[Cinema4D] Infamous Shift-Drag Edges.
polycounter lvl 14
Hi everyone,
probably this is a question wich has been asked too much times, but despite my searches around Google, Polycount, and various other sources, I had not find any definitive answer to this.
So, I had to migrate from 3DS to C4D because I switched from PC to Mac, and I really don't want/like/can use BootCamp or Parallels to run 3DS. So, I'm trying C4D r11.5, wich seems a great software, and I like it a lot. But...
As many of you know, in C4D you can't Shift-Drag edges like in 3DS, and this is quite workflow-destructive for lowpoly/midpoly modelers like me. After some searching around the web, I found two possible solutions:
- Select interested edges, press D for Extrude tool, extrude edges just a little bit, then pick again Move tool and move edges around as needed.
Not bad at all, but not as fast as in 3DS.
- Install EasyClone plugin.
Many posts around the web bring to this plugin (I'm not even sure this plugin will do what I need). I downloaded three versions of it (r11.5, r12, "older"), and no one seems to work. I just put the "EasyClone" folder inside the "Plugins" folder of Cinema 4D, reboot C4D, and in the "Plugins" tab, nothing appears. Am I doing something wrong?
Hope soemone will point me in the right direction. Also, if you can suggest other good software wich is not too far from 3DS for polygon modeling, you are welcome.
probably this is a question wich has been asked too much times, but despite my searches around Google, Polycount, and various other sources, I had not find any definitive answer to this.
So, I had to migrate from 3DS to C4D because I switched from PC to Mac, and I really don't want/like/can use BootCamp or Parallels to run 3DS. So, I'm trying C4D r11.5, wich seems a great software, and I like it a lot. But...
As many of you know, in C4D you can't Shift-Drag edges like in 3DS, and this is quite workflow-destructive for lowpoly/midpoly modelers like me. After some searching around the web, I found two possible solutions:
- Select interested edges, press D for Extrude tool, extrude edges just a little bit, then pick again Move tool and move edges around as needed.
Not bad at all, but not as fast as in 3DS.
- Install EasyClone plugin.
Many posts around the web bring to this plugin (I'm not even sure this plugin will do what I need). I downloaded three versions of it (r11.5, r12, "older"), and no one seems to work. I just put the "EasyClone" folder inside the "Plugins" folder of Cinema 4D, reboot C4D, and in the "Plugins" tab, nothing appears. Am I doing something wrong?
Hope soemone will point me in the right direction. Also, if you can suggest other good software wich is not too far from 3DS for polygon modeling, you are welcome.
Replies
I think Maya is a much worse app for modeling out of the box than Max, IMO Modo has better poly modeling tools than max, just the UI and how the tools work, but Max is much more powerful when you get into complex modifier combinations. Silo is sort of a poor man's Modo, real good modeling tools and use etc.
I used to work in an office that was using Macs, and I personally didn't like C4D at all after using it for a while. Advanced Render is great and it handles CAD files well, and MoGraph/Mocca are good if you use them, but for modeling/animation I don't think it really competes with even Maya, and certainly not Modo as a fully featured package.
You just have to get used to the way it works, like any 3D software.
I'm another 3DS -> C4D migrator. No real choice about it, and now I'm glad it was C4D I was lumbered with as theres a lot of powerful tools under the hood.
I forget my lowpoly modelling workflow in 3DS 8 but one feature I miss is being able to draw verts where ever I like.
I find that if you change your workflow a little, you can speed things up. Good things to investigate are the cut and extrude tools. They actually have a myriad of settings which you can tailor to your preference. Get used to Extruding lines (edges) - its the fastest way to make new polygons. Get used to selecting edges in the different ways offered.
Get used to pressing V for all the best polytool types submenu while modelling.
As with anything, watching a bunch of tutorial videos on youtube will expose the fastest way to lowpoly model in C4D
Animation in C4D still confuses me to the point of hair pulling though.
However, C4D does have quite limited use in the games industry, and is easily low on the list of full featured apps if you want to do current gen, bakes, normals, etc. More in the Lightwave/Blender/etc range than the Maya/Max, or even XSI range, as far as quality support and tools for shaders and proper bakes, maybe its on par with XSI?
When we think of things like:
Support for viewport shaders, and quality, free shaders readily available
Quality baking tools, with proper synced up tangent basis display
Exporters/Support for a wide variety of game engines
C4D would rarely enter the conversation.
