What is New in R21

R21

MAXON API

The MAXON API is a brand new API for Cinema 4D with a different paradigm, with more power and flexibility.

This API is the one used for the Cinema 4D development itself. Meaning that our internal developers use and develop this API.

Previously the CLASSIC API was internally an extra layer in Cinema 4D ecosystem, which become costly to maintain or even sometime too limiting to implement a specific features.

In the long term (when everything will be ported to it) 3rd party developers will have the same amount of customization over Cinema 4D than Maxon developers.

Finally, the MAXON API provides these new features:

• Clear and consistent naming convention.

• Modularity concept.

• Consistent object creation.

• Error handling; in Python, exceptions are raised when something went wrong.

For more information please read MAXON API Introduction.

C4DPY

c4dpy.exe/app, is now bundled with the Cinema 4D standard installation process.

For more information, see c4dpy.

Extensions Menu

C++ and Python plugins and tools are now located in the “Extensions” menu.

Version and License

With Cinema 4D R21, there are no more different version packages (prime, visualize, studio), so c4d.GeGetSystemInfo() was changed.

These functions were introduced in order to track the enrollment of the current user.

• c4d.IsTrial() Checks if the current license is a Trial version.

• c4d.IsLiteVersion() Checks if the current license is a Lite version.

• c4d.IsEducation() Checks if the current license is an Education version.

• c4d.IsNFR() Checks if the current license is an NFR (Not For Resell).

• c4d.GeGetCinemaInfo() returns a information about the current license used.

Moreover, Cinema 4D R21 has a completely new license system.

These functions were introduced to retrieve the current license information.

• c4d.ExportLicenses() returns a JSON string representation, with the license data.

  import c4d
  import json
  
  data = json.loads(c4d.ExportLicenses())
  print data["username"]
  

• c4d.GetGeneralLicensingInformation() returns information about the currently used license.

c4d.GeGetVersionType() return value was modified since the package versions changed.

Finally, c4d.GeGetSerialInfo() was modified in order to reflect the new license scheme and should no longer be used by third parties.

See py-licensing-example in Github repository.

Token

It’s now possible to register your own token using c4d.plugins.RegisterToken() or c4d.plugins.RegisterHiddenToken().

See py-render_token example in Github repository.

Fields

It’s now possible to creates masks within a c4d.FieldList with the next methods:

• FieldLayer.AddMask(): Add a new mask.

• FieldLayer.RemoveMask(): Remove a mask.

• FieldLayer.GetMaskHead(): Retrieve the c4d.GeListHead containing all masks.

c4d.modules.mograph.FieldOutput and c4d.modules.mograph.FieldOutputBlock now support pivot which correspond to the velocity with the next functions/attributes:

• FieldOutput.SetRotation()

• FieldOutputBlock.SetRotation()

• FieldOutput._pivot

• FieldOutputBlock._pivot

Volume

Cinema 4D R21 support vector volume so maxon.frameworks.volume.VolumeToolsInterface was enhanced with:

• maxon.frameworks.volume.VolumeToolsInterface.MixVectorVolumes()

Finally, maxon.frameworks.volume.VolumeInterface.GetMinMaxValues() was added to retrieve the range of value stored in the volume.

MSG_GETCUSTOMICON and MSG_GETCUSTOMICON_SETTINGS

With Cinema 4D R21, MSG_GETCUSTOMICON was extend in order to support the addition of icon settings.

c4d.CustomIconSettings and c4d.IconData was introduced to fully support it.

c4d.IconData represents an icon from the C4D icon bitmap.

c4d.CustomIconSettings represents the settings to be filled in the MSG_GETCUSTOMICON to configure the display of the icon.

To not break compatibility of old plugins, the next functions where added:

• c4d.gui.GetInterfaceIconEx() similar to c4d.gui.GetInterfaceIcon() but it returns a c4d.IconData instead of a dictionary.

