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come on, let’s be fair here... not anything substantial since 2015??? so you‘d be fine with not having fields and volumes, you‘d be ok with the shitty UV workflow and algorithms, you‘d be fine with rudimentary auto weights, you‘d be happy with broken f-curves with no proper auto tangents? it’s ok to not be happy with the speed of development, but saying nothing substantial since 2015 is a bit over the top, don‘t you think? there‘s no way in hell i could ever go back to r16, as an animator i wouldn’t even want go back to r23.

Off topic but I would like to say I am really enjoying the conversations happening in this thread. I just wish we could all keep chatting like this usually, instead of just once every 6 months when a new version of C4D releases.

that’s pretty much it, plus s24 got curve - track highlighting, so when you are working on a curve the corresponding track gets highlighted and vice versa. in 25 they also added this for the dope sheet editor. and 24 got geo only playback, i used a script before for that, but having it built in is much more convenient... also both versions got improvements for the toon rig, in 24 a more flexible spine among other things (i have a video about it on my vimeo page), and in 25 optional basic limbs, without the bendy and scaling functionality for better performance if you are not in need of those features. edit: oh, and spline selection in the vp got improved a bit in r25... still not perfect, but a little bit better than before.

R 25 - not for me. And I am not a customer for Maxon, we do not fit together, anymore. I am a professional programmer. Multimedia for me mainly is a hobby. An expensive hobby. Although I make some non-profit stuff for ideal purposes, like nature preservation and environment issues. And I love making plug-ins for C4D, I write them in C++. And have kept them for myself, so far, Plug-ins for animation mostly. Seems like animation in R25 has added some of the same features I came up with myself, several years ago. I have purchased all Studio versions of C4D, from R13 up to and including R23. I am getting old, and will eventually retire. But creating stuff, both programming and making multimedia presentations, is so fun, that I will continue with this for many years to come. Therefore I have purchased perpetual versions of C4D, so that I still own my software, and can play with it, also in the coming years. I was willing to pay for the R25 perpetual too, and got a Quotation from Maxon. Nice. That was until I saw in what direction things are moving now. * I am uncertain about to what extent I will at all get some real new features in C4D, before I die. * Maxon radically changed the ting I love the most in C4D - the user interface. For 26 years I have been designing and programming GUIs myself. Award winning software, commercial successful software, and tons of tailored proprietary solutions for customers. So I have an idea about this, seen from the workshop, not only as a user. That Maxon managed to wreck such a beautiful user interface, is beyond me. Yes, you can to some extent revert to the old layout, but not to all those familiar harmonic colors - they are gone. I will assert that the pre R25 super GUI was C4Ds trademark. That was the main reason I chose C4D in 2012. Now, Maxon cannot make software only for me. I understand that. Things are happening in the software business, things that I feel are under-communicated. * Piracy, to what extent is this the driving force behind the subscription model? * Generic maturity, to what extent is this the driving force behind the subscription model? With maturity I mean a generic saturation of features in today's software. In 1999, I would not use 10 years old software. Not even 3 years old applications. Today, I use Adobe CS 6, Illustrator, Photoshop and After Effects, and still have not discovered more than a fraction of all the fantastic functions in these applications. So, I think I can make fantastic animations in the C4D versions I have, for many years to come. Worth mentioning, I recently renewed my perpetual Redshift license, and I also have a running perpetual license for X-Particles. Now, I will continue to write C++ utilities for C4D, and make animations and renderings. Having fun in my own cave. And I just have to accept that Maxon needs a steady stream of money, and accept that I am not the kind of customer they need for their future. -Ingvar

