MAXON Developments

[LucentDreams]

Oxygen??? I figured they'd stick with X girlfriends names lol no tseriously this is good to see. At least this gives everyone a much needed reassurance that maxon is paying attention to notice that in three or four Forums, there is a lut of hoolabalu about current developments and such. So Rick can you tell us if any of the new "In development" features will eb announced or explored at all at SIG, and will you guys be showing anything for Some of the big new plugs like golem, S&H, BT etc.

Oh, and who do I want to get in touch with about SLA. Seeing as how you guys now own it, I guess we have to go to you for new features and such. This new concern of mine isn't necessarily for SLA but materials in general.

[michaeli]

Great! I hope there will be HDRI, new model(spline or poly) tools and faster render speed.:thumbsup:

[davedavidson]

a very big thank you for sharing this news with us. as i know u didnt have to.

i cant wait to see the next stage of cinema, as past exeriance has learnt me that things can only get better with cinema


dd watches the space

:surprised







:bounce:

[LucentDreams]

well I know we are definitely fine without SSS features if they don't come in XL 8. I have been getting awesome results with Chanlum tonight. will post as soon as I get permission as it isn't my model I used to make the images.

Hey rick, just curious, I noticed that you are probably the most active in all the forums, even in 3Dark for a while there when I was moderating there, but what is your actual position at maxon, developer, promotions, sales. Just curious, as you do a great PR job for them. A lot better then uhhhh wel lets just say his intials match a popular american chocolate candy. Anyways just like to say what a great job your are doing, and hope you enjoy a far less political forum.

[RickBarrett]

Hey Kai,

Yeah, folks on the forums are getting pretty anxious - and that's very understandable. We're really excited about OXYGEN, and are trying to let the cat out of the bag slowly so the users have a chance to get excited as well.

I'm not really privy to the logic behind our codenames. That's the programmer's realm. XL6 was AMBER, BodyPaint was MARVIN. I can't even remember what XL7 was codenamed. The next release is codenamed OXYGEN, and the most sense I can make out of that is beta testers have said it's a breath of fresh air.

The announcement said "more info in the coming months" and SIG is in the coming months so you can draw your own conclusion there ;)

SLA - your best bet is the suggestion form (http://www.maxon.net/pages/support/suggestion_e.html). The quantity and quality of suggestions posted to the form really is taken into account when planning the development schedule.

- Rick -

[RickBarrett]

Thanks for the word of encouragement. We're dedicated to building community and doing the best to build relationships with the users. It's easy to lose sight of that when your desk is piled high with work, but we try hard to keep that focus. I'm glad the folks at cgtalk asked me to hang out here - it helps me keep that mission at the forefront.

And to answer your question - like most of the folks here I do the work of several people. Basically I'm the US marketing guy. I oversee portions of the website, the demo cds, trade shows, pr, and stuff like that.

And I very much enjoy being a part of a less political forum :thumbsup:

- Rick -

[p_losch]

Here's a bit of background information on some of the codenames...

Have fun!

Philip Losch
MAXON Computer

The C4D Project (http://home.t-online.de/home/p_losch/c4d/c4dproject.html)

[LucentDreams]

AHhhhhh MR. Losch, interesting to see you posting here, I miss the days of 5.x, those were great for me, I learned so mucha bout 3D on that app. Will you be posting here on a regular basis, or was this just to share your little treat.

great to finally see some of the pics from the amiga versions, I always wondered what it looked like then. Many thanks. I am going to send this link to CGchannel, I know they posted the one for lightwave much to the same effect as your site.

[p_losch]

Hi Kai,

I don't think I'll have the time to post on a regular basis (being very busy with Oxygen...), but maybe I'll participate now and then when the compile run takes a bit longer :-)

Great to see your ShadesOfCel NPR experiments - keep up the good work!

Philip

[LucentDreams]

Godd to hear, and thanks about the NPR stuff, I am currently experimenting on more when I can find a minute but school is nutz right now.

