Cinema 4D Reviews & Product Details

The non-destructive workflow. Having the ability to keep objects parametric is vital for what we do. It makes versioning quick and painless. Having access to edit values to alter the look of things is what makes C4D so powerful. The integration and workflow between AE has also been simplified and added to since I started using C4D and it looks like it's just getting better.

There isn't much to dislike about C4D, but if I had to target one thing I would have to say the UV system needs a lot of work. It's possible to do the things you need to do with the current setup, but it has a clunky workflow and is missing some much needed tools to make editing the UVs easier.

We provide motion graphics for various commercial installs and sporting facilities around the world. We generate ads, video intros, crowd prompts, and a variety of other content for stadiums.

The ease of access to tools, training, and plugins, matched with the user-friendly UI, makes this my software of choice. For users trying to begin a career in 3D design, one of the biggest barriers to entry can be frustration, but with Cinema 4D, it's user interface is so intuitive that a person can get started and create even the most rudimentary of shapes with moderate success. Online training and help are readily available with easy to follow tutorials and techniques. Maxon is very helpful as well, as they hold multiple events around the county that users can meet up at, and engage with other users, trainers, and celebrities of the 3D world.

More advanced features like xpresso can feel daunting to learn. Other things are minor, but reconciling settings from one machine to another can be annoying. Having a user profile, like that of Adobe, would be helpful.

My business is built upon my use of this software. Without Cinema 4D I would have had to turn to inferior products like 3Ds max or maya. Being about to quickly create assets, render, and delivery is critical. This software allows me to service an area of the video production industry's needs that is still relatively specialized, but thanks to its ease of use and access to training, I was able to provide this service after a short period of learning. Now that I have become an expert in the use of this software, it sets me well above that of my competitors in the video production industry.

the powerful native 3D render engine. is very freindly software.

the software doesn't have shortcuts for changing of views.

Modeling and Rendering Products and objects.

quite easy to understand, even my non-graphist coworkers quickly understood how to use it. plus its physical renderer is already quite good.

mograph can be a pain to understand and master.

mechanical design and 3d renders

Cinema 4d is the best 3D software for graphic designers. It is the program for excellence. Nowadays more and more people in the sector are using. Is the best program to create animations in 3d. Has many new characteristics, and gives you a lot of ways to create. Recently it has improved the compatibility with adobe after effects, which makes it the best software to create your own motion graphics. Without doubt the best 3d program for this sector.

Maybe, the way to animate it's complex. Learning is needed to start to do something 'decent'. You need to research a lot of materials.

In my daily life I use Cinema 4D to make animations. I use illustrator to make the illustrations, then I extrude them into 4d cinema and create animations. At first it is not easy, but when you control the program is the best

In comparison to other software like Maya, Cinema4d is easier to use and faster to learn. you will see results with great quality in less than a month.

As any other 3d software, it takes time to learn its interface. The shortcuts can be annoying for somebody moving from other 3d programs.

Motion Design

I use Cinema 4D mostly for modeling and texturing. The tools for modeling are intuitive and easy to use. I like the options I have for texturing and lighting. Having multiple views of my model on the viewport (without needing to switch between viewports) lets me work a lot faster.

There's a bit of a learning curve and it's not easy to pick up compared to the Adobe design programs.

3D models made from Cinema 4D look very professional.

Cinema 4d is ieasier to use than most of the modeling softwares (such as rhino or sketchup), the interface is basic, even if it exist lot of options. You have a 4 different windows on the main screen, showing you the side of your object ,like in rhino. It's more pleasant and precise to use than sketchup and less difficult as rhino. It's a very nice modelling software for creating curved object which is the major advantage of cine4d for industrial designers. Also it exist lots of tutorial for starters which are great, there is a quite big C4d community.

I dislike the C4d rendering process, which is very complicated, long to use and isn't satisfaying me. I recommand to use an specific rendering software as Keyshot or Maxwell. It's very interresant to use Cinema 4d rendering options for making little video using also After Effect but it's quite complicated too.

