Product Review: Cinema 4D R11 Architectural Edition

Maxon’s CINEMA 4D Architectural Edition (AE) version 11 is the subject of this review. C4D, as it is often simply called, is one of the leading full-suite 3D packages available to highend 3D professionals and artists worldwide. It competes, respectively, with such tools as Newtek’s LightWave 3D, Autodesk Maya, Autodesk 3ds Max and softimage XSI, which happens to have also recently been acquired by Autodesk.

For those 3D users following US design software juggernault Autodesk, and their continued acquisitions, there have been some concerns that the healthy and competitive field of high-end 3D packages might collapse down with product integration. We have reported on Architosh that Autodesk states they have no such plans. But even if they did, rest assured that there are still several independent top-notch tool sets that vie heavily for technical dominance in this field. Maxon’s Cinema 4D is one of them.

In a previous review we took a broader look at the application. This review will be solely focused on the use of C4D AE v11 in the AEC visualization space. Maxon is a subsidiary company of German AEC software giant Nemetschek AG. As such it is a sister-company application to two leading BIM/CAD applications also under the German software giant’s umbrella: ArchiCAD and Vectorworks Architect. It also is a sister application to Nemetschek AG’s own ALLPLAN BIM software, the leading BIM software in Germany.

From this view C4D AE 11 is made to work hand-in-glove with all three of these BIM packages. The product ships with plugin modules to support files from these BIM applications directly into C4D AE 11. Installing them is also quite simplified as the plugin modules are listed like other modules for C4D and are automatically discovered and downloaded by the application (see image 01 above)

Cinema 4D AE v11 – General Summary

C4D version 11 has two major applicable editions: Architectural Edition (AE) and Engineering Edition (EE). These are not to be confused with the “modules” of which there are presently eight different modules (available separately or in particular bundles). Modules vary from advanced and network rendering to hair and dynamics.

The Architectural Edition comes with several key modules useful to AEC visualization. These include the Advanced Render and Sketch & Toon modules, as well as the Architectural Extension Kit. The kit includes numerous tools and utilities useful to the Architectural Edition.

The Interface

Cinema 4D 11 features an impressive interface system. This UI system is the same one introduced in version 10 and as we mentioned in a previous review (see Architosh Review: Cinema 4D R10.5) the “program really is a GUI inside a GUI.” While some may find this awkward the beauty in this solution is it enables the Maxon developer team to focus development resources on features rather than code time on managing two operating system (OS) GUI environments. This is “only” beautiful when you consider the end result of this simplification on Maxon’s part and ask: “is this unified UI (user-interface) attractive and easy to work in?” This author’s opinion is a definitive yes.

For starters the flatter, multi-gray user interface is wicked fast! In fact you can customize the interface speed too! (see image 02) It also has that serious sexy look common to video applications and 3D tools like Luxology’s modo! The value of the gray interface is that color is special and stands out. A gray interface is also less intense on your eyes. (see images 3-4)

We want to spend a little bit of time on this interface before we plow straight ahead into this review’s real focus. While perhaps daunting at first sight and perhaps different than what you are used to, the Cinema 4D user interface system is powerful and easy to learn. Moreover, it is highly customizable, enabling the user to control palettes, menu items, icons and keyboard shortcut settings and even the colors of the interface features.

The first thing that you may notice about this GUI inside a GUI approach is that menus are attached to windows—much like Microsoft’s approach in Windows. The menus themselves, however, have a couple nice touches beneficial to advanced software applications like this one. Firstly, they contain a left-margin icon zone, which can be turned off or on. This is helpful for learning and associating names with icons and functions. Secondly, there is a high-level of consistency with this user interface. The main window and object managers (which are advanced palettes on the right side of the interface) utilize a common set of menus anchored by a common icon on the far left side which brings up a common menu list. On the far right of this menu lie common icons (depending if a window or a manager) controlling pan, zoom, rotate and window/multi-window formation functions.

We have created a QuickTime movie to give you a sense of what the C4D R11 user interface is like and how it looks and feels. As you watch the movie it will take you through menus, sub-menus, the way the main window can be changed to 2, 3 or 4 windows and the common icon tools which help you navigate around. (see QuickTime above). 

Getting your CAAD Data into C4D AE

Maxon notes that although C4D has a very powerful set of modeling tools, CAD or BIM applications are the preferred tools for the creation of your CAD/BIM model precisely because they are “purpose built” for the creation of architectural objects like windows, walls and roofs. Secondly, architects are just plain faster at producing using these tools. Therefore, C4D AE 11 is designed with that in mind and allows for easy import/export between popular architectural CAD/BIM tools.

In the architectural world there is a very common set of applications and workflow built around Autodesk’s PC-only applications AutoCAD, Revit, 3D Studio Max and plugged into rendering solutions like Mental Ray, by mental images GmbH, of Germany.

Unfortunately Mac-based architects are left out of this popular and capable workflow (often referred to as a “pipeline”). In jumps Nemetschek AG of Germany. With two very popular architectural CAD/BIM applications and Maxon’s competitive Cinema 4D AE v11—all serving up superior cross-platform capabilities—architects and AEC visualization professionals on the Mac are served an equally capable, perhaps even superior, pipeline to the PC-only pipeline outlined above. In this case we are talking about ArchiCAD to C4D AE 11 and Vectorworks to C4D AE 11. Of course if you are an architect on the Mac modeling in another 3D application (like SketchUp, formZ or BonZai 3D for instance) you have additional options in C4D just for you.

Cinema 4D R11 Architectural Edition includes the plugins for all three Nemetschek AG family BIM applications. These plugins have two components generally speaking. One component of the software lives within C4D and the other is the converter component that allows you to export out to C4D from within your BIM. In our tests with both ArchiCAD and Vectorworks this process ran incredibly smooth and we only discovered a few tiny issues with one of these apps. (see image 05)

A notable item is that once you bring in a model from say, ArchiCAD, and you have already applied lights, textures and scenary, you can go back to ArchiCAD, further modify the model and then go to C4D AE 11 and update your scene without having to redo all your work (eg: applying textures, lights, et cetera.). This is referred to as round-trip fidelity.

So once you have your data from ArchiCAD or Vectorworks (or another application) inside C4D R11 AE you maybe asking how is that data represented? For instance, how are things structured? The answer is this depends on the BIM app. We’ll explain the two cases that matter for us Mac users. In the case of ArchiCAD all objects and free-standing surfaces will be exported over to C4D format. You can also export light sources and ArchiCAD cameras. In terms of structure, there are two modes. The plugin will allow you to choose between “Class” mode where all elements of a single type (eg: all walls) will be pooled and assigned the same texture. That is, all walls will be combined to create a single object. The second option is by “Material” and this is superior because each ArchiCAD material will be combined to create individual polygon objects in C4D.

In the case of Vectorworks there are three modes for export. You do have the option to organize your imported objects by fill or pen foreground or background color, but this is an unlikely choice. The preferred choice is the second choice which is by Vectoworks Class. In other words, in Vectorworks create a “Class” for every material you will want to have in the final C4D model. Lastly, like ArchiCAD, you can organize by Name of Texture.

Vectorworks and C4D have a few more complexities than with ArchiCAD in the setup. There is an option to export or not export objects in the “None” class. Also, the entire model should sit on just one layer in Vectorworks or, as the manual suggested to us, you must implement Layer-Linking to a single layer. Since Layer-Linking is no longer valid in the contemporary versions of Vectorworks due to their new Viewport structure, this was a bit confusing for us. Lastly, component objects in Vectorworks have the option to retain their own classes (if any) or take on the plugin objects’ class.

As you can see in our sample file, a Vectorworks-generated model has opened in C4D R11 AE. On the right side of the main window are two major palette areas. The top one is the Object Manager and the lower one the Attributes Manager. (click on the image 06 to see more). When you bring in a BIM model in C4D the Object Manager will list it as one item (with sub-items) and the Vectorworks or ArchiCAD icon will appear to the far right. If you click the little plus icon the tree will expand and you will see what constitutes your entire BIM, as organized by your export option choices.

Going to Work within C4D AE

Once you have your BIM or architectural model inside Cinema 4D R11 Architectural Edition you are ready to start producing dramatic rendered images and animations. You also, of course, could do additional modeling. As we mentioned in our last review C4D R11 has an Xref capability which enables you to link model data from another file, or files, into a master file. (see this link and the movie).

We loved how Maxon organized various user tasks or industry profiles by creating separate Layouts within the program. The Architectural Edition has its own Layout called “Architecture” under the menu Window > Layout command. In this Layout only the tools and functions most needed by architects or architectural renderers are displayed. Unfortunately, there are no quick or shortcut ways to any architectural modeling functions in this Layout, and in general Maxon explains that they fully expect modeling to take place inside CAD, BIM or specialized apps like formZ, SketchUp or the new Bonzai 3D for instance.

Regrettably however, many times BIM and CAD tools don’t have the power to do sophisticated or organic-shaped forms. And from this perspective, it would be wonderful if Maxon could provide a simplified way to streamline that process into their otherwise fantastic Architectural “Layout” in C4D R11 AE. For example, a tool or tools that helped architects do wavy or organic shaped roofs.

For now we will assume that you have no modeling needs in C4D R11 AE and that you are ready to start applying textures and setting up lights. If you are new to the program you will be happy to know that Maxon ships a printed manual (Quickstart Guide) that covers the whole of the base program including key modules. Additionally, the Architectural Edition has its own Quickstart guide as well, which is excellent.

Basics

In order to learn Cinema 4D R1 AE you will undoubtedly need to work through many of the chapters in the base program’s Quickstart guide. This guide will introduce you to the program’s many interface areas and what they do, and it will quickly introduce you to basics like arranging objects, modeling, applying materials, lighting, animation and rendering. And that’s all in the first chapter! (see image 07)

Additional chapters cover BodyPaint 3D, PyroCluster and other modules like the Advanced Render module that ships with Architectural Edition.

The Architectural Edition includes several modules which we already touched on above. Key to this edition are the Architectural Materials Library and the Architectural Object Library. There is also the Virtual Walkthrough plugin. You access your materials for instance through the program’s Content Browser and load them into your Material Editor. (see image 08)

The Materials Editor runs along the bottom of the interface and is similar to many other 3D production software packages. Materials often get represented on little balls or cubes and you can select one and drag it onto an object to apply that texture. From that perspective working with the application of textures and shaders to objects in Cinema 4D R11 AE is straight forward.

Materials themselves have channels in C4D R11 AE and these channels further define or refine the appearance or effect of a texture or shader applied to an object. There are up to 14 channels available to virtually all materials. They include Color, Diffusion, Luminance, Transparency, Reflection, Environment, Fog, Bump, Normal, Alpha, Specular, Specular Color, Glow and Displacement. Each of these channels can also be assigned to different layers with additional properties.

Maxon makes your life much easier by shipping C4D AE 11 with over 350 predefined high-quality materials. Moreover, the product also comes with over 500 objects for architecture from quality companies such as COR, Wilkahn and others.

Rendering and the New Global Illumination

Version 11 of C4D includes several new features, one of which is the new Global Illumination (GI) render engine. We were impressed with the rendering speed and the render quality. (see image 09-14) Additionally, Maxon does a superb job of introducing you to Global Illumination rendering in its QuickGuide for the Architectural Edition, working through a good example tutorial.

The general render settings now include four (4) base render engine options: Full Render, Software Preview, Hardware Preview and CineMan. CineMan is a new connectivity option in C4D R11 and allows users to communicate with 3Delight, Pixar’s RenderMan and AIR.

Working with GI rendering in C4D AE 11 is straight forward once you have worked through the brief tutorial. C4D AE 11 comes with several pre-built options, including a great sky shader object. In fact, take a look at the image above (see image 09) and in the Object Manager you can see the Sky listed top. The sky happens to be selected so its settings are shown in the Attributes Manager (mid-level right side of screen). Note that “Time and Location” are highlighted. As you can see we have picked “2 July 2008” as our time in the year and our location is “Friedrichsdorf, Germany.” The program calcs the real-world lighting conditions for us based at a particular time, 11am in our case.

We want to point out another aspect to this program. Note the small hollow circle next to the word “Time” under “Time and Location”, the one with the black flippy triangle to its left. With C4D R11 just about all the various attribute settings for objects and elements can be animated. The circle means it can be animated. That means in an animation, I can set the key frame at the beginning and set a particular time and date, then move to another key frame and change those settings, say picking a later hour in the day. This will allow me to animate the change of day lighting in the finished animation.

Getting back to easy GI rendering….Maxon has planned many aspects of lighting scenes correctly for architecture in AE. C4D AE lighting is set by default for day-lit outdoor scenes. In our example above, and example image below, (both are the tutorial sample file) generating very polished results took just a few basic steps, such as adjusting the Strength value of the Sky object and increasing the Diffuse value from something low like 1-3 up to something higher like 5. Diffuse defines how many times light will be reflected off a surface. Setting this value  higher makes the render times longer but the quality goes up.

In the rendered view above we had worked through the tutorial example file. C4D AE 11 has several powerful features that help your render scenes without problem areas or at least gives you the tools to address problems areas. One such tool is Color Mapping, which enables us to lighten up dark areas of the render (or alternatively, darken down bright areas of the render). These were most helpful in our night scenes. (see image 11)

Cinema 4D AE 11 comes with several cameras purpose built for architectural rendering. One such logical choice is the Shift Camera, which works like a classic 4×5 or 8×10 view camera allowing you to shift the lens while keeping the camera lens dead flat (perpendicular) to the subject. (see image 12) This keeps your verticals vertical while moving the lens up or down in particular. There is also an Orbit Camera for moving around a circular path in an animation.

The overall quality attainable with Cinema 4D Architectural Edition 11 is really quite unlimited. If you have the render time available you can set up very refined and high-end renders. However, the company has done a very good job in its help literature informing the new user that you can get superb results by taking advantage of several key presets and a good basic understanding of what key settings to make. The views below are a good example of what can be truly achieved with this program.

Animation with C4D AE 11

Animation with C4D AE 11 is amazingly powerful. As we already mentioned nearly every aspect of control in rendering can be also animated. This means lights can be slowly turned on or fade in or out in an animation. This means you can animate the sun by time of year and time of day or both. This means you can change the color hue of lighting all within an animation (see our example animation) and it also means you can change the properties of objects, even their geometry can transform in an animation. (again see our example QuickTime below)

For architectural purposes you will probably not be changing the geometry of objects; however, there are lots of things you will likely want to animate besides the moving camera of the animation.

Setting up an animation is relatively straight forward and experience in other 3D animation software or working with non-linear film editors is helpful. C4D R11 has its own Animation Layout choice, directed at streamlining the animation process. At the heart of this layout is the main scene window and below this your timeline. A turquoise slider indicates what frame you are at. The basics of creating an animation involve setting up keyframes. At each keyframe (eg: frame 0 and the later frames) you can change the values of parameters or attributes of objects in the animation, creating a key for a particular parameter.

For instance in our simple animation of a cone we set the top radius to 0m and the bottom radius to 100m. We set a key for that parameter and hit the Record buttom to record that frame as a keyframe. Next we moved to frame 50 and changed the radii to different values, setting the top radius to 200m. C4D now knew that between frame 0 and frame 50 the cone had to change its top radius from 0 to 200m. It interpolates these values automatically across the 50 frames.

In our QuickTime animation above, of the actual output of our test animation, you can see the cone transform in shape (geometry) based on setting different parameters at different key frames (eg: changing the top radius of the cone primitive). You can also change light. In our animation we set different keyframes for the color of the light we set in our scene. The program interpolates across the color spectrum to travel from one key value to another. Instead of color, we could have changed the intensity of the light (eg: making the light come on from an off position or vice versa).

Animations also need cameras, of course. In C4D there are different types of cameras, including target cameras which track or follow particular objects called Null Objects. You link real objects to these null objects to get your cameras to follow the objects you want. You also generate paths or splines from which your camera will travel. In the animation above we turned a circular spline into our path.

For the beginner working with animations in Cinema 4D Architectural Edition 11 it will take some practice. Maxon does a wonderful job with its printed manual tutorial guides. They read more like text books than computer manuals, forgoing the usual “step 1” approach in the writing.

Final Comments

Although we are reviewing the Architectural Edition, new in Maxon’s Cinema 4D R11 is a new non-linear timeline animation system. There is both a Motion Layer System and an Animation Layer System. This has more to do with Hollywood style animation so we won’t go there. Also new is onion skinning and 3D ghosting. Onion skinning is an essential tool for displaying the progression of movement of an animation (again very useful for characters in movies).

C4D AE 11 also includes a new Virtual Walkthrough plugin and Collision Orbit tool. These new plugins enable you to interactively explore your model using the mouse and keyboard. The camera movement of these tools can be recorded as a path and later rendered as an animation.

Also new is Collada import and export support. This new standard adds to the existing FBX format (MotionBuilder’s default file format) which is now owned by Autodesk. Doodle is a new tool which lets you scribble notes or instructions directly in the Viewport. Project Man is a new technology aimed at helping matte painters; it generates a geometry rendering of the scene and automatically opens up the image in Photoshop where you can paint it just like a normal image. After saving it in Photoshop you simply reload it into Cinema 4D and it will be displayed as texture on the 3D geometry. We’ve spoken about the new GI rendering engine and new rendering settings (also new in the 11 release) and the final new items include an updated BodyPaint 3D R4.0 and the new Online Updater–which works exceptionally well.

The last item we want to touch on is the included Sketch & Toon module that comes with C4D AE 11. This module belongs to the NPR family, that is the “Non-Photorealistic Renderer” family of technologies Maxon is continuing to develop. These include four key Sketch Shaders which can be placed in the channel of a normal material just like any other shader. Maxon suggest they go into the Luminance channel. Shaders include: Art, Cel, Spots and Hatch. Art is for effects such as oil or acrylic painting; Cel is for cartoon-like styles; Spots is for halftone print effects; and Hatch is for cross hatching. The sample rendering above was developed with an Art shader giving it a painterly quality. (see image 14).

Recommendations

Maxon’s Cinema 4D AE 11 (Architectural Edition) is a superb product offering very advanced rendering and animation technologies to the AEC professional or architectural visualization artist. We spent quite some time with this product, testing it with both ArchiCAD and Vectorworks Architect as two globally leading CAD/BIM applications used in architecture that dovetail very nicely with C4D.

This latest version says so much about the strength of this German software company. This product was incredibly stable. It should be stated that renderers by nature are some of the least stable software in existence. Crashing is a dirty word that any veteran in the rendering world knows all too well. C4D AE 11 has some wonderful features. We especially liked its online updater and its ability to pull down plugin updates for our CAD/BIM programs. The program has one of the best-looking and most functionally consistent user interfaces we have ever seen on any piece of software–including those supreme interfaces from Apple. Its new Global Illumination engine is very fast and produces stunningly realistic results. And though we can’t compare the old render settings, the new improved settings were well organized in our opinion.

If you are an architect or visualization professional working with ArchiCAD, VectorWorks Architect, or ALLPLAN, and are looking to “up your game” in rendering and animation, you owe it to yourself to look seriously at C4D Architectural Edition. The round-trip-fidelity worked great and the rendering results will take you many steps further than the built-in rendering options within most BIM/CAD apps. —ANTHONY FRAUSTO-ROBLEDO, EIC.

Pros: Absolutely top-flight global illumination renderer, producing stunning results; fast multi-processor aware renderer, worked well on PowerPC G5 as well as Intel Mac; Great user-interface, fast, well-organized, better rendering settings; solid integration with sister applications ArchiCAD and Vectorworks Architect, good support materials and automated online software updates and help files; great Quickstart manuals, good tutorials; very capable and advanced animation program; Shift Camera is wonderful for Architectural Renders; Sketch & Toon Sketch shaders produce amazing results, AE Kit provides solid value.

Cons: No aids for organic or advanced architectural modeling–ability to augment what BIM and CAD applications cannot do well; animation work could be further streamlined to aid architects using this application (eg: pre-built camera paths, simplified setup, etc.). We would love to see plugins for SketchUp and auto-des-sys’ new Bonzai 3D developed because a lot of architectural modeling takes place at this level of sketch modeling. 

Advice: We strongly recommend this application for ArchiCAD and Vectorworks Architect users on the Mac in particular for excellent integration to an advanced renderer and animation program. Even if you do some of your architectural modeling in another application (eg: formZ, SketchUp, Rhino, etc.) C4D AE 11 can import most formats well and provide superb rendering qualities. 

Cost: $2,495.USD for Cinema 4D AE 11 (Architectural Edition). Mac OS X (10.4 or higher), PowerPC G5 or Intel Mac), 1 GB RAM, 1GB free hard drive space, 1024×768 resolution. 

To see other Architosh product reviews published prior to our new site, please visit this old Features page. We have an array of indepth product reviews across CAD and 3D industry spectrums. 

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