As for the site being posted on CGchannel, they laughed at me, and said get real spice it up add some great images, make it exciting and attractive. So if you or anyone else from the days have time maybe, but as long as XL users can look at it thats all that matters.

[RickBarrett]

Hey Folks,

Rumors running rampant in some of the other forums. Just wanted to let you know that I'll keep you guys up to date with any info that's officially available (and maybe even some that isn't), and I wouldn't put too much value on the rumors.

So here's the tidbit I'm offering today - there's a feature I've already had a chance to play with in OXYGEN that users have been asking for since I started working for MAXON (in 1999, when V5 was the current version). Can you guess what it is?

- Rick -

[sad]

i think you only should post news if it really are news. talking but saying nothing is senseless. sorry

[chris_b]

... if i were to hazard a guess, i'd saaaay light exclusion/inclusion lists?

... or maybe it is edge selection ... or multi-object selection!

... or real DOF

... vector motion blur

AACK --- I CAN'T WAIT !!!

-c

[LucentDreams]

I am hoping it is multi object selection which seems like a very possible choice considering the carefully written post by rick, but enough speculating

As for your post Rick, many thanks, and as for the posts on the other forumm that you are referring to, the simple fact that the dates don't match up in any of the posts, made me disregard itr immediately, especially since Rafi hasn't called me yet LOL. I will be calling her soon though, As soon as XL 8 is available.

[STRAT]

so looking forward too.

the 2 main things on my wish list -

1) render region to file
2) faster stotchastic mode rendering

[l_farley13_l]

It better be somthing good - it's been 4 years in coming :)
As for other features I have a funny feeling somthing that starts with an F and ends with and x will be added ;)

Farley13

[Grey]

Can I PRAY for Rhino 3DM Nurbs support? :D

And maybe integrating Donovan Keith's GOLUM? :D (with NURBS Character Animation Support :D)

[Caravaggio]

I'd be happy for alternate forward kinematics (although I may just not know about that, haven't done much animating outside of a slug.) It's strange using targeted null objects.

Maybe an option for an alternate NURB code or making it so glow and blur work behind transparencies, or does anybody know if the code simply won't allow for that?

[LucentDreams]

Grey keep praying, thats going tobe a long ways away. As for FK, I think that is what Farley was hinting to as well, not sure by his spelling, since kinetics does end with an S not and X but maybe I misunderstood him. As for foing it with nulls, thats more of a variation of IK not FK. FK is posing from the parent down to the child not the chiled to the parent. The null target rigs, move the child and the parent responds, sorta a hybrid IK, and these types of rigs are common though more advance in other programs.

[Caravaggio]

Yeah, FK!

What I meant about the null objects was I've been using them to keep track of where characters feet are in case I want to move say a torso, that way I only have to copy the rotation of a foot for the next key frame when the body moves while the foot stays on the ground. I wasn't really talking about the end chain effectors, I have a completely different set of null objects for that. :shrug:

[LucentDreams]

AHHHH gotcha now. I'm followin.

[Grey]

Yeah, well... I'm still hoping we get OpenNURBS (http://www.opennurbs.com) (.3DM) support in the form of an import filter... (It would also be cool if we bone them...)

I won't mind purchasing DK's Gollum Toolbox if it's not included, even so, it would be nice :D

[Caravaggio]

Hey Kaiskai, can you please explain to me what someone meant when they said c4d doesn't do true nurbing? From what I see, right now it doesn't add more it just subdivides and rounds, is there a formula that adds only to the places that really need it or something?

[LucentDreams]

Hmmmm I am a little confused as to what you mean, are you refering to hypernurbs or just plain nurbs.

Hyperburbs are not true nurbs for sure, The smoothe a mesh in similar ways to how a B-spline works, but they aren' the seame.

As for nurbs, C4D's Nurbs are really lacking. How to explain it not being a nurbs kinda guy is hard, but my suggestion is check out a program like rhino or solidthing, even formZ and you'll get an idea of what real nurbs can do compared to Max's, or even worse C4D's.

