Firstly, welcome to visit Fox Renderfarm and thanks for choosing our tutorial can help you, now, let’s begin the trip. 1.Account registration Registration via the official website or registration via the Fox Renderfarm Desktop Client. Input the registration information on the registration page. After completing the form, submit it and then, you will received a letter about the validation code in your mailbox. Enter the validation code, click “Confirm”, after this step, you will get $20 coupon, you can choose your rendering software and you can get another $5 coupon. 2.Account recharge Click the user icon at the top right corner for Balance (Recharge) thereunder to enter the recharge page. In the case of cash recharge, input the amount to be recharged and then click “Recharge now”. In the case of coupon recharge, input the coupon code and then click “Recharge now”. 3.Fox Render farm tutorial We support two methods for you choosing to submit your projects, one is Web submit and another is using our Desktop Client. It is worth to notice that, our web platform supports most popular 3D software, renderers, and plugins, but our Desktop Client only supports Maya in Win 10/ Win8 /Win7, and CentOS7.0 and above, 3ds Max in Win 10/ Win8 /Win7, further software will follow soon. Using 3ds Max for example, here are two videos to show you how to use fox on Web and Desktop client. Web submission video tutorial at 3ds Max web, Desktop client video tutorial at 3ds Max client, For more software video tutorial, please click the , not only many submission tutorials you can find in this page, but there are also many solutions can help you, like client error solutions, the solution to analysis error or warning, the solution to abnormal rendering effects and more. If you need any instant help from us, kindly to contact our dedicated customer service, there are always online. Thanks for choosing Fox Renderfarm again.

Speaking of VR, the idea of wearing heavy headset, grabbing 2 controllers and waving arms to play games like Beat Saber might occur to you. While in the CG industry, VR development plays a gradually irreplaceable role, 2 of which are WebXR standard and VR’s utilization in virtual production. Wonder about how VR will change our future life? Check out the Fox Renderfarm’s exclusive interview with Mr. Leonard Daly and Mr. Aaron Daly in SIGGRAPH 2019. Mr. Leonard Daly Stutter-free VR experience would not be a dream anymore, as Wi-Fi 6 has launched today! Saying about VR, Independent Internet consultant Mr. Leonard Daly would have something to share, who is specializing in web technologies and focusing on 3D graphics - designer of XSeen - an Extended Reality (xR) language for web browsers. Check out the cool demos and more insights~ Mr. Aaron Daly Was Chris Evens shot in the real apocalyptic battlefield while fighting with Thanos in Avengers 4? Did Neel Sethi actually go to Africa for the shooting of The Jungle Book? The answer is NO. Virtual production not only makes these scenes breathtakingly real but also streamlines the production process. Check out our interview with Mr. Aaron Daly, VFX Technical Artist for Netflix, who would introduce more aspects in virual production.

For beginners of the Corona renderer, a lot of features need to be understood. As a leading service provider in the CG industry, Fox Renderfarm supports a variety of mainstream software and plug-ins, like 3ds Max, Maya, C4D, Blender, V-Ray, Redshift, Corona, etc. then this article introduces the depth of field in the Corona renderer, I hope to help you. What is DOF(Depth of Field)? When the camera's lens is sharply focused on an object, the same plane point of the vertical lens axis at the center of the lens can form a fairly clear image on the film or receiver, putting the front and back of the plane The distance of all the scenes is called the depth of field of the camera. (The focus of the camera is on the flower and the bottle) The depth of field is related to the focal length of the lens. The lens with a long focal length has a small depth of field and a lens with a short focal length has a large depth of field. Secondly, the depth of field is related to the aperture, and the smaller the aperture (the larger the value, for example, the aperture of f16 is smaller than the aperture of f11), the greater the depth of field; the larger the aperture (the smaller the value, for example, the aperture of f2.8 is greater than f5.6) The depth of field is smaller. Secondly, the foreground is deeper than the depth of the back. That is to say, after precise focusing, the scene in the distance from the front of the focus can be clearly imaged, and the scene within a long distance behind the focus is clear. The 3D software built-in renderer or plug-in can simulate and implement the depth of field effect of the camera. The Corona renderer also enables depth of field rendering. How does the Corona renderer set the depth of field? 1. In the rendering settings, check DEPTH OF FIELD below, the default focus distance is 100, which is the initial setting. 2. Establish an environment in the scene: sky, ground. And create a set of spheres, add a C4D camera. Change to Corona renderer and render. The DEPTH OF FIELD is activated here, but there is no depth of field DOF effect. (No depth of field, clear from front to back) 3. Launch the C4D camera and right click on it to add the Corona camera tag. This converts the C4D camera into a Corona physical camera. 