Thanks for your detailed answers @ferdinand ! At night, I suddenly had a flash of inspiration and found a simpler solution, use html tags: IDS_PLUGIN_HELP "description about......<br><b>Ctrl: </b> do something...<br><b>Alt: </b> do something... Cheers~ DunHou

Hi @diegoev2026 Welcome to the Maxon developers forum and its community, it is great to have you with us! Getting Started Before creating your next postings, we would recommend making yourself accustomed with our forum and support procedures. You did not do anything wrong, we point all new users to these rules. Forum Overview: Provides a broad overview of the fundamental structure and rules of this forum, such as the purpose of the different sub-forums or the fact that we will ban users who engage in hate speech or harassment. Support Procedures: Provides a more in detail overview of how we provide technical support for APIs here. This topic will tell you how to ask good questions and limits of our technical support. Forum Features: Provides an overview of the technical features of this forum, such as Markdown markup or file uploads. It is strongly recommended to read the first two topics carefully, especially the section Support Procedures: How to Ask Questions. About your Question Good question, and indeed we wouldn’t recommend modifying the init.py file in the installation directory. Instead, ZBrush provides a dedicated folder for this type of user customization, you can quickly navigate to it from the ZBrush menu: Preferences > Asset Directory > Open Directory. You can find more details about that here, if you are looking for further detail : https://help.maxon.net/zbr/en-us/Content/html/user-guide/customizing-zbrush/user-content/user-content.html In order to execute your own script at startup, it should be sufficient to replicate the setup you see in the ZBrush directory by creating a Python directory inside your asset directory with an init.py in it. If you are using the default location for the asset directory, the path would look something like C:\Users\[UserName]\AppData\Roaming\Maxon\ZBrush_[HashValue]\Python\init.py. On top of the init.py scripts, ZBrush also allows running Python scripts as plugins from a directory you can configure through the environment variable in ZBRUSH_PLUGIN_PATH. You can find more details on how to set those up here: https://developers.maxon.net/docs/zbrush/py/2026_1_0/manuals/python_environment.html#zbrush-plugin-path The user asset directory I mentioned above is also part of the ZBRUSH_PLUGIN_PATH by default, meaning you can just drop your plugins in there. Let us know if you need any further clarification! Regards, Davide

Your approach is not necessarily worse, one could even argue that it is better. I personally would always avoid manually binding to an OS DLL via ctypes, but that is more a personal preference.

Hi @ferdinand, and thank you! Your proof-of-concept and pointing me toward mxutils.GetSceneGraphString() was exactly what I needed to solve this. By using the scene graph dumper on a native UI-generated Motion Source from a rigged character, I realized it's just a standard Ojoint hierarchy with normal CTrack objects. I used GetClone(c4d.COPYFLAGS_NO_HIERARCHY) to perfectly replicate the Ojoint skeleton and injected the time variables into the container, and it maps and plays back perfectly. Thanks again.

Here's my prototype, if you are interested in my goal Right now, everything works as expected, but only with these lines of code. profile = GetCloneSpline(profile_orig) path = GetCloneSpline(path_orig) I'm happy with the current result. So, I'd love to get some additional advice on correctness and optimization. I think your previous answer was comprehensive enough, so I'll try to integrate some of it. But I'd also be very grateful if you could take a look at my plugin and perhaps give me some more specific optimization tips. If that's not too much trouble, of course! @ferdinand @ThomasB Anyway, thanks for your replies and advices!

Hello @atg, Welcome to the Maxon developers forum and its community, it is great to have you with us! Getting Started Before creating your next postings, we would recommend making yourself accustomed with our forum and support procedures. You did not do anything wrong, we point all new users to these rules. Forum Overview: Provides a broad overview of the fundamental structure and rules of this forum, such as the purpose of the different sub-forums or the fact that we will ban users who engage in hate speech or harassment. Support Procedures: Provides a more in detail overview of how we provide technical support for APIs here. This topic will tell you how to ask good questions and limits of our technical support. Forum Features: Provides an overview of the technical features of this forum, such as Markdown markup or file uploads. It is strongly recommended to read the first two topics carefully, especially the section Support Procedures: How to Ask Questions. About your First Question I can see why would think that, but you mixed things there a bit up. The CMake SDK build system was introduced with 2025.2.0 and became the standard with 2026.0.0. Between 2025.2 and 2025.3 we supported both build systems as a grace period for developers to get accustomed. Chances are very good, that you can just copy the CMake setup, i.e., the cmake folder and files such as CMakeLists.txt, CMakePresets.json, and sdk_modules.txt to a 2025.0 folder and it will generate a correct build system for you. But the supported range is only 2025.2+. For older projects you would have to use the old project tool based build system. Since I know what you are trying to do, I would recommend trying copying before you get into the old build system of ours. 2025.2 Release Notes 2025.2 Build System Docs (which covered both the old Project Tool and CMake) Cheers, Ferdinand edit: You will only find the old project tool tooling in old extended SDKs which supported it, such as 2025.2 or 2025.0.1

