BoganTW

I'll just say I'm really happy with the rate of new developments over the past few releases. Feels like exciting stuff is coming, for me anyway. And there is no shortage of stuff already to learn. It's like C4D has been rebuilt like the Six Million Dollar Man (if you remember that show) and is now flexing its muscles and getting ready to kick ass. Maybe EJ was just getting excited or something.

I feel dumb arguing the point with someone from directly in Maxon, but Noseman's comment that I'm referring to came right after he'd already shown off that softbody feature, as they gave a sneak peak of it with the falling dinosaurs. And then, right after he'd shown off the softbody feature via squashy dinosaurs falling, Noseman says "This is just the tip of the iceberg. Things - are - coming..." Which for sure makes it sound like he was referring to something other than what he'd already spent five solid minutes at the end of the presentation showing the audience. But you and he obviously know what is up so I won't dwell on it. EJ left it ambiguous so probably he was just hinting at cool stuff that might eventually come down the track. Either way Dave has already teased plenty of cool stuff with his pics from earlier in this thread so I'll be satisfied if we just get that and not much else. Thank you for your hard work Fritz.

Yep, here he is, from 8 weeks ago. And his comment was right at the end, right after the 39 minute mark. He's also a regular at the Maxon Training Team channel, and spoke for an hour or more last week about sims (not the game) in C4D. All that noted I'm really happy with the whole Maxon Training Team crew, and enjoying all the 3D Motion Show appearances from lots of different artists. Too much good stuff to choose from, and not enough time sadly to watch them all.

EJ Hass on Twitter was dropping heavy hints that the new particle dynamics - the source of this cool smoke and flame - would also be a nice thing to see with liquids, water, other desirable things for C4D like that. So the question in my mind is if the PYRO object in the object manager is all we're getting, or if there could be some other things in the pack with different names imminent that also let us do more cool sim stuff. Not sure if this is what Noseman was getting at when he dropped hints at his last presentation that major cool stuff was soon to arrive. I dunno, would be nice if the folks at Maxon give us some watery stuff that can put fires out.

Simon Walker noted on Twitter that the Maxon Training Team guys likely have some solid training in the works for this stuff. It wouldn't surprise me if we get one of their 4 or 5 week series on this. Say what you want about subs but when things are going smoothly, getting the software update with a polished top new feature and accessible bulk training with it all on your desktop with no mucking around is an attractive combination. I'm looking forward to when this comes out.

Looking awesome, I will have to retire my Pyrocluster gags as it was hitting its 20th(?) anniversary soon I think.

Others (including Maxon folk) can chip in if I have this wrong, but I found this very interesting and enjoyable to check out. At 1 hour 17 min into the Maxon Training Team video below, Noseman discusses the old and new dynamics systems in C4D. The new system is an extended position based (or particle based) dynamics system. It's apparently better in several ways, faster to calculate, more accurate, and with likely other benefits I'm yet to get my head around. The video immediately below is a recent tech preview of the same dynamics system. It's a deep dive chat that has a number of great examples of what the new system can do. Some of this, I'm assuming, is coming to C4D. There's a great sense of realism to the whole thing and I'm keen to see what C4D can get up to as more parts of the software start to take advantage of this. With Dave M teasing the recent fire video, a lot of the cool stuff we've been waiting a long time for seems to be coming,

I recall threads and threads at CGTalk with folks scratching their heads at the various problems with Team Render. Despite subbing, and despite having it all available at the click of a button, if Maxon brought out printed manual, I'd buy it. Ditto a shortcut display, C4D USB, small desk calendar and any other cool merch one could think of.

Cool collection. My runs of PC's that looked like that always crashed, and my Adobe Premiere software purchases always turned out to be the buggy ones.

I'm curious if there's a decent Intro to Python for C4D course or tutorial series anywhere. Bit of a blind spot for me.

