194 replies to this topic

[3DKiwi]

1 August 2012 - Today MAXON pre-announced Release 14. Shipping date is from 4 Septemeber 2012. More information here.

C4D Cafe has put together almost 2 hours of videos showing how to use some of the new enhancements. 3 in depth videos are in the Cafe's tutorial section here.

You must be a Cafe member to download these videos. Registration is fast and easy.

The main enhancements are:

Sculpting (Studio Edition only) - Check out our 55 minute video on using the new sculpting system here. Check out the example renders below and a screen grab of the Sculpting layout. This new system is easy to use and learn. Baking your sculpting (Normal map, Displacement map & if you want an Ambient Occlusion map) back to a low res mesh is dead easy.

Radial symmetry and stamps - yeah baby!!

New Snapping, Dynamics Guides, Permanent Guides and Workplane systems - Check out our 42 minute video on using these systems here. Not all of the new Workplane system functionality is demonstrated - There's more stuff like an interactive workplane (similar to modo)

Update 6 Aug: New 7 minute Interactive workplane and "Align selection to workplane" video added to tutorial section here.

Camera Calibration Tag (Visualize and Studio Editions only) - Using the Camera Calibration tag you can load a photo/image and interactively reconstruct the camera’s focal length, orientation and position. This then allows you to convincingly composite 3D models into these images.

XPresso enhancements - Check out our 17 minute video of the new enhancements here.

Alembic support - (New popular 3D exchange format)

Motion Camera Tag - With this tag, cameras can be much better and more easily controlled. Numerous parameters are availble (e.g., you can dissolve one camera motion into a second, completely different camera motion). Furthermore, several functions are available for creating realistic camera movements. These are designed to simulate the subtle secondary movements that result from a hand-held camera.

New, improved GI sampling. New GI sampling method, Radiosity Maps

Plus heaps of minor enhancements - A couple of examples of these are:

Orthographic viewports can be rotated
 RotateOrthagonal.mp4   4.43MB   485 downloads

Gradient knots can be distributed evenly
 EvenKnots.mp4   5.02MB   361 downloads

Rewritten Wood Shader


Selected objects or objects to be selected can be highlighted with an outline - and yes it can be disabled. Line thickness can be adjusted.



Dynamics enhancements:
Fixed Connector type can be broken at certain Force or Torque values.
Torsion springs and linear springs can be modified or broken elastically. Dynamics can now be triggered using XPresso. Aerodynamic functions for Rigid and Soft Bodies.
Plastic deformation for most Soft Body Springs.
Collision can be included or excluded for Dynamics baking.
All Dynamics caches can now be baked directly from the Dynamics Body tag.
New ports for the Dynamic Body State Node.
New Dynamics XPresso Node: Dynamics Connector State.
New Dynamic Spring State mode in XPresso.

Live Selection Tool selection behaviour for other tools - With the move tool for example you can now right click and drag over points, edges or polygons to select them.

The Specular and Specular Color channels have been combined into the Specular channel.


Someone is bound to ask: There are no Bodypaint enhancements apart from Brushes being able to have their size and pressure altered interactively by pressing your middle mouse button and dragging up / down and left / right. Polygon Modelling tools - no enhancements e.g. Bevel tool is the same as it was in previous versions. The new symmetry system in sculpting only works with sculpting. There are no new retopology tools.

Sculpting Layout


Example Sculpting Renders

3DKiwi

Attached Thumbnails

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

[flippyfloop]

Sculpting ! Wooooo

[3DKiwi]

Sculpting ! Wooooo

Yeah and it's really easy to pick up. Check out my 55 minute video in the tutorials section. Also make sure to check out the snapping video as snapping just got a whole lot better

Phew - the wait is finally over!! I'll be up for another hour then off to bed. Been a long day.

Nigel / 3DKiwi

[morpheus]

SCULPTING!!! WOOOOOOT!
Maybe no Z-brush for me after all.......

Cannot wait!

[3DKiwi]

Those downloading the videos from the tutorials section - Please download from the mirrors location. You'll crash the Cafe's server if you all download from the other link (which is the Cafe server)

3DKiwi

[phobos]

Even though 3dkiwi has you guys pretty much covered you can also check out a short video covering some c4d features here:

It also covers some of the new camera matching tools

An example of the new camera calibrator tool can be seen here:


And a example of the new motion camera tool along with the camera matching tool can be seen here:
https://vimeo.com/44204971

Edited by phobos, 01 August 2012 - 03:11 AM.

[RichArt]

LoL.. That looks as a fine release.... To bad I can't view the vids here.... Have to wait until tonight after work.

Peace,
Rich_Art.

[3DKiwi]

Thanks phobos

MAXON's site also has lots of information here.

3DKiwi

[Keith]

WOW!, something tells me this it going to be huge for those of us who are into modelling.
Can"t wait!

[brasco]

Urgh now the month long wait until I can play! Looks great, screw sculpting, look at the snapping!

cheers
brasc

[3D-Pangel]

I have given up on trying to download the video from the MAXON site. Their servers must be getting thrashed. I downloaded the Cafe tutorials and going through the snapping videos. You can see the influence that Francesco Guazzi has had on the program. But where SpeedMud had limitations within R12 (like construction plane guides), those have been removed.

