Jeff H1

just watched something showing how Blender 4.5 added Set Mesh Normal in geometry nodes. He was even describing how well it works in the viewport with an animated blobby character.

Thanks for confirmation. I've been reluctant to throw too much in the asset library but I really hate using different apps to do the same thing, which is show me assets I have available. 🙂

Anyone else experiencing slow start ups with 2025.3.1? I manually added about 50 shaders from GSG Studio app into the Asset Browser yesterday over the course of a couple hours and it was so bad that I had to reboot because the system became unstable. After restarting C4D it still took about 3 hours of letting C4D process for it to be stable. When I rebooted today then loaded C4D I had a good 10 minute wait while it was doing "Speedup Asset Search" and "AI is analyzing assets". Should we not be using the Asset Browser for anything over a handful of extra assets since Maxon keeps loading their own "Maxon One" assets? Is this one of those cases where a feature was introduced but we shouldn't use it for a couple releases till it becomes stable? I'm referring to AI as I see there's a way to toggle it off.

it does feel like the overall reworked unified simulation system is for small scale work and provided you have the time to let it cache, but iterating can be painful? To be honest, why would someone want to even tackle this still in C4D over Houdini? I like they are adding value into C4D but it always feels like it's just short of being useful in most situations.

https://support.maxon.net/hc/en-us/articles/8658038724124-Cinema-4D-2025-3-June-18-2025 jeebus... UV tool refresh. UDIMS.. texel density... they listened. hoping they continue with Laubwerk and add wind/dynamics.

They usually don't wait that long. For the past few cycles they've been pushing out new features (pyro, cloth, particles, scene nodes) in the most rudimentary form up front then building up as they go with each patch. I'm hoping it's not September for 1.0 baseline version of fluids. Looking at the past release notes, they seem to have a July release, then quiet until September. I'm interested in seeing what's in Houdini 21 to be honest. They've seemingly invested a lot in ML and it should be more prevalent in H21. I'd like to see more DCCs adopt it as well.

the post on instagram leads me to now believe the livestream tomorrow is not coinciding with the release at the same time... "Join us Wednesday at 7 am PST for an exciting livestream about the upcoming new features in Cinema 4D & Redshift "

STREAMING ON JUNE 18TH AT 10AM (est)

I don't intend on posting any more updates to the scripts here. I think it serves its purpose for me. This was just me sharing with you guys and maybe getting ideas for other ways us non-programmers can use AI to make small workflow scripts. I know Greyscalegorilla recently released a small script pack where Chad used AI to help write for him.

I wanted to move a lot of free Blender objects and scenes into C4D. I tried a free IO plugin on Gumroad which could copy/paste between Blender and C4D apparently using FBX. Many times the materials didn't have textures or were referencing ones that were misnamed in the conversion. I decided to try USD instead and it seemed to work better. Full scenes of objects w/materials came across including converted RS materials. While it wasn't perfect as any materials with transparency had that parameter lost in the process, it was better than straight FBX. I had ChatGPT then come up with a couple of scripts, one for Blender and the other for C4D. The one from blender would simply copy selected geo a temp USD file. In C4D, the script would copy that temp file into the existing scene. I eventually added to it to allow the Blender scene to unpack and write any textures to disk before exporting the USD. That's because some Blender scene files have their textures packed inside the file and it seemed like the USD export didn't grab them. Somewhere along the way with the rewrites I had it do, it decided to export the whole scene (incl cameras). I'm ok with that for now. I also had ChatGPT create an icon for the C4D script. I didn't do one for blender since the devs hate any real customization like putting custom buttons on the UI or other fun stuff (without coding it with serpens). I know you can add an icon in the addon but I hate the UX of the addon tabs anyways. Included below is the bundle. Install in blender as an addon. You'll find the addon in the addons tabs. Install in C4D as a script. Apply the icon to the script and place the script anywhere on the UI if you want. It asked if I wanted to create it as a plugin but I didn't go that route. NOTE: This is free. Do whatever with it. During the modifications of the scripts in ChatGPT I specifically told it I'm using Blender 4.4.3 and C4D 2025.2.1. I can't verify this will work on older/future versions of either software. It's the environment I'm using now so I built it as such. It does make me wonder if some of the old scripts/plugins could be reinvigorated w/GPT to make them work with newer versions of C4D. usd_io_blender and c4d.zip

