R8 [announcement] Q&a

[pgp_protector]

Will we be able to import Poser 5 Via the poser pluging ??

[ThirdEye]

what about n-gons?

[LucentDreams]

for those having troubles connecting, a mirror will be up soon at www.3dfortherealworld.com

for now to go with what Rick said, here is the screen cap
http://www.cgi.third-era.com/~kaiskai/announcement.jpg

I'll be around to help Answer questions with Rick :)

[audity]

:bounce: WOW ! that's an incredible new version !!! Congratulation MAXON ! you did an extraordinary job !

I have a few questions.

1. I can see now 3 different products :

- C4D R8
- C4D R8 XL
- C4D R8 STUDIO

Does it mean that there won't be an ART version anymore ? And does it mean that you can get Cinema4D R8 for the price of Cinema4D ART 7 ? That would make Cinema the cheapest "pro" 3D software on earth !!!

2. Could you give us more information about Xpresso ?

3. What about the "spectral shader" ?

I Hope that you have fun at Siggraph !

:thumbsup: Eric

[mnu]

Hi folks,
so, here are my questions :)

What abour NURBS? Will this be available in a seperate module in the future?
Will there be any Rhino or SolidThinking support?

Is flash output integrated or available seperatly?

Is the node based View only for xpression editing? if so, why?

Is COFFEE supported via tags like in V7?

What about updating to the full suite if one owns R7 and Bodypaint, how much will it cost?

What about Motion Mixing. Are ther any enhancements planned?

Does the new multi selection feature integrate well? Is it possible to select five spheres and edit all there attributes simultaniously?

Are the new fcurves available in a seperate window, or is it still required to choose between sequence and curve views?

Will mac users benefit from the open gl enhancements?

Why exeed the reder speed improvments on windows the mac improvements?


If you are so kind to answer some of these questions I would be very pleased. Thanx in advance,

cheers mnu

Will it be possible to select and move individual particles?

What about the modeling axis? Will they move automatically to the selected elements?

W

[LucentDreams]

It will now work in a system like Maya I guess. Basically there is Cinema 4D R8. No more go or se or ART or XL.

After that there are seperate modules like Pyrocluster Advanced renderer MOCCA and such, these can be bough seperately or as a bundle with R8 currently called Cinem4D R8 XL, and then there is studio which has unlimited Net rendering (the XL bundle has a limit of 3) and the Dynamics and Bodypaint modules.

Anyone planning on purchasing Art now will get a free upgrade to r9 with the advanced renderer. Do note R8 itself does not include GI and caustics. With these new prices they easily compete with the others no doubt about it, especially since expresso comes n the basic R8 and is the most powerful Node expressionsystem I have seen personally.

[pgp_protector]

Will the current owners of Pyroclusters & Bodypaint be able to use them with V8 ?

[LucentDreams]

Originally posted by mnu
Hi folks,
so, here are my questions :)

1)Is flash output integrated or available seperatly?
2)Is the node based View only for xpression editing? if so, why?
3)Is COFFEE supported via tags like in V7?
4)What about updating to the full suite if one owns R7 and Bodypaint, how much will it cost?
5)What about Motion Mixing. Are ther any enhancements planned?
6)Does the new multi selection feature integrate well? Is it possible to select five spheres and edit all there attributes simultaniously?
7)Are the new fcurves available in a seperate window, or is it still required to choose between sequence and curve views?
8)Will mac users benefit from the open gl enhancements?
9)Why exeed the reder speed improvments on windows the mac improvements?
10)Will it be possible to select and move individual particles?
11)What about the modeling axis? Will they move automatically to the selected elements?

If you are so kind to answer some of these questions I would be very pleased. Thanx in advance,

cheers mnu
W

1)To be determined

2)This is more powerful than any other node based editor I have seen, It is what thinking Particles integrates into, controls pretty much ayanimation aspect if you wish, it is a true powerhouse system, and fairly easy to use, and for the beginners out there, it has been designed in an unobtrusive way so that even when it is beeing used for some things you need not work directly in it. I can set driven and driver objectswhich will show up in expresso and be updated or edited there, but I can also set them up with out ever using the expresso editor.

3)Yes COFFEE tags are still available. but I don't think I will use them as much personally thanks to Expresso

4)This information is on the site, but I forgot and can't check right now, I will get back to you on this if Rick doesn't answer first.

5) Motion mixing works great, and now you also have Pose 2 Pose animation and pos synthesizer as well, not to worry in this area :) as well as more control through Fcruves and such.

6)Yes it integrate extremely well, almost worth not having it in previous versions just to get it to work so well here, tou can edit multiple objects of the same sort all at once as ong as the settings are similar, If I edit the radius of vie spheres all at ones they must have the same size, but it will indicate if ay objects are not similar to the rest so you don't screw up. I can change light brightness of 8 lights of sepereate colours and such too

7) Fcurves are available in a seperate window and within the timeline itself underneath the sequence

8) Mac users will benefit from OGL enhancements as well

9)I think you mean why the render speed is increased more on PC's??? I think this is simpply because the processors are taking advantage more I'm m not sure someone like Rick may have a better cleareer answer, but its increased on all platforms so thats good right?

10) Thinking Particles has so much control, I haven't tried this personally, but I will try to find out. I know there was one scene I played with from another user where you could use a single sphere emitted from TP to open some automatic doors like at a mall. So I would say yes but can't confirm.

11) Yes the modeling axis does detect selections now, really great with the New ege tools :)

[LucentDreams]

Buy CINEMA 4D R7 and receive CINEMA 4D XL R8 on release, free of charge
Buy CINEMA 4D ART R7 and receive CINEMA 4D R8 plus the Advanced Render Module, free of charge
Applies to orders placed between 24 July 2002 and CINEMA 4D R8 release date and only to qualifying CINEMA 4D R7 packages.

[pgp_protector]

Will our old plugins still work ?
Or will we need to convert them for V8 ?

[RickBarrett]

Originally posted by audity
:bounce: WOW ! that's an incredible new version !!! Congratulation MAXON ! you did an extraordinary job !

I have a few questions.

1. I can see now 3 different products :

- C4D R8
- C4D R8 XL
- C4D R8 STUDIO

Does it mean that there won't be an ART version anymore ? And does it mean that you can get Cinema4D R8 for the price of Cinema4D ART 7 ? That would make Cinema the cheapest "pro" 3D software on earth !!!
3:thumbsup: Eric

Kai guessed pretty much correctly. CINEMA 4D R8 is now the core of a system of modules. This package is a complete modeling and animation solution and will retail for $595. There's 7 additional modules that can be plugged into CINEMA 4D R8 - these are available separately or in bundles (which are less expensive than purchasing individually). The XL "Bundle" includes R8 plus Advanced Rendering, MOCCA character tools, Thinking Particles & Pyrocluster. It'll retail for $1695. The Studio Bundle includes all of the modules - those in XL plus BodyPaint, Dynamics and NET unlimited for $2495.

So yes, GO and ART will be discontinued this fall and R8 will be available at the ART 7 pricepoint. I'm really excited about that - now users won't have to compromise because a really incredible professional animation system is available at an accessible price.

- Rick -

[imashination]

Thanks Kai for answering most of them.

The new render speed improvements have been gained partly due to more optimised code, but also because Maxon is able to take advantage of the new features on modern processors such as the Athlon and Pentium 4.

Unfortunately there have been no such improvements on the Mac side because the G4 chip is beginning to show its age. Should a new chip be release by Apple, this would be supported as soon as possible.

Please dont let this turn into a platform war, it is simply a fact that other than MHz increases, the Macintosh Processors have had no real improvements in recent years.

Most release 6 and 7 plugins should continue to work in Release 8, although some small tweeks may have to be made. For what its worth, all of the plugins and COFFEE expressions I have tried currently work.

[LucentDreams]

Originally posted by pgp_protector
Will our old plugins still work ?
Or will we need to convert them for V8 ?

Generally, old plugins run in an emulation layer and should work fine. This will apply to 90% of all plugins; few things cannot be emulated though. Until release they'll collect a list with plugin compatibility information. Hope that helps. Thoguh I think many of your favourite plugins will se themselves updated not too long after release :)

as for those curious about the upgrrade prices this is what you are looking for.

http://www.maxonshop.com/cgi-bin/us/gp?pg=products/upgrades.main&sid=&uid=SSJKao/zY5ZAGRA&aid=&cid=100&rn=129

[pgp_protector]

They state that they improved "Glow", Can we place a Glow object behind glass yet ?

[mnu]

thanx for the quick answers. I think R8 is very great! Can't wait to get my hands on it

cheers mnu

[RickBarrett]

Originally posted by mnu
Is the node based View only for xpression editing? if so, why?


The node based view is for editing xpressions, but these can control nearly any aspect of the software.


Is COFFEE supported via tags like in V7?

COFFEE support is even better.


What about updating to the full suite if one owns R7 and Bodypaint, how much will it cost?

Check with the sales department - they'll have better answers than me.


What about Motion Mixing. Are ther any enhancements planned?

MOCCA has lots of new character enhancements, including Pose 2 Pose.


Does the new multi selection feature integrate well? Is it possible to select five spheres and edit all there attributes simultaniously?

YES! It's phenomenal. It's very well implemented.


Are the new fcurves available in a seperate window, or is it still required to choose between sequence and curve views?

Separate window or right under the sequence. You can tab the fcurves anywhere.


Will mac users benefit from the open gl enhancements?

YES.


Will it be possible to select and move individual particles?

Not as such, but you have a lot of control over particles in TP and XPresso.


What about the modeling axis? Will they move automatically to the selected elements?

Yep.

[LucentDreams]

Originally posted by imashination
Thanks Kai for answering most of them.

Most release 6 and 7 plugins should continue to work in Release 8, although some small tweeks may have to be made. For what its worth, all of the plugins and COFFEE expressions I have tried currently work.

Hey no problem. It sort of a reward for keeping my mouth shut

Most plugins I have tried (very few) have worked great. The thing I'd like to also point oiut is that in my current huge list of plugins for XL 7.303, I seriously won't need at least a third and thats just off the top of my head, probably more won't be needed, for example no need for dynamic axis as this ability is available in XL 8, and works better IMO now too(doesn't screw up children objects placement and such):applause:

Here is a smaple of weighted HN that I was given permission to post :)

[RickBarrett]

Thanks for getting answers in there Kai & Mash - didn't read far enough.

[neilyb]

Using a vast array of polygonal modeling tools, you can easily mold a lumpy cube into almost any object. Then use CINEMA 4D's improved HyperNURBS to interactively smooth out the model, while keeping a sharp edge with point, edge or polygon weighting.

NGONS, 5 sided polys??????????

I must say the pricing looks good. BUT, I will be a student (hopefully) by fall.....can you release those prices if there are any? I would also like to mix and match, I have a full copy of Cinema 7 but will be a student.....er....what are the options?

Is Mocca a NON LINEAR animation system????? (in not much of an animator so the jargon may have confused me?)

Looks nice can't wait to get my hands on it......hope it lives up!

