No One

I mainly use Octane in C4D although I have been playing more with Redshift in the last few versions. Octane is faster and easier to get a beautiful and realistic shot. If you have a background in real cinematography/photography like I do, Octane works much more like you would expect than Redshift. It's just easier and faster to get a beautiful shot in Octane. You can get the same result in Redshift but you will have to work harder to get there. Octane is also better for non-realistic stuff. Octane has a good Toon shader, for example, while Redshift does not. Finally, the Octane Node Editor in C4D is a pleasure to work with, much better than C4Ds Node editor. In some ways, Octane feels more integrated in C4D than Redshift, even though Redshift is the new standard renderer for C4D. Ironically, I have been using Redshift A LOT in Maya. It basically replaced Arnold for me and my students in Maya: the integration is REALLY good (it's as well integrated as Arnold), and it gives me the speed and flexibility I didn't have in Maya before. Meanwhile, Octane's integration in Maya is HORRIBLE, it's really disastrous, full os questionable UI decisions like controlling the rendering settings not in the rendering setting menu (like every other renderer in Maya) but in the attribute editor. But in the end of the day, both Octane and Redshift are getting behind: Unreal is simply eating their lunch. For most use cases, Unreal 5 is more than good enough and much faster than either Octane or Redshift. The only reason it didn't totally take over is because the process to use Unreal as a render engine is still cumbersome and annoying. I wish Redshift would invest more in the RT mode to reach something closer to the Unreal engine - then I would probably use Redshift more in C4D. For now, Octane is the better option in C4D and Redshift the better option in Maya.

I understand your reasoning but as a professor I think that would not fly. It needs to be the full and current version. Here in the US we are training them for the industry where they will use the full featured and current software. And again, Cinema 4D does not exist in an island without competition. The competition is Maya and Blender (also 3ds Max in certain markets outside of the US), full featured. Both Maya and 3ds Max student and indie versions are full featured. Autodesk even retired Maya LT, which was a feature-less version of Maya because Maya Indie made it redundant. Note how smart Autodesk was. As soon as Blender became actually usable in 2.8, they released the cheap indie versions of Maya and Max. They KNOW one of the reasons they are the industry standard is that most top Animation schools in the US and Canada teach Maya, so it is easier for companies to hire Maya trained people. Blender was a direct threat to that so they lowered their price for indies. I honestly think Maxon could get part of the pie of this market if it had any interest in actually being accessible to students. C4D it is indeed easier to grasp and- in my experience - even helps to understand other 3D software. I taught intro classes with both Maya and Cinema 4D (in different semesters). Every time I used Cinema4D the students were able to grasp the concepts and create beautiful shots and animation much, much faster. Unfortunately, it is a non-starter to advocate for C4D use in most schools due to the issues I talked above.

This is true, I should have noted that: in my former school I was able to convince them to keep the Maxon One subscription due to Zbrush, which became cheeper, even though the students and the IT guys were pretty unhappy about the whole thing of charging students for an educational license (and taking weeks to approve it). That was a very good move, thanks. Now, as you are indeed involved in the student license program, I have some suggestions to make my life (and any educator who wants the convince their department to use Cinema 4D) easier. This is strictly from the point of view of a professor in the American higher educational system: 1 - Free educational licenses. It doesn't matter if the fee is low, no other main 3D software charges for it. Maxon is simply sending the students to Blender and Maya. 2 - 1-years student license instead of the the current miserly 6-month student license. 3 - Hassle-free process to get an educational license. Every other software company will automatically give you an educational license if you have a .edu email 99% of the times. They usually only ask more info if there is some suspicious activity going on. Meanwhile, Maxon takes weeks to approve the student license according to my students (to be fair, for faculty it tends to be faster). 4 - A cheap indie version for people making less than 100k a year, so recent graduates can keep using it either as freelancer or until they get hired by a company. The lack of an indie version makes C4D a non-starter for students that just graduated, when they can get Maya and 3ds Max for $300 a year and Blender for free. They can't afford C4D, but they can afford Maya/3dsMax. Zbrush is the industry Standard and it doesn't really have any competition, so it's a easy sell for any department no matter what. But Cinema 4D, on the other hand, has to compete with Blender (free) and Maya (industry standard, free, hassle-free and with a indie version post-graduation). I would hate to see C4D becoming a new Lightwave or Softimage, because no student and school cares about it anymore.

