Cinema 4d

Cinema 4d
Cinema 4d
Type of	3D graphics
Developer	MAXON Computer GmbH
operating system	100 macOS , Microsoft Windows
First edition
Latest version	20
Readable File Formats	and
License	Proprietary Software
Site

MAXON 's Cinema 4D or C4D for short is a package for creating 3D graphics and animations.

Cinema 4D is a universal comprehensive program for creating and editing three-dimensional effects and objects. Allows you to render objects according to the Guro method . Support for animation and high-quality rendering. It features a simpler interface than its counterparts, and built-in support for the Russian language, which makes it popular among the Russian-speaking audience.

Content

Localization

The Cinema 4D interface is available in various languages: Russian , English, Spanish, Italian, Chinese, Korean, German, French, Czech and Japanese.

The program documentation is also available in several languages, including: Russian ^[1] , English, German and other languages.

The official website of MAXON is available in Russian , English, Italian, Spanish, German, French and Japanese.

Modules

With the release of version 12, MAXON no longer provides modules for sale. Instead, Cinema 4D is now available in the six packages described below.

In addition to the main program, which contained the basic tools for modeling, texturing, animation, and rendering , there were also modules that allowed the user to get more specialized tools and functions of the program.

Advanced Render - a module that provides advanced features for visualizing scenes.
BodyPaint 3D is a toolkit for creating UV and texture map scans. (with R10 included in the base package)
Dynamics - a module for simulating the dynamics of hard and soft bodies.
HAIR - a module for creating hair.
MOCCA - a module designed to work on character animation. It includes a tissue simulation system, morphing, various deformers, tools for creating a rig, and much more.
MoGraph - a module designed to generate and animate objects. Sharpened to create an animated design.
NET Render - a module that allows you to calculate the animation in the render farm . Since the 15th version, the module has ceased to exist and replaced with the Team Render system.
PyroCluster is a tool for creating volumetric effects. Smoke, dust, etc. (with R10 included in the Advanced Render module)
Sketch and Toon - a module that allows you to create non-photorealistic visualization of the scene.
Thinking Particles - a module that includes a node control system for particles.

Packages

With the release of the 12th version of the program, MAXON provides its users with five different assemblies of Cinema 4D. Since the spring of 2013, the sixth package - “Lite” has been added to them. Each package has its own target group.

Lite

The simplified Cinema 4D package that ships with Adobe After Effects , starting with version CC. Designed to create simple three-dimensional animation and use three-dimensional objects in the composition After Effects. Those who wish can update Lite on Broadcast or Studio, and also connect their existing Cinema 4D package instead of Lite to After Effects. Cinema 4D is connected to After Effects using the MAXON CINEWARE bridge plugin, which is also included with After Effects. Also included in the package are plugins for exporting data from Cinema 4D to After Effects and from After Effect to Cinema 4D, which also come with other Cinema 4D packages.

Prime

It has a basic set of tools for modeling, texturing, animation and rendering. Also includes all tools previously only available in BodyPaint 3D .

Broadcast

The package contains all the functions of Prime, as well as tools designed to create an animated design for television and video production. Among these tools, the system for creating clones and working with them is “MoGraph”, as well as some dynamics functions, additional shaders and advanced visualization functions. The package contains extensive libraries of objects, materials, sound files and other scenes and settings.

Visualize

The package contains all the functions of Prime, and also has an additional set of tools for visualization. The package includes extensive libraries of objects, light sources and other scenes and installations. The target group is architects, engineers and designers.

Studio

The package has a complete set of tools Cinema 4D, includes everything that is contained in Prime, Broadcast and Visualize, as well as other functions that are not available in any of the other packages. There is also an expanded set of blanks, scenes with examples and other blanks.

BodyPaint 3D

A package whose target group is texture artists and the creation of Matte Painting .
Main article: BodyPaint 3D

Programming in Cinema 4D

Cinema 4D supports the following programming languages:

Python - The code can be used in the manager to create scripts and plug-ins, as well as in objects, tags, Xpresso nodes and other functions of the program.
C ++
COFFEE is a scripting programming language. It is found only in Cinema 4D and BodyPaint 3D. The code can be used in the manager to create scripts and plug-ins, as well as in objects, tags, Xpresso nodes, and in other program functions. R19 is the latest release to use this programming language ^[2] .
Xpresso is a node programming system. The system is based on a graphical interface. It is a set of nodes (nodes) with input and output ports. Nodes are separate functions. The ports of the nodes can be interconnected, which leads to a sequential miscalculation of functions. New nodes can be created like plugins using C ++. Xpresso expressions are assigned to objects using the Xpresso tag, which contains the Xpresso host manager. Among the nodes there are both basic programming nodes and special nodes for working with Thinking Particles, dynamics, hair and MoGraph. There is also a separate Python node in which you can create code in the appropriate language and thereby expand the capabilities of Xpresso.

