Maxon releases Cinema 4D 2026.3
Maxon has released Cinema 4D 2026.3, the latest version of its 3D software for motion graphics, VFX and visualization work.
It’s a significant update for day-to-day work, introducing a new UV Editor with more advanced features and better integration with Cinema 4D’s modeling toolset than its predecessor.
VFX and motion graphics artists get a dedicated Particle Property Manager and three new distribution types for the Cloner object.
The new UV Editor integrates better with Cinema 4D’s modeling workflow, with many key selection and transformation tools working in the same way in both 3D and UV contexts.
New UV Editor integrates better with Cinema 4D’s modeling tools
The main new feature in Cinema 4D 2026.3 is the new UV Editor, which replaces the old editor from BodyPaint 3D, Cinema 4D’s 3D painting environment.
Maxon describes it as a “redesigned UV Editor with full professional unwrapping, packing, organizing, and UDIM support directly in Cinema 4D”.
A key advantage of the new editor is that it integrates better with Cinema 4D’s modeling tools, with many selection and transformation tools working near-identically in both contexts.
The internal handling of UV coordinates has also been changed, which Maxon says makes UV operations more robust, and enables more advanced features.
Like its predecessor, the new editor supports automatic UV unwrapping and relaxing, seam editing, texel density management, and UDIM workflows.
You can see the key features, and how UV workflow has been improved over previous versions of Cinema 4D, in the video at the top of this story.
Motion graphics: updates to the Cloner object and particle simulation tools
Motion graphics artists get three new distribution types for the Cloner object.
UV Projection distributes clones across a surface according to its UV coordinates, meaning that the positions of the clones is unaffected if the surface is later subdivided.
Rivet distributes clones around the outlines of faces, and Edge distributes them along edges.
For particle simulation, Cinema 4D 2026.3 introduces a dedicated Particle Property Manager, making it possible to create, view and edit particle properties in one place.
Price, system requirements and release date
Cinema 4D 2026.3 is compatible with Windows 10+ and macOS 14.0+. It is available rental-only, with Cinema 4D subscriptions costing $109/month or $839/year.
Read a list of new features in Cinema 4D 2026.3 in the online release notes
Read more about the new features in Cinema 4D in the online manual
Have your say on this story by following CG Channel on Facebook, Instagram and X (formerly Twitter). As well as being able to comment on stories, followers of our social media accounts can see videos we don’t post on the site itself, including making-ofs for the latest VFX movies, animations, games cinematics and motion graphics projects.