• BaseList2D.GetIconEx() similar to BaseList2D.GetIcon() but it returns a c4d.IconData instead of a dictionary.

BitmapButtonCustomGui.SetImage() was modified to support IconData as input type for obj picture.

While MSG_GETCUSTOMICON was modified it still work as before if useDat is set to False (Default value).

If you are willing to use an IconData directly, useDat should be set as True and define the IconData in the dat entry of the dictionary.

For more information see MSG_GETCUSTOMICON

MSG_GETCUSTOMICON_SETTINGS is new and holds a c4d.CustomIconSettings.

Miscellaneous

• BaseDocument.RenderDocument() now support callback, so it’s possible to know the current progress of the render launched.

• BaseContainer.__setitem__(), BaseContainer.__getitem__() and GeListNode.__setitem__(), GeListNode.__getitem__() now supports:

  • c4d.Vector4d

  • maxon.ColorA

• BaseList2D.SetLayerData() and BaseList2D.GetLayerData() now contain xref information.

• GeDialog.GetDragObject(), GeUserArea.GetDragObject() and TreeViewFunctions.GetDragType() now support:

  • DRAGTYPE_BROWSER: list[str] list of dragged filenames.

  • DRAGTYPE_RGB_ARRAY: list[c4d.Vector] list of dragged colors.

  • DRAGTYPE_RGBA_ARRAY: maxon.BaseArray (maxon.ColorA) list of dragged color with alpha.

• GeUserArea.HandleMouseDrag() now support DRAGTYPE_RGBA_ARRAY.

• c4d.documents.GetAllAssets(), now also returns information about node space.

Fixes

• Fixed a memory leak in bitmaps.InitResourceBitmap().

• Fixed a memory leak in GeUserArea.HandleMouseDrag().

• Fixed an issue where the default script of the Python MoGraph Effector didn’t work.

• Fixed an issue where c4d.modules.mograph.GeSetMoDataWeights() and c4d.modules.mograph.SetMoDataSelection() didn’t not set dirty

• Fixed an issue where lPoints parameter was marked as optional while it wasn’t in reality in the next functions:

  • SplineData.MakeLinearSplineLinear().

  • SplineData.MakeLinearSplineBezier().

  • SplineData.MakeSquareSpline().

  • SplineData.MakeCubicSpline().

  • SplineData.MakeRootSpline().

  • SplineData.MakeInversSpline().

  • SplineData.MakeSinSpline().

  • SplineData.MakeAbsCosSpline().

  • SplineData.MakeUserSpline().

• Fixed an issue where GvNode.AddPort() failed to create basics port(on, object, etc) in Xpresso.

• Fixed an issue where VariableTag.GetAllHighlevelData() and VariableTag.SetAllHighlevelData() used Uint16 instead of int16 for Tnormal.

• Fixed an issue where VariableTag.GetAllHighlevelData() returned data were shifted and not complete for Tnormal.

• Fixed an issue where bool should be returned instead of an int:

  • GeUserArea.Init()

  • GeUserArea.InitValues()

  • GeUserArea.InputEvent()

  • GeUserArea.CoreMessage()

• Fixed an issue where C4D_SCRIPTS_DIR with multi directory separated with “;” are not working

• Fixed an issue where LoggerInterface.Write() failed.

• Fixed an issue where BaseArray.__str__() failed if the BaseArray was created from C++.

• Fixed an issue with the Python Console: Cursor is set to 0 after a clean.

• Fixed an issue with the Python Console: Dragged UserData get wrong ID when created from copy.

• Fixed an issue with the Python Console: Dragged object are renamed.

• Fixed an issue with the Python Script Manager: Python auto indent broken in script manager.

• Fixed an issue with the Python Script Log and Commander: Commander (Shift+C) commands doesn’t show in the Script Log.

Examples

All 117 examples were completely rewritten, including a new structure, readme, comments.

Besides that around 100 new examples were added as well.

Please checks them on Python Github Repository.

Documentation

• Added Manual List.

