VERDICT Improved handling of animation and lighting and new XRef support add to Cinema 4D’s existing strengths.
Cinema 4D has made its name - and repeatedly won recommended awards - by offering professional 3d modelling power at an affordable price. However what really makes the program stand out from its rivals is its comparative ease of use.

This is enhanced again in this latest release with a host of tweaks to onscreen handling such as support for noise shaders in OpenGL mode, the ability to drag images onto 2D views as templates and control over speed for tablet users to cut down on scrolling. Cinema 4D’s HUD (heads-up-display), which previously let you drag object parameters onto the main working view for instant access, now also supports objects and commands. In practice the biggest advance is the simplest: a new dropdown lets you quickly swap between your last eight tools.
Core file handling has also been enhanced with a new auto-save option and the ability to save objects polygonally to Cinema 4D’s native format enabling other programs, such as the latest AllPlan 2008, to directly open C4D files. When bringing files into Cinema 4D, the big advance is the comprehensive new import support for the popular AutoCAD DWG standard – a real boon for architects and technical designers. Cinema 4D’s own modelling capabilities have also been enhanced with new commands for handling Phong breaks and tools for connecting and spinning edges.
A major focus in this latest release, as it was in the last, is animation. A lot of effort has been put into improving the basic handling of keyframe sequences starting with new commands for inserting and deleting frames, the ability to move keyframes with cursor keys, improved handling of ripple editing and the ability to mark keyframes as relative. The Animation palette as a whole has also been enhanced with scalable mini F-curves, a summary key track and an optional Advanced mode which shows keyframes split as tracks on the time slider. These are mainly steps in the right direction but there are still bugs and rough edges and Cinema 4D’s core animation handling still needs to be simplified.
Ironically this simplification is exactly what Maxon has managed to achieve when it comes to managing complex animations. When working with motion capture data, baked animations or when using Maxon’s own MOCCA extension for real time recording of character animation, the timeline can quickly become a thicket of keyframes that are almost impossible to edit. Now Cinema 4D 10.5 adds a clean tracks command to remove redundant keyframes. More impressive is the new ability to interactively and intelligently reduce the number of keyframes based on an algorithm. Most impressive of all is the ability to create a new RM (Reduced Modification) F-curve from an existing sequence, with edits to the simplified RM curve then affecting the original. The system certainly isn’t a panacea, and it’s a good idea to take advantage of the new ability to store up to five existing curves as restorable snapshots before editing, but this really is impressive professional power.
Another new feature that is pretty extraordinary to find at this price point is Cinema 4D 9.5’s new ability to work with “XRefs”. As its name suggests, the new XRef object is a cross-reference which points to the objects in a separate but linked Cinema 4D file. This is particularly useful in workgroups as it means that multiple users can work on the component models while one works on the master scene and animation. You can even save materials as XRefs so that another user can take charge of the scene’s overall appearance. It’s great for workgroups but it’s also very useful for individual users with XRefs acting like Instance objects that can be shared between files so ensuring maximum consistency and efficiency.
XRefs are Cinema 4D 10.5’s most obvious must-have feature, but for many the real stand-out will prove to be the new Lighting tool. Setting up and editing the lighting for a scene is fundamental to its end impact, but traditionally it’s a complex chore involving multiple trips to your multiple lights and much repositioning and parameter fine-tuning. Not any more. Now you can use the Lighting tool to click anywhere in your scene to quickly add a light. You can then click on the surfaces of your object and whichever light is the dominant influence at that point will automatically be selected. You can then interactively drag to rotate the light around the object, shift-drag to move it in and out and Ctrl-drag to change its intensity. Working interactively like this you can quickly explore and fine tune your lighting setup. Once you see it in action it just makes sense to control your lighting like this directly through its effect, rather than indirectly through source parameters.
This is typical of Cinema 4D at its best – offering real innovation to make 3D modelling as simple as possible. And Cinema 4D has another great strength – extensibility. While the core program offers all the average modeler is likely to need, advanced users will always want more power in their particular fields. Here Cinema 4D’s wide range of modules - and the XL (£1409 inc VAT) and Studio bundles (£2290 inc VAT) - come into play. Three modules see major upgrades (free with the upgrade to 10.5) with the highlights being HAIR’s new support for multiple processors, MoGraph’s ability to handle selections within its clone objects and MOCCA’s new deformer objects for more realistic character animation.
With impressive power, ease of use, innovation, value and extensibility, Cinema 4D 10.5 comfortably retains its 3D crown.

EASE OF USE 6/6
FEATURES 5/6
VALUE FOR MONEY 5/6
OVERALL 5/6