Thanks for the reply @DMcGavran. So, I wrote a ticket about the issue last week and I still do not have an answer from Maxon. I'll send you a DM with my .edu email to see if you can help me with my educational license. But keep in mind, as I said above, the Maxon's software in our labs is working fine - the problem is the impossibility of students and faculty to get a new student license. I understand that as a CEO you probably have very little direct contact with the educational licenses of Maxon products, but you should be aware that since you became CEO, Cinema 4D became really unpractical for Universities and schools: expensive fees for computer labs; charging for educational licenses at home; no indie version for recent graduates and now this insane suspension of educational licenses in the middle of the Fall semester. Why not do this suspension in the Summer or wait for the winter break? It seems the people responsible for educational licenses at Maxon have no idea of how schools operate. Between Autodesk offering free educational (for labs and home) licenses of Maya and Blender being free, it becomes almost impossible to advocate for Cinema 4D in schools and Universities. Which is a shame, as I strongly believe that Cinema4D is the best general 3D software for beginners.

After my students told me about this issue I checked and discovered this is going on for at least two weeks. So it's not a temporary thing. Two weeks is a lot of time academically - our semesters are only 15 weeks (and some Universities have 10 or 8 weeks terms). And let me clarify that our lab copies of Maxon software are working fine (Zbrush still working, etc...), the problem is with the licenses that students used at home on their own computers. At reddit there are threads at Cinema4D and Redshift subs about the issue. As you can read there, I'm not the only professor/instructor really pissed with Maxon about this issue. https://www.reddit.com/r/Cinema4D/comments/16fqrok/maxon_bring_back_the_student_licenses/ https://www.reddit.com/r/RedshiftRenderer/comments/16fuy6q/student_license/ My school did reached out to Maxon. What was the answer? They just repeated what was on the page I posted and said he cannot give us a date of when the student licenses will be available again. Yeah, I will keep my affirmation that Maxon is shooting themselves in the foot. First scrapping the cheap versions of Cinema4D (Prime and Bodypaint), then refusing to have a cheap indie version (when even the "Evil" Autodesk has indie versions for Maya and Max) then charging for student licenses, And now this? Maxon's attitude makes no sense in a world where Blender is free for everyone and Maya/Max are free for students (then cheap for indies ater graduation). What is going on @DMcGavran?

So, I though Maxon could not do worse in the educational realm than what they did some years ago when they started charging for student licenses. But I was wrong. My students just told me that they cannot get a educational license anymore from Maxon because the educational licenses are suspended. Way to go Maxon, disrupting student work in the middle of the semester! It seems a good way to make Maya and Blender even more relevant for students and Cinema4D irrelevant. It's always a battle to convince any department to use Cinema4D in a class instead of Maya (the industry stardard) or Blender (the powerful free alternative). And then shit like this happens. I love C4D but I'm done trying to teach it. It seems Maxon does not care for this at all, so why should I bother?

I agree, it is a bad decision to make Redshift the standard render engine if it is only Redshift CPU. I disagree about a Rendershift Lite - it should be the full Redshift just with restrictions about network rendering. Pretty much like Arnold in Maya The fact that Maxon bought Redshft and refuses to really put a full version of it on Cinema 4D just reinforces what I have been saying in this thread: Maxon does not see itself as the Cinema 4D company aymore. Now they are a ZBrush, Redshift and RedGiant company first. Cinema 4D now exists to temp people to their main product: Maxon One.

