Continue reading »]]> Two busy surgeons at one of the world’s leading eye centers have been working late into the night learning how to use CINEMA 4D, the state-of-the-art 3D animation software used in films such as Spider-Man 3 and Beowulf – in a bid to help teach other surgeons how to perform complex eye operations.

To date, eye surgeons Bill Aylward and Paul Sullivan have produced over 1,000 animations that are helping to train other surgeons at their workplace – Moorfields Eye Hospital, London – and beyond.

Using CINEMA 4D’s advanced animation tools, Bill and Paul find they can demonstrate many surgical procedures more clearly than is possible with real film.

“The problems with using real footage of operations are that sometimes organs, blood or tissue can get in the way of what we’re trying to show; you can’t always put the camera in the best position to see what’s going on, and you can’t show cutaways that would explain the procedure better. With 3D animation software, you can hide anything that gets in the way or make it see-through; the camera can go where you want and you can produce cutaways of the eye very easily. Anything is possible in 3D!” explains Bill.

Paul recalls that the biggest hurdle was finding the right 3D tool: “We’ve never animated before. We’re surgeons, not full-time animators. We needed a 3D tool that gives the best results and is the easiest to use. We tested all the available 3D packages and we found CINEMA 4D the easiest to [learn].”

Although one-on-one training is available for CINEMA 4D, Bill and Paul would often be learning late into the night outside normal working hours. Here help was at hand in the shape of MAXON’s www.cineversity.com website, offering over 1,000 video tutorials online that can be accessed around-the-clock.

Months later, Bill and Paul are now literally flying with CINEMA 4D: “Last week, I created two new animations on a flight to a training conference in North Carolina. We’re creating content a lot faster these days. That’s partly because we’ve built up a library of 3D models and materials that we can reuse,” says Bill.

And critical acclaim has followed: Bill and Paul’s CINEMA 4D animations were highly commended by the British Medical Association Textbook Awards.

About Moorfields Eye Hospital
Opened in 1805, Moorfields Eye Hospital NHS Foundation Trust is one of the world’s leading centers for ophthalmic treatment and teaching. It is the oldest and largest specialist eye hospital in the world, and became one of the UK’s first NHS Foundation Trusts in 2004.

With its research partner, the UCL Institute of Ophthalmology, Moorfields carries out an exciting programme of research in order to find cures for diseases currently untreatable.

The entire range of eye diseases is treated at Moorfields from cataract, corneal and retinal conditions to complex diseases, and last year over 260,000 patient visits were recorded.

Moorfields’ eminent reputation means that patients are seen from all over the UK and from around the world.

More information about the hospital can be found at www.moorfields.nhs.uk

Credits

• Bill Aylward – Medical Director, Moorfields Eye Hospital
• Paul Sullivan – Director of Education, Moorfields Eye Hospital

MAXON – The makers of CINEMA 4D and BodyPaint 3D

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Next Generation Product Suite Offers Non-Linear Animation, a Boost in Rendering Speed and Quality, Including Re-Engineered Global Illumination, and the Highly Anticipated Projection Man Matte Painting System

MAXON Computer, a leading developer of professional 3D modeling, painting, animation and rendering solutions, today unveiled CINEMA 4D Release 11 (R11), the next generation of its highly acclaimed 3D animation software suite.

The super-charged release is packed with advanced capabilities that deliver dramatically improved ease of use and workflow, image quality and integration into any production pipeline. CINEMA 4D R11 highlights include a non-linear animation system, new global illumination render engine and dramatically improved render speed.

Customers also benefit from the powerful Projection Man matte painting system, developed by MAXON for Sony Pictures Imageworks, support for the COLLADA™ file format and CineMan – a RenderMan-compliant tool that connects to Pixar’s industry-leading rendering solution. Additionally, multiple improvements were made to MAXON’s popular texture painting toolset BodyPaint 3D Release 4. All of these capabilities and more serve to underscore MAXON’s ongoing and deep commitment to helping 3D digital artists further advance creativity and control.

