Why can't Cinema 4D handle fonts like most apps?

[Per-Anders]

Do you have a font that's public domain that does this (and you can share)?

Bjorn will probably know the exact rules regarding what fonts will and will not work (if they're not covered in the manual), if it's not working correctly and the font is meant to becompatible then chances are it's a bug and should if possible be reported to Maxon in order to be fixed.

[GruvDOne]

Thanks Per, I will check on the public domain issue with the fonts and post a couple of examples.

[mustardseed]

Hi Will,

Not sure about r10, but my r9 doesn't have an option for Opentype, only either TrueType or Postcript. Also, it seems very picky about which format you've chosen in the pulldown. eg: If I select Postcript in the pulldown and proceed to pick a .ttf font, it doesn't generate the splines. The same vice versa, the selected font type in C4d and the chosen font have to match.

Sorry if you already know this.

[LemonNado]

I had no trouble yet, but did not use to many font's either. But what I have seen is that there are a LOT of qualities out there. The poor font's result in terrible splines.
Maybe that's also an issue.
Rainer

[warrens0221]

I've run into the same problems. I just gave up doing any text in C4D, and instead take the illustrator route you mentioned. It's a pain, but pretty much fool-proof.

[dtoxxx]

I have an even worse text problem in C4D.
It's a crapshoot for me also, but instead of giving me nothing, it totally shuts C4D down on certain fonts.
I can generate text, and extrude it on very few fonts installed on my system.
I don't even try anymore, because 9 out of 10 times it crashes and burns.

It's OK with the default font, but the minute I try to change the font to ANYTHING beside the default it seems, CRASH. Then my face feels like someones got a flaming hairspray can pointed at it.
Luckily I haven't really needed to actually use text yet, just wnated to see what I can do with it.
I believe there's a way to use Photoshop to export paths to be imported as text, which is what I'll have to do since I don't have Illustrator.
I'm still working with Photoshop CS1 too..

[Per-Anders]

If you're getting crashes with Cinema and fonts then please do send the crash reports in to Maxon (together with a short description of hat you were doing/what cause dthe crash if possible).

[williamsburroughs]

I have an even worse text problem in C4D.
It's a crapshoot for me also, but instead of giving me nothing, it totally shuts C4D down on certain fonts.
I can generate text, and extrude it on very few fonts installed on my system.
I don't even try anymore, because 9 out of 10 times it crashes and burns.

It's OK with the default font, but the minute I try to change the font to ANYTHING beside the default it seems, CRASH. Then my face feels like someones got a flaming hairspray can pointed at it.
Luckily I haven't really needed to actually use text yet, just wnated to see what I can do with it.
I believe there's a way to use Photoshop to export paths to be imported as text, which is what I'll have to do since I don't have Illustrator.
I'm still working with Photoshop CS1 too..

It sounds like some of your fonts are corrupt. Are you using XP or OSX? I know that when fonts go bad on OSX, they can be rather mean with some applications...

I keep my fonts fairly lean and mean, and only load new fonts when I have a client with specific needs. Call me a Purist...but I honestly don't think most people need more than DIN, Helvetica, Universe, Futura, Meta, and your base net fonts. :P

If you are on a Mac, let me know what fonts you are using that are causing problems and I can test, cause up to this point (since R8) I haven't had any issues with fonts on the PC or the Mac.

If PS is exporting your fonts to Paths, then I'd do that in the meantime until the problem can be resolved.

Cheers.

[dtoxxx]

Thanks for the reply.
I figured I must have a bad font somewhere.
I send the report everytime it crashes but now that I think of it it's probably just going to Apple not Maxon. I'll be sure to get the error reports to Maxon from now on.
I'm using OSX Tiger and CinemaR9. The only fonts I have installed aside from the basic system fonts are LiveType fonts.
I have all the LiveType fonts installed that come with the app.
I too have a somewhat minimalist approach to fonts, because there are computers at work with messes of fonts installed, more than you even want to go through to choose.
It's messy so I try to avoid it.
But when I first got the computer I was going through the fonts in Livetype and figured it would be easier to install all the fonts instead of having to do it as I chose each font.
Perhaps C4D resents that decision.

