@ThomasB said in Thread safety when handling CTrack in TagData.Message() on button click: I think you misunderstood me. I’m not trying to report a bug here, since the issue isn't with Cinema 4D itself. No, I did not misunderstood your situation (at least I think so ). We sometimes ask people to report a formal bug report so that we can reproduce an issue. This is not necessarily bound to the bug being in Cinema 4D. Although we often do this when we suspect that the bug is on the Cinema side or at least in a grey area where the plugin does something that is not so great but Cinema also drops the ball in some shape or form. Your code, at least the one you shared with us, does not do anything wrong. And even though I know you have put a lot of work in your reply here, a lot of text and diagrams do not help in concretely fixing the issue. To answer a few questions anyway: NodeData::Message usually runs on the main thread (and you additionally check), so we are fine. Dialog code also usually runs on the main thread. The only exception can be drawing code (something like GeUseraArea::DrawMsg), although drawing code usually also runs in a special section of the main thread. Hence my hint to use GeIsMainThreadAndNoDrawThread instead of GeIsMainThread in my first posting. Generally there is no guarantee that any code runs on the MT. As an example, NodeData::Message calls are usually on the MT, especially the message MSG_DESCRIPTION_COMMAND. I.e., when a user clicked a button in your node this should run on the MT as you often want to do GUI things or modify the scene. And Cinema will (should) honor this. But nothing prevents me, Evil Bob the developer, from grabbing your tag, creating a new thread then calling yourTag.Message(MSG_DESCRIPTION_COMMAND, BaseContainer()) from this new thread and with that violate the assumption that description commands alwary run on the MT. Core messages are also usually sent from the MT, both in a dialog and in a MessageData; so CoreMessage functions should usually run on the MT. Core message (i.e., event) evaluation is also decoupled. When you set a (core) event from a non-MT thread (via SpecialEventAdd), Cinema should properly synchronize and execute the event on the MT. But there could be of course bugs in our code. You should therefore always shield your code with GeIsMainThreadAndNoDrawThread or GeIsMainThread if your code could also run in a drawing context. It is good that you have an eye on the threading safety in Cinema as this is something that often trips developers. But I do not think that threading is here the issue. Threading violations usually lead to crashes, corrupted data, or inexplicable behavior. Slowdowns usually mean that either code runs way more often that you think, e.g. some feedback loop between your tag and dialog, or that there is some resource fighting going on. Playing audio means that hardware resources must be allocated. When they are constantly dropped and reallocated, because something else wants to access them too, this can lead to slowdowns. This is still just a guess into the blue of mine, but it would fit the symptoms you are describing. Could you please: Confirm that the issue also happens for your with the simplified plugin. Provide a step by step bug report to reproducing the issue as described here. Check that the issue does not happen when you delete your tag (but leave the sound track in the scene). I really want to rule out that Cinema does not have a problem with audio playback on some hardware in general. When push comes to shove, you can also share your full plugin in private with us via sdk_support(at)maxon(dot)com. When you can reproduce the issue with the simplified plugin, this is of course sufficient for us to investigate the issue. But if you cannot reproduce the issue with the simplified plugin, then we would need to see the full plugin to understand what is going on. Cheers, Ferdinand edit: I now also tried on my Win 11 machine (Intel chipset, a bit beefier GPU). And I cannot detect any slowdowns in normal scene playback or when using the RS render view. However, when I use the Calculate Fps tool (just press SHIFT + C and type 'FPS'), I experience distorted audio and the view port becomes sightly laggy. This happens with and without your tag, an audio track alone seem to be enough.

Okay, I think I was a bit overly cautious in my answer here. You gave my a very broad question, or to be precise, you gave me a video and a scene file, and did not really ask a precise question. I understand that asking good questions can be hard, especially with a language barrier. But when I have nothing to go by, I of course assume the worst case possible. The scene you have there is a trivial case, even the best case possible. You have there spline segments which lie in a perfect plane and which have no self intersections. You can treat them just like polygons (in the CG sense, not in the mathematical sense) and simply compute their normal over the first three vertices of each segment. Due to the fundamental property of a polygon - reversing the order of the vertices reverses the normal - you can then easily determine if two segments have opposite or equal winding. But all this starts to fall apart, as soon as you cannot make these assumptions. And I cannot help you to write the code for this, as this is then more than just a few lines. Hope this helps, and that I my answer was now less 'overly cautious'. Cheers, Ferdinand Result [image: 1780950951310-85f415e7-7f45-4c00-9651-b4091ee543e2-image.png] The code correctly identifies that in this six segment spline are four segments of one winding direction (clockwise in this case) and two of the other winding direction. winding_direction.c4d Code """Treats spline segments as polygons and compares their plane normals to find segments with reversed winding order. """ import c4d op: c4d.SplineObject # The currently active object in the scene. def main() -> None: """Called by Cinema 4D when the script is being executed. """ if not isinstance(op, c4d.SplineObject): return c4d.gui.MessageDialog("Please select a spline object.") # Get all points in the spline and organize them into their segments. points: list[c4d.Vector] = op.GetAllPoints() segments: list[list[c4d.Vector]] = [] j: int = 0 for i in [op.GetSegment(i)["cnt"] for i in range(op.GetSegmentCount())]: segments.append(points[j:j+i]) j += i if len(segments) < 2: return c4d.gui.MessageDialog("Please select a spline object with at least 2 segments.") # Now build normal data for the spline segments. This assumes: # # - A spline where all points lie in a single plane, a '2D' spline in 3D space. # - No self intersections in the spline. # - A piecewise linear spline, i.e., what Cinema 4D calls a 'Linear' spline. When we have a # 'Cubic' or 'Bezier' spline, we would have make it linear with 'Current State to Object' # first. # # We build the normal for each segment over its three first vertices. The reason why we are doing # this is because of the fundamental identity of a polygon (in a computer graphics sense), # reversing the order of the vertices of a polygon will reverse the normal. So if we have a # spline with two segments with reversed winding order, they will have antiparallel normals (normals # pointing in opposite directions). segmentNormals: list[c4d.Vector] = [] for segment in segments: if len(segment) < 3: print("Segment has less than 3 points, skipping normal calculation.") continue a, b, c = segment[0], segment[1], segment[2] edge1: c4d.Vector = b - a edge2: c4d.Vector = c - b normal: c4d.Vector = edge1.Cross(edge2).GetNormalized() segmentNormals.append(normal) # Now we just declare one segment as 'ground truth' and check if the other segments have normals # that are parallel or antiparallel to it. When we found a segment with an antiparallel normal, we # know we found a segment with reversed winding order. To check if two normals are parallel or # antiparallel, we just compute their dot product (i.e., spanned angle). When the dot product is # negative, the normals are antiparallel. print(f"Establishing the first segment normal {segmentNormals[0]} as ground truth.") baseNormal: c4d.Vector = segmentNormals[0] for i, normal in enumerate(segmentNormals[1:], start=1): isAntiparallel: bool = baseNormal.Dot(normal) < 0 print(f"Segment {i} normal: {normal} is {'antiparallel' if isAntiparallel else 'parallel'} " f"to the base normal {baseNormal}.") if __name__ == '__main__': main()

That is of course also a valid option, just pick the scripting language you are most comfortable with.

I started to work last Friday on a BaseBitmap.InitWithVectorImage. It will for sure not make it into the next release of Cinema 4D, as we are too close to that, and I cannot make any promises when or if it will arrive. But I see value in this especially since I realized that you cannot even really use this in C++, as VectorImageInterface requires access to some internal components to be rasterized.

@ferdinand thanks so much, problem solved!

I do not think that DRAW_ALPHA_FROM_IMAGE should not work. I just picked DRAW_ALPHA_NORMAL because it is the "most default one" out of the DRAW_ALPHA flags. I will have a look later. But you can for now probably just use DRAW_ALPHA_NORMAL.

You very likely have not unpacked your resources. The resource folder found in an installation only contains a part of the application resources (we are doing this since release 2023 if I remember correctly). A good portion of the resources sits inside resource.zip for performance reasons and is unpacked on demand. You can just unpack the resource.zip into you resource folder without an performance or stability issues. [image: 1779175199591-b8e8db94-ae20-42b4-9a5d-e92ac928e89d-image.png] You as an MRD can also look at the Bugslife client, as it is probably the better example, as it uses more features of the quick tab GUI. But my answer above was targeted at a general audience who can see the resources for Bugslife but not Bugslife itself, and it therefore is not a good example for them. Just grep the resource folder as I did in my screen for files that match the path dialogs/*.res (i.e., are res files for dialogs) and contain the word QUICKTAB. Cheers, Ferdinand

Another small tip: you can simply use a single <br> for line breaks — there’s no need to use <b> or </b>. Also, just like in the script example, scripts can support localized language strings as well: """ Name-US:Example Name-CN:示例 Description-US:Example line 1.<br>Example line 2.<br>Example line 3. Description-CN:示例第 1 行。<br>示例第 2 行。<br>示例第 3 行。 """

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()