is offered when rendering Cinema4D Multipass renders.

Head on over to Vimeo to watch the tutorial in HD.

Recently released from Greyscale Gorilla.

Real Studio Lights for Cinema 4D
HDRI Light Kit Pro turns Cinema 4D into a professional lighting studio. Quickly light your scene with realistic lights directly in Cinema 4D.

What is it?
HDRI Light Kit Pro is a collection of lights, studios and objects that lets you quickly light your scene with realistic soft boxes, spotlights, ring lights and more.

What’s Included?
10 Light Types
including, soft boxes, ring-lights, spotlights, light tents, dome lights, window lights and more.

2 Hours of Video Training
including a bonus “How to Make your Global Illumination Renders Shine” tutorial.

10 Hi-Resolution HDR Images
to instantly light your scene with photo-real light.

6 Studios Pre-Lit
Just add your models and hit render for perfect, studio-lit renders.

6 Test Models
to use to help light your scenes.

Visit Greyscale Gorilla for all the details.

I just posted a quick tip about creating scripts within Cinema4D. This tip will show you how simple it can be to create your own script, create an icon and then add it to your layout.

So head on over to Motionworks and check it out.

On my old download page I had a set of lighting presets for download. I have had a few requests for these and decided to update them to the newer GI and place them here for download.

You do need Cinema4D r11.5 with the Advanced Render to use these, they all use Global Illumination. The GI settings are set low for the presets, so you may want to increase this when you use them on your own projects.

Here’s a preview of each of the included presets. I hope you find them useful.

Download the presets here.

Lighting Presets

When you are working with Xpresso in Cinema4D it is often important to choose the correct datatype. This is particularly true when you are creating user data for your objects.

Open the user data manager and choose to add data. The next thing you need to do is select the data type. Unfortunately if you go back to edit existing user data later you cannot change the data type specified, so it is preferable to create the correct data type in the first place.

User Data Manager

Another time you need to know the correct data type could be if you are working with XGroups and need to specify your input and output ports. Again you will be presented with a list of names and all you really want to do is add a port for perhaps position, rotation or colour, etc.

XGroup Ports

One of the simplest methods to find the required data type is to add an xpresso node that already has a similar port. For instance, you may wish to add user data to an object to control position, to adjust radius or to create a checkbox.

Create a cube and drag it to the Xpresso window and add the ports like the images below. Then as you mouse over the ports, take a look at the lower left of the Xpresso window. Cinema4D will display some text that gives you the name of the port and also the data type used.

Kai Pederson made a very valid point in his comment below which definitely deserves a mention.

“Personally I hate having to look down there when I’m mousing over a port so I turn on bubble help, this way when I mouse over a port or a wire, it will show that information in the bubble help right where my mouse is.”

Thanks for the tip Kai.

Position : Vector

Radius : Real

Checkbox : Bool

So if you are unsure of the correct data type, simply find a node or object that has a similar type of parameter. You can then drag this object into Xpresso and create a port for that parameter. The status bar will then let you know the data type.

If all of this seems like a bit of a long winded method to find out this information, don’t worry! There is actually a really quick way to do this. If you have an object that already has the type of user interface that you need. Be this a checkbox, vector field, colour chooser, etc.

Copy User Data Interface

Right click on the element in the Attribute Manager, choose Copy User Data Interface. Now instead of choosing User Data > Manage User Data, choose Paste User Data Interface. The user data manager will open and the element you copied will be already created. You just need to adjust the parameters so they are more suitable for your needs.

It was recently brought to my attention that a superb set of procedural shader presets has been made available to purchase. Eric Smit, the man behind this set creates some of the most stunning Cinema4D landscapes, so you can be sure of good quality with this product.

The LANDSCAPE SHADING KIT is a collection of 3D procedural Cinema 4D materials. 170 materials patiently designed to offer a high level of realism and flexibility. The whole kit is the most powerful solution for landscape texturing within Cinema 4D. It offers almost the same level of realism as photo based maps, without the limitations and frustrations of 2D mapping.

Landscape Shader Kit Example 01

Created by Eric Smit, this looks to be an awesome collection and anyone who is working with Cinema4D to create landscapes should take a serious look at this collection.

Created with ease of use in mind, and for a very affordable price too.  Head on over to Eric’s website to read more about this stunning collection.

Landscape Shader Kit Example 02