As for support for OPENnurbs, that won't happen till we get better nurbs. Sorry.

[ThirdEye]

There are a lot of things missing now... :rolleyes:edge (poly) modeling, n-faces modeling (now 4 max), real Nurbs, vertex paint to control mesh sharpness, HDRI support, integrated Shave & Haircut (like XSI), multiple selections, IK and bones, non-linear timeline, real DOF, material editor (also to give volume to glass objects)...:shrug:

[LucentDreams]

how often do you use XL??? Read your list again, read you manual, lok at the app and get beack to me when you realize how much of this is wrong, and how much of this is inaccurate.

[ThirdEye]

I hope you're joking, in my post i expressed many lacks, let's check:

edge modeling: can you model in polygon mode using edges? show me how, I can use only faces and points.
n-faces modeling: i don't think you can model a 5-faces poly without subdividing it into a triangle and a square (show me how if possible)
real nurbs: do we have trimming? blending curves? Net Curves? Even 3ds Max nurbs are better than XL nurbs...
vertex paint: i don't think i can sharpen a bunch of polys with vertex painting..
HDRI: strange, on my manual there's not HDRI
Shave & Haircut: strange, on my manual there's not S&H
Multiple Selections: you must group objects in ob. ed. if you wanna select them together NOW.
IK and Bones: they suck now, must be rewritten, a Maxon beta tester told me they will be rewritten in XL8.
non linear timeline: strange, on my manual there's no non-linear animation
real DOF: now it's a post-fx, but surely you know that
material editor and glass objects volume: is it possible to have Lambert materials? Constant? Strauss? Do we have a separate channel for refraction to give volume to transparent objects?

Oh maybe i must check the manual, perhaps i will find these things... :rolleyes:

[sad]

Originally posted by ThirdEye_01
There are a lot of things missing now... :rolleyes:edge (poly) modeling, n-faces modeling (now 4 max), real Nurbs, vertex paint to control mesh sharpness, HDRI support, integrated Shave & Haircut (like XSI), multiple selections, IK and bones, non-linear timeline, real DOF, material editor (also to give volume to glass objects)...:shrug:

with supernurbs you can control smoothing of polygon-objects in hypernurbs-container! it is extremely easy and very very affordable!
try it. http://plugin.medienbunker.com/supernurbs/

shave&haircut is nearly fully integrated in c4d. the hairdoo settings will be made within s&h but the dialogue between both tools is seamless. it won't disturb you at all. anything else can be manipulated in c4d: length, thicknes, density, etc.

the material editor of c4d is very usefull! since bhodinut sla has been integrated you have endless posibilities to create amazing textures. for c4d xL6 sla can be bought additionally. it also integrates seamlessly. for a real glass texture you should use the free fresnel shader on your programme-cd.

edge-modelling? what do you mean by that?
maybe this will help:
http://www.vonkoenigsmarck.de/Bannerware/Bannerware.html

ik and bones do exist.

i'd suggest additional reading here:
http://www.maxon.de/pages/products/c4d/xl/c4d_xl_features_e.html
:shrug:

[sad]

it ain't part of the xl7 standard package.

;)

[ThirdEye]

Supernurbs is a plug-in (by the way you have to pay it), I'm talking about base release. S&H is not FULLY integrated and NOW in XL 7 we don't have it in the package. The material editor... try to render a simple goblet with wine or water using SLA Banji instead of a normal material... 2 hours of raytracing? or maybe 3...? And it's impossible to give volume to glass now without using SLA! IK and Bones do exist, it's obvious, every package has IK and bones, but I think XL bones are worse than Max, Lightwave, XSI, Maya... A Maxon beta-tester told me IK and bones will be rewritten in XL8 because Maxon knows they suck now. What's Edge modeling? it's simple: you can select edges instead of vertex or polys when you model (like in XSI, Maya, Max...), it'a a very useful way of modeling. I added also HDRI, non-linear animation, multiple selections (without groups), real DOF, Nurbs... and let's add a skytracer too :thumbsup:

[sad]

it helps improoving edge modeling.

some features are really missing, yes. renderin a glass of wine should not take 2 hors i suppose.

other bad things:
boole, light-exclusion, useless object-name selections (e.g. in the chance tool), post effect glow (impossible behind transparency....

