3D-Pangel

Daniel, I would agree that this looks to be a fantastic plugin. I am surprised at the large number of downloads without any feedback and agree with your action to take it off-line for now. But please do NOT stop developing it....you are on to something here. Couple of questions: Does the geometry to be copied have to come from the same object that they are being copied to? Can they come from another object? Once the geometry is stored, is that storage permanent or can it be saved to a library (....you can probably guess where I am going with this...can this be a follow on to Polygnome). What I love about PolyDup is that the polygon's stored can be both open and closed selections and therefore a small library of what is essentially loop selections can be used to build and large variety of finished structures. Therefore, far more versatile! You need to consider increase the library feature beyond 5. As selections are now modular, any thought to a "replace" replace function? For example, you are building a column mesh of 2 x 3 polygonal loops - each loop being 2 polygon's high. Think of each loop mesh as the "floor" of a building. You have 5 different patterns (or floor designs) and you have created a structure that is 10 floors high. Upon looking at the 6th floor, you want to change it. Therefore rather than deleting floors 6 to 10 and rebuilding, as each floor follows the same 2 x 3 polygonal footprint, you just replace the 6th floor with something else from the library. There needs to be some error feedback if you are not selecting a set of base polygons that match the same footprint as those in the library. A couple of things to consider: Allow the library feature to contain multiple tabs of base meshes all based on footprint. For example, one tab is 1x3, another is 2x2, another is 2x3, etc. You make a tab of base meshes active prior to making the selection on where you want the new geometry to be copied to. When making the "copy-to" selection, should the user select the wrong base area that corresponds to the active tab, the program lets you now. For example, say you are working with 2x2 bases. Should the user accidentally select a 3x2 base area or a floor outline that is 3x2, the program highlights the 3x2 selection in red and/or a message pops up that says "wrong base area selected". What would be really cool (but extremely hard to figure out) would be auto-fill. Once you select enough polygons, the program automatically fills in the rest of the selection and highlights ONLY those objects it has stored that would work with that auto-filled selection. I have no idea how you program this, but it certainly would speed up the workflow. Just a thought. Again, I see some great potential to this plugin....so please keep working on it. Dave

I just sent you a PM 1 minute ago. Hopefully it is not too late. Dave

Soooo..........based on the fact that C4D's interface is so much easier to use, logically consistent, and well designed would it be fair to draw the following conclusion from your experience: A good path for the newbie is to start with C4D's subscription program, learn the basics and mechanics of 3D using C4D, and then armed with that knowledge switch over to Blender where they get better features at a cheaper price? Sooooo.....MAXON's subscription program has actually made it cheaper and easier for newbies to be successful with Blender? Wow...I never would have seen that coming. 😀 Dave

I think Mr. McGavran should print this out, keep it by his bedside and read it every morning when he first get's up. As to why Redshift is not included in C4D is clearly A) They are milking the cash cow. Given their acquisition spree, they have to be. I think this will not be a good year for MAXON. I understand that the first full year of a subscription model is always the worst and now you have COVID19 on top of it. Plus Blender is putting the pressure on them and essentially turning fully featured DCC software into a commodity. Yeah....not a good combination. Oh...and MAXON just made a few big acquisitions on top of all this. My only suggestion to those who have to navigate these water is drink Pepto Bismol once a daily. Read your post, drink Pepto Bismol, get up (skip showering as you are probably working from home anyway), and get to work. Also, wasn't one of the "advantages" of a subscription plan the mid-year release of new features? Okay...we are 6 months in. Let's see what happens. I mean we are talking about new features for R22, but they did sell subscriptions on the basis of mid-year updates. So is it naive to expect some of these requests being fulfilled early? You tell me. Dave