With Cinema 4D you can model in 3d even if you'r just starting, I recommand it for industrial designer and animators.

What I like the most about Cinema 4D is the mograph module, that allows really cool animations in no time, It's complete set of tools helps you create anything you can imagine, and along with the xpresso you can rig and connect almost any property giving you endless possibilities. I also find Cinema 4D to be a really intuitive and complete software, Its easy to learn,

I think bodypaint is a bit confusing and you need to spend more time to get the hang of it, and sometimes feels a bit laggy. I feel it really needs an update.

I use Cinema 4D for Motion Graphics animation and since I started using it I quickly realized it is the best tool for this, its mograph and animation tools are really complete and intuitive, they allow you to create amazing stuff.

You literally do ANYTHING with this software, any kind of volume. The renderers are pretty powerful, sometimes you won't have to use the V-Ray plug-in.

It's pretty hard to use the software, I learned by myself, and I had to watch a lot of tutorials. Some tools are really hard to understand.

I do all my 3D with this software, and all the renderings. I couldn't work without it.

The interface is greatful and easy to do anything

More options to move or manipulate the testures

I did works on my job on my personal profile it is a great software.

Speed. Mograph modules allow very quick building of motion graphic scenes. There is also a large community online sharing knowledge about tricks and techniques so no schooling cost is necessary to learn this software. Third party plug-ins are available which greatly enhance Cinema's already rich & creative tool pallet. For example, X-particles greatly expands the ease of creating complex particle behaviors and interactions . Turbulence FD which is a fire and smoke simulator can also drive X-particles with it's fluid simulations for even more organic movement. It also has third party render engines available such as Vray, Arnold, and Octane which allow for realistic renders based on physical lighting.

Cinema's speed and ease of use does create a ceiling of sorts. This, however, has now been addressed by adding the Houdini Engine into the pipeline. An artist who is looking to push beyond Cinema's capacity can harness the complex and nearly limitless power of Houdini by bringing in digital assets created in Houdini and exporting parameters that the artist can then control natively within the Cinema 4D tools set. Another problem has been render engines. Vray is always a few years behind in C4D as it is not created by the original authors but is instead written by a third party developer. Arnold was just bought by Autodesk so that may go away in coming years. Luckily Octane's GPU based Engine has been growing quickly and generates beautiful renders which can be sped up by daisy chained GPU's making a small render farm more affordable and expandable for freelance artists and small studios.

The community surrounding C4D simply put, is amazing. If i need to solve a problem, a quick google search can often supply me with answers that will at least put me in the right direction if not completely answer my query. This is invaluable. Cinema is a an amazing solution for fast turnaround projects such as style boards or simple motion graphics. The user interface is friendly and then mograph modules are powerful. I can solve nearly every problem I encounter natively within C4D and it's plug-ins. From VFX to motion graphics.

The interface is fast and easy to learn but not limiting.

Lack of a native node based texture system (one is available through third party plugins).

Cinema 4d does the whole 3D workflow for our studio. From motion graphics to vfx.

Intuitive modeling tools are friendly for beginners. The UI is very friendly and customizable by the user or via built-in presets. Physical renderer can produce some spectacular results. Mograph toolset makes creating motion graphics and abstract 3D designs a breeze. Team Render is a nice feature that can help you harness all available CPUs on your network at render time. Lots of great plugins available to build on an already solid foundation. Compatibility with popular 3rd party renderers is great. Viewport speed and performance appears to be getting better and better.

UV editing is a bit of a trial-and-error process. Texture painting and UVs end up being easier to tackle using a different application. Physical renderer is awesome but speeds could stand to be improved, particularly when working with in-camera motion blur or depth-of-field turned on.

The ability to rely on the package to give me the tools I need to meet client demands and timelines. C4D provides flexibility in every stage of design and animation, and working with things like non-destructive modifiers helps keep me on time when dealing with last-minute client changes. I haven't experienced any catastrophic crashes or application errors so I feel like stability is a priority for MAXON. Reliable performance is highly important and C4D has provided that on many a late-night render sprint.

Cinema 4D is unbelievably powerful and also a very stable platform. You can use it for everything from creating simple mock-ups to full scale 3D productions. It is far more accessible than most 3D software and is constantly striving to improve itself. I love the support and amount of community that has built up around, it seems there is a tutorial for everything to do with Cinema 4D.

Unfortunately, despite being much better than some 3D software the interface and options can still be a bit daunting. Though I am not sure right now how to suggest a solution. The fact that a whole piece of design can fail to work simply because you have not checked a single box can be a real pain. Also, the integration with the Arnold renderer needs some work as this causes my version to crash quite a lot. One other thing, is that as Maxon update the software quite extensively with each new iteration, many tutorials become confusing quickly. For example whole areas of the interface completely change, so it can be quite challenging working out how to make things work with the new tools.

We have used Cinema 4D for everything from VFX work to mock-ups, full scale animations and compositing. There are so many possibilities when using this software the benefits just keep on stacking up with each new version.

It's an amazing software. The Mograph tools and the dynamics are incredible and very easy to use. Very design/creative driven it makes working with 3D more accessible to someone just starting. It has lot's of community support and lot's of plugins that can complement and intensify the application usefulness and flexibility. Great interoperability with After Effects. The content browser library can be of extreme use. The new take system can be a lifesaver regarding customer interaction and validation. Love the help context system and the new commander tool, very helpful.

I think Bodypaint needs a big update. It should be more intuitive. Its not difficult but seems a bit outdated. I don't like the new reflectance channel. I't's not very user friendly, Also the modelling tools could be a bit more advanced and the tools names could be more suitable, or at least more industry standard. Also the internal particle systems (Particles and Thinking Particles) could be more advanced.

I can do quick concept designs and mockups and work my way up until final product. Very quick to use and to get great results. Specially when playing with Mograph. We can get apparently complex animations with a few simple steps. I use it to complement my motion design projects, specially when I need to mix 2D with 3D elements.

fast learning curve, simple but efficient material creation, easy to setup for rendering as for animation. a lot of plugin are available, big community online, new version every year with lot of improvement.

no fluid and smoke simulation in native format. does not support importation of some CAD files format ( from Solidworks or catia for exemple )

perfect sofware for still 3D rendering and animation. easy to setup, wide range of possibilities

The fact that you can design and 3-d model inside the software while you can see beautiful rendering which can be generated in a few second. After all you can create stunning animation effect for your design is just absolutely amazing. I love the lighting effect in Cinema 4D because you can adjust every little details of the lighting that you placed for your rendering.

I don't really like the rendering part. I wish there is an option inside cinema 4D to allow user to preview their freshly adjusted texture instantly without waiting for couple minutes to generate a single angle rendering image. Keyshot is doing great but consider you can not model inside keyshot they should have this feature. So I think if cinema 4D have this "instant preview" feature it will be much more attracted to wide range of people.

I mostly use cinema 4D to generates simple rendering and simple animation effect (logo, video intro etc.) for clients.

3D modeling is fast and easy The user interface is very easy to understand and use Very complete in terms of shape manipulation Compatible with Keyshot and Vray Vey good for beginners and professionals

Default rendered could be better. Render times are a bit long, but that depends on the computer

3D modeling and rendering

Motion graphics, user interface, modeling, texturing, lighting, rendering. C4D is really user friendly for people who wants to start a new challenge with 3D but they don't have so much techinical skills. The software is very helpful to understand the dynamics of motion graphics, polygonal 3d modeling and animation. It works togheter in the pipeline with After Effect.

Not too much realistic. Not phisical - based

I realize everyday lots of motion graphics and works for many companies.