Product Review: MAXON Cinema 4D R9 - High Quality 3D Animation for the Layperson

chillibreeze writer — Moa Longkumer

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If you’d been keeping track of the meanderings of the 3D industry, you’d obviously have noticed by now, that the quality of 3D media is directly proportional to how much money you’re prepared to part with. By 3D media, I mean the end result of your hard work, in terms of imagery and video…occasionally games and perhaps, audio. Without argument, the yard sticks in the 3D community are Discreet’s 3ds MAX © series and Alias Wave Front’s MAYA©. Any new 3D product that surfaces, will have to face the prospect of an uphill knee-dance, against the industrial standards set by 3dsMAX and MAYA. There has been in, recent years, a deluge of ‘easy/affordable’ 3D applications flooding the market, and without doubt, some have proved to be pretty decent packages. Titles like Lightwave, 3DStudio, Rhinoceros, Softimage and Caligari True-Space for instance, have quite a formidable following against which, I dare not argue. Most, however, are not worth the trouble of even trying.

My eyes are on a new contender in 3D media

One recent entry into the ring is a somewhat obscure company called MAXON, a concern founded by three German students in 1985. It made its maiden foray into the 3D market in 1991 with CINEMA 4D© Version 1- an integrated 3D modeling, animating and rendering application. A Windows and Mac version was released in 1996 and it rapidly earned critical acclaim. 1998 saw MAXON set up its US office and likewise its exposure to a sizable and receptive market. Its success on both sides of the Atlantic and beyond, provided the impetus for newer and better versions of CINEMA 4D. The latest release, CINEMA 4D R9 puts its capabilities in league with and in some aspects, above 3dsMAX and MAYA.

Cinema 4D is a hot application for the layman

What makes Cinema 4D a serious contender for place among the top 3D applications? To be honest and fair, 3dsMAX and MAYA are terrific applications - I won’t contest that and this is not an attempt to pry you off MAX or MAYA if you’re already a user and you’re comfortable using either. I’d regard this as somewhat an exposition of an alternate that has huge potential. Cinema 4D is ideal for those being initiated into the 3D community, intermediate and up to a good extent, the advanced user. To start with, most entry level, individual artists would find the pricing of MAX or MAYA daunting. Add to that, the fairly expensive plugins that are required to extract the full potential of the applications, they are more often than not, way beyond the reach of most freelancing artists. Cinema 4D is, by no means ‘dirt cheap’, but what we get for almost two-fifths of the cost of the industrial leaders is heartwarming. In its latest incarnation (R9), Maxon has brought up Cinema 4D to doing serious business. Credible reviews have put it a notch above the MAX and MAYA in many aspects.

Cinema 4D and its ease of use

One quality that has persistently kept Cinema 4D close to the hearts of many a beginner is its exceptionaly comfortable learning curve. The interface is very user-friendly and intuitive. Everything seems to have been carefully placed in the right place and you can customize the menu to your preference. If you, as a beginner, have tried to make sense of the intimidating MAX interface at a glance, or Caligari True Space’s totally icon based interface, you’ll be able to relate to what I’m saying. Its not that MAX is bad: It’s just that you’ve got to learn and understand quite a bit to get around to being at ease with it. (I learned the basics of Cinema 4D in one lazy afternoon!) The bottom line is, you’ll be up and running at your creative best in a whole lot lesser time. Cinema 4D has, in my modest opinion, one of the best workflow of any notable 3D application. The hierarchal layout is second to none. One feature that will make things easy for non technical users, (I appreciate this feature) is its simple drag and drop method of functioning… its hard to go wrong. Of course, that is not to say that Cinema 4D is for kids, and you do run into quite a few ‘technical’ dialogs along the way, but again most are easy to grasp with a little experimentation. If not, the manuals are crisp and explain things vividly. The tutorials take you step by step through basic modeling, texturing, NURBS, HyperNURBS, rendering etc. They are a very quick and easy way to learn the ins and outs of Cinema 4D. The material manager is a breeze to work with since all its parameters can be worked on in one single pane, and then simply dragged and dropped to the object. In it self the material/texture manager is a very powerful tool if you get to know its various and esoteric functions. Release 9 also gives you the ability to directly paint onto a 3D object- what greater control do you need?