4. Select the C4D camera, select the "Object" panel - the target distance, use the recognizer, click on the clear object you want in the scene, and the distance will automatically calculate 1112.741CM. 5. In the scene we can see the focal plane position of the camera. 6. Click on the Corona’s camera label and the FOCUS DISTANCE will automatically match the distance of the C4D camera. Check OVERRIDE to override the render settings parameters. In other words, this check, the camera's parameters are subject to this. 7. The OVERRIDE in the DOF of the Corona camera tag has no effect if it is not selected. Because the render settings panel is checked, the rendering settings are dominant. If this is checked, this setting is the main one. 8. Test rendering Test data 1. Aperture: Like photography, increasing the aperture value makes the DOF effect more subtle. Decreasing the aperture value (the aperture becomes larger and the depth of field becomes smaller) will make it more visible. Aperture value = 2 Aperture value = 2 obvious DOF effect 2. Aperture value = 4 Aperture value = 4 The aperture of the aperture becomes smaller, the depth of field becomes larger, the clear range becomes larger, and the DOF effect is not as obvious as above. 3. Aperture value = 16 Aperture value = 16 The aperture hole becomes small, and the depth of field changes greatly. The clear range is changed greatly, and the DOF effect is lost. 4. The camera focal plane is placed at the end. 5. The camera focal plane is placed in the middle. 6. The focal plane of the camera is placed on the front. 7. The size of the sensor also affects the appearance of the DoF effect. Note: In Cinema 4D, changing the sensor size keeps the focus static and automatically changes the effect. If you want to keep the same composite image in the image, be sure to reset the field of view after changing the Sensor Size. F-stop = 4, sensor width = 35mm F-stop = 4, sensor width = 100mm Corona's depth of field rendering is based on physical camera parameters. The depth of field rendering of the C4D's own renderer is analog and better controlled. Using the 3D renderer to render the depth of field is very slow. It is better to use layered rendering, render the depth channel, and then go to the PS and AE post-compositing DOF effect, you can control any position clearly, the speed is faster than the renderer rendering, or you can use a , it is more efficient.

In the previous article “Blender Tutorial: To Create A Wild Jungle”, we have shown the production of the scene model part in Blender, and then let’s starts the part of the texture. I hope to help you with your production process. Thanks again to the author of this article, 3D artist Leo Lee. Texture Material Shader can choose ‘Principle BSDF’, which is a kind of useful in Blender, and supports some commonly used texture mapping parameters. UV treatment before mapping. Switch to Edit Mode, select all faces, and select Unwrap UV - Smart Unwrap in the mesh menu. Since the model here is an irregular model, there is no need to manually process the UV. Then add these texture options in Node, select Image Texture, and import the corresponding material map. In Basic Color, you can choose a ground material that looks moist. Connect to the Basic Color and use the Multiply node to make the color darker. Add the Roughness map again, and also use Multiply to control the intensity of the reflection. Then import the Normal Map and Height Map in turn, and link to the Normal of the Principle through the Bump node. The size of the texture can be controlled by adding a Mapping node to control the angle, position, and size of the texture. In order to make some changes to the surface, another map similar to grass is added. The purpose is to add the raised part to the material of the grass according to the undulation of the ground, and the wetland material is recessed to make the ground appear more real. So how do you mix two different materials according to the fluctuations of the surface? The node that needs to be used here is called Geometry. After adjusting the black and white over with the color ramp, the convex part is set to white, and the concave part is black, thus distinguishing the surface according to the geometric structure. Start and volt, then mix the two materials together through the Mix Shader. Then switch the node wrangler to the mix shader to see the mixed effect and use the same method to attach materials to other objects. What needs to be used here is the transparent method of material. First, you need to select a PNG or TGA transparent material map in the image texture, then use the Transparent BSDF to link it with the Diff BSDF through the Shader Mix Alpha, you can follow the Alpha The parameter hides the black part of the transparent material. In the same way, the leaf part of the tree is also made of material. If the leaves and the trunk are in the same Object, then in the edit mode, the trunk and the leaves can be separated by the separate function, and then the new material is assigned to the selected area. In the same way, small plants are also made of transparent materials. Rendering Before rendering, you need to adjust some of the following parameters. We choose the GPU rendering mode, which will be faster than the CPU. Then set the length and width pixels to increase the rendering detail to 100%, the default is 50%. Transparency is activated in the film menu below, and the background can be transparently processed after rendering. If you want to blur the foreground, you can select the camera, and then set the distance of the focus in the depth of view, which can better render the spatial sense of the picture. Here, some effects are processed on the rendered image, similar to the film and television in the VFX workflow, to superimpose some fog and Sun Bean effects and color adjustment according to the space of the object. Article translation from: `Https://www.weibo.com/ttarticle/p/show?id=2309404294284563106633`

