The Future Of C4D

[Hilt]

Ah, the future of C4D. One of the threads that most certainly get closed in the end :)

There is vRay connection coming for Cinema?
For freelancers and hobbyists Cinema is probably the most powerful tool (considering the workflow and ease-of-use compared to results you get).
Maxon launches Production Bundle, aimed totally for big boys. Personally I dont see any use to it, except that it has some tools for large projects and Maxon's world-famous support is there to help things moving. Hopefully Maxon gets that Bundle on the road smoothly.

The connection to PRman is nice, but till it's released to the audience, none of the magicians here cant get used to it. That means that people who know Cinema thoroughly dont have great chances to go working for big studios -excluding modeling and animating (studios usually have people doing shaders and renders, so C4D-smalltimers dont have access to those jobs yet).

Personally I'm forced to move away from Cinema, and it makes me sad as heck. Not only am I highly prejudiced to other apps, but I also need to bury plugins-projects and probably start them from scratch in different 3D-environment. In Jan2006 I'll be 3D-newbie again.

Cinema has many major upsides, and I cant see no issues why Cinema wouldnt conquer the world in next years -except CA, Dynamics and other stuff Maxon is probably solving for future versions. (well, competiting apps are always on the move too, so there's going to be lot of excitement in industry.)

And one more question. Do most of you guys use any of the other apps so that when a job pops up but requests you use another app?
Sometimes they ask me to do a job in PRman-friendly environment, so that they can do in-house render stuff for film res. Usually I tell them that I prefer riding taxes instead of busses -and then we find another way to get the job done. Nowadays it's easy enough to do huge number of tricks in post -and if client wants models or effects for some different application, it is possible to convert them without major hassles.

[projectk]

I wish cinema would be more widely used. That would mean i wouldn't have to switch to max and have to relearn things as slowly as i am. *edit* As in, i would like to work for other studios but i'm not sure that many studioes in Australia actually use cinema. The one i am at current uses max, thus why i am learning it)

I mean that in a positive light. I can see that things can only get better for cinema from here. I'm sure maxon is working quite hard but i imagine that if they work on the dynamics and CA tools like Hilt has said it'll be even more widely used.

Ah, the future of C4D. One of the threads that most certainly get closed in the end


Why is that? Do people start having fights normally when this is brought up?

[STRAT]

Why is that? Do people start having fights normally when this is brought up?


not really, it's just this type of thread usually develops into a general pointless 'wish list' thats been discussed a billion times before and doesn't serve any real purpose.

[LucentDreams]

Well im here to ask you guys if you think C4D will get more respect in the 3d world in the future and maybe start being used more on big productions? With the release of Maxwell render (which I hope gets way faster and has reasonable rendertimes) wand when final render and vray come out with the versions for c4d do you think that will help it out. Im just wondering because im only 18 at the moment and i love c4d and i want to keep using it but i also want to have more options of places where i can work when im older. Ive tried just about all the other apps and keep going back to c4d because im just so use to it and love using it.

And one more question. Do most of you guys use any of the other apps so that when a job pops up but requests you use another app?

Depends on what you mean by respect and which part of the industry.In film none of the mentioned renderers are going to make a dent in cinema's chances for feature work, the Cineman willbe the only one doing that, and possibly a mental ray connection down the line.

I think with Maxwell it won't make a big difference as maxwell is going to support every app and their little dog, but support for Final render will help a lot in product visualization and archviz, and if a vray renderer came I think it would help in thos areas even more.

But renderers is only a small part of what earns an app respect, I'd dare say that renderer itself is a small part in MOST areas of the industry (not all but most) Look at the top apps out there, XSI, maya, and max, not a single one of them has ever had a good renderer until all the 3rd part renderers and mental ray came along. LW, cinema, and electric image were the ones based on their renderers, and all three are further behind (though lightwave is still going at it, and cinema is quickly changing and growing)

I think the production bundle and bodypaint are whats really going to get cinema the larger studio respect in terms of features earning respect.

Most of all though, I see cinema having a very bright future, getting picked up a lot, but the tides are changing now, cinema is growing but while its user base is now expanding, your finding studios picking it up with no time to really learn it right, and not a lot of seriously knowledgeable pros to hire to help ease the integration. I must say its hard in this industry nowadays to be a generalist instead of a specialist, but cinema users who are very thorough well rounded generalists are in a great position to get jobs now and will only get better in the next while.

Best advice to someone wanting to get a job at a studio right now though, is stop rendering pretty pictures, start building impressive models, creating super clean UV's and texturing them well, utilize thinking particles and try to get past rigging into full animation both CA and FX inside cinema. Studios picking up cinema aren't going to hire you for knowing how to make a great SSS effect in cinema, they want to know they can get an answer when they have one, and know wthat when something breaks theres someone that will have a workaround.