Data Exchange

Data exchange capabilities included with the Cinema 4D R20 or provided by third-party manufacturers.

Texturing

3ds Max - 3ds Max 2012—2019
Maya - Maya 2012—2018

Simulation and Effects

Realflow 4-5

Game Creation

NeoAxis Engine - (via OBJ)

Unity - (via FBX and C4D)
Unreal Engine - (via FBX )
CryEngine - (via FBX )

Compositing

Adobe After Effects - CS5, CS6, CC
Adobe Photoshop - CS5, CS6, CC
Apple Motion - (OS X only)
Apple Final Cut Pro
Apple shake
Blackmagic fusion
The foundry nuke

CAD

Nemetschek allplan
Graphisoft ArchiCAD
Nemetschek vectorworks

List of data formats

The following file formats for import (I) and export (E) are supported directly by Cinema 4D Studio. There are a number of plugins that expand the ability to exchange data with other programs.

3D Studio (* .3ds) I / O
Alembic (* .abc) I / O
Allplan (* .xml) I / O
BVH (* .bvh) and
CATIA (* .CATPart, * CATProduct, * .cgr) And
COLLADA 1.4, 1.5 (* .dae) I / O
DEM (* .dem) and
Direct 3D (* .x) E
DWG (* .dwg) And
DXF (* .dxf) I / O
FBX (* .fbx) I / O
IGES (* .igs, * .iges) and
Illustrator (* .ai) And / E splines. Thanks to the features of the MacOS system, on this system it is possible to use AI files as textures.
JT (* .jt) And
LightWave (* .lwo) And
SketchUp (* .skp) And
Solidworks (* .SLDPrt, * .SLDAsm, * .SLDDrw) AND
STEP (* .stp, * .step, * .p21) And
STL (* .stl) I / O
Volume (* .vdb) I / O
VRML 2 (* .wrl) I / O
OBJ (* .obj) I / O

Visualization

In addition to the built-in render, Cinema 4D can also work with third-party renderings, both built directly into the program environment itself and with the help of connectors. Some of the third-party renders are directly supported through the CineMan connector built into the Cinema 4D Visualize, Cinema 4D Studio and BodyPaint 3D packages.

Embedded Renders

VRAYforC4D (English) (Vray)
m4d mental ray and iray
finalRender
Krakatoa (particle imaging system)
Arnold render

Renders connected using connectors

Corona renderer
RenderMan - Pixar's Photorealistic RenderMan® renderer / PRMan (via CineMan)
3Delight (via CineMan)
AIR - Site Graphics AIR 7-10 (via CineMan)
Maxwell render
mental ray
Indigo renderer
Sunflow
V ray
Thea
Octane render
Redshift render

