Maxon releases Cinema 4D 2023.1
Maxon has released Cinema 4D 2023.1, the latest version of its 3D design and animation software.
The release adds Pyro, a new GPU-accelerated gaseous fluid simulation integrated with Cinema 4D’s unified simulation framework, letting users simulate fire and smoke and have it interact with cloth and soft bodies.
The update also streamlines workflow with Maxon’s Redshift renderer, including the introduction of a new native Redshift camera; and further improves symmmetry modelling.
New Pyro toolset for simulating smoke, fire and explosions
The biggest new feature in Cinema 4D 2023.1 is Pyro, a smoke, fire and explosion simulation system.
It’s an evocative name for a fire simulator, and quite a bold choice, since it’s also the name that SideFX uses for the equivalent, long-established gaseous fluid simulation system in Houdini.
Maxon’s implementation is focused on ease of use, with artists simply adding a Pyro tag to any scene object to set it on fire, with the option to control which parts of its surface fluid is emitted from via vertex maps.
The simulation can then be directed using parameters to adjust density, temperature and fuel.
Simulations can be solved on the GPU, and viewport display of Pyro objects supports NanoVDB, Nvidia’s simplified representation of the OpenVDB data structure designed for processing on the GPU.
As Pyro is part of Cinema 4D’s new Unified Simulation System, simulations can interact with cloth and soft bodies, as well as with standard Cinema 4D forces and particle systems.
As well as being rendered directly, completed simulations can be saved as sequences of VDB files.
New native Redshift camera and better viewport previews of Redshift materials
The update also tightens integration with Maxon’s Redshift renderer, the CPU version of which is now integrated into Cinema 4D.
Key changes include the introduction of a native Redshift camera with controls for Redshift lens effects and post effects as well as standard physical camera properties.
Its Sensor Fit options decouple the camera’s field of view from output resplution, making it possible to render with overscan for print or VFX workflows, or in multiple aspect ratios for social media.
The new camera also supports viewport preview of fisheye, spherical and cylindrical projections.
In addition, viewport previews of Redshift materials have been improved, with support for animated textures, ramps, vertex colours, and a number of colour correction nodes.
3D modelling: new radial symmetry system and improvements to the Close Polygon Hole tool
Cinema 4D 2023.1 also extends the new global symmetry system introduced in Cinema 4D 2023 with support for radial symmetry as well as planar and topological symmetry.
Radial symmetry is supported by the Symmetrize command and by “most” modelling tools.
Other changes to 3D modelling include new Close All Holes and Patch modes for the Cloes Polygon Hole tool, the latter for closing circular holes in meshes.
In addition, the Iron Tool now preserves mesh and selection boundaries, while the Flatten Tool includes the option to use axis position.
Other changes and workflow improvements
Cinema 4D’s Scene Nodes system gets a smaller update, including a new Float Formula node and simplifiying settings in the Geometry Collision node.
Workflow improvements include the option to tear off and reposition any Tag menu within the user interface; and improvements when using procedural selections and vertex maps on generators.
In addition – it isn’t mentioned in the changelog, but it is listed in the online manual – it is possible to export USD Layers when using Cinema 4D in a USD-based pipeline.
Pricing and availability
Cinema 4D 2023.1 is available for Windows 10+ and macOS 10.15.7+.
The update is available rental-only, Maxon having discontinued perpetual licences for new versions of the software in September, with subscriptions costing $94/month or $719/year.
Read a full list of new features in Cinema 4D 2023.1 in the online release notes
Read more about the new features in Cinema 4D 2023.1 in the online manual