The year 2025 comes to its end and between 15/12/2025 and 5/1/2026, the Maxon SDK Team will be short staffed. Please understand that we cannot deliver forum support in that period. For absolutely urgent matters - in the sense of business critical - please reach out via our contact form.

Happy Christmas and a happy new year to all developers,
the Maxon SDK Team

On December the 3rd, 2025, Maxon Computer unveiled Maxon One 2026.1 in its December release. For an overview of the new features please refer to the news posting.

Alongside this release, existing APIs have been updated. For a detailed overview, please see the Cinema 4D C++ SDK, the Cinema 4D Python SDK, and ZBrush Python SDK change notes.

Cinema 4D

C++ API

• Only minor API changes have been made.

Python API

• Added new manual and code example revolving around plugin licening.
• Minor bug fixes in older code examples.

ZBrush

Python API

• Finalized the ZBrush SDK, with new manuals, code examples, and an all new SDK look.
• Added new ZBrush-Python-API-Examples repository on Github.

Head to our download section to grab the newest SDK downloads.

Happy rendering and coding,
the Maxon SDK Team

We are aware that the notifications are currently malfunctioning on the forum.
Cloudflare unfortunately still does interfere with our server cache. You might have to refresh your cache manually to see new data when you read this posting within 24 hours of its release.

The forum is back in read and write mode after it has been in read only mode in the last 24 hours. One of the changes we carried out is that we bulk deleted users that met the following criteria:

• had less than one posting¹ AND
• were not associated with a whitelisted web domain such as maxon.net AND
• met at least one of the criteria:
  • the time span between registration and last login was less than 24 hours OR
  • mentioned a non-whitelisted domain in the website or about-me² section of their profile OR
  • used non-Unicode characters in the about-me section.

As a result, most of the spam accounts which had accumulated over the years are gone. When you are targeted by the change and want forum access, we must ask you to create a new account. plugincafe.maxon.net remains unaffected by these changes, all accounts were left untouched there.

Cheers,
Ferdinand

[1] A posting is a section by a user in a topic. So, 'User Rollback' is this topic, and the section I am writing in, is the first posting in it. You will automatically create a posting when creating a topic but also replying to other topics will create postings.
[2] Note that 'About me' is not the your signature. We did not scan and validate signatures, as URLs are here commonly used by legimate users.

On June the 23rd, 2025, Maxon Computer released Cinema 4D 2025.3.1, a hotfix for Cinema 4D 2025.3.0. For an overview of the fixes of Cinema 4D 2025.3.1, please refer to the 2025.3.1 release notes. Alongside this release, a new Cinema 4D SDK and SDK documentation have been released, reflecting the API changes for 2025.3.1. The major changes are:

C++ API

• None

Python API

• Fixed a critical issue with c4dpy that would cause it to halt indefinitely when run for the first time.

Head to our download section to grab the newest SDK downloads, or the read the Python API change notes for an in detail overview of the changes.

Happy rendering and coding,
the Maxon SDK Team

Cloudflare unfortunately still does interfere with our server cache. You might have to refresh your cache manually to see new data when you read this posting within 24 hours of its release.

between 12/05/2025 and 19/05/2025 we will only provide very reduced support, due to our annual company meeting taking place. We will neither be able to provide contact form nor forum support for anything substantial. Normal support procedures will resume next week, on May the 19th.

Thank you for your understanding,
the Maxon SDK Team

On December the 4th, 2024, Maxon Computer released Cinema 4D 2025.1.0. For an overview of the new features of Cinema 4D 2025.1, please refer to the release announcement. Alongside this release, a new Cinema 4D SDK and SDK documentation have been released, reflecting the API changes for 2025.1.0. The major changes are:

General

The PluginCafe GitHub organization has been deprecated in favour of a new Maxon-Computer GitHub organization. The legacy repositories have been moved, renamed, and brought into a consistent metadata form. Local clones of the legacy repositories will continue to work as they are.

C++ API

• No larger changes have been made.

Python API

• Documented new graph description features exposed in 2025.0 in the Graph Descriptions Manual. Referencing Entities has been reworked and the sections Explicit Connections and Graph Commands have been added.

Head to our download section for the newest SDK downloads, or the C++ and Python API change notes for an in detail overview of the changes.

The graph description code examples on GitHub have not been uploaded yet, they will be added later.

Happy Christmas and coding,
the Maxon SDK Team

Cloudflare unfortunately still does interfere with our server cache. You might have to refresh your cache manually to see new data when you read this posting within 24 hours of its release.

On July the 17th, 2024, Maxon Computer released Cinema 4D 2024.5.0. For an overview of the new features of Cinema 4D 2024.5, please refer to the release announcement. Alongside this release, a new Cinema 4D SDK and SDK documentation have been released, reflecting the API changes for 2024.5.0. The major changes are:

• C++ - No significant changes to the API. This release contains the fix for the connector object ABI regression, and a slightly updated Create a Redshift Material code example.
• Python - Contains various minor bug fixes and a slight update to the layout and TOCs of the documentation.

Head to our download section for the newest SDK downloads, or the C++ and Python API change notes for an in detail overview of the changes.

Happy rendering and coding,
the Maxon SDK Team

Cloudflare unfortunately still does interfere with our server cache. And you might have to refresh your cache manually.

When you are not automatically redirected to the new versions, and also do not see 2024.5 in the version selector, please press CTRL + F5 or press CTRL and click on the reload icon of your browser anywhere on developers.maxon.net/docs/ to refresh your cache. You only have to do this once and it will apply to all documentations at once. Otherwise your cache will automatically update latest by 19/07/2024 00:00.

Please drop us a note when you were forced to manually refresh your cache with [browser, OS, region]. E.g.: Microsoft Edge for Business Version 126.0.2592.102, Win 11 Pro, Germany.

Maxon Computer is conducting its annual company meeting in the coming week. Please expect only minimal levels of support between Friday the 10th and Friday the 17th as we all will travel to Bad Homburg to plan and discuss the future of Maxon products.

This applies equally to forum and direct support (PM and mail).

Thank you for your understanding,
the Maxon SDK Team

in the next week between Monday 22/04/2024 and Friday 26/04/2024 we will only provide minimal support on developers.maxon.net. This might result in considerable delay until we answer questions.

I will try to answer things en passant where possible, but anything substantial will have to wait.

Thank you for your understanding,
the Maxon SDK Team

as announced before, we have deprecated our old download section in the forum and replaced it with developers.maxon.net/downloads. From now on, you will find there all downloads for the public APIs of Maxon Computer products.

We also applied the concept of the Extended C++ SDK retroactively to Cinema 4D SDKs up to R21 to allow for an easy access of frameworks, tools, documentation, and code examples of past versions of Cinema 4D.

Although not directly related, the site menu has now also been reworked to provide a better experience on small screen devices.

Cheers,
the Maxon SDK Team

In a changing security landscape Maxon Computer continues to deliver products which protect the systems of our users. In that spirit we announce a change to how we will treat code-signed binaries from third parties in future releases.

Upcoming Changes to Loading Signed Binaries

The upcoming releases of Cinema 4D will not accept code signed C++ plugin binaries whose certificate has become invalid. A Cinema 4D installation which attempts to boot with a C++ plugin with such invalid certificate, will inform the user that the respective file is faulty, that the related plugin must be reinstalled, and then shut down Cinema 4D. The user will only be able to successfully boot Cinema 4D once he or she has removed your plugin.

It is therefore important that you deliver your C++ plugins in one of the two forms listed below:

1. As signed binaries with a valid certificate,
2. or as unsigned binaries.

Plugins for Windows which have been singend with a certificate which at the time of validation has expired are still valid when they are time-stamped and have either no expiration date on the time-stamp or have not yet reached the expiration-date of the time-stamp. In general, you should avoid shipping Windows plugins with an expired certificate.

About the Necessity of Code Signing

Code signing is the mechanism with which operating systems ensure that a to be executed binary has not been altered since it has been shipped by a vendor. Code signing is therefore not only in the interest of users who want to avoid executing modified binaries but also in the interest of application vendors to signal their trustworthiness.

We recommend that all C++ plugins are code signed in the manner lined out in the code signing guides provided by Apple and Microsoft; we advise against shipping plugins signed with self-provided certificates intended for development only. Our Cinema 4D C++ SDK documentation also contains a section about code signing on macOS. We plan to add a similar section for Windows in an upcoming release.

Code signing is a practice that should be followed for C++ plugin binaries for both on macOS and Windows. For Python plugins singing is technically not necessary but could be viewed as good practice.

If there any open questions, please do not hesitate to ask them in the comments below or reach out to us directly via our contact form.

Happy coding,
the Maxon SDK Team

we have released the 2024.3.2 hotfix for Cinema 4D which among other things rectifies the incompatibility between the 2024.2 and 2024.3 C++ ABI. We strongly recommend that C++ developers update to this version.

The C++ ABI of Cinema 4D 2024.3.0 and 2024.3.1 is and remains incompatible to other versions of the 2024 release. Building, running, or debugging plugins for 2024 is not supported for these two releases.

You can update with the installers provided here or using the Maxon app.

Please excuse the inconvenience,
the Maxon SDK Team

due to an oversight, we have unintentionally broken the C++ ABI compatibility between 2024.2 and 2024.3. We will fix this issue in an upcoming hotfix that follows 2024.3.1 (2024.3.1 does not contain the fix).

What is an ABI and how does it affect me? The ABI compatibility determines if plugins with a lower minor version are compatible to a higher minor version within a major release. E.g., if a plugin compiled with the 2024.1.0 SDK also runs under Cinema 4D 2024.3.1. We guarantee ABI upwards compatibility within one major version, this promise is temporarily being broken here. See also Plugin Development: Cinema 4D SDK for more information about ABIs.

Affected Entities

Binary incompatibilities have been specifically introduced for:

• NimbusBaseInterface::FindCorrespondingBaseList()
• NimbusBaseInterface::FindOrCreateCorrespondingBaseList()
• NimbusBaseInterface::GetGraphNodeFromBaseList()
• NimbusBaseInterface::GetNodePathFromBaseList()

Rendering in effect both maxon::NimbusBaseInterface and a reference to such object, a maxon:NimbusBaseRef, unusable.

Effect for Developers and Users

All 2024.0.X to 2024.2.X plugins using the affected entities are not upwards compatible beyond 2024.2.X. Since the C++ SDK is using the type NimbusBaseInterface too, it will raise a critical stop when debugging with a 2024.0 up to 2024.2 SDK against a 2024.3 Cinema 4D binary. Below you can see an example of the critical stop being raised.

C++ plugins compiled for pre 2024.0 APIs are not affected by this.

C++ plugins for 2024.X that do not make use use of maxon::NimbusBaseInterface or maxon::NimbusBaseRef are not affected by this.

Python plugins are not affected by this.

Solution

Maxon Computer will provide a hotfix Cinema 4D 2024.3.2 which will solve the problem. The hotfix is to be expected within the next two weeks. In the mean time, you can do the following:

Developers using NimbusBaseInterface

Until the hotfix, you can only tell your customers that your plugin is not fully compatible with 2024.3. There are no other preliminary fixes.

Developers using the sdk.zip

We know that many developers are using the sdk.zip as the home for their project. Here you have a few options until the hotfix arrives.

• Do not debug against 2024.3.X
• Remove the line plugins/example.assets;\ from \sdk\plugins\project\projectdefintion.txt and rebuild your solution using the project tool.
• You can also simply ignore the critical stop and press continue once when you boot. Since you are not shipping the example.asset.xdl64/dylib binaries with your plugin, it will not be affected by this.

When you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to voice them below or reach out to us via our contact form.

Please excuse the inconvenience,
the Maxon SDK Team

Modified \sdk\plugins\project\projectdefintion.txt you can use to disable the asset API examples in a 2024 SDK.

Platform=Win64;OSX
Type=Solution
Solution=\
	plugins/example.main;\
	plugins/example.migration_2024;\
	plugins/example.nodes;\
	plugins/example.image