Posted by Mark Bremmer on Apr 15, 2012 | 1 comment

Publisher: Maxon
Platforms: PC & Mac
Description: Professional 3D content creation
MSRP: $3,695 (new); $995 (upgrade)
Expected Release: Available Now
Official Website: http://www.maxon.net
Samples: Click Here
Demo: Click Here
Special Discount: N/A
Critique Issue: Issue #73 (01/12)
Critiqued By: Mark Bremmer
Final Score: 9.9

MAXON has again taken the simple and made it more simple still. While CINEMA 4D (C4D) studio is robust and flexible enough for Hollywood and Television, the program is very easy to use – in spite of it’s capabilities. (**Disclaimer: There is not a CG software on the planet worthy of film that is easy to use like a word processing program is easy to use. There is a learning curve. But C4D is one the few software packages available that makes it as painless as possible for newbies and experienced CG pros alike to jump in and create satisfactory results.)

For starters, the C4D documentation is accessible from the program, complete in both text imagery and is also conversational to read. Nothing is more painful that reading how-to’s written by math nerds that make the programs run. MAXON doesn’t make that mistake and goes the extra mile in fully informing its users, who are, by and large, artists. Additionally, the company has its “Cineversity”, a training and education website, offering full of video tutorials so you can see things being done instead of simply reading about them. There is a collection of free and pay-for tuts that will shave hours off of learning the program or the upgrade features of the program.

But enough about documentation. The interface improvements are an exercise in continued refinement. While users can completely, and I mean completely, adjust the interface to their own wishes, MAXON has enhanced the ability of the interface to also include both vertical and horizontal tabs. This may seem like a rather pedestrian improvement but the ability to have “windows” in your interface that can be travelled through horizontally as well as vertically is a huge improvement. That simple addition brings the most complex abilities of the program into an easy-to-navigate format that the user can further tune-up to match their own needs.

Depth of Options

So what are the new “Whizmos” in this update? Well, simply put, they are to-die-for.

Physical Renderer

MAXON has again improved what is possible to squeeze out of the program when it comes to photo-real results. As filmmakers, we are usually striving for honest reality in our imagery. With notable exceptions, most of us are not making the next animated blockbuster. So, when we want to add Computer Graphics to our content, we want it to blend in and enhance the story. The Physical Renderer makes that possible. While C4D has always sported an admirable render engine, the Physical Render ability mimics real lens behaviors, depth of field, motion blurs and ambient lighting effects in ways that make the results indistinguishable from reality.

For green-screen additions and the occasional synthetic scene elements you might want in your scene, this ability is a God-send. The rendered results do not have to be ‘fixed’ in AE or fussed over in post production. You can simply use what C4D pops out and that is fantastic.

Particularly, the lens effects are super. In addition to depth of field and motion blur enhancements, the new ability to control Bokeh lens artifacts, Blades, Diaphragm Shapes, flares, ISO settings and Anisotropy is amazing. If you know your camera and it’s lenses, these should not be new terms to learn. However, if you are new to the world of camera lenses, I can sum it up by saying that the C4D output can match any result that you’d get from a real, live camera. Nice. (Just remember to write down all the settings on your camera when you film the different live compoents so you can plug those in when you’re in C4D.)

Improvements also include a much enhanced ability for materials to exhibit Subsurface Scattering in a way that affirms their ‘reality’ in your movie. Subsurface Scattering (SSS) is how light diffuses and passes through objects like marble, skin, milk and plastic. Your rendered results will look accurate.

Stereoscopic Render Settings

In case you’re wanting to jump on the bandwagon of 3D, because Hollywood shouldn’t own a monopoly on this particular brand of unsettling and headache inducing visual media, C4D can do that now. (No bash on how CINEMA 4D does this, only a bash on the technology behind modern 3D, which the human brain doesn’t particularly like over extended use.) Like all 3D film offerings, glasses must be worn. (In this case, red/blue glasses and not the Real 3D polarized glasses.) C4D provides a very nice tool set to render scenes that comply to the 3D space and output requirements of this medium. Very easy to use, if you’re interested.

Collision Deformers

Because the world of digital 3D is all fake and uses trickery to accomplish it’s goals, getting objects to recognize and respond to each other believably has always been an issue. The previous version of C4D introduced the Bullet Physics engine to calculate physical interactions with both rigid and soft-body dynamics in an amazing and very fast way. C4D r13 introduces the Collision Deformer which allow for per-item interactions that remain over time. What’s the difference between the two? The Bullet Physics create falling objects that bounce or stretch believably. The collision deformer deforms objects based on its collision with another object. This can be used to have one object get squished as another one collides with it, or yes, footprints in the snow, but it can also be used to create the look of someone trying to poke their finger through a balloon or recreate that Han Solo Frozen Carbonite look. This is a rather gross oversimplification, but, suffice to say, reality just got easier to create.

