Publisher: MAXON
Website: www.maxon.net
Platform: PC, Mac
x32/x64: x64
Description: 3D scene creation for Greenscreen, animation, motion tracking
Purchase/Rent: Purchase
Pricing: (Studio Edition) New – $3695, Upgrade-$995 Non-studio editions are less
Download Demo: Click Here
Discount: Click Here
Expected Release: Available Now
Review Issue: #116 (11/15)
Reviewed By: Mark Bremmer
Final Score: 9.5 (out of 10)
This latest release continues to build upon a software that is equally at home in the small studio, large studio or pro TV or Cinematic engagement. This update is more of wide ranging, incremental improvement to what C4D does well vs. a bunch of new features.
The whole C4D Studio abilities are quite vast so I’ll be concentrating only on the new additions in this review. (You can read my review of the previous version, r16, here.)
Ease of Use
The new Take System let’s users easily control variations, such as swapping out scene elements, within a scene and rendering those variations individually for compositing later is a nice commonsense addition. You could do this with earlier versions, but now there is a dedicated tool, eliminating the need for extra work.
The new color chooser sports a more comprehensive eyedropper to sample from images plus a variety of color harmony options that automatically update depending on your selections.
For the character animators or special effects transition fans, the model sculpting tools now have edge detection, preventing misshaping edges while sculpting. Also, there is a pose morph ability that lets users sculpt changes to an object but save the changes as an animatable and blend-able control slider.
One of the new tools, or toys, is the bookshelf designer which takes the drudgery out of virtual room design. Books are added, scaled, leaned and textured by simply dragging sliders and dropping gestures.
Adding to the ease of scene building, the book shelf designer lets users slide around controls to add books, variations in scale and messiness. There are other animatable content additions to the library worth having. This is on top of the fantastic auto-scene building tools that arrived in r16 featuring staircases, windows and room building.
Spline paths have received an update which brings the most commonly used drawing functions from Adobe Illustrator plus other nuances into C4D, preventing round-tripping.
A hugely welcome addition is the ability to randomly change the tint of color on objects. You’ve always been able to randomly assign different shaders but with the tinting tool, on can have one shader and many variations.
Depth of Options
C4D has a nice legacy of ‘appropriate’ options. In the new motion tracking additions, users get a nice selection of appropriate visualization tools to easily review, hide tracks and hunt for bad tracks – very welcome when there can be hundreds of tracks.
New file import options mean the massive library of free SketchUp models can be directly imported into C4D. Users can recreate cities with very little effort plus anything else that they may need. This may be worth the price of admission right here.
The improved lens correction tools lets filmmakers save lens corrections with significant distortion such as ultra wide lenses. Users identify curved shapes that should be straight by drawing paths on them, then the program does its magic. Corrected still backdrops lets virtual cameras move within the C4D scene along with CG content.
For those that like a little applied math, the C4D r17 Formula function allows for direct mathematical formula creation which can then be used to drive color, patterns or MoGraph replications.
For the mathematically fluent, Formula Shaders let users write expressions for both cosmetic shaders and Mograph animation or particle control.
Essentially, in the more complex abilities of C4D, the depth of options rapidly expands into, “How deep do you want to go?”
Performance
MAXON has improved the performance of C4D by further enabling 3rd party integration. C4D now includes Houdini Engine Integration into it’s work flow. This adds yet another layer of ability that let’s filmmakers really maximize investments in other CG software and C4D.
Back in it’s heyday, before corporate mergers and meddling, Lightwave was a destination program because it became a hub for fantastic multi-feature ability. This is what is happening to C4D now and should be considered a big performance gain. The large availability of different softwares and abilities via plugins means users can stay in the C4D environment while creating. Combine that with the tight integration into the Adobe AE/Premier ecosystem and C4D has significant mojo. C4D is mature enough to have a plugin for almost anything.
Value
The whole Cinema C4D Studio r17 investment rewards owners with pro features, stability plus outstanding integration and output. But, that comes at a pro level price, too. If you don’t need everything that the Studio version does, there are other reduced-feature options within the MAXON Cinema ecosystem worth checking out.
Support (free and pay) and training available from MAXON, for an additional fee although some is also free, also means users aren’t abandoned after purchase.
The definition of Synergy is when the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. C4D Studio r17 has helped take this software past that tipping point, into the the world of true Synergy.
The new r17 color picker provides some work-flow accelerating functions such as eyedropper sampling from on-screen imagery and automatically generated color palettes that can be complimentary or similar based upon the eye dropper samples. These can be saved, too.
Final Comments
Because of the price-point and abilities, the use of C4D is a business decision. If your film only needs a little CG, there are other options out there to choose from that cost less. A light version of C4D is even bundled with After Effects. But if your production needs predictable, repeatable CG with as few headaches as possible, you won’t regret investing in C4D – just like a premium camera.
|
Breakdown
|
|
|
Ease of Use
|
9.0 |
|
Depth of Options
|
9.5 |
|
Performance
|
9.5 |
|
Value vs. Cost
|
10.0 |
|
Overall Score |
9.5 |
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.