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I'm against people repeatedly asserting things that aren't true, despite evidence presented to the contrary. It is impossible to discuss anything with people that won't respond to the points answered, the evidence shown, and explanations provided, but instead parrot the same baseless accusations again without further elaboration. You said I didn't give warnings - I then posted the warnings. You said I wasn't interested in the thread, despite me asserting specifically the opposite earlier in this one, and actively contributing to the thread in question ! I then provided a long and detailed explanation for why I locked it. But instead of responding to any of those points you just 'said the power-trip thing again'. It's very difficult to respect that attitude. And thank you for reminding me of what my moderation duties involve, but you left out the one other duty that primarily motivated the decision to lock the thread - that I am trying to do my small part in preventing Core4D from developing a reputation for being less a forum people go to for help and reasoned debate than a poisonous slanging match arena, where people say absolutely anything they like without the slightest thought or respect for the choices and opinions (and in some cases hard work) of others. No. Not bingo. I do not have any blanket objection to criticism of Maxon, especially if it is evidenced, and if the reasons for those accusations / complaints are explained, and subsequently calmly discussed. What I do object to is unevidenced assertion that goes on and on over multiple threads, for a sustained period, and involves endless repetition of the same points, some of which are valid, but more of which are not. If people were repeatedly berating Autodesk or anyone else with that level of vitriol and for that amount of time, and with that much repetition, and with so much of it unjustified or disproportionate I would have the same response. But these other companies don't seem to attract nearly the same level of hatchet-job appraisal and condemnation that appears to be exclusively reserved for Maxon, and I can't help but consider that unfair and feel the impulse to limit it if I reasonably can. You'll notice I have not locked this thread despite believing it's a crushing waste of everyone's time. But I would like to express the hope that Admin will do it for me at some point ! CBR

I did not lock it for no reason at all, nor in response to any one post. It started off toxic, and remained largely that way, despite some reasonable points being made amongst the maelstrom. Whilst not exactly an enjoyable read, personally I found it interesting. But then it became apparent that it was something of a crap-magnet for anyone who just wanted to generally bad-mouth Maxon, reasoned or not, there was a sort of undercurrent of recrudescent anger, it was all getting very tired, circular and repetitive, and I didn't think much new or constructive was going on, so it seemed to me to have reached its natural conclusion. If I was censoring stuff I would have deleted it shortly after it started or would be hiding it now. We DID allow the conversation to continue for at least a month - almost 2 ! Only when it was rattling on and on did I feel the need to lock it in the hope we could all move on and talk about literally anything else ! I am aware some people will appreciate that and others won't but we can't please all the people all the time hey ? CBR

You're very quick in deciding what is adding to the conversation or not, right? Leaving it for 2 months is "very quick" ? Locking the garbage is a "power trip" You need to recalibrate your sense of outrage, you're currently calibrated to 100% Karen

I think this thread should be considered done too. We can all guess how the next ten or twelve pages might go so might as well end it now. There is nothing more boring and unproductive in any forum than threads about the forum itself.

Cg Talk died because the new management did not keep any promise they made, did not support moderators in any way and embraced spam. I was one of the last mods to give up on the cesspool it became. Moderating a forum is always a balance act and you simply can’t make it right for everyone, not nearly. Opposing opinions are important, but trolling is quickly going out of hand if you let it. What might look like a heated discussion is often perceived quite different by those less emotionally involved, leading to the number of members decreasing and the forum becoming less relevant. If you want professional users to read and participate you need to maintain a certain minimum of professional behavior. It all depends on the goals of the owners and moderators, do they want a soap box, a sales instrument, a political platform, do they have any other agenda …. with CG Talk there was a hard turn. Leonard Theo founded it as place to learn and grow in your field, evolving into a platform for artists and a sales instrument for Ballistic Publishing. People like Steven Stahlberg and Leigh van der Byl spent endless hours helping people becoming better artists, especially Leigh was paid back in hate. No idea if it was misogyny, envy or just generic trolling, it definitely wasn’t for her actual conduct, since she was as impartial as a person can be, certainly better than i ever was. She didn’t suffer idiots though. The new owners promised to bring in pros to build up courses and make CG Society into a major learning hub, the only thing that happened was basically nothing at all. They restyled the forums to become Autodesk centric, even though the Cinema 4D community provided by far the largest amount of traffic and participation. They tried to restart challenges, with no success at all, it was a bit of a dumpster fire. Leo n the other hand moved on to found Artstation, everyone knows how 5hat went.

