Learn Cinema 4D after blender?

#7

As long as you don’t have a special need for C4D (due to special functionality and customer requirements) you may want to watch the (free) C4D videos from FMX, IBC, NAB, and Siggraph. There are dozens of hours of these videos, they are free, and they show many advanced techniques and tricks that often tell more about the program’s capabilities than single-topic tutorials.

Also, they come from practicians who work with real projects.

Who knows, you may still find the killer feature you have always needed but didn’t know you wanted.

#8

Thanks, I’ll definitely have a look
At those!

#9

The new version of C4D is usally announced at Siggraph during the summer (this year it’s july 28th) for a release in September, so you’ll see pretty soon what’s in store.

Quite a lot has happened lately for Maxon (Redshift takover, new management…) and C4D itself is in a state of transition: there has been a slow core rewrite under the hood for a number of years, which has held back the implementation of new features and drove a few people away (to Modo, Houdini, etc).

Now that it seems mostly done, each new iteration starts bringing interesting functionalities again (volumes, fields, more multithreading, new nodes etc…)

But as a consequence, it’s also in a strange position where it’s having to make legacy features and new ones live together in parallel, which to be honest can be quite confusing at times (namely the multiple render engines and material systems at hand: legacy/relfectance/PBR, Uber/full nodal…), and is detrimental to the legendary ease of use of the package.

Hopefully, things will be consolidated in the upcoming versions.

At last in some domains, native C4D tools are no match for specialist solutions like Substance painter, X-particles etc… But the C4D plugin scene is very active and because it has now a sizeable userbase, many vendors port their solutions to the platform.

#10

I don’t think that you need to learn Cinema 4D if you are a Blender specialist. I found some useful tips reading eduzaurus review at www.paidpaper.net so maybe you will find it useful too. Blender is a great and powerful tool so think twice before spending time on learning another program.

#12

At the risk of this sounding like a paid advertisement - I don’t work for a large studio, and I transitioned from C4D to Houdini about a year back, after being an ardent fan of C4D for over 10 years, and don’t see myself going back to C4D any time soon.

The first few months of learning were (very) rough, but in terms of ability and speed, Houdini runs circles around C4D in pretty much every department (except, of course, accessibility). What prompted me to try Houdini was trying to design a ceiling feature, and it was a painful, slow process in C4D. The calculations took ages, and required it breaking the procedural chain in several parts. Any design changes required the tedious process of revisiting the whole chain to semi-manually rebuild it. Flattening out the geometry was also resulting in massive, bloated scene files, that were slow to save.

I was able to replicate the same setup in Houdini with significantly more complexity and control, and keep the entire thing procedural, allowing for instant iterations to the design, and the scene file was under 2 MB.

In terms of direction, SideFX is absolutely crushing it right now. Fully-functional Apprentice version to get your feet wet with. The Indie version is available for peanuts, and its feature set is nearly on par with the FX version. Every update they’ve put for the last few releases have been absolutely massive.

They put out daily builds that aggressively target bugs. There is an official channel to submit bugs and feature requests, and a support rep will contact you about pretty much each one. There’s the SideFX Labs initiative, which is pumping out useful tools at a rapid clip, in between releases.

They have several masterclasses put out by senior devs themselves that provide detailed, workflow-oriented information. The Houdini Discord “Think Procedural” channel is a fantastic place to get quick help as there are several seasoned users on there, and even some SideFX devs.

If you’re doing only rendering, maybe C4D’s accessibility might be a better fit, but if you’re also designing, I definitely recommend trying Houdini.

#13

What is a “ceiling feature” ?

#16

I suggest you look at Octane for Blender.

#17

Certainly true in motion graphics, architectural visualization. But in gaming there is more demand for Blender artists than for c4d artists, as Blender is breaking into a lot of game studios. Virtually nobody in gaming uses c4d.

#18

That’s not true. There is a reason why Unity imports C4D files natively.

#19

And We imagine that there is a reason that Ubisoft moved to Blender for their game asset development after the changes in 2.8 +

Everyone has their own pipeline priorities/preferences in the gaming space
But skilled content artist have ,and will, continue to create great game content
no matter their software ,thus crooning about who is using what, to make game assets
for whatever engine ,is rather pointless IMHO.

Epic gave Reallusion one of their million+ Dollar megagrants after Reallusion
created a free live link to unreal for thier realtime Iclone avatars.

However I doubt you will ever see a AAA game title released using Iclone Avatars,
and I say this as an Iclone user developing a personal animated web series
to be rendered in EEVEE using Iclone and Blender
as Blenders action editor can store and re-use/ retarget unlimited
body& face motion data between Iclone Avatars imported via Standard FBX.

I Model all of my clothing & environmental content in Blender and only use the underlying Iclon CHaracter Creator 3 rigs for realtime animation and export.

On the matter of content creation and animated production.

Look dev and Lighting TD work is where alot of time is lost or gained
so it is critical to have realtime viewport performance that will provide,at the very least, a 95 percent accurate representation of the final render
and no need to buy an octane license to work this way in Blender.

