Sounds great but how easy is easy?
When I had a chance to speak during SIGGRAPH 2008 with Sony Imagworks’ lead digital matte painter, Steve Matson (his team was responsible for the huge vistas, massive castles and deep canyons in Beowulf), he indicated that C4D’s Projection Man was so easy to use he was comfortable handing off scene building 3D production work to Photoshop texture guys with limited 3D experience, letting them build and texture these large detailed scenes. When they were done, his crew simply “touched up” the 3D scene when they were done. Wow.
Caveat: 3D can be made “easier” but it is never "fall-down" easy. Actual learning is involved. For both new or experienced users transitioning into C4D, Maxon also has an excellent learning option called the Cineversity. It’s largely made up of online video tutorials that are paid for by a subscription service that covers a massive array of needs for all of the constituent modules that make up C4D Studio. For us visual types, this is well worth the subscription fee. (Plus, if money is tight after buying C4D R11, there're currently over 200 free courses at Cineversity to get you started!)
Like other CG packages in the same market, C4D uses a “Tag” method of connecting behaviors and functions. It’s smart, fast and visual.
Modeling is very straight forward and easy to do, as is animation. Specialty animation with the modules of Thinking Particles and MoGraph do require familiarization, but are a snap to pick up.
Texturing is robust. However, I really wish (not to offend the C4D faithful) that some of the names for Shader schemes created by a legacy company (such as “bhodiNUT”) would be renamed. You’ll probably bristle at this if you’ve come to learn the secret language of the shader types like Cheen, Danel, Banzi and Banji but this naming convention flies in the face of the other common sense aspects of C4D. While well documented so it can be learned, reclassifying Banzi to “Wood Shaders” etc. just seems like a smart thing to do.
Let’s get this out of the way up front for you tech types. C4D R11 now supports 64-bit systems on both Mac and PC platforms. If you don’t know what that means. Don’t worry. If you do and you work with massive data sets, I’m sure you’re smiling right now. In a nut shell, C4D can access all the memory capabilities of the most modern computer systems while not giving up anything on “legacy” systems. This doesn't necessarily mean that things will be faster for most artists, but you'll have the ability to handle more information and RAM. That also means very robust “option” sets.
In CG, options equals power. C4D, like its other cinematic brethren, does provide very specific numeric control over any and everything. You can get to that level of specificity if you want to, it’s just not the first and only option you are presented with. (Just because pure numeric control is the standard for some other CG software, that doesn’t necessarily make it a good standard)
Non-linear Animation (animation layers)
Let’s take a look at the new features/options of C4D R11. For starters, the non-linear animation is a major time saver. Since most, if not all, of MFM readers are accustomed to working with video/film editing applications, the idea of layers and nested layers in nothing new. C4D animation layers allow you to build complex movement from individual layers, in a non-destructive workflow, which means no lost time in production. In addition to the layer functionality, you can create motion clips which function like a collapsed, key framed layer--letting you drag the animation around your time line with impunity. Drag it, trim it, combine it with others, layer it, and loop it. Fine tuning motion has never been so easy. I personally use multiple CG packages and C4D has the non-linear animation needs nailed. The best part is the plethora of little nuances in the interface that simply make your life easier by preventing unnecessary clicking.
In addition to non-linear animation, there are Motion Layers and Motion Clips. Like Animation Layers, Motion layers allow for non-destructive editing. The Motion Clips themselves contain no animation data but “subscribe” to an animation clip. This is useful because you can have a single animation clip but reuse that animation data several times by invoking the Motion Clips and subscribing to the animation. Change one animation file and all of the motion clips update automatically.
As a microfilmmaker, you may not have your sights set on an animated feature where capabilities like this really earn their keep. However, you could be surprised where it comes in handy for things like camera animation through a static scene.
