Cinema 4D - The Industry Standard
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2007-01-06
05:42 PM
- last edited on
2023-05-11
12:28 PM
by
Noemi Balogh
For several months I have been putting other software packages through my personal learning curve and user testing. I work with the software and post my experiences in threads like this at the Talk.
I enjoy the fact that so many views happen within the threads. Better yet, I enjoy when others kick in their experiences with the subject software. No need to butt in with examples from other software programs, it is more interesting to just fully explore a single package - which in this thread is Cinema 4D. There are many existing architectural users of this fine piece of software and I call upon them to post recent examples of (WIP) work in progress and final renders. Not everything is perfect and there are currently a few kinks in the plug-in, but I will get into explaining that later.
If this is your first introduction to C4D, trust me it won't be your last. Nemechek is the parent company of Maxon and the C4D suite. News is that Nemecheck is or will soon own GraphiSoft and ArchiCAD. Just put two and two together.
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I'll start the thread with a quick example scene I assembled with bits and parts laying around on my hard drive. Tree entourage by xFrog, a snowy hillside from an example file on the internet, sky effect built into C4D, building from an ArchiCAD training file I use at the aBPa office in San Diego. All of this thrown together within 30 minutes, the render took 2 hrs. on a G5 dual 2GHz.
Cinema is the king when it comes to import/export. If you can get your entourage into practically any export format, chances are C4D will be able to import it. This is an extremely important factor to creativity. Now that I have gotten past my need to throw together something in C4D v10. It it time to slow down and create some examples of workflow issues, speed tests realistic rendering techniques. Once again I ask for help from other C4D users who can post examples, please jump right in - the water is fine and with a little MAXON soap you get a squeaky clean render.
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Links to more info:
Architectural Examples:
ArchiCAD related links:
Achievements:
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2007-01-08 07:48 AM
This area of the Sky Shader Object allows you to set the place, time and weather. On the image below I tried out Midday, gloomy, foreboding and clearing. The non-GI images render in just below 2 minutes at 1280x720. This tool makes it easy to set up a time lapse animation showing the sun effects, etc. Now if it would only remind me of my anniversary, it would be perfect.
This tool will remain the center of activity for a while. Lots to explore here.
Animations involving the background are picture perfect because the sky is made of real volumetric clouds. It is a snap to create and as variable as you desire. It included a Hard Shadow (fast render) - Area Light Shadow (slower) and no shadows (zippy fast).
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2007-01-12 09:45 PM
It was exported to C4D using the downloaded plug-in, which by the way works without purchasing the Exchange Plug-in - You just cannot update the export later.
The subject matter of this test was ArchiCAD based lighting. The upstairs room was outfitted with recessed lighting in ArchiCAD and a floor lamp was placed on the second floor. As a comparison, flat slab panels were placed on the first floor ceiling with the Maxwell Emitter material.
This first image shows exactly what you end up with after a simple export from ArchiCAD to C4D. The light sources show up in the editor of C4D.
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2007-01-12 09:48 PM
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2007-01-12 09:51 PM
2: Turn on Shadow
3: Reduce brightness to 20% down from 100%.
You end up with a better image. Screen shot shown midway between radiosity solution and openGL screen.
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2007-01-12 09:55 PM
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2007-01-12 09:59 PM
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2007-01-12 10:09 PM
If C4D would allow for adjusting the lights after the rendering is finished, it would be perfect. The downside with C4D is that if your rendering is poorly exposed you need to rendering it again.
To address this problem I will next explore, MultiPass in Cinema4D version 10 which now includes Multi-Lights.
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2007-01-12 10:27 PM
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2007-01-12 11:03 PM
Let's see, so far C4D has terrific file handling capabilities from ArchiCAD, entourage available all over the internet - drag and drop into scenes, the scene editor is among the best in the industry, the rendering of Global Illumination scenes is much faster than before, and Multi-Pass allows for post rendering corrections in order to save the over/under exposed renderings.
So far C4D is doing an excellent job.