I have saved up bootles of money($300) and are about to buy Cinema 4D XL 7. I got the price through educational discount (I do do my homework). Before I buy it I am wondering whethe rit is good to work with for ship design. Or is there a better program? Thanks.
A Spisak
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Why have one when you can have two for twice the price.
Is there a better ship designer? Although some would disagree, you, my friend, will have the finest ship modeller out there should you buy Cinema 4D. Sure, Lightwave is good, but Cinema 4D equals (if not surpasses) the performance of Lightwave. I'd say you go for it...
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-Cap'n Skyblade
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the United Earth Graphics Expansion Set: Coming soon
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Originally posted by Draxo:
**I have saved up bootles of money($300) and are about to buy Cinema 4D XL 7. I got the price through educational discount (I do do my homework). Before I buy it I am wondering whethe rit is good to work with for ship design. Or is there a better program? Thanks.
A Spisak
**
I also got an educational copy, only of version 6. There is not a much better deal on the planet. It has awsome modeling features. Deformation. Texturing.(Although body paint is the real deal on textures.) It only lacks in Inverse Kinetics for Organic animation. Not neccisary for ships. Hash has better IK.
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(url="http://"http://homepage.mac.com/thorprime")NovaBurst Home(/url)
Everyone has their own opinion about graphic editors. Here are some threads on the debate: (url="http://"http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/webboard/Forum9/HTML/002011.html")http://www.AmbrosiaS...TML/002011.html(/url) (url="http://"http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/webboard/Forum9/HTML/002000.html")http://www.AmbrosiaS...TML/002000.html(/url)
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Signed,
Brian Schack
"DOS Computers, manufactured by millions of companies, are by far the most popular, with about 70 million machines in use worldwide. Macintosh fans, on the other hand, may note that cockroaches are far more numerous than humans, and that numbers alone do not denote a higher life form."
--The New York Times, November 26, 1991 (also quoted in MacAddict 4)
I have C4D XL 6 for my mac, but that's really a lost cause now (32MB RAM). I think it is one of the better tools out there, but it takes a bit of getting used to. My favourite aspect is the spline modeling support, especially since it's always editable, and live at that 
Oh, if you get R7, remember to try the raydiosity renderer
A demo can be found at (url="http://"http://www.maxon.de/")http://www.maxon.de/(/url)
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--sitharus
(url="http://"http://www.damnsw.net/~triplet/forums/")Carracho Help - Updated, upgraded and better!(/url)
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cinema4d does some things better than LW sure, but LW still offers some highly practical solutions (like ende transparency for volumetric-like oval shapes ect.). cinema4d has a better radiosity renderer and caustics +better materials in many ways while LW has a nice and fast phong-raytracking renderer. if you can get lw7b for the same amount of money, then you should try a demo of both and see wich feels more convinient to you. cinema4d is propably better for stills. electric image universe is the weapon of choise for complex scenes wich it handles well and fast with it's godly phong-renderer (raytracking was introduced this year, it had very little need for it since it could do most of the tricks with phong, inc. area shadows)
cinema4d is absolutely the most stable 3d program on the mac (dunno about maya tho, never tried it) and many long-term users swear it has never crashed.
also cinema4d is integrated while the compeditors (LW and electricimage universe) are split to two or more applications.
i can't really say wich is faster now that lw(7b) has altivec optimization(no info on EIU, but it's still propably the fastest of the three, at least with complex scenes)
electric image universe is a pretty interesting app. it's very old, and originally (over 10 years ago) you could pretty much choose to use a mac with electric image animation system (renamed "universe") or a sgi workstation if you wanted to make 3d animation. it was the bought by play inc. and it has a bit of catching up to do now that it's independent again, but it seems to be up and running very strong, with version4 to be released this fall. the reason it was created in the 1st place was to render complex scenes fast, wich it does very well indeed, it is faster with complex scenes than any other renderer (and i do take renderman ect. high-end renderers into account). no caustics as far as i know, not that you'd need them in space opera.
due to it's history it is a split program, with camera(renderer) animator(equals lw layout) and modeler (guess).
"the image quality of the render can only be matched by the likes of mental-ray and renderman", from a rewiev in 3dworld
anyways it's really a difficult question (esp. since these programs get a major update every 8 months or so). both apps are very good, so i would recommend trying out the demos and seeing wich is more convinient. i dunno about the student discounts you get in the us, but you should propably also take into account wich is more affordable to you.
here's a basic for/against list
cinema4d
for: altivec optimization,bloody excellent raydiosity and caustics, adaptive antialiasing, materials, stable, KICK- ASS MULTIPROCESSOR SUPPORT (180% performance on a dual processor computer)
against: sucky (character) animation
(url="http://"http://www.maxon.net/")www.maxon.net/(/url)
LW
for:altivec optimization, modeler, adaptive antialiasing, hypervoxels, character animation, saslite(=fur)
against:not as stable(not too bad tho), no splines/nurbs (it has metanurbs tho, wich are the same thing as hypernurbs wich cinema4d has. subdivision surfaces>splines anyways), split in two
(url="http://"http://www.newtek.com")www.newtek.com(/url)
EIU
for :pretty damn fast rendering of complex scenes (can handle many millions of polygons and 100s of megs of textures, and dozens of lights at film res. good for armadas and fleet animations ect.), used for starwars episode 1 and other big hollywood movies, classically a mac app (has a mac history of over 10 years), image quality
against:3d world said it's a bit buggy, haven't tried myself tho and there's a 3.1 update out already. complex. no altivec optimization that i know of
(url="http://"http://www.electricimage.com")www.electricimage.com(/url)
so there. take into account that everything stated here will be outdated in a couple of months anyways. i've been trying to figure out wich 3d package woud be "right" for me for more than a month, it's really tricky. i think i'll go with LW, not sure tho.
if you have a multiprocessor computer cinema4d is propably the way to go.
ComputerLizard
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"Please call us! We will provide you with any emergency." - (url="http://"http://www.engrish.com")www.engrish.com(/url)
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Originally posted by Clueless:
**Never even consider going for anything else but C4D! (K, this was a little exxagrated, but it's true. Booleans, Metaballs, and quadrillions of more features - it's the best ship modeller out there:) )
**
If all your are going to do is ships/static images, Use Cinema 4D. It is the best modeller bar Maya. It has one of the fastest rendering engines out there.(I know this from personal experience having run it on a 6116 performa before. Slow is slow.). If character animation isn't on the to-do list, get Cinema. BTW XL isn't the only version, GO is also great if you don't plan on using deformations/partical/hypernurb/metaball ships. If all you want is Polygon/Nurb ships, Go has all the texturing and most of the modeling abilities of XL.
If character animation is on the bill, include Hash(animation master) on the grocery list and you'll be set.
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(url="http://"http://homepage.mac.com/thorprime")NovaBurst Home(/url)
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Originally posted by ComputerLizard:
**no splines/nurbs (it has metanurbs tho, wich are the same thing as hypernurbs wich cinema4d has. subdivision surfaces >splines anyways), split in two
www.newtek.com
**
where you heard lightwave has no splines, i dont know. and to say subdivision surfaces are better than splines is kind of dumb, they're two different things, and its much easier to make complex curving shapes with splines.
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DeAdBoY-
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Originally posted by DeAdBoY:
where you heard lightwave has no splines, i dont know.
At last check LW supported natural splines only, no beta, beizer etc. Anyway, it is much easier to work with splines in C4D IMO, but it seems easier to model spacecraft in LW...
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--sitharus
(url="http://"http://www.damnsw.net/~triplet/forums/")Carracho Help - Updated, upgraded and better!(/url)
(url="http://"mailto:sitharus@ureach.com")mailto:sitharus@ureach.com(/url)sitharus@ureach.com
Quote
Originally posted by DeAdBoY:
**where you heard lightwave has no splines, i dont know. and to say subdivision surfaces are better than splines is kind of dumb, they're two different things, and its much easier to make complex curving shapes with splines.
**
i thought it has no real nurbs, only metanurbs aka SubPatches, wich are subdivision surfaces, not splines. subdivision surfaces are used to create smooth surfaces, just like splinesurfaces, but they usually do so more resource-efficiently, so they do do the same thing. subdivision surfaces are like splines that create smooth multi-polygonal surfaces rather than a spline surface, and you can set the mesh resolution high enough to look totally smooth but low enough to render fast.
anyways if you can get cinema4d xl r7 for $300 i say go for it, it's wicked. if you can get LW for the same amount of money i say think twice (but cinema4d could still be the winner, esp. with pyrocluster and dynamics plug-ins).
talking of wich:maxon has a summer special, wich means pyrocluster is included with every copy of cinema4d xl r7
"But don't hesitate - the "HOT Summer Special" is only valid until September 30,2001."
you're in a hurry...
ComputerLizard
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"Please call us! We will provide you with any emergency." - (url="http://"http://www.engrish.com")www.engrish.com(/url)
