Is Cinema 4 a good 3D animation program?

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hnQ8100
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Joined: Sat Jan 29, 2011 1:36 am

Is Cinema 4 a good 3D animation program?

Post by hnQ8100 »

Hi guys,
I love AS regardless what.
Wondering Cinema 4 is a good program to
learn 3D animation? What are the chances to
make a 5 minutes animation with Cinema 4?
ruscular3d
Posts: 393
Joined: Sun Dec 26, 2010 12:18 am

Post by ruscular3d »

It's pretty spendy for a learning program. Professional can use it and seem pretty impressive. But for learning I would suggest Wings3D for modeling and maybe Messiah3D for animation. Blender is free but the learning curve seem pretty high for me, but I hear they have improve much in the UI. The particle effect in blender seem to be very popular.
dm
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Location: Los Angeles

Post by dm »

c4D=Pretty good program. Look at Maya. Look at Houdini. You can get Houdini free (watermarked), and cheap, and expensive. http://www.sidefx.com/

c4D places: http://www.c4dzone.com/en/
http://www.c4dcafe.com
http://forums.creativecow.net/cinema4d

Kind of depends on what you want to do with it. They all have their strengths and weaknesses. Learning what for what purpose? They all have some similarities in operation. A little more info on intended use could lessen your headaches in the future.

"What are the chances to make a 5 minutes animation?" What's that supposed to mean? It can certainly do it. No particular reason you shouldn't be able to accomplish that, if you put in the time.
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Nolan Scott
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Post by Nolan Scott »

Well, depending what you like to do with your 3D skills...?
Illustrations, Motion Graphics, Movies, Games, Architecture etc...?
Every 3D Application has a few strong points they do best... more or less...
Though they all do a little of everything...

Cinema 4D (including BodyPaint 3D) is well-known for it’s ease of use...
Very popular among graphic artists, visual effects- and 3D-animators...
Even the base package “Prime” offers a lot of possibilities... for starters...
http://www.maxon.net/products/general-i ... rison.html
It integrates fairly well with Photoshop, After Effect and Final Cut Pro...
Combining Image Editing and Compositing with your knowledge of 3D and 2D
would be a great skill set to have....

If you’re new to 3D you can expect a fairly high learning curve, like with any other 3D package,
but from my personal experience, Cinema 4D was the easiest to learn for me...
Working in Animation 2D or 3D (regardless what package you’re using)
involves still lots of work, hours of concentration and is a lifelong process...

Use a package that is most accessible to you and offers the most pleasure to work with...

Download the demos and find out for yourself

Regards
Nolan

If you like, here are a few links:
http://www.cineversity.com/tutorial...INEMA+4D+11%2E5

http://vimeo.com/channels/cinema4dtutorials

http://www.c4dtraining.com/blog/?cat=3

http://www.lynda.com/CINEMA-4D-trai...ning/307-2.html
hnQ8100
Posts: 38
Joined: Sat Jan 29, 2011 1:36 am

Post by hnQ8100 »

Guys, Thanks so much for your answers.
Cinema4 requires a new PC for me. Seems to be the right time
for me to buy a new PC anyway.
The Demo in their website impressed me.
I wonder if there is something like "action" feature
and whether their character animation is "bone movement"
based like that of AS.
Thanks again
dm
Posts: 272
Joined: Tue Aug 19, 2008 7:50 pm
Location: Los Angeles

Post by dm »

If you're going to use C4D for character animation, you might want to look into Cactus Dan's plugins: http://cactus3d.com/ (not sure about current version compatibility). The 'Studio' version of C4D adds in some helpful tools. Worth looking at.

Rigging in 3D is a chore. C4D rigging has improved over the years, but is still lacking compared to something like Houdini. Yes, it's 'bone movement' if you want it to be. Take a look at the tutorials on Cactus Dan's page for a little more insight into that.

Action? Well, sort of. You can set up that sort of thing, more or less.

Houdini is a better choice. Maya probably so too.
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GCharb
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Post by GCharb »

The easiest I have seen and used for rigging and character animation overhaul is Softimage as I can rig a character in less then 1-2 hours in it.

Never tried C4D, so I cant compare.
dm
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Location: Los Angeles

Post by dm »

Forgot Softimage. Also MotionBuilder. Autodesk sells a combo pack with those two and Maya (or 3D Max).

3D is certainly the land of plug-ins and additional software. You can't have enough tools to get 3D done.
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