Example of Collada imported model.
C4D now supports Collada which is extremely good news. Collada is a modern import export format now used by many top 3D applications. Photoshop CS3 can open 3D models in the Collada format. It´s an open source file I gather so this means it won´t be hijacked by a big 3D company with the rights to it and changed around so only their software supports it properly. Like other formats it supports geometry but goes further by supporting animation, lights, cameras, shaders and physics. Collada format files end with the extension dae. Below is a model originally modelled with Sketchup and exported in Collada format.
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Example of Collada imported model. |
CINEMA 4D will now check for updates automatically if you have it enabled in the preferences. It does this when you first start C4D or you can manually check for updates. Hopefully this will mean that updates are more frequent and users won´t have to put up with annoying bugs for quite so long as they have done in the past. Also what´s very good is the update file sizes should be smaller than previously the case in earlier versions of C4D.
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Updater dialog box |
As we have been writing this review MAXON has released 2 Service Updates here for Release 11 so far which is very encouraging. Let´s hope they clean up some of the remaining bugs in the not too distant future.
Ghosting which is sometimes referred to as Onion-Skinning has been introduced in Release 11. This mode can give the impression of movement in a previous and a following frame while animating. It´s very simple to activate through the Display Tag 
where you will find a dialog box that includes draw modes, frame ranges and custom colors for ghosting. This is a handy animation aid that will display frames before and after a model moving in your scene. This can be a good tool for analyzing movement through a series of frames in your animation. The frames before and after the movement are called "ghosts". You can set the color of each so that you can differentiate between the two. As the ghosts get further away from the main model, their transparency decreases by step until it reaches a value of zero. Animators will find that this is a good aid in judging their timing.
Animation Playback of Ghosting
You will always assign the display tag to the model containing the geometry in your animation with one exception...when you are using bones, the display tag will be assigned to the bones themselves. Below is the Ghosting settings in the Attributes Manager.
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Display Tag - Ghosting Options |
The cache calculation must be used and performed in advance when you are in the object mode. You´ll also find that hyperNURBS should really be disabled temporarily otherwise the rate of display will be too slow for the ghosting. You can choose between display modes as follows:
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Ghosting applied to an animated character |
Other settings available are:
The Material Editor and Material Attributes panels have both had a bit of useful re-working to improve workflow.
Material Channels now have an option to expand the Texture sub-channels to reveal all available parameters in the same panel. For example: In the Bump Channel you would normally select a Noise Shader from the Texture button drop-down menu, click on the Noise name bar, switch to a new panel which had sub-tab options for the Basic Settings or the Noise Shader parameters.
Beside the original Texture button there is now a small triangle which unfolds all the parameters into a single window. Shift click to multi-select the Basic and Shader tabs and now everthing is available for adjustment. Normally the Basic tab would only need to be open for changing the Name and setting the Layer Options. Folding the Noise Shader Preview saves a bit of space. This is not a problem as the main channel preview is still available.
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Material Manager enhancements |
Material preview options |
Multiple Attributes Managers can be opened with different Channels active. This is handy for quickly drag-dropping parameters such as colour or textures between the different channels and saves switching back and forward with Copy & Paste actions.
The Material Previews now have the options of Soft Shadows and GI. These give more realistic previews of the Materials under the different lighting types. The Preview Object(Anim) has an additional feature where it will rotate in the Editor and Attribute preview displays. This is useful when using thickness dependent shaders such as Transparency with Fresnel.
Tip: Disable the Animate option before making adjustments to any of the material parameters. The animation calculates multiple frames to create the animation. If you are using complex channels with Transparency, Displacement, Fresnel etc. then it can appear that things have locked up. The render has actually reset to calculate from frame 1 and the more complex the material then the longer the calculation time. Sometimes it is better to just manually rotate the object by Control + dragging on the preview icon. This only needs a single frame re-calculation. Render calculation is indicated by a red border around the icon. Below are some examples of the material previews.
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Object GI and Object (Soft Shadow) |
Animated Preview Object |
Animated Texture |
Enhanced OpenGL Editor Display options are now available under a new tab in the Attributes Manager as shown in the image below.
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Enhanced OpenGL Editor Display options now available within the Material Manager |
Another welcome addition to the Interface by the MAXON Team.
A couple of minor enhancements for the TP module. The TP Settings dialog box has been reworked. The settings for particle groups are now visible on the same dialog as the main settings window. This means that you can select multiple particle groups and edit them all together. Previously you had to right click on each particle group to access its settings. The colour of the particles is also now shown beside the name of the particle group.
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Reworked TP Settings Dialog Box |
C4D now works a lot better with Vista. The problem of the Live Selection circe lagging behind when selecting has been fixed plus the selection circle is now nicely anti-aliased. However things are still not 100% or they aren´t for this reviewer running Vista 32 bit. Sometimes the viewport won´t update in real time as you rotate or change the view. Only once you have finished the view transform will that section of the viewport update. You either have to change the view or save your scene to refresh things and get things working properly again or as a drastic step you can run CINEMA 4D in software display mode.
MAXON has also reworked where user preferences are stored on both Vista and Macs. On a Vista PC this is actually a hidden directory but you can get access to it via the preferences. It is in here that Content Browser Libraries, User Prefs, Layouts etc are stored.
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Preferences have been moved |
Something else worth noting is that default Content Browser libraries can´t be modified as was previously the case. This prevents accidental deletion or messing them up.
Finally a 64 bit version for the Mac is now available. Windows users have had 64 bit support for a while now. The main advantage of a 64 bit Operating System is the ability to use more memory which equals bigger and or more complex scenes. Rendering on 64 bit systems should be quicker as well as the data path is 64 bits wide rather than sending data down a 32 bit pipe.
Also at long last, CINEMA 4D now has the ability to incorporate sound in rendered videos. Unfortunately there are no options in the render settings for sound settings so it´s impossible to change audio codecs etc. Sound from MoGraph sound effectors still can´t be rendered out with an animation. Something that we would like to see. There is now an option to display audio wavefiles in the Poweslider. The idea being that it makes it easier to create a soundtrack synchronous to the animation without having to use the Timeline. I found this didn´t work that well because if the .wav or .au audio file was recorded at anything other than high levels then the soundwave was hard to see. Here´s an example with a .wav file recorded at high levels.
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Soundwave in Power Slider |
The Vibrate expression tag has been enhanced. A new Relative option allows the object to be positioned anywhere without the need of using a parent null.
A new Pixel Shader pixelates a 2D image. The image below is a digital photograph applied to a plane object. You can control the number of tiles in both the V (vertical) and U (horizontal) axes. Each square is a constant colour. I assume the colour is the average colour of all of the pixels that it is derived from.
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Pixel Shader |
That´s the major miscellaneous enhancements. As usual there are many small enhancements and tweaks. Too many to cover in a review.