I am really disappointed that Xpresso did not get any love. I am not expecting them to make any big change, but I 'd really like two changes: 1) UI revamp. Basically Xpresso with the Node Editor UI - that would fix a lot of issues in the Xresso editor, such as the weird font scaling issue. 2) Multi-threaded Xpresso - I know this is more unlikely but this would be great. Maybe it will be possible with the work on the new core done

Weird. My Intuos Pro works fine in Cinema 4D. I never had a problem with it.

Did you even read what I wrote. Let quote myself: "Anyway, Pyro with particles and faster C4D are cool additions." If that's not clear, this means I said the new version have cool features. Just not in the level of stuff Maxon if putting in ZBrush, for example. Compare this C4D release with putting Redshift inside Zbrush. Not in the same level. I honestly do not underrated people that think anything less than full blown adoration and adulation to Maxon is somehow an offense. C4D is still my favorite general 3D software But it's a fact that it has been years since we had a great release like...I don't know...R14?

The days of really cool new versions of C4D are long over. As it has been in the last 10 versions, we just get a gradual upgrade with some cool stuff but nothing ground breaking. This just confirms for me that Maxon now is the ZBrush/Redshift/RedGiant company first, Cinema4D company second. Which is fine as I am a heavy Zbrush user, but as a C4D user it's kinda disappointing. Anyway, Pyro with particles and faster C4D are cool additions.

So, new week, Tuesday and...no news about C4D 2024? As they say in Star Wars...I have a bad feeling about this.

So, where is the new C4D? Shouldn't we be getting the new version today?

I know, it's confusing...lol In the US you use school for Universities too depending on the context. If you are doing a Masters you are attending "Graduate School" here. We also use "School" for units inside the Universities (Business School, School of Art and Design, etc...), usually a smaller unit inside a College (so you have the University, then the College of Arts and Humanities, then the School of Arts and Design, for example). And the term school is also used as a generic term for Universities when your comparing them at the same level. So if your talking about other Universities you can call all of them schools. For example, the term "Ivy League School" refer to one of the 8 most prestigious Universities in the US (e.g. Harvard, Columbia, etc...)

I understand where you are coming from. But you have to understand that the US market for 3D Animation is very unique. There is nothing like it in the world (Canada is closer, because in practice Canada works almost as another US state, with branches of tons of American studios in Montreal, Vancouver and Toronto). Here in the US you have a very stronger market, with very high salaries in comparison to other countries, even other rich Western countries (e.g. Germany, UK, etc...) but also the 3D Animation is segmented: you have 3D Character Animation for Hollywood and Film, 3D VFX Animation (both mostly happening in California and Canada(, you have the 3D Gaming Industry, the MoGraph Industry, the Medical Animation industry, the legal simulation animation industry, etc... A school needs to pick one of those industries to focus on and the software choice will be made by the industry, not by the students or the school, unless we want to harm our students future prospect. 3D Character Animation for Hollywood and TV? It needs to be Maya, period. 3D VFX? Houdini with a little bit of Maya. Mograph? Cinema 4D, of course. Etc.... There is no point in training a generalist if your focus is to get your students to be hired by Disney. And vice-versa. No point in training a super specialized guy if the student wants to do Mograph. That's why my school and others have different tracks. We have one for Character Animation, another for Gaming, another Generalists, etc... I can give you my own experience as a worker in the US and as a professor: When I came here I was a 3D generalist. It was really, really tough to get good well paid 3D gigs. I've got a lot of work, but the paying wasn't great. I tought myself C4D and started specializing in Mograph. Then I started getting more money. On the side, I kept using Maya and ZBrush that they taught in graduate school in California. I was good enough as a character artist and got some work as that, paying me better than as a Mograph. Then my career really took off with those two more specialized skills. Lesson: in the US, specialized work usually pays better. I see the same with my students: I taught for 3 years and some months in one University with the focus on generalists. And now I am in my current one. The employment rate with relevant industry roles is way higher in my current institution.

