New release : Cinema4D r13

While I haven't had the chance to try it out, now is a good time to check out the improvements announced for Cinema4D release 13, which is said to be available in September.

Right... So when we start the new semester, suddenly we will have to upgrade our software: Cinema4D r13, ArchiCAD 15, maybe Rhino3D 5? This is quite inconvenient as we need some time to learn the new features, see if it makes sense to incorporate them into our learning material and maybe update a few of the screenshots or text in our learning material. I just finished the text for release 12... (see http://caad.asro.kuleuven.be/Manuals/VIZ/Cinema4D/ ).

Anyway, there are some interesting new features. The full detail can be read on different places, e.g. http://www.c4dcafe.com/ipb/topic/61697-maxon-announces-r13/ which has screenshots and movies linked. The downloadable tutorials are free for a short while without registration! Hurry up!

The "executive summary", with the new or improved features that matter most for architectural modeling and visualization:

• Physical Renderer: an additional rendering engine which supports physical properties for rendering, such as more integrated and accurate motion blur, depth-of-field, lens distortion.
• Stereoscopic Workflow: 3D movies are "hot" (well, still have to see one to be convinced) and this is quite convenient if you are already working in 3D. Still, without the proper hardware, you can not see anything of it.
• Character Animation enhancements: not directly the focus in architectural visualization, but if the setup of a character rig is improved and you can generate walk-cycles more easily, this might be usable by non-specialists. Using motion-capture or manually key-framing a character is only something that the specialists are able to do convincingly.
• Improved viewport navigation: orbiting and zooming relative to the point you click on will be very welcomed.
• New XRefs: this is something that will be important when you want to visualize large architectural scenes (e.g. a site with several separate buildings).

Some remarkable "details":

• No new modeling enhancements.
• Backwards Compatible: you can open r13 scenes in r12 (!)

So will everybody start upgrading? It seems a good feature set and if the software is still freely available for students, I guess that we will try to stay with the newest release, if it is available in time.