The comment "No plans to drop perpetual licenses of Cinema 4D ‘while there is enough demand’ is extremely ominous given the poor reception of R25. Essentially it is a dog whistle threat to all perpetual license holders: "Purchase this weak release or we will take away all perpetual licenses forever. As your Maxon overlords you must take what we give you to continue to earn our good graces." Now is it bonkers for me to read an "Obey or else" motive behind these comments? That is an honest question as I am concerned. But if I am NOT going bonkers, then it is another example of what I have said time and time again: Subscriptions capture a revenue base (continue to subscribe or lose all access) and as such there is a reduced need to compete on features. R25, whether more was planned or not, showed that their reasoning behind its release in its lean state did not for one moment take into account any competitive reaction. They simply did not care whether or not users viewed this release as relevant and/or worthy of their dollars because they felt immune to any negative reactions. Well...it seems that the universal disdain for what is in R25 shows that they are in fact not immune to the impact of a poor release. But rather than up their game to do better, as any company behaving in a normal competitive market would do, they have instead decided to threaten us: Buy what we give you or it goes all away. Honestly, if Maxon is playing these types of games now, should we be confident about future releases should there ONLY be subscriptions? I for one will be looking at Blender 3.0 release a lot more closely Dave

You're right - for a couple of years we tried to do it ourselves. It did not go well. We had multiple people on staff spending their entire time approving or disapproving student software, and response times were pretty bad. Especially because in many parts of the world everyone is starting school at the same time. At that time, we were only providing students with Cinema 4D. Now we have Maxon One, and have added all the student demand for Redshift and Red Giant software. The old system simply wasn't sustainable, so as Kent suggested we looked to an external company that specializes in this. They charge a small fee, and with the volume of student license requests we process it simply makes the most sense to ask students to cover that. Otherwise we'd need to increase subscription prices for everyone. (and btw those people we had doing verifications before have been reassigned and are much happier now that their job involves more than clicking Approve or Deny)

R25 Full Change List https://support.maxon.net/hc/en-us/articles/4406578092690-Cinema-4D-R25-September-14-2021 NEW FEATURES AND ENHANCEMENTS User Interface Enhancements New modern scheme and updated icons New layouts Updated attribute layouts for easier and more intuitive access to key attributes Document Tabs - easily switch between open documents Layout Tabs - easily switch between layouts for different tasks New Layouts Switch - easily revert to old Cinema 4D layouts Window size and position maintained while switching layouts (ctrl to recall stored position) Fix Column and Fix Row options maintain the size of layout elements while resizing window / adapting to new resolutions Dynamic Palettes - icon palettes dynamically change based on document mode, active tool or active object type Shortcut sets in Command Manager Virtual Sliders on Numeric Attributes Numeric Attributes increment based on cursor position Option to expose any tag with the Object attributes New Coordinate Manager with Auto-Apply and Reset Transform Non-modal Color Chooser popup Snap and Soft Selection toolbar popups Variable size thumbnails in Material Manager Improved display of selected element in dropdowns New 3-point Viewport Lighting HDR/EDR Viewport Asset Browser Preset System Store presets within the Asset Browser, will category, keywords, smart search, previews and more Define multiple presets for any object, tag, tool or other Attribute Manager element Specify a default preset to be applied whenever the item is created Partial presets allow specific / selected attributes to be stored as presets Easily choose between stored presets or a specific Attribute Manager element Define presets for any Import / Export format Custom preset types for specific Cinema 4D content: Render Settings Viewport Filter* Timeline Filter Color Chooser Swatches, BodyPaint 3D Swatches & Brushes, Sculpt Brushes* Sketch & Toon* Icon Presets* User Data Interfaces Takes Bevels* Gradients* Spline UI* Sky Automatic creation of preview images for many preset types (marked above with an asterisk) General Asset Browser Improvements Place any asset within an icon palette for easy access Place Favorites or any Smart Search within an icon palette for easy access Popup mini-browser can be moved, or pinned open to add multiple assets Simple Mode provides easy access with minimal UI to specific categories or searches Option to Convert Legacy lib4d Content Browser libraries Improved Drag & Drop (object manager hierarchy, material manager, polygon selection, material links) Improved Spline Import Import Adobe Illustrator / PDF files Imports stroke and fill information Imports stroke/fill color with support for multiple color spaces and gradient fills Imports vector symbols embedded within artwork Import SVG Files Generate extrusions and sweeps to represent filled and stroked paths Offset paths parametrically based on layer and path order Update Illustrator files dynamically while keeping settings Capsules Use Capsule assets created in Cinema 4D's new Scene Node core within Classic Cinema 4D Primitives Object Groups Geometry Modeling and Selection Modifiers Tap into the power of Scene Nodes to add unique functionality within an Object Group or Geometry Modifier Group Scene Nodes / Scene Manager Splines Spline Primitives - 4-side Arc Circle Circular Arrow Cissoid Cycloid Flower Formula Helix Linear Arrow n-side Profile Rectangle Segment Star Text Scene Nodes Spline Core - Create Bezier splines with tangents Create B-Splines Create splines with Nurbs weighting Attach weight, color and other attributes to spline points Interpolate position and spline point attributes along spline Tesselate Splines with Adaptive, Subdivided, Natural or Uniform point distribution Output the length of a spline Line To Mesh Generator - Extrude, Loft, Lathe, Sweep operations Data Integration Import Data Node - CSV data import Get Member Node - get array from container by name/index Get Member Info Node - output an array of members within a container Sort Collection - sort all arrays of an array collection based on one array within the collection Command-line argument - parse a command-line argument as an input for Scene Nodes Data Assets Bar Graph Global Pins Utilities Hex to RGB Geoposition to Equirectangular Geoposition to Sphere DMS to Geoposition Angle to DMS Flightpath Spline Nodes and Node Assets Surface Blue Noise Distribution Surface-Scaled Blue Noise Distribution Calculate Curvature Create Normals Geometry Axis / Orientation / Resize Jitter / Jitter along Normal Smooth Geometry Transform Element Modulo Selection Select All Select by Weight To / From Barycentric Pivot Transform Node Editor Enhancements Improved modeling selection workflow with selection string parser Error highlighting, Info Area callout and improved Console error reporting Updated Modeling Selection Workflow with Selection Parser Store cached geometry within nodes Redshift Integration Updated Redshift Lights User Interface Convert standard lights to Redshift Lights KNOWN ISSUES Cinema 4D R25 will break plugin compatibility with the C++ API, and in some Python plugins. The Content Browser has been deprecated and removed. A new menu option in the Asset Browser allows users to choose a lib4d and convert to assets. There are three notes to know about Spline Import: SVG files from Inkscape currently will not load Layers >1 level deep are only supported when Illustrator files are saved without compression Path Names are not imported