My comment was a minor reply to another user saying that Blender will replace C4D and Maya. You guys distorted it and amplified it for no reason. I had nothing to do with your overreaction. Before that I was talking about C4D and how it seems it took a back seat to the more recent Maxon acquisitions. Lets get back to C4D, sure. By the way, when will the next C4D be released?

Honestly, I don't know where you guys got that from what I wrote...lol I said that Maya will not be replaced by BLENDER. And that my school and all the big 3D Animation schools in the US still train the students with Maya because that's what the big studios ASK US to do. I never talked about C4D being replaced by Maya. Maya and C4D are both industry standard in different industries (Maya = Character Animation for Film and TV, C4D = Mograph). I'm a 3D generalist, originally from a developing country where I had to do everything, form concept to final render, and I started in 3ds Max. When I immigrated to the US, I started using Maya in graduate school in California and I taught myself C4D on the side to start doing mograph freelance jobs. Cinema 4D is by far my favorite 3D software but I'm pretty software agnostic in general (which makes me a good professor).

I'm currently an Assistant Professor in one of the best Animation programs in a State school in the US. I can tell you that Maya is not going anywhere and Blender is not even close to take its place. Same thing with Zbrush. It has been 4 years since Blender actually became usable (2.8) and it is indeed an amazing tool (I've been using a lot and I recommend my students to play with it), but we and most big Animation schools in the US still train the students with Maya, Zbrush and Substance Painter because that's what the studios still ask. I think the Maya Indie program was also effective in limiting a little bit of the Blender damage in the case of Maya. Autodesk was smart here, unlike Maxon, which refuses to release an indie version or bringing back the C4D Prime that we had before and started charging for the student version. When I said "incentives" I was talking about economic incentives. Maybe I'm super wrong, but I doubt the number of C4D users is close to the number of Zbrush users, for example. Zbrush is the de facto 3d sculpting for every industry. That's why I said they could just coast in Zbrush success without updating C4D. it doesn't mean they WON'T just that the economic incentives are more in the opposite direction.

I'm just stating what I see. It's pretty obvious that C4D is taking a back seat at Maxon right now. And that makes totally sense, considering they have ZBrush, Redshift and Red Giant now. To be honest, personally for me, the Maxon One deal has been good...but that's because I'm also a heavy Zbrush and RedGiant user. If I were only a C4D, I would be pretty disappointed.

A hard pillow to swallow for us C4D guys is that with the acquisition of ZBrush and Redshift, Maxon stopped being the C4D company. There isn't any big incentive to give big updates to Cinema 4D. They could simply stop updating C4D and just keep coasting on Zbrush, which is the de facto standard for 3D sculpting in almost every industry.

Maxon should just implement them on Cinema4D. They are way better than C4D rigging tools and work very similarly to Maya's, which is the industry standard in character animation. If I am not mistaken,, Cactus Dan wrote them to be similar to Maya's tools.

You can't expect a 3D artist dabbling in coding to learn proper coding methods if he never took a proper computer science class. "What would I do" about the guy? Nothing. His crazy coding method works for him and his projects. More power to him. You are free to do your own Youtube channel and show him and everyone else how to code Python properly in Cinema4D. I personally would love to watch a YT channel like that. But are you willing to do that? It's very easy to complain about what someone is doing when we are not doing anything equivalent.

Maya Indie is U$305, so C4D is still more expensive even with the discount. I wish they would bring back C4D prime and/or the standalone BodyPaint 3D.

I am surprised by the negative reactions here about the new direction for Lightwave. I thinks it's great! Lightwave is super important historic-wise for 3D animation and I'm happy the software will be revived by real users and fans. I wish Autodesk and Maxon would sell Maya, 3ds Max and C4D to a group of fans too. We would get much better updates in that case, something similar to Blender I'd guess. I think everyone is underestimating what they can do with Lightwave. I think (or hope) they will become a real alternative to C4D and Blender in 3 years.

Anyone can be faster than Maxon with the right people. Blender went from almost a Joke until 2019 to a serious contender in only 3 years.