Daz Studio with Cinema4D

Asari

Occasionally I read in some posts of people who use or have used C4D so I just wanted to ask - did some of you use C4D with DAZ figures? Is the workflow between both apps very complicated or manageable? If you stopped using C4D, what was the reason?

Background why I am asking: I have been using Marvelous Designer for 2 months now and i greatly enjoy it. True the initial learning curve was steep and i haven't figured out how to create the complex details but I am very pleased with my efforts so far. I also observed I do not rely so much on Daz store assets any longer and mainly shop for shoes or if the deal is great. I never looked back ever since.

Now my main weak point is realistic hair. I just love realistic hair. I used to paint realistic hair in 2D during the V4 times. I'm totally fascinated by 3D hair. I love the Strand based hair editor and love creating my own hairstyles with them but due to limitations - the editor itself has some issues, and then, non-PAs don't have access to hair physics - I'm never really satisfied with it. More than often some aspects of the editor drives me nuts regarding lack of control. Now Ornatrix, a pro tool for hair creation has been released for Cinema 4D. While Ornatrix has been around for some time it is only available for 3dsmax and Maya and C4D is a lot more manageable cost-wise. Added to that, Ornatrix is currently available for half price for C4D and this is pretty attractive.

I'm not entirely sure what exactly I plan with C4D except create hair. That is, I'm not certain whether I will only create my assets in C4D and then re-import them to Daz Studio and render my scene there, or whether I export everything from Daz Studio to C4D, add cloth and hair, tweak the materials and render everything there, and what renderer I will use (Redshift has a reasonable price tag). I'm currently only doing stills but I may consider short animations in the future.

I'm interested in opinions of people who have experience with C4D and Daz Studio and especially Daz assets.

TheKD

Have you looked into blender yet? Might be worth giving that a go before blowing all that money on C4D etc. It's gotten a lot better recently, and should continue to improve given their recent large investments.

Gordig

From watching the demo video, I don't see what advantages Ornatrix offers over C4D's native hair tools, which are quite powerful.

Asari

TheKD said:

Have you looked into blender yet? Might be worth giving that a go before blowing all that money on C4D etc. It's gotten a lot better recently, and should continue to improve given their recent large investments.

I've been doing a lot of stuff in Blender and also bought a very good course to learn how to do hair. Blender is great. But I have never enjoyed working with Blender whatever I did. It's not Blender's fault, I understand why Blender works as it does and why it was designed as it is. It just doesn't work out for me.

Of course I've yet to try out C4D myself to see what it does. I talked to an online friend, a professional 3D artist of my trouble with Blender and he told me he hated Blender as well, but enjoys working with C4D so if C4D were an option for me. Cost-wise it's painful for sure. But then, it has been for other things as well ... I never thought I would enjoy MD as much as I do now ... so maybe also curious. Experience by other users are definitely helpful, I couldn't find a lot on Daz to C4D and some of it is very old and I'm not sure if it's not already outdated.

Mistara

C4D has a vray add-on. 

WillDupre

Gordig said:

From watching the demo video, I don't see what advantages Ornatrix offers over C4D's native hair tools, which are quite powerful.

I agree with gordig, there isn't any advantage that I can see to buying this hair plugin over the native strand based hair in C4D. as for ease of use, I use C4D on a regular basis and find it pretty easy as far as modeling and mesh painting are concerned, but I would download the free 14 day trial to see if you like it. C4D like Blender has tons of different tools compared to limited purpose software like MD and DS so the learning curve can be daunting. there used to be a tool to bring fully rigged poser figures into C4D but that was for the old poser rigging and is incompatible with weight based rigging, meshes are certainly transferable between Studio and C4D but you would have to do your own figure rigging if you want posable figures in C4D and of course you would have to recreate the material settings.

CarlCG

I use C4D predominantly for hard-surface modeling. I ran into the same obstacles probably as yourself, with trying to use Blender. Nothing wrong with Blender by any means it just seemed to slow me down regarding my personal workflow… for many Blender works just great. When I tried the demo of C4D I started modeling and learning it’s techniques very quickly. Unfortunately I don’t (or haven’t yet done) hair with C4D, so I can’t comment on that aspect of it. I recommend like the other commentor said, to download the trial and see how the workflow works for you. Follow the online tutorials strictly while you’re learning it. You can export objects from C4D in many formats (obj, fbx, dae, etc) and if you export as Dae 1.5 it will keep all your groups intact so you can do the materials/shaders, lighting, and rendering with Daz if that’s your plan. Out of the available full modeling programs I tried (3DSMax, Maya, C4D, Blender) Cinema4D I was able to learn and pick up much quicker than the others. Redshift and Octane are both engines I’ve tried with C4D and I’m leaning more towards Octane at this point. The full version of Octane is also available for Daz now, so the methods I learn with one program should be applicable to the other.

Gordig

I made this a while back by doing a quick animation in DS, then exporting to C4D to goof around with the hair physics. 

This doesn't actually have anything to do with the thread; it just amuses me.

FSMCDesigns

Amuses me as well, rock on!

FSMCDesigns

Mystarra said:

C4D has a vray add-on. 

