Speedyshop > CINEMA 4D > About XL

CINEMA 4D XL is the flagship of the fleet, packed with the kind of high-end modelling, animation and rendering tools that are demanded by modern film and video professionals.

Extended modelling features, including NURBS, enable you to easily create organic objects in realtime. Enhanced animation features, including bones, enable you to animate characters quickly, easily and accurately. Transform your animation with the superb particle system that allows even animated objects to be particles. Deform objects without altering their original geometry with XL's flexible FFD cages.

All these features and more, plus CINEMA 4D's famous speed and stability across all platforms.

No doubt it, with Hollywood-driven features such as MIP and SAT mapping, realtime texture mapping in the editor, multi-processor support, batch rendering and the highest broadcast-quality output, XL truly is life in the fast lane.

rendering
Automatically takes advantage of up to 16 processors; batch rendering; prime-time capacity; ultrafast raytracing; cartoon renderer; integrated alpha channel; MIP and SAT mapping; broadcast quality antialiasing up to 16x16; output size up to 16,000 by 16,000 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.

nurbs
Sweep, rotate, extrude, loft and bezier NURBS in realtime; interactive NURBS editing; NURBS to Polygon Surface Object conversion for fine-tuning resolution.

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; volumetric landscapes; 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 number of animation tracks and effects per object; unlimited number of textures 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.

free form deformations
FFDs on every object is possible; targeted effects for selected objects; deformed objects maintain their base geometry; an animated object can be turned into a new object.

editor
Realtime texture mapping; 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.

particle system
Any object can be a particle; randowm sequence when more than one object is applied; animated objects can be particles; superb range of modifiers includes attractor, turbulence, wind, gravity, friction, reflector, destroyer, rotator; realtime modification visible in the editor; animated particles may be emitted with a random initial stage.

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.

bones
Bones can be applied to all objects; interactive realtime control of effective radii; bones can be moved with inverse kinematics; the editor doesn't slow down, even with complex skeletons; once defined, a skeleton may be applied to other objects.

animation
Animation special effects (with realtime editor preview) include bend, explode, formulae, morph, pulsate, melt, shatter, taper, twist, wind; many morph and fading effects; 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); space control for precise control of space/time graphs.

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.

browser
Catalogues an unlimited number of folders (recursively); recognises AVI, MOV, PICT, BMP, IFF, TIFF, TGA, JPEG, DXF, DEM files, CINEMA 4D, Illustrator (AI), Imagine, LightWave (objects, scenes), 3DMF, 3D Studio, Wavefront, VRML 1, VRML 2; thumbnail size can be configured; easy to use drag-and-drop interface.

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.