Cerbera

Could have sworn that wasn't there until R17, but nope, you are correct, so well done, you've got it ! 🙂 CBR

R17. I'd forgotten about that. That is a serious upgrade you'd be missing with R16, although it is really a combination of about 10 other tools you do have separately... Sculpting was new in with R14 as I recall, so he has got that, but not the much needed improvements to it that arrived in R17+ CBR

Welcome to the cafe 🙂 It's a good question, and there are arguments on both sides. By R16 Cinema was already a hugely powerful and refined program, and a lot of great work has been produced in it. It remains everything you need to learn the main areas of Cinema - particularly modelling, materials, Xpresso, rendering and more specialist things like Hair, bullet dynamics, cloth and sculpting. Although a lot of these things have been rewritten or adapted for the new core now they are haven't changed a great deal in functionality so R16 would still be fine to learn these things in. R16 was also in what I would call MAXON's 'Golden Era' of maximum stability and reliability, so if you have the latest update version of that it remains a solid option. The modelling tools (knife related ones especially) have been quite a bit different and better since R18, but they remain similar enough that if you learn the way they used to work, it won't be a massive disadvantage when you get the newer ones. But on the corollary, things didn't stop getting better since R16 either. There is a now a brand new core, which means everything, including the viewport, is more future proof, powerful and efficient, MoGraph and deformers got a serious upgrade with R20 in the form of Fields and in modelling the volume builder,and overhauled Voronoi Fracture and you won't find anyone who has used these asking to go back to the way things used to be done ! Most recently MAXON sorted out UV mapping, which is now a good deal easier and less annoying than it was prior to S22. So, if you are serious about this software then it follows you want access to the most powerful it can be, and the most flexibility it can offer you, then I would say yes, that tips the balance in favour of upgrading to R23 straight away. But if you are short on cash, or it would be a struggle to afford it right now, then there is no harm to your learnings if you did 6 months with R16 first. CBR

Welcome to the cafe 🙂 Hope you enjoy your time here ! CBR

Yep, well done everyone - lots of really good entries there - was difficult to decide who to vote for ! CBR

Please use the cafe's image upload system to post images rather than bouncing us out 4 individual times to external sites. CBR

Oh I see, I misunderstood you there. Fair enough ! 🙂 Yep you'd need a script for that I think. CBR

Yes it is. You can lock the attributes panel so that the field you drop into is always visible, then simply select the first of the source objects, scroll to the last one, hold shift and click that to select them all, then drag them all to the field in one easy move. CBR

If you were doing it with actual dynamics, a Friction particle force would do it, or it would just do it on its own because that uses an engine to calculate real world physics. I imagine you make it orders of magnitude harder to try and simulate that with Xpresso, perhaps to the extent where it might be worth abandoning the setup and starting again dynamically, although I realise that may not be practical if you need your pendulum doing a specific divergent pattern. Will be interested to see what the Xpresso guys suggest. Have you moved it to a section where they will find it ! CBR

For anyone confused about where that is you don't ever need to know ! Just go to prefs, and click the button at the bottom that says open prefs folder !! CBR

No need; you are already in the best category we have for this sort of question. CBR

Lols, you're very kind, but deeply misled 🙂 But my chair does look a lot like that, and the dressing gown does a great job of swishing, cloak-like, round corners. CBR

I wouldn't be surprised if this pandemic showed the world just how much can (and perhaps should) be done at home, and how much office space any business like ours actually needs. I suspect a lot of previously 'office-team' type people will go work from home in the end, pandemic or not - after all us freelancers and trainers have been doing it fine that way for years. But there is a big difference between that, and having a monitored camera trained on your workstation for the entire duration. Screw that ! I imagine that's out of order in most peoples' books, but definitely is in mine ! I model primarily in pants and a dressing gown - and there is no need to a) change that for anyone or b) inflict it on my managers or students ! 🙂 CBR

I'm with @rfanoni on this one. Whenever I model something for a client that is the main thing I am being paid for, so I always expect to hand over the model, for the client to do as they please with it for perpetuity ! If you have charged properly for the time in making it, that should be all you want right (presuming it doesn't have some intellectual property / creative content you added yourself over and above the reference that was provided) ? I don't know what your original agreement was, but I imagine the client thinks they own that model if they have paid you for making it originally. CBR

Did you try Current State to object ? CBR

Welcome to the cafe, and Cinema 4D in general ! This is a great place to be. 🙂 May your 3D learnings here be rewarding and enjoyable... CBR

Lols 🙂 Maybe 'do better' was the wrong phrase - I know it's not a competition, but the vids from those guys have been so good and so plentiful over the years I just don't think there's much to add that they haven't already covered admirably ! Just like I think Amazon are mad to remake Lord of The Rings when the PJ version exists, i just don't think we need the duplication ! CBR

Lols 🙂 Cerbera already has a Youtube channel, but it's only got my music and drone stuff on it so far... Thanks for the confidence vote - I do wonder sometimes if I should try and find some time for some 4D vids as well. It's a good guess Sir Wolf 🙂 Between client work, private tuition, cafe and writing the musics (my other big passion) I don't tend to get the massive amounts of time required to put decent quality vids together. I have, in the recent past planned a project-based video tut series, but the time has eluded me so far. But also, people like yourself, and Hrvoje, Noseman, Chris Schmidt, EJ and Arrimus, Nicko Schatz and a select few others have done such a good job, that I simply don't think I could do better, and between them they have already covered pretty much every topological quandary I would ever want to do myself ! Indeed, I watch Wolf's and the other guys' videos for the sheer relaxment and the reward of watching someone doing something so well, and explaining it so eloquently and thoughtfully ! But nice to know you guys would watch if I did, so cheers ! CBR

I didn't forget him, but you may have forgotten he renamed himself Wolf3D !!! 😉 CBR

I'd say that (apart from cafe channel) would be Wolf3D. Once you reach a certain level, and become utterly familiar with all Cinemas modelling tools, it then doesn't matter which software you learn in, the techniques are largely the same, so I also would recommend Arrimus 3D, working in Max and more recently Blender. CBR

If you have time and inclination, I would do all 3 of your latest suggestions - some people could use the extra res and a rather more the backplate option, and more dynamic range is always helpful. As for the type of HDRIs I most often find myself looking for I would say it is very high contrast maps with a lot of variation in lights and darks, and large indoor environments such as warehouses and museums etc. I appreciate that is easier said than done ! CBR

Thanks for the share ! Looks great to me, and useful if you need that urban 'charm' ! 🙂 I used to use PTGui a lot for my drone panoramas... CBR