Well with some of the disappointment of P5, I've started to consider other platforms. I am going to turn my attention to more modeling and animation. I am wondering if any of you use lightwave and/or cinema4d. I see now that c4dxl v7 offers a immediate upgrade to v8... The packages are very close in price. I often hear LW referred to as almost an industry standard, but I also heard it tough to learn and slow on rendering. I ve read lots of good reviews for cinema: stable easy to use blah blah..... For the money which should it be? I want a modeler that's easy to use (not like strictly vertex modeling like old blender) I want particles and volumetrics, explosions, lights, video compositing.... you know...the stuff we all like. And I don't want to wait days for a single image render. Any thoughts?

Cinema is supposed to be best at handling .PZ3 files that are exported from PPP. I can't tell you about it's modeler. I don't have Cinema. You might take a look around the Net to see what kind of plugins are available for Cinema. (free or fee) Lightwave has a pretty strong community out there, and quite a few free plugins to be had. Here's a link to a more active forum, that has discussions for Cinema, Lightwave, etc... Along with a lot of other CG related topics. http://www.cgtalk.com/ Check out what issuse other people are having with the software, and you'll be less likely to make a choice you wish you hadn't.

Well Cinema 4DXL is my primary application with poserpropac 4 as a character animation plugin it offers basiclly the same features as Lightwave which i use also. Cinema Offers CLOTH simulation it offers WATER simulation. and of course stable import of POSER animations. But be aware that version8 will NOT support import of poser animation or PZ3's BUT the NEW Character animation tools of C4D8 are very powerful amd poserlike with poser libraries and pose sliders but you will have to build and rig your figures the traditional way in cinema first.

Hi Talley,

"The packages are very close in price"... in fact Cinema 4D is now much cheaper than Lightwave. Cinema 4D Release 8 starts at $ 600 (full license). And that's not a "limited" edition, but the complete application !

audity: Cinema 4D ""XL""" v8? I doubt it. "ART" version maybe, but not the XL version. That'll cost $1695 just like C4D XL v7.3. Kuroyume

While I'm chiding, I have a quick question: Does LightWave run on BOTH Windows and Mac (like Poser 4) or is a separate purchase required for each? Can't make any sense out of NewTek's information. wolf359: So, would you recommend C4D XL over LW7.5? Kuroyume

@ kuroyume0161:
With R8 there is no Cinema ART anymore. The basic R8 for $600 has more features then Cinema XL 7 for $1600 (aside from caustics and radiosity).
The R8 XL bundle is way more powerful than XL7 (mostly for animation).

@ TalleyJC:
I prefer Cinema 4D, mostly because I don't grok the Lightwave interface. ;)
Try the demos of both programs, the features are mostly comparable but the workflow is different.

MadYuri, I noticed that they only showed R8 "bundles" - the "XL" bundle and "Studio" bundle. Where are you getting prices for this stuff anyway. I haven't seen any except the upgrade pricings in the R8 FAQ? Plus, I'm slightly confused, being totally new to Cinema4D, about the "modules" and the differences between the bundles. Different structuring than v7. Appears that the "Studio" bundle is the big one, the "XL" bundle is next, and then R8 alone is the base software. Is R8 released yet and, if not, what is the tentative date (so that I may make the R7 purchase)? And finally (didn't realize this was an interrogation, did you?), I've noticed that the LightWave renders are, how does one put it, "WoW!!!", while the Cinema4D renders are "Wow!!". Notice the difference. They're not very different in quality, but LWs renders (that I've seen) are more photo-realistic, sometimes to the point of unbelief. Cinema4Ds renders were close, some were photo-realistic, but most still retained that "computery" look. Or is that just me? Is it just a matter of the interface and slower renders on LW that prompts you to prefer C4D? :) Thanks very much, Kuroyume

I have both. So far interest in thier customers on Maxons(Cinema 4D) side has been a far better expirience. I'm also finding Cinema to be far faster to learn(reading the manuals of course). :) Then there is also the dongle. Lightwave uses one and Cinema 4D does not. It helps not having a dongle if you have a laptop/note book and a desktop. Another thing I'd ask my self in your shoes is if I'm shooting for doing this professionally for a living some day? That would effect a persons choice as well.