Remind me again how Maxon is exploiting my free labour? Are they exploiting the free labour of every other subscriber, or just me? Put things in all caps as much as you want. I barely even noticed you in this thread until you called me a shill. Feel free to re-read your plea for people to stay classy, then walk over to your bathroom and have a long, hard look in the mirror. And if you and other twits think that Maxon is paying me or a few others specifically to spend time rebutting things on this forum - WTF for? to steer conversations among the 30 or 40 people in the world who aren't locked out due to the paywall? - then you have a paranoia problem as well. I'm preparing for work, it's not Maxon or 3D related, and I see a notification that you responded to a post of mine. The same thing happened yesterday, the only difference then being the unexpected surprise that I get called a shill for chipping in an observation to this thread - an observation that remains accurate and which no-one has bothered to rebut or even go out of their way to address. Namely, why is Maxon expected to change policy as a one off for an online poster on a forum full of sad folk angry at Maxon, under a thread title designed to paint Maxon as the bad guy? Beats me. Should they change policy for everyone, a random few, or just him? More specifically, are there any signs the crowd here warrants special treatment, given the special treatment they've gone out of their way to throw at Maxon over the last (is it three or four now?) years? ICM still gets a few punches in every chance he can, Dave gets given his own sarcastic moniker, it drags on and on. Re the title of this thread, Maxon will not allow him to extend, etc etc. Do they need to? Do they have to? Is it better if they do or don't? Are there other things that people are not allowed to do, or just this one thing for him? And are there other things that other companies also don't let him do? Or is it just Maxon not letting him do this one thing, whereas every other company in the world lets him do everything? Beats me. You'd think there would be room for debate, but it seems not. I will continue to read other posts in this thread though for further info about what Maxon will and won't let him do, and hopefully you'll be here as well, as we learn more about this situation in the coming weeks and months. I don't know you at all but if you're concerned about being called a dickhead in a forum thread, possibly don't jump at random strangers and call them a shill during a conversation. You can consider the insult dialled down or deleted to whatever degree you prefer if you change the language you chucked my way. I'll even delete the offending words from my posts if you delete the (evidence free, so I'd be puzzled why you'd stick with it) accusation from yours. Can't be fairer than that. But if you're keen to keep the accusation out there then my own fairly innocuous response can stay there too. So I guess that ball is firmly in your court. "If you're really paying for your subscription with your own money" etc etc I dunno if this is a foreign concept for you, a brain fart, trouble at grasping the obvious, or another example of your paranoia, but pretty much every bill people pay, including subscriptions to 3D software, is usually paid by people using their own money to pay for it. Who pays for your bills, your mum or your dad?

My bad, I didn't realise more than one person in this thread was going to throw the shill accusation around like a dickhead. But thanks for making it clearer. I pay my sub for the software, and somehow I'm a shill? This forum never changes.

They better have a cool promo video ready for all this sim stuff.

EDIT - long rant edited because it was boring. What was the bad practice? Not rolling out the red carpet for you? Someone call the cops. The nicest, kindest person in this thread is having a bad week because Maxon won't throw him a discount. Since you're clearly the most deserving 3D user in the world I'm not sure how my faith in humanity will ever recover.

Have a dig through the comments on Dave's Twitter post for a couple of extra clues. We might have some new cool stuff in store late next month.

Good question, I've heard nothing either way and even though I'm using C4D 2023 right now I dunno where to check. Maybe Rick can add a note.

Half the thread is full of passive aggressive whinging and potshots at the company. Does that normally encourage companies to do something as a special one-off just to win over someone making narky posts at them? Maybe it does, but from general observation I've noticed it actually usually doesn't.

So why are you still using Maxon products if they're so bad?

Fair enough. Though I'm assuming Dave's opinion should carry some weight. Hope things get sorted for you, but any time a customer suggests they should be allowed to do something, the company needs to weigh up whether they've disallowed anyone else the same thing previously, and whether this opens them up to complaints afterwards for changing their mind. "You let him have it, why couldn't I have it?'" etc etc Luckily I am not in charge of C4D. If I was I'd be demanding extra Easter eggs get put into it, like an Atari 2600 tank battle emulator for when users and their buddies get bored.

Dwelling on the upside of this thread rather than the bumpy last few pages, I like the topic, the stuff re-tweeted by Dave, and the examples others have posted. With Dynamics getting lots of love I see tons of room for cool things to happen if pyro, particles, and volumetric fog gets a look in at C4D as well. Very fun and cool.

