HOW DO I USE SYMMETRY IN CINEMA 4D 2023?
Mike Griggs replies
Cinema 4D has long had a well-deserved reputation for being one of the most accessible 3D applications for artists to get into, with a robust parametric modelling system, an industry-leading motion graphics suite, first-party integration with one of the industry’s leading render engines in Redshift, and full connectivity with applications such as Adobe After Effects.
However, it has also had a longundeserved reputation for not being as strong as many of its peers. This has not been the case for many versions, as
Cinema 4D has a wide range of advanced modelling tools to allow practically any geometry to be made and textured.
There was always one area that Cinema 4D lagged in: symmetry modelling. The system involved placing half a mesh within a Symmetry object, which would then create the other half of the object mesh and allow the artist to work that way. This clunky method was unlike other 3D applications where symmetry would just work in a logical on/off manner. The most frustrating part was that the sculpting toolset in Cinema 4D did have a reasonably robust conventional symmetry system, which couldn’t be applied to the standard modelling toolset.
The latest Cinema 4D 2023 release finally brings a dedicated conventional symmetry system to the software. It has been worth the wait. Sitting proudly at the top of the 2023 toolbar, Symmetry in Cinema 4D offers a logical planar symmetry system that works in all modes and can be set to work automatically, or be adjusted by the artist to a wide range of options both local to the object or globally to the scene space.
Alongside the conventional planar symmetry is an artist-defined topological system, which enables symmetry to work quickly on a model that has been posed non-symmetrically, which won’t work with the planar symmetry system, but still has an even topology. A new Symmetrize command is also available. It either works in conjunction with the Symmetry tool settings or can define its own parameters. The legacy Symmetry object is still in Cinema 4D, so old scenes will work fine. With the new Symmetry system, Cinema 4D is finally equal to any modelling task.