Has anyone upgraded to 10.15 Catalina and tested Cinema 4D? I’ve looked and can’t find a thread on here discussing the topic.
Not only is the current version (R20/21) important, but so is R19 as old files need to be opened in R19 before they can be opened in R20.
My employer (architectural firm) is upgrading next week and I’m hoping I’ll still be able to use C4D, at least personally.
TIA,
Terry
I have not upgraded, as Adobe has warned of issues with Adobe Suite. One of my coworkers tried on her Mac at home and verified adobe’s problems with Catalina.
A good rule of thumb - wait a few months any time a new Mac OS comes out.
Although I don’t use C4D for any serious project work itself, mainly plugin development, I haven’t experienced any issues with R21 on Catalina at all so far.
So the firm is going to upgrade regardless of whether that borks C4D R19 and R20?
It may be just the way you’ve written your post but the way it reads suggests the decision has been made.
Anyway, it should be very easy for a Maxon employee to answer your question they would surely know but they’re AWOL when you need them. Support is virtually none existent.
On the subject of support, I was very surprised by the quality of SideFX’s customer and technical support. Real people, polite, efficient and prompt. I cannot speak highly enough of the SideFX team. A night and day comparison.
Yes, the plan is to have everyone upgraded to Catalina by Monday, 10/21.
We’ve used Cinema 4D in the past, but not any more. What we really need is quick visualization that can be provided by SketchUp, ArchiCAD, and Twinmotion. So C4D has fallen by the wayside.
However, I still use C4D on the laptop they provided to me. So I’m just hoping that I can continue without having to resort to using a second computer.
Terry
I created a support ticket with Maxon. I’ll let you know what they say.
My MSA is current until the end of 2019 so I should still be receiving tech support.
Terry
Terry, I wondered f that was the case that you were using a personal copy of C4D on a work provided machine. I hope it goes OK for you. I have a couple of Macs in the office and I know Catalina breaks several pieces of software what we use so I’m not going to be upgrading any time soon.
Have you seen this, Sketchup Style renderer for Blender, https://blendermarket.com/products/sketch-style-add-on
It might be of interest to you/your firm. It renders in real time with Eevee.
Yes, it’s my personal C4D license which I’ve had for years (Version6.5 I think), but for the past couple of years the firm has paid my MSA since I’ve used it for work projects. But as I’ve said, we’ve moved on to other software for architectural work.
However, I still enjoy C4D and use it on the side for myself. My firm doesn’t care if I keep in on the laptop. I’m not breaking any rules. I just don’t know if the OS upgrade is going to doom old versions. Like I said, I need the order version in order to open old projects and purchased models since the file format has changed with R20.
Thanks for the link. That looks interesting. We’re more interested in realism as we need to show clients what their spaces will look like, but we need to do it quickly. So we’re more interested in Lumion and Enscape, but those are Windows only.
Aside from the OS concern, I imported a CAD STEP file in r20, exported FBX (2013) to play with r14 and the geometry took a big hit. I saved the r20 file as .c4d and was able to open it in r14 just fine and the mesh was perfect. I don’t know why I can open it in r14, but it seems fine on my end using El Capitan.
You have looked at Blender’s Eevee renderer haven’t you? It’s cross platform and real time like Lumion and Enscape.
I filed a support ticket with MAXON about R19 and R20 working in Catalina. This is the response I received.
“R20 and lower are NOT compatible with Catalina, if possible I do not recommend updating at this time. Both applications simply will not launch on it. It’s possible we will be releasing a hotfix update for R20 that will allow it to launch on Catalina, however I’m not sure about R19. Again I would avoid updating at all costs.”
I sent this info to our IT guy and he said I wasn’t required to upgrade. So I’m out of the woods. But I’m stuck on Mojave unless MAXON updates R20 and R19.
I’m not mistaken that R19 is needed to open old files. Correct?
Terry
R21 is fully supported. Catalina has caused a problem with the older installers but there is a workaround. Documented here:
https://support.maxon.net/kb/faq.php?id=58
Cheers
Dave
Apple certainly knows how to screw professionals.
They’re a year early on forcing everyone to 64 bit.
This will only slow the transition to Catalina.
Some will never upgrade to it to preserve usage of legacy plugins that may never get upgraded to 64 bit.
From the Maxon perspective r21 is very future proof on the Mac. We have gotten rid of almost all api’s that Apple has market legacy. I little work to do on OpenGL but we are up to date.
Cheers
Dave
I’ve done a lot of performance visuals over the years and the Mac was THE thriving platform for VJs, Installations, Theatre backdrops and general RT performance. It was a near shut out like the Music Industry was.
A lot of this stemmed from Quartz Composer and people building Apps round it or plugins out of it for Apps like VDMX. Over the last 5 years I’ve watched everyone switch to the PC and Touchdesigner as Apple did nothing with Quartz and let it rot.
Apple being unable or unwilling to support OpenGL/CL or even Vulkan a true cross platform API instead pushing everyone towards their proprietary Metal is really bad for developers and the end user.
Apple is not a reliable partner for professionals wanting to get work done.
I’m pretty sure you are running an Nvidia GPU, and CUDA is proprietary as well. As long as it work I’m sure user won’t care if a standard is proprietary or not.
I’m not entirely sure what point you’re making. I agree, as long as a proprietary API like CUDA is cross platform it’s fine. But my nVidia GPUs also run OpenGL and OpenCL and Vulkan too.
Apple is forcing developers into adopting their Metal API and actively forcing other APIs off the platform, this is the real problem, Apple’s way or the highway! This is bad for the user because this means the developer has no choice but to target Metal and if they’re a cross platform developer it places a huge amount of extra burden on development. After Apple deprecated OpenGL and CL many smaller games Devs decided to stop Mac Games development. I saw one well known Mac developer say if Apple were so stupid to remove OpenGL from MacOS they move to the PC. How does this help the end user?
I know of one developer who has created software for real time performance and being forced to support Metal had him considering whether or not to continue with Mac support or drop Windows. He has struggled on and it has meant a huge delay in getting the latest version of his software out. The task is not easy for those with big development teams but for small developers it can be make or break. If it’s break then that has a direct affect on the end user.
Apple recently removed the loaner Mac from the Blender offices because Ton said they would never support Metal. Blender can’t support Metal because they don’t have any developers who know Metal and can support it long term. Instead they plan to move to Vulkan but Vulkan is only supported on the Mac via MoltenVK runtime library that sits on top of Metal. It’s not anywhere near 100% complete so Mac user may have less good performance or have visual limitations.
As long as it works users won’t care but the odds are stacked against it IMO. I’ve used Macs for a decade but recent developments have convinced me Apple is absolute poison for the professional. Use Macs at your own peril.
When Apple Computer changed their name to Apple, the writing was on the wall. They are now more interested in consumer electronics including the iPhone and iPad than anything else. Who can blame them, since they’re making more money than ever.
Well, I can. I’ve been a Mac user since 1984 and am a huge fan boy (admittedly). But for 3D professionals it’s a dead or dying platform.