HiFly, Correct, I only copied half the paragraph. The bit you've pasted above doesn't have your name in it, so I'm not sure where it clearly says you personally can extend your annual maintenance. It says an unnamed 'you' can do it, and this is after it's described that person as being someone who 'just purchased Redshift', and that their 'recent purchase' has that level of maintenance. BIG EDIT - I see Dave and others have confirmed all the relevant details, so I guess the mystery has been solved.

Did you just purchase it / is it a recent purchase? Dunno if they're treating older customers renewing differently to those who just bought it. I'll stay out of this thread hereafter as I haven't read up on what they're doing here (since I'm subbing it has zero to do with me). Good luck.

Clever observation and I can't disagree.

So none of the people currently running and working on C4D have a passion for what they're working on? Leaving Dave out of it for a minute, I hadn't noticed all the other Maxon names that come to mind being indifferent to the subject of Cinema 4D. If bugger all has changed then what is the problem? That noted, Rick posts here, Srek posts here, Hrvoje posts here, Fritz posts here, and Dave posts here. Possibly Dave posts the least of those, so I guess you've got him there, and maybe you'd be happier if he posted less. You mention all those other forums and say they 'had' nice communities, presumably before Maxon - which doesn't run any of them - did something mysterious that soured the good old days. I'm not sure if CGTalk going down the toilet is Maxon's fault, unless Infograph there is a rogue Maxon employee. Noting in passing that since the policies are what they are, there's clearly nothing Dave could say to make folks like yourself feel better about them, so 'tone deaf' presumably just means he isn't imbibing the glass half empty that you've got hold of. Well it's a good thing you subbed then, given that there was no benefit, as it clearly would have been a disaster if you hadn't. Maxon apparently makes the sub and advertises it for people who want to sub, see the benefit of it, and like what it brings, so I suppose seeing zero benefit or use yet doing it anyway might create some odd feelings after you've done it. I'm not sure if this is a common thing with subscribers though, most of whom presumably sub because they want to, rather than subbing because they don't, like you're apparently doing. You note that you had 'several years' notice that subs were where things were going, and you'll be a better judge than me as to whether this was long enough notice or not. Not subbing would have also been a choice, given that there was no benefit in subbing and you already had the perpetual versions. But fair enough, probably I'm missing the specific reasons you found yourself in. Possibly some months or years from now the other DCC competitors will develop their software to the extent that suddenly you find them viable and you can jump ship. I'm assuming this isn't the case yet. This next bit takes the biscuit though. What a wank. Any benefits out there perhaps for a few folk by making the software cheaper and easier to access? Yeah, fuck those people, it's clearly a retrograde step and they should have kept that initial purchase price sky high. Since you're subbing you're already getting the second and third of those, particularly the third. But righto, clearly someone running a studio with multiple C4D licenses who hates subs and presumably chugs along doing C4D testing for Maxon at the same time is going to be irked when his whole studio of perpetual C4D licenses is shoved into subscription against his will. Since Maxon aren't selling perpetuals any more I'm not sure how frequently this combination of events will ever reoccur again in the future though. Maxon's focus is clearly on helping and supporting and pleasing the people who like subs, and I think this general helpfulness seems to offset the apparent cold shoulder they're giving to people who hate subs, the dramatic depiction and mafia-style callousness of which I feel you exaggerate just a tad. On page 4 of this thread 3D-Pangel guesstimated Maxon earning 400% more than usual through the pandemic and the subscription period. Did they chuck the price up by 400% or did a bunch of people find subs more attractive than trying to squirrel away thousands to buy into that first year of C4D ownership? Moot point I guess but as usual these threads show the people that were unhappy before are happier now, and the people who were not overly unhappy earlier are now sour tempered and in a black and unforgiving mood. Shrug. If I had reasons to prefer C4D perpetuals I'd maybe share the gloom, but since I really don't and since Maxon aren't going back I'm assuming you'll eventually find some direction or solution that leaves you happier than the sour, mean-spirited whinge posted above.

Are they keeping the receipts to show to their accountant at the end of each financial year to claim it back for tax / business reasons, or just a hobbyist chucking money away because they like mucking around in 3D. Bit of a difference and one of them probably 'needs' to do those things more than the other. I'm in Australia though so maybe people elsewhere can't claim software expenses on tax like we can.