One more small point. I think we all have ADS - Adobe Derangement Syndrome. There is a trend for us to think that Maxon is a "huge" corporation and as such we equate them to Adobe and that is where our panic sets in. Honestly, Nemetschek in terms of annual revenue (per their 2021 financial report published on 12/31/21) showed revenue at 681.5 Million EUR: Now, in USD that equates to around $771 million. While good size, Nemetschek would not even make the top 500 largest corporations in the US in terms of revenue. When you compare Adobe to Nemetschek, Adobe's 2021 revenue was $15.75 Billion USD (about 20 times bigger than Nemetschek). Now, Nemetschek's revenue comes from more than just Maxon: Nemetschek has only one company in the Media and Entertainment segment, and that is Maxon. So Maxon's annual revenues are 10% of Nemetshek's or $77 million USD in 2021 (up 9% from 2020). Honestly, while a healthy bit of revenue, they are NOT a huge corporation by any stretch of the imagination. Maxon's revenue did grow over 2020, by $16.3 million...which is very good because it represents 26.8% growth. So while Maxon is well managed for their size, they are by no means huge. I can personally speak to how important even the smallest bit of revenue is to truly large corporations. I managed the global test infrastructure for a product line that was shipping $20 Million USD per DAY! So we generated more revenue in 4 days than Maxon did all year. My team found an issue that required us to shut production down for two days to fix it. I had to meet with the VP. A bit tense. But it was clear that you don't get rewarded for fixing those problems, you get fired if you don't. I was then asked by a different VP to figure out why one factory was roughly two weeks behind in output (around $60 million). I flew half-way around the world to the factory, went into the factory as soon as I landed and identified the problem that same day, The email I wrote went all the way to the CEO and ultimately, the entire line of our management team supporting that factory (from the manager to the VP) got fired. We ship $40 Billion per year but sweat over $20 million. Every dollar counts. So imagine what happens when Maxon mis-steps. I am sure that R25 shook Maxon to its core because they just do not have that big a cash cushion to protect them from mis-steps. Remember, they have been hiring and acquiring pretty heavily and this is revenue and NOT profit. Their biggest expense is salaries. Lackluster releases put their cash flow in jeopardy. They do NOT have the luxury of being soooo big that they can ignore the user. I am pretty convinced of that now after reviewing their financials. Dave

Thank you @Icecaveman. It is certainly true that I do not comment on a great number of threads because I am very conscious of the importance of 'moderator impartiality'. I also take moderation decisions regardless of, and sometimes actively contrary to what my personal opinions may be, which I would hope shows that I respect the duty I undertake, and aim to do it fairly. Like Igor, normally I would stay away from such threads as the one under discussion, or only contribute minimally, preferring instead to take the 'Johnny Depp approach' of walking calmly away from fire if you can. But of course if you are moderating, you have to read everything, so walking away isn't really a viable / responsible option ! I am not often inspired to drastic action by what I read, but I am human, and I do get worn down over time, and do accept that as a failing I should resist !🙂 And so I can appreciate why you think that was overreach to lock the thread, but I would like it known that a rather considerable amount of thought over quite a lot of time went into the decision; it was not made lightly, or without a sense of regret, and nor was it done in anger, or for any personal gratification. If there was any 'sense of power' available in that move I can honestly say I didn't notice ! CBR

I believe you, I feel there was certainly less of the (IMO) dull posts going over and over the same unhappy points. The locked thread proved the exception and I honestly think it had run its course there. But if your intention was to let the S26 thread have its day without too much negative commentary then I think you successfully did that as I don't recall reading it and going, jeez, here goes ICM again. Criticism of Maxon can be interesting as there are so many long awaited features, or points to be made pro and con the new features we are getting, but I think as MJV notes, some of the same really negative assertions have been made over and over - and beyond that, a few of them have crossed the line into bashing the devs, company, owner, ethos, the works. This gets tiresome, and those who are now subscribing to the software and making their way with it can be excused not wanting to hear it again and again. Since the earlier thread was locked I want to also note my appreciation for the work of HappyPolygon, who mentioned the hundreds of suggestions he'd sent to Maxon and the high number they had adopted. Great work and I hope they adopt more of them.

