THEA FOR CINEMA4D
Contents
1. SS oO THEA RENDER N THEA FOR CINEMA4D www thearender conycinema4d USER MANUAL Revision 01 SOLIDIRIS TECHNOLOGIES l t eea eN ee 1 INTRODUCTION Thea for Cinema4D is an integrated version of Thea Render inside Maxon Cinema4D application With the use of Thea Material Lab and Libraries the Interactive Render and Instancing Support you are able to render your scene directly inside Cinema4D With the Export to Thea Studio functionality you can also stage your scene inside Thea Studio application and benefit of the advanced tools present there At this manual we will see the basic installation and getting started steps along with the Thea plugin settings panels inside Cinema4D For seeing the Getting Started video find Material Libraries and Download links please visit Thea for Cinema4D landing page at www thearender com cinema4d Note that this manual is covering the plugin settings and options only so for a deeper and more detailed explanation of Thea settings materials engines etc you can refer to Thea Render User Manual 2 APPLICATION PREREQUISITES While the plugin could be used as a standalone application there are still dependencies of the plugin from the main Thea Render application These dependencies are typically the need to open Thea default material editor but also to be able to access Thea data folder materials rooms sample data etc This means that Thea Render sh2. currently only one device is used for interactive rendering while in the increase Prity Decrease Priority __interactve Darkroom more devices can be used CPU amp GPU The IR indication appears next to the selected device At this window apart from the names of the existing devices you can also see their cores their memory and other useful information Figure 20 Select Devices window 6 5 Update The Update button opens the Install Updates window as seen in Figure 21 At this window user can see the available plugin versions and resources and select which ones wants to install For more details and options explanations of the Updates window please refer to Thea User Manual fe 04 t 9 7 8 im nae 7 78 21 760 ne 2 16 7 8 ME on 138 31 560 79m6 3 170 ame 140m 22m AM s ro 15 7 2 76 4068 1351 Figure 21 Thea Updates window 7 Copyright Solid Iris Technologies O THEA RENDER 6 6 License The License option as we have already described allows an easier activation of your license from within Cinema4D The first time you want to activate the license you need to add here your full name email address your serial number and at the Plugins tab the Cinema 4D serial number as well and then ask for an activation code The system will send you back the activation code and after restarting your application Thea will be registered For more details
3. drag and drop the selected material on a Cinema4D model or your materials window SOLIDIRIS TECHNOLOGIES Figure 2 Thea Render is available at Cinema4D plugins Figure 3 Material Libraries inside Content Browser Copyright Solid Iris Technologies SOLIDIRIS TECHNOLOGIES O THEA RENDER 4 LICENSING AND ACTIVATION To run the plugin in a no demo mode meaning without resolution limitation and watermarks you will need to activate your license This is done by going to Plugins gt Thea Render gt License see Figure 4 A new dialogue box opens to help you add your full name email address and serial number for activating the plugin see Figure 5 Do not forget to add also the Thea for Cinema4D plugin serial at the plugins tab see Figure 6 Afterwards restart your application for the changes to be applied For finding more details on licensing please refer to Thea Render User Manual corresponding chapter Figure 4 License Menu Main Plugins Misc Please enter any additional plugin serial numbers you have purchased You can add these serial numbers at a later time as well This product is successfully activated and registered with the following data Full Name 3dsMax Plugin E mail Address Serial Number Activation Code Figure 5 License Input Form window Main tab Figure 6 License Input Form window Plugins tab 5 GET
4. will be generally disabled but enabled for the tagged objects only 11 Copyright Solid Iris Technologies SOLIDIRIS CO THEA RENDER TECHNOLOGIES 8 CINEMA4D MATERIALS NATIVE Cinema4D materials are automatically converted to Thea materials when rendering begins without affecting your materials inside Cinema4D There are special heuristics that are used in the conversion process nevertheless the result may look quite different from how the material looks using Cineam4D internal renderer With the Convert Materials as we saw previously you are able to convert the Cinema4D materials to the corresponding Thea ones for allowing editing with the Thea Materials settings Other materials from other plugins are not supported In this case Thea will render them black Cinema4D procedural shaders are supported only through texture baking Texture baking can be controlled using Thea Render settings and Thea Bake tag as we will analyze later on 9 THEA MATERIALS Thea for Cinema4D can make full use of Thea Material Lab but also allows editing of materials from within Cinema4D With the use of the Material Library you can also simply drag and drop a Thea material at your model At the next paragraphs we will see the available ways to create edit and use a Thea Material inside Cinema4D 9 1 Editing a Thea Material within Cinema4D The first step is to create a Thea Material For this you have to follow one of the following w
5. TING STARTED MAIN WINDOWS After installing correctly the plugin you will be able to find its main options at the Plugins list as we have seen in Figure 2 from where you can open the Darkroom and start an Interactive or a normal rendering Thea Render can be also found at the Renderers list at the Render Settings window of Cinema4D You can go to Render gt Edit Render Settings or press CTRL B and at the available Renderers list select Thea Render see Figure 8 From this menu you can define the settings for Output and Save in the same way as for the native renderer and for Thea Render specifically At the next paragraphs we will see the available options for both Plugins menu and Render Settings window Figure 7 Thea Render appearing at the Plugins list Figure 8 Render Settings window 4 Copyright Solid Iris Technologies SOLIDIRIS TECHNOLOGIES As we see in Figure 9 user can select to open Thea Darkroom for rendering interactively or normally inside Cinema4D Export the scene for open it later at Thea Studio Convert Cinema4d materials to the corresponding Thea ones define the used CPU and GPU devices check for existing plugin and resources Updates activate Thea License edit the main plugin Preferences and see some main F About information at About window Figure 9 Plugin Menu options All these options are analyzed in detail at the next tables 6 1 Thea Darkroom Figure 11 Save options Figur
6. ag can be added at a Cinema4D camera and ie allow usage of Thea Camera settings for it if the option Override C4D Physical Camera is enabled By enabling the Override Thea Display option some different settings than the general ones can be set for this selected camera This means that once this camera is used at Darkroom Display options will be changed Animation of these settings is also available this allows easy camera display settings change and adaption during an animation where lighting conditions may change Figure 54 Thea Camera tag 17 Copyright Solid Iris Technologies SOLIDIRIS TECHNOLOGIES CO THEA RENDER 13 3 Thea Light Tag Thea Light tag can be added at a Cinema4D light and make it behave light a Thea point light if the Override C4D Point Light option is enabled Figure 55 Thea Light Tag At the Type drop down list we can select to change the Thea Light type among Omni Spot IES and Projector This allows easy change of the lights type without the need to re insert it Watts For each selection the corresponding options Sane appear which allow you to control each light settings see Figure 56 Figure 56 The Lights per Type 13 4 Thea Sun Tag Thea last tag is the Sun tag which can be added to a Cinema4D light and allow Thea sun position change by dragging the light accordingly There are no special settings for this tag Figure 57 Thea Sun Tag soo ete E Image b
7. an support animation from Cinema4D by rendering the desired key frames from the animation bar After setting up your animation you can go and select as render engine Thea Render at Render Settings then at Output panel define the needed frames that will be rendered see Figure 47 At the Save panel specify also the Output folder where the rendered image sequence will be saved see Figure 48 Important Note currently for animations you need to start your rendering from the Picture Viewer of Cinema4D as Thea Darkroom will only render the current frame Figure 46 setting up the Figure 47 select the desired Figure 48 define the output animation frames folder 12 TEAM RENDER SUPPORT Thea Render can be also used by the Team Render of Cinema4D which allows using other machines for network rendering You only need to setup Team Render as always enable it run clients and add machines Select Thea Render as render engine and start rendering with Team Render at the Team Viewer The rendering of the frames will be split among the server and the clients Thea client or Studio should be enabled to the client machines as well Note that co operative rendering on the same frame using Team Render is not yet supported currently you can only use Thea Render network rendering for co operative rendering on still images and not Team Render Important Note for allowing Team Render to set up the network rendering and not Thea server its
8. ase refer to Thea manual for the parameterization and a more detailed explanation of the existing settings 7 1 General At the General tab see Figure 26 you can make some basic settings that will affect your render engines You can select among the existing render engines the one that will be used as default once you start rendering For easier and faster settings available presets also exist which actually override all the other settings if they are selected Several other options exist to enable disable like relight or repaint At Termination criteria limits for the unbiased engines can be set Before rendering you can also select the channels that will be rendered too Tip by pressing the on the Advanced option triangle button a new menu appears with more advanced settings In this way you can show hide the needed unneeded panels Figure 26 General tab 7 2 Biased Engine Settings RT amp GI Adaptive BSD At the next panels Biased RT Ray Tracing and Biased GI Global Illumination all the needed settings for the Adaptive BSD engine are listed By selecting as default engine the Adaptive BSD you can make here all the necessary adjustments see 9 Copyright Solid Iris Technologies SOLIDIRIS TECHNOLOGIES D THEA RENDER Figure 27 and Figure 28 At the Biased Ray Tracing panel you can specify the Antialiasing options enable Clay Render and adjust any settings related to Blurred Reflections Am
9. ays Version R12 Top Menu gt File gt Thea Material or from the Materials window Version R13 Top Menu gt File gt Shader gt Thea Material or from the Materials window Version R14 and R15 Top Menu gt Create gt Material gt Thea Material or at the Materials window Create gt Shader gt Thea Material see Figure 35 The material created in these ways will be initially a white basic material and will be added at the Materials window see Figure 36 Figure 36 Thea Material initially Figure 35 Create a Thea Material Another way to create a Thea material is the conversion of the Cinema4D material to the corresponding Thea material with the use of the Convert Materials button 12 Copyright Solid Iris Technologies SOLIDIRIS TECHNOLOGIES Cinema4D by single clicking on the material The custom material editor for Thea materials inside Cinema4D is a simplification of the standard Thea material lab see ti at the material Attributes panel Here you can edit a material that has at most two components of the same type i e at most 2 coatings 2 glossy substrates etc Initially the empty material comes with the General and Matte options see Figure 37 Below we see what options exist at each tab Tip By enabling a component the corresponding tab also appears where the component available settings exist Note for more details on Thea materials and their settings please refer to T
10. bient Occlusion and Termination Criteria At the Biased Global Illumination panel you can enable Field Mapping technique Caustics Final Gathering and adjust the needed Irradiance Cache settings For more detailed explanation of these settings please refer to Thea User Manual and Adaptive BSD engine pdf tutorial IBL Baking v Antialiasing Figure 28 Biased GI Panel Figure 27 Biased RT Panel 7 3 Interactive Render At the Interactive Render panel you can make all the needed adjustments for the interactive rendering engine As we saw you can easily select the IR engine at the Darkroom window but here you can edit also its settings such as the Tracing Depth enable disable Caustics and Ambient Occlusion Figure 29 IR Panel 7 4 Environmental Settings Sky and IBL The last two tables of the render settings affect the Environment the Sky and the IBL Image Based Lighting see Figure 30 and Figure 31 At the Sky panel Thea Physical Sky can be enabled and edited For the sun its position can be set with Polar Angle and Azimuth values or by selecting the Location Time of the scene At the IBL panel Image Based Lighting Background Reflection or and Refraction Mapping can be enabled Wrapping Rotation degrees and Intensity of the maps can be adjusted 10 Copyright Solid Iris Technologies SOLIDIRIS TECHNOLOGIES General Biased RT Biased GI General Biased RT Biased GI IR Sky Baking v Physical S
11. e 13 Interactive Render Engine Core selection Figure 14 Available Resolutions Figure 10 Thea Darkroom inside Cinema4D Figure 12 Send to options The Darkroom command opens a window that resembles Thea Darkroom as we see it in Figure 10 Thea Darkroom consists of several menus which help you render and post process your rendered image which appears in the middle Area B At this window you can render the current scene inside Cinema4D using the defined Thea engine it can be selected at the Render Settings window or make an interactive render On top on area A we can see the menus File and Interactive File menu opens the submenus Save which saves the rendered image in one of the available formats see Figure 11 and the Send to which opens the rendered image at Thea Studio Darkroom Image Editor at Thea Studio Viewport Scene Editor or at Cinema4D Picture Viewer see Figure 12 Interactive the drop down menu allows the selection of the engine for the Interactive rendering see Figure 13 Engines settings can be found at the Render Settings window as we will see later Resolution submenu helps you define easily the needed rendering resolution see Figure 14 Copyright Solid Iris Technologies SOLIDIRIS TECHNOLOGIES At area C of the Darkroom we can see the Render Status Bar Store Sav Refresh Figure 15 Render Status Bar Store button sends the rendered image directly to the Cin