Hello Jack, No, I stopped my C4D subscription at R21 and I now use Blender and Houdini in my workflow...like 3DKiwi I was tired of waiting for something useful.

Some of you may have noticed that the odd thing is different in R25, so thought it might be an idea to share some top tips people may not have discovered yet... feel free to add any you find, but here's couple to start you off... 1. Can't tear off the snap menu ? The new snap settings at the top of the toolbar is not moveable, but some of us wish it could be. And indeed it still is - simply press 'P' to get your freely moveable / dockable one. 2. Where is Reset PSR ? Now called Reset Transform that's now in the Coordinates Manager or at the bottom of the r-click menu in Object Mode. Coordinates Manager now available by default in Modelling layout, or via lower right corner in standard. 3. Where has MoText gone ? Now just called Text Object, this is available from the toolbar on the right under T symbol, along with the Text Spline. 4. Where the hell is Physical Sky ? Worry not, it's just in the Lights Menu ! CBR

I think people are over analyzing things. As I see it, Cinema 4D is a service now, and that service is providing software that is always kept up to date and working to the highest standards, a service people will pay for. They don't really want permanent licenses out there, and have therefore priced them out accordingly. I think Maxon has made it pretty clear their roadmap from here on out is all Scene Nodes all the time, until everything currently possible in Cinema is converted to Scene Nodes. So what possible incentive could Maxon have to spend any resources adding or improving features that they are actively working to make obsolete with new and vastly more versatile Scene Node driven features. Cinema 4D is in a rebuilding mode and have been pretty up front about this. It's up to users to decide if the software as offered meets their current needs enough to go along for the ride.

To be fair, the new Cinema 4D Sculpt icons are based on the previous ones, that weren't modified since R14 in 2012. For R25, they were just simplified. In 2012, Blender still had a text based interface (like the old lightwave). The small icons came later... I don't know exactly, probably in 2017... I think Blender copied first Cinema 4D (or other softwares), then MAXON was inspired by Blender.