In the 10 years I have been moderating this forum I have only ever locked 3 posts, which I do not consider the behaviour of someone on a power trip. Indeed I sometimes face 'moderator criticism' for letting things run and run. Sometimes, Admin lock stuff I might have let go ! And if you think there weren't warnings, you must have missed the 2 cautionary posts I made on March 25th, of which this was the second. If you do not like the decision you are free to petition @Igor / Admin to get it unlocked, as I am free to present the case for it remaining so, and this thread (which is adding nothing) with it ! CBR

Hello All, I'm helping my children launch an animation studio this year and just wanted to introduce myself to the community! I'm Brandon, the dad 🙂 We are all taking C4D courses this summer and then will be producing content for YouTube. If there are any pointers or advice you'd like to share, I would love to hear. We will be building out our studio as well as asset portfolio over the next several months. My kids are spread across the country so they will all be working on laptops and then send the final product to HQ for render. Any suggestions on the best laptop for C4D under $3K I'd love to hear your thoughts? The HQ workstation will be built out by puget systems but if you have any suggestions on how we should proceed for that, I'd love to hear as well. I'm hoping to have the HQ workstation armed with 8 RTX 3090's Kind regards to you all! Brandon

Hi I just saw this video of Stuzor's Workflow Everyday Project | Cinema 4D - Octane Render' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDRI-vg4MEI In order to post process his final render still image, he uses after effects. What I have understood that he adds different layers of smokes, and other elements inside after effects. That can be also done in Photoshop. What is the advantage of After Effect in his workflow?

Hello all Over the years I have tried getting the ball rolling with 3D - first trying Maya and then 3DS Max. I didn't get on with either application. During lockdown I jumped head first into Cinema 4D and have not regretted it. I am focussing on character modelling and using mocap data to bring the results to life. I started with an introductory course with Greyscale Gorilla and then moved onto a couple of Mograph Mentor courses. I am now making may way through a course with Motion Design School alongside various Youtube videos. Zbrush is the next target and it is great to know that it has recently been aquired by Maxon. I have attached an image of a character I made at the same time as following the training from Joey Judkins' Mograph Mentor course. Looking forward to talking all things Cinema 4D on this site. Jake

Thanks Bezo. That was the vibe I was aiming at.

Honestly, I am very much in favor of the Ignore feature. The web has empowered people to attack first, shout down, and criticize from a safe haven in ways that they would never do if they had to face the person. I never want to see that happen to those whom I hold in high esteem here on Core: Cerbera, HappyPolygon, Igor, Icecaveman, Vector, BoganTW, the list goes on (and apologies to those I left out). This also goes for people at Maxon - such as Srek, Hrvoje, Rick Barrett, etc. who work hard to make C4D better and are NOT the face of monolithic, heartless corporation that some of us (including myself) have vented our frustration at over the years. I think it is okay to debate ideas and question the policies of corporations, but once that debate turns into personal attacks, then it has crossed the line. When that happens, I wish I could ignore the poster (and hopefully the poster knows who is ignoring him). Dave

I always have preferred AE for compositing. That's literally what it's made for while PS is designed more for painting and retouching. In AE, everything is non destructive, so things can be continuously tweaked and retweaked, and you can disabled or enabled any change or effect at any time at will. PS is much more a destructive workflow. Also, working with alpha channels is so much much easier in AE. I hate working with them in PS.

Unless they absolutely must remain portable for some reason, $3000 workstations for the kids would be far more productive than $3000 laptops. Speed isn't only an issue for final renders. Pace of work is largely determined by render speed because dozens or hundreds of test renders or live render viewimg must usually proceed the final render, so in some respects the final render speed can be the least important factor.

Welcome to Core! Character modeling is definitely jumping into the deep end of the digital pool but your model above is impressive for someone just starting out! Looking forward to seeing what you can do with Z-Brush. Dave

He probably owns/knows only AE and not PS.