[marcom]

wow. cool.

but, there's one thing missing!!!!!!!
where's my "toy story button"???

marcom
:) sorry, i couln't help myself

[LucentDreams]

Originally posted by neilyb


NGONS, 5 sided polys??????????

I must say the pricing looks good. BUT, I will be a student (hopefully) by fall.....can you release those prices if there are any? I would also like to mix and match, I have a full copy of Cinema 7 but will be a student.....er....what are the options?

Is Mocca a NON LINEAR animation system????? (in not much of an animator so the jargon may have confused me?)

Looks nice can't wait to get my hands on it......hope it lives up!

Sorry I tried, but alsas this is one thing I am alllowed to confirmwill not be in XL R8, but seriously with The new Edge modeling tools you get most of the advantages of Ngons (except for actual n-sided polygons) and all the advantages of XL7's modeling architecture, and the one thing they forgot to mention in the point wighting is edgeweighting as well :) I will have a pic up of a better example as soon as I can get permission :)

As for student pricing I have noted that Cineversity is missing on the new site and mentioned it to maxon, I will get back to you on this if Rick or Mash doesn't know yet.


XL 6 had NLA, which is far more funtional in XL 8 thanks to some of the new tols in MOCCA, but MOCCA itself is not the NLA, MOCCA is specifially for CA type stuff, Soft IK allowing for easy squeash and stratch, easy rigging made super fast now, better control over bones with Upvector restraints and such. Pose 2 pose animatin abilities and the ability to mix everything together

[LucentDreams]

I thought this was an important pic to show, its on the Announcement site, but I thought it was important to show here as it is from our Very own Bunk :bowdown:

http://www.cgi.third-era.com/~kaiskai/MOCCA_Bunk.JPG

this is compressed and linked to from my site, to get the original higherquality one go to the maxon site.

[ThirdEye]

what about n-gons? do we have tris or quads again or do we have ngons?

[ThirdEye]

ooops sorry didn't look above :rolleyes:

[imashination]

There is no student pricing currently available but It would be safe to assume that there will be very low prices for students as there has always been. More on this as the release date gets closer.

Even with the phenominal numbers of new features and improvements, there will always be something which cannot be included. In this release there are no plans for polygons with more than 4 sides.

[pgp_protector]

Are there any samples of the Flash output for Cinema ?

[LucentDreams]

No flash examples that I know of,


Here is another exmple of wighted HN, this is my five minute chair, meaning everything within the scene was done in fiveminutes, modeling textures lighting. Look at te simple geometry in the top right(notice the edge selections:love: )
Also look at hoe the smoothe version has many hard edges and such, without increasing the actual geometry like you wold have to in XL 6/7 without the supernurbs plugin. This is now seperate from the vertex map unlike Supernurbs, this is far easier and wuicker to do, and wighting can be tweaked in realtime with the hold of a button and slide of the mouse it can be weighted iteractively. and point and edge weights are treated spereate unlike som other apps, so you can have negative weighting on two points and positive weighting on the ege between those two points. The model ain't much to look at but hey its only tok five minutes.

[pit]

Sounds really, really cool! - was thinking about shifting to Maya for some upcoming CA -(but hey, who needs it now?!! - i don´t!)
@Kaiskai: I´d like to know a little more about the new CA features - care to drop a line Kaiskai?

Are u danish/norwegian by any chance - Pedersen is a very common danish/norwegian name -> på forhånd tak for svaret! That was a test!

[LucentDreams]

sorry I am Canadian, my Father Danish, but I never learnt any Danish :( Still haven't gone on a trip to Denmark but someday.

Feel free to email me, but I can't say much that hasn't already been said I'm soory to say (thats a weird sentence)

[pit]

"på forhånd tak for svaret!" = Thank you for the answer (in advance).

cu

[l_farley13_l]

How about deformations etc. - I may have missed somthing - but do the new bones allow multiple strengths to be used - or manipulating the deformation in realtime? Anything else that can be said about the Claude Bonet tool?

Oh and can textures be imput into the nodes for Noise Functionality?

Oh yes and any improvement for simple clothing solutions?

ooh and vector motion blur ;)

Farley13

[slimpy]

Will XL8 allow you to change the action center for point, poly, and edge manipulation (ie. mouse, origin, object axis, and selection center)?

Please, Please, Please! :bounce:

[ThirdEye]

this question has just been done: the answer's yes, the axis is mobile

[ThirdEye]

another question about the renderer: no HDRI yet? no 3S?

[imashination]

No sub surface scattering

HDRI will be implemented as a file filter. In other words you can load HDRI images as a texture and for use in Radiosity, however the extra lighting data wll be discarded. Hence the reason for not mentioning it as a feature.

[l_farley13_l]

sorry you might've missed my post a bit up ;)

if you didn't then Oooops :)

Farley13

[slimpy]

ThirdEye,

I think you misunderstood me. Take for example, when you scale or rotate several selected polys or points... They currently are modified around the center of selection - and are not influenced by the location of the origin, object axis, or mouse click location.

If you had the option of 'mouse location' for instance, you would be able to pick any point in space by clicking the mouse - and scale/rotate/etc. around that point. This is useful when you want to keep one part of your model fixed in place while editing things around it. It is a godsend with more complex meshes.


Farley13,

Those are all good points... Unfortunately, I can't answer any of them. Vector motion blur would be nice though. :)

[kiwi]

Very nice job guys :thumbsup:



So if everything has been reduced price wise can I take it for granted that the modules like Dynamics etc if they were to purchased on their own would also be cheaper now as well,then say before R8 release at Siggraph,or do they also remain the same and only differ in prices within the bundles?



Stu.

[sunk]

well so much for not getting that second job :)

[Grey]

Anyone who knows:

I noticed that the bundles are moduled, Animation, Render Engine, etc...

does this mean the following:

1. that these are all plugins?
2. that a package like Exluna Entropy could plugin to Cinema in the same fashion?

[LucentDreams]

The main difference with these and plugins is that these integrat 100% into C4D so when you get XL, you don't feel like it is a bundle at all but ne solid app. Exluna would only plugin if they developed one, but don't expect that too happen especially since Nvidia just accquired them, I think they're focus might be a little different for the moment.

Hey Farley, I saw your questions but some of them are in the grey area of what I can/should talk about so I am taking the safe route and leaving it to someone like Rick.

[Grey]

:bounce:

I don't think they're likely to ignore C4D, if they actually try... for very long :D

[ndat]

Theres still a studnet discount... right? :argh:

[Paul L. Ming]

Hiya.

Hate to be the nay-sayer here, but I was counting on N-sided poly's. Without them, creating a human head, for example, is a royal PITA. I would even be happy if, when a 5-sided poly was created, that poly just got "deleted". You'd see a nice big hole in your model, and you can fix it yourself. Having no control over where C4D will "cut your 5-sider" is the one and only thing keeping me from buying. I need NGons! :shrug:

Other than that, I am mucho impressed! The new modeling stuff is so-o-o sweet looking! The demo .mov of the electric plug...very nice! I also like the idea of "totally integrated" plugins; this way a still-picture designer doesn't pay for animation and dynamics and whatnot. Nice! :)

[ThirdEye]

What about area shadows? Are they faster than V7?

[imashination]

Area shadows will render faster due to the general rendering speedups, but they have not been specifically targetted. Area shadows are just naturally slow Im afraid.

No more details on the vertex painting tool yet

I dont quite follow you on the question about textures, noise and nodes.

No clothing sim yet, the programmers need at least 1 hour of sleep a day.

[knight42]

I assume there will be an upgrade from R7 ART?

I only bought it 2 months ago though, so I still have to finish paying for it :D

Nice to see all those animation features at the ART price point. To think I looked at getting Maya! :eek:

[Fabian]

What about non-photorealistic rendering? Will there be improved shaders in Release 8? :hmm:

[ThirdEye]

I don't think there are new improvements in V8 but if you look at some threads in this forum you'll find some useful tips to obtain fantastic non photorealistic renders using SLA. :thumbsup:

[AdamT]

I suspect they would have mentioned improved shaders in the v.8 publicity stuff if there was anything to tell. Can you say v8.1?

[neilyb]

Anyone who uses SLA for a while realises that....well.....they are already the best!:thumbsup:
Of course we could do with a graphical layout so we can see what we are doing....would save me some ink!

[AdamT]

And for those who really need/want shader trees, Darktree will soon be available for C4D (beta Simbiont is already online). Of course that's another $500 for the full package--but it is an option.

[LucentDreams]

Thanks Adam thats what I was going to add, Thinks I would consider, is the implimentation of a node based system, I think it is a headstart to more, I mean you have to start somewhere so maybe in the not so far future???

As for easier clothing sim I would wait and see whatever may be up in the next release in Dynamics.

And as for NPR, I know nothing added, But there is a standalone NPR renderer thats will support C4D that I know is being worked on only seen threerendersfrom it, two stilland one movie, but there is one beingworked on by a third party :) and I am also working on a Shade of Cel II which I will admit will not be out upon release of R8(I'll be finishng school around then ) but will be out before christmas if all foes right.

[AdamT]

Also for cloth simulation, Messiah:Animate is now available for C4D. Its cloth simulation is *very* easy to use, but I haven't experimented enough with it yet to be able to say whether it works well for clothing. Oops, there's another $600 (but only through Aug. 7, then it's $1,100).

I imagine there will be less interest in Messiah now that v.8's been announced, but I don't regret the purchase. I should have a pretty good handle on it by the time v.8 is released Then I'll be able to compare features and ease of use. If v.8 is good enough I'll just sell my Messiah license (hopefully for a profit, since the Siggraph special will be long-gone by then. :buttrock: )

[Grey]

AdamT, I'm with you, I'm trying to gather money enough to get Messiah before the price goes up... and I will be using it with Cinema.

[l_farley13_l]

Mash & Kai - Thanks for the response

No more details on the vertex painting tool yet

ohh dang ;)

"I dont quite follow you on the question about textures, noise and nodes."

I mean are Materials/Bitmaps/precedurals accesible through the node system - I presumed yes since it seems to be a visual interface for Coffee, and shaders have been developed that use the channels to cerete geometry etc.

"No clothing sim yet, the programmers need at least 1 hour of sleep a day."

Heheh - Well I continue pouring research into it, and hopefully come up with somthing useful (with some help of course) in the meantime. Kai- Dynamics might be great, but somthing useful and low cost will really enhance the CA abilites.

Farley13

[Grey]

Farley, check this out:

Poser 5: $549
Messiah: $549 (till August)

You asked about low cost, there it is :D

[l_farley13_l]

Oh grey - :p - I'm sticking with What I got, I was talking about sub 20 to none depending on the work I have to do to make it - somthing utalitarian like simcloth for MAX.

Hell I may even try making it open source to make sure it stays up to date. I have some pretty wizbang chumps to help with the nitty gritty. Reason I posted was didn't want to put all the energy in only figure out it was easily accomplished using Ik dynaimcs or Smart Particles.

Farley13

[LucentDreams]

Well I am sure when someone has the chance, you will see the bone dynamics and thinking particles used for other dynamic stuff like perhaps cloth.

