BAD HOMBURG, Germany, Sep 14, 2023 – Maxon, developers of professional software solutions for editors, filmmakers, motion designers, visual effects artists and creators of all types, is thrilled to announce the highly anticipated September release with updates for nearly all Maxon products. Cinema 4D 2024 is better than ever – with massive performance improvements in interactive playback, enhancements to Rigid Body simulations and a more “art-directable” Pyro workflow. With Trapcode 2024, artists can now create realistic thermal dynamics with the new Combustion feature and create particle tracks with Stroke from Parent. VFX 2024 opens up a new dimension in lighting control and includes several enhancements to the popular Real Lens Flares. With Magic Bullet 2024, color correction is easier than ever – plus a host of new presets give artists more creative freedom. Universe 2024 also sees numerous workflow improvements and offers new presets. Redshift offers more creative freedom when using the MatCap and Distorter shaders as well as performance improvements on multi-core CPUs. As a special treat for Maxon One subscribers comes our most comprehensive drop of Maxon Capsules to this date, including a new spline modifier by Rocket Lasso, Redshift Metal and Car Paint materials, as well as 3D models ready to use for interior and exterior visualization.

Cinema 4D 2024

Cinema 4D 2024 provides unmatched speed and performance for the most sophisticated creative scenes. Rigid Body Simulations can now interact with all existing forces, pyro, cloth and soft bodies. Pyro shines with a hot new feature that allows fire to be emitted from particles and matrices. And the new Vertex Normal tools offer artists unparalleled precision to perfect surfaces.

• Cinema 4D 2024 is more than twice as fast as previous versions – through the power of Maxon’s brand new core that optimizes speed and performance.
• Thanks to the addition of Rigid Body Simulations to Cinema 4D’s Unified Simulation System, solid objects can now interact with all simulation types in the scene – be it soft bodies, cloth, ropes or Pyro.
• Pyro now offers more precise controls for artists to art direct their simulation and ensure it matches their vision. By adding the Pyro tag to standard particle emitters, thinking particle geometries and matrix cloners, they can now emit Pyro. This enables artists to create filmic scenes with fire, smoke trails and explosions or visualize beautiful fireworks in the night sky. With the help of UpRes, creatives can use a lower resolution simulation for quicker turnarounds during the art direction and concepting stage of a project and then render the simulation in full quality for final output.
• Cinema 4D 2024 introduces new vertex normal controls that give artists full control over adjusting vertex and polygon normals to remove shading artifacts.
• The new modeling tools in Cinema 4D 2024 will make handling complex tasks a breeze. Select Pattern allows artists to repeat a selection on the surface of the mesh with one click. Projection Deformer gives users quick control and lets them move points from one object to another in any direction.
• The Node UI in Cinema 4D 2024 has been revamped. Apart from improving the overall look, the new Notes feature shines with direct annotations in the Node Editor that artists can use to document their nodal network.

Red Giant 2024

The latest updates for Red Giant include updates to the Trapcode, Magic Bullet, VFX and Universe toolsets. Trapcode 2024 allows artists to create realistic thermal dynamics thanks to the Particular Fluid Dynamics Simulation extension. VFX 2024 opens up a new dimension in lighting control and includes several enhancements to the popular Real Lens Flares. With Magic Bullet 2024, color correction is easier than ever – plus a host of new presets give designers more creative freedom. And Universe 2024 offers a great number of new presets.

Additionally, all tools in Red Giant are now available in Chinese and Japanese, making it easier for artists to get started using the software in their native language.

Trapcode 2024

• Combustion is a new subset of parameters within the Particular Fluid Dynamics group and adds realistic thermodynamic properties to the simulation. Combustion allows artists to create convincing pyrotechnics directly in After Effects – for example, lighting an unlit torch in an actor’s hand with flames that react realistically to position data.
• Stroke from Parent is a new emitter type option and an alternative to Emit from Parent. Since Stroke from Parent behaves more like a 3D Stroke, artists can create a seamless trace behind a parent particle.

VFX 2024

• With the 2D+Distance feature, artists can add dimension to their scene through changing the distance of the light source in Z-space. The Distance Affects Size and Size Affects Brightness parameters can change the appearance of the flare during movement. Ideal for adding flares to dramatic shots of objects moving towards the camera.
• Light Control allows artists to precisely position and control the flare in 3D tracked scenes based on AE Lights.
• Ring Projection brings back cool 1970s and 80s flare styles, allowing filmmakers to mimic the look of iconic movies like Blade Runner.
• Artists will benefit from improved performance when enabling Draft mode for the layer to which Real Lens Flares is applied in After Effects. Work and animate fast at a lower resolution, while still getting the full quality in the final render.
• Thanks to the new Schmutz Background Illumination, Schmutz can now be illuminated by the brightness values of a shot or a light source, allowing for a more seamless and realistic integration into footage.