Earlier versions of Cinema 4D had their drawbacks, particularly with a somewhat poor score on modeling tools. The common practice was to model in an easier application then import to C4D. Softimage and Maya do have very ‘model-friendly’ controls and it’s only with R9 that Cinema 4D has caught up, perhaps even surpassed them. Following a massive overhaul, the incredibly powerful N-Gons is now supported, making modeling enjoyable without having to worry about Poly count. Another added refinement is the Brush tool. Somewhat similar in function to MAYA’s new Soft Modification tool, this intuitive tool allows you to ‘Paint’ contours on your object! You can push; pull, twist, and smear points or polygons with a soft and gradual edge… its fun and takes the hard work out of modeling. Maxon’s proprietary HyperNURBS remains strong as ever, and is my preferred method of modeling.

Cinema 4D’s character animation use to be ranked significantly below that of MAYA and MAX and with good reason. R9 has made significant improvements in this department too with the MOCCA module. This enables you to create complex animation sequences with relatively low investment of labor and still produce fluid and realistic motion. Motion Blender is one of the tools in this module that simplifies the business of animation. The module also includes Clothilde, which is C4D’s clothing solution. Its an immensely powerful cloth engine and its easy to grasp, parameters interface allows you simulate awesomely realistic physics on clothing. Clothilde’s sub-module, Dress-O-matic makes the business of modeling clothing, a laugh. All you need to do is model a general shape of the clothing item using primitive points and polygons…. Dress-O-matic does the rest, and contours the clothing over the body! Now, how about that?

It goes without saying that C4D has always held a reputation for the most stable and fast renders in ‘out of the box’ condition. The renders are deep, vibrant and beautiful.

Maxon’s customer first philosophy

With over a hundred new features and enhancements, Maxon has come out with a very robust and competitive package. It is beyond the scope of this brief article to describe all the new goodies and most are best described not in words, but in actual usage. Maxon’s ‘customer first’ philosophy means you’re not left with having to purchase a ‘full’ featured package when you might not need significant portions of it. R9 is thus, available in a number of options:

• R9 - The core application with all the basic tools needed for modeling, texturing, lighting, and animation. Mind you, ‘basic’ does not mean you have a sack of lackluster tools… don’t be misled- basic tools by themselves will give its competitors a run for their money. As you advance in your learning and skill and your association with 3D becomes more than a hobby, you may find the need for more specialized tools and this is where the additional modules come in. You can at any time, simply buy modules as you find the need, so you only pay for what you use. There are a total of eight modules that you can buy individually.
• XL - This package is next on the price scale, and is suited for more professional usage. The XL package bundles an appropriate set of modules that include MOCCA 2, Advanced Render 2, Thinking Particles etc and includes Net Render with three client licenses.
• Cinema 4D Studio Bundle – This is the top of the line Cinema4D package and incorporates all the bells and whistles. Though this package costs quite a load (Approximating MAYA and MAX), any one thinking of it as a 3D solution, obviously means business. The Studio bundle is suited for the large 3D production line and is actually a wise investment on the long run because of the time and effort saved in implementing and even training. You can of course, go hog – wild and purchase this package if you can afford it! Its Net Render comes with unlimited client licenses.

Maxon has come a long way since its inception, and all along, it has persistently held on to its principle of user friendliness and affordability. It hasn’t let down the layman. If all this appears to be a blatant advertisement for Maxon or an attempt to debase excellent applications like MAYA or MAX and many others, it’s not my intention to do so. Consider it (as I mentioned earlier), an exposition of an alternate. You make the choice.

Cinema 4D R9 is now indeed among the titans.

Here's a comparison chart of pricing for Cinema 4D against 3dsMAX and MAYA (Note: all are approximate current versions and the prices are also approximate as of Nov-Dec 2004)

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—About our writer: Moa Longkumer says, "Byline? what Byline?" Moa is the born loser who, every once in a while, gets to tinker with new software and write reviews, if and when he's not feeling too lazy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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