General

Customer Journey

• Only one version of Cinema 4D:
  • No more Prime / Visualize / Broadcast / Studio / BodyPaint editions.
  • All functionality is in the one version, no separate editions anymore.
  • Demo and Educational versions are no longer separate downloads.
  • Demo and Educational can be upgraded to a commercial version.
• New Licensing Solutions
  • MyMaxon Account:
    • Allows Sign In / Sign Out - entitlement can be moved between devices.
    • When creating a MyMaxon account, a 14-day trial license is automatically created.
    • Real-time licensing, buy and use immediately
    • Remote license retrieval - release a license remotely via your MyMaxon web portal.
  • New Maxon License Server:
    • Runs as service on Windows and daemon on OSX/Linux.
    • Web-browser interface.
    • Different Maxon Accounts can pool their licenses on a single server.
    • Greater control over license for client and server.
    • Graphical view of license use, current and past.
    • Detailed license view of ownership and validity.
    • Extended log and info messaging.
  • RLM Licensing:
    • Greater flexibility in license selection.
• Improved Installation:
  • Online installer - faster, hassle-free installation.
  • Offline installer - small download, more languages supported, faster installation.

Exchange

• Merge Scenes on Drag-and-Drop.
• Show Import/Export Dialog Preference (option to show / suppress dialog by default - alt-click inverts default behavior).
• File selector now appears after export settings (rather than before).
• Updated CAD format support:
  • New, Improved support for Solidworks, STEP, Catia, IGES, JT formats.
  • Option to import instances as Regular or Render Instances.
  • Import hidden objects with "_hidden" name suffix.

Modeling

• Caps and Bevels:
  • Improved constrained / internal bevels via Straight Skeleton Algorithm.
  • User-defined Bevel Shape via Spline UI.
  • Option to Link Start/End Caps.
  • Delaunay Cap Skinning.
  • Library of Bevel Presets.
  • Additional and more obvious automatic selection sets for Shell, Edges.
  • Caps and bevels are always created as a single object.
• Volume Builder and Volume Mesher:
  • Vector Volumes.
  • Improved UI for Volume Filters.
  • Cache Layer.
  • Spline UI to define scale along spline.
  • Curvature Vertex Map on Volume Mesher.
• Modeling Core:
  • Dramatic Speedup in migrated commands including Extrude, Extrude Inner, Split, Polygon Group to Object.
  • Migrated Tools (Point Extrude, Weld) preserve surface attributes like UVs and Vertex Colors.
  • Copy / Paste Components (points and polygons).
  • Primitive Caps (Cone, Cylinder, Capsule, Oil Tank, Torus, Tube and Figure) are now welded.
  • Landscape object pivot remains at the bottom of the generated object.
  • Improved Grow Selection command.
  • Improved performance of Isoparm Display.
  • Region-based selections support backface culling.
• UV Editor Enhancements:
  • Migrated Texture View to OpenGL:
    • Supports Anti-Aliased display of UV lines.
    • Improved redraw Speed.
    • UV Component highlighting.
  • UV Transform Gizmo.
  • UV Ruler display.
  • Quantized UV transformations.
  • Snapping support for UV points and edges.
  • Viewport selection automatically updates UV component selection.
• Connect Objects + Delete now sets the axis to the bounding box center of selected objects (Alt sets to the last selected parent).

Materials and Rendering

• Denoiser (Intel Open Image Denoiser)
  • Albedo Pass
• Node Interface Improvements
  • Node Spaces and 3rd-Party API
  • Interactive Drag and Drop (Ctrl-Drag to Copy Nodes)
  • Rearrange Node Ports
  • I/O Nodes
  • Edit Asset mode
  • Asset protection
• Physical Render Nodes
  • Custom AOVs (Multi-Pass)
  • Line node
  • Spline Mapper node
  • Multi-Trace Ray node
  • Cells Node
  • 2D Nodes
    • Average Area
    • 2D Blur
    • Cache
    • Kernel
  • Get Context Node outputs vertex positions of sampled polygon
• ProRender
  • Node Material support
  • Volume Rendering
  • HDRI Out of Core
  • Camera animation included in Linear Motion Blur
  • New Diffuse, Direct Illumination and Wireframe Render Modes
  • New Multipasses:
    • Ambient Occlusion
    • Direct Illumination
    • Indirect Illumination
    • Direct Reflection
    • Indirect Reflection
    • Indirect Diffuse
    • Refraction
    • Volume
    • Albedo
• Interactive Tone Mapping via Picture Viewer Filter Tab
• Render Queue - Option to disable auto-renaming