Program History

1990	Christian and Philip Losh wrote their ray tracer to compete in the Amiga programmer competition announced by Kickstart magazine and won the competition.
1991	The FastRay Ray Tracer (first named Cinema 4D) was released for Amiga .
December 1993	Cinema 4D V1 saw the light on the Amiga platform.
May 1994	There is an update to version 1.5 with improved rendering. Cinema 4D quickly conquers the European market and becomes the flagship product of MAXON Computer . In the same year, Cinema 4D V2 for Amiga was released .
1995	Cinema 4D V3 is released on the Amiga platform. There are plans to port Cinema 4D to PC. A new development team is starting to create a new, cross-platform implementation of the Cinema 4D engine.
1996	Having expanded the staff of programmers, MAXON is releasing a new, fourth version of the package, which runs on Microsoft Windows and Mac OS operating systems. The first version of Cinema 4D with multiprocessor support appears.
1997	There are two new versions of Cinema 4D XL V5 and SE.
1998	In January, the program debuts and conquers the North American market, winning many awards, including “Best Product” at SIGGRAPH , receiving a Dig-it award from Digital Studio Magazine, “Awesome” from MacAddict, and “Best of Show” from MacWorld San Francisco, 1999 . In October, inspired by the success of MAXON Computer, GmbH opened their first office in North America. MAXON Computer Inc.
1999	The Cinema 4D NET network rendering module for Cinema 4D GO V5 appears.
January 2000	A 70% stake in MAXON Computer is acquired by Nemetschek , a leader in architectural CAD design software.
March 2000	MAXON Computer introduces the Cinema 4D XL V6, gets into all reviews and again receives many awards, including the prestigious MacWorld Editor's Choice Award.
November 2000	MAXON releases the first version of BodyPaint 3D, a revolutionary, both integrated and standalone add-on package for 3D editors, designed to work with UV-scan and textures.
2001	Cinema 4D ART is coming out. A module for simulating fire and smoke is added - PyroCluster .
June 2001	The Cinema 4D XL R7 appears. New visualization system with support for global lighting, caustics, multi-pass rendering and advanced anti-aliasing technology. The new Dynamics module is a module for simulating the physics of hard and soft bodies. In the same year, two updates 7.1 and 7.3 are released.
2002	Cinema 4D R8. Another leap in quality. MAXON Computer programmers create a new program interface. There is support for OpenGL , improved editing system. The program becomes modular. New modules: Advanced Render, PyroCluster , MOCCA (character animation module) and Thinking Particles (“Thinking Particles”, an advanced module for working with particles). There is also a visual environment for creating interactive relationships between the parameters of various objects - XPresso.
2003	A new version of the BodyPaint 3D R2 module appears. The Cinema 4D R8.5 update is coming out. A new module for non-photorealistic rendering (NFR) called - Sketch and Toon.
2004	Comes out Cinema 4D R9. Improved performance, innovations in the user interface.
2005	MAXON is releasing a new version of Cinema 4D R9 64 and is thus the first manufacturer of 3D graphics editors to support a 64-bit system. In the same year, an update to version R9.5 was released, as well as a new module for creating HAIR hair.
2006	Cinema 4D becomes the first professional 3D package for Mac / Intel. In the spring of the same year, an update to version R9.6 and a new MoGraph module were released, which significantly expands the capabilities of Cinema 4D in the field of animation and special effects.
end of 2006	MAXON Launches Cinema 4D R10. Starting with this version, BodyPaint 3D is part of the main package, and not an add-on module. The program interface has been redesigned again, OpenGL support has been expanded, the MOCCA character animation module and the MoGraph module have been improved.
2007	At the beginning of the summer, a service update is released to the Cinema 4D R10.111 version, which contains bug fixes identified by users and testers after the release of R10. In October - the new version of Cinema 4D R10.5. In addition to updating the main program, changes were also made to the modules MOCCA 3, MoGraph, HAIR.
August 12, 2008	MAXON Announces New Cinema 4D R11, Advanced Render 3, BodyPaint 3D 4 . There are several service updates that fix errors in the program. Updates are provided through the Cinema 4D's integrated automatic update system via the Internet.
September 1, 2009	New versions of Cinema 4D R11.5, MoGraph 2 and BodyPaint 3D 4.5 are released . Presented by Broadcast Edition. The program rendering system is significantly accelerated. Among the main innovations, such as “real” instances, RAM player, a new image manager, support for FBX 2010.0 , PNG and DPX , improved data exchange with Adobe After Effects and Apple Motion , as well as MoDynamics, a system for simulating physical phenomena in the MoGraph module.
September 1, 2010	New versions of Cinema 4D R12 and BodyPaint 3D R12 are released . Introduced a new software package system. Among the main innovations, a new system of dynamics of solid and soft bodies, as well as connectors, stand out. New dynamic IK system, new PoseMorph and weight manager. Support for OpenGL 3 . Linear process (LWF) with support for OpenGL, color profiles, photometry and IES light sources, new deformers and shaders, Double precision , real units, rendering manager. Python support. L-system for splines. And much more.
August 1, 2011	MAXON announces Cinema 4D R13. Delivery is scheduled for September 2011. Among the innovations, such functions as a physical render , a physical camera, 3D Motion Blur and DOF , a reworked subsurface scatter shader, a landscape mask shader, 3D stereo , a muscle system, a template system for creating rigs, a system for creating cyclic (and not only) movements like a gait characters, improvements to the weight system, interaction deformer, a new navigation system, support for layers in OpenEXR , new versions of FBX and Collada , redesigned Xref, an improved interface and much, much more. The interface design and program logo have also changed.
