Cerbera

Well I really don't know where to start with that appalling list of ignorant and uninformed assertion ! Fortunately it will be obvious to most that this is the case without me adding anything at all ! But just taking the comments about the modelling tools as an example, where is 'Set Flow', 'Poke Polys', and 'Smooth Edge' (not Round Edge, which is different) in HB modelling bundle ? Does HB's Points to circle script have all the additional options we have in Fit to Circle ? No, it doesn't. Does it matter, even to the smallest degree, that some of these tools might have been inspired by the fantastic tools in HBMB that all serious modellers have been loving for years ? No it doesn't. We have at least 10 new modelling tools in Cinema, and they are, in the vast majority, massively useful. I have seen INCREDIBLE cloth simulations, some comparable to MD - it is only a matter of time before these surface and make your comments about it even more self-evidently untrue. ZRM in Cinema - BRILLIANT - we now have the best quad remesher in the world integrated in Cinema. There's no counter - argument - it's there and it works, and I would bet 99% of Cinema users are incredibly grateful it is ! And I am not going to waste my time addressing the other rubbish in that post. CBR

Yep, I think it is indeed ropey topology that is causing that to fail. It only took me around 5 mins to go round finding the wrong ones and reversing groups of them, which did work. As far as more automated solutions you could Volume Builder this mesh, Volume Mesh that, and then ReMesh that - by recreating the surface from voxels you can eradicate the errors within it, produce a new surface with correct Normals, and remesh can bring that down to reasonable (and all quad, no errors !) polycounts. CBR

Yes. It installs by default to a different directory ! Or you can pop to Maxon's site and download the offline installer, which will allow you to specifically choose an alternative location. CBR

That IS the function to point them all in the same direction - if it fails, it's because you have rubbish topology somewhere in that mesh !! Please upload the scene file, and we can inspect and advise. CBR

If you scroll that warning to the right it tells you - try updating video drivers. I also get that warning, because I haven't updated mine for a while. CBR

Yes. Align Normals from right click menu in poly mode. If they all go wrong direction after that, then just run the command under it in the menu, Reverse Normals. If either of the commands don't work, that indicates mesh / topology problems. CBR

Bearing in mind that all I say next will appear directly below a picture of a dinosaur that looks vaguely preposterous, I'd give any project David Attenborough was associated with more credit than most, and I am willing to trust that this series is based on the latest finds and research. But to be honest, even if it's not I will find it no less enjoyable ! Who doesn't like nice CG dinosaur with dinner ! I do think this quality of 3D work is mostly attainable in Cinema, except, as mentioned by Zeden above, the water sim stuff. CBR

Yes I too think RS CPU is a great idea. All the time I was still a hobbyist, and learning back in the day on Physical and Standard, it didn't matter to me one jot that I had to wait a while for renders - the quality was great when it got there. If I had my time again now I'd be learning on the RS CPU version, and would have learned a system that was infinitely upwards transferable into GPU and Pro-level rendering when I eventually got there. But I do have to pop a caveat in there about not wanting to lose Standard Render either just yet - there is something about the simplicity of that and its special use-cases that I would miss a lot if it disappeared too early. CBR

Yes, very much so. Furthermore, it often makes sense to build each setup in its own file, do all your experimentation there, and when happy collapse the boole to a poly object and copy it to a new 'group shot' scene with the other poly copies of the other setups. There are lots and lots of modelling tutorials on Youtube, although there is wide range of variation in standards so you do have to be a bit careful that you are not being shown rubbish techniques ! My favourites at the moment are Arrimus 3D (max / blender) and in Cinema, PolygonPen... https://www.youtube.com/c/polygonpen Both of those have an enormous range of videos showing only very good modelling techniques, Arrimus's being no less useful for being in another program - the techniques remain very similar across platforms and software. Or, if you feel you would benefit from a more ground-up, personalised approach to your specific modelling goals, or want a comprehensive and thorough introduction to it, modelling is my speciality, and I offer 1-to-1 tuition if you are interested. Please PM me if you'd like more info about that. CBR

OK, if you need to keep things parametric, and have lots of different variations to try that is a decent reason to want to try a boole there. And your latest scene is much better, in that the booled object is quite low poly, though we still have many more cylinder clones than the panels seem to require - so I would drop that number to the minimum you actually need. Then, if you change all the instances of that boole to Render instances, then the scene is lightning fast. That should remain the case if you build similarly efficient setups with the other variations. CBR

That is any island of polys (ngons themselves, or otherwise) surrounded only by ngons, such that there is NO 'physical' edge connection between any point of the inner and outer edge loops. One such situation is shown below (ngon lines in red for clarity) So in this situation, line cutting from inner to outer edge loops won't work unless we do the workaround above to re-establish a polygon link between them. On a related note, if I was to delete the polys in the ngon ring above, then Close Poly Hole would also fail to acknowledge the island in the middle, which would mean the only way to reconnect them would be via bridging or stitch n sew. Does that make anything any clearer ?! I'm not sure it does 🙂 But I think the take-away lesson here is 'If you never allow a situation to arise where you completely surround a poly patch with ngons, then you won't ever run into these limitations' ! CBR

That plan might not be as successful as you are hoping, but to be honest we can't really advise properly without seeing the clothes, and how they would need to move over and around the body. Generally speaking, if you are animating clothed humans in Cinema you wouldn't have any body mesh under any area that is covered by clothes, and thereby eliminate the intersections that are likely to drive you to distraction if you try and rig and animate cloth with thickness in close proximity to a body of different topology under it. Not only that, but that clothing is unlikely to behave anything like as realistically as it would in MD as it creases and folds as the body moves under it. But, with that said, you are welcome to try binding your clothes to the same rig as the body, but again, we can't advise because you have given us any information about what the rig is made of either !! CBR

I genuinely don't know (and can't tell). I can't concentrate on it for too long because I am too distracted by all the shininess in the render 🙂 CBR

Yes, I have 🙂 I'm sure that guy will upload his amazing examples soon... CBR

You'd be surprised how many people asked for that to remain, and even more so Standard... CBR

Oh wow - even easier than I was thinking ! Good one @Vizn Still think we need refs from OP so know what the refraction needs to do though. In order to get that accurate in the render it will need to very closely resemble the real world object in terms of what thickness is connected between the ribs etc... CBR

In fact, do me favour will you ? - copy just one of your booles into a new scene, turn it off, then save it and upload here - that will show me what you want without taking my entire machine down hopefully ! Any reference pics you may have (close-ups especially) would be helpful now too. CBR

Have you got anything that will show me the exact profile of the flutes in the glass ? CBR

Yeah, this scene is made of literally everything Cinema is slow at ! Live booleans, and tons of physical instances of them ! Ok, first thing to do is to try setting all your instances to render instances instead of regular ones... and then collapse the horrible booles to geometry. Chances are we could avoid all this horribleness if we didn't use booles when proper modelling would be far more efficient, and not slow the vp at all... Reeded glass is not that hard to model. I would bet there is no need for a single boolean in this scene. CBR

I don't wanna seem rude, but would you expect a mechanic to fix your car without giving him the car to examine, or even any pictures of it so they might know even what kind of car it is ?!!! We can't help with almost zero information. You'll be needing to upload that file ! CBR

Yes that was a biggie for me, by which of course I mean bigger littleness 🙂

Yep - unification here we come ! CBR

I love this update 🙂 One very happy bunny over here ! CBR

Yes that's fine. Just be careful to choose another directory for the setup of S26. CBR

Likewise Captain Schmidt will be killing it as well later... DEFINTELY not one to miss, that... CBR