Overall...just thrilled.

Now...the big question: Who is looking behind them now? Is MAXON still looking behind them to see if Modo is catching up? Or is Luxology looking behind them to see if Cinema 4D is going to close the gap in modeling capability.

Either way, I love competition because we all stand to benefit.

Dave

[shawnfoster]

This is soooo awesome! I can't wait to get my hands on this new release and start playing around!
~Shawn

[3DKiwi]

Dave - I reckon once the word gets out we'll be seeing requests in the modo forums for snapping and guides like what R14 has. modo has a guides system that's almost unuseable. Been around I think since modo 201 and never made to work properly.

So far the Cafe's server is coping. Please folks, make sure you download the videos from the "Mirrors" site. I have the files in 2 locations to share the load. Yup, I've given up trying to watch the videos on MAXON's site. I'll try again at the weekend when I'm back home.

Good night everyone. Midnight here. Enjoy the videos. I didn't know much about the guides system until 3 days ago. Spent most of my time playing with the sculpting system.

Nigel / 3DKiwi

[3D-Pangel]

My world would have been complete if they updated the fillet and symmetry tools....but they had me at "snapping" so I have no complaints. Knowing how MAXON works, I would imagine that the push for enhancing modeling capability will not end with R14...(after all, they are still working on Dynamics and rendering improvements). So very pleased to see them attacking this part of the program and just thrilled about the future with the program as a whole.

Not sure what the release date was....anyone catch that? I am sure it will be post September 1st, but not sure of the exact date. Please don't have it be 12/21/12 - I always felt that a sign the world was coming to an end was when MAXON updated C4D's modeling tools (how many years have we waited?)....but that release date would be just too much.

Dave

Edited by 3D-Pangel, 01 August 2012 - 04:09 AM.

[HSrdelic]

Finally we can talk about R14

Sculpting is awesome. Basically we now have Mudbox equivalent in Cinema 4D and it is absolutely great. You can sculpt and later bake hassle free in easy manner, and brushes are very natural
As far as modeling goes, there are number of new things including new workplane, guides and rewritten snapping - this doesn't sound as much, but trust me, it is.
Modeling is now much easier and straight forward.
Xpresso has been visually redesigned (Must say that I am very proud in regard to that) and some things that weren't possible before can be done now.
There are a lot of new things including camera calibrator, new improved GI features, new shaders, dynamics upgrades, new advanced quadruped template, Alembic support (fantastic!), commander, to do functionality, PV enhancements, Camera morph and many, many more enhancements.

Let me find that feature list so I can post it

[srek]

Not sure what the release date was....anyone catch that? I am sure it will be post September 1st, but not sure of the exact date.

Early September is the estimated release time. It depends a bit some factors like shipping times etc.

Now...the big question: Who is looking behind them now?

No idea who is looking behind, we won't because we are way to busy moving forward.

Cheers
Bjorn

Edited by srek, 01 August 2012 - 04:28 AM.

[morpheus]

Reading on other sites, it sounds like radiosity maps are a big new feature for GI rendering.

A

[Keign]

I'm excited about sculpting. Obviously I'm a little disappointed with the lack of tools added for modeling, but I'll wait and see how the new workflow enhancements pan out in my modeling tasks. I do find it difficult lining things up and having to mess with snapping settings or manually adjusting coords of points and whatnot to get even a smidge of precision. I'm a bit surprised the physical renderer didn't get some work, having just been a feature added so recently in the last release (more control over indirect illumination as an example). Overall it SEEMS like a decent release, but it looks like they put their time into sculpting for the most part. I hope it pays off.

[3D-Pangel]

As I think more about the new features - I do have a few questions.

Sculpting - Does its implementation involve the creation of a new class of object? Say a sculpting object that can only be converted to a standard polygon object but not vice versa? I ask because I am wondering if I could start with a polygon object and if I want to apply stamps, smooth an edge, etc. then just use the sculpting tools. Will the lower resolution mesh be still be editable after parts of it have been sculpted. Again, imagine I am modeling a house and want a stone foundation. Can I apply a stone stamp to the foundation but still be able to go back to standard polygonal modelling to model the windows at their original resolution? Just wondering how the overall workflow between sculpted and standard polygon modeling will work.

Construction Planes (my favorite topic as of late) - One limitation that I have not been able to figure out in R13 is that once I define a construction plane, only primitives will automatically come in aligned to that construction plane. Library models still come in to the default C4D world plane. Does R14 resolve the problem (or better yet - is there a way to do it in R13 because I have tried everything). I really want to have a set of library models come in alighted to the origin of the active construction plane. That would be a huge modeling time saver.

Camera Morphing - Does it morph to camera position only or all camera settings (focal plane, zoom settings, physical camera settings, etc.).

Thanks,
Dave

Edited by 3D-Pangel, 01 August 2012 - 05:53 AM.

[morpheus]

Yay.
MSA updated, R14 is mine! (once it's out ;) )

A