As for the material nodes like a texture tree is what you are refering too, that is not implimented yet but I think that is part of the purpose of the expresso hub to be used as sort of a base of for other node stuff like texturingg and perhaps even rendering, but this is all in my mind of happy wonderful thoughts.

[neilyb]

Would the bone dynamics be the sort where you can use it for springs and general wobbly things?

[Grey]

wouldn't you use deformers for those?

[Roger Eberhart]

Would something similar to Animation Master's smartskin be possible in V8? Could you, for instance, set up a pose for the elbow when bent at 90 degrees, then set up an expression with Xpresso to let the arm rotation drive this pose?

[robertkist]

If it has been already asked, I'll apologize for asking again....

I currently own C4D XL7, Dynamics and Bodypaint and I would like to know if I should upgrade to R8 Studio or R8 XL and if there are any updates to Bodypaint and Dynamics in R8?

My reasoning is that if there are no updates to Dynamics and Bodypaint then I should be fine with R8 XL ...right?

[AdamT]

I believe this was answered on the Postforum, and the answer was that there are no improvements to Dynamics and Body Paint. If patches are required to make those modules work with v.8 they will be provided free of charge. So in other words, you should be fine with the XL bundle.

[Caravaggio]

Hey, I noticed in what I think was the animation video example (I was on another computer with no sound, so I don't know if there was narration or not) where a leg was being lifted with control points and such, but on the bottom foot there were two lines going straight down to targets (from the end of the bone) that were parallel to the ground.

I was wondering exactly what was that?

[LucentDreams]

Tohswere nullobjectsbeing used as targets and effectors to help animte using Soft IK, basically instead of controlling the bones directly you use targets whic allows for far more control, easier to see what your doing too.

[Katachi]

yep, targets are way easier to controll than bones. Here is a simple walkcycle of mine (please consider me as a non-animator for I am actually a programmer):

http://www.the3ddesigner.de/galerie/walkcycle.gif

[AdamT]

What are those telescoping red lines coming out of the bone chains?

[sad]

hi folks,

i'vo got an idea hopefully most of you wanna support!

as i'm forced to use a tablet due to a handicap i've always missed another way of scaling the viewports. the tablet area is always too small and you have to scroll the button many times to get the right zooming level.

my idea is to add buttons in this area: http://home.arcor.de/sadbatu/cgtalk/nav.gif.

the required button might be a '+' and a '-' to increase or decrease the zooming of the viewport percentual. in addition it should be possible to predefine the value the changes use in their function - maybe in the programme-preferences of c4d.

if anybody can support this wish, i'd ask him or her to make a suggestion at the maxon website!

german suggestion-form http://www.maxon.de/pages/support/suggestion_d.html
english suggestion-form http://www.maxon.de/pages/support/suggestion_e.html

if you don't know :shrug: whether you should support that idea, let me say you this: please help me demanding that new feature! :bounce:
it would increase tablet-users c4d workflow extremely!

thank you! :applause:

[Katachi]

@AdamT: these are the targets for the SoftIK. Also used for secondary motions...

[AdamT]

Are there any tablets that have scroll wheels, cause you can also zoom using the scroll wheel.

Incidentally, if you are on a PC you should download this plugin: http://homepage2.nifty.com/aquawave/e/cafeteria/manipulate+.html

It has its own zoom control--only for perspective view, though--with user-definable zoom speed.

[sad]

thank you adamT:thumbsup:

the plugin ain't bad, but i'd really appreciate a percentual manipulation.

me personally i cannot push the right pen-button for physical reason. but that is not the huge problem. pens don't have wheels. the wacom airbrush-pen does but i don't have it.

[LucentDreams]

have you tried with and without the tablet setting in the preferences manager, Hidehiko even has a plugin to toggle the tablet setting even quicker alowwin someone like me who uses that tablet and mouse pretty much 50/50 to easily switch between them in XL.

[sad]

tablet on/off didn't solve the problem and switching on highres didn't work, too.

i can only use a tablet, so switching between tablet and mouse will not solve the issue.

hopefully maxon will include another way of moving and scaling the viewports.

[imashination]

I assume you are unable to use the tablet and keyboard simultaneously? If you are using a wacom, you will have an area at the top of the tablet with predefined areas where you can assign functions. Why not just set these to zoom the view by using the command manager?

[sad]

well, that's a good idea, thank you! (is this you, dagmar?)
:beer:

[neilyb]

A new question. Will the new rendering be able to handle depth of field without the blurring we get around the front objects? Will we also have antialaising of shadows and reflections when using Geometry mode??

[l_farley13_l]

In additon will the rendered [and "as editor"] movies have imbeded soundtracks, more useful for finalizing the animation, and timing especially.

Farley13

[LucentDreams]

remeber that the sounde plays directly in the editor in R8, no the sound doesn't render into the files directly but you can render sound just like you would in 6 and 7. The mixing should be a simple line up of the audio and video traks (as they are of the same length and such sinc thats how it works from C4D) so brining them together in even the most simple video editor should be no problem, and it allows you to have control of even 7.1 audio.

as for DOF, can't comment yet :(

[l_farley13_l]

But to keep importing it into a vid editor takes time and make the tweeking process much longer. I'm sure the sound playback is great, but with any kind of complex rig, there certainly will be lag. There is a reason for quikpreviews after all. I'll wait and see ;)

Farley13

[imashination]

Originally posted by l_farley13_l
But to keep importing it into a vid editor takes time and make the tweeking process much longer. I'm sure the sound playback is great, but with any kind of complex rig, there certainly will be lag. There is a reason for quikpreviews after all. I'll wait and see ;)

Farley13

If you can edit and view it in realtime in the editor with no lag then you wont need to do preview renders... >:)

[chrleon]

isn't there gi and caustics in r8?

or is it in the advanced render module?

[Katachi]

Originally posted by chrleon
isn't there gi and caustics in r8?

or is it in the advanced render module?

correct. It is in the advanced render module.

[davedavidson]

woooh hold the phone
i have ordered and paid for and upgrade to xl 8
does this mean i have the advance renderer or wat, this scares me if i have to pay for it as this is wat i am getting the upgrade for in the first place.

[LucentDreams]

if you got the XL upgrade you are fine :) its R8 that doesn't come with it since R8 is the basic app. the other two bundles come with advanced renderer.

[davedavidson]

thanks
well the version i am getting [that i have paid for has] pyrocluster

so i will wait to see
any news on a release date yet as i am moving soon and i dont want to get it lost in the post


also have they solved the render flickering in avis using gi ??

[LucentDreams]

Originally posted by _dd
thanks
well the version i am getting [that i have paid for has] pyrocluster

so i will wait to see
any news on a release date yet as i am moving soon and i dont want to get it lost in the post


also have they solved the render flickering in avis using gi ??

send me a file with some flickering that doesn't take too too long to render and I will solve you flicker woes, what mode of radiosity are you using?

As for release no one knows for sure but the site says fall.

[AdamT]

I believe the solution to GI flickering w/ animation is to use stochastic mode.

[LucentDreams]

If objects are moving, pretty much unles you wanna wait for the 100% accuracy renders to finish as anything lower will give flickering.

But if its just camera movement and maybe realy subtle movement oof objects you can get away with regular Rad settings, and if nothing but camera make sure to use single animation solution.

[davedavidson]

thanks guys
fall eh ohh well i can wait till then i suppose
i was just wondering on the render flicker if it had been solved in the new faster renderer

so thanks for the advice:bounce:

[kiwi]

Can anyone tell me more about these edge looping tools in 8 I have heard about? :)


Thanks

Stu.

[davedavidson]

if it is the same as meshtools then wat edge loop allows u to do is select one edge and then hit eloop and it selects all the joining edges making it easy to tweak extrude etc

[kiwi]

Thanks dd :thumbsup:


That sounds great if the tools do,do that :D



Stu.

[RickBarrett]

Originally posted by _dd
if it is the same as meshtools then wat edge loop allows u to do is select one edge and then hit eloop and it selects all the joining edges making it easy to tweak extrude etc

confirmed. that's indeed what it is.

- Rick

[kiwi]

Excellent :thumbsup:


Thanks Rick :)



Can you tell us anything about the vertex painting tools yet?,especially the one with the guys name attached to it {my memory is crap,cant remember his name}.I hope that makes sense :hmm:



Stu.

[davedavidson]

btw if r8 has any tools like meshtools for max i will be one happy happy bunny. i know there are plugins etc for cinema now that can do some of the things that meshtools can do but i havent got half of them. meshtools enhances my work flow no end.
:bounce:

[neilyb]

Whats mesh tools?

[davedavidson]

meshtools was developed for another app(not saying the name in here though)
when i am working in edit poly mode meshtools comes into play
wat it allows me to do is speed up the way i work on the mesh.
like:
edge loop

connect edges, very handy select 3 edges and hit connect and it adds and edge which joins all the edges selected.

divide edge into 2 or 3

connect verts, same as connect edges but works on verts

bevel edges

grow selection

and many more not mentioned here

like i said i know there are some for c4d but i want them inside c4d and i have not got the time to search for all the little individual ones that allow me to do this


if u want more details ask and i will find them for u, hope this helps a bit

:bounce:

[neilyb]

Ta.

I best learn the basic tools first, although I have most plugins that allow those feature underneath, but yes it would be nice to have them included, especially the edge loop tool!

[AdamT]

Very recent post by Mash on Postforum--R8 includes:

"HyperNURBS point, edge and polygon weighting, including negative weighting
Edges
Edges bevel
Edge extrude
2D edge extrude
Spline rails
spline deformers
Edge cut
New dynamic axis for editing
Multi select
Edge looping
Edge Rings
Selection filters
Spherify
Atom array
Vastly faster OpenGL for editing
Dual plane display
New export formats for a wider range of compatibility"

[davedavidson]

cheers ada t
i have ordered and paid for r8 so i just sit here waiting the delivery of it
any body go any hints on how many weeks i have to wait
and i mean hint as i know that this hasnt been decided yet, but i am curious to know when i can finally get around to seeing the best release yet

:bounce:

[Grey]

I've got a couple of people asking me where to find the Upgrade Pricelist for R8

Does anyone know?

It doesn't seem to be on the order pages...

[RickBarrett]

Here it is:

MAXONSHOP Upgrades to R8 (http://www.maxonshop.com/cgi-bin/us/gp?pg=products/upgrades.main&sid=&uid=mxVU/eUu0/QJXjE&aid=&cid=100&rn=16)

-Rick

[LucentDreams]

Honestly the new modeling tols areno Meshtols for max, but they are awesome, really speeding up the way I medel, especially Edring and edge cut, and the new Hypernurbs with point and edge weghting. Since there are no n-gons, you'll find you wil see a lot of tri's, but seriously I am modeling faster thn before. I am really impressed since this was not intended to be a modeling upgrade. I will also expect some new lpugins to go along with al the edge tools. I have a few in mind I will be approaching some of the plugin developers with as son as the R8 SDK is out whenever that is. Just keep in mind that the focus was mainly CA, and improving workflow, and that many additions are partially theree to help step up to newer more powerful feature in an easier way, You will have a lot of new things to learn in R8, if they totally change the modeling system it would be just one more thing.