I'm just gonna uninstall all of them except for a very limited few that I know I'll be using.

[Mylenium]

Hi Will,

Not sure about r10, but my r9 doesn't have an option for Opentype, only either TrueType or Postcript.

On a PC, OpenType should appear as standard TrueType. Depending on the application, you may just not be able to use all charcters as this is tied to the system settings and not all programs make use of the full Unicode range and language regions.


Also, it seems very picky about which format you've chosen in the pulldown. eg: If I select Postcript in the pulldown and proceed to pick a .ttf font, it doesn't generate the splines. The same vice versa, the selected font type in C4d and the chosen font have to match.


This is normal. TrueType and PostScript fonts store their curves differently (BSplines vs. Bezier) and C4D has separate handlers for this. I'm not certain why this is since it seems possible to fuse them into one smart font loader, but there surely is a reason.

Mylenium

[Duffdaddy]

Ditto to this issue. I've had the same problem since 8.5 and just assumed it was Cinema cause wherever I've used Cinema, at work, at home, on contract, fonts have always performed the same - badly.
They either won't show up, or crash it. I work on Mac's pretty much 100% so it's either postscript or truetype - haven't move to v10 yet so don't if it's any different.

[Srek]

Prior to 9.6 there were some problems with the font selection on Mac that could lead to crashes. With 9.6 and R10 this issue has been resolved.
Cheers
Björn

[TonyL]

I would imagine that implementing support for OpenType is rather difficult, but it is a shame because the use of OpenType is now far more widespread than it was ... and it is certainly the future.

Of course, if you have Fontographer or FontLab you can generate your own TTF or PostScript version, but it's a bit of a pain to have to do this.

Not all fonts follow the rules when it comes to outlines, so problems will occur. The only answer is to obtain fonts from reputable makers, and to make sure that, if you make your own, they have the handles at the extrema, have the minimum number of points necessary to generate a clean outline, that there are no overlaps, etc.

Fonts designed for text setting (i.e. book faces) typically take 2 to 3 months to design, correct, kern, etc. (and that's only 1 alphabet - if you are making italic, bold, and bold italic versions you could be looking at 6 or 7 months or more to complete the process professionally). The free fonts available on the 'net are often hacked together quickly and tend to ignore the precepts laid down for type design.

Font families (like Meta for example) probably took more than a year to perfect, and there's the difference.

Perhaps Srek can give us a clue as to how easy (or not) it would be to implement support for OpenType in C4D?

All the best - TL

[Mylenium]

I would imagine that implementing support for OpenType is rather difficult, but it is a shame because the use of OpenType is now far more widespread than it was ... and it is certainly the future.

Mmh, I don't think it is that bad. The specs and some sample libraries are openly available. It is probably more a problem of changing C4D's routines rather than getting the handling of the fonts themselves right so they properly appear in the lists and use the right glyphs/ chars. I also think we wouldn't need any more advanced features like variable glyphs, automatic inbetween weight calculation and all the fancies unique to dedicated layout and design tools, so it could still be a trimmed down implementation.

Mylenium

[rsquires]

I concur that fonts inside C4D are for the most part rather weak. I have a postscript version of univers and when I select the italic heavy version it refuses to play. This is an alternate font to the straight version and yet it doesn't show up in the splines.

I use a mac and have no problem with True type Postscript etc outside of C4D. I use Suitcase and Font book for font management

regards

rich

[dan22]

dtoxxx,

it took just one corrupted font in my folder to crash C4D whenever Type was selected.

Once I worked out which one it was, and removed it (trial and error, I pulled out all the fonts beginning with "A", first, ran C4D, etc...luckily for me the dodgy one was something like Berguell, and not Zapf!), I had no more crashes.

A single smart fontloader would be best - I'm not always sure which kind of font it is I'm loading. You can't always tell from the name.

Cheers.

D.

[mustardseed]

I've found Fontdoctor to be quite useful for keeping my system free of font glitches so far.

http://www.fontdoctor.com/

[wbj]

On a PC, OpenType should appear as standard TrueType. Depending on the application, you may just not be able to use all charcters as this is tied to the system settings and not all programs make use of the full Unicode range and language regions.