Object handling, viewport and speed improvements were on my list but completely slipped my mind. Also not sure why we can't get a good symmetry tool after 10+ years of asking. I think I just gave up. And I do agree that the bridge tool needs to be a bit more context intuitive - maybe that goes with the viewport enhancements as the bridge tool is rather dumb in interpreting your selections in a crowded scene view. Now, that could be operator error so I will defer to the experts here. Modeling falloff would also be nice....but couldn't that be replicated with fields as I thought fields will work on polygon objects. Again - I defer to the experts. Relative to X-Particles -- Insydium would only take up that deal to sell a license at a reduced price ONLY if they raise their maintenance prices. As I already own a license, that is of no benefit to me. Hey, I have already taken it up the shorts for being a Studio owner. For the past 10 years I had to pay higher maintenance prices but all the release upgrades were Prime, Broadcast, etc focused. Please don't do that to me with my plugins!!! Nope! I want MAXON to put a little sweat into their particle/fluid solution as their implementations are usually just as brilliant. Yes....time for the new normal relative to financial recovery from COVID-19. Something's got to give and right now (as I mentioned before) MAXON's licensing plan is very expensive relative to what others are doing. So I agree that MAXON needs to rethink not where they are today on their licensing plan but where their customers are today financially. I have heard economists say that COVID-19 is accelerating retail trends. Those that were struggling (eg. no web-portal or on-line buying platform) will die quicker and those that are strong will get more business (eg. Amazon). They were on their way to collapse anyway but COVID-19 just accelerated their decline. Maybe the same can be said for DCC software. In tough economic times, people and companies change how they spend and they change fast. Maybe Blender will get an even bigger big boost from all this than what 2.8 gave them: The software is free and powerful, plugins and training is plentiful and cheap. Blenders biggest barrier has always been their UI. So if 2.8 taught us anything, then going forward every time they make their UI a little more mainstream and a little easier to use, it is a game changer for EVERYONE. Given the rate the pump out new releases....that should be unsettling to their competition - especially MAXON. Exciting times ahead. Dave

I think you are going to see R22 focus more on VFX work. All the elements are there with field forces and OpenVDB support. I would like to see improvements to AR or PR that help support native integration of a fluid simulation system built into C4D rather than rely on Redshift for volumetric rendering of VDB data sets. Hopefully some of that RedGiant code for Trapcode Particular makes its way into a native C4D fluid simulation package. I would also like to see AR or PR updated with better glows, volumetric lights, etc....again pulling on Red Giant. In essence, if you are not going to make Redshift native to C4D, then please improve its existing render engines...I mean, we are paying high-end prices so we should expect those improvements in C4D core without having to pay more for Redshift. Next up would be a complete admission of defeat when it comes to Bodypaint and admit that Substance Painter is the ONLY way to go. Therefore, focus on complete integration with all Allegorithmic products. Finally, please do something with the monthly billing. I know that the whole license server implementation was a big thing for MAXON in 2019, but you really need to step up the billing side of it. Also, now that you have more products than just C4D, start to compare yourself to Adobe Cloud. Honestly (while I would never thought these words would ever be typed by me), I would prefer Adobe Cloud's subscription program over what MAXON offers in their subscription program (yes...it's that bad and the fact that you only get 1 product from MAXON rather than a full suite of Adobe products, then by comparison MAXON's subscription program is far more expensive).