[kiwi]

Is there any stitch and sew functionality like the plugin itself?


Thanks.



Stu.

[LucentDreams]

Originally posted by kiwi
Is there any stitch and sew functionality like the plugin itself?

Thanks.
Stu.

No nothing like this has been added :( That kind of stuff will be looked at whenever they start an upgrade more focused on modeling.

[kiwi]

Ah ok thanks Kai :)

[LucentDreams]

Originally posted by _dd
meshtools was developed for another app(not saying the name in here though)
when i am working in edit poly mode meshtools comes into play
wat it allows me to do is speed up the way i work on the mesh.
like:
edge loop

connect edges, very handy select 3 edges and hit connect and it adds and edge which joins all the edges selected.

divide edge into 2 or 3

connect verts, same as connect edges but works on verts

bevel edges

grow selection

and many more not mentioned here

like i said i know there are some for c4d but i want them inside c4d and i have not got the time to search for all the little individual ones that allow me to do this


if u want more details ask and i will find them for u, hope this helps a bit

:bounce:

Though ADAM posted the listed tools, I thought I would specify specifically which apply to your requests to better show what we have and what is missing and compare a bit.

Edgeloop- uhhm yes you will have this in the new version as well as a great edge ring functrion which instead of selecting the edges going along the loop, selects the perpendicular edge of the loop if that makes any sense, I use it all thew time with the new edge cut for adding details by adding loops, reeally great.

Connect edges-no sorry.

Divide edges into 2 or 3- well you could, or 4 or 5 or 18, very nice tool

connect verts- well no :(

bevel edges- yep, and works like a charm.

grow aelection- well we had this since XL 6, so of course and yes its has been expanded to work on edge slections.

THe edge extrude tool is quite amazing, not sure wat I am allowed to say about it at the moment, but I'll say it is an awesome amazing tool.

[ThirdEye]

I noticed that the principal 3D apps (LW, Max, XSI, Maya) have different feature implementation speed. You know, every year (more or less) discreet gives us a new version on Max, same thing for LW... Maya and XSI are developed faster. XSI in particular changes his version every few months, and every new version has tons of new features. XSI 2.0 was released in march and had A LOT of new things, after a few months it comes out XSI 3.0 with trim nurbs, crowd simulator, improved hair system, new explorer, bodymaker, HDRI, toon shaders, quadruped tools and a lot of other cool things. The question is: HOW OFTEN WE WILL SEE NEW C4D VERSIONS? I think there are a lot of things that could make C4D even better than v8, what's maxon policy about this?

[LucentDreams]

Originally posted by ThirdEye_01
I noticed that the principal 3D apps (LW, Max, XSI, Maya) have different feature implementation speed. You know, every year (more or less) discreet gives us a new version on Max, same thing for LW... Maya and XSI are developed faster. XSI in particular changes his version every few months, and every new version has tons of new features. XSI 2.0 was released in march and had A LOT of new things, after a few months it comes out XSI 3.0 with trim nurbs, crowd simulator, improved hair system, new explorer, bodymaker, HDRI, toon shaders, quadruped tools and a lot of other cool things. The question is: HOW OFTEN WE WILL SEE NEW C4D VERSIONS? I think there are a lot of things that could make C4D even better than v8, what's maxon policy about this?

This has less to do with policy and more to do with simple scale. I mean maya will be slowing down its development (which though great was slower than some others) since it closed down its best R&D and laid off a lot of people. Discreet is a large company of an even larger company so they have a lot of people working on their stuff, Newtek and Luxology working together keep LW moving fast, and to keep up with LW and Max, C4D has to release prettty much annually as they do. SI 3D develops at a slower pace, but SI decided to really focus on R&D for a new program callled XSI, reimplimenting a lot of the old and adding a lot of new, you'll notice many feastures are in SI 3D 4.0 that aren't in XSI, when they released XSI, 1.5 came out right after, two not too long after than, now 2.3 and 3.0 is already announced a release date. Main reason for this, their R&D and programmming departments are ginormous (not a real word) The crew at maxon is verysmall, seriously I can remeber almost everyname on the crew, definitely all the main programmers, not to mention al the big 3rd part developers outisde of Cebas, its still a small crew that I am always impressed in how well they keep up and compete, not too mention surpass. there are some features in R8 that compare more to XSI than to LW/MAX, and such so while I woulldn't sayit is a better app, it easily still competes in many if not most areas.

[AdamT]

True, Maxon's development team is very small compared to the competition's. I figure this is both a blessing and a curse. It's a blessing in that they can maintain a very tight focus and excellent quality control--witness Cinema's legendary stability. OTOH, it's a curse because it prevents them from keeping up with the number and depth of features offered by the likes of Discreet, Alias, and SI. Cinema seems to have a new release every 2-3 yrs., and each release focuses on a particular area (v.6--interface; v.7--rendering; v.8--animation). But who wants to wait another 2-3 yrs. for better modeling tools? Maybe it's time that Maxon expand its progromming department.

[LucentDreams]

Originally posted by AdamT
True, Maxon's development team is very small compared to the competition's. I figure this is both a blessing and a curse. It's a blessing in that they can maintain a very tight focus and excellent quality control--witness Cinema's legendary stability. OTOH, it's a curse because it prevents them from keeping up with the number and depth of features offered by the likes of Discreet, Alias, and SI. Cinema seems to have a new release every 2-3 yrs., and each release focuses on a particular area (v.6--interface; v.7--rendering; v.8--animation). But who wants to wait another 2-3 yrs. for better modeling tools? Maybe it's time that Maxon expand its progromming department.

VEry true very true, wouldn't mind some of those small independents programmers join the acutal team, but as for the thing about 2-3 years, Lets see we have this fall, spring/summer 2001, and fall 99 (as far as I remeber which isn't too far really) this seems to be about the 18month period, so I guess around 2 years but definitely not three, I have used four versions in 4 to 5 years of 3D

[ThirdEye]

2-3 years for a new release? No that's not true, a new release every year more or less... I hope they will be able to give us a new release every 8 months circa... :applause:

[LucentDreams]

Originally posted by ThirdEye_01
2-3 years for a new release? No that's not true, a new release every year more or less... I hope they will be able to give us a new release every 8 months circa... :applause:

I'm still curous as to how updates will work now tih the module system, I mean an update in the renderer will mostlikey be for the adnvanced renderer right so would they just apdate that???

[ThirdEye]

Good question... I think it would be great if they update frequently only a few areas, for ex. the renderer, or Dynamics, BP 3D, Pyrocluster... So they could give us a lot of new features very quickly... We miss n-gons and meshtools! :scream:

[neilyb]

Can we not also bear in mind that every time an upgrade is released we will have to pay......? So an update on the modules would not be a bad idea....providing they are always compatible with the base product...

[Paul L. Ming]

Hiya.

My quick 2¢.

Upgrades to a x.5 or a "full point" upgrade should probably be paid for. However, all other x.x upgrades should be free. Example, an "8.1" release should be free. Same with 8.2, 8.3 and 8.4. When enough has been enhanced/added to warrent an 8.5 monikrer, charage a few bucks. Then start again with the x.1, x.2, etc. When a "full point" has been added in terms of features and enhancements, another "full upgrade price" is warrented.

For me, I'm holding out for N-gons...at least quads. :)

[LucentDreams]

Originally posted by Paul L. Ming
Hiya.

My quick 2¢.

Upgrades to a x.5 or a "full point" upgrade should probably be paid for. However, all other x.x upgrades should be free. Example, an "8.1" release should be free. Same with 8.2, 8.3 and 8.4. When enough has been enhanced/added to warrent an 8.5 monikrer, charage a few bucks. Then start again with the x.1, x.2, etc. When a "full point" has been added in terms of features and enhancements, another "full upgrade price" is warrented.

For me, I'm holding out for N-gons...at least quads. :)

Uhhhmmm we have quads:) And not all C4D upgrades are charged for, only full upgrades like 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 the x.1 x.2 x.3 upgrades have always been free. and you'll notice they don't go higher than that before going to the next whole number todate. This may change but who knows how they intend to do things.

Personally I see this as being a better system since they can add new features to the advanced renderer, and possibly only have to make an upgrade for it free or charged depending on the significance of the upgrade, but it means less waiting for some of those features that are developed earlier in the process and sitt on the shelves until a full upgrade is planned.

[Paul L. Ming]

Hiya.



Uhhhmmm we have quads :)


Hehe. My bad. I wasn't thinking there. :) What I mean, is n-gon's or "automatic quads". For "automatic quads" I'm talking about when, for example, I have 4 poly's and use the Knife tool to cut through 3 of them...right down the middle. As it is now, the 4th poly will become divided into 3 triangles. What I want it to do is cut that 4th poly into 3 quad poly's. (basically, make one triangle and one quad...and then cut the quad in half; giving use 2 quads that are "next to" the cut, and a single tri. I can then go in and manipulate whichever virtex(es) I want/need to). Did that make sense?

Anyway, n-gon's would be even better! :)

[ThirdEye]

One of the coolest (but simple) things in new 3ds Max 5 (or even in SI|XSI) is the possibility to costrain multiple axis (when moving, scaling, rotating) graphically using the mouse with pivots without losing time checking in the toolbar 2 of the X, Y, Z. Do we have any similar feature to costrain more than one axis with pivots or do we have to constrain one axis maximum?

[LucentDreams]

sprry but I am confused by this, I am not sure what you mean. In XL 6 even you can click on any of the three axis of the control axis and manipulate the object according to that specific axis, isn't this the same thing?

[Per-Anders]

not quite... the image he posts shows trapezoids between the axis handles, you can click and drag on those and the object only translates on those planes, thus you can choose to move the object not just locked to the y axis, but to teh xy plane, or the yz plane.... it's just a nice little feature

[Per-Anders]

actually what i'd like are the handles from Maya... maybe with this feature added, they're just nice and responsive... you can see how far you're rotating an object from the angle shown etc... they have a good feel to them imho... but maybe if they don't appear in teh release perhaps someone will program a plugin for this

[LucentDreams]

seams to me that typing x while modeling isn't to hard to make sure that you only move along the yZ if needed.

[ThirdEye]

@Kaiskai: I agree with you Kai, it's not so hard to type a letter, but I think i would type the right letter only in default axis position... I'm sure I'd go wrong typing X,Y or Z if the pivots were rotatad or translated... (I make that mistake every time :rolleyes: ....)

@Mdme_sadie: look this shot, it's a Max 5 shot about rotating: is it the same of Maya, isn't it?

[Per-Anders]

yes, it looks like it. the maya handles are just so nice... i wish i could program cos then i'd write a new handle script for c4d... in fact some of the tools (for instance poly extrude) in maya have the combined handles of all three translation tools (move, scale, rotate), and it strikes me that really... why do you need seperate move rotate and scale tools at all? the way maya handles it is very nice and responsive (one of my critisisms of the tools in c4d they're slightly lagging and slow, you wanna rotate something and click on the handle for the axis... but then you move the mouse halfway accross the desk before anything happens... *sigh* i guess i should continue with working on learning c++ if i want this to change.