• Added Types and Symbols List.

R21.022 - Documentation Update 1

• Fixed issue where derived classes from examples are shown in the documentation.

• Modified all links pointing to Github to point to the new official Cinema 4D Python GitHub repository.

• Added MCOMMAND_JOIN to the list of command that needs a doc to be passed in the c4d.utils.SendModelingCommand(). It was already the case before R21, just not documented.

• Clarified Drag And Drop in the Python Console and Drag And Drop in the Script Manager.

• Clarified Object Data and Cache Optimization and usage of SetOptimizeCache(True).

• Fixed documentation about return type of BaseObject.CheckCache(). Previously it was written that it return True if the cache is valid, this is wrong, it returns True if the cache is dirty, False if it is valid. Last sentence is true even before R21.

• Updated icons to R21 in Icons list.

R21.026 - Hotfix 1

This hotfix for Cinema 4D R21 did not change any API functionality.

R21.115 - SP1

API

• Added HyperFile.GetFilterFlags().

• Added c4d.RENDERFLAGS_RENDERQUEUEERRORS.

• Added c4d.IN_EXCLUDE_FLAG_NO_RESIZABLE.

• maxon.Object renamed maxon.ObjectInterface().

Fixes

• Fixed a crash with EXR loader when a malformed path was given.

• Fixed an issue where importing a document with a missing substance asset prompt a MessageBox while it was not allowed to do.

• Fixed an issue where c4d.gui.BitmapButtonCustomGui doesn’t support border options.

• Fixed an issue where MCOMMAND_SPLIT didn’t return the resulting spline.

• Fixed an issue where the value of the created key with CCurve.AddKeyAdaptTangent() was wrong.

• Fixed a crash when invoking c4d.documents.LoadDocument() using the standard python threading module.

• Fixed an issue where lPoint argument for SplineData.MakePointBuffer() should be optional but was not.

• Fixed a crash when hashing a c4d.storage.ByteSeq.

Documentation

• Added note in BaseDocument.SetActiveObject(), BaseDocument.SetActiveTag(), BaseDocument.SetActiveMaterial() about the need to call respectively BaseDocument.GetActiveObject(), BaseDocument.GetActiveTag(), BaseDocument.GetActiveMaterial() to update internal cache.

• Improved description of PolygonObject.GetPolygonTranslationMap().

• Improved description of BaseSelect.GetRange().

• Fixed documentation of GeUserArea.OffScreenOn() where parameter where marked as mandatory while it wasn’t the case.

• Update parameter list in the python documentation for the function c4d.PrefsLib_OpenDialog().

• Updated PREFS_PRI with PREFS. Impacted functions: c4d.plugins.RegisterPreferencePlugin() and c4d.PrefsLib_OpenDialog().

• Updated FORMAT Export.

• Fixed typos in Python Field Object / Layer.

• Improved doc system, short description available in function/method signature list.

• Improved doc system, parameters available in function/method signature list.

• Improved doc system, static function are written completely (from c4d module).

R21.115 - SP1 - Documentation Update 1

Remove the double rubric entry of Inheritance in some pages.

The next functions/methods were documented in the Python documentation but didn’t exist.

• MultipassBitmap.GetHiddenLayerNum() is currently named MultipassBitmap.GetHiddneLayerNum().

• SplineData.GetSelectedCount() is currently named SplineData.GetSelectCount().

• BaseList2D.GetDocument() is a member of c4d.GeListNode.

• BaseList2D.GetHighlightHandle() is a member of c4d.BaseObject.

• BaseList2D.GetVisibility() is a member of c4d.BaseObject.

• BaseList2D.KillTag() is a member of c4d.BaseObject.

• c4d.utils.Pulse() doesn’t exist at all, was removed from doc.

• TextureTag.GetMln() doesn’t exist at all, was removed from doc.

The next functions/methods were not documented in the Python document but existed so they have been added to the documentation.

• BaseBitmap.Scale().