[Caravaggio]

Oh man I want that super nurbs, I'm so sick of having to cram together polys to make a sharp edge.
Do you think they'll put something like that in 8? I might wait if they do...

Is edge extrude a plug in too? Edge editing would be good, though I don't think it's as needed as some things.

[MJV]

This render only took 25 minutes on my G3. It would take less than 5 minutes on my dual Athlon. And it doesn't use an SLA 3D shader.

[ThirdEye]

The background is complitely black, it's impossible to see if refraction is phisically correct or not. If you didn't use any 3D shader i'm sure that it wouldn't because XL basic material editor doesn't have (like Maya for example) a separate channel for refraction. If there was a separate refraction channel you could use a b/w ramp to decrease refraction with distance. Now it's impossible to control local opacity of transparent materials! Your rendertime is good, but it's obvious, you didn't use banji (and I think there's no GI use). Lightwave has a plug-in named glass-thickner to avoid lack of volume, Maya has a separate refraction channel, XSI has volume shaders for refraction. I don't know if XL has something similar now.

[Caravaggio]

I have a Q about that supernurbs, if you use the vertex weights, will it interfere with a bone system? That would be even more weight tags...

[MJV]

What are you talking about? Cinema has a separate control for refraction and btw Cinema's controls are way superior to Maya's. I did use Banji in the above render. What do you mean local opacity of material? You can control all aspects of a materials opacity.

[Saltorio]

ThirdEye_01 Wrote:

S&H is not FULLY integrated and NOW in XL 7 we don't have it in the package.

Umm... look at the cost of XSI (or Maya Unlimited for that matter; both of which have integrated hair/fur tools). Then look at the cost of C4D. Now think before you make requests. You can purchase C4D XL and S&H, and it'll still cost you at least $1000 less than either of those programs with "integrated" hair/fur tools.


Caravaggio Wrote:

I have a Q about that supernurbs, if you use the vertex weights, will it interfere with a bone system? That would be even more weight tags...

Nope, it won't interfere with the bone system. Bones will only reference vertexmaps if you put a restriction tag on them, and define the name of the vertexmap you want them to restrict to. You'll likely only need 1 vertexmap for your SuperNURBS object, so there shouldn't even be a problem with running out of useable VM tags.

I suggest purchasing SuperNURBS. I've got it and it's great. It's only $9.95 USD/Euros, which is peanuts (even for me with no job). It's definately worth it, and Oxygen (C4D v8) won't likely be out for a while (and even there, there's a possibility it won't implement vertex weights for HyperNURBS).

[ThirdEye]

MJV wrote:
This render only took 25 minutes on my G3. It would take less than 5 minutes on my dual Athlon. And it doesn't use an SLA 3D shader.

You said you didn't use any 3D SLA shader and now you say you're using banji... bah! You say XL has superior controls than Maya... have you ever used Maya???? :surprised Cinema DOESN'T have separate controls for refraction, what are you talking about??? The only thing you can control about that is the index of refraction, the separate channel is referred to transparency, not to refraction! And I repeat: impossible to give volume. Strange, you said you used Banji and you don't know Banji has many controls over local opacity...


For Saltorio: look at the cost of Lightwave that integrates Sasquatch lite and many other things XL doesn't have. PS: maya complete costs only 1999 dollars. And the point is not cost: we're talking about lacks and features, not about prices.