12. eferences folder Then whithin this folder you will find four separated zip folders one for each Cinema4D version Select the needed one according to your version and simply double click on it to be extracted Plugin is ready for use just afterwards It is recommended to install also the corresponding version of Thea Render standalone as well The next time that you will start Cinema4D the plugin should be there under the Plugins menu see Figure 2 3 3 Installing Material Library Additionally you can download a material library that allows easier and more direct use of Thea materials note that this library is platform independent For installing the Materials library you should simply extract the library to Cinema4D content browser user libraries Tip 1 if you face problems to locate the correct folder where Cinema4d stores its material libraries lib4d format you can find the correct path by going to Cinema4D Edit gt Preferences and see that path at the bottom At this location inside the library folder you can find the browser folder where the Thea Library can be added Tip 2 if you have successfully installed Thea Materials library you should be able to access it in the Cinema4D content browser see Figure 3 With a right click on one of the appearing materials you can select the Show in Explorer for Windows or Show in Finder MacOSX for seeing the installation directory of the library You can now
13. elf at the Network settings of Thea see Distribution at General panel Network should be set to None to avoid any network conflicts Figure 50 Thea Server is disabled when Team Render needs to be used 16 Copyright Solid Iris Technologies SOLIDIRIS 13 THEA RENDER TAGS Thea Render gives you the possibility to add some additional tags to the Cinema4D objects These are the following Thea Bake Thea Camera Thea Light and Thea Sun At the following tables we analyze each of these tags Note for more detailed explanation of Thea Cameras and Lights settings please refer to Thea manual d fe Thea oe re 51 Thea Figu Render Tags ile Figure 52 Thea Tags Sun Camera Light and Bake 13 1 Thea Bake Tag As we have already mentioned at the Preferences Settings Pom a window texture baking can be either enabled to the scene by default be disabled or be disabled by default With this tab the enable and disable by default options can be overridden to the selected materials For the certain material there is the option to enable baking disable it or leave the default option which follows the hierarchy selection of the option or general settings Below there is the option to select different resolutions and override the default ones by checking the corresponding box Figure 53 Thea Bake tag 13 2 Thea Camera Tag The next tag that we can use is the Camera tag amp This t
14. ema4D picture viewer The Save button prompts for saving the image with the given format don t forget to include the extension with the name it can also be img thea for whole buffer or clm for Colimo project files Refresh button is used for refreshing the image once a change at the Exposure or Filtering settings has been made IR button starts the interactive rendering that allows seeing any movement material change or light addition interactively Start button on the other hand starts the actual rendering not interactive according to the engine that is selected at the Render Settings window Below at area D all the available Display option such as Exposure Filtering Channels and Photometric Analysis options appear They work in the same way as inside Thea Studio Darkroom so for additional details please refer to Thea User Manual corresponding chapter e SO None Burn wv Wlax Z m Figure 16 Darkroom Display options 6 2 Export to Thea The Export command prompts for saving a Thea scene that you can open afterwards within Thea Studio By selecting the Export option see Figure 9 you are able to export your scene in scn thea pack thea or xml format A window opens that allows you to specify the scene name and swe Pictures location I Note 1 export the scene is not possible while rendering suet Ail Note 2 at Preferences window as will be described later o you can select the default extension for