This is normal. TrueType and PostScript fonts store their curves differently (BSplines vs. Bezier) and C4D has separate handlers for this. I'm not certain why this is since it seems possible to fuse them into one smart font loader, but there surely is a reason.

Mylenium

The curves are a minor problem (as this could be converted). TrueType is a binary format, while Postscript fonts could be binary or ascii and have a totally different encoding and storage format compared to TrueType. The rendering engines for these fonts are vastly different.

OpenType fonts (a container format) can contain Postscript or TrueType fonts, but uses different font encryptions than TrueType or Postscript fonts (therefore currently not supported under MacOS X in Cinema - as documented in the manual...).

Regarding the character set: Starting with Cinema v9.6 a 16 bit unicode range is supported for the text splines (while older versions have limitations due to the used region specific character set).

Best regards,

wbj

[maximee]

I was also having quite some weird problems with fonts not showing up anymore in connection with baked mograph cloners. (link (http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=440728&highlight=text))
Due to a tight deadline I had to come up with a rather uncomfortable and time-consuming workaround, so the problem couldn't actually be resolved.

Usually I find it easier to do text in AE, but that only works for basic stuff...

But with Cinema4D clearly focussing on motiongraphics (good AE integration/mograph) a good font workflow (and that means also OpenType support) is a must for me. Hopefully the good folks at Maxon will consider that for a future release.

Oh... and FYI: If you don't feel like using Fontographer or FontLab there is a wonderful opensource program that does pretty much all jobs you would want it to do when it comes to converting fonts (also Mac->PC!).
It's called Fontforge. Get it here. (http://fontforge.sourceforge.net/)

Cheers.

[bdjones]

dtoxxx,

Once I worked out which one it was, and removed it (trial and error, I pulled out all the fonts beginning with "A", first, ran C4D, etc...luckily for me the dodgy one was something like Berguell, and not Zapf!), I had no more crashes.

D.

Try LinoType Font Explorer (free) it can find fonts with errors etc.

[AdamT]

Will,
If the corp. types won't allow you to post the fonts on an open forum, you might ask them if it would be okay to send them to tech. support. They won't let them get out.

[govinda]

Call me a Purist...but I honestly don't think most people need more than DIN, Helvetica, Universe, Futura, Meta, and your base net fonts. :P

Okay, PURIST! :D How nutty. If you're talking about what you load into the Library/Fonts folder, vs what you own, then sure, I agree. Otherwise, it's suicidal not to have the Trade Gothics, the Franklin Gothics, the Helvetica Neues, Syntax, Garamond, Mrs. Eaves, Interstate, Gill, Cochin, Jansen, Centaur, the Caslons, the Bodonis... The list would go to about 200 'really necessaries' of the thousands I own. And let's not forget Fiesta!

I used Letraset recently, and it doesn't have a good WSIWYG display for mulitiple fonts. I prefer FontAgent Pro over all the other managers for that reason.

Font usage in C4D is frustrating, definitely, whether it's from my own old fonts or from Cinema not handling them well. There's always Illustrator, thanks be, meaning you don't really have to know why C4D is crashing all the time when you load fonts, or whose fault it is, just that you know a way around it by not using Cinema, which is good enough to keep me--and I bet a lot of users--from ever bothering to test whether the situation is fixed in V10.

[joeski4d]

I've always had issues with Cinema 4D and fonts on a Mac. I had just stopped trying to use fonts directly in c4d (up to R9.1) because I couldn't understand why some fonts would work and others wouldn't and going the Illustrator route always seemed less frustrating in the end. But I just tried in R10 and the issues seem to have greatly improved, now most fonts will come in as expected....

-Joe

[medula]

For those of you on Mac having issues with fonts. If you haven't tried dumping your font cache yet, I suggest giving it a shot.

You can use a myriad of utilities to do this. Onyx being one of them.
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/11582

Here are some other options:
http://www.macupdate.com/search.php?keywords=font+cache&os=macosx&button.x=0&button.y=0

Hope this helps!

[rsquires]

Is there a way to kern individual letters. The spacing is a bit off in my Helvetica bold fonts and the horizontal spacing does a global adjustment. As someone has already mentioned if MoGraph is a motion designers tool then the text object could still be improved on.

regards

rich

[dtoxxx]

Thanks for the link on Onyx.
Nice little app for more than just font cache flushing...

[Nanome]

I agree with most of the comments here about C4D's problems with fonts. Unfortunately the Illustrator route is not often the best one. Not only it takes some additional steps (and time) but sometimes is just not applicable, i.e. I had to animate some text in MoGraph recently and the ability to change the wording, size, spacing and leading from inside the application was paramount for the project.

I mean, all my fonts work in C4D. What's really bad is the implementation. Instead of a font menu like most applications, we get OS X's clumsy Font window (for TrueTypes) or a standard dialogue box that forces us to go digging for the font drivers (Postcript).

Given the fact that clients often change their minds on what they want and that many of them have already a predetermined set of fonts they need to use for each project I find C4D (9.6) font management not up to par with the rest of its interface and functionality. I'm confident it'll be fixed in upcoming versions though.

[Per-Anders]

Enough already guys, tapaul, GruvDOne, please keep it on topic or take it to PM's otherwise I will be forced to close this thread too.

[Duffdaddy]

Prior to 9.6 there were some problems with the font selection on Mac that could lead to crashes. With 9.6 and R10 this issue has been resolved.
Cheers
Björn

Ooooh, I soooo need to buy v10! Sigh.

[3DBond]

I've been having a little less trouble with fonts since upgrading to R10, but it's ridiculous that I have to navigate to the actual font file when using a PostScript font rather than Cinema integrating with OS X's built in font util like it does with TrueType fonts. Why doesn't it work with PostScript? At least Spotlight makes it a little easier.

OpenType just doesn't work at all afaik which is really too bad 'cause I'm trying to only use OTF.

FWIW, I don't even bother with Illustrator and saving back to Atari version (v8 :D). I just set my type in Photoshop, convert to shape or make work path and the exported path works perfectly in C4D. Must be 'cause it exports at a low version of Illustrator by default. I just find it faster and like Photoshop much better than Illustrator.

[developer]

I did not mess around with fonts in C4D yet, but i had to realize that C4D uses different programming approaches to Bézier and B-Splines. Simply try to convert a B-Spline into a Bézier or vice versa: the geometry of the spline changes. This has not been in the intention of the inventors.
When using the proper unified approach like most apps do this is a seamless conversion. Therefor it is not a surprise you are running into trouble when you are using spline-based fonts.
regards
developer

[Per-Anders]

I did not mess around with fonts in C4D yet, but i had to realize that C4D uses different programming approaches to Bézier and B-Splines. Simply try to convert a B-Spline into a Bézier or vice versa: the geometry of the spline changes. This has not been in the intention of the inventors.
When using the proper approach like most apps do this is a seemless conversion. Therefor it is not a surprise you are running into trouble when you are using spline-based fonts.
regards
developer

o_O

What on earth are you talking about? If you bothered to examine any further you'd have noticed that the bezier spline shape is derived from the cubic spline form of the knots (which is obvious if you know anything about splines because that is what bezier splines are derived from and related to rather than direct b-splines). On an interesting side note to your observations it's worht counting how many other applications allow you to convert between different spline types on the fly... really this has nothing at all to do with the topic.

[wbj]

I've been having a little less trouble with fonts since upgrading to R10, but it's ridiculous that I have to navigate to the actual font file when using a PostScript font rather than Cinema integrating with OS X's built in font util like it does with TrueType fonts. Why doesn't it work with PostScript? At least Spotlight makes it a little easier.
.

Sorry, but you got it wrong - the buttons and the layout of the text object are as in older Cinema version, but the behaviour under the hood has changed.

In r9.6 (and r10) the font selector gives you access to the fonts installed via OS. If you select the "Postscript" button, you get a file selector (instead of the font selector), where you can select and use ps fonts, which are not installed in your system font folder (but have been attached to a c4d scene file you've got, etc.).


OpenType just doesn't work at all afaik which is really too bad 'cause I'm trying to only use OTF.
.

Why? Just because they contain the word "Open"? OTF is a container format and that doesn't improve or worsen the quality of a font.

Best regards,

wbj

[MJV]

What did the censored posts say?

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