I wanted to test out ChatGPT converting RS Standard Materials to OpenPBR. After 30 minutes of correcting it I gave up. I changed the Redshift_Material_ID to 5703 after it suggested I check the material ID through another script it created. I still couldn't get it to work. I ended up running out of my free credits. Is this functionality going to be in the next C4D 2025 update? I had submitted a request on Maxon's site but it goes into the void. It did mention one thing: If Maxon exposes official Redshift Python API for 2025+, it might become possible, but as of now, it’s limited. ChatGPT called out Maxon? This was one of the versions it created. The first iteration actually had a section for specific texture inputs: transfer_texture(rs_material, "diffuse_color", openpbr_node, "base_color") transfer_texture(rs_material, "refl_roughness", openpbr_node, "roughness") transfer_texture(rs_material, "bump_input", openpbr_node, "normal") ---------------------------------------------------------- import c4d REDSHIFT_MATERIAL_ID = 1036229 # Redshift material type ID (adjust if needed) OPENPBR_MATERIAL_ID = 1036227 # OpenPBR material type ID (adjust if needed) # The node ID string to identify Redshift node graph — you may need to adjust this based on your scene/plugins REDSHIFT_NODESPACE_STR = "com.redshift3d.redshift3dnodegraph" def find_nodegraph_by_id(root_node, id_string): """ Recursively search nodes starting from root_node to find nodegraph by ID string """ if not root_node: return None # Check current node's type ID string if root_node.GetTypeName() == id_string: return root_node # Recursively check children for i in range(root_node.GetDownCount()): child = root_node.GetDown(i) found = find_nodegraph_by_id(child, id_string) if found: return found return None def convert_redshift_to_openpbr(): doc = c4d.documents.GetActiveDocument() mats = doc.GetMaterials() changed = False for mat in mats: print(f"Checking material: {mat.GetName()}") # Check if this is a Redshift material if mat.GetType() != REDSHIFT_MATERIAL_ID: print(" - Not a Redshift material, skipping.") continue # Get Node Material reference nodemat = mat.GetNodeMaterialReference() if not nodemat: print(" - No node material found.") continue # Get root node root_node = nodemat.GetRootNode() if not root_node: print(" - No root node found.") continue # Find Redshift node graph inside root node by ID string rs_graph = find_nodegraph_by_id(root_node, REDSHIFT_NODESPACE_STR) if not rs_graph: print(" - No Redshift node graph found.") continue # Here you would copy or remap the textures/nodes from Redshift graph to OpenPBR graph # For demo, just create a new OpenPBR material and replace the old material in document print(" - Creating new OpenPBR material.") new_mat = c4d.BaseMaterial(OPENPBR_MATERIAL_ID) new_mat.SetName(mat.GetName() + "_OpenPBR") # Insert new material doc.InsertMaterial(new_mat) # Optional: Transfer textures/connections here if possible # Replace material in objects (simplified example) for obj in doc.GetObjects(): if obj.GetMaterial() == mat: obj.SetMaterial(new_mat) # Remove old Redshift material (optional) doc.RemoveMaterial(mat) changed = True print(f" - Converted material: {mat.GetName()} to {new_mat.GetName()}") if changed: c4d.EventAdd() print("Conversion complete, scene updated.") else: print("No Redshift materials found to convert.") if __name__ == "__main__": convert_redshift_to_openpbr()

It felt like it was trying to be a more advanced AE with the timeline of AE, but some of the more advanced 3D features you find in other compositing software. For instance, you could bring in USD/GLTF assets and assign or create PBR materials. I tried it and was more frustrated than anything. This guy explains some of the features. Many of the comments echo what others have said, which is bad UX/UI and a lot of this stuff you can do in other software already.

I guess we'll see a $200 increase in Maxon One subscriptions coming later this year. :[ It'll be interesting to see when Red Giant tools get integrated and if C4D will one day render directly in whatever Autograph is morphed into.

https://www.maxon.net/en/article/autograph-acquisition A Message from Left Angle June 5, 2025 Left Angle, the maker of Autograph, was created with a bold vision: to rethink compositing from the ground up and build a modern toolset for motion designers and visual effects artists. We’ve been incredibly proud of what we accomplished — and deeply grateful to the artists, studios, and partners who joined us on that journey. As of today, our business is winding down in its entirety and our team is beginning a new chapter. With this transition, our website and all related channels will go offline. While this chapter is ending, we’re hopeful about what’s ahead and what we can create. We’re working on a path forward and expect to share more in the future. Thank you for your support! – Left Angle For questions, email: leftanglesupport@maxon.net

Ah... had to look it up... 🙂 https://conferenceonarchitecture.com/