• c4d.bitmaps.MultipassBitmap.AllocWrapper().

• BaseContainer.GetVoid().

• BaseContainer.SetVoid().

• BaseList2D.AddEventNotification().

• BaseList2D.FindEventNotification().

• BaseList2D.RemoveEventNotification().

• BaseList2D.GetNodeData().

• BaseObject.GetIsoparm().

• BaseObject.SetIsoparm().

• BaseTime.__eq__().

• BaseTime.__ge__().

• BaseTime.__gt__().

• BaseTime.__le__().

• BaseTime.__lt__().

• BaseTime.__ne__().

• CCurve.GetTangents().

• c4d.GeGetSystemInfo().

• c4d.GePrint().

• Gradient.AllocAlphaGradient().

• Gradient.ConvertToAlphaGradient().

• Matrix.GetScale().

• SplineData.GetSelectCount().

• SplineData.SetType().

• c4d.Vector.GetDistance().

• CAMorph.FindIndex().

• GvNode.GetOpContainerInstance().

• GvPort.SetUserData().

• GvPort.SetUserID().

• c4d.gui.GetCursorBitmap().

• GeDialog.AddGadget().

• GeDialog.GetType().

• QuickTabCustomGui.SetLayerColor().

• HairGuides.DisplaceRoots().

• HairGuides.GetRootAxis().

• HairGuides.UndisplaceRoots().

• HairObject.GenerateHair().

• HairObject.IsLocked().

• HairObject.Lock().

• HairObject.Unlock().

• c4d.modules.mograph.FIELD_EXECUTION_BLOCK_SIZEf.

• FalloffDataData.spherical.

• FieldCallerStack._value.

• c4d.modules.mograph.FieldInfo.Create().

• NetRenderService.CopyRenderTaskFrom().

• NetRenderService.RemoveResult().

• TP_MasterSystem.CheckCollision().

• TP_MasterSystem.GetParticles().

• c4d.threading.GeGetCPUCount().

• SplineHelp.GetPos().

• VolumeBuilder.GetMixVectorMode().

• VolumeBuilder.SetMixVectorMode().

R21.207 - SP2

API

This Service pack for Cinema 4D R21 did not change any API functionality.

Fixes

• Fixed an issue where printing a c4d.storage.ByteSeq didn’t work.

• Fixed an issue with c4d.DescID not working with shift operator.

• Fixed an issue where MultipassBitmap.GetHiddenLayerNum() was named MultipassBitmap.GetHiddneLayerNum().

  • MultipassBitmap.GetHiddenLayerNum() is introduced.

  • MultipassBitmap.GetHiddneLayerNum() is still there for compatibility reason but marked as deprecated.

• Fixed an issue with HairObject.GenerateHair() not returning an alive object.

• Fixed an issue with SplineData.SetType() where parameter bAll was not optional while it should be.

• Fixed an issue with SplineData.SetZero() where parameter bAll was not optional while it should be.

• Fixed an issue with TextureTag.GetMaterial() where ignoredoc default value was True while it should be False.

• Fixed an issue with TreeViewFunctions.InputEvent() where wrong arguments were passed internally.

• Fixed an issue when the environment variable PYTHONPATH was mal-formatted, it disabled Python in general within Cinema 4D.

Examples

• Added a new example about GeUserArea and dragging see GeUserArea_Drag_r13.py.

Documentation

• Fixed documentation of SculptObject.GetPolygonCopy() where parameters were not described in the documentation.

• Fixed documentation of BaseBitmap.Scale() where the last parameter was named inprop while it is nprop.

• Fixed documentation of BaseList2D.GetBit() where the return type was wrong`.

• Added information about current issue with c4dpy not working correctly with R21 see c4dpy.

API Changelist

See API Changelist R21 page.

Older Releases

• What was New in R20

• What was New in R19

• What was New in R18

• What was New in R17

• What was New in R16

• What was New in R15

• What was New in R14

• What was New in R13