Cinema 4D - The Industry Standard

[Anonymous]

Maxon has recently upgraded their flagship product, Cinema 4D to version 10. They have also released a plug-in for ArchiCAD 10. These programs make for a terrific pair, ease of use, mature feature sets, speed and wonderful workflow.

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.

---
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.


Links to more info:

Architectural Examples:
http://www.maxon.net/pages/dyn_files/dyn_htx/htx/sol_archi_e.html
ArchiCAD related links:
http://www.maxon.net/pages/solutions/archicad/archicad_e.html
Achievements:
http://www.maxon.net/pages/dyn_files/dyn_htx/htx/press_e.html

[Anonymous]

Can we get a demo version of the Exchange Plugin? I can't find it on the C4D website.

We're currently looking at rendering solutions that tie in nicely with AC and it'd be nice to try that plugin out.

Also, has anyone has seen any C4D AC documentation/tutorials ?

TIA

Adri

[Anonymous]

No, there isn't a demo available. However, I have found that if you download the update it will allow you to save out and import .ac4d files (ONE TIME) no update of geometry is possible. Consider it a demo version.

On this subject the export preferences in ArchiCAD cannot be permanently changed from the default value of 100, but if you go into the preferences of C4D and open the Import/Export -- you can set the import value there to .033 which will scale the ArchiCAD building to match C4D 1FT = 1FT. Set it once and forget about it, your scales will match from that point forward.

[Anonymous]

There is one CG effect that is hard to fake, it is grass. C4D version 10 offers a hair plug in that you can use for grass. It is very easy to learn and effective given enough time to fully develop the effect you are looking for. In this sample I spent 15 min. and came up with a quick example of what could be done. It isn't a perfect example, but hey! I am a rookie.

[Anonymous]

Roads are another trouble spot in architectural scenes. Creating a custom wall that looks like a road section with curbs - works for straight road sections as long as they don't intersect - see top half of this image.

For curved sections, the profiler works with splines of all types, again if you need an intersection you will need to build it with a slab shape and add the curb with a wall tool. All of thse solutions assume perfectly flat ground, once you enter terrain you need to start thinking about ArchiTerra, etc. However, I have found ArchiTerra to be both difficult and at times impossible.

I continue the search for the perfect solution.

[Anonymous]

Instanced objects came up in the discussion earlier. Here is what I found.

The instance is great because you can change the original and all of the copies will update ala MODULE concept. A scene with one trash enclosure took up 148 kb. The same scene with 1000 trash enclosures took up 180 kb.

If you don't instance the scene was 1000 x 148kb or 1.5 GB. Instance duplication saves on hard disk space.

However, it does not help the OpenGL or RAM, instanced geometry adds up the same within those two areas of active memory. Render speed is the same. So take the good with the stuff you can't change and you are still ahead of the game.

[Anonymous]

I am getting to really like the look of Non-Photo Realistic renders (NPR) C4D chugs these renderings out within 10 minutes. The Cell render engine is included in the Advanced Rendering module.


The rocks in the foreground were made with MacRock - export dxf to C4D
Settings used are -

Complexity [0-9].................: 2
Randseed [+ for random]..........: +
The seed I came up with was......: 1170175895
Smoothness [Higher = Smoother]...: 1
Scale Up [0-3]...................: 1
Decimal Digits[1-6]..............: 3
Name of Output File..............: rocks5.dxf
The rock I am thinking of has 320 triangles and around 200 points

http://www.laffeycomputer.com/macrock.html

The texures for the rocks are FREE from Got3d
and were applied in C4D.

http://free-textures.got3d.com/natural/free-rock-textures/index.html

[Anonymous]

adri wrote:
Also, has anyone has seen any C4D AC documentation/tutorials ?

TIA

Adri

Adri and anyone else who is looking to learn. Check out and register at: http://www.cineversity.com/

The free membership will afford you lots of helpful videos, and if you like what you see you can pay for the full membership which gives you access to all of the videos, example files, etc.

Many of the examples don't involve architecture, but concentrate on the features that will help you do better work.

[Anonymous]

A test of example file [Building WA] - available on the GraphiSoft website.
1 hr, 1080 on a Mac G5 1.8 Ghz

[Anonymous]

Understanding how to keep a Multi-Building project small and organized led me to the following conclusion:

a) Build each building in AC separate and build the site separate. This works to keep the model data small in AC and it is standard practice AFAIK.

b) If you need to assemble a site in AC, with the buildings dispersed among the site, for example multi-family housing, condos, etc. Beware that you will quickly exceed the limits of your OpenGL graphics card, ram, processor. AC does not handle overwhelming amounts of polygons very well. If you need to add entourage such as cars, trees, etc. Again look out because your screen regen performance will quickly slow down to a crawl.

c) Now that the model has grown, Cinema 4d becomes the first good alternative to AC. Upon exporting each building from AC, they come into Cinema 4D with their reference to the Project Origin as it was in AC. This is why it would be good practice to build each building at points distanced from the origin and from each other. Space them out according to a pre-planned grid, away from the origin and so that they don't overlap each other. Now, allow each building export from AC to import into C4D right where it will, at the points planned in the grid for the project. After importing, make an INSTANCED DUPLICATE of each building type -(complete container file). You can then move the instanced copy anywhere you want, (x,y,z). Populate the imported site, which should be built at the center of the origin in ArchiCAD. This will create a small model file in C4D, which will load, save and store using a small amount of space.

d) The advantage of this method is that once you make changes to the individual buildings in ArchiCAD, you can just re-export a new .ac4d file and update the original matching container file. Now all instances will update throughout the site. Instanced copies will decrease the model size in C4D. You can turn-off the display of the original buildings, which will be at points distanced from the origin. You will only navigate and render the original site and instanced buildings.

e) Add all entourage, cameras, lights and sky objects in C4D and place them outside of any container files. This way they will be unaffected by changes to the building model geometry.

p.s. - One caveat, instanced buildings will not save on RAM or rendering speed. As far as these two computer functions are concerned, they "see" all of the polygons - real or instanced - they think they are the same thing. The savings are on bandwidth, on and off the hard drive, across the network and with updating the geometry with the latest version of the building design.

[Anonymous]

The first step toward creating a successful animation of your building project will be preliminary test renders. They can be accomplished at various levels, box, wireframe, gouraud shading, solid shading, etc. The goal is to produce a solid version of the animated scene quickly so that you can test the speed, path and view of the animated camera.

Toward that goal Cinema 4D version 10 has a new feature that is a blockbuster in the animation field. Enhanced OpenGL.

For years myself and others at this thread have been asking GraphiSoft to integrate better OpenGL rendering in ArchiCAD. Those of you with newer Windows machines can take advantage of Cinema4D and it's support for this advanced feature today. Simply export your model to C4D and view it there in real time with shadows, lighting effects and testures. Unfortunately there is currently a hold-up within the Mac OS regarding this feature and hopefully is will soon be addressed by Apple, Inc.

To see what I am discussing, visit Cineversity - the free video should be accessible to anyone.

With this new feature you can produce test renders that simulate the final render at a much higher level of detail than Gouraud rendering, at a fraction of the time required by an actual rendering.

http://www.cineversity.com/tutorials/lesson.asp?tid=491