Workflow/UI

• Interface Enhancements:
  • Support for HiDPI monitors on Windows.
  • HiDPI Viewport on Windows, Retina Viewport on macOS.
  • Improved Interface Speed (especially in Timeline).
  • Modernized Light and Dark schemes.
  • Improved menus and minor adjustments to Default layout.
  • macOS Menu Bar support.
  • macOS Dark Scheme support
  • Reset Scheme Colors option.
  • New Shortcuts:
    • Save Incremental: Ctrl+Alt+S
    • Texture View Fit to Screen: H
    • UV Transform: Ctrl+T
    • Normal Scale: M~-
    • Melt: Alt+Backspace
    • Dissolve: Ctrl+Backspace
  • Improved Default values
  • Improved OLE-based Drag and Drop file exchange
• Project Asset Inspector:
  • Supports Images, Videos, Sound files, External files, IES Lights, GI Cache, MoGraph Cache, Substances, Volumes.
  • Supports Objects, Tags, Viewports, Render Effects, Materials and Shaders.
  • Consolidate command collects all assets associated with the project.
  • Group by Asset Name, Type, Element Type, Layer, Take, Node Space, Format.
  • Info Area displays information about selected asset.
• Quickstart dialog
• Enhanced Splash Screen
• Default Material preference (choose which material type is created when double-clicking in the Material Manager).
• Asset Linking preference (always copy textures, always use absolute path).
• Color Chooser enhancements:
  • Swap Colors
  • Swatches in Color Chip Context Menu
  • Color Swatches palette can be resized
• Spline UI enhancements:
  • Double - Scale and copy existing curve
  • Symmetrize - Scale and mirror existing curve
• Commander now remembers last input
• Custom, colorizable object and tag icons
• User Data tag
• User Data Manager - save and load presets
• Attribute Manager now indicates when selected object count exceeds AM Edit limit.
• OS-specific Feature Highlighting

MoGraph and Animation

• Field Force object:
  • Dynamics and Particle Advection (influence the velocity of particles and dynamic objects with Fields).
• Field Interface enhancements:
  • Sub-fields appear as children in field list.
  • Fields can be used as masks for another field.
  • Channel Convert Field Layer - convert between value, color and direction.
  • Normal Tags can now be used as fields, and have a field list (for use Target Effector, Field Force, etc).
• Character Animation:
  • Improved Auto-Weighting Algorithms (Bone Glow).
  • Weighting Workflow Improvements.
  • Mixamo Control Rig.
  • Connect Objects + Delete can merge Weight tags of individual objects into a single Weight tags
• Repeat, Offset Repeat and Oscillate in Track Before / After now default to 0 / unlimited repetitions.
• Align to Spline tag values can now extend beyond the 0-100% range, allowing easy repetition and parametric animation.
• Thinking Particles support for all particle forces (via PForceObject).

SDK

• Reorganized Extensions Menu for easier access to scripts and development tools
• New licensing tools
• Python: UserData Tag to store user data parameters
• C++: Python scripts can now be executed from within C++ code
• C++: New render_filter.framework to implement custom render filters
• C++: AutoWeightInterface allows developers to define custom auto-weight algorithms
• C++/Python: Functions to adjust AutoWeight settings and execute AutoWeighting
• C++: New Geometry Utility functions
• C++: New function to bake a 2D representation of a BaseShader - BaseShader.BakeShaderIntoBaseBitmap()
• C++: New Flag in Material Plugin registration to allow 3rd party materials to be set as the default material
• C++: New Color Utility functions
• C++: New Volume Utility functions
• C++: New Debug Utility function DiagnosticVarOutput()
• C++: New Utility function to create salt and hash for storing encrypted passwords
• C++: New Tension property in SplineData
• C++: GeUserArea enhanced to support line drawing via ellipse, bezier and polygon, additional line styles and opacity
• C++/Python: New flag to define the border style of Static Text in a GeDialog
• C++: Developers can now define BubbleHelp/Tooltips within TreeViews
• C++: CommandData virtual functions include a Parent manager GeDialog argument
• C++/Python: AOV multipasses can be created via RenderData.InsertMultipass()
• C++/Python: New method GetRecentDocumentList() returns the recently-opened documents
• C++/Python: New SceneFilter options for use with LoadDocument
• C++/Python: Functionality to define custom Object and Tag icons and icon colors (NodeData.Init() / MSG_GETCUSTOMICONS)