On the matter of C4Ds “better physics”

I must ask if Maxon has unified the **i
NATIVE Cloth and soft body/particle systems in
the latest versions C4D.

When last I used C4D, the weight map system that I used to control the effect of soft body dynamics could not be use to attunate the cloth dynamics, making simulating cloth on a moving character, mission impossible in C4D

Surely this has been addressed …yes?

#20

If you think serious game companies are hiring c4d artists…good luck to you.

#21

C4D also import to Unreal Engine with Datasmith, but I seriously doubt they use Datasmith to import game assets, because you need to export them as FBX to use Substance Painter or Zbrush for High res to low res details, or transfer it to Marvelous-

Both workflows are way more used than just importing the scene into Unreal. Plus, you cant use a Datasmith asset and make a Blueprint out of it without converting it, so while its very useful to render in real time motion graphics render or do an archviz render, is not as useful for Games as FBX is.

#22

If you think serious game companies are hiring c4d artists…good luck to you.

If you still think the software is the culprit then good luck to you.

Serious companies hires artists, not software. And serious artists are usually software agnostic within some bounds. They may have its favourite tool, but they usually use what the pipeline requires. That’s at least the case with the people that i know. A polygon is a polygon.

Software licenses is what companies usually already have. And they usually don’t buy this software because of propaganda and ideological reasons. But productivity and pipeline reasons. Sometimes also historical reasons. And of course because of the costs. And the price of the software is just one variable here.

Either way, like it or not, Cine is also used for game assets. I know quite a few Cine users from back in the times when i made games with Unity. That’s why i know that you are wrong here, sorry.

Proof of possible pipeline… And that the video exists is already proof that Cine gets used for creating game assets: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oE54WwgpAxY

EDIT, just to add one more, Cine to ZBrush can of course be done with the GoZ Plugin. And from there you have other paths open.

#23

You can use any software for game assets, doesn’t mean you should.

You can even use Zbrush, and export directly as FBX into Unreal regardless of geometry cleanup. If you are doing an indie game, of course C4D will do the job, there are a Unity to C4D workflow with a pretty cool example on cineversity, but I find hard to believe people have been using C4D as their main game asset DCC tool for AAA games, because it wasnt until R22 we got *proper UV tools, and it wasnt until R23 we got multi object editing UV tools.

As talented as C4D users are, there are many people who are as proficient as C4D and use 3dsmax or Maya, wich are better suited for games.

#24

I know what you mean, but that was not what i was pointing at. It was about that somebody said literally nobody uses C4D for game assets. Wich is not true. C4D is used for game assets as a fact. And not just here and there. I have seen it.

If it makes sense and in what scope, if there are better solutions around, and if just as a one trick tool in the pipeline or as the all in one solution is a completely different chapter then. And that’s a discussion that i will surely not want to lead here. It doesn’t lead to anywhere anyways.

Maybe one thing. AAA is just a super tiny fraction of game development. Even single A is. I would say 90 % games is nowadays low quality casual content in the scope where you don’t even need a normalmap. The market is very wide, with lots of target platforms and game ideas. From Pong to MMO. There are games that uses low poly flat shading as a style. And the hyperrealistic content is nowadays Megascans libraries.

#25

Yes, but we use standards to measure. I can say people use Microsoft Paint for games and while maybe its true, and im pretty sure some game was made using only MS Paint -because MS Paint artists do exist, thats nowhere near the reality we face, neither should be the standard we use to measure either quality or ease of use of a software for a given job.

If that were the case, then we should compare what every average joe with a smartphone can do on TikTok instead of what profesionals film makers in Hollywood can.

edit… anyway… Icecaveman -someone who I not always agree with- said serious game companies, I asumed he was talking about AAA, not one man bands like the impresive guy who made Minecraft.

#26

Again, your feelings, your own standards and what you think is better is not the point. I know for a fact that Cine is used for game assets since I had contact with those people. I have developed games for 15 years. And i honestly don’t understand what your problem is with that.

As told, i don’t really want to discuss the rest. But I think you have still the wrong picture of the games industry. The variety of games and companies who produces such games is enourmous. You should definitely rethink your definition of a serious game company. AAA titles for the PC are produced by a handful companies. The very most companies produces low quality casual games for pc, console, hand helds, mobile phone, etc. . Ten in a row, nine failing, one making the money for the next ten games. That’s the usual game business. Not the AAA titles. And titles like Minecraft or Angry Bird is the jackpot, one of a million.

For this casual games sometimes the job of a game artist is to texture a simple cube. The almighty box. Or to create a coin for a bejeweld clone. You could do most of the tasks with Milkshape already.

But here we enter again the “what is better” area. Which i don’t want to discuss. Which car is better? Porsche or VW? Who made better art? Keith Haring or Da Vinci?

Use whatever fits your needs best. But please not based on alternative facts. That’s why i made my statement.

