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Don't underestimate what a good Thumbnail and the YouTube algorithm sometimes does. I've been getting this one stupid video for years in my recommendations the second I dare watching any video about C4D / Blender / After Effects. I've talked to collegues and they all know this video as well and have been getting the recommendation for years. Talking about this one specifically: That video has 19 Million (!!!) views. It's not even a tutorial, it's literally just a 1,5h long timelapse. I think it's entirely worthless. But it has a good title, and a good thumbnail. Sometimes you just need to get lucky with your videos and they just straight up snowball from there.

Never really thought too much about this, but the OP has a point. For example, take this model: https://3delicious.net/index.php?a=detail&id=101631 I open it in Blender with the default OBJ import settings: Worked without a hitch. Import, select the file, done. May need to scale things to match the scene, but no issues with textures. I open the object in C4D with inverted transparency (otherwise it becomes transparent) and it loads with black mats only (I did try all the material settings) because the texture paths are incorrect: Am I missing something? A setting? It can be fixed by using the Project Asset Inspector, but I can imagine it is rather cumbersome to fix this for every single OBJ file that is imported in C4D. I assume that's what @CullenJB is having issues with. I also tested Max 2022. Dragging and dropping the object file in the viewport results in: Issues with transparency again. This file seems to cause problems with the default obj import settings for Max as well. So, the grass is indeed not always greener on the other side... It's probably a setting in the import - but couldn't immediately discover this option. I opened the object in LightWave as well, and I had to fix the transparency channel again. That said, it may just be this particular file. I tested this file too: https://3delicious.net/index.php?a=detail&id=100035 Same results, though. So... a bit ironic that the open source alternative seems to be the only DCC that just works "out of the box" when importing these OBJ files with textures...

You're in luck - I did get time 🙂 Might be a while processing in HD, but keep refreshing, and it'll get there soon. Using the same principals, the dot on your 'I' could look like this... CBR

First of all Cerbera, a million thanks for taking the time of all these details which I take the time to read again and again to understand!!! It’s hard to find an expert who’s so invested in helping. In fact I’m discovering the world of 3D , Cinema 4D is the only software I’m starting to study for mostly video, associated with After Effects. Your explanations are very clear, I would better understand the mistakes made in large numbers.... Have a good evening or day, depending on the time! (I’m in France)

And with some tweakings to your materials and lights we can get pretty decent result, surprisingly quickly in Standard Render ! So, basically I added a sky with a high contrast HDRI to get nice reflections on the glass, and then altered the stage geometry so it let as much of that sky light through as possible, so more of the glass reflects interestingly. Light 1 became an Area down-light positioned above the object, Light 2 the same, but pointing in from the right, both with area shadows, and Light 3 was left Omni and no shadow and parked directly behind the bottle to backlight the liquid a bit. All lights got their falloffs activated and were set to physically accurate etc. In the materials your blue glass was letting stuff down because of what you were doing with Fresnel (too similar to the liquid color, so bled into it), so replaced that with standard glass, which you can tint blue later with absorption ! Liquid needed more transparency (<90%) and absorption depth got lowered to something more like a quarter of the width of the liquid... And with all that done, things are looking pretty reasonable for a renderer that is approaching 15 years old ! By the time Anti-aliasing is turned up to best / 1 x 1 / 4 x 4 we can get these renders done in about 26 seconds. bouteille de bière 2 exo 3 p26 Kobo CBR Fix.c4d CBR

POSTPONED: Zoom meeting has been set up. Here's the information:

See, this is what I always hear about 3DS Max. It's also one of the main critiques C4D always get's. "Can't do much with it unless you buy plugins". I've had the questionable pleasure of having to work with Max for over a year now, here and there. I hated every single second with it. Many, many things C4D and Blender just do out of the box you need scripts and/or plugins for in 3DS Max. It's also unstable as hell and the entire UI is a giant pile of trash held together with duct tape.

I think the main reason mtls are messy is the exporting app. An mtl from max12 is different from an mtl from max20 and blender 2.6. Could be the mtl format is not standardized or few really respect the format during implementation. The whole market out there is a mess with mtls not providing versions.

He's definitely very very good, no doubt about that, but I'm not sure anything about him 'changes everything' !!! And I find myself suspicious of some of his view counts - I can't imagine there are 26 million people who want to know how to build a robot arm rig, even in the substantially wider audience / userbase that free software generally attracts. Something seems off there. Our own rock stars - people like Chris Schmidt or Noseman for example are not getting anything like that viewership and their skill and presentation style is no less brilliant, so I wonder what the reason is why he is getting 1000 times more views than even very experienced and long term tutorial people.... CBR