Interview with Boboiboy Movie 2 highest-grossing animated film in Malaysia In Kre8tif! 2019, we were honored to have an interview with Mr. Kee Yong Pin, COO of Animonsta Studios in Malaysia, who produced the Boboiboy Movie 2, the highest-grossing animated film in Malaysia. Exclusive interview with Yee Yong Pin Fox Renderfarm: What's the interesting part when producing the movie? Kee Yong Pin: One of the most interesting things is actually the production... ---- "Upin & Ipin" won Best Feature category at ANIMAZE 2019 "Upin & Ipin: The Lone Gibbon Kris", produced by Les' Copaque Production Sdn. Bhd., rendered by Fox Renderfarm, has won the Best Feature category at the Montreal International Animation Film Festival 2019 (ANIMAZE). ---- Fox Renderfarm @ Kre8tif! 2019 3-6 September 2019, Fox Renderfarm participated in Kre8tif! 2019, an annual digital creative content industry event in Malaysia. We received a large number of CG enthusiasts and had good communications with them regarding our powerful . 

Blender is a powerful and free open-source application, especially in 3D scene construction, rendering, and special effects, compared to similar software has obvious advantages. As the leading service provider in CG industry, Fox Renderfarm supports both blender rendering, 3ds Max rendering, Maya rendering, C4D rendering, Clarisse rendering, SketchUp rendering, etc.. This article wrote by 3D artist Leo Lee, will show you the potential of Blender to quickly create scenes and texture rendering, and will show some experience and hope to help your production process. Let learn how to create a wild jungle in the blender. Add a Plane to the view, the size can be larger, switch to Sculpt Mode. It is similar to some familiar engraving software, such as Zbrush, which can choose different brushes to process the model. Check Dyntopo at the menu (no need to manually subdivide the model), and select ‘Constant’ for the detail mode, and check the smooth shadow. As shown in the figure below, when the model is engraved, the system automatically subdivides the number of faces. Here are a few other ways to create terrain. Use Subdivide to subdivide the surface as follows: subdivide into 50-100. Then add a black and white material through the Displacement Modifier in Blender, similar to the Height Map, which can be hand-painted in PS or downloaded. Click Add Material Map to import the material. The strength of the ground fluctuations can be controlled by adjusting the parameters. Then add Subsurface Modifier to smooth the surface. In addition, if you want to adjust the terrain manual area, you can activate the area control button below, the middle button wheel to adjust the area range, select a point to drag and drop. Here is a finished terrain. The next step is to add some decorations to the terrain, such as trees, grass, stones, and medium-sized plants, to create a more realistic picture. The model of several trees is imported into the scene, as shown below. It can be imported via ‘append’ ‘Import’. Append can only add original Blender files. Import can import some commonly used 3D files, such as 3ds, FBX or OBJ. Previously, the terrain and trees were layered. The layering function in Blender can manage the model very effectively, compared to the layer function in PS. Select the model, ‘M’ to move the active model to any layer, press the number keys to move to the corresponding layer. Hold down the Shift key to select multiple layers at the same time to display the contents of their layers. The imported trees are arranged in order according to space and the composition, and then the position is selected to place the camera. As shown below, Below are the layers of stones and grasses and small and medium plants. Due to the large size and a limited number of trees, manual placement can be used. But like those small and large objects, you can use the ‘Particle’ series to let Blender randomly place small objects according to the range we set. As shown in the figure below, first switch to ‘Weight Mode’, you can first lower the transparency, then draw the range of the area where you need to place small objects on the terrain, blue is the vacant area, gradually yellow, and the dense area is excessive. Then switch to "Particle System" in the menu on the right, click the Add button, here is similar to the step of adding material to the object, and the material here is the object that needs to be placed, the first layer I chose the grass, can pass the view The button hides other objects. Activate the data indicated by the arrow in turn. Each of the previous objects must be Ctrl+G in advance and merged into their respective groups. Then here Dupli Group chooses the grass group. The values in the red box are some random parameters for which various adjustment objects are placed, such as orientation, size, rotation angle, and so on. If you adjust the density and length units more deeply, you can also select the corresponding Group in turn. In the same way, the stones and other vegetation are also brushed in. As shown below. After the addition of plants and ground, the contents of the camera lens are richer.