#27

Didn’t say that. I said, “Virtually nobody” which is the same as saying “Almost nobody.” And the context of the statement was in relationship to hiring. Can someone use c4d to create a game? Absolutely! Are there a handful that do? Sure. But beyond a very small indy studio here or there…please name a single notable game studio in the entire world that is hiring c4d artists. You’ll be hard pressed to find one.

Companies focused on gaming use Maya, Max or Blender. Then in these studios you’ll discover a few Houdini specialists creating sims as well as Zbrush artists building characters. C4d? Overwhelmingly…No.

#28

Just curious, have you ever made a game in your life? Have you ever participated in a game dev community? I already pointed at Unity. C4D was and is commonly used there. I also told you that i know enough Cine users that develops games with it. This is first hand experience. Folks, this is real. No hoax. It is not “literally nobody” and not “overwhelmingly no”. That’s wishful thinking.

And you imho still have a completely wrong picture of game development, assets and pipelines. It is not all MMO and shooters. You talk to a game developer here. And i know when somebody talks bollocks since i was part of the show. That’s the difference between guessing and knowing. But okay. When reality does not play a role here then i guess we have reached the end of discussion.

#29

This is a sore spot for me.

Cinema4D users who use the software to create game related assets do exist. But let’s face it; almost no one buys Cinema4D specifically for game development. The vast majority of people, prior to entering the game development field, were Mac users who were already using Cinema4D for other purposes; namely motion graphics and broadcast titling in tandem with AE. Given Maya’s buggy state, C4D was the only stable mainstream 3D program for MacOS at the time. The tremendous success of the iOS eco-system and the potential for lucrative payouts enticed many C4D users to try their hand at mobile game development for the first time. Due to the fact that they already had a Mac to publish iOS apps, which was necessary, and already knew C4D, that’s what they used to generate assets. This is the primary base of C4D game developers today.

When contrasted with other 3D animation software used by studios and independent developers, Cinema4D is at the very bottom of the pile. As a Cinema4D user, it is frustrating to see the blistering pace of other 3D applications for game development like Blender and Houdini to include features such as real time viewports, seamless export to other engines and a multitude of amazing plugins to enhance game-centric workflows on a weekly basis. Official support and endorsements from large studios as well as game engines companies further reinforces their legitimacy as proper game dev tools.

Meanwhile, in C4D land, we have been begging Maxon for a fraction of the above for a long time. Rudimentary features that other software developers take for granted such as proper export to Unreal and Unity were slow to be realized; never mind export functionality that is kept up to date. We just recently had an updated UV toolset that while being welcomed several years after the fact, is still subpar. Maxon had a number of opportunities to make Cinema4D a very game development friendly platform but instead did everything they possibly could to avoid accommodating game developers – only getting away with the absolute bare minimum. It is as if is Maxon tosses a rare bone to us in a begrudging acknowledgement that we exist.

I would like to think that Maxon will turn a new leaf and take game development seriously but given the history of lost opportunities, I’m skeptical. Among them was the early lead Maxon had with Bodypaint 3D. It could be best described as a precursor to Allegorithmic’s Substance painter. It took years for the competition from The Foundry and Allegorithmic to finally emerge and take the real time projection painting crown from Maxon; time that could have been used to really bolster the capabilities of Bodypaint.

Why does Maxon neglect game development to this extent? Perhaps it’s cultural. German thinking among businesses circles is traditionally conservative. The management at Maxon may see video games as low brow activity. They want to showcase architects, commercial/feature film VFX artists but treat game developers like Kryptonite. It would be ironic if true given some of the amazing game engine technology that has come out of Germany.

Maxon’s focus has been on AE and motion graphic industries. Not an unwise move at the time but over reliance on this is starting to cost them. Other packages are catching up to include mograph feature sets and software like Houdini has surpassed the hard technical ceiling which limited C4D. Pricing is also an issue; there is still no indie level fee structure that other competitors have embraced that bring indie developers to their side.

Perhaps most worrying at all for Maxon is the aggressive inroads that Adobe is making towards making 3D more accessible in its own software. I am specifically referring to Adobe Dimension which is being worked on by the former Mixamo team and Allegorithmic. Adobe is famous for squeezing out middlemen to limit their reliance on third parties; the 3D -> AE bridge could well be their next focus for full independence. I suspect that before long, we’ll see full integration between Dimension and After Effects. This would leave Maxon in a precarious position. I suspect that’s why Maxon is now pivoting to other areas and may explain their acquisition of Red Giant both as a means to branch out while signaling to Adobe that if Cineware is compromised, so too will Red Giant support for AE.

At the moment, I’m in doubt as to Maxon’s ability to expand its base beyond the loyal customers that it already has. Even if they were to start focusing on game developers today, it may already be too late. The momentum has shifted in favor of Blender for general purpose use and that entrenchment is only strengthening. 10 years from now, we may all be asking, “Remember the days when we had to pay for 3D animation software with standard features? Now we get it for free and buy just plugins.”