Cinema 4d R12 v Artlantis

[Gus Laurie]

I am currently evaluating demo's of these 2 programs for the creation of fly through movies.

I do like the extra functionality of C4d but am very concerned at its speed and capability with large scenes. After converting my Ac file (tavern redevelopment with trees etc on 5000m2 site), the sizes are 103mb and 87mb respectively for the 2 file types.

The vegetation objects I know are bumping up the file size with all the extra polygons, but even so Artlantis with the smaller converted file size is handling it with so much more ease.

In C4d the perspective view (texture's off and constant shading enabled)scene sticks, goes to wire frame and just really does not want to move any where quickly. In contrast, Artlantis spins around the site perfectly and then illuminates everything with brilliant radiosity in seconds after stopping.

Ultimately its the final rendered movie that is important so hopefully C4d rendering ability is not comensurate to its screen view mode??

Can Cinema 4d cope with large models? I hope it can because I do appreciate its extra capability generally. Any advice greatly appreciated.

[Anonymous]

I've been using C4D since early this year and I have had great success with it. I am quite surprised at the performance issues you describe. I'm working on a nearly 4 year old mac pro with a X1900 graphics card
I'm not familiar with pc cards so I can't say if that is your issue but clearly your hardware is happier with artlantis.
I can say a few things ...

preview window:

• yes C4D can handle large models
  I use 'gouraud' shading set to a high level of detail and no problems
  I use the interactive render region tool A LOT (you can adjust the quality of this interactive render as well - to speed it up)

final renders:

• the quality that you can get out Advanced Render is truly fantastic (with the right settings and render time of course)
  you can do vray as well

I also had a look at artlantis when I was considering a rendering solution but I chose C4D because it is in another league as an all-round package, and has more options to tweak and extend to produce better results. Also the sketch rendering is probably the best in the industry.
Artlantis has great appeal because it is optimised for architects.
However I would say that C4D is very easy to pick up. Just ignore what you don't need to use.
Have a look at this Lynda coruse - I signed up for one month to do it and then cancelled - but it was excellent.

[Anonymous]

... oh, and the graphisoft/maxon plugins are great for moving information back and forth between AC and C4D
but for one-way transfer to C4D I exclusively use this alternative plugin
I set up all of my cameras/views in AC and they export out to C4D where you can click on them to jump straight to the view you want to render. The only unfortunate thing is that AC does not allow you to name them.

note: I never use the built in save as 'CINEMA 4D File' - although it works fine

[Dwight]

And if you are interested in truly professional results rather than quick, easy and okay results, use your time to develop with Cinema since the add-ons and other accessories are superior in every way.

[Gus Laurie]

Many thanks for your advice guys. I certainly hear you about C4ds prowess and look forward to learning the finer detail. Bring on the the more buttons I say!

I freed up some Hard disk space up to over 10GB (was about 2GB) yet did not seem to make much difference.

I will check with MAXON directly about the Quadro 1700 512 mb and the bigger scenes (as you pointed out though I dont think my scene is very big). Maybe I am just finding out why it was not a high end card. Also interestingly and cleverly you can choose to hide objects from the editor window and not the render window.

I am hoping that it will be some obscure graphics card setting somewhere??

[Anonymous]

Dwight wrote:
"And if you are interested in truly professional results rather than quick, easy and okay results, use your time to develop with Cinema since the add-ons and other accessories are superior in every way. "

Any hope you would write a book about cinema 4d for archicad users?

Any hope you would write a book about photoshop for archicad users?

You books are excelent. I hope I See more of them

[Dwight]

Thank you for your encouraging words.

The Cinema 4D users are well covered with a variety of books and tutorials already.

books

Besides, they've resolved the usual file export difficulties just fine.

I also feel that my initial books address all of the Photo-editing tricks Archicad users need and by looking at the bibliography, you can easily spelunk the depths of Photoshop knowledge I use.

SO unless the Maxwell people need a book, and they don't seem inclined to call back, I'm off to the cookbook shelves for now. Just the place for a tired old man.