rendering
Prime-time capacity; ultrafast raytracing; cartoon renderer; broadcast quality antialiasing up to 4x4; output size up to full S-VHS PAL resolution (768 by 576 pixels).
photorealism
Adaptive antialiasing; authentic light refraction; authentic reflections; adjustable film format; adjustable pixel ratio; support for internal/external alpha and depth channels; support for external scripts/programs; depth of field; lens effects; glow effects; volumetric effects; object motion blur; scene motion blur; picture filters (soft filter, mid filter, etc.); QuickTime VR panoramas and animation.
material system
Expandable material library; choice of projection types includes spherical, cylindrical, flat, cubic, frontal, spatial, uv-mapping, shrink-wrapping; glow; displacement mapping; 12 material channels; procedural 2D/3D shaders include brick, cloud, cyclone, fire, flame, galaxy, gradient, marble, neptune, noise, saturn, saturnring, starfield, sunburst, turbulence, uranus, water, colour, earth, metal, rust, terrain, venus, wood, volumetric fog; additive textures; interactive texture placement on objects; movies, AVIs or individual picture sequences as animated textures.
no limits
Unlimited number of objects, cameras, light sources; up to 0.1 billion points per object; unlimited textures per project.
objects
More than 50 primitives, including platonic bodies, spline objects (e.g. spirals, cycloids, technical profiles), special objects (e.g. fractal, relief map), formula splines, TrueType and PostScript Type 1 fonts, foreground and background objects, light sources, cameras, floor and sky.
editor
Choice of measurement system and units; background picture display in the editor; fully integrated points editor with powerful magnet function; bevels; OpenGL/QuickDraw 3D Rave support; virtual walkthrough function; individual and 4-side views; configurable interface; Boolean operations; coordinates manager for numerical data input; object manager with hierarchy overview; web-ready through logically consistent VRML support (e.g. input of URL addresses); isometric and axonometric camera projections.
light sources
Parallel and divergent; soft light cone; hard and soft shadows; visible light; dust effect; volumetric light; lens effects with more than 40 glow and reflex presets; lens effects editor; sun simulation; automatic light facility; ambient (environment) light.
character animation
Inverse kinematics with angle limits, damping and anchor; skeleton mode; authentic hierarchy division.
animation
Timeline-based animation for positioning, scaling and rotating objects or entire object groups; time manager for precise, interactive keyframing; timeline for animation preview and editing (numerical and drag-and-drop).
import and export
CINEMA 4D; Direct 3D (export); DXF; QuickDraw 3D; VRML 1; VRML 2; 3D Studio R4; Wavefront; DEM (import); Adobe Illustrator (import); Lightwave (import); Imagine (import); TIFF; TGA; BMP (Win); PICT (Mac); IFF; JPEG; AVI (Win); MOV (Mac).
coffee
Integrated programming language for plug-in development; object-oriented structure; high execution speed; platform-independent COFFEE plug-ins can be exchanged across all platforms without modification; optional developer kit available for registered developers; free plug-ins available via the internet.
technology
Currently runs under Win9x, WinNT, MacOS (PowerMacinstosh); program elements run completely independently of one another, enabling background rendering; based on the latest programming techniques; memory-friendly and extremely fast.