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In lots of cases the new icons convey their function way more than the old ones. I don't get the UI hate. Maxon reign as the UI champs here. I had a Blender thread pop up on Twitter with a long list of people whining about wrongheaded Blender development. I don't even follow Blender trends there but the Twitter algorithm thought I'd be keen to read it. No need but the grass is greener thing seems to go in a lot of directions. IceCaveMan can tout how the excellence of Blender will lead it to be a massively powerful industry leader all he wants - I'll gladly pay a thousand bucks a year to keep a mile from the aggravating shit listed in that detailed thread that I hadn't even gone out of my way to read. I don't care if the software is free if the dev cycle seems to be a weird dumpster fire in some areas with 500 people arguing in public and star coders quitting because angry crowd members want to critique their work. The periodic whining that Maxon devs are off on a multi-year holiday around the Bahamas with Paul Babb drag-racing Dave McGavran on duelling customised mega yachts while Srek and the guys paint sunscreen across the chests of hot local babes seems much calmer in comparison. How many people complained about the new C4D UI? 5000, 1000, 500, 100 or just 20 or 30 people on forums? I'm guessing it's near the latter end of that sentence. Possibly everyone who wasn't complaining just got on with things and used it, maybe excluding the teacher elsewhere on this forum whose students came up to him and said there was no possible way they could figure out what went where, despite contextual help, guidance when you roll your mouse over an icon and numerous lengthy Youtube tutorials for free telling people what was what.

To be honest, I'd like to see two things in the R26 release: 1) Revert back to the old and proper C4D UI (S24 and earlier). Let's pretend the Blender ripoff never happened. 2) The UI designers (and whoever approved their work), should be forced to write in a blackboard (just like Bart Simpson in the show opening) a dozen times the following phrase: "I promise I won't ripoff Blender again and I won't waste time and resources changing things that are not broken".

@HappyPolygon Thanks for the response. I played around with Delay Effector, though not sure it was relevant to what I was trying to accomplish. However, I just had a "Duh" moment: It didn't occur to me that I could animate the Effector multiplier in the L1 Cloner, and that that would be a parameter like any other in the L1 Cloner, which could be effected by the L2 Effector. 🤦‍♂️ So this is exactly what I needed - a way to offset or layer the animation of one effector applied to a lower cloner, with another effector applied to a higher cloner. In any event, I do appreciate all your input - not sure I would have figured it out without having someone to bounce things off of 🙏🙏🙏

So as I had the opportunity to work with R25 for some weeks (not really much and no complex stuff) I might be able to come back to the topic with my findings. I basically didn't touch any of the areas that r R25 had advances over R20. But that also is a finding. I was expecting this, as character animation and UV editing is a extremely small part of work. And I would guess also for the majority of c4d Users. But never the less I realized some changes. The coordinates manager fells different than in R20. changes will be applied automatically without hitting apply. Even though I appreciate less klicks a lot (especially because the development seems to go into a different direction nowadays. I this case I would prefer the old workflow, because you often have to change more values in the same way. for example If you want to scale the object by 10 with the old behaviour you would type in 10 in all dimensions, control if everything is right and then aply. with the new behavior you change x to 10 and in the moment you switch to the y field x gets applied and shows 1 again. you really have to concentrate to not put in values double, or forget one axis. This problem is not present in the attributes manager, as the axes don't get applied at all so there you see the 10 standing in the relevant axis. This seams to be something small, but I really don't like it. Now to the user interface. I am not a UX designer, But as a motion designer the last years I mainly worked on UIs for Automotive and also gave courses at university for the use of 3D in UI design. I will not make a detailed analysis, as it is just to much work to just do it for fun, but here are my general findings. Obviously, the redesign had three primary goals: - "simplification" and maximization of 3d view. - improvement of the workflow by reduction of the mouse paths. - "renewal" of the design to be more modern and closer to the zeitgeist. To achieve goal one, icons were reduced in size by default and active corners were introduced to reduce the number of open managers. Whether all this work was necessary at all is debatable. In principle, of course, it is a good goal, but with the adaptation to high DPI monitors and the market penetration of large and largest monitors, there is now usually more than enough 3D view available. The optimization, on the other hand, results in more clicks for the active corners, a change in viewer aspect ratio when opening the material manager and a significantly worsened perception of the active, passive states of the icons, especially since these are not only small, are found in an unfamiliar place and with a new icon, but also have a significantly reduced contrast between the states. Goal two is tried to achieve by new placement of the icons and optimization of the icon groups and content. In principle, this works quite well, the positioning is logical and it is certainly saved a few mouse paths. however, in my opinion, it is not wise to change icon positions and icon design at the same time. one should have made at least 2 versions pause to give users a chance to get used to. in this respect, it would have been preferable to leave the old positioning activated as default for now. goal three. For some years now, monocromatic icons have made their way into the world of design apps. Especially Adobe programs have been using very few or no colors in their icons for many years. This style seems to be catching on. obviously the new design of c4d was heavily influenced by blender. Whether this is because they want to strengthen interoperability or because it was given as a positive target image is not clear. What is clear is that, compared to the old layout, monocrome was used much more often. For some users, this could lead to poorer recognizability, even if the color coding itself is clearly visible. there would be many things to say about reduced distances, reduced contrasts and thus worse orientation, e.g. in the attribute manager, but that should be it for now. Compared to the old layout, I personally find the new layout better in a few places and worse in a few others. I think that many of the positive features can be achieved by simple adaptation of the R20 layout (smaller icons and their positioning). So I don't see any advantage that would justify an update (especially since it's obviously an incomplete layout, since many icons are missing).

