hvanderwegen

Unfortunately no light linking. E-Cycles provides light grouping, which is different (Vray and Octane have this too, I believe): Light linking used to be easily possible in the old Blender Internal raytracer engine, but it never was implemented in Cycles - possibly because light linking is considered an old-fashioned trick to work around typical limitations of older render tech. But it is still important to have in archviz, for example. And in real life photography reflective screens are used to control lighting, and it is a bit of a chore to work like that in a virtual environment... 😉 Blender is the only DCC that doesn't include a light linking option to easily exclude objects from a particular light source. Fortunately, it seems it is under active development and expected to land in R3.1: https://developer.blender.org/T68915 So probably sometime in 2022.

HardOps makes heavy use of modifiers to enable a fully non-destructive modeling workflow. Take the Bevel modifier, for example. Setting the Limit method to Weight allows for non-destructive bevels by controlling the bevel weight per edge. Hardops takes these things to the next level, even providing a parametric cube completely modifier generated.

K-CyclesX is great. CyclesX is already quite a bit faster in rendering compared to Cycles, and K-CyclesX even more so. It feels as if I got a new GPU. It is also much more affordable than E-Cycles. Granted, E-Cycles does offer light groups. On my single 1080 it is a marked difference. In particular the rendered viewport flies compared to Cycles. It is absolutely brilliant for lookdev.

Yes and no. Yes, because the polygonal mesh primitives are destructive: once created, the base parameters can no longer be adjusted. No, because the mesh primitives in the Geometry Nodes are parametric and non-destructive. Here is a simple example of three parametric primitives working together to create a new object: The opposite is also true: many tools are also non-destructive via the modifier stack or the geometry nodes. Addons expand the scope as well: - WonderMesh adds true parametric objects to Blender. They work the same as C4D's. - Animation and Sverchok nodes allow for additional non-destructive workflows. - hard surface modeling addon HardOps offers a non-destructive workflow. https://github.com/WiresoulStudio/W_Mesh_28x/releases (support this developer at https://blendermarket.com/products/wonder-mesh ) https://animation-nodes.com/ https://nortikin.github.io/sverchok/ https://blendermarket.com/products/hard-ops--boxcutter-ultimate-bundle I have to say that I really enjoy having the Wmesh parametric objects in Blender in my workflow. I use them quite often, and it was one thing I missed from C4D. Although now that I am learning Houdini, I've been using Blender's geometry nodes more and more as well lately.

Btw, he sells his body and face rig together with the meshes for Blender on Gumroad: https://sites.google.com/view/universalhuman/home https://cjones.gumroad.com/

@Pinin Ah yes, Chris Jones! He used to be an avid LightWave user, achieving similar results. But at some point he made the switch to B, and his work got even better. Here's his famous LightWave eye: And his Blender version later: Scary how well done these are. He knows his stuff 🙂

Yes, here (Vancouver, BC) as well. But I just got a wonderful new workstation right before all the prices shot up; I had expected (hoped) to save up a little, and then it was too late!

@Igor I completely agree with you. It is my unfamiliarity with Houdini and its workflow that is holding me back right now. The modeling nodes I actually like a lot - I favour non-destructive modeling as much as I can. And I had a lot of fun with building a world in a matter of minutes with a bunch of nodes - all editable and adjustable along the way. Thanks for the video link! Will watch it later today. PS our instructor is a gal, not a guy, and works in the industry on AAA games and also worked for DreamWorks. Very knowledgeable and experienced - that's why I took this course. The basics I can figure out myself, but I am more interested in higher level workflows in Houdini. Are you working with the Indie version?

I fired it up just now. First impressions are not bad at all! I do wonder about that toolbar that is positioned on the right in the middle of the viewport and outliner. Not a fan of that, so I moved it back to its "proper place". Otherwise, I noticed the similarity to Blender, as others here did. I adjusted the ridiculous size of C4D's manipulators, and presto - side by side on my dual screen: BROS FOR LIFE! Sister apps? Spot the differences! Honestly, after a minute or so my brain actually had trouble identifying which is which. So funny! Seriously though, I don't mind the GUI change. It's a tad too dark, though, here and there. And I do agree that a number of icons are too similar compared to 24. I mistook the cube icon at the very top in the center of the screen for the cube tool, only to discover that is where the work modes are moved to. 🙂 Kinetic memory at work, I guess. The default viewport lighting during modeling works (much) better in 25 - nice improvement. I do like that: way more contrast. I do, however, question whether there was an immediate need to redesign C4D's GUI. Change for the sake of change? Not sure. Since I am not paying for this update myself (my employer does), I have little otherwise to say about it, but I can empathize with those here who feel this release falls a bit flat on its face in terms of value for money. It looks pretty good. But then, I am biased towards B 😉

My workplace installed C4D 25 today! Will test it out, and see what all the GUI fuss is about.

