Tom Arah pushes the boundaries of 3D with CINEMA 4D and its comprehensive range of add-on modules.

About two and a half years ago I looked at the range of software available for 2D designers wanting to make the move into 3D and concluded that much the best option was MAXON’s CINEMA 4D...

Since then CINEMA 4D has seen no less than six upgrades (four major), each of which has consolidated that initial impression by concentrating on improving central functionality such as lighting, rendering, scene organization and animation. Alongside this excellent and always improving core functionality, for its mid-range price (£499 exc VAT), CINEMA 4D offers some extraordinary high-end creative power. Most notable here is the excellent integration with Photoshop and After Effects and the recent incorporation of the formerly separate BodyPaint 3D module, which offers the near-unique creative option of painting directly onto your models. On top of this, thanks to its streamlined environment and object-based interface, CINEMA 4D is efficient, productive and, bearing in mind the inevitable complexity of working in 3D, remarkably user-friendly.
Core functionality and usability are excellent, but ultimately they prove secondary to CINEMA 4D’s greatest strength: extensibility. While CINEMA 4D’s immediate power is all that the occasional user needs and more, when you begin exploring the near endless creative possibilities that producing your own 3D scenes opens up, the chances are that you will end up wanting to take things further in a particular direction. With a budget application when you hit the program’s ceiling there’s nothing you can do about it. Alternatively, with the high-end professional-only solutions, you are made to pay heavily (>£1500) for their all-embracing in-depth power - most of which you will never need and all of which affects general usability. By contrast, if you come to feel that you need to extend your work in CINEMA 4D, MAXON provides a range of eight additional modules specifically designed to offer state-of-the-art power clearly focused on a particular area of 3D creativity – and with third-party developers offering even more (see below).