[Per-Anders]

here's a shot of the multiple handle thing in maya. it's the nice things like, all the handles apart from the one you're using dissapear while modifying (only during the click drag), then once you've clicked a handle or used it once it stays sticky so you can use the middle mouse button clicking anywhere on screen to edit that axis/rotation/scale, which is just plain useful in certain situations where handles move behind other things or you want to dolly the scene around. and when you use the rotate tool the feedback is really nice, and you get that little angle measurement and arc displayed (as in the max shot), when using the scale tool the handle moves with the cursor as the object scales relatively to the handle, it just feels... nice. the other really nice thing is the control over the viewports, the alt click left mouse button to rotate, middle to move, and right to zoom, it's just nicer than pressing 1, 2 and 3... and the speed of the feedback from those is great, lightwave does something similar... the other thing that i love in lightwave is the space to switch between editing modes (points, polys, volume) just makes editing so much faster. but hey the new v8 may fix a lot of these issues, hopefully the speed of feedback from the handles and viewports will be much better thanks to the new opengl support, and maybe the overall feel and feedback will be more responsive.

try out Maya PLE and the lightwave demo to see what i mean about the speed of feedback, and the feel of their handles/viewport manipulations. it's just... yummy.

[ThirdEye]

I agree with you. I hoped things change in v8 but I think we have to wait a script from someone...

[RickBarrett]

Originally posted by ThirdEye_01
Do we have any similar feature to costrain more than one axis with pivots or do we have to constrain one axis maximum?

Just shift-click on the axis to constrain. i.e. to move just on the xz plane shift-click on the y axis and drag. Is that what you're looking for?

- Rick -

[ThirdEye]

Fantastic! I didn't know this! :thumbsup:

[neilyb]

...to add to that when I shift-leftclick on the Y-axis I can translate on the x axis and if I shoft - RIGHTclick on the y axis it translates on the z axis.....or is that the other way around.....? Anyway, thats a cool trick.....one day I WILL open the manual!

[tkay]

Spline patching?

[LucentDreams]

no spline patching :( but as it has been said many times now, the focus of this release was not modeling so do not fret yet :)

[Mike Hooma]

Is there any news on better object motion blur?:curious: :deal:

[Per-Anders]

it would be nice if there were better object motion blur and the ability to render out half frames (as in render frame 1, then render frame 1.5) or even if it were possible to have a little bit more control over the standard scene motion blur (so we could take it down to just two passes and up to a few more passes than it currently gives).

The best sort of vector blur would be one that checked not just the difference between two frames but the difference between four or six frames (frames to either side of the currently rendering frame) to get a curve for blurring, rather than just a straight vector, obviously this owuld take longer, but it would still be so much faster than full scene motion blur.

[imashination]

You can render half frames. If your project is 24fps, set it to render at 48fps and you will have these half frames.

More options have been added for scene motion blur, no more details on these right now though.

[Caravaggio]

What exactly is a half frame? Does it display shorter or is it some kind of interlacing?


I wanted to ask, about the mouse movement motion capture, is there an option to set what I guess would be the sampling rate? I mean I have a picture in my mind of it creating a spline like object or a path line, but how does it decide where to put the points? Can you change the sensitivity to get even the finest jerks or make it low so that it's more graceful?

[Per-Anders]

half frames are good for object (vector) motion blur. you can set a vector motion blur on an object and if the render engine takes into account half frames then it will create a smoother blur taking into account changes in direction a little bit more...

the whole render engine would be better if it worked like the open gl system in that it only rendered what had changed between frames... that would speed up animation a lot, as so often (especially when you're just doing tests) you only have one or two objects moving in a scene, and the camera isn't always moving.

[AdamT]

Unfortunately there are no changes to motion blur.

[kiwi]

Can you tell us anything about this new vertex tool yet?



Stu.

[LucentDreams]

Sorry stu which vector tool?

As for motion blur not allowed to say what the new little additions were, and while not awesome vector motion blur, you will notice more control, optimisation allowing for faster and nicer renders.

on the Cappucino front (the mouse capture thing) I haven't used it extensively, but basically it places a key frame eat every frame, I know this sounds crazy and a little hardcore, and you may have noticed an example highly ridiculed on Postforum, posted by a learning artist, one of the newer but very talented third party programmers, that looked like it was stop motion animation (very cool I thought) Basically thsi was because of the many key frames created, causing astiffer jerky motion. You'll notice the site mentions a new Key reducer tool, this goes hand in hand with the new Cappucino tool, since you do you motion capture, and then reduce the keys, which tries to keep the curves as close as possible, but makes an overall smoother animaton whith the most optimised number of key frames. Works wonderfully, handy for camera animation too.

[kiwi]

Vertex tool bud,the one that is named after a guy.I cant remember his name for the life of me :)....I am assuming its a painting tool of some kind for the vertex tags.



Stu.

[kiwi]

I got off my bum and had a look for it :D


The Claude Bonet vertex painting tool.

[neilyb]

What would be cool would be a cut down (Lite) version of some other tools, like with Lightwave....such as Shave Lite or Bodypaint Lite......:D :D

[LucentDreams]

Hmm not too sure what too say about claude bonet, not too sure what I can say, let just leave it as easier and faster than the ol vertex maps, but specifically for bones, so it isn't applied to things like Dirtynuts, or supernurbs or anything like that.

[Per-Anders]

I have a question... and this is an animation/fx thing (as i know this is what the main focus has been of this update). Has explosion FX been updated in C4D 8? I just ask because while the current version is quite cool it does rely on the poly facces in the object for it's shatters... which isn't really very realistic for most things and it kinda defeats the object of having a tool to create good explosions without having to set up lots of complex geometry (which might make using the model very difficult or getting the animation rigged model to look identical to the explosion rigged model)... ok if that sounded incomprehensible let me give a link to a plug for lightwave which has an example of what i mean...

http://mapage.noos.fr/webto/lscriptInfo.html

see the way that the object has been broken accross the polys with a fractal interior... far more realistic (and without damaging the geometry as badly as normal boleans tend to it would appear... ah ngons)

[Per-Anders]

or alternatively... is the thinking particles add on the same as the max one? is it the full package? including Blurb, Frag-Deform, Fragments, Object Access, Color Blend, Paint with particles etc... or is it a specific release for c4d that doesn't have the full functionality of the max version?

http://www.cebas.com/products/products.asp?UD=10-7888-33-788&PID=15

[LucentDreams]

Originally posted by mdme_sadie
I have a question... and this is an animation/fx thing (as i know this is what the main focus has been of this update). Has explosion FX been updated in C4D 8? I just ask because while the current version is quite cool it does rely on the poly facces in the object for it's shatters... which isn't really very realistic for most things and it kinda defeats the object of having a tool to create good explosions without having to set up lots of complex geometry (which might make using the model very difficult or getting the animation rigged model to look identical to the explosion rigged model)... ok if that sounded incomprehensible let me give a link to a plug for lightwave which has an example of what i mean...

http://mapage.noos.fr/webto/lscriptInfo.html

see the way that the object has been broken accross the polys with a fractal interior... far more realistic (and without damaging the geometry as badly as normal boleans tend to it would appear... ah ngons)


IWhat Ngons, the image shown on that site is quads and tri's.

[Per-Anders]

the sphere is made of quads... but if you look the crack goes through several of the quads spliting them to pents and septs. look on the edge where the tri's (from the newly made interior) meet the quads (on the exterior) this allows the outside to nicely follow the random tri's nicely wihtout there being any strange edges... most of the quads that meed the edge in the picture have more than four points (corners) on them... hence they're no longer quads... but ngons (which lightwave supports happily)

[LucentDreams]

save it to your harddisk and open it up in a program that can zoom, I guarantee you the are only quads and tris. everything within the cut are tri's, and the outer edge consists of skewed quads and tri's.

[Per-Anders]

This is really getting silly... i've highlighted the ngons and their points (download the image yourself and zoom in)... lightwave has full... and that means full support for ngons (up to some stupid number of sides), it's not something it has to defend itself about and certainly it's never been under question, it's had this for a long time. please this was never meant to be an attack on c4d not having ngons yet... this upgrade was about animation/effects, not modelling, so that's understandable... ngons have a whole heap of coding problems that come with them, and it's worth really takeing the time to get them right rather than just putting in a quick fix. all i wanted to know was... has the explosionfx object been updated to split polys inside, and is the cebas thinking particles plugin the full package as seen on their website for max? this was and never has been an attack, if it ever seemed as such please accept my humble apologies... i am just excited about the new release and want to know about it, but i also want to have full reality check on it's capabilities. there has never been any offence meant.

[LucentDreams]

Yes we all know that lightwave has ngons, but this plugin has nothing to do with them with a fractal triangulation forumla like that, its simply creating tris.

As for ngons we probably won't have them in next version either IMO, just speculating though. Just curious as to who out of all these people requesting Ngons have actually used them, seriously I spend as much time ridding my self of ngons as I now do with tri's.

But if you really need ngons, C4D R8 is capable the exact same way as the good ol max ngons :) Its all a matter of inginuity, and they look the exact same as a model consisting of quads ;) those who know Max's history will know what i mean, and maybe this little pic will help.


http://www.cgi.third-era.com/~kaiskai/wingededges.jpg

sometimes its all in the eye of the beholder :)

[kiwi]

Is thinking particles the same as the Max version Kai?......{Stu salivating in corner :D }


Sadie I know what you mean about the excitement,I am 34 years old and the release of a software package can make me act Like a child at Christmas time once more :scream:


Stu.

[ThirdEye]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Kaiskai

As for ngons we probably won't have them in next version either IMO, just speculating though. Just curious as to who out of all these people requesting Ngons have actually used them, seriously I spend as much time ridding my self of ngons as I now do with tri's.


Now I tell you why a lot of people desire n-gons: I think everyone here tried following some (especially organic) modeling tutorials for other packages, 3dsMax, XSI, Maya, Lightwave, even mirai. C4D lacks of tutorials and everyone follows the tutorials conceived for other software, you know... subdee are subdee in C4D, Max, XSI... In those tutorials the use of ngons is MASSIVE. And to say all the truth ngons are useful, they keep clean the mesh and help the modeling process... If almost every package has them there will be a reason... :P


But if you really need ngons, C4D R8 is capable the exact same way as the good ol max ngons :) Its all a matter of inginuity, and they look the exact same as a model consisting of quads ;) those who know Max's history will know what i mean, and maybe this little pic will help.


Did you erase the lacking edges in Photoshop or WinPaint? :scream:

[AdamT]

The R8 version of Thinking Particles does not include the functions of Matter Waves, as the standalone version does.

[Per-Anders]

Woah... so do you mean that if you buy the studio package, or the xl bundle you don't get as good plugins as if you were to buy them seperately?