“MAXON has spent the last 20 years developing some of the industry’s most advanced 3D software technologies; continually raising the bar for 3D animation software excellence,” said Harald Egel, CEO and co-founder, MAXON. “CINEMA 4D R11 is no exception. This release contains the next-generation features our customers worldwide have come to expect from MAXON.”

Expanded integration options, new workflow tools and boosts in performance for both PC and Mac users sit at the heart of the new release. On average, rendering speeds are now more than twice as fast as the previous version. CINEMA 4D R11 also boasts an all-new Cocoa-based architecture supporting 64-bit processing under Mac OS X Leopard.

“We are pleased, that MAXON has created the CineMan connection to Pixar’s RenderMan directly from within CINEMA 4D,” said Chris Ford, Business Director – RenderMan at Pixar. “Now MAXON customers can benefit from Pixar’s Academy Award-winning rendering technology, featured in Ratatouille, The Incredibles and many others.”

“Our customers told us what they needed and we listened,” said Paul Babb, president and CEO of the MAXON US office . “This exciting new version is as ideal for the novice as it is for the power user who wants to produce compelling imagery in today’s fast-paced environments.”

CINEMA 4D Release 11 Highlights:
The list of capabilities and enhancements that comprise the new CINEMA 4D R11 is extensive; with each element designed to provide ultimate control to enhance the professional 3D modeling, texturing, animating and rendering process:

- Non-Linear Animation
Move beyond the keyframe. Animation Layers and Motion Clips tools let users easily build, layer and loop discreet motions containing hundreds of keyframes in complex hierarchies.

- Completely New Global Illumination
Take advantage of the most current algorithms and computer hardware with the all new easy to use Global Illumination engine. This technology delivers heightened flexibility to achieve ultra-realistic results with a minimum of setup time, even for animations.

- BodyPaint 3D
New tools for painting rich, detailed textures onto a 3D model as well as an improved workflow are part of this major upgrade to the popular 3D painting application. The improvements facilitate even tighter integration into industry-standard painting pipelines with brush import, WACOM tablet support, PSD format enhancement and more.

- Improved Rendering Speeds
Tremendous optimizations in multithreading and CPU efficiency offer dramatically improved rendering speeds. Overall render quality has been greatly enhanced as well. New parameters make it possible to create even more realistic glass materials.

- Support for 64-bit on Mac OS X
CINEMA 4D R11 is the first comprehensive 3D package completely re-engineered to take full advantage of the Mac OS X 10.5 release. As a native 64-bit Cocoa application, CINEMA 4D can be used in 64-bit mode to utilize greater RAM resources so you can build and render more complex projects. All 64-bit processors are supported. Users can easily switch between 32-bit and 64-bit mode to suit their individual needs.

- Projection Man
Leverage the same powerful matte painting system originally developed by MAXON exclusively for Sony Pictures Imageworks and recently used to create such blockbuster features as Hancock, Speed Racer, Beowulf and Surf’s Up. This formerly exclusive toolset enhances workflow and makes it easy to create and patch the mattes. Tight integration with Adobe Photoshop and MAXON BodyPaint 3D simplifies editing and manipulating extensive digital mattes and even fully immersive 3D environments.

- CineMan
Power users can easily render CINEMA 4D projects utilizing Pixar’s RenderMan Pro Server, or other RenderMan-compliant engines including 3Delight (dna research) and AIR (SiTex Graphics) through support for the RIB format.

- COLLADA Support
R11 now supports COLLADA, an open standard XML-based format that facilitates the transfer of 3D assets between applications. Exchanging scenes with other 3D applications is now easier than ever for diverse Digital Content Creation (DCC) production pipelines.

- Customer Friendly
An online update mechanism ensures users always have access to the latest updates and enhancements. A new license server technology helps corporations, studios and schools maximize and manage their investment.

