Enhanced OpenGL with noise display
You now can drag a (reference) image directly into an orthographic viewport from Windows Explorer. Sorry Mac users, this new option is for PC's only.
Reference images dragging in orthographic views from Explorer |
Strangely you can't use the Content Browser to add images to the orthographic views. I would have expected this to have been part of this enhancement as well.
A new option in the viewport display options for Enhance OpenGL is Noise. The following image shows the difference between regular Gourard shading, Enhanced OpenGL, Enhanced OpenGL with Noise and lastly a full render. A material with plain white in the colour channel and noise in the bump is applied. Quite some difference.
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Enhanced OpenGL with noise display |
Strangely the documentation doesn't actually tell you anything about it but only that we have it and it shows an example image. You're left to figure it out yourself so I assume you get better display when noise is used in the likes of the colour or bump channel. That aside, as you can see the display in Enhanced OpenGL mode when noise is enabled isn't too far off that of the full render and it's hard to pick where I joined the screen grab.
There now is an option to set the navigation speed for tablet users. (Also applies when using a mouse as well) You can find these settings in the preferences under on the View page.
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Speed options in preferences |
These three settings affect the following two properties:
Speed of navigation in the editor view using the three icons at the top right of each editor view
Speed of element manipulation when using the Move, Scale or Rotate tools
This will make life easier for users of graphics tablets as their arm movements will be less.
All CINEMA 4D Commands and tools can now dragged directly into the editor view as a HUD element. This is very useful for commands that are not used much but can be very useful for a particular project and you don't want to create a layout. With tools all you are doing is selecting the tool just as you would be selecting it from a toolbar button or menu.
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Command and tools can be added to the viewport as HUD element. |
Note that although you can drag into the viewport BodyPaint painting commands they won't actually work in painting mode and disappear. You can only add commands for when you work in UV editing mode.
Auto Fold. When this option is activated, the HUD element can be fold and unfold when you hover your mouse over the small triangle. This Auto Fold can be set per HUD element.
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HUD elements can auto fold |
Color In this menu you can give an element a unique color. Separate colors can be given to the Background, Text, and frame and Highlight. Note that these colours can be assigned to individual HUD element parameters like in the image below. I think this is an option that you need to be careful not to over do it otherwise your viewport will look very loud!!
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HUD elements can have their colours changed |
When an object is dragged from the Object Manager into the viewport, a HUD element will be created and displayed with the standard icon associated with that particular object. You can however assign a custom icon to the HUD element by selecting the Open Icon Command. There are a range of size options. The power of this becomes apparent when you start dragging a few null objects into the viewport, assigning an icon and then assigning a command to them. Commands and tools in CINEMA 4D including 3rd party plugins usually have a Command ID associated with them. You get the Command ID from the Command Manager and you add this number into the HUD element's right click menu for Command. This may sound a little complex but it's very easy to do. The documentation suggests this for Character Animators as you can replicate the kinds of things that you can do with the Visual Selector but you don't have the Visual Selector window hogging up space in the viewport. Don't like the animation playback controls? Just create your own buttons in the viewport by dragging a few nulls into the viewport and assigning an image to each control. Pretty slick eh!!
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Custom HUD elements created from null objects |
A list of the last eight tools used will be displayed in the viewport via a HUD element and each tool can be selected individually if you choose the have the HUD element visible (Active Tool on the HUD tab). The HUD element in the viewport can be left clicked to unfold it and you can select any of the tools on the list. Right clicking brings up normal HUD element properties and you can increase the size of the icon for example as I've done in the image below. The recent tool can also be accessed via the icon next to the Rotate icon in the top icon palette. The icon displayed will be that of the current tool being used. Another place to find the list of last eight tools used is on the Tools menu. The flyout menu can be undocked and placed in the viewport or docked somewhere else. I found this new enhancement really quite useful especially when modelling as you are often going backwards and forwards between the same tools or need to go back to a tool that you used very recently. The only negative thing about this is that it only works with tools. I think it should also include commands as commands like Melt or Dissolve that you may use just as if they were tools are not included in the list.
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Last 8 tools used |
If you have many material layers the layers can fill up the space for the material swatches. A new option in the Material Manager Edit menu allows for layers to be displayed in a great long row. You now get a scroll bar to scroll through all of your material layers. Here are 2 images, the top image with how things were before and the lower image with the new Layers In Single Line option enabled.
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Layers In Single Line option disabled (default) |
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Layers In Single Line option enabled |
You can now access the setting for the editor camera. These settings are accessed in the Attributes Manager menu under Mode and then Camera. This changes the Attributes Manager to display the exact same settings as if you had created a camera e.g. Focal length.