MacOS C4D Python app questions

subazathoth

Curious.
I'm installing python packages, and noticed...

/Applications/Maxon Cinema 4D 2025/resource/modules/python/libs/python311.macos.framework/python

/Applications/Maxon Cinema 4D 2025/c4dpy.app/Contents/MacOS/c4dpy

What are the differences between these two?
When should I use one over the other?

After installing a few packages, I did a diff of the two, and it was just wheel and tinycss2, and a point version difference in setuptools.

ferdinand

Hey @subazathoth,

Welcome to the Maxon developers forum and its community, it is great to have you with us!

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It is strongly recommended to read the first two topics carefully, especially the section Support Procedures: Asking Questions.

About your First Question

/modules/python/libs/python311.macos.framework/python is the internal CPython installation our interpreter is based on. It is not meant to be run by users, nor will Cinema 4D run the executable found there. /c4dpy.app is the standalone custom Python interpreter shipped with Cinema 4D; which exists in addition to the interpreter built into Cinema 4D itself. c4dpy offers you a REPL like experience you might be accustomed to from the python executable from a vanilla CPython. You can also look at Getting Started or at c4dpy Manual.

Note that our Python interpreter is very similar to CPython but not identical to it. Larger landsmarks of difference are that we remove tkinter, do not support multiprocessing, and are using our own threading. pip is also only semi-supported; although I think @m_adam is changing or already has changed this.

And since you mention tinycss2: I would advise you to seek some high level advice for whatever project you are planning to carry out. I for example would not recommend running a webserver with our Python interpreter. At least when you plan on using one of the popular async(io) based web servers like for example fastapi.

Cheers,
Ferdinand

subazathoth

Thank you for the explanation and references, Ferdinand - Will read.
I was installing packages like numpy, etc, and tinycss2 must have been installed as a dependancy to one of those. No webserver plans
Looking to automate/speed importing, plotting, animating data.

ferdinand

Good to hear. When you want to know more about how to expose libraries, I would recommend reading the Python Libraries Manual, as there are quite a few differences to a vanilla CPython. The guide is a little bit dated, I haven't updated it yet to the pip support Maxime is adding, and I also did not yet cover there mxutils.LocalImportPath.

Cheers,
ferdinand