Happy to bring it back to R25. As I said in the other thread, Maxon presumably has plenty of programmers not working or involved with UI stuff. So you can only assume with the state of R25 that they are all deeply involved and working on other aspects of the program that are getting a polish, fix up or redo, which weren't; ready to come out this month. Some people have contrarily argued that Maxon is just paying those guys to sit on couches and drink beer all the time, and sometimes one of them is allowed to go near a computer, and this year they let a UI guy do some stuff while the others were told to just go and watch Netflix or something. This is daft and I think R26 and R27 will have tons of cool stuff, more than R25 did, which might be saying a lot or might be saying not much, I don't know.

Would those people have ever bothered to be interested in C4D? They can probably get a strong idea of what C4D can do just by watching a Youtube vid, or ten of them, or checking out a Chris Schmidt Rocket Lasso episode. If they like what they see, you'd assume most of them would find a $2.99 charge to be a bargain. Yet the argument here is, wow, I was all set to dive into this cool looking software, but there's a three dollar charge to do it. That's it, I'm out, give me something else instead, that software looks amazing but if I have to forgo one latte or borrow $3 from mum I'm not going to do it. I'm guessing a bunch of those students still live at home and can likely ask their parents to borrow the credit card. This takes five minutes. But anyone who is aghast at paying $3 to have a full version was never likely to buy a sub anyway when the (wow it's FREE!) version of Blender is also out there. So they were never going to get C4D anyway. The argument is Maxon is missing out on many thousands of dollars of future rental subs because those same future subscribers are being nudged to cough up $3. If those folks are losing their minds at paying $3, were they ever going to sub in the future? Maybe the teacher above should be pushing Blender on everyone if that is the highest priority.

Who cares what the competitors charge. Maybe they all shifted that $2.99 fee down the track, so the students will eventually lose out. A $2.99 charge also makes sense if you want to gently encourage people to get their wallets out again in future. Maybe this is Psychology 101. Blender is 'free' yet they really want people to subscribe to the Blender learning thingo and hopefully donate extra money here and there. No one 'has' to do it, yet it is encouraged. No one 'has' to pay the C4D charges either. They can do something else with their money or time if they want. They could even avoid 3D altogether and spend their money starting a new hobby, or going on a cool holiday. Life is full of choices. For some weird reason you're blowing this $2.99 out of proportion and suggesting many many future mograph geniuses will be turned off and take a different career path with other software because they felt nauseous spending the $2.99. I'm assuming there were ambulances at the ready at the Apple store when they all went to buy their MacBooks, as those things cost way more than $2.99 and the student discount Apple offers doesn't help much. With the RED cameras, there are plenty of cheaper or free alternatives. Some kids can go to a local TAFE and use the DSLR's there, or if they're in a community filmmaking group they probably just pull their iPhones out and film on those. Yet a very small group suck up the cost and continue to pay fees to access the higher end RED cameras in fields of study. This is way more than $2.99 yet it does still happen. It's a thing. Yet by your logic the RED guys are in big trouble because they're not shaping their products to the Instagram folk who all want to shoot on their phones. All that said even though I'm broke if I was in your shoes and I had 25 students hanging around and a $2.99 fee was all that was stopping them using C4D, I would have chipped in $25 and gone to the department head and begged for another $20. That would have put the cost to near under a buck for every student. If you can't convince students that their career is worth a dollar investment then I'd be frankly surprised if you could teach them additional things like maths and English.

So what? RED cameras are really expensive too, and don't get given out for free. So the school had the bright idea of buying cameras and then making students pay for the course so they could use that equipment. The teachers weren't paying for the equipment themselves and frankly didn't care what it cost. Also, the students who found the course too expensive didn't bother taking the course. And the students who thought what the course was offering was worthwhile, ended up paying the course fees so they could do it. This also worked with an animation and compositing course, where the campus invested money in equipment and software. Afterwards, they charged students money to do the course, and any student who thought the course was good value, paid the money, came to the school, and learned the software and used the equipment. Maybe the head of the department could be convinced to put the annual fee for the students up an additional $2.99 - or six bucks for the year, I guess - to pay for the cost of that C4D subscription. I'm pretty sure at the school I worked at, they spent more than that on free donuts for the students on opening day though. This must be why they call Australia the lucky country.

