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| Reviewer |
Barry Croucher
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| Review
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January
2006
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| Software |
Cinema
4d R9.5 Core application
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| Developer |
www.maxon.net |
| Price
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$695
£424 (ex VAT)
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Introduction
and interface
Cinema 4d is a huge and complex modular application, thankfully
all the modelling features are contained in the core application
which makes it very affordable and easier to learn than the
full Studio bundle! You can always upgrade or add modules later.
The core application is still a complex piece of software though
and the default interface can be daunting. |
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Cinema has some tricks up it’s sleeve to make it more
user friendly! It’s the most configurable interface I
have ever used, it’s default setting is icon based but
you can replace the icons with words if you want or even have
both. Everything is user configurable so if you want to create
the most stripped down modelling environment with all the commands
and features that you don’t use removed it’s easy
to do. All interface configurations are available from a menu
so you can be back in the default modeller GUI or any other
custom set-up in one click. |
If
you wanted you could have a special layout for box modelling,
another for spline modelling and another for poly by poly.
Maybe that would be overkill though! Finally, since version
9.5, Cinema has also has a full screen mode, press shift+tab
and all you see is the viewport, it’s almost like
working in Wings or Silo, fantastic! Tools and functions
can be accessed through the menus, buttons, shortcuts,
a contextual right click menu and a general pop-up menu,
(insert pop-up menu image here) phew!
There is also a user configurable head-up display where
additional information and functions can appear. It’s
all a bit overwhelming at first but you don’t have
to use all these features and if you don’t most
are invisible. It’s best to get used to Cinema,
decide how you want to use it and then you can configure
in almost any way you choose!
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Navigation and selection
Navigation in Cinema is smooth and fast, user preferences give
you the option of using openGL or software acceleration so if
your computer has lack lustre graphics performance C4d should
still run well. Like many applications, Cinema has controls
for panning, zooming and rotating at the top of each viewport.
There is also a button to change from multiple viewport to single
and back. I find moving my cursor to the top of the screen interrupts
workflow but happily Cinema has shortcuts available too. The
default settings (on a Macintosh anyway!) are alt+LMB to rotate,
alt+MMB to pan and alt+RMB or scroll wheel to zoom. If you click
the middle mouse button you change from multi to single viewport
and back. Nice! Selection is achieved by the usual point and
click method and you also have a choice of marquee and lasso
selection tools. You can also add a selection tag to objects,
this allows you to define a collection of vertices, edges or
polygons for easy selection of particular features.
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Parametric
modelling
The most basic type of modelling in Cinema uses primitives.
These are initially created as parametric objects which are
defined by mathematical functions rather than polygons and points.
This means that initially the cannot be edited but many of their
properties can be adjusted very quickly, these include resolution,
size and how sharp or rounded edges are. Once you have created
some objects you can further modify them by using a variety
of generators and deformers. Let me try and explain how these
work. In most applications if you want to mirror a model you
use a mirror command of some kind and it creates a mirrored
duplicate of your mesh.
In Cinema you create a symmetry object and make it the parent
of the object you wish to mirror. It sounds over technical but
it's actually very powerful because it means that your original
object is completely unaffected even if your using an explosion
deformer to blow a model into tiny pieces if you turn off the
deformer your original model is still there safe and sound!
Combining primitives and deformers and generators is a surprisingly
flexible and fast method of modelling objects which are fairly
geometrical in shape though it’s not of much use for modelling
organic shapes or more complex man made objects like cars for
instance. The camera lens shown here is entirely modelled using
primitives and Cinema’s deformers and generators. |
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Spline
Modelling
The next weapon in Cinema’s arsenal is splines. These
are extremely versatile and easy to use. You can create your
splines in a variety of ways, there are a number of spline primitives
available including arc, circle, helix, square and many others
that can be created in a single click. You can also create any
shape you want from scratch using a variety of drawing tools
but I imagine most people will use the linear tool (for angular
splines) or the bezier tool (for curvy splines) for most spline
drawing. Once you’ve created your spline you can use it
with Cinema’s powerful generators to create a polygon
mesh. At this point we come up against some of Maxon’s
bizarre naming conventions! The generators that are used with
splines are called things like Lathe NURBS and Sweep NURBS,
Cinema’s subdivision surfaces are called HyperNURBS! None
of these have anything to do with NURBS modelling so why Maxon
decided to use the term is beyond me, it’s caused endless
confusion for many people! You use these generators to make
things like pipes and cables using the extrude or sweep NURBS,
glasses bottles and other radially symmetrical objects using
the Lathe NURBS and more irregular shapes using Loft NURBS.
I’ve included an image of a quick model of mountains I
created with splines and the Loft NURBS object to give you an
idea of how it’s set up in the object (scene) manager. |
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It’s also a good example of another advantage of Cinema’s
generators. These generators (and deformers) update interactively
so once you have your model set up you can select individual
splines and adjust them just like a control cage in SDS modelling,
the mesh will update in real time. It’s a pleasure to
use!
Poly modelling
If you favour point to point or poly by poly methods you have
all the usual options, you can clone (duplicate) points or
create points from scratch and make polygons from them either
with the make polygon tool or using a very fast method using
the bridge tool. You can also of course extrude edges.
If want to box model you’ll have to convert the parametric
primitives to polygon objects then it works just like most
modellers. You have all the usual tools for moving, extruding,
cutting and connecting and all work smoothly and predictably.
Tapping the space bar switches between the current tool and
a selection tool and back which is a nice workflow enhancement.
One tool which is worth pointing out is the knife tool which
has been beautifully designed to do the job of knife, connect/split
polygon and split loop/bandsaw all with interactive preview!
As I mentioned above Cinema’s subdivision surfaces are
oddly named HyperNURBS, to use SDS just drop your polygon
mesh onto a HyperNURBS object in the object manager.
Conclusion
Cinema’s modeller has been beautifully thought out,
it’s smooth and fast and can be adapted to work in the
way you feel most comfortable. It’s not perfect, I wish
that the magnet tool would work work in auto switch mode or
tweak mode but that’s not a big deal really.
The object manager can get pretty crowded and confusing but
if you’re organised it works very well. One word of
warning if you’re considering a second-hand copy or
a free version. The modeller prior to version 9 did not work
with n-gons, as a consequence it would automatically triangulate
polygons with more than 4 sides. I find it takes me as long
to sort out this triangulated mess as it does to achieve any
real modelling.
My advice, if you’re buying Cinema make sure it’s
version 9 or later!
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Barry
Croucher January 2006
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