In terms of the cineman connection and not being able to learn it, the cineman connection is so smooth and well integrated imo, that ost users here would likely not be able to utilize its full power, I myself being one of the testers one it, can't even get half rib shaders and such to work right in air to take advantage of the power that PRman and AIR offer over typical render engines. I mean I'm already getting to the point with where I do most of what I cna in cinema in air since it supports cinema's shaders, but wheres the overall advantage in that other then some speed and slightly better memory management. It doesn't help me figure out how to take a scene where the AO pass takes 60 hours to render, and take that down to about 15 minutes just through careful optimization and a few smart proxy object tricks.

Being a renderman artist is a difficult thing, and honestly if you want to be a Render TD using renderman I suggest you get 3delight and try learning to code things yourself. BEst advice I can give is your not ready to use renderman till you can program a rib file that contains a sphere, and plane, and a light all with code and no assistance of an application. Once you can do that (which took me ages back with bmrt) then maybe your ready to start learning. But honestly just in testing I tried using an SSS shader I downloaded off the web, read the instructions carefully, got my point cloud properly but still couldn't get an expected result.

I think what cinema really means, is that studios like sony and Framestore CFC that use renderman and use cinema and bodypaint for texturing and mattepainting, can now achieve renders that include more then background mattes but actual character and fx elements too. I don't see production bundle being the perfect solution to get cinema into all studios, but rather then it being predomionantly Bodypaint that gets the foot in the dooor, this makes cinema a more appealing package for those larger studios too. It doesn't have to take over a pipeline, its has to fit into one. Its like what Paul Babb said in his 3D attack interview about not worrying about being the only app a studio uses but being an app involved within the production.

I do believe the awareness and respoect for cinema has grown a lot and is growing at a fast pace. I remember when talking about cinema, many people woudl tell me "oh yea I remember looking at that program when it was in version five, it had a really fast renderer but I don't remember much about it." or "oh yeah I saw that five years ago, it didn't look too impressive" but nowadays when I say cinema 4D most 3D artists say they've seen it before or have tried a demo, and most can say where cinema is impressive and lacks.

And yess I'll agree with everyone that CA is a huge problem, but I think that will help cinema more in the smaller studios and freelancers more then the big studios in the near future if its fixed. STudios can't just throw a app into a CA pipeline and exxpect to produce well with it.

[lllab]

well kai said most of it... i too see a very brigth future for c4d, its growing and growing...

the listen to their customers, and it is becoming a more and more powerfull, but yet easy to manage app.
i guess with every new release c4d will gain new users, remember that it still is very young in comparence to the old ones, this is also cinemas strenght, its more modern.

cheers
stefan

[Canadianboy]

thanks for all the info guys... and i hope this thread doesnt turn into one of those dumb threads that end up getting closed.. i want to here everyones opinions without starting arguments please

[MPS]

Does anyone know if 3ds Max will be getting a new GUI for their update? That for me was one of the main reasons I recommended C4d to my current employer. They were looking to re-train new staff up from scratch (with no previous 3d skills), and getting them trained on max or maya would have been too much for them to learn. Max's Gui for me is too old and archaic. I personally love C4d, its just so easy to use, and learn. I can't put my reasons for using c4d any more clearly than that. I will probably stick with cinema until the ease of use becomes embedded into other apps. Hopefully, when the other apps catch up to C4d's fluent Gui, Cinema 4d will be catching their main killer features up, so there will be less reasons to choose between one or the other. From what i've seen most games studios are willing to train max users to maya and vice versa so the more universal the apps get the better from that side.

I hope cinema does get more utilised, Bodypaint as we know is getting used more and more now so fingers crossed we will start to see more jobs accepting cinema 4d experience. I'm learning maya ( or at least trying to learn it in my spare time) but again as everyone admits there are pop up boxes opening up everytime you try to do something, which takes up alot more time. Learning Universal skills like creating your own textures and shaders, and Bodypaint will probably be a good idea, prod workflows will always be the same no matter what apps they use. It all depends on the industry you want to get into.

[lightblitter22]

I think what cinema really means, is that studios like sony and Framestore CFC that use renderman and use cinema and bodypaint for texturing and mattepainting, can now achieve renders that include more then background mattes but actual character and fx elements too. I don't see production bundle being the perfect solution to get cinema into all studios, but rather then it being predomionantly Bodypaint that gets the foot in the dooor, this makes cinema a more appealing package for those larger studios too. It doesn't have to take over a pipeline, its has to fit into one. Its like what Paul Babb said in his 3D attack interview about not worrying about being the only app a studio uses but being an app involved within the production.

