Award-winning visual trend lab and brand image consultancy f°am studio has been tasked with testing the limits of MAXON’s Cinema 4D Release 20 with its artistic muscles. The result: Influencers, a punchy, surrealist piece that recalls the Japanese folklore tradition of tsukumogami — animistic trickster spirits that take over everyday objects. The commissioned short highlights advanced features and streamlined workflows of the latest evolution of Cinema 4D, launched August 1.
MAXON will debut Cinema 4D R20 live and online (C4DLive.com) at the upcoming SIGGRAPH 2018, August 14-16 in Vancouver. The new version will be available in September.
“At f°am studio, we are lured in most by things that are often overlooked,” says the collective. “This curiosity is the root of our work, and our inspiration for this film. ‘Influencers’ is about drawing out the intrigue in the Everyday and allowing it to humbly influence the world around us. For us it’s a celebration of the Creative Process.”
Inspired by the concepts of kami and animism (the idea that all things possess a spirit), Influencers is a CG home tour that gradually reveals a vibrant, energetic world beneath the quiet inanimate surface. The more you watch, the more you see the influencers that alter everyday life. Music and sound by Antfood studio drives the unexpected surprises around each corner — from a multi-colored whatsit that transforms with a pop, or a glass-like prism propelled by illuminated tentacles.
“With access to Maxon’s Cinema 4D R20 prior to its release, we had the pleasure of putting its new features through their paces,” the f°am team states. “The newly implemented Fields and Volume Mesher, together with MAXON’s tireless tweaking and improvement, makes Cinema 4D Release 20 a powerful and well-rounded bundle to express creativity at the highest level possible.”
More on Cinema 4D R20 below the video.
Influencers. from f°am Studio on Vimeo.
“We are excited to be delivering high-end tools and features that will streamline workflow, and push the industry in new and exciting directions,” said David McGavran, CEO at MAXON Computer GmbH. “Over the last decade, our MoGraph toolset has revolutionized the broadcast graphics industry. The new Fields system in R20 offers the next evolution in Cinema 4D’s signature workflow.”
Key highlights in Release 20 include:
- Node-Based Materials – Provide new possibilities for creating materials from simple references to complex shaders in a node-based editor. With more than 150 nodes to choose from that perform different functions, artists can combine nodes to easily build complex shading effects for greater creative flexibility. For an easy start, users new to a node-based material workflow still can rely on the user interface of Cinema 4D’s standard Material Editor, creating the corresponding node material in the background automatically. Node-based materials can be packaged into assets with user-defined parameters exposed in a similar interface to Cinema 4D’s classic Material Editor.
- MoGraph Fields – New capabilities in this industry-leading procedural animation toolset offer an entirely new way to define the strength of effects by combining falloffs – from simple shapes, to shaders or sounds, to objects and formulas. Artists can layer Fields atop each other with standard mixing modes and remap their effects. Group multiple Fields together, and use them to control effectors, deformers, weights, and more.
- CAD Data Import – Popular CAD formats can be directly and seamlessly imported into Cinema 4D R20 with a simple drag and drop. A unique scale-based tessellation interface allows for adjustment of detail to build amazing visualizations. STEP, Solidworks, JT, Catia V5 and IGES formats are supported.
- Volume Modeling – Create complex models by adding or subtracting basic shapes in Boolean-type operations using Cinema 4D R20’s OpenVDB–based Volume Builder and Mesher. Procedurally build organic or hard-surface volumes using any Cinema 4D object including new Field objects. Volumes can be exported in sequenced .vdb format for use in any application or render engine that supports OpenVDB.
- ProRender Enhancements – ProRender in Cinema 4D R20 extends the GPU-rendering toolset with key features including sub-surface scattering, motion blur and multi-passes. Also included are Metal 2 support, an updated ProRender core, out of core textures and other architectural enhancements.
- Core Technology Modernization – As part of the transition to a more modern core in Cinema 4D, R20 comes with substantial API enhancements, the new node framework, further development on the new modeling framework, and a new UI framework.