Rigging

Do you want real-fake characters? The need to have joints that move and muscles that flex is a must. While this need is not the typical bailiwick of microfilmmakers, MAXON has made this much, much easier to do. In the realms of Hollywood and TV studios, turning CG models into animatable and believable things is a specialty – and, with good cause, because it’s complex. However, C4D’s improved rigging capabilities and stock skeletons available to users as a starting point make investigating this for your story telling on a low budget at least plausible. I’m not saying that doing this is a snap, but MAXON does make it easier. And, if your story telling and cinematic style will make use of actual 3D characters, then this is very much worthwhile for the non-specialist to investigate.

Options Improved

By my count, there are well over one hundred improvements and enhancements. Some of these are invisible to the CG creation experience and simply make your work easier, faster and more visual. Others are specific to abilities like the texturing tool included with C4D called BodyPaint 3D. All in all, MAXON keeps doing what they do best, introducing new abilities that are extremely stable and improving the user experience. It’s these types of things that will help you have enough time in your day to return home and visit your loved ones at the end of the day.

Performance

Digital realities take computer processing power. This is another area where C4D shines. On a multi processor system, C4D works very fast. The new Physical Render engine has thrown some users for a loop, though, because it appears as if there is a drop in efficiency. This is not true in my testing. What has lead to this misperception is that when the C4D calculates all of the light needs of your scene if you are using Global Illumination, you will see as many squares/render-buckets on your screen as you have processors. However, when the Physical Renderer begins, suddenly there are only 2 render buckets showing. C4D is still using all of the computer processing abilities but simply concentrating them in two buckets. I can’t answer the why’s of this implementation, but in my render tests as well as the independent tests of other C4D users I correspond with, in many cases, the Physical Renderer is faster that the standard one, even though the displayed render buckets would make you think otherwise.

Also important to filmmakers are render farms. While we would all love to have our own constellation of dedicated computers to render our animated scenes, money always seems to be an issue that puts the kaibosh on that idea. Maxon C4D has had the ability for some time to “farm out” renders to multiple computers so users can engage extra computers they may have in the studio on single renders with Maxon’s command line NET Render ability. But, the nice thing is that C4D has tremendous penetration in the TV and movie markets and guess what, many of those creative entities also don’t have the budget for personally creating a ‘render farm’ either. This has allowed third party businesses to create secure, NDA compliant render farms for the common man. Some of these businesses even have created plug-ins for C4D allowing you to load your scene directly to their system, render the results, and then download the final sequenced images for your production needs. All for very, very reasonable fees. It’s nice to have 400 machines at your beck and call.

Value

In this review, I’ve covered the full, Studio edition of C4D. It is robust and it is probably at the top end of what you might consider spending on a CG solution as a microfilmmaker. There are other solutions that cost less, but there are several that cost significantly more, too. With that said, if you are simply after realistic lighting and could care less about character animation, the C4D Broadcast or Visualize editions may be more suited to your needs and budget.

But in spite of other options out there, especially the less expensive or even free, like Blender, you will be very hard pressed to find a CG solution that is as robust, easy to use, and enjoyable to ‘play’ with as C4D. If you determine that you need what C4D offers, you will never regret getting it for your productions. As Billy Shakespeare said via Polonius in Hamlet, “To thine own self be true.”

Final Comments

I use C4D both professionally for TV and as an enthusiast in my off hours. There is not a perfect software that will do everything you want or need. There is software that does better environments and there is software that has better modeling abilities.

But C4D has come as close to complete as I’ve experienced. It is astonishingly easy to use, given the power of its ability. Yet, if inclined, users can engage some of C4D’s abilities and create very custom and technical enhancements of their own, just like some of the really, really spendy software solutions available. But unlike some of the most expensive CG solutions out there, C4D is at a price point that has allowed very wide adoption, which has resulted in a very helpful and adept user community.

That means that there are software user groups, plug-ins at reasonable prices, and tutorials available on a scale that some of the other CG software companies don’t even come close to. There are some things that C4D doesn’t natively do that I wish it would, like solve for fluids. But the thing is, if there is a need in my studio for that, other resourceful developers have already created links to their software for C4D to use.

Bottom line: C4D is actually fun to use because it’s very capable, stable, and comparatively easy to work with. Not all of my CG software is. And since I spend most of my day elbow deep in CG technology, that’s worth something.

Mark Bremmer

Mark Bremmer has operated his own commercial studio for over 18 years. He’s been fortunate enough to work for clients like Caterpillar, Colgate, Amana, Hormel Foods, Universal Studios Florida, and The History Channel producing stills, digital mattes and animations. Mark contracts regularly as an art mercenary with production houses that shall remain nameless by written agreements. If you've seen shows like The Voice, The Grammy or the ESPY Awards, then you've also seen some of Mark's day-job work.