Magic Bullet 2024

• With over 30 new presets, which range from film looks, music videos to fashion films and vlogging, Maxon further simplifies the workflow in Magic Bullet 2024, allowing artists to be even more creative with inspiration they get from Capsules.
• After Effects users now benefit from synchronized OCIO color management. Setting up color management can be complicated – that’s why Looks saves settings after the setup in After Effects, so the user doesn’t have to perform color management twice and can concentrate completely on the creative aspects.

Universe 2024

• Universe 2024 excels with new Capsules with over 50+ new presets, giving video editors and compositors an easier workflow and fueling their creativity.

Redshift

Redshift 3.5.19 adds several input image adjustment features to the MatCap shader, the Distorter shader now supports 3D distortion from Maxon Noise and 2D distortion for bump maps, and Redshift CPU performance on systems with more than 12 CPU threads has been improved.

• The MatCap shader has received additional adjustment parameters allowing users to prepare beautiful illustrative renders from their own digital sketches. Ideal to quickly create simple, stylized renderings
• The Distorter node now supports 3D distortion using Maxon Noise. This means that Distortion is no longer limited to color texture inputs and 3D distortion of the popular Maxon Noise node and distortion of bump maps is now possible. Use both options independently to distort surface effects on a mesh without distorting any other shader parameters
• On systems running CPUs with 12 threads or more, render buckets will automatically run concurrently. This will improve performance and accelerate rendering on multi-core CPUs. As bucket splitting has no effect on CPUs with less than 12 threads, the feature will automatically turn off on these CPUs.
• Basic Jitter Node support was added to Redshift in Blender. Use the Jitter Node to quickly vary shader attributes across a large number of assets.

Capsules

The latest additions to Capsules, Maxon’s collection of tailor-made assets to help artists kickstart their projects, include a new spline modifier for simulating wires and ropes, a total of 50 new Redshift materials, our next pack of Laubwerk trees and plants as well as 16 Home Decor models and numerous glassware updated to Redshift.

• The new Catenary Spline Modifier created by Rocket Lasso makes it easy to create hanging wires, ropes and cables. Exclusive to Maxon One subscribers, this modifier can be paired with the Break Spline Modifier to create bundles of hanging wires that bunch together at random intervals. Dropping the result in the Volume Mesher creates wonderfully disgusting tendrils of dangling slime.
• Break Spline Modifier by Rocket Lasso, which acts as a deformer for splines, received three additional example scenes.
• We have added a comprehensive collection of Redshift materials created by visualization experts Fuchs & Vogel: This latest material drop contains 32 Redshift Metal materials ranging from rough gold to smudged nickel as well as 18 Redshift Car Paint materials that leave nothing to be desired: there’s everything from rental car pearl, to matte black, to iridescent flaked reds that change with the viewing angle.
• Ready to use in exterior visualizations, the Capsules library of plants now includes 52 additional models by Laubwerk. Among them are numerous variations of the Mediterranean Cypress, Umbrella Tree or the Virginian Witch-Hazel, comprehensive enough to make any botanist’s heart beat faster.
• Handy to use in any interior visualization comes a set of Home Decor models featuring 10 chairs, three coat racks and three wine racks.

About Maxon

Maxon makes powerful, yet approachable software solutions for content creators working in 2D and 3D design, motion graphics, visual effects and visualization. Maxon’s innovative product portfolio helps artists supercharge their creative workflows. Our product lines include the award-winning Cinema 4D suite of 3D modeling, simulation and animation technology; the creativity-on-the-go Forger mobile sculpting app; the diverse Red Giant lineup of revolutionary editing, motion design and filmmaking tools; the leading-edge, blazingly fast Redshift renderer; and ZBrush, the industry-standard digital sculpting and painting solution. Maxon’s team is comprised of fun, passionate people who believe in building and empowering a successful artistic community. From our popular, inclusive events to our free Cineversity educational resources, Maxon recognizes that developing strong connections with creatives and fostering their professional growth is integral to our ability to stay on top of industry trends and better serve customers. Maxon is part of the Nemetschek Group.