Now that we’ve covered UV Unwrapping in the first blog of this series and improved tools in the second blog, let’s take a look at the animation workflow and gITF export improvements in Cinema 4D S22.
ANIMATION
Restriction Tags
Prior to S22, you could only use six per tag, but Maxon has doubled that to 12 inputs.
Constraint Tags
An Initial State has been added for Constraint Tag. If activated, the constraint object will reset to its initial state when rewinding the time to the first frame of the project.
Object Selection
Selecting spline in viewport (especially when using the Character Object) now selects properly.
Timeline
If the hierarchy matches, you can copy & paste multiple object tracks simultaneously in the timeline. For example, you can copy animation tracks from one character rig hierarchy and paste it to the same hierarchy of another character.
glTF EXPORT for AR & VR
The GL Transmission Format (glTF) is a common 3D file format compatible with game engines and AR/VR apps like Adobe Aero. Previously available via MAXON Labs, glTF is now included in C4D. Ideal for website 3D product visualizations, the format supports PSR and Joint/Skin animation, while the C4D Reflectance Channel supports Base Color/Metallic Value, Roughness Value, and Texture Maps. The only negatives are that in doesn’t support PLA and multi-layer Reflectance Channels, and vertices are restricted to four weights assigned by four joints.
When working with textures, if you're using shaders you must first bake out those shaders. However, S22, allows you to bake those textures into a single image texture using the Bake Object command. Once the textures are baked, you can export out to glTF format and use it in Adobe Aero. You may also or view it online by dragging and dropping your file into the https://sandbox.babylonjs.com/ browser window.
As we’ve covered in this series of blogs, Cinema 4D S22 offers exceptional improvements over past releases. However, keep in mind that in order to maximize the performance of these new features, you need a workstation purpose-built for C4D. The professionally overclocked BOXX APEXX S3, featuring the new 10th generation Intel® Core™ i7 or i9 processor (5.3GHz), or the APEXX X3 featuring an Intel® Core™ X-series processor (up to 18 cores with optional overclocking) are outstanding choices. To configure your Cinema 4D workstation, visit our C4D Solutions page, or call a BOXX C4D expert at 877.877.BOXX.