CINEMA 4D offers you all you need to create high-end 3D pictures and animations - right out of the box. And CINEMA 4D’s modular design - with a total of 8 modules that you can buy individually - allows you to custom fit the application to suit your needs and your budget.


Workflow and Interface

As a 3D artist you know that fast, easy workflow is the key to meeting deadlines and beating the competition. CINEMA 4D’s interface takes advantage of non-modal managers for realtime feedback and robust OpenGL support to provide an efficient foundation, while allowing you to customize almost every aspect of the interface itself to achieve the fastest and easiest workflow possible.

New to Release 9.5 is the ability to easily switch to and from full screen mode. This gives you the maximum space possible to work on your models or scenes. Little amenities have also been added that make working with CINEMA 4D more pleasant. For example, items can now be renamed directly in the Object Manager or Material Editor.

CINEMA 4D’s completely customizable interface puts every tool within easy reach. You can easily redesign layouts, palettes and even menus to match your personal workflow or particular tasks, and easily switch between layouts and menus with the click of a button. With cascading shortcuts, you can assign a shortcut key to any command and even group commands under a single shortcut. The global popup provides easy access to frequently used commands, while the HUD puts valuable scene data and tool options right on top of the scene.

You’re an artist, and it’s important that your interface looks good in addition to working well. CINEMA 4D’s schemes allow you to easily change the look and feel of the interface to match your style or mood. Use one of several included schemes or design your own and share it with other users. CINEMA 4D’s fast, stylish interface fits you. You’re a 3D artist in the real world, and it’s time you start working faster - and smarter.


Content Browser

As an integral part of the CINEMA 4D workflow, the new Content Browser ensures an optimal overview and management of projects and related files.

The Content Browser’s sophisticated search functions, in combination with its directory structure view of your project’s files and the ability to assign keywords help you find your files quickly and reliably. Use drag and drop to manage models, shaders or presets within the three available catalogs.

Furthermore, the Content Browser automatically generates thumbnail preview images to let you see at an instant what each file looks like. Thumbnails of existing files are “passed on” to other catalogs, which keeps new thumbnails from having to constantly be generated anew.

The fact that presets and preferences from various modules can be managed using the Content Browser lets you work more efficiently and helps you save valuable time.


Modeling

The first step in most 3D projects is creating the objects that will be used in the scene. The most basic shapes are provided in CINEMA 4D as parametric primitives, with parameters like size, fillet and orientation easily adjustable. Parametric objects can be used as is or converted to polygons as a basis for more complicated objects. A number of deformers and other generators can be used in conjunction with objects, and their non-linear construction history makes it easy to adjust items as the scene progresses. Splines can be used as the basis for extrudes, lofts, lathes and sweeps, all of which can be adjusted dynamically in real time and even animated.

CINEMA 4D’s extensive polygon modeling tools are essential when creating more complex objects. Automatic and tweak selection modes make it easy to select any element regardless of the current editing mode, while interactive highlighting allows you to preview selections and other actions. Polygon tools provide real-time feedback and tasks such as extrusions and bevels can be updated dynamically. A powerful knife tool works in conjunction with n-gons to easily cut holes, planes and paths in objects, while the stitch and sew tool makes it easy to close holes between objects. With the brush and magnet tools, you can easily paint point deformations for more organic objects.
Add the finishing touch to your polygonal models with HyperNURBs. This weighted subdivision-surface tool smoothes basic polygonal models for a more organic touch.

Whether your scenes are real-world or out of this world, CINEMA 4D’s powerful modeling tools provide the building blocks for your imagination.

Modeling with N-Gons
CINEMA 4D offers you the possibility to work with n-gons, which are polygons with unlimited edges. This helps you to achieve a much clearer overview even with the most complex models.


Animation

Bringing your 3D objects to life through animation can be the most rewarding and challenging aspect of any 3D project. CINEMA 4D provides the animation tools to achieve almost any animation effect. An extensive timeline allows easy organization and manipulation of animation tracks, and all parameters can be automatically keyframed as you make changes.

Quickly add keyframes to parameters by simply clicking the dot next to the parameter. Using modifier keys, this simple dot provides the power to set and delete keyframes or entire tracks. Keyframes can also be created by clicking the record button or through direct manipulation of the timeline.

The timeline

The cornerstone of CINEMA 4D’s animation capability is an extensive and flexible timeline. The timeline allows easy review and manipulation of your scene’s animation tracks, sequences and keyframes. CINEMA 4D’s timeline allows you to view a hierarchal listing of all of the scene’s objects, properties and animation tracks, or display the animation of certain desired objects. Separate tracks for the X, Y and Z position, scale and rotation values and for each individual object parameter make it easy to organize your animation. Individual tracks, sequences and keys can be assigned to layers for easy identification, or to quickly hide or lock those items.

F-curves for even greater control

For even greater control, you can take advantage of the f-curves view. This powerful tool allows you to view animation as a curve and easily adjust the acceleration and overshoot of an animation sequence.

CINEMA 4D’s animation system is easy-to-learn, efficient and flexible, so you can start animating quickly and continue animating quickly as your skills progress.


XPresso

Build extensive relationships and add powerful interaction to your 3D scene with XPresso, CINEMA 4D’s visual node-based expressions editor. An expression is a relationship between objects in your 3D scene that often includes some mathematical manipulation, like using the rotation of one object to change the position of another. Normally, these types of relationships would require programming, but with XPresso they’re a matter of drag and drop.

XPresso provides a tool for artists to intuitively create relationships between almost any object, material or effect parameter. Most module parameters are even accessible through XPresso, and Thinking Particles is almost completely controlled through the XPresso interface. Relationships can be saved to XGroups to use later on your own projects or share with other users. Variables within your XPressions can be linked to sliders in the attributes manager to create driven-key animation and complete slider-based interfaces to your 3D scene.

XPresso gives you complete control over the 3D scene, and drastically improves workflow by providing a visual interface to scene properties. Explore XPresso and discover the power of relational animation in CINEMA 4D.

Scripts have been introduced to the application in CINEMA 4D Release 9.5. These scripts consist of little bits of C.O.F.F.E.E. code that can be generated and managed via an easy to use interface.

The major advantage: Scripts do not require a plugin I.D. and can nevertheless be integrated into the interface as a “normal” CINEMA 4D command in the form of a new button, a real advantage when using scripts.

You’ve never been able to create new functions as fast as with this new editor.


Material Editor

Every 3D artist knows an extensive material system is key to creating realistic and convincing 3D images. Whether it’s artificial or natural materials you’re creating, CINEMA 4D’s material system provides incredible control over the properties of your 3D objects. You can easily define an object’s color, diffusion, luminance, transparency, reflection, environment, fog, bump, alpha, specular, glow, displacement and illumination properties.

Baker and the Normal Maps

In CINEMA 4D R9.5, Normal maps are now present in the form of a new material channel. This technology, especially beloved in the computer games industry, lets you make low-poly objects look very detailed.
The completely reworked Baker offers even more new possibilities. You can, for example, generate a Normal map out of geometry created using SubPolygonDisplacement. If you own the Advanced Render module, you can also “bake” the newly added Ambient Occlusion function and add this data to the Normal map.

The basis for most channels is a texture or shader. For textures, CINEMA 4D supports most popular image formats including layered PSD files and Quicktime or AVI movie files. An extensive complement of 2D and 3D volumetric shaders make it easy to create procedural aspects of any surface, and easily simulate glass, wood, metal or almost any other surface. Using the filter and layer shaders, you can easily combine images, shaders and filter effects, while the BodyPaint 3D module allows you to paint details directly on objects for the ultimate control.

Material magic makes your scenes come alive, and CINEMA 4D provides the tools to make your real-world projects look like a reality.


Baker

The reworked Baker in CINEMA 4D R9.5 offers two fantastic methods to create maps: Normal maps and Ambient Occlusion*.

Baking textures is nothing new to CINEMA 4D, but the new Baker goes one step further.

Normal Maps
This is a technology that, until now, has been used primarily in game development, where it’s important to be able to give a low-poly object a high-res look.
As opposed to normal bump maps that only contain height information in the Z-axis, Normal maps contain height information for the X, Y and Z-axes. This results in much more realistic surfaces and lighting with low-poly objects.

It Doesn’t Get Any Easier Than This
One of the outstanding features of the CINEMA 4D Baker is its ability to create Normal maps from displacements. Normally, you would have to create a high-poly object as a reference from which to generate a Normal map for a low-poly object. With the CINEMA 4D Baker, though, you can create Normal maps using SubPolygonDisplacement or Ambient Occlusion*. You won’t get faster results anywhere.


Lighting

Lighting is perhaps the most important aspect of any 3D render. Just like a poorly lit photograph, a 3D scene without proper lighting will fail to meet the expectations of clients and colleagues. CINEMA 4D offers a complete array of gaffer’s tools so you can make your scene shine far above the competition.

Nine different light types and four different shadow calculations provide the basis for an extraordinarily powerful lighting system. An abundance of additional parameters allows you to adjust the color, brightness, falloff and other properties. You can adjust the density and color of each light’s shadows, and make visible or volumetric lights with noise patterns that appear in the light cone. Plenty of options allow you to create tons of different lens flare effects. You can even cheat reality by including or excluding particular objects from the effect of each light.

Special attention was given to area lights and area shadows in the new CINEMA 4D Release 9.5. It is now possible to assign an area light any shape in order to give your scene optimal lighting. In addition, falloff is now calculated more realistically. The crowning element, though, is the improved render speeds of up to 300% faster than previous CINEMA 4D versions.

Lights possess settings such as contrast, lens reflexes, shadow color, and volumetric light and noise, among others, that can be edited for each light individually.

The best models and textures do little good if the final render lacks proper lighting. With CINEMA 4D, you can show off your models in the best possible light.

Last but not least you may use the new HeadUpDisplay to show a slider setup for your lighting - directly in your viewport.


Rendering

The CINEMA 4D rendering engine is legendary for its ability to deliver stunning image quality with unprecedented speed.
When a deadline is breathing down your neck, it’s good to know that you can rely on CINEMA 4D’s outstanding renderer to
deliver great-looking results in a very short time.

The new Release 9.5 has again boosted rendering speeds – up to four times faster when rendering area lights!

CINEMA 4D will easily support almost any broadcast or film application, with a maximum image size of 16,000 pixels square and support for Quicktime, PSD, TIF and many other popular formats. CINEMA 4D’s raytracer computes reflection, refraction and other high quality shading effects with ease. Adaptive and object-based antialiasing options save render time and eliminate artifacts, while a variety of modes adjust the antialiasing for broadcast, print or other mediums.

Compositing proofed

Utilize CINEMA 4D’s multipass rendering to gain the ultimate control over your renders. Easily render color, shadow, reflection and other effects to individual files to tweak in your favorite compositing application. Multiple object-based alpha channels make it easy to layer elements with other 2D and 3D assets. With direct export to Adobe Photoshop, Adobe After Effects, Final Cut Pro, Combustion and Shake your multipass layers will be ready to composite in no time.

With support for multiple processors, HyperThreading(TM) and DualCore technology, CINEMA 4D ekes every ounce of rendering power from your computer. For even faster renders, you can use the Net Render module to spread the rendering workflow to computer systems across the office or around the globe. With fast, high quality results you can count on, CINEMA 4D delivers real-world results on a real-world schedule.


HDRI

The Advanced Render module now fully supports HDRI-format imagery. HDRI images contain 64 bits of color and light information as opposed to standard 24-bit images. The additional light and color information make it easy to achieve accurate image-based lighting with radiosity and reflections.

HDRI images can be created with a quality camera and one of several imaging applications, but users can get started with freely available images from websites such as the Light Probe Image Gallery www.debevec.org/Probes/.

With Release 9.5 you can output your renders in full spectrum 32-bit color using HDRI or OpenEXR format, and tweak your images with new multipass channels for normal maps, UV maps and straight alphas.


File Formats

Man isn’t an island, and neither is CINEMA 4D. Because real world 3D artists don’t work in a vacuum, CINEMA 4D includes support for a host of industry standard file formats. Images and movies in PSD, TIF, Targa, JPG, Quicktime, AVI and other popular formats can be imported as textures or modeling templates, or used for final output.

Support for vector formats extends to Illustrator import and Flash and EPS export. Assets can be exchanged with other 3D apps in DXF, 3DS, OBJ and other formats, while entire scenes can be imported using Lightwave and FBX formats. Architects and engineers enjoy direct import of scenes from Allplan, Vectorworks and ArchiCad through the purchase of additional modules.

Windows users can even populate their scenes using Archvision’s RPC format and extensive libraries of Real People and objects. Scenes can be exported to the web using Macromedia’s SW3D format, while final renders can be exported directly to Adobe After Effects, Combustion, Final Cut Pro, Shake and NxN Alienbrain. You can easily transfer data with other tools you use frequently, and that makes CINEMA 4D the best tool for the job.

Available file formats:

3D formats:

3D Studio
Biovision BVH/BVA
DEM
DXF
Direct 3D
FBX
Lightwave
Monzoom
Quickdraw 3D
STL
Shockwave 3D
UZR
VRML 1+2
Wavefront OBJ 2D vector formats:
Flash (SWF)
Illustrator (AI / EPS)


2D bitmap formats:

TIFF
BodyPaint 3D
Photoshop PSD
Targa TGA
BMP
PICT
IFF
JPEG
RLA
RPF
SGI (via Quicktime)
PNG (via Quicktime)
JP2 (via Quicktime) Animation- and compositing formats:
Quicktime (if installed)
AVI (Windows only)
After Effects
Final Cut
Combustion
Shake
Motion


Optional formats:

Allplan
ArchiCAD
NXN Alienbrain
RPC (Windows only)
Vector Works

Of course, you’ll also find that many applications allow you to export directly to the C4D format - such as Allplan.

-- Source: www.maxon.net ---