Maxon Cinema 4D Studio review

As well as the core Cinema 4D application, Maxon produces a number of dedicated modules designed to extend the platform: MOCCA (£459 inc VAT) for advanced character rigging and animation; MoGraph (£355) for motion graphics; HAIR (£355) for dedicated fur and hair handling; Sketch and Toon (£459) for non-photo-realistic rendering; Thinking Particles (£355) for intelligent particle handling; Dynamics (£355) for accurate physics-based animation; and Net Render (£355) to convert your network into a render farm.

Maxon tends to update one or two of these extensions with each release of Cinema 4D, and the lucky module in this development cycle has been Advanced Render (£459). This module already offers support for ambient occlusion, HDRI, sub-polygon displacement, realistic atmospheres and particle-based smoke and fire. In this new version 3 release, the headline addition is the support for the RIB format and deep integration with engines compliant with Pixar's RenderMan, the secret behind most 3D-based cinema output.

This third-party integration should help make Advanced Render 3 attractive to high-end film studios but, for the average user, the module's great selling point is its own rendering capabilities - in particular its support for Global Illumination. GI renders a scene based on indirect lighting and so produces much softer and more realistic results than ray tracing, but its big downside has always been the huge increase in rendering time. Not any longer. With a complete reworking of its GI engine, Advanced Render produces beautiful results in a fraction of the time. Previously you had to think hard before switching on GI, now its superior quality is always at hand.

As the other modules provide similar state-of-the-art power in their respective fields, Maxon sensibly rolls them into its Studio bundle, which for the first time includes everything, even MoGraph. Studio's combined power is truly extraordinary and enables Cinema 4D to more than hold its own against other high-end 3D options such as Maya. The problem of course is the price. Even though Studio costs considerably less than the combined cost of its components, it's still a massive amount.

Ultimately the real strength of the Cinema 4D platform is that most users won't actually need to buy the full Studio. That option is there for the most advanced users with the budget to match, but average users will find more than enough power for their needs in the superb core program plus one or two modules.

Author: Tom Arah