[LucentDreams]

Edge modeling and N-sided polygons are due to the same thing, they go hand in hand, but you must know that. a ten dollar plugin to wight subD's is hardly an issue, especially since later on you justify LW's lack of glass thickening capabilities with a plugin. The glass thickening issue is in your head as C4D has great control of this. besides mixing textures would solve this problem even if they were and issue. As was said the programs that have integrated hair cost a fortune, and those hair aren't S&H I'm not sure why you waould state that XSI has it. And have you notice Joe Alter is creating S&H for maya too now. Because many don't want to spend a complete fortune for hair, so they get the lower package and then buy S&H. The timeline may not be as good as XSI's, (believe me I am learning XSI's) but it is an NL timeline. you just have leanred how to group animation, mix animation, and all that. the onlything the timeline really needs is F-curves. NO we don't have constant and Strauss.

As for my original reply to you reread your post and you'll understand

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by ThirdEye_01
There are a lot of things missing now... edge (poly) modeling, n-faces modeling (now 4 max), real Nurbs, vertex paint to control mesh sharpness, HDRI support, integrated Shave & Haircut (like XSI), multiple selections, IK and bones, non-linear timeline, real DOF, material editor (also to give volume to glass objects)...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


your last few listed are stated by you to be missing, when you really meaqnt they needed to be fixed. IK is fine, the bones need work. Real DOF, well I don't know a programs that does real DOF, as far as I have seen, they all use posteffects, even thet best DOF out there (X-DOF) is post.

[Saltorio]

ThirdEye_01 Wrote:

For Saltorio: look at the cost of Lightwave that integrates Sasquatch lite and many other things XL doesn't have.

I don't know anything about Sasquatch, but I can assume the "Lite" in the name of the version included with Lightwave means that it lacks features that Sasquatch Pro (or whatever it's called) has. I agree that Cinema 4D XL could benefit from having some integrated hair/fur capabilities (as well as cloth modelling), however you should be more specific when making requests. You specifically asked for "S&H" (Shave and a Haircut) which is a very professional, fully featured hair/fur package. For $495 USD, it likely quite worth it for those who need these types of features, and I doubt Sasquatch Lite has the full feature set available in S&H (though I could be wrong).

You make it sound as though Cinema 4D is a load of crap (which makes me wonder why your in the Cinema 4D forums). I'm sure there are features C4D has that aren't available (or as good) in other packages (I couldn't list these if I tried, as C4D is the only 3D app I have any experience with). If Lightwave (or Maya, or XSI for that matter) are sooo much better than C4D, why are you using C4D (or at least posting in it's forums)? There must be a reason.

ThirdEye_01 Wrote:

PS: maya complete costs only 1999 dollars. And the point is not cost: we're talking about lacks and features, not about prices.

For "only" $1999 USD Maya Complete doesn't include Maya Fur (for that you need to fork out $6999 USD for Maya Unlimited). For that matter, you don't even get Sub-division Surfaces (a feature included in C4D with HyperNURBS), nor do you get the advanced NURBS modelling tools (as you were requesting for C4D) with Maya Complete. Again, you need to spend another $5000 to get Unlimited for those.

Hmm... so it seems that features and price seem to go hand-in-hand. If one package doesn't offer it, and the other one does only with a significant additional investment, then there really isn't as much difference between the features of the two packages.

[MJV]

>You said you didn't use any 3D SLA shader and now you say you're using banji... bah! You say XL has superior controls than Maya... have you ever used Maya???? Cinema DOESN'T have separate controls for refraction, what are you talking about??? The only thing you can control about that is the index of refraction, the separate channel is referred to transparency, not to refraction! And I repeat: impossible to give volume. Strange, you said you used Banji and you don't know Banji has many controls over local opacity... <

I said I didn't use an SLA 3D shader, not that I didn't use SLA. I guess you don't know that you can access banji and other SLA shaders in the channels. I never use the 3D shaders, but I always use SLA in channels just as any knowing person would, because you have more control in the channels. In Cinema, you can control the amount of transparency, the fresnel of the transparency, the refraction index, and there is a switch to turn on internal reflections. Why do you say it impossible to give volume? Because YOU don't know how? It seems like you don't know very much about Cinema or Maya. If you do then point me to some renders you've done in either one of them.