Hey @aturtur, Thank you for reaching out to us. EventAdd will never really work in script manager scripts in the sense you mean it, unless you use hacks like dangling async dialogs (which as I always point out are a really bad idea). The reason is that Script Manager scripts are blocking, i.e., all scene and GUI execution is being halted until the script finishes. You can hack yourself around this with a dangling async dialog, i.e., a dialog that lives beyond the life time of its script. But that is not a good idea, you should implement some form of plugin to host your asnyc dialog, as you otherwise risk crashes. A modal dialog is just an extension of this. It is right in the name, it is modal, i.e., synchronous. All scene and GUI execution is being halted while this dialog is open and only resumes once it closes. When you want updates while your dialog is open, you need an async dialog (and a plugin which hosts it). Cheers, Ferdinand Since you also might misunderstand the nature of EventAdd() I am also putting here the C++ docs I updated a few weeks ago, to better reflect the nature of it (not yet live): /// @brief Enqueues an update event for the active document. /// @details Only must be called when modifying the active document and is without meaning for other documents. The typical example of using `EventAdd` is after adding or removing elements from the active document; and wanting these changes to be reflected in the UI. The function itself is technically thread-safe, but the vast majority of operations that require calling `EventAdd` are not thread-safe and must be called from the main thread (and therefore calling this function is usually main thread bound). The function also does not enqueue a dedicated event item, but rather sets a flag that is checked when the next update event is processed. Therefore, calling `EventAdd` multiple times in one function scope is unnecessary overhead which must be avoided. Because such multiple event flags cannot be consumed while a function on the main thread is still running, and instead the event will only be consumed after that function returns. /// @code /// Result<void> AddCubes() /// { /// CheckState(maxon::ThreadInterface::IsMainThread(), "AddCubes must be called from the main thread."_s); /// /// // EventAdd(); // We could also technically call it here with the same effect. The event /// // will only happen after this function returns. /// /// BaseDocument* doc = GetActiveDocument(); /// for (int i = 0; i < 10; ++i) /// { /// BaseObject* cube = BaseObject::Alloc(Ocube); /// if (!cube) /// return maxon::OutOfMemoryError(MAXON_SOURCE_LOCATION, "Failed to allocate cube object."_s); /// /// doc->InsertObject(cube); /// /// // Calling EventAdd here would have no extra effect, since this event cannot be consumed while /// // our main thread function is still running. And such extra calls on a large scale can cause /// // considerable overhead. /// } /// /// // Notify C4D that the active document has changed. The very end of a function or scope is the /// // canonical place to call EventAdd(). /// EventAdd(); /// } /// @endcode /// @see The article @link page_manual_coremessages Core Messages@endlink for more information. /// @param[in] eventflag The event to add: @enumerateEnum{EVENT}

Hello @Jespersather, thank you for reaching out to us. This is a developer forum, not an end user support forum. We cannot help you here with your end user issues. Please use our Support Center to get end user support for Cinema 4D. I have moved your topic into General Talk. Cheers, Ferdinand

Hi @ferdinand, I appreciate the reply! I didn't have a chance to update this post until now, but over the weekend I also found the Graph Descriptions Manual you've linked. The Scalar Ramp example in there was enough to help me figure out how to implement it with the Ramp node. Thank you for your response though, I'm sure it will make things easier if anyone else comes across this subject!

新的py我不知道，但是旧的 我觉得能达到你的要求，虽然我没这样尝试。一般子工具重命名有两种方式： 一种 通过设置 FileNameSetNext 导出空文件 的方式，利用程序导出时自动改名来重命名。还有一个是 调用ZFileUtils64.dll中的 重命名函数，修改： ··· // 设置要使用的名称，而不是询问用户 // @str：将替换为用户输入的文本/字符串 [RoutineDef, ZFU_RenameSetNext, [FileExecute, [Var, dllPath], RenameSetNext, str] , str] // 通过为请求重命名框的按钮提供路径来重命名 “something” // @buttonPath：要求用户重命名“某物”的按钮的路径 // @str：将替换为用户输入的文本/字符串 [RoutineDef, ZFU_RenameFromButtonPath, [If, (([IExists, buttonPath]) && ([IsEnabled, buttonPath])), [FileExecute, [Var, dllPath], RenameSetNext, str] [IPress, buttonPath] ] , buttonPath, str] // 重命名当前 SubTool // @str：新的 SubTool 名称 [RoutineDef, ZFU_RenameCurrentSubTool, [RoutineCall, ZFU_RenameFromButtonPath, "Tool:SubTool:Rename", str] , str] ··· 个人建议 ：批量重命名还是在外部处理好 再导入最佳。而且ZB支持bat 等外部执行方式。

hi there, I actually did sort this out in a very round about way with some "vibe coding". this was for a mapp creation project I am working where I am displaying various eras of map onto 20km grids (so as not to kill the viewport functionality). have a look at the below and let me know if this is a solid approach or if there was a better way: import c4d import maxon def main(): era = "INSERT_YOUR_ERA_HERE" basePath = "INSERT_YOUR_PATH_HERE" prefix = f"map_{era}_tile_20k_" extension = ".tif" doc = c4d.documents.GetActiveDocument() if doc is None: return nodeSpaceId = maxon.Id("com.redshift3d.redshift4c4d.class.nodespace") textureNodeId = maxon.Id("com.redshift3d.redshift4c4d.nodes.core.texturesampler") for mat_index in range(1, 9): mat_name = f"column_{mat_index:02d}" mat = doc.SearchMaterial(mat_name) if not mat: print(f"Material {mat_name} not found.") continue nodeMat = mat.GetNodeMaterialReference() if nodeMat is None: print(f"{mat_name} is not a node material.") continue graph = nodeMat.GetGraph(nodeSpaceId) if graph.IsNullValue(): print(f"No Redshift graph for {mat_name}.") continue textureNodes = [] maxon.GraphModelHelper.FindNodesByAssetId(graph, textureNodeId, False, textureNodes) with graph.BeginTransaction() as transaction: for node in textureNodes: node_name = node.GetValue(maxon.NODE.BASE.NAME) if not node_name: print(f"Unnamed node in {mat_name}, skipping.") continue node_name = str(node_name) try: local_index = int(node_name) except: print(f"Non-numeric node name '{node_name}' in {mat_name}, skipping.") continue global_index = (mat_index - 1) * 11 + local_index filename = f"{prefix}{global_index:03d}{extension}" full_path = basePath + filename tex0 = node.GetInputs().FindChild( "com.redshift3d.redshift4c4d.nodes.core.texturesampler.tex0" ) if tex0.IsNullValue(): print(f"No tex0 on node '{node_name}' in {mat_name}") continue pathPort = tex0.FindChild("path") if pathPort.IsNullValue(): print(f"No path port on node '{node_name}' in {mat_name}") continue pathPort.SetDefaultValue(maxon.Url(full_path)) print(f"{mat_name} → Node '{node_name}' set to {full_path}") transaction.Commit() c4d.EventAdd() if __name__ == "__main__": main()

Hey @Dunhou, Thank you for reaching out to us. We agree that this would be desirable. These methods are actually already wrapped but we hide them for now in the Python SDK. Find the reasons below. ExecuteJavascript: I just did remove the bindings of the Python API for that method in the current beta and also switched the C++ method to internal. The reason for that decision was is that we have security concerns about attackers being able to execute arbitrary JS in a web browser opened in Cinema 4D. SetWebMessageCallback: This is intended solution, i.e., the JS you want to execute must be already embedded into the HTML which is running in the HtmlView. On Windows/WebView2 it uses web messages, on MacOS/WebKit a custom solution emulating them. And SetURLCallback is then the way to get data back from the JS VM. For 2026.1 I already wrote examples for these methods, but on the last meters we discovered that something not only broke the Python bindings but the whole "execute JS" in the WebView2/WebKit bindings. My last info is that something broke there due to a project update, and that the two devs involved in it will have a look. I'll give them another bump and report here if there are any updates. Cheers, Ferdinand

Good to hear that things worked out for you!

Hey @vaishhg, As I tried to explain there are no nested dependencies. *.rs is a full blown scene file format which can express geometry, curves, simulation data, materials and more. When you save a Cinema 4D scene as *.rs al data in it is exported to that format, including the "nested" case where a *.c4d scene is referencing a *.c4d scene. So when you start out with this *.c4d scene: Scene.c4d +-- Objects +-- Cloner ( creates 5 instances) +-- Cube Generator +-- Cache +-- Polygon Object +-- Tags +-- Material Tag (references 'Red Material') +-- Materials +-- Red Material And then export it to Scene.rs, you get this (this is not an actual depiction of the file format, just a visualization of what happens, rs is not an open format). Scene.rs +-- Objects +-- Cube.0 [Red Material] +-- Cube.1 [Red Material] +-- Cube.2 [Red Material] +-- Cube.3 [Red Material] +-- Cube.4 [Red Material] +-- Materials +-- Red Material (contains Red Material definition) If you load that file back into Cinema 4D you get this. All data - that these are 5 separate cubes with a red material each - resides in the Redshift core only, we only see a proxy in Cinema 4D, hence the name "RS Proxy Object". It is the Redshift Core which will resolve the data in the RS file at render time. ReferencingScene.c4d +-- Objects +-- RS Proxy Object.0 (loads Scene.rs) +-- Cache (will be empty by default, there is literally no data in the c4d core, only when we set 'Preview' to 'Mesh' there will be a cache so that the viewport can display something) +-- Polygon Object (one blob representing all 5 cubes and no material information) +-- RS Proxy Object.1 (loads Scene.rs) +-- Cache +-- Polygon Object When we now export ReferencingScene.c4d to ReferencingScene.rs we get this. Because when the exporter runs, it will encounter the two RS Proxy Objects when flattening the c4d scene and do what you cannot do, grab the rs scene data from the referenced Scene.rs files and inline that into the new ReferencingScene.rs file. So we end up with 10 cubes in total, each with the red material assigned. ReferencingScene.rs +-- Objects +-- Cube.0 [Red Material] (from RS Proxy Object.0) +-- Cube.1 [Red Material] ... +-- Cube.2 [Red Material] ... +-- Cube.3 [Red Material] ... +-- Cube.4 [Red Material] ... +-- Cube.0 [Red Material] (from RS Proxy Object.1) +-- Cube.1 [Red Material] ... +-- Cube.2 [Red Material] ... +-- Cube.3 [Red Material] ... +-- Cube.4 [Red Material] ... +-- Materials +-- Red Material (contains Red Material definition) And when we load that back into Cinema 4D we get this: SecondGeneration.c4d +-- Objects +-- RS Proxy Object.0 (loads ReferencingScene.rs) +-- Cache +-- Polygon Object (one blob representing all 10 cubes and no material information) The TLDR is that the Redshift Core can read *.rs files and the Cinema API cannot, it can only write them or load them via an RS Proxy Object. And there is no 'resolving [...] the full proxy chain' as you put it. An *.rs scene file is just a discrete scene representation that contains does not know concepts such as generators or assets known to the Cinema API/Core. When export a *.c4d scene that references *.rs files all data is just flattened into a single *.rs file (again, what I showed under the *.rs formats above was just a visualization, not the actual file format). There is currently no way to do what you want to do, even if you would request access to the Redshift Core C++ SDK. Because the RS file format is a GPU scene file format and very deeply integrated into the core. Even the RS Core SDK does not expose functionalities to read RS files to CPU memory structures. Cheers, Ferdinand

Thank you, Ferdinand. (Again!) That was exactly what I needed. It's working great now! Thanks for taking the time to answer this so thoroughly and quickly! Cheers, Lasse

Hello @gelobui, Welcome to the Maxon developers forum and its community, it is great to have you with us! Getting Started Before creating your next postings, we would recommend making yourself accustomed with our forum and support procedures. You did not do anything wrong, we point all new users to these rules. Forum Overview: Provides a broad overview of the fundamental structure and rules of this forum, such as the purpose of the different sub-forums or the fact that we will ban users who engage in hate speech or harassment. Support Procedures: Provides a more in detail overview of how we provide technical support for APIs here. This topic will tell you how to ask good questions and limits of our technical support. Forum Features: Provides an overview of the technical features of this forum, such as Markdown markup or file uploads. It is strongly recommended to read the first two topics carefully, especially the section Support Procedures: How to Ask Questions. About your First Question It depends a bit on how you mean your question. There is GetActiveNodeSpaceId which allows you to get the ID of the current node space. But there is no setting equivalent of that function. So, you cannot set a node space by its ID. What you can do, is call the command which switches node spaces. These are however dynamically assigned and can have a different meaning, depending on how many render engines are installed. You can just check the script log after changing the space. On this installation I have for example no extra render engines or node spaces installed, therefore Redshift is there 72000, 4. [image: 1765458881919-a0da1ed7-7add-456e-a8cc-63d8bd1ced2a-image.png] But on this machine I have the C++ SDK installed and therefore the Example nodes space, so Redshift is now 72000, 5: [image: 1765459007165-49b0838b-49d5-4f14-b638-811d8d26ada4-image.png] When you really want to do this in a fail safe manner, you would have to parse the menu of Cinema 4D to know with which sub-id to call CallCommand. Cheers, Ferdinand

@ferdinand Thank you. It works well. --> tag.Message(c4d.MSG_EDIT)

Hey @lionlion44, yes, that is the correct answer. The subject comes up from time to time, here is an answer of mine which is about the very case of yours - discovering substance channels. Cheers, Ferdinand

@ferdinand Thanks for your great examples! Very helpful!