3D-Pangel

The improvements to the Outliner is a big one for me. It is amazing the number of features that Blender puts into a 0.1 release after a 3 month period. By comparison, this number of features is what MAXON would call a full point release after a year of development. Is the the difference that MAXON has stronger quality controls and extended testing whereas Blender does not? If true, you can hold onto that strategy as long as the market places a price premium on stability over new features. They want both (why wouldn't they) but they also don't like waiting for new features. There is strong evidence in other industries that access to new features is always more important. Just look at the telecommunications market in the 1990's. You had a big bellwether global telecommunication equipment company, Lucent, that built products for 15 year life with a protracted product testing phase to insure rock solid stability. And for good reason: telecommunication products were critical to pretty much everything (banking, emergency services, business, etc). Stability, not cost or features, was at the core of Lucent's product development culture. Well, along comes a whole bunch of telecommunication start-ups during the 90's that were pumping out products with the philosophy of "be first to market with the new feature and let the customer debug it" and guess who won? Well, Lucent, with a rich history of technological innovation in Bell Labs since 1954 (9 Nobel prize winners - one for the transistor) no longer exists. After reporting a $2 Billion loss in the dot-com bust it merged with Alcatel in 2006 and then completely sold to Nokia in 2015. So MAXON clings to that same culture on stability that Lucent did when you consider their pace of introducing new features. Just look at the lackluster R21 release along with a price increase for perpetual licenses. I think it is safe to say that MAXON does charge a pretty hefty premium for that stability. Hey, stability is important, but this is just DCC software - not something like telecommunications that forms the backbone of a modern society. So if stability didn't win a long term strategy in the telecommunications market, then it probably won't support MAXON's strategy all that well in the future - especially in the face of competition like Blender. Is it fair to say that people were loyal to C4D prior to R21 for 3 things: 1) stability, 2) ease of use and 3) a firm belief that MAXON would never follow a subscription plan. While I don't know what Blender's development road-map looks like, but I do find it interesting that 2.81 has some features that C4D users are interested in. Based on the backlash to R21 and subscriptions, does Blender sense a shift away from loyalty to C4D and adapted their development plan accordingly? Not sure, but consider that Blender 2.8 was released at the same time as R21 and then 3 months later we have Blender 2.81 which makes it easier to use (in a very C4D way) while showing that they have both an aggressive development pace and are quick to correct stability issues. Most importantly, it is free and requires no server activation. Blender 2.81 directly addresses the top 3 issues that kept people loyal to C4D. Coincidence? Honestly, I don't know. But I think it is a safe to say that Blender is a real, serious threat to whatever MAXON has as a long term market strategy. Stability and feature growth at C4D's price point is not going to help MAXON weather the subscription back-lash over the long term...not when you have options like Blender. Honestly, given that MAXON pays attention to (but does not support) the Cafe, I would hope that threads like this give them cause for concern. Add to that a key instructor, Toby Pitman, saying " Sorry - I can't do subscriptions" in his Twitter feed and moving to Blender should also scratch at MAXON's "belief" that rolling out a subscription plan will "only" result in a short term drop in revenue and that they will make more money in the long term. At the pace that Blender is moving, there may be no "long term" horizon that allows MAXON to recoup whatever losses they incur from moving to a subscription plan. That is a real possibility that MAXON cannot ignore. 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

Okay...If I have said it once, I have said it a thousand times: PLEASE STEP OUT OF YOUR ECHO CHAMBER and stop listening to yourselves. Start listening to your customers. Never consider an action that benefits MAXON unless it ALSO benefits your customers and be darn sure that you have asked a good cross section of your customers if that action really is a benefit. The whole thread just shows how out-of-touch MAXON is becoming with the real world as you embrace the "modern on-line world". It also shows the massive shift of corporate culture going on within MAXON. There is a very obvious theme throughout all of your actions of putting MAXON's interests ahead of your customers. That is a losing strategy. We all see it and my hope is that you step out of your own echo chamber long enough to see it for yourselves. 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