*"wolf359: So, would you recommend C4D XL over LW7.5?"* Its a tough call!! :-) Cinema is "easier" to learn and its built in [EXPLOSION](http://66.70.166.29/promo/explo.mpg) deformer is an incredible feature for an effects guy like me. BUT taking poser collaboration out of the equation I Must reccommend Lightwave because it has built in Cloth /collision dynamics and a better particle system with volumetric materials via its VERY powerful hypervoxels system. and Fur and hair is already built in to the program and it has superior modeling tools (if you are a Model builder) these features must be purchased as separate packages for cinema version7.3.3 i find it text based interface very clean and professional and the MAC version is super stable under OSX I Do not reccomend LW underOS9 and neither does Newtek. and Cinema version 8 has very much improved character animation tools but lightwaves are already very good and lightwave 7.5 mow imports BVH files directly get the Demos of both and see how they compare for your immediate and long term goals

I have OSX and W2K. NewTek didn't really specify, but is LW like Poser 4 in that one purchase can run on either, or must you purchase separately for each system? I'm still undecided. Of course, I am going to play with the demo versions to get a feel for each and make a decision afterwards. You guys are being very helpful. Normally, my "3D graphics" work is done in AC2000 and I haven't used anything powerful since Imagine on an Amiga some years back (blushes). Poser was my first foray back into 3D graphics, now that I feel that the power has reached the level of dedicated users (in price, features, and workflow) and not just studios (like ILM). Kuroyume

@ Kuroyume
I got the prizes from the german reseller Basis1. Note: Maxon does offer Competitive Sidegrades again, this means the full R8 XL bundle is about $1200. One year ago I got my R7 with the same sweet deal. :)
The new modular R8 system was a hot topic in the C4D forums some time ago. Everyone was confused. ;)

Wolf359.... I am intrested in both modeling and animation. I am seriously looking at the XL package - which if I understand it correctly, is the base package with a bunch of the "separate" functions you described. Explosions are important as is hair/cloth. But I also want to model and have ease of use as well as fast render time. Also i'd like standard movie file output (AVI etc) for post production . How different are the modeling tools? Have you reviewed the cinema r8 options? I guess basically I want to know if a fully loaded cinema system would be as good as lightwave. I don't know of I care about direct poser import anymore. If I can get daz models into either product with a little work that's ok. Plus I am sure someone may have already put together a project file that has victoria with a skeleton built by now.

"I guess basically I want to know if a fully loaded cinema system would be as good as lightwave. I don't know of I care about direct poser import anymore. If I can get daz models into either product with a little work that's ok. Plus I am sure someone may have already put together a project file that has victoria with a skeleton built by now." IM beginning feel the same way about poser as a MAC user i find myself not concerned about a poser5 release for the mac as it would offer me nothing i dont already have. To answer your specific questions A fully loaded version 8 of cinema4DXL MIGHT be on par with lightwave but you will have to buy the full studio bundle which is way more expensive than a seat of lightwave 7.5 i believe and all the new features in version are nice, but smart particles, and F curve graph editor collision, cloth and powerful Ik driven pose sliders for character animation, ALL exist in the BASE Lightwave package right now. So Lightwave3D is still a better value in my opinion

Attached Link: http://www.lightwave3d.com/product/projects_list.html

Yah, Lightwave can do fantastic renders, straight out of the box. As an all around app, it probably has more abilities built in, than most (or all) of the others. Sky generator. Hair-fir-grass generator. Like said before, Hypervoxils. (can be really slow to render tho) Another thing that's not mentioned enough, is that with Lightwave, you can REPLACE one model with another, mid-animation. (low poly, low res, for distance. High-res for close) You can link the changes to 'distance from camera'. Not even 'Maya' does that. It can really speed up the renderings of animations. From what I've heard, there's a lot of studio projects that used both Lightwave and Maya. Maya ends up in the credits (cuz it's the "hip" app to use right now) while Lightwave might have been used for the bulk of the actual CG FX, cuz you can simply get things done faster with it. Check out the list of stuff it's been used for: http://www.lightwave3d.com/product/projects_list.html Also, maybe you heard that Lightwaves renders are slow because of some of the rendering capabilities it has built in. (?) Rendering capabilities that you'll have to pay 100's more to plugin to of some of the other apps. I doubt those other apps are gonna be much (any?) faster if they could output the quality Lightwave has. If you're doing animation with Lightwave, (or any other app) you can't afford to have all the rendering bells & whistles turned on anyway. Unless you're a multi-million dollar studio with a HUGE render farm.. You just have to build your scene for speed.

And dynamic parenting is Great for character work involving props changing hands (Just ask tephadon over at the LW forum) and the LW graph editor simply cant be beat in my opinion. and dont forget you speed up your renders by disabling the "Show render in progress" option. And as you stated the only way to beat lightwaves renderer in other programs is with some very expensive external renderer like Arnold or Brazil, fina lrender, renderman etc. which can cost as much as buying an entire application not to mention the hassle of the install scripts. BTW Norbert, have you downloaded the Siggraph LW Demo files yet There are some great Scene files to learn from through reverse engineering.