I just love how a 0.01 release in Blender packs as much as a full point release in C4D. Release 2.82 contains significant upgrade to Blenders simulation capability that should attract those like myself who love X-Particles. While 2.83 is in alpha, it is still packed with a number of improvements (found here). Not sure how MAXON can make R19 or R20 unusable as they are not server enabled. I am surprised that you did not upgrade to R20 when you had the chance as that release was rather impressive (IMHO - the last of the glory days). Also, not sure what the legalities are should MAXON no longer decide to support the activation of perpetual licenses in the far future. But in reality, MAXON is probably not planning on supporting perpetual license activation forever for the simple reason that your operating systems and hardware won't last forever. Usually, running really old software on new hardware or a new OS is impossible or a really unpleasant experience should you get it to work. So in reality, the life of a C4D perpetual license is tied to how long you can run it on the OS upgrades over time. I would probably put that life to somewhere between 5 and 10 years based on Microsoft's support model for Windows (5 years of active support which includes bug fixes, on-line support, and security fixes followed by 5 years of security only fixes). At some point, I would imagine a change to Windows security protocols will take license activation out of MAXON's hands. "Sorry", MAXON will say in 2027, "but due to changes to Windows 17 security requiring two factor biometric identification, we can no longer support R21 license activation". Now for those running R20 that doesn't require license activation, I still think you have at most 10 years of life with that program at most. There could be issues with running R20 on whatever Microsoft produces in 2029. Now you may think that you will just keep your PC running with the old OS forever. Well, good luck. They just don't build them like that anymore and honestly, who would want to keep using 10 year old PC hardware? I would be interested to hear from anyone who still runs R10 on Windows 10. I would imagine that is not a pleasant experience if it runs at all (and let's not even talk about the plugins). So, perpetual licenses really are NOT "perpetual". They all have a life. But as for me, I just want the ability to off-load from C4D gracefully should I decide to do so...and that requires a perpetual license. Simply loosing all my work right away when I fail to renew a subscription really bothers me but the cost increase of the perpetual licenses is just as bothersome. I keep hoping for a middle ground as discussed here, but I fear that has fallen on deaf ears. Dave

I thought all MSA's ended on September 1st OR with R21. That is, if your MSA expires after September 1st you will only get R21 and that is it. I never heard that in any situation your MSA would allow you to get R22. But what you are saying is that people with an existing MSA which expired after September 1st will get R21 under that old MSA and by renewing their MSA one last time will get R22 at the $720 price. Wow....if that is true, then for those whose MSA expired before September 1st have just one more reason to feel mistreated by MAXON as they only get MSA pricing for R21 while everyone else gets it for R21 and R22. That just can't be true, but then again nothing surprises me anymore about the new MAXON. EDIT: I just read the well-written and very clear explanation from Cairyn and now understand that there are circumstances for some on the auto-renew plan who have an MSA expiring after 9/1/2019 to renew and get R22. So as I understand it, for mostly everyone (especially those in the US who do not have the auto-renew plan), that ANY MSA expiring after 9/1/2019 would NOT be able to be renewed. But for those on automatic renewal, the contract stipulates that cancellation must occur 3 months before the renewal date. Now this creates a window of opportunity because MAXON would have had to inform auto-renewal MSA participants in June that their auto-renewal is canceled if they wanted to follow the same rules for everyone else with MSA's ending on 9/1/2019. This would have raised questions prior to the roll-out of the subscription policy on R21 which MAXON may have wanted to avoid. So they kept quiet and accepted the fact that people with auto-renewal date BEFORE (9/1/2019 plus 3 months) December 1st would be able to get both R21 and R22 at MSA pricing. I am pretty sure that for everyone else with auto-renewal dates after 12/1/2019 got their cancellation notices on 9/1/2019. Okay...so is there anything that MAXON is doing that makes ALL customers feel like they are being treated fairly? This whole transition is complex, confusing, legally entangled, and therefore poorly communicated because the implications of the transition are not well understood by anyone. However you want to coach it, it still feels the same: It does not put the customer first. Dave

Where can you learn more about this? One of the biggest advantages to C4D is X-Particles. The latest release is just outstanding in that it does exactly what you are alluding to here: integrates everything with everything (particles, object breaking, object physics, spline dynamics, fluids, etc). I would say that should MAXON ever improve C4D's ability to handle massive object counts, then X-Particles will be giving Houdini a run for their money as a much friendlier option for doing some pretty cool VFX work (Houdini will still have the lead on absolutely outstanding jaw dropping VFX work, but it won't be as much fun to create). For me, X-Particles will be one of the toughest things to walk away from should the future force me to into MAXON's subscription policy. Dave

