Use AC19 CineRender Engine or export to Cinema 4D?

[RCA in Steamboat]

I have a basic understanding of materials, lighting, camera's etc from other programs such as Vray, 3DS and Artlantis. I want to be an expert in just one. CineRender engine and materials in AC19 seem great. Should I buy Cinema 4D (expensive) or can I use the functionality I already paid for in ArchiCAD? Also, I am having a hard time finding good detailed information on how to use the various material channels in CineRender AC19. Tutorials on Youtube are very basic. Any good reference material besides a book on Cinema 4D. Thanks!

[mikas]

I don't know if this is what you already are familiar with, but I think graphisoft help center gives quite a good starting point with Cinerender materials.
Rendering Troubleshooting Guide can sometimes be helpful too.

Mostly I use plain ArchiCAD for rendering, but I'va got Cinema 4D too, and it speeds things up with team render quite a lot, when it's time to render big final views. I can use my modest farm of Macs with a approx. 5 times speed increase. Cinema 4D is a lot more than that of course, but I have yet to find all of it's potential with architectural visualisation. Materials do have some more qualities in Cinema 4D than in ArchiCAD. Cinerender in ArchiCAD 20 is from version 16 of Cinema 4D, if I remember it right. AC19 might have older version.

For me ArchiCAD version of cinerender have been quite enough, but cinema supports a lot of third party render engines, if you prefer some special effects or looks, unbiased renderings or maybe graphics card acceleration etc.

I can't remember if there was a 30 day trial with C4D. There was a demo version at least, I think.

[RCA in Steamboat]

Thanks Mikas! Your information was very helpful and I appreciate you taking the time to respond.

R.