MAXON – The makers of CINEMA 4D and BodyPaint 3D

Incoming search terms:

• Pixars RenderMan FILESONIC CINEMA 4D

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CINEMA 4D is a commercial cross platform high-end 3D graphics application produced by MAXON Computer GmbH of Friedrichsdorf, Germany. It is capable of procedural and polygonal/subd modeling, animating, lighting, texturing and rendering, and is noted for being very easy to use and artist friendly among high end 3D applications and having a very flexible interface.

CINEMA 4D is a popular 3D application amongst matte painters in film largely due to the BodyPaint 3D functionality and is equally popular amongst motion graphics artists thanks to an excellent integration with compositing application pipelines coupled with a very artist-friendly and customizable workflow and interface. It has been utilized for films such as We Are the Strange, Polar Express, Open Season and Monster House.

The application relies on widely used computer 3D technology which works by creating groups of “points” (known as vertices) which form surfaces when connected. The illusion of three dimensions is created by modeling objects out of multiple surfaces. Still pictures, movies and game environments (among other things) can be created with this technique.

CINEMA 4D has its own runtime scripting and programming language C.O.F.F.E.E. which is rather similar in form to JScript and an advanced modern C++ API with extensive SDK to develop platform independent plug-ins.

Four different packages have been released by MAXON: the core CINEMA 4D application, the XL-Bundle (including NET Render [3 licenses], PyroCluster, Advanced Render, MOCCA and Thinking Particles), the Studio Bundle, which includes all modules, and the Production Bundle, which comes with a service contract, Linux version, Renderman support and a number of other high-end studio-specific features. This version is only available upon request.

Initially, CINEMA 4D was developed for Amiga computers in the early nineties but has since been released for Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows.

MAXON has created a way for all users to be able to ‘get into’ 3D with their software by pursuing this route. Training DVD in addition to install DVD for R10: More than 6GB of video tutorials in German or English. MAXON bundles HTML manuals and tutorials/videos with its software. New in release 10 are context sensitive help menus.

CINEMA 4D has been embraced by the Adobe After Effects community because of C4D’s external compositing tags and object IDs which make exporting 3D data and separate alpha and depth information efficient and simple. Because the export feature also supports Apple’s Final Cut Pro and other popular software, it fits well into several post production studio configurations.

Modules

As well as the core application (for modeling, texturing, lighting and rendering), CINEMA 4D also has several add-on programs (modules) available that expand its capabilities. These programs include:

• Advanced Render (global illumination/HDRI, caustics, ambient occlusion and sky simulation)
• BodyPaint 3D (direct painting on UVW meshes)
  • With CINEMA 4D R10 the module BodyPaint 3D became integrated in the basic package
• Dynamics (for simulating soft body and rigid body dynamics)
• HAIR (simulates hair, fur, grass, etc.)
• MOCCA (character animation and cloth simulation)
• MoGraph (Motion Graphics procedural modeling and animation toolset)
• NET Render (to render animations over a TCP/IP network in render farms)
• PyroCluster (simulation of smoke and fire effects)
  • With CINEMA 4D R10 the module PyroCluster became integrated in the Advanced Render module
• Sketch & Toon (tools for cel shading, cartoons and technical drawings)
• Thinking Particles (enhanced particle system based on nodes)

Additional rendering engines

As-of 2007, these alternate rendering engines / connections are currently available for CINEMA 4D as plug-ins:

• finalRender stage 2.0 SP4 from Cebas Computer GmbH
• Maxwell Render from Next Limit Technologies
• Renderman Connection from MAXON Computer GmbH
• Indigo Renderer
• SunFlow
• V-ray

Other Information:

• Developed by MAXON Computer GmbH
• Latest release R11 / September 1, 2008
• OS Mac OS X, Windows
• Type 3D computer graphics
• License Proprietary
• Website http://www.maxon.net

Incoming search terms:

• application of 3d computer graphics
• cinema 4 d