When I bought it a few years back (R9 I think it was), it was a simple choice of 3 versions. I just bought the package I needed, and the DWG/VectorWorks plugin which was like £50, but now you have a bunch of different modules which you have to purchase additionally. If I was looking at purchasing now it would be a deal breaker because I'd have to pick up the package designed for Arch-Viz just for DWG support which costs an extra £1000 for a lot of extra stuff I'm not interested in; content libraries, 'walkthrough camera tool', NPR etc.
Also not including GI in the base package is just silly. That basically means nobody will purchase the Prime version unless they're using another software renderer.
Having all this in mind, I think I'm going to try Modo as soon as I can. And why not, Maya... I'm pretty sure I will find a faster workflow in them rather than in C4D.
There are a bunch of simple-yet-useful features wich made 3DS inestimable to me, and wich I would love to find in Modo, or Maya:
- Shift-Drag edges (can't live without it, used bilions of times)
- Good control over UVW maps (especially when sticking vertexes to map pixels, for small textures)
- Very easy Skeleton-Skin creation and setup, with full and fast control of vertex weights.
- Easy to use Compound Lofts (really useful when creating racetracks)
- Overall easy to learn controls... Or maybe it's because I worked on 3DS for quite a long time.
After all, what I really need is just what you would expect when doing 3D models/textures/animations for NDS and iPhone games. 3DS was perfect for it... Maybe, sooner or later it will come to Mac too.
Z in modo, X is extrude as well(for use on faces instead of edges)
I've never had to do anything like this, possibly look at grid snapping for uvs, dunno. Modo's uv editor in general is much better than Max/Maya, IMO.
Modo doesn't have anything for rigging(atleast not soft deformation), you'll want to look at Maya for this, as the people who tend to like maya the most are animators
Extruding via a spline, max does this better than any other app IMO. Since Modo doesn't use a modifier system its a "once its done its done" tool, but it can be done, not sure about maya, may be the same.
I think most everything is going to seem strange compared to max, just the way it is. I feel modo is a pretty simple and easy to learn app tho. Maya will be pain.
If you do go the Modo route and you want a way to do "easy Skeleton-Skin creation and setup, with full and fast control of vertex weights." Then you'd best go buy a copy of Messiah before it's too late, though I've heard the Mac port isn't as good as the Windows native version. It does export FBX to Unity so I'm thinking it'll probably work with UDK as well.
There's also Blender and I've heard the new 2.5 series is great at animation.
EDIT:
For the extrude edge thing I use Seneca's "bevel little" script (get the newest version here) though tying it to shift + edge selection might kill other Modo controls unless you do some serious hotkey setup tweaks.
There's also someone currently selling a version of 301 (which I think would be essentially 302 because of the free upgrade) and a cheaper way to get 501 though check with Luxology to make sure the seller is legit first and buy at your own risk of course.
So, no skinned animations with Modo? What a pain... Looks like every software lacks at least one crucial feature wich Max, even if not perfectly done, had. I never supposed moving from PC to Mac could be so painful when talking about 3D CG.
I wonder why Max is not natively compatible with Mac, while Maya is... Autodesk secrets.
I seen some Modo videos, and yes, it's really different from Max or C4D, as Ben Apuna said. Right by now I could consider also trying Maya: after a brief look at the Autodesk site, Maya appears to have very similar tools to 3DS.
Does Maya meet that 5 crucial points I listed before?
Of course the ultimate solution would be for Autodesk to release max on macs.
Also, I managed to try Maya. It's extremely complex...
Ask some maya user how to do a common thing that is a basic feature in max/modo, and they'll say "Oh its easy, just write a script/plugin for that!"
You should still try Modo out, its one of those apps that you can pick up in an hour, or at worst a couple evenings.
Indeed it is, I really appreciate its interface, and could be almost perfect, but... The main problem is all about animations, as you said before. What I really need is a simple bone sistem, with standard IK, vertex weights and some kind of constraints (noise, Look-At). Nothing more to be honest... I never used more than this on Max, when animating characters for NDS games.
And what about Lightwave?
Though there is one thing you can't do with this combination, which is explicitly edit your vertex normals. You'll have smoothing groups (Modo 501) just not a way to make nice soft looking foliage planes. I think it could be done with a script but as yet no one has written one (it's on my list of things to do one I understand the math behind it...).
If you didn't buy Messiah while the deal was on, there's also Cheetah3D for animation.
Well, looks like I'm going to try Demo and Trials of every single 3D package that can run on Mac... O_o
At the moment I'm following some basic Modo tutorials, and I have to say it's really efficient. Polygon modeling is quite easy and fast, I like the way everything is organized. And the help sistem is very funny too: