We view the third-party development community of Cinema 4D as critical to the success of Cinema 4D. Providing exceptional support to the third-party developers of Cinema 4D is primary goal of the SDK Group at Maxon.
Support for all developers is provided by the following means:
- C++ Cinema 4D API documentation
- Python Cinema 4D API documentation
- C++ Cineware API documentation
- Cinema 4D SDK Github repository for the C++ and Python API
- Public Forum Support via Plugin Café
- Confidental Email Support via our contact form
Before contacting us via our contact form or forum, please make sure to read our support guidelines, important sections are:
- Scope of Support: What we will do and what we will not do.
- Sharing Data: How to share code or other data privately with us.
We prefer to deliver support via Plugin Café as answers can serve the whole community there. Please understand that e-mail support does not entail a higher quality of support. We answer questions on Plugin Café as diligently as e-mail questions. We reserve the right to answer questions which reach us via mail on Plugin Café when they have no confidential context.
Maxon Registered Developer Program
The Maxon Registered Developer (MRD) program provides enterprise level support for Cinema 4D developers.
Benefits
The most tangible benefits of the program are:
- Access to development licenses for the current alpha or beta of Cinema 4D
- Access to the internal alpha and beta forums, and the Maxon employees operating in it
- Access to the continuous build output of the current alpha or beta (via the forums)
- Access to the bug tracker of Cinema 4D
- Access to non-public features of Cinema 4D aimed at development
- Access to more in-depth 1:1 email support or virtual meetings with the SDK Group when necessary
Requirements
To enlist to the program, you must reach out to us via our contact form and demonstrate the following criteria of eligibility:
- Reason: Explain why you require MRD membership. Ideally name a concrete development project you intend to work on.
- Past Work: Demonstrate that you have successfully developed public or non-public plugins for Cinema 4D or other DCC applications. When possible, you should provide here a link to a website, a video, or something similar.
- Number of Licenses: State the number of development licenses you request.
- Account Handle: Provide the id.maxon.net e-mail handle(s) of the account(s) to which we shall assign the beta licenses when your request is approved.
- Company and Name: Provide the name of a company or organization on behalf of which you are applying and the (name, last name) of your Non-Disclosure Agreement signee (see Process below).
It is strongly recommended to follow this exact bullet point form. Lengthy applications are not necessary, one thousand characters should suffice for most applications. We must also point out that MRD is strictly bound to development tasks, and quality assurance, documenting how your software products work in conjunction with Cinema 4D, or (program) management all do not qualify as such. See the section Alternatives for other options. When applying for these, you should however still follow the bullet points lined out in this section.
While the MRD program is aimed at commercial development, it is not exclusive to it, nor must one be an employee of a big company to apply. As stated above, Maxon views third party developers as crucial to its success. So, do not hesitate to reach out to us!
Process
Once you have applied, the following will happen:
- Approval: We discuss your request internally and either approve or deny it. In either case we will reach out to you with the outcome. This usually takes two weeks but can take longer in complicated cases.
- Non-Disclosure Agreement: Once your request has been approved, we will ask you to sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) regarding the alpha and beta access of Cinema 4D.
- On-Boarding: Once you have been approved and signed your NDA, you are now an MRD, congratulations! We will hand you over to the capable hands of our Beta Team which will provide your licenses as well forum and bug tracker access.
- Renewal: The MRD membership itself has no fixed expiration date, but we might remove members who have not been logged into our beta forum for more than one year. So, make sure to log in at least once per year (login is the actual criteria, although participating in the community and bug reporting are of course an effective way to establish yourself as a valuable partner).
- The development license(s) associated with an MRD membership expire with the development cycle of Cinema 4D on May 1st and October 1st independent of when your MRD has be granted. We require MRD members to renew their licenses manually, but a brief e-mail asking for continuation usually suffices.
Alternatives
Sometimes MRD is not the right choice, either because users cannot enter the NDA or when the reason of request is not directly development related. In these cases, other options can be an alternative. This can either be applying for a Not for Resale (NFR) licenses for the current release candidate of Cinema 4D – without access to anything beta and bug tracking related -, or a strategic partnership for cases where management, marketing, or training are the reason you are reaching out to us.
When you already know that this applies to your case, please make sure to state so in your initial outreach. Please understand that such cases will take longer to process.
