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

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

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

Cineware is MAXON’s file exchange and render connection C++ library. Develop plugins and pipeline tools which can read and write .c4d files using Cineware without having a Cinema 4D installation present. Whether you want to build a commercial exchange plugin, connect your in-house software to Cinema 4D or just get some data out of .c4d files, Cineware is the simplest way to achieve your goals. When a Cinema 4D installation is present, you can also render using Cineware. The rendering will be done in the background as if it was a native part of your application.

Quick Start

• Online Cineware Documentation: The official most recent Cinema 4D C++ online documentation. To bookmark a link to the most recent version of the documentation, bookmark developers.maxon.net/docs/cw/ (when you bookmark a link you followed, you will always will bookmark a specific version).
• Offline Documentation: The official most recent Cineware offline documentation, project, and quick start guide. Unlike in the online version, you cannot switch between multiple versions here.

Happy coding,
the Maxon SDK Group

This topic deliberately has been left open for on-topic questions. Due to its informative purpose, this topic will be strictly moderated.

Python SDK

The ZBrush Python SDK is an artist focused workflow API. It allows you to write scripts to automate modelling tasks and create UIs in the UI of ZBrush.

• Online Documentation: The latest ZBrush Python SDK documenation.
• Python SDK: Contains the documentation, stubs, and code examples.

GoZ SDK

The GoZ C++ SDK allows you to build a dynamic bridge between ZBrush and your application, using the GoZ file format. In a single click, the user can send geometry and texture data from ZBrush to your application, edit it, and then send it back with another click. For details about the GoZ concept, see the ZBrush documentation.

• Online Documentation: The online Zbrush GoZ SDK documentation (this is a PDF).
• GoZ SDK: The GoZ demo projects and source code.

Happy coding,
the Maxon SDK Group

This topic deliberately has been left open for on-topic questions. Due to its informative purpose, this topic will be strictly moderated.

The Maxon Registered Developer (MRD) program provides enterprise level support for Cinema 4D developers. This posting lines out the benefits and requirements of the program.

Please see Support procedures for information about the scope of support and how we deliver support in general.

Benefits

The most tangible benefits of the program are:

• Access to development licenses for the current beta of Maxon One products (Cinema 4D, Redshift, ZBrush, Red Giant, etc.).
• 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.

Not for Resale (NFR) licenses yield none of these benefits and only issue an NFR license for the current public version of Cinema 4D and/or ZBrush.

Enrollment

The Maxon Registered Developer program is free of charge.

It is strongly recommended to follow this exact bullet point form. Lengthy applications are not necessary, one thousand characters should suffice for most applications. See the Examples section at the end when in doubt.

To enlist you must reach out to us via our contact form and provide a brief application the following form:

• Reason: Explain why you require MRD membership. Ideally name the development project you intend to work on and illustrate what you intend to do. When you are not applying for MRD membership but for NFR licenses instead, please mention this here.
• Past Work: Demonstrate that you have successfully developed public or non-public apps, plugins, or scripts in one of our APIs or the APIS of other DCC applications. Alternatively name other software products you have worked on. You must provide a link to a website, a video, or something similar that showcases your past work, we do not accept pure claims of what you have done.
• SDK: Name the SDK you are planning to use (Cinema 4D Python/C++ SDK, Cineware SDK, GoZ SDK).
• 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. When you do not have an account, you can create a new one for free. We generally prefer to assign multiple licenses to a singular Maxon account but can also handle multiple accounts when necessary. The number of accounts here determines also the number of forum and bug tracker accounts you get.
• NDA Signee: Provide the name and last name of your Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) signee (see Process below).
• Company: Provide the name of a company or organization on behalf of which you are applying. Only applies when you apply on behalf of a company. Freelancers and content providers do not have to provide this information.

Eligibility

See the section Alternatives for other options when you do not meet these criteria.

The following tasks are grounds for an MRD membership:

• Writing, debugging, and testing a plugin that uses any of the Cinema 4D SDKs.
• Writing, debugging, and testing an application that uses the Cineware SDK.
• Writing, debugging, and testing an application that uses the GoZ SDK.
• Writing manuals for such plugins or applications.
• Producing tutorial/video content about developing with one of our APIs.

The MRD program is strictly bound to these development tasks. The following tasks are not grounds for an MRD membership, but could be for NFR licenses:

• Licenses for managers, trainers, support, or generic social media engagement (the exception being MRD licenses for coding content).
• Developing, testing, documenting, or managing an application that uses none of our SDKs. E.g., you develop a video editing app which you want users to use in conjunction with Cinema 4D, but the app is neither a plugin for Cinema 4D nor reads or writes its file format. But you want to create documentation or training material for using your app with Cinema 4D.

In these cases, NFR licenses can be an option. And 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 sent your application, the following will happen:

1. 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.
2. Non-Disclosure Agreement: Once your request has been approved, we will ask you to sign an NDA regarding the alpha and beta access of Cinema 4D.
3. 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.
4. 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 been granted. We require MRD members to renew their licenses manually, but a brief e-mail asking for continuation usually suffices.

Alternatives

Sometimes the MRD program is not the right fit, either because users cannot enter the NDA or when the intended usage is not development related. In these cases, other options can be an alternative. This can either be applying for a Not for Resale (NFR) license 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.

Examples

Here are two example applications to provide orientation for how a potentially successful application could look like.

Company Application

Dear Maxon SDK-Team,

I hope you are all well! I am Jane, and I am reaching out to you on behalf of the development team at SomeBrand. We are looking into adding support for Cinema 4D for OurApp and would therefore like to request Maxon Registered Developer membership. Please find our application below.

• Reason: We want to develop a bridge application between Cinema 4D and OurApp via a Cinema 4D plugin. The main goal is here to exchange metadata between OurApp and Cinema 4D, so that both applications are always in sync.
• Past Work: Please refer to the www.somebrand.com/products section on our website to get a sense of what products we are shipping. Our main focus are procedural texture generation and asset databases for small artists up to big studios.
• SDK: Cinema 4D C++ SDK, Cineware SDK
• Number of Licenses: We would need at least 2 development licensees, better would be 4.
• Account Handle: Please assign all licenses to jane_doe@somebrand.com, we just have created that account on id.maxon.net.
• NDA Signee: Jane Doe
• Company: SomeBrand

Please do not hesitate to reach out to us when you have questions about our application. It would also be great if could sync up in a quick meeting, could you offer a slot?

Sincerely,
Jane Doe

Individual Application

Hey Maxon SDK-Team,

I am John, and I run a small YouTube channel named ArtistCodingBits. I cover there Python development from the perspective of a technical artist. I have created scripts and plugins for Cinema 4D before and would like to cover this subject on my channel. I therefor want to request Maxon Registered Developer membership.

• Reason: I want to produce video content about Python scripts, plugins, and general technical artist and pipelining subjects in the context of Cinema 4D. I am planning to release roughly three videos per year on this subject.
• Past Work: Check ArtistCodingBits for my video content and my private GitHub for some Cinema 4D scripts and plugins I wrote. In my day work I am an technical artist at SomeStudio, but I run my YouTube channel privately.
• SDK: Cinema 4D Python SDK
• Number of Licenses: I need one license.
• Account Handle: Please assign all licenses to my account john_doe@gmail.com.
• NDA Signee: John Doe

I also have a question: When approved, would it be possible to be featured on Maxon's social media channels?

Cheers,
John

Happy coding,
the Maxon SDK Group

This topic deliberately has been left open for on-topic questions. Due to its informative purpose, this topic will be strictly moderated.

• 24/10/2024: Added example section and split up NDA signee and company name.
• 05/06/2025: Clarified in which contexts MRD is not applicable.
• 03/07/2025: Added SDK bullet point in applications and examples.

This posting contains information on how to write postings and upload data to the forum on a technical level.

See our Forum Overview topic for an overview the forum structure and our code of conduct. The Support Procedures topic lines out how we deliver support, which topics are within the scope of support, and the hallmarks of a good technical question.

Basics

Creating Topics

A new topic can be created with the New Topic button to be found at the top of each sub-forum (Fig. I).

Fig. I: The New topic button can be found in each forum into which you can post, the button not being present means that you are not allowed to create topics in this forum.

Changing Forums

After pressing the button, the posting editor will open. When creating a new topic, the editor will allow you to change the forum to post into with a button in the top left (Fig. II).

Fig. II: The category button can be found in the top left of the posting editor when creating a new topic.

Adding Tags

Many forums allow you or even require you to add tags to your posting. The tags button can be found in the left bottom of the posting editor (Fig. III).

Fig. III: The tags button allows you to descibe a posting with predefined tags.

You should always describe the language (C++/Python), the operating system (Windows/MacOS), and the version you are targeting.

Forum Markup

This is an overview of all forum markup and its rendered output.

Uploading Content

You can upload images and files to the forum as shown below.

The maximum upload size is 16 MB and the supported file formats are:

• Image: png, jpg, bmp, gif, webm
• File: zip, py, pyp, pdf, txt, cpp, h, vdb, mp4

Uploaded mp4 files will be automatically displayed in a video player. You also can embed Youtube, Vimeo, and Twitter content by simply posting a link in a topic.

Emphasis

Lists

Bullet point and index lists can be mixed, the actual numbering in index lists does not matter, it will be applied by the parser (Beans has the index 6 in the markup but is then correctly rendered as 2).

* Food
  * Fruits
    1. Apple
    2. Avocado
    3. Banana
  * Vegetables
    1. Aubergine
    6. Beans
    3. Carrot
* Toys

• Food
  • Fruits
    1. Apple
    2. Avocado
    3. Banana
  • Vegetables
    1. Aubergine
    2. Beans
    3. Carrot
• Toys

Code Blocks

Code blocks can be styled with a sytanx. [py] will force Python syntax, [cpp] C++ syntax, and [txt] no syntax (among many other syntaxes). Setting no syntax hint will cause the styling to fall back to Python syntax.

class Item (object):
    """Blah
    """
    def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs) -> None:
        self.id: int = 0
        self.name: str = ""

    def run(self) -> str:
        return f"My name is {self.name} at {self.id}."
    
# Create an item and run it.
thing: Item = Item()
thing. Run()

class Foo {   // A class
  public:
    int bar;
};

Quotes and Tables

> “Not every quote you read on the internet is true.” – Abraham Lincoln

“Not every quote you read on the internet is true.” – Abraham Lincoln

| A | B | C | 
| - | - | - |
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 
| 4 | 5 | 6 | 

Headings and Seperators

# h1 title
## h2 title
### h3 title
#### h4 title
##### h5 title
###### h6 title
---

h1 title

h2 title

h3 title

h4 title

h5 title

h6 title

Happy posting,
the Maxon SDK Group

This topic deliberately has been left open for on-topic questions. Due to the informative nature of this topic, it will be strictly moderated.