An artist and his tools.

I always say that I'm one for constantly trying to learn, and lately I've started the path to learning a program I've literally avoided for years now. I remember while being an undergrad at KCAI, I first learned about Cinema4D. I thought cool -- but I'm already on the path to learning maya so -- I'll just stick to what seems good. The only thing that almost swayed me at the moment was "Deep Paint" or "Body paint" whatever it goes by now. The ability to apply textures onto an object directly in 3D really appealed to me, but with funky demos and no real reading material, I put it down and moved along.

Fast forward to the past few years in the industry, Cinema4D has really taken a strong hold in the motion graphics community. With the recent relationship development with Adobe CC, they have really set anchors down into a deep community.

I think Maxon has really developed a tool that speaks to the industry that they are chasing. Its a fast, stable, reliable and flexible product. The accessibility it offers to new comers and 3D enthusiasts alike is pretty astounding. Honestly, that accessibility and ease of use is one of the things that kept be at arms distance to the program. I know that sounds completely bonkers, yes, I didn't like a program for how easy and quickly you could get nice results. It wasn't really the program it was the users, it felt like a cheap slap for those of us who had been in the trenches fighting with Global Illumination, struggling with shaders, and fighting renders. More importantly I felt that it immediately created an animation style that was going from tutorial to finished spot. I guess you could say that about any program, but for some reason -- the users of C4D weren't appealing to me as much as the program.

After taking a step back and looking from a different viewpoint, I realized the community around C4D is a vast, resourceful and helpful growing population. Everyone is really trying to help out where they can, and their enthusiasm for learning has sparked fires in people scared of learning 3D. If you look beyond the surface you can really see individuals or studios who have adopted it as part of their work bench, and have created some amazing and interesting animations.

I remember when I first started working at MK12, how upsetting it was to a couple of the artist when doing a Q&A, people would often ask "What tools do you guys use?" The answer would be a quick and smirky "Computers". It took me awhile to understand that mentality, but what it truly means is that it doesn't matter how the artist makes the piece, it's how they found a way to engage you. Who cares if you use microsoft paint and bryce3D to make your next piece, as long as it helped you and made something worth showing.

All this to say -- the more tools you can add to your arsenal, the better prepared you are to be creative. I'm taking the time to add a new tool to the belt ;)

(I'll let you know what I think of it in a few months :P )