15. hea User Manual at the Material Lab chapter Figure 37 Thea Material Settings Attributes panel At the Basic tab you are able to add remove components to a the material as we said the maximum is 2 components of e each type At our example as seen in Figure 38 we have ka enabled the Matte and Thin Film components We see that the Thin Film tab also appears on top tabs list Figure 38 Basic information of At the General panel you can edit some basic material gre settings such as Repaintable Tracing Depth etc and you f Fs can also alter the material room used for the material Mi preview and its quality passes sto Figure 39 General Panel 13 Copyright Solid Iris Technologies SOLIDIRIS TECHNOLOGIES ER M TO THEA REND Tip with Shift Click on the wanted tabs we can enable and see more than one panel at the same time one below the Ey other As we see in Figure 40 we can have all the needed Bm settings for the Matte and Thin Film component available amp Their Scattering Fresnel Structure Layer etc panels with their corresponding settings are each time available Note Matte Thin Film SSS Subsurface Scattering Glossy and Coating are the five basic Thea Materials components Em Each comes with different set of special settings which are Bim present at the corresponding panels Figure 40 Matte and Thin Film panels At the Description panel we can see and add a descrip
16. ky Lighting Spherical Mapping Spherical v Global Medium v Reflection Mapping Spherical v Refraction Mapping Spherical Figure 31 IBL Panel At the Baking panel user can select to enable disable or disable by default texture baking for the selected scene Note that texture baking is currently internally disabled during interactive rendering and material preview generation for performance reasons General Biased RT Biased GI e Enabled eee g Mode Enabled Normal Resol Normal Resolution lines 256 By enabling Baking all textures will be baked vases cai Se according to Normal and High resolution given below except if specified differently by a Thea tag for baking as we will describe later at the Thea Tags section Normal resolution affects all kind of channels textures while High resolution those used for bumping and background Note that according Baking Mode Enabled i eee tomar to these resolution settings if values are quite big Normal Resolution pixels 256 Normal Resolution lines 256 a delay before rendering starts may occu r High Resolution pixels 102 High Resolution lines 102 2 By selecting to disable baking no textures will be Figure 34 Thea Bake tag baked at all The next option Disable by Default will disable baking except if one adds a special baking tag to a certain object where baking is enabled see Figure 34 In this way texture baking
17. older you can find the browser folder where the Thea Library needs to be added Figure 43 drag and drop a material from the Figure 44 Thea Libraries can be accessed too from content browser to your model the Materials window 10 LIGHTS Cinema4D point lights are automatically supported by converting them to the corresponding Thea point light The area lights are also being supported and are always emitting light following inverse square law note at the moment only the following types are supported Area Disc Rectangle Sphere Cylinder Cylinder and Perpendicular If you want to use a Thea custom area emitter though you should create it as a Thea material and assign this like a normal material to a model Figure 45 dragging a light with a Thea Sun Besides the point lights Sky is also being supported tag changes Thea sun position enabling automatically Thea physical sky at Render Settings window at Sky tab There is also the custom Thea Sun tag that we will see analytically later which you can assign to any point light in this way you can adjust Thea sun sky easily by dragging this common point light around the scene With the use of Thea light tag which you can add to any Cinema4D light you can override its settings and make it behave like a Thea point light see more details to Thea Tags section 15 Copyright Solid Iris Technologies SOLIDIRIS TECHNOLOGIES 11 ANIMATION Thea Render c
18. on activation procedure please refer to Thea User Manual 6 7 Preferences The Thea Preferences window allows you to specify the Default Extension for saving a Thea scene scn thea pack thea or xml and also enable disable the automatic opening of the scene either at Thea Studio Viewport or Darkroom 6 8 About The last option found at this menu is the About This submenu opens a window that gives you some main information for the plugin such as its current version SOLIDIRIS TECHNOLOGIES This product is successfully activated and registered with the following data Full Name E mail Address Serial Number Activation Code Request Activation Code SCN THEA Studia hell Figure 23 Preferences window Figure 24 About Thea Render window Copyright Solid Iris Technologies SOLIDIRIS TECHNOLOGIES C0 THEA RENDER As we have said by going to Render gt Edit Render Settings we can select Thea Render among the existing renderers At the right side of the window the available settings panels appear see Figure 25 General Biased RT Biased Gl IR Sky IBL and Baking Tip with the button Render Setting at the bottom by selecting the New option you can create and save the needed render presets for faster selection at the Render menu Figure 25 Thea Render Settings window At the next tables we see the options that exist at each panel and their main functionality Ple
19. ould be already installed on your computer it doesn t matter whether you have installed the 32 bit or 64 bit variant though On MacOSX platform make sure that you have also run Thea application at least once after your drag amp drop it typically to your Application folder in order to complete the installation process Note that the plugin will work on OSX 10 5 and above and not on OSX 10 4 Tiger Cinema4D version should be R12 R13 R14 or R15 The plugin won t run in previous Cinema4D versions Note that the plugin is incompatible with the developed plugin for R11 R11 5 so it won t be possible to transfer your work between the plugins 3 INSTALLATION 3 1 Windows The plugin comes with an installer that helps you define the ee ner aeae version of Cinema4D to which you want to install the plugin ee Co and also its directory Chest the components you nant t ntal and uncheck the copornt you dont ant to The installer guides you through all the necessary steps of setamo FSRA A Peso C Cinema4D R13 Plugin installation 1 cremead R14 Pug Thea Library Basic Resources Space required 61 7MB next gt _concel Figure 1 Installing Thea for Cinema4D 2 Copyright Solid Iris Technologies D THEA RENDER 3 2 MacOSX Thea for Cinema4d for MacOSX comes with a dmg file Inside this dmg file you will find a Thea Render folder Drag and drop this folder inside plugins folder of Cinema4D installation or user pr
20. saving your scene Figure 17 Save Thea Scene window and also enable disable opening directly your scene after exporting to Thea Darkroom or Viewport ip Downloads W Desktop Libraries 6 3 Convert Materials With this option you are able to convert the Cinema4D materials to the corresponding Thea Materials After pressing the Convert Materials button a dialogue box appears see it in Figure 18 that allows you define if you want to convert the selected or all the materials of your scene or simply cancel the procedure After converting a material to a Thea one from now on the Thea materials attributes will appear for editing the material Note Cinema4D materials are automatically read as Thea materials when rendering starts even if you have not converted them without affecting your materials settings and type 6 Copyright Solid Iris Technologies SOLIDIRIS TECHNOLOGIES Convert All Convert Selected Only Cancel Figure 18 Convert Materials dialogue box Figure 19 Cinema4D materials and the converted Thea ones 6 4 Devices The Devices option allows you to open the Select Devices window see Figure 20 Here you can see a list with the mas mens GPU and CPU devices of your machine which can be used eae ee a by Presto engine At this window you can enable disable a device by clicking to the corresponding box increase decrease its priority and define the one that will be used for interactive rendering
21. tion P for the Thea material and at the Assign tab be able to see on which model s the material is used Figure 41 Description and Assign panels 9 2 Editing a Thea Material with the Material Lab Editing the material using Thea standard material lab is also possible by double clicking on the material icon inside Materials window This will employ Thea Material Lab as an external application and Cinema4D will freeze T J until you exit the application The material will then BA refresh with the changes that you have made in the material lab Figure 42 Thea Material Lab 14 Copyright Solid Iris Technologies SOLIDIRIS TECHNOLOGIES O THEA RENDER 9 3 Adding a Thea Material from the Content Browser As we have already mentioned additionally to the plugin you can download a material library with ready to use materials please visit www thearender com cinema4d for more details After installing the library at the browser folder of Cinema4D you can find the library inside the content browser see Figure 43 or load the material from the materials window Create gt Load Material Preset gt Thea Materials see Figure 44 Tip 1 as we have already mentioned if you face problems to locate the correct folder where Cinema4d stores its material libraries lib4d format you can find the correct path by going to Edit gt Preferences and see that path at the bottom At this location inside the library f
22. y George Drakakis For more plugin details download links and resources please visit www thearender com cinema4d 18 Copyright Solid Iris Technologies
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