August 1, 2012	MAXON announces Cinema 4D R14. August 31, 2012 announced the start of delivery. Among the innovations is the Sculpting toolkit for creating digital sculptures , improving modeling tools, rendering and much more.
April 4, 2013	MAXON announces Cinema 4D Lite and CINEWARE included with Adobe After Effects. The new package is intended for After Effects users who want to use elements of three-dimensional graphics in their projects, as well as to simplify the workflow with 3D data.
July 22, 2013	MAXON announces Cinema 4D R15, the next generation of the program. Updates to modeling tools (new Bevel, Slide, etc.) are presented, sculpting modeling functions are updated, the rendering is significantly updated, including new global lighting features and other changes that accelerate the time and quality of visualization. Team Render, a distribution network rendering system replacing NET Render, was also introduced. Other program features have been added and updated as well.
August 4, 2014	MAXON announces a new version of Cinema 4D R16. The new version mainly expanded the capabilities of polygonal and sculptural modeling and visualization tools, as well as added a camera movement tracker and optimized work processes. Among other things, the ability to create materials with a multilayer reflection channel was added, Team Render Server was added, libraries of materials and objects were substantially redesigned. The new interaction tag allows, based on the information received on moving the cursor and the pressed mouse buttons, to perform certain manipulations of objects in the viewport using Python, COFFEE and polygon highlighting tags. The Poly Pen tool in different modes allows you to partially replace the Weld and Bridge tools, draw polygons, including on objects, which facilitates the retopology process. The “Chamfer” deformer allows non-destructive addition of chamfers to polygonal objects; many deformers received attenuation functions. The parametric spline Gear has been significantly improved. A wireframe verification function has appeared showing in the viewport problematic sections of polygonal objects. The Restore Layout command reduces the level of breakdown of an object smoothed by the Catmull-Clark algorithm while maintaining its shape in the sculptural modeling tag and allowing changing the level of breakdown. The new engine for non-photorealistic hair visualization and visualization serves these processes and now makes it possible to calculate the effects of Sketch & Toon and hair in one pass, with more speed and fewer restrictions. The new Solo features allow you to isolate objects for display in the viewport. And the new UV Peeler tool allows you to easily create a UV scan of cylindrical objects. There are also new functions for creating and working with comments in the viewport, as well as expanding the ability to import and export FBX and Alembic data. This version was first presented at the SIGGRAPH conference in August 2014.
August 4, 2015	MAXON announces the Cinema 4D R17 and a month later launches this version for sale. The new version has the following features: A duplicate system that includes the capabilities of render layers and allows you to create different versions of the project in one file and render these versions in various ways. Tools for calculating and applying the distortion effect of a camera lens. New tools for creating and processing splines. Improvements to sculpting and polygon modeling tools. Numerous animations enhancements. Houdini Engine integration and SketchUp (SKP) format import. The import and export of the OBJ format was fundamentally updated, and the possibilities for exchanging data through other formats were expanded.
July 25, 2016	Announced the release of Cinema 4D R18. New set of knives for polygon modeling New Voronoi Destruction facility to break objects into pieces New Effectors, Updated Clone Object Functions for using quantions in animations Open subdiv New shaders Improved baking system for sculptural models Added functionality for tracking objects Viewport has the ability to reflect objects, the SSAO function and tessellation Other changes
July 31, 2017	Announced the release of Cinema 4D R19. Among the new features and changes, the following can be distinguished: Voronoi destruction improvements: connector support, glue, deformation of debris, cell scaling, sorting improved, and more Polygon reduction object Object for using different levels of detail Sound effect Spherical camera Motion tracking improvements, added the ability to create three-dimensional objects from a video Improved the process of creating weights, for example, to equip characters PoseMorph PSD Connecting ProRender, the new GPU rendering engine BodyPaint 3D now uses OpenGL Improved viewport: depth of field, reflection of objects Improvements in UV tools, data exchange, and other program functions
September 3, 2018	Start shipping Cinema 4D R20. Among other things, the new version has the following new features and improvements: Knot-based materials. Editor of materials and more than 100 nodes, interface editor. Support for OpenVDB, volume modeling functions. Fields, the extensive functionality of weakening objects that can be used in a variety of generators, deformers, tags, etc. Import CAD formats: IGES (newly made), JT, Solidworks, STEP, Catia. Update ProRender. Multi-instances that allow you to process and visualize many objects. Improvements to the motion tracking system.

Notes

↑ MAXON Computer GmbH. Cinema 4D Help (unspecified) . Cinema 4D Help .
↑ The future of C4D: getting rid of the old , C4Dru.info (12/05/2017).

[1] MAXON Computer GmbH. Cinema 4D Help (unspecified) . Cinema 4D Help .

[2] The future of C4D: getting rid of the old , C4Dru.info (12/05/2017).