Manual topology FTW 😉 You didn't upload your file, so I just did it really roughly with no orthographic reference, but the edge flow in a properly modelled letter would look something like this... I started with a disc object (with inner radius to get a ring) used symmetry initially, and Subdivision Surface to get resolution-less smooth rounding whilst only needing very few base polys. Of course it does take (fractionally) longer to make it this way, but once you have, you have the most flexible and eminently useful model, that will deform properly for use on curved surfaces (unlike splines in extrudes for example), and will work in any program the mesh gets exported to. This is overkill for a lot of renders that just need decent looking planar text, where topology doesn't matter so much. And sometimes, where absolute mathematical accuracy to fonts is required then the SDS approach is sometimes not accurate enough. The 'trick', if there is one, is knowing when to use any of the various approaches, which is something that comes from advice and experience. The modelling journey to excellence is a long and winding one, and takes years to perfect, but it's a very rewarding road to be on 🙂 CBR

If all you need are tons of ready assets then there's nothing better than Max + Vray or Corona. Both engines right now have access to the Cosmos library also in C4D, the library is growing every day and there are very interesting plans to expand the feature set. If you are in a hurry just start to use Max and enjoy the vast ecosystem, if you can wait a bit probably you will be fine also on C4D.

Currently expanding the UK St Albans office, a few roles will be available this year. Kicking off though is a full time motion graphics artist. In short we need someone to use C4D with Octane to product stills and videos. Starting with provided 3D CAD and physical samples, work them up into full photographic product renders and then produce 1-2 minute product videos. Octane not essential, we can teach that, but you've got to be happy taking a brief and running with it. You'll be taking on entire jobs start to finish. Pay and benefits are great for a full time position, pay will depend on experience and ability. Example work: Great chance to get outside of London if you've had enough of the high prices and small apartments. Email me if you're interested or know anyone that might be. matthew.oneill@corsair.com

Hopefully this post does not violate community guidelines, but I received two emails today that I felt I just had to pass along. The first was from the Pilgway Team, makers of 3D-Coat. Typical of the grit, determination and courage of the Ukraine people, The Pilgway team is still working on 3D-Coat in the middle of a Russian invasion in Kyiv. Just amazing! The link for Ukraine support provided in that message is found here The next email was from Evermotion: The link for Ukraine support in that message is found here Dave

When a nation (actually in this case Putin and his followers not all Russians) differentiates itself from the "west" then it oughts to acknowledge that if it wants to provoke any part of the "west" should make sure that it does not depend on it. Russia is cut-off of international sport events, international economic infrastructure and market, trade, travel agencies, you name it. I don't think there was ever such isolation imposed to a nation before. Putin thought that he would feel nothing just because he controls nuclear warheads. Well he better get used to this status because he is certainly not getting them back if he launces any nuclear weapons. You can go so far with attitude. Things will not revert to normal soon. No war of this kind of opponents ended in less than a month. Putin has a pride to save. He won't back down, he will get what he wants even if that means trampling over all Europe. He will face greater problems than loosing troops if he backs down. This is the inconvenient truth.

But the same is true for online activated perpetual software

There are so many things I want to say here but there are always consequences to written posts on any social media site being taken the wrong way and out of context. I do not want to spin the Core4D community the wrong way given the respect I have for our global community. But with that said, I just want to state my absolute admiration and respect for Ukraine citizens, leaders and military and what I have learned from their example. They are showing the world and NATO what it means to value freedom and the sovereignty of their country. There have been many who once thought that this attitude would only be found in the old, those who once lived under Russian rule, but that is not turning out to be true as young men who fled early to seek safety for the families are now returning to fight. Global citizens who take their freedoms for granted can learn a great deal from the Ukrainians. They are teaching us something that we may all have forgotten during these covid years and that is freedom should never be taken for granted. Just as precious as our current freedoms is the national unity required to preserve those freedoms in your own country. Dave

It is just incredible. The words I have for this would definately violate the guidelines. so just this: I have contact to someone in Kiew and this is something noone should ever need to go trough. It would be so important to let people in Russia know what is happening as the propaganda is hardly to come by. I am shure they would have their say, if they knew. To all Ukrainians: Stay save and stay strong!

I have been using the SpaceNavigator for years. At start it is quite some getting used to. But once the brain gets accommodated it's quite difficult to work without it. Past few years, while developing plugis, I had gone back to using the 1,2,3 shortcut keys as I didn't quite need to heavily navigate the viewport. Now that I am back to using the software instead of writing it, I will see myself using that SpaceNavigator more and more. I had also been eyeing the more expensive model. With one hand on the SpaceNavigator and the other on the mouse, it's kind of troublesome to use keyboard shortcuts. Therefore, I imagined having a more expensive model with all the extra keys to be useful in that sense. In the meantime I had purchased a mouse with 12 buttons at the thumb position, and some extra button on top, allowing to have 3x 12 shortcut keys in total ... Never managed to actually use them, as it requires too much muscle memory to make them useful. So I guess those extra keys on a SpaceNavigator will probably also end up the same way. Hence the reason why I developed the Dials plugin ... but to be honest, it doesn't feel the same, and I also never end up using it. So, to recap, I am happy with the SpaceNavigator, and don't regret having purchased it.