[AdamT]

Woah... so do you mean that if you buy the studio package, or the xl bundle you don't get as good plugins as if you were to buy them seperately?
I'm sorry, I wasn't clear. The MAXON version of TP is different from the Cebas version for 3ds Max. I'm sure the module version of TP for R8 will be exactly the same as the XL Bundle and Studio versions.

[Per-Anders]

:hmm: on the once again we're not getting the same deal as max users from cebas.

as for how useful are ngons... well, i for one like to be able to knife object polys without the package automatically adding polys to the surrounding poly faces (which i then have to manually remove before they mess up my mesh *bleh*). It speeds up the whole process of detail out modelling, and also dealing with architectural models, it's just so useful to have that extra level of control when making a mesh... in fact i can't think of a modelling situation (except modelling primitives) that it's not useful in fact during the modelling process... and sure you may not want to have any ngons in the finished mesh (which is why those packages that handle ngons have plenty of tools and plugins for dealing with their optimised splitting) but it's sure as hell useful, and once you have used ngons, when you find yourself limited you know what you are missing. (btw with that sphere... i've never seen a quad with bent sides before... must be a new kind :) ). Don't poo poo the idea simply because it's not in the new release and the new release must be the epitome of perfection, therefore ngons are evil and wrong. They're useful, we'll just have to wait, so there's not much point even wondering about them for the moment till the upgrade that concentrates on modelling features comes out. C4D still rocks even without ngons. It's just nice, like having a V8 under the bonnet. ;)

[ThirdEye]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by mdme_sadie
[B]:hmm: on the once again we're not getting the same deal as max users from cebas.

I Agree: i.e. finalRender is faster than XL GI engine and has a lot of features we don't have (hdri, SSS, faster Brute Force radiosity, Toon and cel render, shadow shape sensible to bump mapping...), now also Thinking Particles... :rolleyes: am I wrong or Cebas should develop his products inside Maxon?

[LucentDreams]

mdme_sadie I am not saying that ngons are evil trust me I learned on Nendo and Miari at the same time I started on XL 5.3/6. I will be teching Mirai and XL7 together in Noemebr as well.

What I am saying is you spend as much time getting rid of Ngons as you do with tri's if you aren't a careful modeler. But to keep bitching and whining about NGON's especially those that want it cause they saw it in some tutorial somewhere, is as naive as maxon not getting them in yet. I am fully capable of modelign the same object in either Mirai or C4D with the same amount of difficulty. I can see many XL users going nuts when they start using Nendo or mirain and realise they can't delete a polygon, caus e they can't have holes. Now if its like Max where they now have Half edge instead of winged edge, then you can have holes and ngons, which is pretty cool, so if you want what is wuickly become the bst SubD modeler, Max 5 isn't a bad place to look dare I say it.

And to third eye, you obviously don't know the history of max and there ngon support, so I'll let you do some research, I know in one of the many threads, maybe earlier in this one, I made a little spiel about it. But this is a true screen cap from R8, only post was cropping the image in photoshop. If you still can't figure out how this was done let me know and I'll explain, last thing we want is someone else thnking that now C4D actually does have winged edge or halfede support when it doesn't.

[ThirdEye]

quote:
If you still can't figure out how this was done let me know and I'll explain, last thing we want is someone else thnking that now C4D actually does have winged edge or halfede support when it doesn't.


No, I can't figure out how this was done in R8... can you explain it to me? It seems very interesting...

[Per-Anders]

Well I don't know how that was done in r8 so i'd like to know :)

I really wasn't bitchin and whining about ngons till you took that one statement in a reasonable question and blew that up completely ignoring the question and everything else stated or asked... I don't really give a damn about ngons I can model in another package if I really want them, believe me this isn't about seeing them in some tutorial elsewhere, this is about real life industry experience. Please do try not to be so touchy about it.

If a client asks me a question I give a straight answer, even if I can't give a definitive answer "How long is a stick?" I'll try, and I'll cover the points that they ask and not get sidetracked. Even if they ask the same question repeatedly. If I don't then the client isn't going to be patient with me. They'll simply walk away, after the project is over they're going to walk away and not walk back. After all it's their money and time.

I had thought this thread was about answering questions on c4d release 8 which is a good thing and something we're all looking forward to, and something that all of us want to know all about so we can make a decision based on real knowledge as to whether it's worth us upgrading/purchasing afresh or whatever, or if we should be thinking about the alternatives. The thing is part of a package is it's community. I think this subject is now closed.

[LucentDreams]

Main reason I didn't tackle the question is because I don't know, I haven't done any serious testing of thinking particles outside of making an emitter. I simply haven't had the time to test this feature, mainly because it is a more advanced feature I knoew nothing about before starting with. CA on the other hand is something I have experience with, as well as rendering and modeling, so these are areas I focused my testing on along with the new gui itself. I do know that matterwaves is not a part of C4D TP, but I am unsure about blurb and all that stuff as I haven't tested it. I have scene some really inginuitive examples from other testers though.

The explosion deformer has not been changed AFAIK.

And for the ngon trick, Basically the object is the exact same as the normal quads object next to it, only difference is that some edges were selected and then hidden. This is what Max was infamous for when they first had Ngon support, it was still quads and tri's but any edgeswere automatically hidden to make tri's appear be part of a quad thus making an nsided poly. Really got laughed at, users really complained and luckily Discreet learned there lesson, and ow they have made sure to really impliment Half edge technology, with good SDS capabilities, and handy modeling tools.

[Per-Anders]

Interesting that r8 would bring this feature back... but i presume then that r8 must have improved modelling tools in the respect of hiding/showing individual polys/points/edges on the object you're working on which is rather useful. Thanks :)

[ThirdEye]

Originally posted by Kaiskai
And for the ngon trick, Basically the object is the exact same as the normal quads object next to it, only difference is that some edges were selected and then hidden. This is what Max was infamous for when they first had Ngon support, it was still quads and tri's but any edgeswere automatically hidden to make tri's appear be part of a quad thus making an nsided poly. Really got laughed at, users really complained and luckily Discreet learned there lesson, and ow they have made sure to really impliment Half edge technology, with good SDS capabilities, and handy modeling tools.

3ds Max old versions hide edges automatically so it seems it is a n-gons based software. Do we have to hide edges manually or is it the same as Max 3-4?

[LucentDreams]

its manual, see the thng is its hard to control a model when you have tri's and hrd to get rid of tris when you can't see them normally.

[AdamT]

For the record, I think n-gons are very useful for modeling. I started out using trueSpace which allows unlimited n-gons *and* holes.

It's true that you eventually have to clean them up (although 5-sided polys can be useful), but the thing is you only have to clean up the n-gons you create. Cinema forces you to clean up a zillion triangles that you had no intention of creating. So with n-gons you make one and keep modeling--intending to get back to it later. With Cinema, you have to stop what you're doing and fix all the frickin tris just to continue. That's the difference, IMO.

I think the best way to get around Cinema's limitation is to not worry too much about tris during the first modeling pass. Sure, avoid them if possible, but if it hangs you up just make the tri and get back to it later.

[neilyb]

B]"Cinema forces you to clean up a zillion triangles that you had no intention of creating. "???? [/B]
Is that not like saying "The drill made all those holes"....?...

;-)

[Per-Anders]

he means (for example) if you take a basic cube (or any shape that you're working on in poly mode really) and knife just one face, c4d will split the faces around the poly to keep the faces down to quads and tris. Sometimes you want to be able to split just one face because splitting all the faces with one knife action isn't always desireable... for instace you may want to have completely different splits on the other faces. Here's a very simple example. You're making a simple house model. Basically it's L shaped from above. You come to the roof, an easy way of doing the roof would be to knife diagonally from the inside corner of the L to the outside corner, then to knife the two roof polys along the "bridge" line... simple you would have thought, after all the resultant geometry would be quads. In c4d you would have to select one poly, split in two, select whichever of the remaining polys (which c4d would have created to keep the sides down) has the roof bridge in it and split that along the bridge, then you would have to go around cleaning up the excess polys, no matter what you do with this example in order to get a nice clean mesh you're going to have to clean up polys that you never really wanted to be there in the first place. which in this case is no biggy... but if you're working on something a little more organic, or complex it can start to get really annoying after a while. This is what Adam is talking about.

[neilyb]

It would be nice I agree, but isn't this where practice and planning comes into it? I remember using Animation:Master, many moons ago, and it had 5 sided patches and a thing called hooks (you could join a point onto a spline between two points without creating a new point or join.....fantastic when used in the right place!) and I remember thinking..."How would we manage without them?" well I guess in Cinema we have to......till all 3d software catches up to all the other 3d software.....

Basically all I am saying is, why are we bitching here...Maxon know what we want, let's leave them to program it!

[ThirdEye]

@Kaiskai: Can you show us any possibilities about the new "edge cut" tool?

[AdamT]

We're not bitching--just discussing!

[kiwi]

While working on my Castle scene lately I thought it would be cool if you could drag and drop a selectionl tag on top of another and create a layer set kind of like Photoshop has so you can keep track {in a tidy manner} of say all tags for a building on the right in one master tag,maybe with different colors for them as well,then you just open the master tag and select another tag in the menu :)........or am I missing something in C4D that lets you do this sort of thing already?



Cheers


Stu.

[Mike Hooma]

In the dog ears soft IK example it seems like the ears don't have any collision detection with the head this would make its use quite restrictive. Whats the deal? a simple sphere collision detection would do the trick I guess, could you add this with thinking particles?
I'm gonna need a good manual with v8!:p

[darf]

Originally posted by Kaiskai
Main reason I didn't tackle the question is because I don't know, I haven't done any serious testing of thinking particles outside of making an emitter.

Welcome to the emiiter only club. TP is the most confusing conumdrum I have ever set my eyes upon ( yes, the statement was intentionally retarded ). You want collision? Hope you can install a manifold.

frad :insane:

[fxgogo]

Well I hope you all have six months to take off to learn TP. It looks scary. Degree cources will be offered .... ;)

[LucentDreams]

howabout a 300 someodd page manual for just that module? Not surew how big its gonna be, but needless to say module manuals are seperate books. TP's could very well be near the size of C4D's IMO. For colission and such I think many will stick to the fizz plugin simply because it is easy to use. Funny how a plugin is easier than the built in dynamics and the new TP. Expresso itself will take a while for most users to get used to, TP on top of that is quite a handful.

[Per-Anders]

Oh well... I presume we're talking considerably more complex to use than even maya's particle system right? Oh well... do you know... do you need the dymanics module to get tp to do particle collision effects? it's just you mention that it's:

Funny how a plugin is easier than the built in dynamics and the new TP.

Which ups the price from XL to Studio kinda for a basic feature of particles.

Oh well regardless, time to get some nice comfy cushions for a good long read....

[darf]

Originally posted by mdme_sadie
Oh well... I presume we're talking considerably more complex to use than even maya's particle system right? Oh well... do you know... do you need the dymanics module to get tp to do particle collision effects? it's just you mention that it's:

Which ups the price from XL to Studio kinda for a basic feature of particles.

Oh well regardless, time to get some nice comfy cushions for a good long read....

For me it is more of a workflow issue. I started writing a boid system a while back ( think particles that basically have a rule based AI and locomotion that can be defined ). I want complete control for what I am doing and the ability to really refine it. Can someone stop time for about five years so I can catch up? ;-)

darf

[LucentDreams]

mdme_sadie I was refering to the fizz plugin which I still feel is the best/cheapest route for particle dynamics at this moment in C4D. Siplest to use, and decent resutls. TP does its own collision detection if you set it too, and much more, but its up toyou to learn how, hope the maxon tutorials are goopd for these, I have a collection of samples, and still don't know where to start myself with lack of computer programming.

Dynamics doesn't do particle dynamics, which is the main problem with dynamics, so I see little use in it yet myself, as I would prefer to do clothing and such myself anyways, far more control, though I like to K.I.S.S. (keep it simple stupid) so I do characters with clothes as part of the model or no clothes at all. Makes it easy yo not worry about clothing dynamics.

[darf]

Originally posted by Kaiskai
does its own collision detection if you set it too, and much more, but its up toyou to learn how, hope the maxon tutorials are goopd for these, I have a collection of samples, and still don't know where to start myself with lack of computer programming.

FYI: Does not help. **** The rest of this message was removed as it has been deemed censored by interpretation of the MAXON NDA ****

We will see how they do with documentation for v8 and the v8 SDK. At this point I am still to confused to know which way is up.

darf

[Caravaggio]

New question.

What about shortcut keys? I think off the top of my head switching to "move" is the m key right? But there isn't one for selection, when I'm point moddeling it's a little strange going from the work area to the top of the screen just to be able to select points again (I mean like entire groups where shift clicking would be tedious). Is there a key assignment to the select tools now?

Or have I just not found it yet?

[Per-Anders]

space bar... tap once to go to select mode, then once to go back to the last tool i think, or it might be to the last manipulator only

[Caravaggio]

:surprised.................:rolleyes:................:)

[darf]

Originally posted by darf
**** The rest of this message was removed as it has been deemed censored by interpretation of the MAXON NDA ****

Since you feel the need to censor and claim I broke a very serious agreement I expect the moderator to explain what content was considered offensive.

David Farmer

[Grey]

I just remembered that BodyPaint isn't just a module, it's also a stand alone...

Will some or all of hte other modules also be stand alone?

[LucentDreams]

I doubt it grey, I mean maybe dynamics would be useful to some people using other apps, but BP was focused as a stand alone mainly towards max and Lightwave, they don't realy need dynamics programs so I doubt the it will be standalone as well. the others all are specificaly design for C4D and will likely stay thus, though its impossible to know what maxon will do. As well many are products that are also Cebas, which I highloy doubt would be allowed to be made standalone.

[Grey]

what about MOCCA?

[LucentDreams]

As good as mocca may be, seriously anyone looking at an outside CA app to use with their app shouldn't look outside of messiah animate, that would be rough competition. I just don't see MAxon doing it, but I don't know

[Grey]

I haven't yet seen Mocca up close, but I have seen MA, and I'm hoping Cinema follows its tradition of incorporating the best features of the best applications in this case... Currently waiting to see...

[LucentDreams]

Mocca's main feature is Soft IK, which I must say is truly in a league of its own, not necessarily better or worse, but totally different from say M:A or MAYA.

[MJV]

Originally posted by Kaiskai
Mocca's main feature is Soft IK, which I must say is truly in a league of its own, not necessarily better or worse, but totally different from say M:A or MAYA.

Oh please.:shame:

[LucentDreams]

well it is different. not that we can discuss what is different, but it is different. they have far more functional Hard IK than we do for sure, but do they have something similar to SIK from you experience, I don't know maya really so I can't say for them, but Trust me M:A is very different from SIK.

[kiwi]

Seeing as 8 is going to be released soon,are you going to give us the full noise on all the new features without any restrictions soon?,or are we going to have to wait until we get our hands on 8 to find out some of this stuff? :)



Oh ya are there still going to be small updates to Pyro,BP3D etc etc as well for 8 release?


Cheers

Stu.

[derwolpertinger]

and plz someone tell me that the r8 will have texture trees for the sla shaders!!:bounce:

[AdamT]

FYI, this is from the Messiah board:

"Ah, I think they call it SoftIK in C4D, it's a very cool looking effect. I wrote a spring script (in the files section) for messiah that can create similar effects to C4D's softIK (I was inspired by all the C4D softIK demo movies :). It can do the tail example you gave, it's not as powerful as the full SoftIK implementation, but it can be used to do automatic 'springy' secondary motion on a per-channel basis."

[LucentDreams]

Your gonna have to wait until its in your hands ;)

As for BP and such I'm ot sure how maxon is planning on doing it

[flingster]

Kaiskai ->
Do you know whether BP becomes BP v8 and gets new features? And if it does what exactly?
Cheers

[LucentDreams]

No new features in the version being released with studio. Any update prvided for BP or dynamics will likely be for the purpose of R8 compatibility. right now the only thng with new features will be r8 and the new modules, current existing plugins that will be modules have no new features. I suggest for more info on that you might want to check with your maxon representitive.

[Per-Anders]

i have a question about r8. in the preview pictures I've seen there have been a few where the timeline has some enhancements, as in it looks like you can open up the track for any parameter and it has acceleration/time/space curves right there underneath editable like after effects has.

Now am I being confused and it's not that, but just motion group blends? (as in r7). Or is it like the after effects timeline (that i personally love)? (which would be wonderful). If so does it have the intuitive bezier curve control of after effects, and/or tension type control (as in different types of curve to bezier, such as stepped, linear or other tension based curves)?

[LucentDreams]

Sorry I'll have to leave that one for Rick or Mash, partlyu cause I don't know what I'm allowed to say on the matter, and also cause I don't know much of anything about AE I have only used it for the most basic compositing. :(

[visualsee]

Will C4DXL8 be able to generate a UV map that I can paint on with Photoshop or will I need Bodypaint for this? I know there are some free plug-ins that do this, but I'm curious if this functionality is now built-in like in LW or other similar packages?

[AdamT]

Why is the NDA still in effect when the R8 CD has already shipped in Germany, and will be shipping in the US/Canada Monday? Or to put it another way, I don't think you can be bound by the NDA since the product is now public.

[darf]

Originally posted by AdamT
Why is the NDA still in effect when the R8 CD has already shipped in Germany, and will be shipping in the US/Canada Monday? Or to put it another way, I don't think you can be bound by the NDA since the product is now public.

The NDA is about being a beta tester not the current version. What can be said is based on what MAXON thinks should be said ( I have not always been clear on what that is ). To say what they think should not be said even if it has not been defined is to violate the unspoken trust of the that which has never been spoken. Anyway, I will no longer speak of things that should not be said even if they have been spoken in circles of non-speaking.

To be clear, MAXON stated they did not censor me. Someone else must have been !@#$ing with me. Don't I feel special...

frad

[AdamT]

Now I see. The NDA actually requires you not to say things that Maxon doesn't like, regardless of the topic. As your attorney I would advise you not communicate with other sentient beings.

[flingster]

Darf....I'm sure you appreciate being appreciated...so if MAXON are finding it hard to get in touch with their feelings....then please don't let that deter you in anyway with continuing to develop innovative solutions to innovative problems. C4D users appreciate this even if MAXON are not touchie feelie enuff to come to terms and tell you they really care for their development community.

In short "they will learn grasshopper...." all corporate machines do eventually or they go out of business. A degree of commercial confidence must take place with beta testers but as always this confidence works both ways both parties essentially gaining from the experience....hence when enforcing these issues I think common sense should rule....which in this case seems to have elluded someone at MAXON
:shame:

[Per-Anders]

OMG don't even suggest that Darf might ever consider leaving developing for C4D!!! Major Panic attack!

I think it would be good if Maxon were to be a little bit more proactive in these forums though. I mean, go and look at the Newtek threads here and they've got some people who work at Newtek there geeing poeple along, and giving out advice, links to cool things, feedback etc... (namely Proton). I just think it would be a good thing for Maxon to do too, give people a warm buzz about the package that they're using, and build up a bit more community spirit etc


----------------------------------------
(hem hem hem as wet sop community studies school master used to lecture to us, tho he have to blow his nose five times or more first before being able to see through eyes that look like cooks worst slimy eggs due in no small part to countless allergies, and he have to go for lie down in the staff room after playing soppy folk music on his guitar unbeknownst to him detuned by his faithful class before each ear popping malady... hur hur hur).

[AdamT]

There's a pretty big Maxon presence on Postforum. Mash and Srek are regulars, with others piping in from time to time.

[Per-Anders]

they may be here... but, well... it's like Proton is in that forum all the time, literally which is really good for the lightwave users, i mean, it's just a case of looking at his whole attitude and everything, also the constantly getting peoplet to send in their work to newtek, like it's a good image, so send it in to the lightwave gallery, or here's a way of doing something that i've found, and he's like, hey could i have a tutorial out of you for the website? And the guy seems to really know the software and the industry as someone who's just using the software all the time professionally, but he's being paid to sit and coax people through... dunno if that makes any sense. His concerns are aligned with the regular users. And that's kinda what might be a good ol marketing ploy for Maxon... i mean more tutorials wouldnt go amiss, and more being made of the capabilities of the software either (it's not like C4D has any major limitations anymore that can't be overcome with a little lateral thinking), and more being made of the maxon gallery... things like that, it'd just be good to have someone who's just paid to be out there in the community more rallying people together a bit, and expanding the community... that's all. Mash & Srek are good, but they're busy with their own projects and can't be expected to hang around the forums all the time, and it's not like we really see them on pretty much every thread... hey, i just think it would be a good idea, a good way to get people feeling like their a little closer to Maxon, and it's not such a distant corporate thing. That's all :shrug:

[MJV]

Madam Sadie, maybe they should hire you. :thumbsup:

[Per-Anders]

What?!?!?!? Be paid to go around forums posting answers to peoples questions and play around with C4D all day long? Paid to sit here and come up with new ideas for websites and software and workarounds?!?!?!? LOL I Wish!!!! Hell I'd take that job in an instant! (provided it paid comparitively to my current freelance rates of course ;) )

[kiwi]

There should be a number of Maxon people rock on through here as 8 is released I would think.



That is a really good idea that Newtek have.Maybe they have realised that the way to the users is indeed through the forums :)



Stu.

[imashination]

Originally posted by mdme_sadie
it'd just be good to have someone who's just paid to be out there in the community more rallying people together a bit, and expanding the community... that's all. Mash & Srek are good, but they're busy with their own projects and can't be expected to hang around the forums all the time, and it's not like we really see them on pretty much every thread... That's all :shrug:

If I could convince my boss to let me hang around on forums all day, writing extra tutorials and persuading users to send in work they've done, I would be a happy man. There is a very simple problem though, money. Although it would be very beneficial to the whole community and even increase sales through good feeling, these improvements wouldn't be as great as if I (or rather 'we') were doing something else.

For example I personally make X amount by training users, generate X amount of promotion by preparing and attending shows. I also improve the product by X amount from writing manuals and offering technical support.

Most of our postings are made on here during our free time, simply because this program is something we enjoy using.:thumbsup:

[AdamT]

It's much appreciated, too. But it would be cool to have a full-time (or 1/2 time?) Maxon rep. on the forums.

[Per-Anders]

Mash... perhaps you should show your bosses threads like these:

http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=22892

then maybe you could convince maxon to either allow you to be online fulltime, or to hire someone to fulfill that position.

[flingster]

mdme_sadie: an excellent point well made.

Its all about company culture really, and cost fundamentals, maybe an organisation like maxon does not have the corporate culture to cope with this thought. They feel the cost being a small player in an increasingly competitive marketplace would be to prohibitive and resources could be managed better elsewhere as pointed out. However as always it really comes down to customers and there needs/wants eventually. We as this forums users would like respresentation like newteks products currently have. But, we also have to bare in mind that this does essentially comes at a cost somewhere along the line. Usually with the lazy company increasing software license fees, or, increasing support costs to its user base. The smart company in this case Newtek have come to the realisation that this is not necessary because the have less users switching seats and probably gain customers though the most powerful marketing form "word of mouth".
just a thought Mr Maxon.:shame:

[LucentDreams]

Hmm interesting thoughts, and while I admit I would loe a guy who just read through all the C4D forums and posted and such, One thing you need to know or remember for those that already do know, is there are at least three maxon employees who visit at some time or another, Mash is probably the most frequent, though I am sure rick reads a lot he doesn't post as much, and I know at least five have posted at one time or another since the CGtalk forum opened. I consider this fairly good participation considering how small the C4D CGtalk forum is. I mean compared to Postforum, CGtalks forum is still very small. There may be a lot of posts here, but there is actually a small amount of active members.

The CGtalk forum is the newest of the five large forums, and thus has the newest crowd of people. Fact is its hard to leave another forum when most of the guys you learned a lot from are there. I get a lot of praise from many guys here, that doesn't happen in postforum, mainly because there are many there who know far more than I do, and many there are the guys i praised and learned from. if you want to see Maxon activity check it out cause I can guarantee not a day goes by there wihtout at least one maxon employeee posting if not 3 or 4. I mean you'd be surpirsed how many maxon guys you know without knowing it. many choose not to post with maxon in their sig and such, this is partly a safety thing for the company and themselves as those opinions should then be considered the individuals and not the companies. I also think that ovaerall maxon postings went down a bit after on certain incident that needs not be discussed as it was a personal conflict in which on person was including the employer maxon in their sig. While its cool to see thses guys posting, imagine a guy like proton making false claims about someone else, how would that reflect on Newtek, and don't say he wouldn't do that because we all know that everonce in a while we all have gotten very defensive about one thing or another.

well theres already a whole bunch onthis topic from me you can barely read all the junk i typed :) In closing I'll summarise by saying that I think maxon's participation is pretty darn good in my standards. Its just not one man, and not as apparent.

[flingster]

Big hugs to all Maxon employees currently reading or previously reading/posting in the Forum. We appreciate it...believe me I do how else could I learn all this stuff so quickly. We understand the corporate risks involved in participating in forums and understand why you maybe feel the need to take a back seat. What would be nice though is a compromise....;)

How about creating a formal user say "Noxam", then whenever necessary posting from this global user. Users could understand this is an un-official (official) posting/representing the company and would limit any PR risk involved. This way Maxon gets security through anonimity and the users get excellent representation through "Noxam".....everybody is happy:thumbsup:

[Srek]

Hi,
i don't think such a "known anonymous" user would be a good idea. This would lay a burdon on the person in question since everything he /she says will be offical. Having one guy to talk to is sometimes realy a good idea, but what happens if that guy has a (or several) bad days? I don't envy proton since his is one of the most exposed jobs you can get.

For me (and i think i speak for Mash and most of the other Maxonians) Cinema is more then a program and the community more then a bunch of customers. Personaly i'm having much fun in taking part in the community and doing this unoffically/unpaid makes it much easier to me and enables me to get involved much more personally then would be possible if this was my job.
As usual this is my completely personal opinion :)

Kind regards
Srek

(Björn Marl)

[LucentDreams]

Uh Oh looks like srek is gonna get hooked onto another forum ;)

Nice to see a post from you here. See yet another monier for you guys, they do know we are out here trying to make ourselves heard.

Now, looking at the top of the main cgtalk pageone thing has poped into my mind that I would love to see, a monthly gallery, small more like XSI's than like newteks, but look at the monthly promotion they get now, last month both newtek and XSI were on top there for their galleries too. Seems like an cheap way to get your program advertised as as another form of promotion for your artists too.

[flingster]

surely we should be aiming for QUALITY and not quantity....we want to shame people who don't believe C4d can compete...by showing the abilities and creativity of our own software. Can't we dare to be different....define our own rules....currently we look at these galleries an think I want to do that....not something better was posted on the C4d forum.:cool:

[LucentDreams]

Thats partly why I like XSI's more, they have what eight images on average per onth, and yes some of them re less tan impressive, but right now no one in cgtalk for example really thinks of C4D when they think impressive images, mainly because what impressive images there are, are typically advertised within the C4D communtiy and not outside the C4D community.

[flingster]

glad we are agreed....do you think there is a large enough community of c4d users out there who would contribute?
I would like to see a gallery of quality work. It might be awhile before I post to it....feelings of inadequacy....and all that. When I feel I got quality its yours though....:thumbsup:

[Per-Anders]

is there a way of selecting up stream and downstream nodes (from the current node) directly from the atributes manager or object manager without opening up expresso?

[LucentDreams]

hmm not that I know of, I will see whatI can find out for you, one thing I would recommend for what little expresso I have used so far I found doing a group window for expresso with another AM manager wquite handy, that way whenever I have expresso visible there are two AM's available, on ehtat I lock to whatever I am working on, and the other is freee for whatever else I may select at that time. quite handy.

[Per-Anders]

ok, thanks

i was wondering if there should be a thread here for bugs in this pre-release... or just send them off to maxon, i just managed to crash my machine (which is quite hard to do in osx) by trying to undo spline editing (after going through the first part of the tp tutorial in a seperate project), dunno if this is a known issue, or something to do with my machine. did an edit on a spline, tried to undo... c4d r8 bombed out, reloaded c4d, made a spline object, accidentaly used the draw spline instead of akima, so only one point, hit undo... machine froze, pressed escape, and it continued for a second before freezing solid, had to reboot.

[Per-Anders]

I have a question... what happens if i have a network consisting of a mac and three pc's and i want to network render in version 8 (the mac is my main machine that i have c4d on) is there a way of setting this up so that i can send stuff to render from my mac to the pc's as i could in v7? It's just i've been told that you can't cross platform network render anymore, which would be a bit of a major problem for me in the coming weeks (and i should imagine for most studios using c4d too).

if i can do this... can someone please guide me through this.

[RickBarrett]

Originally posted by mdme_sadie
if i can do this... can someone please guide me through this.

AFAIK, you can still net render most scenes in a cross-platform environment. You may run into problems with GI, TP and Soft-Ik that can be expected with random functions and mixed networks, but I haven't tested those so I'm not sure.

What you heard was probably in reference to the fact that the net server is now platform-keyed to either Mac or Windows, so you have to choose which platform to use as a net server and stick with it. Other than that, you should be able to run your network just like in R7.

- Rick -

[Per-Anders]

so the server on for instance mac... but it's fine for the nodes to be any type of machine right? pheeeew. you've made me a relieved man :)... but please can someone who's tried this let me know what issues i might come up against (i'm thinking of spending some money on a couple of machines for network rendering, but i need to know what's what).

you can bake the particles in v8 right? and animation tracks for mocca i would presume? (and save gi solutions?)

[LucentDreams]

as I understand it TP particles can't be baked, but the ol particle system still can yes. as for animation tracks, the one problem withthat is there are dynamics and such in the SIK solution now and those will vary from computer to compter so you'd have to create a keyframe for every frame to bake it really. And Gisolutions, I have no clue about, but somone must know a solution for this already from XL 7 shouldn't they?

[Per-Anders]

ok the motion inheritance tag is cool... but how do i get motion inheritance from the emitter for particle birth, and not during the rest of the particles life? so that the particles carry on travelling at their own velocity, but their innitial velocity/vector is defined by the motion of the emitter object (and the particles position on the emitter, for instance on a propeller type shape that's spinning, particles emitting from the ends of the blades are moving faster than those emitting closer to the axis, and particles trying to emit from the back of the blades move slower because they're inheriting the movement that subtracts from the emission speed, as well as taking into account things like particle weight and drag, which would of course affect the velocity from the front of the blade considerably).

[Srek]

Hi,
the PStorm node has an output port named "Particle Birth" which is very much like the PPass but only at the moment a particle is born.
Another possibility is to use PPass and the PAge node. You can set this to Type=Born which will set the output to true when a particle passed by PPass is newly born.
If you want to use the Emitters velocity to set the particles starting velocity you can just set this with PSetData. Any geometry object has an Output Port "Position Velocity" that you can use to read the data. If the Emitter is a particle just use PGetData to read it's velocity.
When using a particle as Emitter it's a good idea to connect the Particles Velocity with the the Emitters Velocity Input port. This allows for a much smoother (Frame independent) output of the particles.
Regards
Srek

[Per-Anders]

ok thanks... here's my solution that i came up with after taking your advice and going through the tutorials you've been posting. :thumbsup:

[handige_harrie]

I am new on this forum, but I've been working with C4d XL 7.2 for almost a year now.

I downloaded the R8 demo and I am modeling a sportscar now, unfortunately I can't save it, so I won't be able to finnish it :shrug: . Isn't there a way to save the temp file? (although i guess you're not supposed to ;))

Anyway to the point:

-If I have a few curved polys and want to extrude them, they are extruded along their average axis.
I want to extrude along the y-axis, without the selection being rescaled. Locking the axis doesn't work. I must be missing an option somewhere.

PS: I did a rendering-test with XL7.2 on different pc's, I will translate it sometimes and post it here.
I also compared the renderingspeed of XL7.2 with R8 on one machine (p4 2ghz 256mb ddr333):

XL7.2____R8______faster__scene
73 sec___60sec___18%____small scene, skylight radiosity
395 sec__262 sec__34%___as above plus one areashadow omni light
587 sec__415 sec__29%___large raytrace scene, multiple lights

[LucentDreams]

in the active tool dialogue set the extrude to 0 m, and then move the new extruded polys on the y axis, not the best way to have to do things but you get used to it.

[AdamT]

Or get the *free* MESS plugin from 3DDesigner. Sorry I don't have the URL handy, but I can find it later if no one else posts it first.

[Gunter]

You can Download MESS from Samir Kharchi´s site:
http://www.the3ddesigner.de/download.html

Gunter

[CGTalk Moderation]

This thread has been automatically closed as it remained inactive for 12 months. If you wish to continue the discussion, please create a new thread in the appropriate forum.