On September 7th, 2019, the 76th Venice International Film Festival awards were finally announced. The DC movie ‘Joker’ wins the Golden Lion Award for best film, the highest prize awarded at the festival. This is also the first time that the DC movie wins the award. Joaquin Phoenix, who played the Arthur Fleck / Joker in the film, was not named the best actor and lost to Luca Marinelli, who starred in Martin Eden. In 2012, Joaquin Phoenix won the Best Actor Award at the 69th Venice International Film Festival with the film The Master. Since the box office of Justice League in 2017 did not meet expectations, the DC movie universe has adjusted the future film plan, and many of the films originally planned to be produced have been cut. New works that are independent of the DC movie universe have been put on the production schedule to seek new breakthroughs. ‘Joker’ started shooting in September 2018, and it was finished in December. It was unveiled at the Venice Film International Festival in August this year. It earned a great reputation at the premiere. Official poster for Warner's "The Joker" SOURCE: WARNER BROS. On the IMDb platform, the score of ‘Joker’ is as high as 9.6 points, and the word-of-mouth is so good that the number of people is over 10,000. The rotten tomato freshness is 86%, which is also highly praised. From the point of view, ’Joker’ is the pinnacle of DC movies in the past ten years. After the ‘Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice’, ‘Suicide Squad’, ‘Justice League’ and other DC movie’s lower box office, they finally on a word of mouth explosions. Official poster for Warner's "The Joker" SOURCE: WARNER BROS. ‘Joker’ is directed by Todd Phillips, he is best known for writing and directing the comedy film ‘Road Trip(2000)’, ‘Old School(2003)’, ‘Starsky & Hutch(2004)’, ‘The Hangover Trilogy(2009, 2011, and 2013)’ and ‘Due Date(2010)’. The starring roles include Joaquin Phoenix, Robert De Niro, Zazie Beetz, Frances Conroy, Brett Cullen, Marc Maron, Bill Camp, Shea Whigham, Glenn Fleshler, Douglas Hodge, and Brian Tyree Henry, etc. This new work tells the story of the origin of the Joker. It is called the darkness movie of DC movies. Compared with the previous superhero movies, its style is different and bold, bringing a completely different look and feel. Arthur Fleck was originally a clown actor who has been plagued by mental illness. He is a laughing stock in life. He is often bullied and even beaten. Life is step by step to push him to the brink of collapse. Batman's mortal clown was finally born in the dark Gotham city. The reason why ‘Joker’ will be popular, the most important thing is the profound story connotation, the content is thought-provoking, and the other is the performance of Joaquin Phoenix, which gives the film its unique charm. Winning the Golden Lion for Best Film is just the first battle of ‘Joker’ to impact the major film awards. Next, with the arrival of the award season, DC's new work ‘Joker’ is bound to continue to shine. The full list of winners is below. Venice 76 Awards - Golden Lion: Joker, directed by Todd Phillips - Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize: An Officer and a Spy, directed by Roman Polanski - Silver Lion Best Director: Roy Andersson, About Endlessness - Volpi Cup for Best Actress: Ariane Ascaride in Gloria Mundi - Volpi Cup for Best Actor: Luca Marinelli in Martin Eden - Best Screenplay Award: No. 7 Cherry Lane, written and directed by Yonfan - Special Jury Prize: The Mafia Is No Longer What It Used to Be, directed by Franco Maresco - Marcello Mastroianni Award for Young Actor: Toby Wallace in Babyteeth, directed by Shannon Murphy Horizons Awards - Best Film: Atlantis, directed by Valentyn Vasyanovych - Best Director: Theo Court, Blanco en Blanco - Special Jury Prize: Verdict, directed by Raymund Ribay Gutierrez - Best Actress: Marta Nieto in Madre - Best Actor: Sami Bouajila in A Son - Best Screenplay: Revenir, written by Jessica Palud, Philippe Lioret, Diasteme and directed by Jessica Palud Lion of the Future Lion of the Future Luigi De Laurentiis Award for a Debut Film: You Will Die at 20, directed by Amjad Abu Alala Venice VR - Best VR Film: The Key, directed by Celine Tricart - Best VR Experience Award: A Linha, directed by Ricardo Laganaro - Best VR Story Award: Daughters of Chibok, directed by Joel Kachi Benson Venice Classics - Best Documentary on Cinema: Babenco: Tell Me When I Die, directed by Barbara Paz - Best Restored Film: Ectasy, directed by Gustav Machaty

The coolest ever Fx effects Indian movie Bollywood Robot 2.0: Resurgence/2.0 (2018) released in China Mainland on September 6, 2019, its 3D special effects are affirmed by the Chinese audience. Bollywood Robot 2.0: Resurgence is a 2018 Indian Tamil-language thriller and science fiction action film directed by the famous Indian director S. Shankar, Rajinikanth, Akshay Kumar, and Amy Jackson starring. It is our honor that Fox Renderfarm provides the for the movie. With the super-strong 3D visual effects and unique brain hole conquered the audience in mainland China, triggered a hot discussion among netizens. As the first Indian sci-fi film to be introduced in China, the style of the Bollywood Robot 2.0: Resurgence was full of expectations. After the film was released on September 6, an alternative Indian sci-fi triggered strong attention from the Chinese audience. In the next two days, as the attention of netizens continued to increase, the film's word of mouth presented a magical style. "Special effects don't lose Hollywood", "3D visual effects are simply too good", "refreshing the perception of Indian movies", "Indians' brains are really big", "Exploring humans and technology as Bollywood movies." The topic is really good, "I didn't expect to see the second part in my life," "Nina is really beautiful", "environmental theme is meaningful", etc., enough to show the audience's pursuit of the film. It is reported that Bollywood Robot 2.0: Resurgence costs huge sums of money, and the top 3D visual effects not only make the Indian audience crazy but also completely conquered the mainland Chinese audience. Hollywood's top special effects team escorted, coupled with the crazy brains unique to the Indian people, viewers comments it as the intriguing Indian movie with the coolest ever visual effects. At present, Bollywood Robot 2.0: Resurgence is in the heat of in mainland China, Fox Renderfarm wished it can achieve a good box office in China.

