3D modeling, painting, animation and rendering technology provider Maxon has announced the release of an enhanced version of its Cinema 4D software, with new features and modules, including new tools for Mocca and MoGraph, plus enhancements to HAIR.
One new feature is a DWG import filter, which allows access to the widely-used CAD exchange format. AutoCAD versions 13 to 2008 are supported, including layers, blocks and references. A further boost to file exchange for customers in the architectural field is the new connection to Allplan 2008.
The update also adds XRefs, external references that allow a large scene to be broken down into parts, each of which can be worked on separately to the master project file, thus allowing multiple users to work on the same project file at the same time. Further additions include new modeling tools (Connect, Dissolve and Spin Edge), a new lighting tool, plus a new method to unwrap UVs of organic objects without undercuts.
HUD display functionality has been extended, allowing data to be dragged and dropped directly into the viewport. HUD elements can also be colored and grouped, and the timeline has been refined to enable users to work faster than before. A new summary track allows the entire animation to be edited as a whole, while the new reduced modification mode aims to simplify the process of editing complex f-curves. Full text search capabilities have also been added to the online help system.
For the modules, 25 improvements, such as Squash & Stretch features and new Deformers, have been added to Mocca. MoGraph features new effectors and cloning options, and hair rendering now supports multicore and multi-CPU machines - a dual-core machine now renders hair at up to double the previous speed.