So does 3DSMax, Maya, Houdini, Sketchup, Blender, Rhino, MODO, Unreal, etc

It's also $500 a year

joseft

I have C4D and rarely use it anymore. AFAIK There is no bulletproof workflow of getting a daz figure into c4d with all functions of the daz figure intact. You can do it, but depending on the method and format, you will lose some features of the figure or have to spend a great deal of time re-rigging etc. But i believe that is the case with all other apps too. 

I am not sure what Maxon's current pricing and license options are, but if they are still what i remember and you are willing to pay that, then i reccomend you consider getting Maya instead. Autodesk have introduced Indie licenses for Maya, it is a very reasonable price for what you get, Maya is regarded by most as the industry standard software. Under the indie license you get the full version of Maya, with all its features, same as a corporate license. Plus, there is currently a plugin in development at Daz that works as a bridge from Daz Studio to Maya, to enable daz figures to be easily transferred to Maya among other features. 

Asari

testingtesterson35 said:

I use C4D predominantly for hard-surface modeling. I ran into the same obstacles probably as yourself, with trying to use Blender. Nothing wrong with Blender by any means it just seemed to slow me down regarding my personal workflow… for many Blender works just great. When I tried the demo of C4D I started modeling and learning it’s techniques very quickly. Unfortunately I don’t (or haven’t yet done) hair with C4D, so I can’t comment on that aspect of it. I recommend like the other commentor said, to download the trial and see how the workflow works for you. Follow the online tutorials strictly while you’re learning it. You can export objects from C4D in many formats (obj, fbx, dae, etc) and if you export as Dae 1.5 it will keep all your groups intact so you can do the materials/shaders, lighting, and rendering with Daz if that’s your plan. Out of the available full modeling programs I tried (3DSMax, Maya, C4D, Blender) Cinema4D I was able to learn and pick up much quicker than the others. Redshift and Octane are both engines I’ve tried with C4D and I’m leaning more towards Octane at this point. The full version of Octane is also available for Daz now, so the methods I learn with one program should be applicable to the other.

Thank you that's helpful. I haven't settled for a final workflow. obj export seems a good start.

Asari

Gordig said:

I made this a while back by doing a quick animation in DS, then exporting to C4D to goof around with the hair physics. 

This doesn't actually have anything to do with the thread; it just amuses me.

Looks very good, thank you for sharing. I wasnt aware C4D had advanced hair creation and simulation tools natively integrated. I will research this. I hope I can get to something like this one day. Will start with stills and then crawl my way forward.

Asari

joseft said:

I have C4D and rarely use it anymore. AFAIK There is no bulletproof workflow of getting a daz figure into c4d with all functions of the daz figure intact. You can do it, but depending on the method and format, you will lose some features of the figure or have to spend a great deal of time re-rigging etc. But i believe that is the case with all other apps too. 

I am not sure what Maxon's current pricing and license options are, but if they are still what i remember and you are willing to pay that, then i reccomend you consider getting Maya instead. Autodesk have introduced Indie licenses for Maya, it is a very reasonable price for what you get, Maya is regarded by most as the industry standard software. Under the indie license you get the full version of Maya, with all its features, same as a corporate license. Plus, there is currently a plugin in development at Daz that works as a bridge from Daz Studio to Maya, to enable daz figures to be easily transferred to Maya among other features. 

Thank you for the suggestion regarding the Autodesk indie licenses. That's indeed an interesting offer. Sadly I'm not in a country eligible for the indie license which is a shame. It's really the best business model for me, if this were available in my country I would have signed up immediately.

I compared the Maya license with the C4D license and the C4D license is a lot more manageable. Maya is roughly double or triple the cost of C4D. Also, Ornatrix is currently on sale for C4D but after the helpful input from people here I might not grab it.

RobotHeadArt

Houdini has a robust dynamic hair system.  You can try Houdini apprentice for free and if you like the workflow there is an indie license that is at a reduced price.  The indie license is needed to use external renderers like Octane or Redshift and remove the watermark from the built in Mantra render engine.

https://www.sidefx.com/tutorials/hair-grooming-houdini-170-1/

https://www.sidefx.com/tutorials/houdini-165-masterclass-fur-hair-grooming-toolset/

Mistara

Whatever happened to DS and Renderman?

I remember creating rib files in ds the 4.6 days

renderman has some good looking fur/hair.

wolf359

joseft said:

 

I am not sure what Maxon's current pricing and license options are, but if they are still what i remember and you are willing to pay

 

Here is the current pricing for C4D
https://www.maxon.net/en-us/buy/

I have created an entire feature length film using Iclone, Daz studio and C4D

Sample clip:

My C4D is quite old and I would never buy another version of the program because Blender 2.81 now has everything I need to render My Daz genesis 2 figures 

 

 

SAVE YOUR MONEY

TheMysteryIsThePoint

On the topic of Blender, apparently version 2.83 has hair collisions fixed, and so the kind of sim posted above with the girl headbanging will be possible again.It'll be out in May, but you can get it now in alpha if you want to try it. Really, Blender has all you need, except for a good retargeter.

wolf359

TheMysteryIsThePoint said:

 Really, Blender has all you need, except for a good retargeter.

 

Indeed I looking for away to use the  blender nonlinear motion clip system to load new animation onto an existing imported FBX rig from a second identical rig ,the way we apply different aniblocks to the same daz characters.

It seems there should be away to do this already...I hope