I created a short series of getting started videos for anyone just starting out developing C++ plugins for Cinema 4D. I hope you find them useful.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEPTxkpDVvX0r292yn8xL39Cm3Wi3E69i

Hi everyone,

I have released a plugin I use to create documentation for my plugins.

The plugin is free. Currently available for R20 for Windows. I will add an OSX version if people ask for it.

https://www.plugins4d.com/docs

If you use it for anything let me know. Also if you have any features requests then send them my way.

Cheers,
Kent

Try using the absolute path to where your sdk is: /Users/YourName/Documents/C4D/sdk

https://developers.maxon.net/docs/Cinema4DCPPSDK/html/page_maxonapi_projecttool.html

g_updateproject: Defines the folder the tool should work on. Currently the tool only accepts absolute paths. This is typically the location of the SDK including frameworks and plugins. See SDK Overview.

You can use SetPluginPriority to tell your plugins to load in a specific order. IE tell some plugins to load after others have been loaded. Useful in cases where one of your plugins may register a library that your other plugins need to access as they start up.

@zipit I also want to say that the amount of time you contribute here to help out developers is very generous of you. You are doing an amazing job. I would hope that Maxon would actually pay you some retainer fee for your time or at least provide you with a free subscription for all the help you have given everyone here.

Yesterday I helped someone out with a question. Now they have marked it as deleted. The only reason I would help out on this forum is to help everyone and add to the knowledge pool here in this forum.

So please... do NOT delete your post if you received the answer you were looking for.

I just found that in S22 they have inverted the behaviour of a flag for GetAllAssets.

In R21 there existed a flag ASSETDATA_FLAG::MISSING.

From S22 onwards the functionality of this flag has been inverted and it is now called ASSETDATA_FLAG::NOMISSING.

The problem is that it sets the exact same bit.

So if you have a plugin that is compiled against R21 and your users use it in S22 then your code will not be getting the missing assets anymore, since this bit is set (if you use the MISSING flag) and it will now mean DO NOT get missing assets.

Compiling against the S22 SDK and removing the MISSING flag will fix your bugs if you have any.

Just something to watch out for if anyone is hearing of problems from your users relating to gather up assets. Mainly applies to people writing renderers and dealing with textures and materials.

Cheers,
Kent

I keep seeing comments from the sdk team telling people to please add tags to their posts.

Instead I would recommend you split the "Cinema 4D Development" category back into two like it was, C++ and Python.

Then if someone posts into C++ just add the C++ tag automatically. Likewise for Python.

I myself used to like coming in here and quickly see if there is any C++ questions I can help out on. This new combined approach makes that more difficult so I am no longer doing this. Yes I know I can click on a tag to see all posts, but thats just one more required hunt and click.

I used to really enjoy browsing through plugin cafe, just as much as I did cgtalk or c4dcafe. But this new look and the way it is organized it doesn't feel as nice. Super large fonts and text, images etc... means hardly any information on a single screen. So its hard to quickly see and browse through. But it looks like lots of sites are going this way, which is a shame. I am looking at all these forums less and less now because of this. Maybe I am just old, but I like my concise compact views with loads of info, rather than having to go through pages and pages (or worse this horrible endless scrolling mechanism sites have adopted) of oversized text and clunky cells. On top of that, actually creating this post is painful with this split view and only taking up a tiny part of my screen. But thats another issue.

This site used to feel like a community. But now it feels more like what I guess it was originally designed for... that being an SDK support site. So its almost like this site is a forum based version of a ticketing system like zendesk or freshdesk.

Anyway, this is my vote to move back to two categories. That at least would help.

I am not exactly sure how it works in Python but I will give you a run down of how Global Variables work in C++.

If you set a global variable in C++, and you are using it in a Generator Object, then that variable will be exactly the same in every object in every document that you have open. So if you change the value of it on any object (again in any document you have opened) it will be changed across everything. That is the definition of a global variable. It is global, it is the same everywhere.

Now it may not work exactly like this in python depending on how it is setup in C4D. But in general it is a bad idea to use this for ay variable in something like a generator object.

So even though it might be working for now in a basic test scene, it will come back to bite you once you use it for anything more complex, such as two or more objects.

It all comes down to what it is that you are trying to achieve and what this data is that you are using in a global variable.

In C++ you could use a SceneHook to hold scene wide data. But I don't think that is in Python yet, so the best option to use scene wide data is to use a PluginID as your way to access that data in the preferences for your scene.

For storing a matrix value to compare why don't you just use a local variable in the generator object itself?

Also I would avoid using the word "Save" when you discuss this data, since "saving" and "persistent" mean writing data to disk. And that is not what you are doing. But if you did want to save the value then just make the matrix a description in the resource files for your object generator and access it using the BaseContainer. Then it will be saved automatically.

Cheers,
Kent

Just came across a bug that took me about 2 hours to figure out.

1. