3D-Pangel

Hmmm.....I say we start a "Go Fund Me" page to "Bring Nigel to America" for some future Siggraph conference!!! ;-)

Ouch! Let's not go there....but you are always welcome to NH. Dave

Recommend skipping ahead to 5:16 minutes as that is when he actually starts talking about Cycles 4D.

Given all that shifting of land, I am waiting for the seismologists to determine if stress was relieved on the fault lines. A chilling fact with the Haitian earthquake a few years back was that even though one coastline sunk 20 feet and the other coastline rose 18 feet, the fault line was completely intact. No movement thus no stress relief. Go back into the historical records and you read reports that Haiti had a big earthquake in the 1800's and then 20 years later a really massive earthquake occurred. They are seeing repeat of that same pattern. They call it the zipper effect where the tectonic stress shift along the fault line rather than get relieved and then build again to something even more horrific. So again, hopefully the seismologists are looking into this and give an "all clear" for New Zealand. Nigel...if you don't get the "all clear" I would look into moving to New Hampshire...we are the Granite State after all....nothing moves that much!! Dave P.S. I wonder how WETA is doing? You will probably hear that Jame Cameron is once again postponing Avatar 2...this time due to the earthquake! ;-)

Hmmm....250 materials if you purchase before 1/1/2017. Now that is tempting. I hope one of them is that cool lava material used in Mike's tutorial. I would assume that each material can be examined in the node editor (not sure if there is the ability to use the material but lock out viewing/editing for those who wish to sell Cycles material sets in the future). Being able to examine other materials really helps with the learning process. Can materials created by the Blender users also be used in Cycles 4D? Dave

So if it is "all over the place" then is it the render engine or the user? I agree that some of the stuff you pointed out is pretty bad (in particular the jet...what was going on with that reflectance) and the AA on the Lamborghini but the XP stuff is pretty good! Yes...not all of it was show reel worthy and for a product launch they should have been more discerning but I don't think you should write off the Cycles render engine just yet unless you see a good quantity of Blender/Cycles show reels with the same issues. Personally, I haven't looked as I am thinking of sitting this one out until I understand more about either or all of the following: 1) how to use the nodes from the demo/tutorials, 2) whether Cycles delivers on their development plan as promised and 3) what MAXON has in store with their GPU rendering solution. So it could be awhile. Dave

I never doubted their ability to release a solid product. But not all things are in Insydium's control...namely the pace of development of the Cycles render engine. That needs to be proven to me to be pretty robust with some level of predictability regarding timing and features to make me pay $110 USD a year for a maintenance plan on a $220 USD plugin. Never said I wouldn't purchase it. Just said I would be cautious about purchasing the maintenance plan and favor re-purchasing new licenses every 2+ years until I am convinced that the maintenance plan provides a better value. Now, that is just me....but if others are making the same value judgments then that is a risk to Insydium as their development costs are the same each year but their expected revenue becomes unpredictable. Better all around to lower the maintenance costs so that it is predictable....that is, people keep signing up each years because the price is low enough that the value of doing so never comes into question given the unknowns about Cycles development schedule. Dave

I actually like that clause that they give you some time to rethink your maintenance plan after the deadline has passed. But their whole maintenance pricing is just very risky because of so many things that need to be proven to the C4D community to just assume we would jump in each year for 50% of the original purchase price. Here are (to me at least) the unknowns: 1) What is the Cycles release schedule? Is it annually? Bi-annually? 2) How long after Cycles releases a new update will we see Cycles 4D be able adopt that new release? 1 month after release? 3 months? 3) How many new features does Cycles add with each new release. The 2017 development plan looks pretty hefty, but that is just a plan. How many of those features were originally included in the 2016 development plan? Do they hit their development plan all the time? Again, no idea. 4) Say that Cycles releases a new update towards the end of our maintenance plan but the maintenance plan expires before Cycles 4D gets updated? What are we entitled to? No word on how that works. That may be why they have the 3 month grace period....but then what happens if Cycles 4D does not get updated after the 3 month grace period ends? So Insydium is dependent on the release schedule of an open source program --- and I have no idea how consistent open source platforms release updates nor how much is in each release to make me feel that paying 50% of the purchase price for a maintenance plan is a wise decision. That is out of Insydium's control which means it is out of our control as well. So the smart thing to do is to wait and see. And I mean wait for 1 year after your 12 month maintenance plan expires with the original purchase. Waiting that extra year to see how this goes and then buying a new license does not cost you any more than paying 50% each year as that new license still comes with another 12 month maintenance plan. If the pace of updates or the amount in each update is not worth it to you, then you wait longer. That is why I said "how does Insydium want to see their revenue? Consistently year after year or in lumps?" Lower the maintenance plan to something much more reasonable and people are more motivated to just keep signing up. Keep it where it is and the motivation is to wait as buying a whole new license at some point in the future is less risky (because you now know what you are getting) and potentially cheaper if it is more that 2 years between purchases. That is lumpy revenue because maybe they see some maintenance purchases in 1 year....but then again maybe not and they have to wait 2 or more years to see some additional revenue. Hey, they development costs are the same to them regardless of our buying patterns. Businesses love predictable revenue models. They can plan and invest on a predictable revenue stream. This will NOT be predictable for the reasons I stated....so they take on risk. I wish them the best of luck if they hold onto their current maintenance pricing. But right now, given all the unknowns, it is a big bet they are making for a new business. Dave

Wow...well...on the plus side, it appears that you still have basic services like power and internet otherwise you would not be able to post to the cafe. I would also assume that the rest of your family (children, parents, in-laws) have checked in an they are okay as well. Next big question, are the roads in and out of town okay? Will there be disruptions in food to the supermarkets, gas to the gas stations, etc. I mean, you could be perfectly fine but still be in a pretty rough spot like these poor cows: There is only so much grass left that they can eat! Dave

Okay.. just checked out the Cycles home page...so some of my questions have been answered. I will admit that the yearly maintenance cost of 90 pounds is a bit excessive as that is 50% of the purchase cost and 60% if you are an X-Particles 3.5 user. Think about it. Even C4D's Studio MSA is only 18% of the new license cost...so at those costs, you are strongly motivated to renew your MSA. But at 50% of the cost, I could afford to miss a few years and just buy a completely new license in the future. So how do you guys want your revenue stream to be managed in the future? Consistent or lumpy? The development effort and your costs are all the same but I would imagine people will not signing up for the maintenance program unless they saw a huge benefit...and that benefit is tied to the Cycles development pace and Insydium's ability to quickly keep up. So the big questions are: 1) If Cycles is cranking out a significant hunk of new and more powerful versions with each release (such that it is worth half our initial costs as that is what the maintenance program costs), 2) If Insydium can keep up and 3) Even if Cycles does pump out huge updates, that is a lot for Insydium to digest and integrate into the plugin so can it still be done quickly within the maintenance cycle. That is a lot of "if's". So for me, I would buy Cycles 4D now and then sit on it for at least 2 years....just to see how things go. That might be smart given what MAXON is working on with their own GPU rendering solution (which also has similar features). Now, reduce the maintenance costs to 30 pounds (20% of the initial cost), and you have me for life. So as a I said before, how do you want your revenue? Consistent or lumpy (30 pounds each year or "maybe" 180 pounds every 2+ years). I don't know. Charging 90 pound maintenance fee is a big bet for a new venture. Dave

The light emission capabilities alone have me drooling. Plus---and this is huge---Cycles 4D now supports TFD! Never would have expected that! Great job! What I find daunting though is the whole science behind nodal material system management. For example, when to use certain nodes that do not necessarily correlate to a material effect (eg. math nodes) and why I need to use them (eg. do I always need a blackbody shader with an emission node?). So while powerful, I would imagine that the learning curve is somewhat steep...at least until you wrap your head around it. Are there any "nodal system" best practices out there as a Cycles tutorial? I would imagine that any Cycles tutorial would be sufficient as not much was dropped in the C4D implementation. Also, while the Cycles road-map is impressive, does each release mean a change to the Cycles-4D plugin or can we just download the new Cycles release and see what works? That is, is the Cycles 4D plugin tied to a specific Cycles release? When will the Cycles 4D demo be available? Will the price be going up any time soon (is this a release special right now?) or will the discount for X-Particles 3.5 customers be removed in the future? Thanks, Dave

Nigel, Glad to know that you are okay along with the other New Zealanders on this thread. My thoughts and prayers go out to you all. How is your house? Any cracks or loose pipes? I ask because we had a 3.0 earthquake in New Hampshire (the 'Granite State') and there was a hair line crack in the drywall and a PVC drain pipe joint cracked loose. So I can only imagine what happened to your property when it was only 250 miles from the epicenter of a quake that was 100,000 times stronger. You did say the house rolled a bit which is just frightening. There was also a 6.0 quake in Venezuela this weekend as well. Makes you wonder what is going on! Plates are definitely shifting around a bit. In any case, take care of yourself and keep us posted. Dave

IMHO - You have raw natural talent with modeling if that is the level of work you can accomplish by being self-taught. If getting a paying job doing CG is the goal, my advice is to focus on being a specialist and developing a really good demo reel of your modeling. I agree that the competition is tough out there. While I have never looked for work in the CG field, I would imagine that the level of competition is lower for a generalist but there are many, many more people to compete with at the generalist level. Conversely, there are fewer specialists but the competition is tougher. You already have a pretty good start being a specialist character modeler so I would stick with that. Maybe purchasing MILG11 tutorial at HelloLuxx might push you to the next level as it appears to explain the "why" as well as the "how" behind certain techniques. Understanding the "why" is always advised as it provides a base from which you can develop additional techniques. Also, it does not matter how you obtained the skills. What matters is quality of the work so don't let yourself be imitated by those who have a formal education. It is also important that you can create models that other specialists can use (riggers, texture artists, etc), so understanding the proper techniques is very critical which is another reason why I would suggest MILG11. In addition to the finished work, your demo real should also show the mesh, highlighting key areas where intelligent polygonal flow stands out as well. Finally, focus on sculpting and retopology next. Get away from cartoon shapes and try to create realistic creatures (real or imaginary). Study anatomy and fill the models with high levels of realistic, anatomically correct surface details. If you can create something that looks absolutely real, even though it is un-shaded, poorly posed or flatly lit, then your work will most definitely stand out. I have always been inspired by the works of Neville Page so start their to get a sense of what "form language" really means in a model. Now, this may push you more into Z-Brush than C4D, but you need to also master the tools that the industry depends on for character modeling, and I would imagine that C4D is not at the top of that list. But, if you can't afford Z-Brush, don't let that stop you as it is the work you create rather than the tool you used to create it that matters most. Agreed! Never give up on your dreams! Never say never! Case in point: about 15 years ago there was this young kid (around 16 to 18 years old at the time) on the old trueSpace forums from Norway. He was creating outstanding work in trueSpace which had about 10% of the capability that C4D had that time (and probably 1% that C4D has now). Like yourself, he was a natural talent and self-taught at the time (though he did go on to get formal education in CG). He and I struck up a pretty good email relationship and I recall him saying that his dream was to bring ILM level of SFX to the Norway film industry. Honestly, I kind of chuckled at that and said that he had a better chance of working at ILM than creating his own studio in Norway....I mean, how big is the Norwegian film industry let alone the Norwegian VFX industry? Well, we fell out of touch over the years and fast forward about 15 years and I am watching some pretty neat movies on Netflix with some really outstanding VFX. Movies like Troll Hunter, Bolgen (or "The Wave"), and Ragnarok. All these movies were Norwegian made with English subtitles and were really good! As I am watching the credits, up pops this kids name (ALF M. LØVVOLD) who is now the General Manager and co-founder of a VFX company in Oslo called GimpVille . I was really surprised and reached out to him again just to make sure that he was the same person! He responded...yep, it was him! We have since renewed our email relationship and he admitted that it wasn't easy, filled with hard work and some very scary days that always come with starting your own company, but he persevered! Go to the site and watch their demo real...really impressive. Gimpville did the VFX work for the Oscar nominated Kon-Tiki (best foreign film), so their work is up there! They also won a national "Pioneering" award given to Norwegian businesses....probably because they did exactly what Alf set out to do: bring state of the art VFX to Norway. So never give up! Keep pushing yourself because talent and hard work will always find a way. Dave

There is so much to learn in this field that it really comes down to an early decision to be either a generalist or a specialist. There just isn't time in any one lifetime to master "everything"! Unfortunately, as this is just a hobby for me, I have accomplished just enough to keep me interested. Small wins on certain WIPs that encourage me to keep turning on the computer but not enough for me to ever be considered a "specialist" in anything. For me, it will be a life-long pursuit but never a destination and at times, I do identify with this graph: Right now as I am within a decade of retirement, computer graphics is (for me at least) the perfect "retirement" activity as I strongly believe that you need to keep firing the left side and the right side of the brain during your retirement years. CG will definitely do that...it requires your entire brain if you hope to be any good at it. And nothing comes easy. It all takes hard work to really master. That's why I love C4D because this stuff is hard enough and C4D's logical interface and stability at least keeps the energy on improving your skills rather than fighting the program. ...yeah...that's called raw natural born talent. Consider yourself very lucky! Dave

Really outstanding work. I was just watching some of the free sample tutorials from MILG11: Hard Surface Modeling in C4D (found here) and your work really exemplifies everything that can be done right with polygonal flow. Whereas that instructor (Toby Pitman) rigorously pushed himself to be a tremendous modeler with daily exercises, etc., I somehow get the sense that for you it is just natural. Especially when you say "It didn't really take that long...it was fun!" for something so complex that mere mortals would die in frustration before they even roughed out the shape of her hair. Any stories of about your training, 14 hour days at your computer, self-sacrifice and personal struggles to get to where you are today in your modeling skill would be really appreciated right now....because if that level of modelling came from natural talent, what hope do the rest of us have? ;-) Dave

More on ProRender found here A list of features is found here ( I highlighted two that I am very excited about): Below are some of the supported features: API (C-style) Unbiased/biased path-tracing State of the art sampling algorithms Multiple importance sampling Many lights support wAdaptive rendering Physically-based materials Layered material support Standard uber-material Volumetrics Physically-based camera Lens and sensor simulation Physical bokeh Motion blur Analytic and physical lights Point, directional, spot lights Area lights Image based light with IS IES profiles support Incandescent material Physical skylight Post-processing filters Numerous image reconstruction Tonemapping Based on open technologies OpenCL OpenGL (interop supported) OpenImageIO OpenVDB So if you know that this is coming to C4D (hopefully by R19...but who knows), then does that kill your interest in Cycles 4D from Insydium? For me, it does not. Why? Well, it is Insydium after all which means it will be well integrated. Also, I am imagining the pace of development within the Blender open source crowd may be a bit faster than within the AMD open source community (just my opinion though). Also you get a whole new material editor system with Cycles 4D (nodes). No mention if ProRender will also produce a similar change to C4D's material system. Not saying it won't...but you just don't know and a year is a long way off. Overall though, great news! Big thanks to MAXON! Dave

openVDB support is a nice feature, unfortunately it appears that you still need an external renderer to use it. Their 2.8 page shows a screen shot of them working with openVDB data, but the render window has the "Arnold" watermark. Once C4D embraces OpenVDB in their renderer, then I may get back into Navie (not having upgraded since 2.0 after I purchased XP 3.0 and TFD...how many fluids renderers do you need?). Also, 2.8 is embracing OpenCL ....but not sure where they are with OpenGL. But overall, this plugin is coming along nicely with some finely nuanced fluid solutions constantly being incorporated into the package which increase realism....and their indie pricing is now attractive for CG enthusiasts such as myself (too bad they don't offer an 2.0 to Indie 2.7 upgrade option). I will admit the interface looks a bit daunting but then again, I have not bothered to study the 2.7 tutorials. Dave

Very interested in this but a little concerned over comments about not being able to handle parametric objects. A very quick mis-read of this post as I was scanning the thread. Apologies...just returning from a long business trip and quickly catching up on the news so I am into "C4D Forum Triage" mode. I also posted before I watch the Cycles 3D video from Insydium.....and that concern quickly went away. After watching the video, I am sold. The emissive capabilities as a light source alone sold me but when they mentioned that it would also be able to handle material pre-sets made by Blender users was also intriguing as I would imagine that library is quite extensive. But apart from all that, the node management system seems pretty straight forward and obviously years ahead of where C4D is right now. I would also like to know more about light types. When watching the video, I did not see volumetric as an option. C4D's volumetric lights are not exactly accurate (IMHO) and I would love to have a few more controls around box lights, etc. It would be great to see in-detail what Cycles 4D lights can do. Dave

