Maxon has updated Cinema 4D — the US$595 3D modeling, animation and rendering package — to version R8.5, which adds a reworked Material Editor and more. The company has also released Sketch and Toon, a new Cinema 4D module for non-photorealistic output offering technical illustration styles, cartoon cel and artistic rendering technologies.
With the Material Editor you can customize Cinema 4D’s size and object type previews to get better visual feedback. All SLA shaders, SLA Baker and DirtyNuts have been integrated into the application. Cinema 4D R8.5 offers access to all parameters via the XPresso feature, as well as new shaders. A new Layer Shader offers stackable material functionality, the Ripple shader creates water surface effects, and the SplineShader offers additional control when applying materials onto objects.
The Cinema 4D update offers an importer/exporter for the FBX format, which lets users of other production tools, such as Kaydara’s MotionBuilder, share and exchange resources and, in some instances, complete project files. There have also been enhancements to the Cinema 4D Bones system to make them faster and compatible with FBX. What’s more, Better Boole, the Boolean operations plug-in, has been incorporated into the application, and a Camera Mapping Feature, which allows 3D compositing without texture distortion, has been added. Plus, the Advanced Render module has been enhanced.
Upgrades to R8.5 from R8 are $149. Cinema 4D R8.5 is compatible with Mac OS X and Mac OS 9.x.
The new Sketch and Toon provides the ability to draw lines that match geometry, create freehand interpretations, generate distorted styles or produce cloned variations, motion lines or stroke connections. The faces of 3D objects can be filled in with shaded, rendered, colored and textured styles incorporating different shaders like cel, hatch and artistic. The final result can be delivered in still images, drawn animations or vector-based Illustrator files.
Sketch and Toon features three different user levels, and artists can choose from a variety of preset styles and options to achieve a particular look.
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