Wow...that is impressive. I do agree, TFD is still a great package and I have no idea how Jawset makes money given all the free updates. A very generous developer if you ask me (he must do this a side job and for the praise of those who use TFD). A very crowded field indeed but I am still going with my rank ordering for the reasons listed. I would like to learn more about FumeFX but so far, that intro video (while enticing) is not enough to sway me given that I have XP and TFD. In fact, I would imagine a large base of C4D users who do fluid sim's have either or both of those packages so FumeFX will have its work cut out for them to attract new users. Now, there is a growing criticism against C4D for NOT having its own native fluid package given that all its major competitors at its price point have fluids and for the aging TP module. Not sure how that is going to be addressed, but I suspect it will at some point. Will it be in R21? Not sure. But if C4D does implement fluids at some point, I would suspect that it will also offer similar viewport performance to FumeFX given past criticisms against C4D's viewport performance that they have worked to improve. So will one of FumeFX's advantages (viewport performance) be replaced by C4D's own native fluid package at some point? No one really knows. .....but (as 3DKiwi often says): Fun times ahead! Dave

FumeFX does look like an interesting product, but I would imagine the cost to be around $700 (the same as the Max price). That is less than the X-Particles/Cycle4D bundle price (around $900) but for $200 more you can do so much more than fire and smoke (fluids, grains, fracturing, cloth, dynamics, OpenVDB and a whole new render engine). Now, there are some good controls that I find interesting within FumeFX for controlling the simulation, like C4D's FFD and setting some conditions using effectors within FumeFX itself based on velocity, etc. But those controls pale to what can be done if you use particles to shape your smoke FX. I did not see anything in that video on whether or not FumeFX works with Thinking Particles in C4D. Art directing explosion and smoke effects with X-Particles question/answer structure is just plain powerful and now XP has also incorporated Fields into its particle group structure which just takes particle control to an entirely new level of control. Plus in XP, you can use fluid particle advection to power cloth and physics simulations as well or use it to drive the motion of your MoGraph objects. Plus, you can pass everything through the OpenVDB modifier to get some truly interesting results (like smoke turning into water bubbles as seen in the XP reel). Plus XP has multi-physics capability in that a fluid simulation can drive a cloth simulation which in turn can drive a smoke simulation. That is an advantage over TFD, FumeFX and even RealFlow. Realflow for C4D has multi-physics but only within its own fluid/smoke simulations (true multi-physics capability exists within the Stand Alone version of Realflow, but that would be an unfair comparison as we are discussing C4D plugins). To the best of my knowledge, RealFlow for C4D and FumeFX has no capability to work with other non-fluid dynamic simulations but as XP now has cloth and rigid/soft body dynamics incorporated into its software, those boundaries are blown away. So again, the advantage goes to XP. Now TFD's advantage over FumeFX is that it is GPU accelerated and it works with X-Particles. That was an important capability for TFD before X-Particles incorporated ExplosiaFX. So that just leaves TFD with the unique advantage of GPU acceleration. Given that TFD also works with X-Particles still makes it a smarter choice than FumeFX at this point. But as you can infer, I am leaning towards XP as the best overall solution. So if I had to rate all the fluid packages out there today for C4D, it would be: X-Particles (it just has everything...and I do mean everything) TFD (GPU accelerated makes it unique and it works with XP....sooo…..) Real Flow (great engineering grade software, but too slow). FumeFX (Last place based on the information from the video. Hopefully we learn more in the future that will give it a unique advantage over its competitors). So FumeFX has some tough competition within C4D. The only potential advantage to FumeFX would be the ability to handle massive fluid simulations with less effort than XP. There is nothing to point to that being the case, but I would be interested in hearing about that from others who use FumeFX today. GPU acceleration is important, so even TFD still has FumeFX beat. But compared to XP (both CPU based), XP is (for the reasons listed above), the better choice. Its power, control, ease-of-use and capabilities just can't be beat. Dave

DAZ has a pretty good export function with a C4D preset already. The export format is OBJ for which C4D has improved the import capabilities with each release. To use, here are some general steps in DAZ: Select Export in DAZ and chose OBJ On the OBJ export options, select the C4D preset Make sure that Invert Positive Direction under the X axis is checked. If you plan to render the model in C4D, then make sure that Disable Write Surfaces is NOT checked. Otherwise, you will not get your textures. On OBJ import into C4D, make sure that Flip Z Axis in NOT checked. Now, this is just for the models and textures. I do find that lights do not transfer as well but I always redo the lighting in C4D anyway. I also rework the textures and clean up some of the modeling so it not one-click easy as these directions imply - there is some work to do afterwards. As I do not do character animation, I cannot speak to how well those items can be imported or if they can be imported (Riptide Pro users will need to chime in here). So if you are waiting for a plugin or for the resurrection of Riptide Pro (whatever became of that plugin?), that does not mean there is no path from Daz to C4D....there is a path but you have to work on it a bit....but that is half the fun. Dave