Please implement the ignore feature. Cinema 4D cg talk went downhill FAST, It was due to a few users who had to poison every thread. If ignore was enabled, They would’ve just been shouting into the void. most people didn’t appreciate their tone. Now CG talk cinema 4d only has a few threads here and there, but it’s the same dude trolling every thread and derailing everything in between the rare times when he actually helps. He’s happy (ish?) being lonely as the king of the bridge he lives under. srek, thanks for holding the line as long as you did on cg talk. Many legendary Cinema 4D users left CG talk and said they would come here simply because it was moderated. The last few posts of the closed thread I saw were disappointing. Things don’t magically become productive after the insults start. Good riddance to it.

A thread becomes toxic when criticism is not helpful or productive, or too harsh just because the person criticizing want's to steam off but eventually ends up getting satisfaction from keeping his/her rant going. - Last time I checked this wasn't a "steam-off psychotherapy session - rant freely" forum for unsatisfied customers. Nor it's an official place to ask for new features or improvements. A thread becomes toxic when people start theorizing and accuse without real evidence. or accuse for reasons they think are worthy of accusing just to weigh in on the list of indictment as if this would somehow lead to definite justice by judgement - Try getting in the shoes of some Maxon workers in here. How would you (plural, no intention to target ICM due to quoting) feel if people talked nonsense or disparagingly about you, your work, your workplace or your company on a public forum you also were a member? I don't see any Blender, Modo, Maya or Houdini developers around here, would it be fair to have similar threads about other DCCs ? No, the eye for an eye method doesn't benefit anyone. And I've never seen a thread dedicated on criticism against Blender or Max Studio or any other DCC in this forum that would justify the sense of fairness many people invoke, which leads to the logical conclusion that people that target C4D like that are either trolls or just too emotional or C4D is not worth a dime and every other DCC is perfect, well, one of the three is definitely false. If I talked like that in a Blender forum I would get kicked out on the spot for firestarting, hate-speech or for the same reasons Cerbera closed that thread. And it's not about democracy for having a moderator do things his way in a forum. Democracy has nothing to do with the way forums are moderated. We did not elect the admins and moderators. This IS a dynasty with minimum personal freedom consequences. Take it or leave it. We don't get to vote or hold elections in here and decide about a constitution on how this forum should be run. If an Admin or Moderator deems it fit to close a thread or ban a member, he does so and there is no public discussion. If I do something wrong and get a yellow card I won't argue much about it, and if I do I will do it with a PM and I will apologize and delete any offensive/inappropriate post, I don't feel like I'm here to change things, and neither anyone else should. I repeat, this isn't democracy, we (members) don't make the rules. A thread becomes toxic when consecutive posts argue with each other for a very long time. - I like this forum for the fresh content it provides. And when it gets stagnant I make my own content (and receive the appreciation from others, which motivates me keeping doing so). Unfortunately from now on, until October, I will have very little time to devote in 3D and I won't be posting new content or help around. But I will still visit to get informed about news, discussions and have a look on technical problems and solutions. Seeing that 2-month old, irrelevant-to-3D thread still active just made me sick. A tread is by definition toxic when the title is a personal statement and the text following it contains hate-speech. - This isn't Facebook for posting on the "What's on your mind" personal wall section! On that note, that specific thread wasn't just toxic it was also irrelevant to the forum. It wasn't about 3D content/news/ discussion/technical problem, it was purely a personal statement. It didn't deserve to be part of this forum! You can't just start a thread on anything you feel like talking about or want people to comment on, at least post it under the Miscellaneous category, not Discussions, having it hang on the top of the home page ! And to be honest I think Desta was clearly a troll. Whenever he commented he seemed like a person that hasn't the slightest idea about 3D graphics or C4D ! "Official Maxon training channel is all about rendering spheres via Redshift." "There is no community" "no plugins" "all tutorials on youtube are outdated for years" "Can u guys make something production ready like a pillow laying on a couch? 5 min task in Marvellous. But u will waste HOURS and still get nothing." - He literally provoked and insulted the talent, technical knowledge and intelligence of every single member in this forum and did it by comparing two applications dedicated on completely different fields ! "I'm not just a troll (at least i think so) ..." - He literally confessed being a troll (and not being sure about it) ! He didn't write "i'm not a troll" , he wrote "I'm not just a troll", as in "I'm not just a troll, I am, and more". "This isn't war, it's a special operation - Not a political post. Take my word for it and believe me." Make your (plural, no intention to target) own conclusions about all these. You've been commenting on someone's provocative post whose purpose was to channel from your own personal dissatisfaction just to build justification upon his own opinion and feel good about it in case he ever had regrets or second thoughts. 👏

Punishment is not what this is about. Such actions are not meant to punish anyone, the reality is the other way around. Banning, closing threads, those actions are last measures not to punish, but to protect the very existence of the forum. Please keep in mind that attacks on people are attacks on the forum and it’s function. Regardless of all that, the owners and their appointed representatives have all the right in the world to handle these things as they see fit. Ignore would be a nice feature though.