This time, our . It also encourages outstanding artists to make good works and promote the production of their works, and let more people know them and their excellent works. This article brings about the production and analysis of the animated short film "Servival" produced by CG artists Li Yicong, Sun Ningning, Xing Luyue, Shi Tao and Li Yongcong. The software used is Maya, Arnold, AE, Nuke and so on. A brief introduction to the short film The short film tells that in a city where energy is exhausted after the end of the world, a lonely little robot relies on finding a waste battery in the city every day to live alone, until he finds that the city has no more disposable batteries to use, but he has no choice but to go home. Packing up the luggage, reluctantly pulling his own stroller, leaving the city, embarked on the road to find new energy. The specific production process Previous period The script is written by members and then determined through multiple discussions based on the technical level and conditions that can be achieved, and then the character design and scene design by the pre-art. Memories Modeling I found a lot of references during modeling, and I used to make up for a mechanical principle for a while. However, the animated character and mechanical design are not exactly the same. Consider the functions of action binding, emotional expression, and plot. Figure 1 is a partial reference of the character. The mapping is mainly used for Ddo and Mari. Role model Light rendering Scene one One of the scenes is the home of the robot, which lives in an abandoned train station. This lens acts as an empty mirror to ease the rhythm and explain the living environment. The robot looked for a day's battery, and the harvest was not much. Because it was far away, it almost lost a life on the way home. The lighting is set in the evening, except that it feels very dull, and it also implies that the small robot has lived in this city for a long time. On the other hand, the evening light effect, the light ratio is strong, the angle between the light, the camera and the object is relatively small, and the surface of the object will produce a beautiful Fresnel reflection. The figure below shows the material properties of the railway. Here you can use three or more textures to represent an object, color map, reflection map, and normal map or bump map. If it is close-up, you need to add a roughness map to make the object produce more rich changes. Backlighting also works well for translucent objects, such as the dirty old glass on the bridge, the grass on the ground, and the semi-transparent effect of all the plant leaves on the vine. In addition, the grass adjusts the wind output in SpeedTree and then imports it into Maya for material adjustment. Special plants need to be created in SpeedTree. Add force field to shape the plant into the shape and growth trend that you want, and then export. Creating plants in SpeedTree allows you to export wind animations to Maya, and plants can move to increase the authenticity of the scene. SpeedTree Software Plants imported into Maya Create a render layer in Maya, put all the objects into the new render layer, and then add the Arnold base material for layer coverage so that the entire scene is the same material and the texture is ignored. Benefits are, First, when lighting, it can be not affected by the texture of the surface of the object. It can observe and adjust the position of the light and shadow well, and use light and shadow to compose and shape the volume of the object. Second, remove the texture, refraction, etc., the test rendering speed is fast, the adjustment can get feedback quickly. Here you can see that this picture is not completely retrograde, the light source is to the left. At the time, when lighting in the scene, I hope that one side of the locomotive can produce a bright surface, and the lower left corner is too bright, so that the light of the whole scene is too average. Adjust the lights and start making material adjustments and renderings. If you find that many places need to be adjusted after rendering, you can reduce the sampling of all aspects, in order to save rendering time, after many adjustments to the screen you want, if you want the work more realistic and reduce the rendering time, you can use a . In Arnold, it is generally necessary to separate several layers， Scene 2 In the home of the small robot, this is a parting scene, where the warm shades of light are used to make a warm and sad feeling, so use the Maya spotlight to simulate the sun's rays, let it produces a light fog to simulate the atmosphere, which can increase the drama and authenticity of the scene. Scene 3 Post-production and composite editing The short film uses Arnold to render a multi-channel synthesis scheme with a total of 13 layers, which is finally synthesized in Nuke and AE.

As early as SIGGRAPH 2019, Maxon announced that it will launch a new generation of 3D animation software— Cinema 4D R21. On September 3, 2019, the C4D R21 version was officially released. According to Maxon's demonstration on Siggraph 2019, the new C4D R21 adds new Caps and Bevels systems, a Field Forces object for motion graphics, and better support for Mixamo animations. It also announced the abandonment of the previous four low-end editions, unified product pricing, and a new subscription plan. Modelling: New Caps and Bevels systems for modeling, more updates to core architecture and volume tools New modeling features in Cinema 4D R21 include Caps and Bevels, a self-descriptive new system for adding user-customisable caps and bevels to spline objects. The form of the Bevel can be selected from presets, controlled parametrically, or by editing a profile graph. Caps and Bevels are created as a single object, with additional selections sets for the shells and edges; and there is the option to link the start and end Caps on the spline. Maxon’s marketing material pitches it primarily as a toolset for 3D typography, but it can be used with a wide range of other models, as the video above demonstrates. The ongoing work updating Cinema 4D’s core architecture continues, with a “dramatic” – if unquantified – speed boost for the latest commands to be ported to the new modelling core, including Extrude and Split. There are also some nice small workflow improvements, such as the option to copy and paste components, including both points and polygons. The volume modelling system introduced in Cinema 4D R20 also gets an update, including a new curve-based UI to define the thickness of a spline-based volume at every point along that spline. When meshing a volume, it is also now possible to generate a curvature map from the resulting surface, which can be used to drive effects created with Cinema 4D’s MoGraph and Fields toolsets. UVs: a new UV Transform tool and UV snapping, but no major changes The update doesn’t bring major changes to Cinema 4D’s UV toolset – a cause of complaint in the previous release – although version 21 is described as “laying the groundwork for future UV enhancements”. The texture view has been migrated to OpenGL, which should improve interactivity and anti-aliasing of UV lines; and snapping has been introduced for UV points and edges. There is also a new UV Transform tool, for moving, rotating, scaling or distorting UV islands, shown in the video above; and a new UV ruler display. Materials and Rendering: Updates to node material and ProRender, support for Open Image Denoise The node-based material system introduced in Cinema 4D R20 gets a new drag-and-drop workflow for duplicating nodes, or rearranging the input and output ports within a node. There are also a number of new node types. Radeon ProRender, AMD's hardware-independent GPU rendering engine, added in Cinema 4D R19, has been further integrated to render node-based materials and volumes. ProRender now supports interactive tone mapping and external HDRI sky, and it is possible to render with HDR images larger than the available GPU memory. The renderer can also generate a series of new multipliers, including AO, albedo, refraction and volume, as well as direct and indirect illumination and reflection. In addition, Cinema 4D now integrates Open Image Denoise, Intel's open source CPU rendering noise reducer. It is currently only available for albedo delivery, but it can be used with native Physical Render and ProRender engines, or with third-party rendering, including Redshift, which Maxon acquired this year. Animation: new Field Force object, udpates for auto-weighting, and support for Mixamo console rig. Animators and animators have acquired a new Field Force object that can be used to control the forces in the scene using the Fields system added in the R20. These can then be used to drive the motion of a particle or rigid body dynamics object. The field itself gets some updates, including the option to use one field to mask another field; the data is converted between values, colors, and directions so that the effect can be modulated by color or direction. Fields can now also be used to modify normal labels; or as normal labels for fields. For role binding, the automatic skin weighting algorithm used by the software has been improved to support Bone Glow; and there are new volume and heat map modes. Cinema 4D now also integrates the Mixamo control to edit ready-to-play character animations generated using Adobe's Mixamo platform directly in the software. Other changes: the new Asset Inspector, and a series of UI and UX updates Other changes include support for HiDPI display, as well as some UI changes, especially on macOS and improved interface performance, especially when using the timeline. There is also a new asset inspector designed to make it easier to manage the external assets used in the Cinema 4D project, including the option to identify lost assets and automatically collect assets. Unified version, pricing changes In fact, the biggest difference between C4D R21 and the previous version is not a change in the function of the software itself, but a change in its pricing and licensing model. The update canceled the previous four low-priced versions, the $995 Prime and BodyPaint 3D versions, the $1,695 broadcast version, and the $2,295 Visualize version. The remaining version of Cinema 4D Studio's perpetual license, now referred to as "Cinema 4D", is priced at $200 and is priced at $3,495. Maxon also eliminates the often cumbersome upgrades, side-level and short-term rental options that come with each version, which is good for new subscription prices. Subscription fees for C4D alone are $94.99 or $719.88 per year; Cinema 4D plus Redshift is $116.99 per month or $983.88 per year. Compared to Autodesk's two software, Autodesk's new 3ds Max and Maya Indie deals are about twice as expensive as C4D. However, it is slightly higher than the maintenance subscription price of the old MSA Maxon. Obviously, there are far more than other versions. Users with current MSA will receive a permanent license for Cinema 4D R21 upon shipment. The MSA with the low-end version gets a "permanent authorization" or can switch to the subscription before then. With the demise of MSA, users of perpetual licenses are no longer able to automatically access Cineversity, Maxon's video training portal or upgrade. According to Maxon's FAQ: "Some future Cinema 4D upgrades may only be available to subscribers, while others may be offered to permanent license users at an upgrade price." Differences between Cinema 4D users Unsurprisingly, changes in licensing have led to heated debate among community forum users. The main points of disagreement are between those who oppose the subscription-only license. And those who see new subscriptions as an affordable way to access people who previously used only the old Cinema 4D Studio users.