Mike A

I'll try and clarify my point: I'm not denying the usefulness of capsules, or that Maxon has delivered them. What I am saying is that capsules are a 'halfway house workaround' to extract some use out of the scene nodes project. The reason they're a halfway house is that their 'native performance' is apparently excellent as I understand they are founded on the new scene node architecture. However as soon as they are inserted in the old-architecture object manager their performance is significantly hobbled. Until Maxon deliver a C4D which is fully based on the scene-node / project neutron architecture - including a new object manager based on the same - capsules, and the rest of C4D, are destined to remain hobbled. That's what Maxon have failed to deliver. ---- EDIT: and I agree with MJV above... I don't think they will. Nevertheless, I hope I'm proved wrong.

I'll be interested to see if there is any significant development on the scene nodes front. When first announced scene nodes / project neutron was promoted as the dawn of a new frontier - the new universal foundation of C4D that would bring new levels of performance and flexibility. So far Maxon hasn't delivered. Capsules are the hobbled remnants. Maybe there has been a multi-year behind the scenes development that we'll see revealed in the next month or two, or maybe the new frontier has become the abandoned backyard.

Looking at the satellite image Cerbera posted you'll notice that you could visually break the pattern down into a number of layers of shapes: perhaps 3 or 4 large areas of woodland / greenery, quite a few middle sized areas that fit alongside those, and a lot of fields filling the other spaces. This multi-level type of patterning is quite common in the real world, and to get anywhere close with your project I think you'll need to find a way to simulate it.

If you've got the budget DEM Earth is superb. I used to use this a lot for similar sorts of 'real world' terrain generation. https://cinemaplugins.com/c4d-plugins/dem-earth/ The other source that might be worth investigating is: https://www.openstreetmap.org/ As it's free and you can export data from it. You won't get field shapes (I don't think) but maybe the roads / streets might be of some use?

Barbie and Ken?

Some seriously clever and mind blowing stuff... thanks for assembling this!

I just hope Maxon have been brave and insightful enough to appoint some people to the beta team who's opinions and thoughts don't align with their own, or those of the majority.

This has echoes of Kodak at the dawn of the digital photography era, and so many other cases. An inability to see and embrace the new business the disruptive change opens up - because they were trying to protect their 'old' business. I think a chunk of that 'old' software business is going away... whatever they do.

That Maya-Redshift developer position has been open for 8 weeks already.

Ah, yes - it's been on the Trello board for a long time : ) - but so has a lot of other stuff in that column!

Mechanical linkages like this can be the stuff of nightmares for the 3D artist. I wish you all success. You've got to admire the linkage design / mechanical engineering though : )

That's good to know. Is that announced by Maxon / Redshift somewhere we can 'read all about it'?

Sidefx are definitely a 'one big release' a year(ish) sort of outfit. From what i've heard I'm guessing a Sep / Oct release this year - but we'll see. ...and I wouldn't disagree about the all-rounder comment. I like H in many respects, but OMG it can be hair tearing at times. I heard someone recently describe it as 'like being kissed and slapped at the same time'. Too true!

I'm hoping you'll be creating a 'Thoughts and wishes for C4D 2024' thread soon : ) Having spent just over a year focused on Houdini, I'm really looking forward to seeing what both Maxon and Sidefx deliver this year.

No distinction at all - they are one and the same thing. That absolute commonality of the core components is one of the really nice things about H.

I sampled the escalator tutorial when it first came out - a year or so ago? It looks like he put a lot of work into them and I imagine the final output is good, but as learning material I couldn't recommend them - at least the one I watched. As Zeden suggests - no explanations, no guidance, no insights - just follow me and enter these numbers. IMHO there's much better out there for learning.

Agreed - the current Houdini offer seems very optimistic, especially as it's been launched as a Beta and..., "does not yet have the polished toolset that the Blender add-on has built up over the years – especially the interactive prune, draw, react and bend tools." But definitely worth a look if they complete a fully featured Houdini Indie version at a sensible price.

Fusion's a great tool. I'd highly recommend installing 'reactor' - a well regarded core package of free plugins / scripts. Many of which are 'essentials'. Get it here: https://www.steakunderwater.com/wesuckless/viewtopic.php?t=3067 ...and if you're 'old school' you can get a written user guide here: https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/support/family/davinci-resolve-and-fusion Look in the middle column. Note that there is a standalone version of Fusion and 'Resolve with a Fusion page'. I use the former.

Yabba Dabba Do! That's fabulous!

...and just for fun - here's a really old one from Houdini - 6 years ago. It was one of the videos that made me sit up and take notice after trying to get a reasonable looking calm ocean in C4D. I hope Nick and the guys and girls at Janga can deliver on Liquigen, I'm sure it will be a great tool for many projects if they do.

An interesting thread - and one that I've only just caught. Its been about a year since I started seriously learning Houdini. Is it the ultimate answer to life, the universe and everything? No, but for simulation type work nothing currently comes close... Here's one of my recent favourites from a solo artist: I agree with a lot of ICM's comments - gloopy, viscous, engine-oil, honey - that's relatively easy. Realistic water? TBH I've yet to see any non Houdini result that delivers. And, as an aside, I 100% agree with Eikons post above - Sidefx support is superb - even for low level indie users like myself. On a few occasions I sent non-urgent bug reports or raised small issues as I've come across them during some weekend learning / experimentation, expecting a reply on Monday. I've stopped doing that - simply because I know If I do I will get a reply over the weekend - Saturday, Sunday morning - whenever.

It's frustrating, I understand; but 'correcting the internet' is a rather large project : )

Quite fascinating...

That will be more work and money for the lawyers... as always : )

Someone will take him home for Christmas : )