Well, I thought I would chat a bit about what has been a growing battle of the animation junket for the last few years now. When I first got into commercial work many years ago, the thought of working in full animation was basically out of the realm of possibility. There was no Cinema 4D or Maya, 3D studio max wasn’t around, and most of all, you pretty much had to work for ILM ( Industrial Light and Magic ) to use anything that possibility related to a final quality standard animation. However, as we all know, a lot has changed in the years past, so much so that now it’s a consumer’s pick as to what tool to use when working in the animation arts.
Take for instance 3D Studio Max. Always highly regarded by users, and has a lot of weight around the geek squads but has mainly been the choice for gaming developers. Then there’s Maya. Ohhhhhh Maya. Maya has been around a long while, and during that time has certainly had it’s fair shake ( no pun intended ) of being the number one software chosen by industry professionals, but… mainly for character creation and modeling. Maya used to have that sort of snobby reputation until it became more mainstream. You know what I’m talking about, the one Mac users used to carry while they thumbed their noses down at PC users like they were apart of an elitist group, “I don’t a PC I use a Mac”. Then there’s Shake. Now here’s an interesting one, I wrote about the basic destruction of what was and even still is a very widely used and respected program around the league of professional filmmaking. The “destruction”, as I referred to it, being Apple’s pathetic attempt at trying to get us to buy it’s “new” Motion 3 by discontinuing Shake and removing it from distribution. Shake was mainly used for professional compositing and was considered to be one the best in the business, and until it’s disassemblement by Apple was beloved by professionals. Now we could talk about very well known After Effects, and maybe for those working with MTV we might mention Motion but for now we’ll leave the discussion to the big(ger) boys of animation.
Enter Cinema 4D. Cinema 4D came into the market a few years back, while Maya and Studio Max were ruling the roust but since it’s unveiling many professionals have given the software a lot of use, so much so that it’s become one of the leading and preferred animation platform around. Cinema 4D isn’t without it’s problems though, although it runs like a kitten on Mac, PC users haven’t been so fortunate. The software port on Windows is just horrible, and that’s being very kind. I don’t know what happened when Maxon decided to create this version but somebody was beaten with the idiot stick while converting and optimizing the software for PC. The result is nothing short of a disaster, with constant crashes, rendering issues and a whole lot of bugs that riddle up the program during use to make it virtually unusable for any tasks.
That said Cinema 4D has become so widespread that the studio’s and post houses I align with have animator’s making the switch on a regular basis. The plus’ to the 4D (Mac Version) is that the flexible interface and ease of use are very much different from the complexity of a Studio Max or Lightwave. The easy learning curve is also a welcome addition for those interested in delving into the world of 3D animation, making it a easy choice for beginners. With plugin’s such as SunFlow, and Indigo Renderer Cinema 4D continues to shine with it’s abilities to create body models including hair and skin, smoke and fire effects, sky and global illumination and that’s just to name a few. Cinema 4D endless journey into 3D effects and animation puts it in the must have for anyone looking to join this craft.
Describing CINEMA 4D as his “studio in a box,” Dr.-Ing.V.Sassmannshausen, a world-renowned computer animator and 3D authority better known as “Dr. Sassi,” JET received an Award of Merit in the Film category from the November 2009 Accolade Film, Television, New Media and Video Awards had this to say about the software:
“A filmmaker needs a production pipeline that supports your imagination and lets you work without effort. CINEMA 4D is well-integrated with so many other professional applications that it was easy to create a complete feature-film pipeline using a 3D animation application as the central production tool.”
His 4 minute short animated film created primarily with MAXON CINEMA 4D, has recently been accepted at eight film festivals and honored with two awards. The short was created all by himself and is one example that you can create what you imagine with the right tools. Cinema 4D is certainly proof of that.