Where I see Cineman being most useful is building an actual pipe around Cinema. C4D is getting to the point where if you're starting a small studio with ambitions to grow larger over time, perhaps to do full-length features or film VFX, or similar large projects at some point, it could be the perfect app to base in. Its fast, robust, artist friendly, reliable, easy to maintain and so on. Its not that hard to retrain people for it either. I've transitioned friends to it who were Maya or Max users in absolutely no time. Once you explain how the basics work and show them where what is in Cinema, its a breeze from that point on.

But you would still need a big daddy renderer that scales or customizes when needed. At the moment, that looks like PRman or MentalRay, unless Finalrender turns out to have hidden depths. Somehow I doubt it.

What some people still don't get, I think, is that the sort of budgets required to base around Maya or XSI simply aren't there in a lot of countries. Your typical studio that's just getting going might look like a single room office with five workstations and a small server and just a handful of artists working under one supervisor. Things need to be done faster, at a high quality level, with just a few hands working more levers than in a big studio.

AR could be the renderer of choice for such a place, but I just don't see enough flexibility in AR at the moment. A lot of looks can only be achieved with extensive post work. The shading system could go deeper. Motionblur, GI, DOF and so on aren't up to production quality level yet.

I can see these things getting better over time, but letting people have a go at C4D + Air in the meantime would be a good step to get them trained for a more studio-like CG methodology with lots of tool customization (if not necessarily studio work itself).

Yeah, in the short-run a lot of C4D's userbase will probably remain in more everday CG uses like arcviz, CADviz, motiongraphics and so on. But I see C4D's future more as a sort of XSI/Maya for smaller studios. It already has the workflow for it. Its just hard to get access to more professional options like Renderman rendering at the moment, and other pro level tools (muscle simulation, crowds, behavioral animation and so on) aren't there yet.

The future does look bright for C4D. I think its already robust enough to handle a CG feature from end-to-end with a few customizations. It just needs more attention in some areas like CA and like shading/rendering. I would love to see Cineman get available, with or without its current RIB limitations. If people start using it, I'm sure the problems you are talking about trying to use RIB shaders off the web with Cineman will also be addressed over time.

[LucentDreams]

[QUOTE=MPS_]Does anyone know if 3ds Max will be getting a new GUI for their update? That for me was one of the main reasons I recommended C4d to my current employer. They were looking to re-train new staff up from scratch (with no previous 3d skills), and getting them trained on max or maya would have been too much for them to learn.
QUOTE]

Feel free to pass my email kaiskai@vfs.com to them. I'm actually working at a studio right now where thyey really want to go from using four of the major five on various projects to a single standard package, but this requires a lot of them learning a new app of some sort, no matter what someones going to have to adapt, and not surprisingly they are leaning to cinema which means almost everyone has to learn a new app. I think this might be a new trend for cinema too is companies looking to choose a single standard package. Cinema is still the easiest to learn so its reallly appealing in this sense because it still offers most of what all the others do but is far simpler to learn.

[Cheers]

Well, Cinema is already very strong in some areas within the industry (matte painting, logo design) and has been for a long time. I really do think the modelling and UV tools fall a bit short for me personally...I now use Modo for modelling and then bring the models into C4D....then we have the MOCCA module...hmmmm, one of the most unfriendly areas I have ever tried to rig a charcter...and for the money I'll be damned if I'm going to spend extra on plugins.
Character animation needs to be improved greatly, and I hope Maxon do not make the same mistake as Newtek and incorporate 3rd party plugins into the packages and then sing about their great update.
I hope and think that Cinema 4D has a great future, but I hope it doesn't loose the core followers who have supported it for many years. For me it's feeling a little too pricey for what you get, compared to 6 or so years ago.

Cheers

[AdamT]

Taking a slightly different tack ... I think you're fine using Cinema as an 18-year-old thinking about a future in CG. My feeling is that (except for CA) Cinema gets in your way less than the other big packages, so it makes it easier to develop fundamental skills. Those skills will transfer very well to any of the big packages if the time comes that you need to make a change.

Things change very quickly in this industry, so who knows what specific app will be in vogue in 3-4 years when you're ready to start your job search? It also depends a lot on the specific area in which you want to concentrate. Have you decided that yet? No reason you should have, but that would influence the equation.

[lightblitter22]

At 18, I wouldn't worry about it either. By the time he's out of college, C4D will probably be a real beast of an animation package with top notch CA tools, state of the art dynamics, extensive scripting capabilities and other big boy stuff. It'll probably be a 'big boy' by then even in the industry's eyes. I don't think you'll have to switch to anything else if you're entering the employment market around 2008 or 2009, heh heh. That's probably R12 you are looking at, running on a Cell based workstation. :D

Its those of us who are in their late twenties or early thirties that should worry. We're not getting any younger waiting for those shiny new tools to arrive. :)




<subliminal message>renderman connector... renderman connector... renderman connector... </subliminal message>

[MPS]

Kai- Thanks, if I ever need any expert help you'll be the first I'll contact but don't tell anyone else...