Hi Right now, what i wish for this new version is just simple stuff. 1- Correct all bugs from the previous versions. I'm currently stuck at version 25.015 since the newer versions are problematic and filled with export issues. These issues are big problem since i work in a shared pipeline with other apps. There is a list of well know bugs from the previous versions and some from this new one. 2- it was mentioned before but i also reenforce. Solve the stability problems. C4d is not the super stable soft as before. I've currently lots of problems with my UI crashing and driver issues that i cant solve by changing drivers wich means its a c4d problem. I guess this was part of the transition from openGL to directx, but now its time to fix that. 3 - enhance the asset browser. Since maxon removed the content browser that was a good tool, this one is still misses a lot of good features. I really would like to access folders from my computer hard drives instead of importing assets one by one to some kind of database. I also would like to have some sort of batch import elements to the database folders instead of one by one crap. Thats a waste of time. 4 - enhance the material node editor. This material editor its not as good as 3ds max slate. Why the hell cant we have a multi material node editor (corona and octane editors are multi material). How can we easily share shaders, maps, or data between materials witout using some sort of external assets?? 5 - instance deformers and generators. There was an old plugin called multideformer (https://cinemaplugins.com/freestuff/multimod/) that could combine and instance modifiers across multiple objects. This was a great tool. Why cant we have this sort of instancing power? and in the end i'm always asking for the same since i'm an animator and rigger as well. We need vertex weight paint layers and decent Animation layers without the same crappy issues of the motion tag. is thats asking to much? perhaps... cheers

Am I the only one who doesn't bother with the new layout because I use the old layout ?

There is a great deal to like with the new UI....except the icons. Changing the icons is like changing all the letters of the alphabet to emoji's. The best way to overcome that learning curve is to completely customize the interface where you manually decide where every command needs to go. A lot of work with very little to gain because an icon is just an icon. Making the design of the icon to be sleeker, thinner, and more "modern" really adds no value other than appealing to user aesthetics. I understand the need to refine their resolution for 4K monitors and even tone down the color schemes as some may have eye-strain issues, but you could have done all that with the existing icon designs. Their true goal of an menu icon is to be instantly recognizable and quickly convey their function. Unfortunately, based on the complaints, I don't think that worked out to well.

Don't be daft. The new UI is miles better in dozens of areas. Not interested in looking at the old one ever again.

Certification Chat NEW Schedule: On Tuesday, March 29rd 2022, 12 noon Eastern Time, join us for a live conversation on C4D Certifications, hosted by @nosemangr. Ask your questions live and show your faces if you want. Microphones and Cameras will be enabled, but not mandatory. We'll be discussing and exploring the options for becoming Certified in Cinema 4D, both as an artist and as an trainer, so if you have questions about the process, or are wondering how you know if you are ready to take the certification test, this is your opportunity to join us. ------ invitation-------- Athanasios Pozantzis is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting. Topic: C4D Certification Chat Time: Mar 29, 2022 12:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada) Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82024942155?pwd=dkVnZGovMm0vSWVrRzF3MVQrUThXZz09 Meeting ID: 820 2494 2155 Passcode: 355222 One tap mobile +16473744685,,82024942155#,,,,*355222# Canada +16475580588,,82024942155#,,,,*355222# Canada Dial by your location +1 647 374 4685 Canada +1 647 558 0588 Canada +1 778 907 2071 Canada +1 204 272 7920 Canada +1 438 809 7799 Canada +1 587 328 1099 Canada +1 346 248 7799 US (Houston) +1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose) +1 929 205 6099 US (New York) +1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma) +1 301 715 8592 US (Washington DC) +1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago) Meeting ID: 820 2494 2155 Passcode: 355222 Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kdLbSpwjBw

Yes, I know it does export, but this export does not work with any material other than the standard material. And the standard one does not follow the full rules of PBR materials. Since U-Render gives a good preview of PBR compatible materials, I would like it to be able to properly export them to gltf. At the moment, it is difficult to preview shaders in C4D because ultimately after exporting to an engine such as Babylon.js, many things look different. You have to set everything blindly. Therefore, I would like to have a PBR compliant preview and material creation flow and export to gltf.

