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6 dynamic elliptical gears with a hinge at the focus. Leftmost ellipse has an angular force (motor), others are passive. What do you think will happen ? Not what I expected 😀

One of the first magazines on fantastic filmmaking (eg. horror, fantasy and special effects) out there was Cinefantastique. That magazine existed from 1970 to around 2006. I never subscribed as there are some genres that don't interest me (like horror or zombies) but anything relating to science fiction, stop motion animation, and/or Ray Harryhausen ended up on my bookshelf. In fact, it was the double issue on the Making of Star Wars that got me hooked on visual effects at a young age. Well...the loss of Cinefex (the journal of cinematic illusions) earlier this year when they announced that they have gone out of business has left a big hole in my reading list so I started searching the web for something on-line (who does print anymore?). This brought me back to my old favorite Cinefantastique: Cinefantastique Magazine: 1970-2002 : Cinefantastique : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive Now, not every issue is found here for free, but 182 of them should keep me busy. I have always felt that knowing the old methods when people actually got their hands dirty to make something look real is a great way to inform your CGI skills on how to make something look real in the computer. Dave

I started with R6 bought every second version or so till MSA then every version every year (all together a cabinet full of boxes 🙂. Till R21 when the MSA got canceled by maxon. They basically forced me to decide for every version again. But the higher price (compared with the MSA I had for years) in combination with little developement in areas that I needed did not stimulate me enough. I planed to update R25 (not because I saw the need, more because I wanted to stay somehow up to date. But I really don't see the need to learn a new UI If It doesn't come with any features I want. I can have everything (besides UVs) in a version I am UI fluent in. Its not that I have major problems with a UI change as such. I can imagine that it is better now. But if it is not combined with compelling features, for old users it is just a invented hurdle without benefit. I even might be able to accept that ( I am undecided) But If the new UI is not complete on top of that?! It really just makes no sense at all! And I din't say that it is the end of the world, or that no one ever could like it or be happy again. I just said, that I wait for the update to decide If I give Maxon 1600€ for a UV workflow I would pay 150€ somewhere else and a techpreview that might be of use to learn future workflows.

Good to see the hysteria over the GUI change is continuing unabated here. Nevermind that one can easily recall the old layout and only the icons will have changed somewhat, Maxon has clearly ruined everything that was once good on this earth for all time and for time immemorial. RIP happiness.

It was wrong to release a new version, as long as they had no real new version. It seems like the considerable GUI change was made, only to justify that at least some things had changed, since last version. By altering the GUI like this, making it almost unrecognizable from previous versions, a huge world wide library of C4D tutorials went up in smoke. Like the famous library in Alexandria. Missing icons - ambiguous icons - not the Maxon I got to know 10 years ago. Since I have always been very interested in astronomy and space explorations, I used to compare Maxon with NASA engineering. Testing, testing and testing before launch, redundance, stability and and rock solid reliability during flight. I used to, I said. IMO, it would have been better to wait until the next launch window, to use a space exploration metaphor. -Ingvar