I honestly don't think there is a great deal of difference, and it probably comes down to personal choice, and what he prefers working with. But perhaps the creation of masks is a bit easier, and things like blur on those masks can remain parametric for longer in AE. But I can't immediately see anything he does there that couldn't be done in PS also. CBR

distorting the word to benefit certain points of view. Oh Craig.. you so crazy with the ego and everything.

Thanks cerbera for your work as moderator. You are making a great job. A job that very few can do for a longer time, because it comes with a lot of work and responibility and little apreciation and money. The discussion we are having here should be not about this one thread, but about what this forum is about. One can define, that this should be a forum without any politics involved. And striktly be a helpdesk to answer technicsl problems. For me this would be a place to visite only seldom. The best visible part of this forum though is the general discussion as the gossip keeps people coming. Maybe you have to change that visibility if you want to get rid of "such" general discussions. Last thing: It might be hekpfull if you could post your reasoning for closing a thread. I personaly could imagine, that a personal message would also have worked to calm down this thread instead of closing it.

I find valid and unique criticism to be pretty interesting, and I will gripe about Maxon and features I find lacking as often and as much as the next guy. What I don't find interesting is criticism that isn't at all unique but rather has been stated and repeated ad nauseam over and over seemingly because the poster is butt hurt and just can't let go, as if they find the very act of complaining itself to be entertaining or cathartic.

Dunno, both you guys are still here and still posting much the same stuff. Maybe start a new thread in the same vein and see who joins in? This is if you feel the 12 pages on the topic earlier only started to touch on what you think about this particular issue. Just a hunch but it might be the thread was closed because this is the 20th time you've gone over the same stuff, not the first, as there was a sense of deja vu about all the angst being expressed.

Thanks Bezo ! Perfect 😉

Oh man, all I see now are a bunch of threads about 3D and how to use and solve various problems in Cinema, Blender, Houdini and whatnot. Whatever will we do?

Welcome to the Core ! 🙂 Good to have you here - hopefully you will find it a useful place to be... CBR

VFX supervisor Georgios Papaioannou's appealing VFX breakdown of a series of ads for insurance group Groupama shows a LIDAR-scanned car being destroyed by meteorites, Godzilla and this CG kraken. I don't get it. Does really LIDAR outweigh its cost for this kind of project ? There are so many easier and probably cheaper ways to make photogrametry and apply a camera mapping. It just feels to me "too much". What is your opinion ?

Lidar is precise and if you have a scanner why not use it? Most problems are solveable using a number of possible solutions, Lidar for vehicle and environment scanning isn't outrageous. Sometimes also it isn't about the tool as much as about the talent you have at hand. If the person you want to handle this is more comfortable using lidar over photogrammetry, why not let them?

Been years since I had to do much searching for Cinema 4D answers (apart from Redshift) but I was specifically interested in character work and found it hard to find good character based tutorial series. There might be more around these days with the improvement of C4D's character offering but back when I was learning C4D there were a couple from Brett Bays but I didn't find much else (maybe wasn't looking hard enough). EJ from Eyedesyn was helpful for a lot of neat tricks. Specifically regarding character tutorials there are just a shitload of resources for Blender on YouTube. And sites like CG Cookie are great quality. This ain't a Blender program is better than Cinema 4D program post, I just found when it comes to character learning Blender has been easier to sort through. I'm sure there's heaps of mograph, archviz, rendering, lighting etc learning content for Cinema 4D but character workflows seemed slim.

Sorry, but with Cineversity and the Maxon training Channel on Youtube alone you can be busy for month learning C4D from beginner Stuff to Advanced. On Youtube alone is a 6h Introduction course on R25 and the same on RS recently provided by Maxon. The paid courses on Udemy and Vimeo not even mentioned. There is a huuuge amount of training online all over the Internet.