Wow. Loved it. There is a psuedo making of video found here which shows him teaching the robots in his workshop. Now, when looking at the full video, I tend to think that it is not all CGI robots (maybe only at the end when they are shooting lasers and destroying the place). Actually, it is more impressive if it wasn't because programming robots is not easy especially if you want them to be performing to a beat. One of my first jobs was introducing robotics into electronic assembly --- it isn't easy. Now, there is nothing that says the robots are actually performing the music - rather they are programmed to make certain movements in time and rhythm to the musical beats which may explain why the musicians among you are seeing performance inaccuracies. But that does not mean they are CGI. I believe that those are real robots strumming those guitars, beating the drums, etc...but I think they are just faking it rather than making music. Robotic "Milli Vanilli" if you will (the old timers out will get the reference. For everyone else, go here to learn more). Dave ...and for those who just love different type of music (like myself), then you have to see this (oh...and its all real by the same artist): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3oItpVa9fs

NOTE: This sale is really an... ALL INSYDIUM 50% OFF SALE So it is not just X-Particles as inferred in the subject line but Cycles 4D, Cycles/X-Particle bundle and (the most exciting part)….. 50% OFF MAINTENANCE Plus you can purchase up to 3 years of maintenance at this price if you so desire. Honestly, at the rate they keep improving X-particles (their latest update continues to impress), I do wonder what's left to release in the future? Sure, you can make it faster or handle monstrous particle sets, but those are probably limitations of C4D and not 100% in their control. Relative to what is in their control, like additional features, I am left to wonder what else is on their development timeline. My brain hurts trying to think of some particle control or modifier that they don't already have and on top of that add fluids, grains, volume breaking, particle dynamics, object dynamics, etc...etc...etc. ;-) Now, this is said with tongue firmly planted in cheek, but even Next Limit is having trouble keeping up with X-Particles relative to their C4D plugin. I looked at the feature list relative to the cost and I did not see any breakthrough features that would make me want to run out an buy V3. I have always been an Insydium enthusiast. I just hope I remember on Monday to renew my maintenance! Dave

Really impressive and I hope it leads to more dream jobs (or maybe it has but you can't tell us just yet). What would be cool is to have three side-by-side images: Wireframe, Final Render, Final sword as used in the show (if possible). In short, it would be interesting to see if the prop department could add as much detail to the physical sword as you did with the render (possibly a 21st century version of man vs. machine) or how they were inspired by your work -Dave

I am okay with violence, provided the violence serves the story and is not just mayhem for mayhem's sake. I can't tell you how many times I've watched Game of Thrones (including right now to get ready for the final season) even though that show has some violence that puts Love, Death and Robots to shame. But I enjoy every episode because I am emotionally invested in the characters...and that is the difference. Does the violence serve the story....does it help make the villain more evil or the hero/heroin more heroic? As long as I am rooting for the character(s), then the violence does not bother me as much. As long as it makes the danger more real or give you a taste of what things are really like (as in the opening battle in "Saving Private Ryan"), then it is necessary. I just felt that some of the violence in LD&R could have been dialed back a bit and not taken anything away from the story points...and that is the test point on why I felt it was unnecessary and gratuitous. Again....just because you can render it doesn't mean you should. Dave

