Daniel Seebacher

Thanks for sharing, Happypolygon 🙂 I work for e-on, but as a private person in this forum, I would not advertise anything. So I'm glad you posted it.

557 is just an incremental patch for R25 compatibility. No fixes or features in there.

I installed R25 on my work machine and I honestly love the interface changes, even though Maxon has not only taken a lesson out of Blender's book, but also from other programs, it seems.. 😉 I don't find the new UI particularly hard to get used to. Watch Chris Schmidt's interface part on the new R25 features and you'll get accustomed to it in no time. There's also a knowledge base article at Maxon's website detailing the changes. The additional viewport real estate is great and the changed locations of the toolbars make absolute sense. I know nobody asked for it, as Cinema has always had a great UI, but the changes are very well thought out and make a great UI even better. If you have access to R25, give it a try. Now for the rest, I am also underwhelmed, albeit not as much as others here. I love procedural and node workflows, so getting even an interim solution for incorporating scene nodes into the Object manager is exciting for me. That said, I agree that it's debatable to tout this as a full feature, as nobody knows how the system will change and / or evolve until the core and the scene nodes are finished. For spline import, I do not care much. The tracker tag seems a nice addition for animators with some very smart and easy to use parameters, but I don't animate. Overall, I wouldn't say I am disappointed nor particularly impressed by this release. It's really lightweight and there is not enough incentive in the feature list for me to upgrade my personal perpetual R23 license, also considering the perpetual upgrading cost. But I enjoy having access to the new interface and capsules on my work machine and appreciate the changes that are there, because they are done well. And Cinema is still the general purpose DCC app I can learn the easiest and that I enjoy working with the most. Also, I understand the community's frustration and that the patience of waiting for the new core to see all of the outdated areas addressed has been wearing thin by now. Where I disagree is that Maxon does not know where to go with the roadmap. I am sure they have a long-term plan, or else they would not invest so much into the scene nodes approach. Whether this is going after Houdini, enabling completely new features that are done more intuitively than anywhere once they finally land in C4D or it's something completely different, I don't know. It's pure speculation. But I find it a bit naive to think that development was "random". A company of Maxon's size, not even talking about Nemetschek here, certainly has an intent with everything they develop. Whether or not this intent will align with the customer's wishes remains to be seen, but I am sure there is some intent in planning.

I am not sure if paying a developer in bugs is a popular currency 😄

I see there is currently no offline help archive available on the Maxon download page. To anyone from Maxon, will this be added later or will the offline help be permanently gone? Thanks!

Dave, the Cycles download button is available as soon as you select Cycles in the dropdown menu. Build 550 (the one from the last release) is currently the latest Cycles perpetual build. I don't know if Cycles received an update with this release anyways. Last year, I also purchased the premium training. I hope this will not be taken away either once my maintenance lapses...

I converted my XP license to Fuse. I now have two licenses in my account: Fuse and my perpetual Cycles 4D. So it seems Cycles perpetual is not affected. I now have apparently two Cycles licenses, one standalone and one included in Fuse.

It seems Fuse is a hybrid between perpetual and subscription (maintenance). X-Particles is perpetual, whereas Cycles 4D (and everything else you get) is only available as long as you keep your maintenance up to date. For most users, I suppose this will be a no-brainer with X-Particles being the most interesting product, and everything on top is a bonus. But I have a Cycles 4D perpetual license and I wonder what will happen to this one once I convert my X-Particles license to Fuse to get access to the newest build.

Thank you for the clarification, Dave. Grüße nach Heidelberg!

Redshift for Blender is not as widely known, because it is still in beta (admittedly it's quite far along, though). So the installer recognizes existing Blender installations, but you can't actively install the plugin with the installer. You need to copy some folders and files manually as described in the Redshift forum Blender thread here. I have mixed feelings about this announcement. At work, we have a C4D+RS subscription, but we also needed extra licenses for Maya and 3DS Max. The fact that our C4D subscription will now include Redshift for all DCC apps makes things easier, as everything can now be handled through our floating C4D licenses. At home, I use Redshift as a hobby, so I am not particularly happy about the change. I appreciate the move to the MyMaxon account, though. I often work on my desktop machine and on my laptop. I move C4D licenses between the two all the time, and it's a breeze with the MyMaxon account. With Redshift, I do this less often, as it requires more (easy enough) steps. Having this more streamlined like Cinema is a nice little QOL improvement. One thing we always don't consider though, is that technically, you cannot own a software. You only get a license for using it, so from a legal POV, perpetual vs. subscription is theoretically only about how long you are permitted to use the software (infinite vs. time limited). I know this doesn't really help, but I find it an interesting thing to remind myself about nonetheless every now and then. What's unclear to me is whether I can still extend my maintenance after August 31st. I know you can extend it all the way up to August 2024 as the very final date, but I don't understand if you have to do this beforehand or if you can still extend maintenance after the switch. I am also worried what all this is going to mean for R25 perpetual in September...