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CINEMA 4D R11 Quickstart – What’s new in R11
2. What’s new in CINEMA 4D R11
Before we get started with the Quickstart Manual we would like to give you a brief overview of what’s new in
CINEMA 4D Release 11.
Once again, CINEMA 4D is brimming with new and innovative functionality and innumerable improvements to
make your 3D life easier and improve workflow. R11 now offers instant answers to almost any question regarding
CINEMA 4D functionality with its integrated help system. If you are not already familiar with this system simply
right-click on any function in CINEMA 4D and select the Show Help command from the menu that appears.
The integrated help system is also extremely helpful when working through the Quickstart Manual. CINEMA
4D offered numerous additions in its R10.0 to R10.5 update, including Squash & Stretch (indispensable for
character animators), the Secondary Motion Deformer (for jiggly effects), multi-processor support for HAIR,
Generators (HyperNURBS) as collisions objects for Clothilde, the ability to drag images (regardless from where)
into the 2D Viewport to be used as modeling templates, and the new automatic save function. And that’s just
to name a few.
Note: Make absolutely sure you do not modify any file or directory names within the installation folder. Also,
do not add any files to this folder. Doing so will lead to malfunctions within CINEMA 4D! All user-specific
information will be saved to the user directory, including Content Browser libraries and similar items (with the
exception of plugins).
Some of the most important additions to R11 are the following:
Non-Linear Animation
This new way of mixing animations is a true blessing for all animators. Motion Capture data or manually created
motion data can be layered, mixed and transitioned. This system contains two methods for mixing layers:
Motion Layer System and Animation Layer System.
Motion Layer System
Motion Layers are mixed in the Timeline. So-called Motion Sources are created using animation data that can
then be mixed in the Timeline using Motion Clips. It is important that the Motion Clips themselves contain
no animation data. The Motion Clips reference the already created animation data. This makes it possible for
multiple Motion Clips to reference a single source (non-destructive animation) and deleting a Clip will not result
in the source (original) animation being deleted. The Motion Layer System takes the place of the Motion Mixer
functionality, familiar to many users from Release 9. This new and more powerful system lets you save Motion
Sources that you have created as presets, which can be used to create your own preset library.
Animation Layer System
This system works roughly similar to Posemixer or the Morph tag. Individual animations are displayed in the
Attribute Manager and are organized there as superimposed layers. For example: You assign the character you
want to animate a Motion System tag (can be assigned to the top object in the hierarchy. All keyframes of all
Child objects will be taken into account by the Motion System tag when the animation is recorded) and add an
animation layer. Now record the first keyframes for your character’s motion and add a new layer at any time
during the process. The currently active layer will contain any keyframes created while it is active. If a new layer
is created, all subsequently created keyframes will lie on this layer.