[ThirdEye]

try Brazil r/s DOF: that one is a real DOF. That means that in transparent objects for example you can see the fx in a different way.

give me a hand: how do i have to mix texture to control local opacity for glass? You say the thickness problem is in my head: tell me (in a simple glass) how to control depth in refraction, and how to render the glass with 2 shadows not 4. Check this out before giving me an answer:

http://www.geocities.com/CollegePark/9315/lw/gthick.htm

Thanks

[sad]

super-nurbs is cheap it costs 9,95 dollar/euro. why waiting for an integration in xl8? it is a cool plugin!

[ThirdEye]

Oh I forgot Kaiskai: in 3dsMAX standard render for example, DOF is a serie of multipass renders that generate DOF with the distance, not a simple post-fx


For MJV: Banji is a 3D VOLUME shader and is such different from the only 2D shader with a similar name: Banj (check official Bhodinut SLA manual if you don't know how to use them). You said that there's a switch to control internal reflections:

1 I don't need it now, thanks anyway
2 It's a feature of Banji, a 3D VOLUME SHADER

check this render (it's mine) and look at water refraction of the chair in the goblet and look at the lack of volume in the empty glass, if you're able to improve their aspect I'll be grateful.

http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=10364

[MJV]

give me a hand: how do i have to mix texture to control local opacity for glass? You say the thickness problem is in my head: tell me (in a simple glass) how to control depth in refraction, and how to render the glass with 2 shadows not 4. Check this out before giving me an answer:


For color attenuation based upon thickness, you have to use fog, but it's a pretty tricky proposition to get it right. The thing about the samples you referenced is they all suck pretty bad, so it's hard to see how the plugin helps. Here is a second rendering of the glass in Cinema with caustics.

{http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=145051&Start=1&Artist=mv&ByArtist=Yes}

[slimpy]

ThirdEye,

I think I understand what you're talking about. Correct me if I'm wrong...

The separate channel for refraction would allow you to vary the index of refraction according to the thickness of the textured object. For example: A refraction of 1.2 in a thin area & 1.7 in a thick area.

I'm just not sure how this would be implemented. Gradients?

As for your other points... For the most part, I think they would be welcome additions.

slimpy

[slimpy]

Here are some of my own suggestions/requests. Most of them are relatively small, but I think they could save a lot of time. Let me know what you think...

General Interface/Workflow:

- Active Object Palette - Much like the Active Tool tab, but for objects. Would eliminate the need for many modal pop-up windows.
- Live object / light updates (or at least an apply button).
- Exclusion of object reflections etc. (in addition to light exclusions)
- Completely integrated SLA

Modeling:

- Center of Editing Operations - Object Axis, Mouse Location, and Selection.
- A whole range of point/poly editing tools with falloff settings: Taper, Bend, Stretch, Twist etc.
- N-Sided polygons
- Spin Quads option
- Knife tool that can use splines for curved cuts (ie. stencil)
- Bandsaw tool

Deformers:

- Improved deformers that have fully customizable falloff. Option to use spline object(s) for controlling deformation and/or falloff.

Timeline:

- Live textbox readout of graph values.
- Clearly labeled values and units according to which type of graph (instead of just a numbered chart)
- More customization of appearance (ie. grid background & lines)
- Improved tools for navigating and editing graphs
- F-Curves

[LucentDreams]

A series of multipass renders each with a post effect applied to it. a non post effect would render the blur as the entire thing is being calculated.

as for glass with controllabbvle refractions, here are three objects, one with 80 percent transperency, the second with exact same setting but the fresnel shckbox applied, the third with bhodinut fresnel applied. If you wanted to actually have an object change entire refraction rates though, simply use the fresnel in the alpha channel, and mix two glass materials with different refraction rates together.

[Caravaggio]

Oh that's not good, I've gotten used to using vertex weights to restrict bones instead of the radius way. Polygonal restrictions look stranger... ...Hmmmm.

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