Count on it....and that's coming from an old duffer who has seen it all. Dave

Take heart: Great art and talented artists will always find a way. I had the great opportunity to talk to a traditional matte painter from the golden days of photo-chemical/mechanical special effects (his big claim to fame is that he did the opening title shot for Ghostbusters). He also did matte paintings for Pirates of the Caribbean movies. The guy is talented. I met him at the MAXON Power Integration tour in Boston so he made the switch to digital. But what struck me from talking to him is that the shift to digital was a frightening change for the SFX artists of the day. And this guy new them all...all the greats (even Denis Muren who is the grandfather of digital VFX). The artists were all terrified (which is understandable) but what struck me is that even some of the seasoned VFX supervisors were scared (accept for Mr. Muren of course). Change is always scary. I used to study the old techniques as I have loved VFX since the 1960's when I was a young lad. What I have found is that knowledge of the old techniques provides useful insights in how to make things look real in the digital world. Hey, the old timers faced the same issues in the toothpicks and rubber band era of VFX too! Knowing how they solved it in the physical world helps replicating reality in the digital world as well. Well...new tools create new opportunities and possibilities. Just look at how many people are in the industry today as compared to the 1980's. DCC is a multi-billion dollar industry. Re-topology may be automated by the AI demons you fear, but hard-surface sculpting may now become an even bigger new industry than it is today with new tools and techniques you never would have considered unless you were pushed into it. Hey, you would never use boolean tools because right now it is easier to just polygon model it from the beginning then mash it together and fix it later. But what if you could use boolean modeling tools in ways you never dreamed of and get perfect quads with outstanding mesh flow because some AI was able to make it work? Your tremendous knowledge of quad modeling is only going to give you an advantage because even should an AI system do it for you, you will have a deeper understanding of what those algorithms need as you work with the new tools/techniques that these new capabilities create. That insight will help you push these new tools further than you could if you didn't have that knowledge and that will allow you to once again stand out as a gifted modeler. So have no fear. You are exceptionally talented modeler and while the tools may change, your talent, knowledge, experience and insights will always be in demand. So don't fear the change....just go with it. Dave

Interesting....they finally bottled Cerbera into a plugin. ...and some said it couldn't be done. ;-) 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

Hrvoje, I have been venturing into rigging and have been watching the Mastering Movement videos. There is one part of the third video (roughly 13:15 in) where you are talking about moving an individual joint without moving the other joints lower on the hierarchy as you adjust its position to the model. You mention that there is a key you need to press to make this adjustment and I am sorry, but I am just not able to discern what you are saying. Now when I make an adjustment in R20, I noticed the rest of the joints do NOT move when the expectation is that joints lower on the hierarchy would move. So now I am confused. The help manual was not that helpful. Adjusting joint with or without impacting the hierarchy is a rather important adjustment to be able to do when aligning joints to the model. So how do you do this in R20? Thanks, 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

How about a tutorial....make it in 2 parts...first and last name. Advanced course in your middle name (if you have one). I would love to hear your daughter pronouncing your full name too in the tutorial as an exercise class: "Follow along with Hrvoje's daughter". She would most definitely make us all look like idiots....but based on how this thread has shifted so drastically from its intended purpose....that wouldn't be too hard. Dave P.S. So nice to be praising C4D after a major release, seeing it win major awards, and have a few good laughs over it all.

So C4D wins an Oscar, enters into the rarified territory of widespread industry recognition once reserved for heavyweights like Maya and Houdini, and the biggest take-away we have is we now know how to pronounce Hrvoje's name? Really? Granted....it was a plus on many levels to hear his name in the acceptance speech. I too have always struggled with pronouncing and spelling his full name since his Vertex-Pusher days...which prompted this old idea for a T-Shirt Glad to know we got the first name defined now. So.....what does MAXON have to win in order for us to know how to pronounce his last name? The Nobel Peace Prize? 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

Okay....I have mixed emotions about this. I did make a pretty good sizable purchase of all the tutorials as I knew I needed R20 training. Then I got sent over-seas for an extended assignment in Malaysia and never got to watch them. So the advantage of "early" learning was not possible. But here is where I land on it all: I am very happy to help out the Café.....consider all the money I spent on the training my gold donation status for the year. But here is another HUGE advantage -- in addition to free Café Training from this point forward: Does anyone have exercise as part of their daily routine? I do. I go to the gym each morning around 5:00 AM and get in some time on the Lifecycles for about 40 minutes each day. The ones at my gym have TV's and they also have internet connections. I used to just zone out and watch the news, but found myself getting a bit irritated watching the news and who wants to be mad so early in the morning. Plus, my hotel TV in Malaysian has about 2 English speaking stations...so no go. So I go to YouTube now and watch C4D tutorials while cycling. Up until now, it was mostly X-Particles 4 and I would just marvel at how clearly and easily Bob Walmsley would walk us through some pretty complex advection tutorials. While in Malaysia, I used to think that it would be great to watch Hrvoje's tutorial while exercising. Well...now I can. Try it. Don't think that you can't learn unless you are following along within C4D while watching the tutorial. Just listen. Watch it more than once. Let it sink in. And if you happen to cycle 12 miles and burn 600 calories in the process --- all the better. Shower and then go home and try for it for yourself (showing is not required....but highly recommended). So thank you! Dave