Cinema 4D Tip: Cinema 4D PBR Workflow Essentials

Adopt a modern PBR workflow in Cinema 4D to achieve predictable, renderer-consistent materials across viewport, Redshift, and final renders.

Core principles:

• Use the Metallic/Roughness standard. Metals carry color in reflection (Base Color = metal color, no diffuse); dielectrics keep Base Color for diffuse and reflect a neutral color via Fresnel.
• Respect energy conservation. Keep reflectance physically plausible; avoid stacking multiple high-energy layers without purpose.
• Honor correct color spaces per map:
  • Base Color/Albedo: sRGB
  • Metallic, Roughness, Normal, Height/Displacement, Cavity/AO: Non-Color (linear)

Cinema 4D setup checklist:

• Project/Color Management: Enable Linear Workflow; if using OCIO/ACES, set the OCIO config and view transform for consistent previews.
• Material type:
  • Redshift Standard Material: set BRDF to GGX; use Metalness workflow.
  • Standard/Physical (Reflectance): single GGX layer with proper Fresnel IOR; minimize legacy specular layers.
• Texture import: tag albedo as sRGB; set data maps (Roughness/Metal/Normal/Height) to Non-Color. For tangent-space normals, ensure the correct convention:
  • OpenGL normals: keep Y positive
  • DirectX normals: invert Y channel
• Fresnel/IOR: use ~1.5 for common dielectrics; use measured complex IOR (n,k) for hero metals where supported.

Map hygiene and conversions:

• Glossiness to Roughness: Roughness = 1 − Gloss.
• Spec/Gloss to Metal/Rough: derive metalness from F0 and base color; convert carefully or use trusted tools; avoid guessing for production assets.
• AO: multiply in the diffuse/albedo leg only, not the specular path; do not bake AO into Base Color when you need lighting-agnostic textures.

Lighting and validation:

• Use a neutral HDRI plus a key light; keep exposure constant when judging materials.
• Include reference spheres (chrome, gray 18%, white) to check response and exposure.
• Match scene scale; roughness and displacement appearance depend on real units.

Displacement and microdetail:

• Prefer 16/32-bit height/displacement maps to avoid banding.
• Combine Normal + Displacement: Displacement for silhouette change; Normal for high-frequency detail.
• Set reasonable roughness bounds (e.g., 0.02–0.9) to avoid fully mirror or fully diffuse extremes unless intentional.

Debugging and consistency:

• Use AOVs/Utility passes (Albedo, Roughness, Metalness, Normals) to diagnose shading.
• Try Material Override/Clay renders to isolate lighting issues.
• Leverage Render Region/Progressive for fast iteration.

Exporting/baking for real-time and DCC handoff:

• Use Bake Texture/AOVs to generate BaseColor, Metallic, Roughness, Normal (tangent), and Height maps.
• Keep names consistent: name_set_BaseColor, _Metallic, _Roughness, _Normal, _Height.
• Validate color space on export: sRGB for Base Color only; others as Linear/Raw.

Tooling and sourcing:

• Get Cinema 4D and Redshift from NOVEDGE and NOVEDGE for reliable licensing and support.
• Explore add-ons and pipeline tools via NOVEDGE to round out your PBR toolkit.

You can find all the Cinema 4D products on the NOVEDGE web site at this page.