I am now 2 weeks into my Houdini course. Being a complete houdini beginner with an over 30 years of experience in other 3d apps since Amiga times, a couple of observations regarding my experience with it so far: - everything nodes is brilliant for non-destructive modeling. Super fun to scatter stuff, and build things that need to be animated in detail. It's also easy to drive values with other values and parameters. - it feels very clunky to model in it so far. I mean, I am blazing fast in Blender, not too bad in other apps like LightWave and C4D. In Houdini I struggle to do plain polygonal modeling efficiently. The upside is that it is all nodes, of course. I understand that I am not the only one finding it awkward to model in Houdini, and many artists import from other apps to add sims. - Mantra is S.L.O.W. to render with. Karma is better and more modern, but still somewhat in beta. I could not find a rendered preview viewport a la Cycles using Mantra, but Karma has one. It's a bit of a pain to set up, though, being all about USD. I am planning to install Renderman for both Blender and Houdini, and see how that goes. Someone suggested to me that Renderman works very well with Houdini. - I miss the viewport options and quality of Blender in Houdini. I read the upcoming V17 will have an improved viewport. I certainly hope so - it feels outdated. - simulations are fun. Complicated, but interesting. That's what I am learning Houdini for! The overall GUI feels somewhat antiquated, though. My main concern right now is stability. I have had several crashes and warnings while working on VERY simple scenes. Yesterday during the course I had a simple bouncing ball and I was working in the graph editor. Nothing complex: just two balls bouncing around from left to right, and suddenly the graph editor started to glitch out. Then after a minute or so a straight crash back to the desktop. It's happened 25% of the time that I worked with Houdini so far: 1 in four sessions Houdini either crashes at some point or it displays worrying application error dialogs. Cinema4D and Blender almost NEVER crash. Our instructor explained to us that Houdini features a special "load crashed file" option in the file menu after it crashes. Which, I do admit, is a bit worrying, because the developers seem to expect it to crash! Which makes sense if the user is making complicated sims, but a bunch of bouncing balls should not crash a DCC that easily in my opinion. Anyway, it's quite fun so far. I don't see myself modeling detailed models much in Houdini, unless it is required for a scene. I am unsure whether I want to render in Houdini either, actually. I may just bring in simulations into Blender for rendering and compositing (yes, I am aware Houdini offers a built-in compositor, which I will try out for this course).

@Pinin I wish I could get my hands on a semi-affordable 3080 card. Still way overpriced. Going to check the local computer stores later this week: it seems cards are becoming available once more, but only if customers visit locations in person to check out inventory.

I agree. When I switched to Blender the one thing (other than the Outliner) that I missed from Cinema4D was its material manager. The material list in Blender is workable, but not exactly convenient - in particular when dealing with larger scenes and loads of mats. That said, I am SOOOOO happy with the upcoming V3's Asset Browser. It's going to simplify my life SOOOOO much! (sorry for the double SOOOOO 🙂 - oops!) I really missed the simple drag-and-dropping of materials and other objects into the viewport and on top of other objects 😄 If you want to try it out, download the latest alpha V3 build, and turn on the Developer Extras in the Interface tab. A new Experimental tab appears at the bottom of the tab list in the preferences dialog. Open that tab, and activate Extended Asset Browser. It works differently compared to C4D: assets must be marked for inclusion (a workflow which I prefer over including things by default). The asset browser can be pointed to multiple libraries, including local assets. This first version already works quite nicely, and the devs are planning on improving it further in the upcoming versions. It seems the new C4D 25 Asset Browser takes a similar approach in that it create a library file? Not sure, have to test that when I get access to it via work. Anyway, it is very much true that a proper asset browser was long overdue in Blender. PS I have been testing K-Cycles, an optimized GPU Cycles build for 2.93 and v3 alpha. Rendering is pretty fast on my older 1080GTX - as if I have a new 2080, or so. Together with the new Faster Viewport Updates & Navigation the rendered viewport responds in almost real-time while working on materials. A new 3080TI or so would be nice to get, but they're still way to overpriced and unavailable right now.

Same in Blender and Houdini: one button to normalize your curves.

I suppose the phrases "highest standards" and "up to date" mean something very different to some people... The other side of the coin is what possible incentive existing users would have to keep renting for years on end while waiting around for that magical rebuild promising to solve all the existing missing and half-baked functionality to be finished? According to that line of reasoning the most rational step would be to stop paying the rent, move to another warm cozy rain-tight house and wait a few years while the leaky unfinished building is finally restored and renewed. It would save a lot of money. I agree that it's up to each individual user and business to decide what works best for them.

