Hi Gumby_Doyen,
Not certain, is Tusch your first name?
I found in the manual (FormZ, v7) on page 316 the command, but it does not give me anything more than I would expect from the tool in C4D. So, even if I follow your lead, I can’t see what is missing. A scene file [obj] would be nice.
I do not have an understanding that this forum is limited to “feature film or games”, I hope I never made that impression. Being an architect as well, and have even worked intensively to melt the Allplan-CAD department and the architects in my last office to a strong working team in the early ‘90s, I certainly believe that I’m open to workflow things in many areas. I hope that shows. As an lead artist and office manager I had to melt the 18 people to teamwork, and at that time CAD was more for nerds than for artists. So I thought the CAD guys a little bit architecture and the architects a little bit of CAD (from my Archicad knowledge). In that way both sides were able to establish “rapport”, and we got a lot of my projects realized. (A quarter billion in todays Dollars to name a number). Team work was since ever a strong part in my life, but only if both sides like to have it.
Based on that and my education in Set Design, I loved to connect a little bit with the ADG. Your input that Sun-simulation is more for DP’s makes me wonder what I miss these days. Isn’t set-design supposed to be developed for a specific mood, and with that highly dependent on the light set up? If light isn’t a major part in the mind set of the set-designer, then I might have missed a change. Alexander Trauner was my favorite in the ‘80s, when I started to love that area. However, if light is not needed, then SketchUp certainly is sufficient, or perhaps just Cinema 4D and paint on some planes with BodyPaint 3D the ideas. But I guess, light is as before the key incidence of film, at least in my work. (Why would I spend money in the RED Dragon update, if light isn’t important anymore?) ;o)
You mention an interesting point, “homogenized a lot of set rendering” based on the use of SketchUp, which sounds terrible in my ears, as if the language and aesthetic of the artists has become unified. Did I got this correctly?
What MAXON likes to do there is not up to me, I’m an instructor here and not in the marketing. I think a training should be hand tailored for these great artists. To get there and do a standard introduction, might not fit their needs and waste perhaps only their valuable time. Perhaps the standards as introduction, but there is certainly a need to limit the average, and increase the specific needs. I have some ideas in preparation for this year, which would go into modeling of a complete set and use digital matte painting to complete the 3D environment. But I haven’t discussed the details so far, so no promises here.
Since the last presentation many things have changed, and C4D has certainly improved the light calculation since. Not only to mention the improvements towards physical rendering, but perhaps we move again more in my current favorite area—DP. So sorry if I digress here. But photography and cinematography count for me as the main basics everyone in animation/visualization should know—in depth.
Back to the files and separations, if you would share a little scene file [obj] which includes the main problem, then I’m happy to have a look into that. It might even help to communicate to the developer team. You can make suggestions there as well, which I encourage you to make as often as you have an idea that would improve your work!
Let me know if you have such a file, so we can create hopefully some progress here for you.
All the best
Sassi