I'm glad you've figured it out. Can't wait to see the final project some day.

Ah, yes, I forgot my personal wishlist: - Stability - Stability - Stability - Bugfixes - Performance - Stop breaking plugin compatibility - Inbuilt converter of pre-R19 files

What does U-Render have to do with exporting ? C4D already supports glTF export.

Scene nodes in general are multithreaded, but it depends on your exact setup to what degree. Especially modeling operations can often not be fully multithreaded and recursions as well.

Trouble is, that is not enough reference to see clearly what that part does behind the clear plastic bit. But I think it should start from this sort of thing, and not with adding thickness as you have tried above... CBR

Yep, that should be fine, though your large curve won't be as controlled as mine because mine is anchored at its centre and yours is currently... not. A is the anchor point, and the point which dips in to describe the curve, while the C(ontrol) loops, which are pretty much equidistant from the anchor, control the tightness of that curvature. The edges outside that E(xtents) control how the curve is restricted from and transitions to the straight parts it adjoins. All of those loops are necessary to fully describe that curve. CBR

Thank you, @HappyPolygon, really useful! 🙂

Sort of. The hole in your reference is much lower than where yours is now, and you'll notice mine is separated from the nearby edge but at least 2 loops, which keeps that area nice and controlled where it meets the edge. Lastly, you don't have a box corner here, so your corner will collapse too much under SDS whereas my (latter) example would not... Also note how my large corner is not 90 degrees like yours, but actually curves in to describe it... CBR

I don't have the R23 installed so I'm going to step you through it using the R25 I don't have RedShift, I'm just showing you how to break a VDB in two. I did not have any spare VDB files so I made one myself The Cube is set in Subtract mode I selected the Volume Builder Object and go to Export -> VDB I then imported the VDB object and made it a child of an other default Volume Builder I just decided to make the first piece to be the central blob Then I duplicated the "Part 2" And now you have two pieces of the same object You just have to export those two parts as VDBs selecting the Volume Builder, not the Volume Mesher. Re-Import them and color them in Redshift. You can use a Random Field or Shader Field instead of my sphere to achieve more complicated results. As the number of pieces increases the more complicated the procedure gets... Here's the project file and the VDB for you to relink to it cloud.c4d cloud.vdb

I absolutely cannot wait!!!

That's my sister! WTF? That explains why she never wanted to get together and only keep in touch via Zoom calls all these years - especially during the pandemic. ...it was all a lie. Dave But then again, am I real or an AI application flooding Core4D with posts. You decide. END OF LINE

You're being diplomatic and polite. 5 years? Most features haven't been updated for 10 years or more. Xpresso, Bodypaint 3D, Character Object, etc...

Agreed. I'm still on R21. I have very low expectations based on recent releases. Really unfortunate that Maxon has gone from actually pleasing its users, to pleasing its stockholders. We've been screaming for years now of a revamped particle system, xpresso updates, better modeling tools, integrated Redshift, etc. Instead we get Magic Bullet Looks, ProRender removal, a polarizing Asset Browser, and a confusing UI refresh. I like some of the new icons, but this still needs some work. Needs a bit more color, instead of a mostly gray palette. It's just very difficult to justify the price they're asking, vs the features we're getting. I understand this might sound a bit harsh, but I want to be honest. Really not trying to discredit all the work the devs put into this software. I understand they work their butts off. But at the same time, the asking price doesn't justify what users are getting.

Many of the decissions and releases in the last years reduced my enthusiasm to zero unfortunately. I have perpetual xparticles and octane with my R20. I dont know with what they could come up with to make me pay 2400€ for the next perpetual update.

I have been slowly learning Blender over the years and one of their latest biggest features is geometry nodes in fact they have a "nodes everywhere" mentality. There are many advantages in Blender these days and I am not happy with the some of the directions C4D has gone in over the last few years but it is still a solid program with one of the best user interfaces for artists out there. Not to mention the incredible community and support we all get here. I am working on a project in C4D now and my next will be in Blender but I foresee using my V19 C4D as long as I can.

You can abandon it if you like, and enjoy your time in Blender, but no need to shit-post Maxon with a load of unevidenced assertion on the way out. A lot of what you say is self-evidently untrue. You are IN one part of the Cinema community right now by being on this forum, and there is Cineversity in addition to Maxon's training channels, not to mention hundreds of thousands of tutorials on Youtube, with new ones being added every day. There are current podcasts, videocasts, and Siggraph presentations from present day and going back years. Geometry nodes are far from useless, and their potential is becoming more obvious with every release. There are literally THOUSANDS of plugins and scripts for Cinema. CBR

It needs a surface (surface scaled blue noise), splines don't have one 🙂