Very interested in this but a little concerned over comments about not being able to handle parametric objects. Did I read that right? Not sure if that means it would not be able to support Forester or not...or at least the library of trees/plants that come with Forester. Someone also mentioned if integration with Substance Designer was possible. That would be great, but again probably out of Insydium's control unless Alegorithmic was already working with Blender on that. Not sure. While this has been talked about since the early summer, I was also wondering if Insydium has been contacted by any of C4D's model or plugin vendors about whether or not they should start working on a port to Cycles 4D. While I don't expect that discussion to occur with the developers of TFD or Realflow (for obvious reasons), some news that discussions with the C4D Depot team (makers of Infinite Oceans, etc), Laubwerks, The Pixel Lab or 3D Quakers (Forester) have occurred concerning their model libraries being rendered by Cycles 4D would be encouraging news. Also interested to see a video that just goes deeper into X-Particles integration with Cycles 4D. What new effects can be created that you currently can't get with C4D's native renderer would be a key area of interest. Finally, there was a mention that X-Particles customers would get a discount. Any more information on that? Any pre-release pricing specials planned? Thanks, Dave

I love it when plugins from other platforms get ported over to C4D so I wish you guys great success. Question to those who use Syflex on other platforms: What does Syflex offer over C4D's native cloth simulator? It looks (based on a quick scan of the Syflex web-site) to be speed and ease of use. Possibly better handling of self-collisions as well. I did not see anything on cloth tearing. Cloth simulation with high stiffness values and tearing is a great way to simulate physical destruction of metal structures so does Syflex have that capability? Will a set of tutorials be released as well? Thanks and interested to see more! Dave

Who was the first? I have been on a number of business trips out of the country with more to come, so my time on the Forum has been limited and will continue to be limited for at least 6 more weeks. But to come back to news such as this is bad enough but now there was another passing that I missed? This is horrible. Dave

Wow! I just learned the sad news. What a gentleman he was. I met him once at Siggpraph 2006 and he was just the most unassuming and polite person you could ever hope to meet. Just a generally nice guy. I even had trouble converting a model from Sci-fi.net to C4D and he offered to help with one of his plugins. So my heart is saddened by the loss. Based on the post at CG Networks, I gather he was a private person but my thoughts go to his family. I have no idea if his passing creates a financial hardship for his wife or children (if any) but if anyone knows please let us know. While not a character animator, I would buy his plugins if that would help out his family. I will keep them all in my prayers. Dave

Very nicely done...especially the little touches like the bump map on the river and the waving bear. I would agree that painting tree's on selections would be a great feature for V2 (if one is planned). Another good feature would be the ability to provide local rather than global wind forces - that is, have the trees react to wind generated by the car as it drives by...while that would not add much to this animation given the scale of the car, it would be a pretty cool feature nonetheless. So as great as that plugin is, it still has plenty of room for new features in the next version. Unfortunately, with no announcements from 3D Quakers for over a year on anything....you have to wonder what is going on. Also, 3D Quaker was working on a car simulator...not sure where they are are with that but it looked pretty interesting and would really make this awesome animation even more believable! I also have one question about your animation: Did Kathie make it?!? ;-) Great work! Dave

Wow...this must be a sign of a successful release when we start complaining how the tools are "named" rather than how they operate! Okay...if we are going to take our criticisms to the absolute nit-picky level, then I would like to have a word with someone about the R18 splash screen! Really....is that that best that MAXON can do? A couple of lines on a white background? Also, anyone notice that there is still a "R18 - RC" next to the version number. Did someone just miss updating the version number when it was released or are we still getting release candidates? Whew! Glad I got those burning issues off my chest. I feel so much better now. ;-) Dave

At the time of announcement, I was not too excited about voronoi fracture. But after just playing with the point control I am simply blown away with how well MAXON thought out the implementation of this new tool. Wow! Endless possibilities. Really brilliant MAXON! Question: While it works with Thinking Particles, has anyone had a chance to get it to work with X-Particles? I would imagine that you would need to pass XP through TP to get that level of operation. I have yet to install all my plugins but just wondering if anyone else has already worked that out. Dave