@BoganTW, @luchifer Have you guys taught classes as instructors at schools / colleges / universities before? In practice it is almost impossible to get students to willingly pay for extra software or books unless the school enforces it. Yes, I completely agree that rationally it makes no sense because those same students do not think twice about ordering a $5 Starbucks coffee every day. But I tried convincing groups that I taught myself a few times in the past to spend a small amount on software, and it. just. doesn't. work. Nor can you as a teacher enforce it unless it becomes part of the requirements of the curriculum and the course outline - which means convincing the department at the institute where you teach to purchase a school license. And unless it's a relatively small sum (a couple of hundred $$) or a free school license is offered, the school is not going to allow for the extra cost. Not when AutoDesk provides free school licenses, and your college is already paying through the nose for the Adobe suite. The institute where I teach classes have all AutoDesk products, Houdini, and Blender available pre-installed on all workstations, and via a software deployment system free for all students at home. If Maxon would provide free campus licenses it would go a long way to generate good will towards the software. If not - well, not many of my students are aware that Cinema4D exists. They all know about AutoDesk and Blender, of course.

Uhm, excuse me? When did that happen? I missed that. THAT ...is a mistake. I work with students, and teach from time to time. Students are entirely unwilling to even pay $10 extra for software for their projects. I know, I tried it. It would have made their work lives and project 100 times better, but NO-ONE in my groups would touch and use that software tool.

It's funny - just before Maxon cancelled the Prime edition, I stood on the precipice of purchasing it for hobby work. That didn't work out 😉 But yes, an indie version like the Houdini one would most definitely be a good thing for hobbyists, and also important to keep the millennials on-board for a fresh intake of younger new C4D 3D users. I also started a Houdini course a few days ago, and the Indie version is actually quite affordable for what is on offer. A non-commercial educational version will probably not be enough to attract new users or keep them from running to other alternatives: the 3DS Max forums experience(d) an exodus to Blender the past few years.

Indeed, worrying and fighting over which brush is better is a basic trait of human nature, it seems: unfortunately the majority of the human race seems forever stuck in a perceived illusionary battle of "my X > your Y". Sofware is just software. Use what works best for you and for the job at hand. That said, if one brush paints the same strokes as the other brush, but costs a thousand times more without any clear obvious advantage for a given job, one cannot but question the pricing policy. And your daughter is definitely right: instead of bickering, spend more time on creating. And enjoy the brush that you've picked - or change it to another one if that works better for you, the painting that you're working on, or if the price is out of reach. [...crawling back behind workstation to continue work now...]

What an odd update. I didn't really know what to expect. This, I did not expect. Not much to be said about it. I agree that Maxon seems to heading into a "Houdini for designers and Motion Designers" direction, which is not necessarily a bad thing. Being a user interface designer myself, I understand the effort and time that was spent on the new refreshed GUI. Still feels very thin, though, and the newer features seem to be stuck in perpetual beta limbo for now. Will good come from it? Only time will tell. On a positive note: the looks of Blender and C4D no long visually clash when running them side-by-side on my multi-screen setup 😉 "Curiouser and curiouser", Alice exclaimed.

Oh wow, that is amazing. I initially thought your Explorers film is CG-made, but I doubted my eyes, because it felt too "not-perfect" and I was wondering how you got the CG to look like that. Which explains it! Awesome. Thanks for your insight. Real models and stop-motion are not dead at all. I've seen it used in several movies and other broadcasting work. But it is 'niche' indeed.

Yes, I agree - Cocoon, Gremlins, The Last Starfighter, Ghostbusters (original), Explorers, Krull, Flight of the Navigator, and so on. There was a certain fun factor that is mostly missing in today's productions. Not always - there are exceptions. But overall, yes. And I also agree that knowing how real physical models work can be a boon in CG. Heck, I was 12 when I got a super-8 camera with still shot capability for Christmas, and made my first Sci-fi set and movie with an Eagle moon landing kit. Frame-by-frame. 😀 Didn't the makers behind The Orville use a real model instead of pure CG?

I knew it! I myself got 5 22" Eagle kits a while ago - still building them. And two weeks ago I received my 1984 8bit Elan Enterprise computer - new in the box straight from an obscure storage depot in Cairo, Egypt. My plan is to model it in 3D soon. Afraid I am still going through a nostalgia-driven phase right now...

Gods, your mind is like mine. 😉 I've got the soundtrack of Explorers - great music. What 8-bit machine did/do you own then? Surprise us!

That's pretty cool. It reminds me an awful lot of a mix of the classic Flight of the Navigator and The Iron Giant - which is a good thing. I loved both films. @Macmangan Were you inspired by those? There's even the truck trailer UFO carrying scene: