Hi Artur, here are some possible solutions and explanations for some of your issues: > > - Viewport has 4 camera modes: cursor, center, object and camera. I use > cursor which most of the cases works fine. General though, that's actually my > tag line for C4D "Most of the time it works fine" and then it doesn't. > So I have lost of objects and I need to go from one to another for animation > and deformers. I put cursor on the object thinking it will orbit around it as > usual and it doesn't. It orbits around a point in space behind few km away so > I am in my ass need to go back to that object again. S if for frame selected > and H frame all. Workflow for me here is: S, H, S frame manually.
The way the C4D navigation works is by shooting rays in the scene and finding the objects you click on to use as camera pivots to navigate. If you have “Object Highlighting” activated in the Filters (viewport menu) this ray casting is a bit slower and especially if you use a wacom tablet it may take a second to register, so sometimes it “misses” the ray hit. Turn off the Object Highlighting and make sure if there are many objects in the scene (e.g. mograph) to wait for a bit (a fraction of a second) before zooming or tumbling. Also, pressing SHIFT and dollying allows you to move into objects. > > Camera: to render through certain camera you need to click an icon in the > explorer or in the viewport menu. There is no setting for it in the render > settings. ?. There is a camera sequencer called Stage (very cool and easy) > but there is no setting to view it in the viewport. Again Icon in the > viewport menu is the only way to make it work. Motion Camera is also very > cool. Drag any camera from the Object manager into the Viewport to create a HUD element of that camera, and then use Double click on that to activate that camera. > > Selecting in the viewport is also a pain. It always selects the parent if it > is a Subd but if the parent is a Null it will select an object. You can try > clicking in the middle of a manipulator axis and there is a menu with object > list. > I heard there is a way of manipulating all tree axis but I don't know how, > not that I didn't tried. Command (or Control) Right click in the viewport gives you a list of all objects underneath the mouse > > Double click "should" select all polys or edges or points. ;) but only if > you're in the transform (transform, rotate, scale) mode. If you're in the > select mode you either have to rectangle select which is by default "only > visible" or paint select which is default way of selecting. If you are in Live selection mode, press Return to go to points, then return to go to edges and then return to go to polygons. Also, you can use Command - A (CTRL - A) to select all. Also, press the “V” key to get the on screen menu and in the Select tab you get all selection types. > Explorer and material "place". It is not also possible but very common for > several objects and materials to coexist with the same name in the scene. You > need to be careful because after a week or so it takes me a large amount of > time to figure whats what. So, naming is so very important. Yes, naming things with unique names is the only solution, unless you use the Layers for grouping stuff. > Textures, images. > It will always ask to copy it its specific folder, but if you'll overwrite it > there it will not refresh it as if it's kept somewhere else. Also it will not > recognize texture sequences. You have to click animate in one menu and other > calculate sequence. First you need to calculate sequence. No solution here I’m afraid. > You can copy paste objects between scenes which is great but if there is a > mix of shaders you need to put in form of tags (C4D is big with > TAGS)components of the mix otherwise is goes empty. So if you have several > mixes included in one another, than all of them need to be in the tags which > gets messy. If you click once on material tag it shows texture tag with > material hidden. If double click then it shows the material. “Mixes”? what exactly do you mean? > Hiding objects is a pain. I don't thing there is a shortcut for it, so you > have to click to little dots aside objects. No multiple hide unless in layers. R16 has the new Solo tool that does exactly that. > Ram. > It seems that C4D r15 keeps building ram usage but rarely flushes it. It > leads me to being forced to restart (task manager way) cinema and all opened > scenes just to clear RAM. This one is actually cool. Several scenes per App. Probably related to a 3rd party plugin (Vray, TFD e.t.c.) What plugins do you use? As far as I know C4D does excellent memory management. > Modeling. > > Basically I stopped at edge split. I tried to add an edge loop. It added but > then I couldn't select it. Then I tried beveling some edges, well nooo. > Simple box with beveled edges and some edge loops..... I gave up. In that > time in SI i was able to model a f.. printer, or a cap, or a pepsi bottle. > If I delete an edge or polygons there are vertices left... WHY? I would like to see your process of modelling in SI. Modelling in C4D is quite good, although we are still missing some tools, but I find it very fast, easy and enjoyable. If you can point me to a video showing some modelling methods you like, I may be able to recreate them in C4D. > Snap is ok, Pivots get f.. up a lot, when I get animation from outside. Don't > know if it's Cinema specific or a carry over. "get animation from outside”. Would you care to explain a bit? > Which leads me to weird naming in C4D: > shaders: > Banji, Banzi, Cheen, Danel, mabel, Nukei. If you double click in the material > space it creates a MAT and for the love of ....my wife, I have no idea which > it is. Haha, yes, these are very old shaders part of a bundle called “Smells like Almonds”… I’m not joking :-) > Noises types sounds similar but the good thing there are like 20 of them. > Rotation axis: default is H.B.P. (XYZ is also available). It means sth but I > don't care. I come to the project late (little animation, shading, render, > VFX) so I don't have nothing to say at this point. > > Explorer. Simply put - I don't like it. This is where all of the scenes > exists and it's functional but not in the way we know it could be. I hate the content manager too :-) but if you get used to it it can be helpful. I only use it to see the C4D content I got from Maxon. > UV... go somewhere else. HOW I MISS SI!!! You can't just go and UV something > quickly unless it's a box or sphere or plane which all have UV at the start. > To uv more complex objects you need to go to UV layout which kills all your > opened menus. Because its a layout not a window. You can save any layout anytime. Just go to “Window -> Customisation” and select Save Layout As Also, if you are on Lynda.com soon they will have my tutorial on UV unwrapping > These are all little things that overall experience make sometimes painful. > There are lots and lots of good things, but to me C4D is a animation and > render tool only. More render really than animation which most often comes > from Maya. > > Sorry, this is what I encounter every day and I can't accept that since I > know it could be better. Take my word for it. Cinema 4D is going forward. Feedback like yours is very valuable. Hang in there :-) Cheers Thanassis