Adam - your right about the software developing and the consumer trends. When I started doing 3d Max was the number one, Maya was a noobie and lightwave was hot. my local uni's taught Truespace rather than max (probably a cost per license issue). I also remember when softimage came out at £13k in the uk about 5-6 yrs back.

Cinema could do with more books on the market though. The more books the better. I can walk into any main bookstore in the uk and get max, XSI and maya books but not one cinema book. Thats not helping Maxon sell the software to similar 18 yrs etc who have little or no knowledge of where to begin. I tell everyone to RTFM before they do anything else but the manual cannot cover everything.

[Rabbitroo]

As someone who wrote his first 3D animation app in the 1970's, I'll offer this little advice.

Work on your artistic skills: painting, sculpting, animating--whatever is you bliss. These will not go out of style. Read and learn something every day. Start thinking or dreaming about your demo reel/portfolio--make a plan for what should be in it and start working towards that.

Don't neglet natural media skills such as drawing, painting, sculpting in the real world with your own hands--these can be very enlightening. Take a life-drawing course or two, regardless of your future plans--it will be enlightening.

Develop your skills at working with other people--lone wolves sometimes get caught in the cold. Seek criticism of your work and strive to improve month-by-month, year-by-year.

Don't get hung up on specific packages, tools, or techniques--these are continousouly evolving in our industry. Develop your basic artistic skill set and you can transfer the skills to almost anything. Go to trade shows and see what *everyone* is doing, not just your favorite package.

Dream big, work hard, and make every connection in the industry you can. Stay creative and follow you bliss.

Best wishes,
-K

[kevin3d]

Im just wondering because im only 18 at the moment and i love c4d and i want to keep using it but i also want to have more options of places where i can work when im older. Ive tried just about all the other apps and keep going back to c4d because im just so use to it and love using it.

Cinema 4D already enjoys alot of respect in the CG industry....'industry' being a hugely broad term. C4D is one of the 'big players' in motion graphics, for instance, and matte painting. Time spent learning C4D is not wasted, unless your goal is to work at a "Maya" shop within the next 3 months.
Since you have tried other 3D apps & keep coming back to C4D, I'd say just stick with that for now and spend your time exposing yourself to other areas of CG (compositing, encoding, etc). Who knows, you might find something you like more than 3D. Besides, even if you decide to focus your career on 3D CA, you will be well served by an appreciation of other aspects of the process.

This is the point in your life when you have the most time to experiment, and as AdamT said, the industry is always changing; equip yourself to respond to that change.





pontification terminated.

[bobzilla]

Well, as a hobbiest (I hate that term, though), when I first started I went for an app that was easiest to get around and get results do I woudn't get frustrated. Honestly, I don't think I would last 5 minutes in Maya.

Read as much as you could get your hands on. I've learned a lot to help me in Cinema by going to the Alias, Discreet, and, yes, even ElectricImage web site and downloaded tutorials. The basic ideas are the same. The way they are carried out are different.

The tag line you hear on TV is always: "We're professionals. Don't try this at home." With Cinema 4D, you don't have to be a professional to "try this at home."

My .0001 cents

[duderender]

My only gripe is the material editor. So I ordered Final Render.

[talos72]

Don't get hung up on specific packages, tools, or techniques--these are continousouly evolving in our industry. Develop your basic artistic skill set and you can transfer the skills to almost anything. Go to trade shows and see what *everyone* is doing, not just your favorite package.

Dream big, work hard, and make every connection in the industry you can. Stay creative and follow you bliss.

Well put Rabbitroo!

I use Houdini for Fx work at the studios, but I would like to put some time into playing with C4D at home precisely for making cool images. It is a simple quick package to setup...Houdini is an extremely powerfull production software and is used in many major projects. However, with that power comes a good deal of depth and a somewhat steep learning curve. C4D, I could just open up a session in my laptop and mess around.

The interesting thing is that a lot of times I see various nifty plugins (especially for modeling or particles) being introduced for various packages knowing you can build a tool very similar to that plugin inside of Houdini precisely because of its open node-based architecture. Not to mention the new nodal dynamics module which to me is almost revolutionary and frankly blows most other dynamics packages out of the water.

Still I dig C4D's simplicity of use and other software developers should take notes from Maxon when it comes to GUI setup and accessibility of tools.

[MJV]

The best software buying advice is to always get what is best for you right now and let the future take care of itself.

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