I also thought the entire series was pretty amazing visually. Relative to Sonnie's Edge, while visually striking (the beasts were amazing), the violence at the end actually made me a bit queasy. Watching her head get crushed and eyeballs pop out was bad enough...but then having the guy stick his cane into her crushed flesh and pull up a loose flap left me wanting to tell Blur Studios (whom I highly respect) and Dave Wilson (the director) that just because you can render and animate something doesn't necessarily mean you should. Same sentiments can apply to "The Secret War" -- sorry dead bodies of children with the backs ripped open or lying blood covered against the cabin really added nothing to the story. There was enough dismembered body parts lying around to convey the plot point that these critters were nasty. Also watching a soldier with his head half ripped off fall in slow motion was another queasy moment for me as well. You could trim some of those scenes and nothing would be taken away from the excitement of the story which was very good. Just because they are digital characters does not make it okay to push the gore to new heights -- especially now when the characters are becoming so real. That is my only criticism to what was otherwise an outstanding anthology that definitely bears repeat watching (except the first and last episodes -- my stomach can only take soo much). Dave P.S. For those who may disagree, then consider the following before you reply: If people love watching gore in movies and games, then have we evolved much since the days of the Roman Empire when gladiators used to kill each other in Colosseum as public entertainment? Just a thought in case anyone thinks that we are an advanced society that has evolved to a new age of enlightenment.

Yes. The best part of the e-on software tools was Carbon Scatter and that is the one tool they are not continuing. The mis-steps made by that company show how easy it is to lose your dominant position in a marketplace. Don't some 3rd party renderers also offer some pretty good instancing capability as well? I know Cycles has the ability to scatter and rotate instances and Octane has that capability as well as scale randomization. Also, Forestor has a some good scattering control capability built into their tree plugin. But Carbon Scatter was just the bomb. You could feed it anything and control it pretty well. Never played with Surface Spread...I will have to give it a look. Dave

So does that impression change with R20? I know you can't determine that for anyone but yourself -- but what do you think? For me, OpenVDB is challenging my perception of traditional modeling (hey, it's still all quads right?). Nodes has power but deep to get into. Fields blows my mind. Couple fields with XP-2019 and it is a bit staggering what you can accomplish. So again (IMHO), R20 almost makes it worth the wait....and it was a long wait. Now had they thrown in a better symmetry tool...well then.... Dave

It just occurred to me that maybe MAXON is using Safeharbor to test out an upgrade policy similar to what Modo has: all upgrades at the same price.....hmmmm…..

I saw this and felt I had to pass it on: Safe Harbor Studios is offering upgrades to R20 Studio at $1695 from any release from R16 to R19 and from any version from Prime to Visualize. Find out more here: Obviously, this deal is a no brainer for anyone who has R16 Prime and who considered R20 Studio out of reach at $3600+. Not such a great deal for people who missed out on renewing their R19 Studio MSA, but then Safe Harbor added this sweetener for pretty much everyone: Note that you not only get R20 but the next release as well (presumably R21 --- I mean, they wouldn't pull a fast one and give you a maintenance release...would they? Hmmm....best to check into it if interested). Unfortunately, only for US and Canada ---- and here I was hoping 3D-Kiwi would find a cheap path back into C4D!!! Dave

Congratulations on all the new events in your life. Question: Didn't you also do a tutorial on the new reflectance shader in C4D? Did you pull that because of nodes? Do the 80% discounts only apply to your tutorials, that is does it apply to Tim Clapham's as well? Just wondering why the discount codes do not seem to work on some of the tutorials as indicated in the previous post. Thanks, Dave

Very classy speech! Did he give a shout-out to Hrvoje? He also mentioned “Bjorn”. Could that be Srek? Now that is cool! Great day for MAXON users and creators everywhere! Dave

I would assume by soft body interactions that the particles are spheres or blobs of some sort and/or you going for a type of bubble look? If so, I do recall a YouTube video from Insydium as part of their XP4 2018 Sneak Peek where Bob Walmsley applied an xpCloth modifier to a sphere, added some xpTurbulence and other modifiers and got this very cool looking softbody type animation (without the overhead that true softbody dynamics can give you). He did it as a demo and was surprised at quality of the results. I can't remember which YouTube tutorial it was as it wasn't labeled as "how to make bubbles using cloth" but rather part of a feature overview. You could ask at the Insydium forums. I hope that helps. Dave