davetwo

Magnificent as ever. Thanks Cerbera!

Hola. Seems simple but I can't work it out. I want to make the attached pattern using a single triangule spline in Mograph. Basically each clone on the Y rotates 180 and each clone on the X rotates 180. Repeating as many times as i like without me doing any math. It's probaby in the formula effector somewhere, but its beyond me frankly. Anyone care to give me a hand?

My thoughts exactly! I'm pretty tempted by the new Mac studio, it's small enough to be portable, which means I could ditch the laptop. (Work-from-home means less in-house client jobs. Curently I need Home mac + PC workstation + laptop, which is too much). The V8 beta of Corona has silicone support so no problems there.

It's not politics, its war. Russia is a nuclear state deliberately bombing civilian cities in europe. Economic and service sanctions are the only way of trying to keep control of that state without falling back on wide-spread european or world-wide war, and the potential nuclear catastrophe that that would bring. Every company and individual should help keep this situation under control if possible using the avenues open to them. 'Punishing artists' is totally irellevant in the scale of such things. (I wont be replying again in this thread.)

For the time being you can do just that in PS by going to Filter>3D>Generate Normal Map. I think the tool is being shelved in the near future though

Hi there. Interesting question. Its quite a niche subject so I'm not sure there is a huge amount of proper accredited masters courses. Would be interesting to know specifically what your end goal is? For insance there is a 3D Modelling course at the respected Glasgow School of Art. But I think that is focussed on building for VR/Unity etc. and I'm not sure that is what you are interested in

Have you looked at using a corona rayswitch material for the environment/floor? For product shots I sometimes cheat by having a small feathered floor just under the product - and a separate 'full' environment which is not seen by reflections. (Especially for bottles - which in reality are often photographed balnced on tiny plexiglass discs to avoid unwanted reflections).

Really interesting. Thanks for streaming

Those CV import plugins (From CV toolkit/Cineversity) are absolutely fantastic. I use them ALL the time. Also especially good for automating render ixe to backplates. Why they are not part of the 'proper' program is beyond me. Especially as they are not accessable for those without cineversity /subscription access.

True. And yeah - there is certainly a bias towards faster=better. As someone who isnt working into a constrained pipeline - image quality and user experience are much more important. (Assuming contemporary render times - physical is even not on the page as the competitors).

I think he covers off that point in the video to be fair. Expert users can reduce the times in ALL render engines. There's a broader point though - I think the fiddling around time in the render setings should be added to the render time in these tests! It's fine having Octane render something in 30 seconds that takes Corona 2 minutes. But if the setup in Octane takes 2 minutes to fine tune, than its actually taking me longer than in Corona, where I basically don't have to change anything and it already looks beautiful. Incidentally, Is anyone using Vray now that its being developed directly by Chaos and is CPU/GPU. It does very well in the test above, but I dont hear it mentioned much anymore. (They also recommend using the default render settings for the best speed these days!)

Looks good! Has Corona materials too. Thanks for the heads up.

I still spend the majority of scene building time using the 2017 iMac on my desk. Its just a more pleasant and hassle free working environment. The scene gets copied over onto my Threadripper workstation when it's time to start the serious test renders. Interestingly - for my purposes CPU rendering is still king with Corona. I toyed with switching to GPU renderinging with Octane, but found thet the alledged speed benefit just wasn't there (using a 2070 super - I'm making hi-res stills mainly). And the integration with cinema and workflow wasn't as good either.

Dear Bjorn. I think everyone understands that you, Rick etc. are working very hard. But I think by now there has to be some recognition that Cinema has been falling behind and the rate of development is not as it should be. This is due more to structural/political reasons than individals. (More developers need to be hired, focus should be on what's really needed etc etc). I think most people on this forum criticise Maxon with a heavy heart. Most have loved and been evaneglists for Cinema in the past. And its painful and disruprtive to our own workflows & careers when Cinema lags behind. That Cinema does not ship with a production ready render in 2021 is inexcuseable in my opinion, and is purely driven my money. It is moves like this that make people feel that Maxon are driven more by profit than making the best possible product.

100% this. I switch machines all the time - It's a right bother. Nobody does 3D work on a plane, or bus or train I'd guess. Even better - just let the licence run on two machines at the same time just like my Adobe licence lets me run PS in two locations!

I think 3D-pangel probably has the giant Adobe model more in mind than Maxon in his quote. Adobe certainly does very little to deserve its monthly fee and frequently leaves bugs and breaks workflows. I think Maxon has the opposite problem. It is not big enough to be monopolist. And is at risk of becoming irrelevant. No offence to you Rik, I'm sure you work plenty hard. But if prople start migrating away from Maxon due to underwhelming releases, then that is also a big problem for me and my livelyhood as a freelancer using C4D as my primary tool. I will also have to work extra hard to keep myself and my skillset relevant. And as I'm a pretty lazy guy, I'd MUCH rather Maxon did the hard work of keeping relevant for me😉

Good catch. I wonder if it will still be possible to download my older versions when it's gone. Assume not! 🤔

Aquisitions = company growth (on paper at least). Which keeps shareholders and boards happy. I'm not sure that they're looking at it through the prism of improving CInema4D. More likely just growing the portfolio.

OK - found it! Panic over. (User>AppData>Roaming>MAXON etc...) if anyone else ever needs to know

OK, I botched it. I was adding the octane demo to the 'wrong' plugins folder and now Cinema wont start. It gets as far as initializing plugins then quits. Any idea how i can open it with plugings disabled? Or how I can track down the location of the >Preferences > Open preferences Folder > Plugins location on my PC? My Windows machine is a mystery to me frankly.

Was anything signed before you began work with the client? Very often I have to sign a bunch of stuff while freelancing... NDAs etc. And among them is usually a document that says that the copyright ownership of the work generated while I'm freelancing for the company is theirs. There is a grey area between this and the 'comissioned' route. Which is particularily applicable to someone with a certain style which is being bought into by the client. This is where I'd expect to see copyright buyouts - (or costed per usage amount or timeframetime for the imagery, a-la a photographers contract). If your sitting close to the first camp, I'd suggest just billing for the time spent building the model. Although obviously all this stuff should be agreed in advance ideally.

Hi - I dont know if it addresses your specific question. But Nikolaus Schatz just posted a tutorial on blinking xmas lights here:

I also work frequently between machines. A minor quibble - but something that annoys me every day - is the need to clunkily quit and reopen cinema after re-assigning the licence. I would prefer a seamless operation in the initial startup of cinema. I realise that it wasn't striktly kosher... But I also liked that fact that I could render on one machine and work on the other if I disconnected them from the same network in old versions.

I have done similar work to you in the past. There is a steady stream (AFAIK) of freelance 3D visualiser work in London design agencies. Its one of the few areas outside motion graphic where C4D is the industry standard. If you already have suffiecient skills/work samples, then I'd just try and freelance. There no guarantees, but you can always freelance Artwork to top up your earnings if there's not enough 3D work some months month. VFX is a different industry completely and I'm not sure it'll be particularily easy to transfer to TBH. R

So as the original post stated. Functionality is being removed for perpetual owners in a push to get subscriber money. The End.