I have, at two different institutions in Melbourne. And I can't see the mention of a one-off $2.99 charge eliciting more than a shrug from the students at both campuses, many of whom would spend twice that much daily on public transport to and from the school. I'm talking about Australian students though and can't speak for how things might be wherever you are. Telling them they need to learn and use the software to pass the course might possibly do the trick. "Nor can you as a teacher enforce it" Huh? At the institutions I worked at, the teachers enforced things all the time. One dumb muppet of a teacher made all her journalism students use Windows Movie Maker for her journalism class as she was too stuck in her ways to use anything else. Another department charged late fees on film equipment (when it was returned late), and encouraged the students to pay those fees by telling them that if they didn't pay, they couldn't pass. Most of them paid, and also thereafter stopped returning the equipment late. "which means convincing the department at the institute where you teach to purchase a school license. And unless it's a relatively small sum (a couple of hundred $$) or a free school license is offered, the school is not going to allow for the extra cost. " At the last faculty I worked at the school seemed more than happy to pour money down the drain on the dumbest stuff imaginable, including equipment that got left on the shelf and software courses run by lecturers who barely knew what they were teaching. And they were happy buying stuff like Final Cut, Macs, Adobe subs and a bloody enormous set of computers for data storage. Again this is all probably moot though as I'm talking about where I worked, not where you work now. Come to Australia. Many things are different here.

People won't teach it because it costs $2.99? Books cost more than that yet they're somehow still used in the higher education field. There are other alternatives, sure, but if some student is looking at all the options you cited, and settling on one out of the bunch for their studies and career because it saves them $2.99 over the rest of the year, I anticipate bigger problems ahead.

To me it looks like it is the OnTheHub Kivuto estore that is charging the fee. So Maxon has handed off all the work involved in getting this coupon code, for all your students, to another company. And that company is charging the fee to cover their costs to provide this service. What is involved in this? It looks like the company checks the credentials of every student to ensure they are a student. You have to use your schools email address, which must get verified to ensure it is legitimate, then you probably get an email with the coupon. So that is the service you are paying for. https://estore.onthehub.com/p/MaxonOne?&pr=true Maxon will still be incurring costs on their side such as bandwidth download costs and authentication servers etc... As much as you would all like to think, Maxon is not Autodesk. They are not the same size or have the same income. So handing this off to an outside company to deal with would actually save them money by not having to build a separate system, and support it, when it brings in no value. Plus it would have made it much faster for them to get this offering out to students.

Students do ask questions. It's usually the teacher's job to give them answers. And you're basically saying you spent a semester telling people that C4D is a great choice, but not great enough that they should spend $2.99 to access it. How great can it really be if you don't think it's worth $2.99? If you think it's not worth $2.99 you should tell them it isn't and that they should happily go the free route instead. If you think it is worth $2.99 you should try telling that to the students. As for why you're using C4D instead of Maya (which is free), you should tell them you thought C4D was better, and that in the long run over the course of a career you thought the expenditure of $2.99 was probably worth the long term investment.

Funny that the default option is already set on "workflow" as if it was like "Here! Here is what you need to look first guys!" All Maxon's energy went into filling up their pockets as much as they could, investing the least as possible on actual improvements and updates. The Blenderish interface is also a joke. Couldnt they have coppied another Blender's s great things? Like, animation, viewport performance, realtime render? No, even for that, they want to invest the least energy as possible.

Sooo....let me see if I got this right. What is new in R25 (top items): New interface (not sure if that is a plus as sometimes a new interfaces have a learning curve_) Spline import Capsules. ???? Am I missing something? This is where my prediction that subscriptions invite lack of updates due to a captured financial base come true. Judging that their launch show today immediately glossed over C4D's new features with a pretty cool presentation on a Red Giant plugin (Bang) may reinforce my fear that this release is in fact very lean. Today is a good day for....Blender. Dave