[Adamt]

Check the profile of forum moderator, Arndt K., the VReel URL. Plugin may be available in the Dairy Store, but I haven’t checked.

[Adamt]

Cinema doesn’t have the ability to create a normal map for a low-poly object based upon a higher-poly object–except for the displacement method. There is a plugin that provides this function: https://www.cinemax4d.de/simplemakerpro/home_us.html

Or if you have ZBrush, that’s probably the best way to do it.

[Adamt]

[soho3d] “Many thanks for the quick response… Cinema opened the DEM file perfectly. As regards the greyscale image I can’t figure out what you mean by ‘Relief Object (Primitives>Relief Object)’. I’m looking to somehow create an editable 3D mesh from a pre-defined greyscale image, ideally with the option to specify the complexity. If you could expand on your explanation it would be greatly appreciated. I remember back in the days of OS9 I had a Photoshop plugin that output a DXF file from a greyscale image, something as simple as that would be perfect.”

It is about that simple. 🙂 Add a relief object by going to Objects>Primitive>Relief, or you can find it in the primitives flyout with the cube, sphere, etc. It should be the bottom-right icon.

When you click on the relief object in the object manager you’ll see it’s properties in the attributes manager. There’s a texture slot there where you can load your greyscale image. You can also adjust the height, segments, and other properties.

If you want to convert it into a regular mesh, just right-click on the object in the object manager and choose “make editable” from the context menu.

[Adamt]

Did you try opening the DEM in Cinema? It supports certain types of DEMs natively.

Regarding the grayscale image, you can use a Relief Object (Primitives>Relief Object). You can make this editable if you want a standard mesh.

[Adamt]

Here’s a basic setup using Thinking Particles: https://www.3danvil.com/Frozen%20particles.c4d

[Adamt]

I did this video tutorial that might help: https://www.3danvil.com/box_an/bax_an002.html

[Adamt]

Yep, I’m a big fan of VRay renders. I guess they’re working on a standalone which should be connectable to Cinema without too much trouble.

[Adamt]

Cinema absolutely takes advantage of dual processors. On the Mac I think you should see a speedup around 1.8-1.9 times for a dual. I’ve seen some pretty stunning benchmarks from the new quad too. 🙂

There are many many tricks to speeding up renders, but you’ll have to be more specific about your scene(s).

[Adamt]

I imagine you’ll have to redo the materials from scratch, unfortunately.

[Adamt]

Oh yeah, also make sure you test with an uncompressed .mov or .avi file to eliminate compression as a possible source of the problem. Also turn off shadows to eliminate them as a possible source.

If none of the above works you might consider baking the texture.