New Cinema 4D R10 or Maya

[Mylenium]

Well, if you are happy with Maya, stick with it. I have used it in the past myself, and while I never really got down to a level of proficiency that I have in other programs, I liked it for what features it boosts and what you can do with it. The thing with Cinema 4D is, that for us motion graphics/ compositing artists it is simply more straightforward and we get results quicker. Unlike in Maya, where a lot of things are secondary attributes of an object, cluster, material or whatever, in C4D everything sits right under your nose. Features are often more explicitely labeled and implemented, where in Maya they are more generic but also more flexible. For instance take a simple Sweep NURBS for lightbands – In Maya you would create this as a normal NURBS extrude. When you animate it, you have to animate the V percentage of that NURBS. When in addition you want to animate the extrusion spline, you have to create clusters. That step doesn’t occur in C4D, you simply use PLA. However, since a cluster in Maya can simply be parented to any other item, it can be moved easily without explicitely selecting any points. You cannot have that with PLA and that minor difference in implementation can make a major difference in your workflows. There a many such seemingly minor things. Much rather than any grand features it’s thhose workflow differences that you have to gauge. That said, the feature side of things is not that unimportant. C4D simply shines when it comes to creating flashy “structured noise” for DVD menus, motion backgrounds and so on. Modules/ plugins like MoGraph, DiTools and others are unique to C4D and while it’s certainly possible to get simialr things using PaintFX and particles in Maya, it’s never as easy as in C4D. I haven’t my R10 yet, but I think for character animation both appps are on par now. The one place that will realyl disappoint you in C4D is the renderer. If you are used to using MentalRay in Maya, then you will find the base renderer and the Advanced Rander module less than satisfying. The only alternative, finalRender (which is also available for Maya), is a pretty expensive plugin and has also certain limitations. Well, I could go on about this forever, but to sum up: If you are happy with Maya and don’t miss anything, there’s no need to jump ship. If you have both programs, make it a point to know them both as well as you can and use them selctevily depending on the requirements of any given project.

Mylenium

[Pour Myl

[Dagi Vujacic]

Thank you for this thorough full answer.I was working in C4D few years ago and I think also that all my work in Cinema till now was more joyful than in Maya. I think Cinema 4D has a very good modelling tool (sort of sub-D)and that C4D can do almost everything like Maya except brushes- artisan, ocean shader and Final Gather but somehow it is possible to compensate it. You helped mi determine my mind a lot.I will try using both aplications but I am still afraid could it be to much for me to be in a flow? Perhaps not.
Thanks.

[Mylenium]

[Dragi Vujacic] “I will try using both aplications but I am still afraid could it be to much for me to be in a flow? Perhaps not.”

I don’t think that this is a problem. I’m currently using C4D, modo, Lightwave, After Effects and sevaral other programs and though I sometimes wonder myself how I can manage it, it always works. The thing is, that no matter what functions a program boasts you will only be using a part of the feature set and it is important that you can keep that straight. I for instance absolutely do not care about any character animation related stuff that much ‘cos I barely ever need it, but on the other hand I constantly do particle animation, something which in turn a character artist might not give a damn about.

Mylenium

[Pour Myl

[Philo Calhoun]

I recently started using C4D after XSI, because for many projects it is faster to use. I don’t have experience with Maya (other than the PLE). There are some annoyances in C4D that require workarounds (no real extrude along spline, lathe only works in one axis, very annoying axis tools that make precise placement of points on a spline a two step process, no real nurbs, etc.). But C4D is generally quite stable, very intuitive, and has very good addins (like the sketch and toon and hair modeles and MOGRAPH – which I am just starting to learn). I’ve done comparison renders from C4D and XSI (which uses mental ray, like Maya). These comparisons were harder to set up than I expected, because modeling is done a bit differently and trying to export a model from XSI to C4D or vice versa is somewhat problematic. At least so far as I have been able to test, the renders if properly tweaked are virtually identical for most scenes. Add depth of field or motion blur and C4D’s rendering shows its deficiencies, but that doesn’t mean overall one cannot render as good an image as with mental ray.

[Dagi Vujacic]

It is right. Possible every apliation has so much strong and bad sides. I will stick with Maya but also continu to learn and practise C4D so if those people in Autodesk decide something wrong or simply sit on a trone doing nothing, C4D will be my way out.

[Chris Smith]

I used Maya for 4 years. I downloaded the Demo of C4D and fell in love. I got the Studio Bundle and dropped Maya forever. I’ve happily been using C4D for almost 2 years now and live by it.

Chris Smith
https://www.sugarfilmproduction.com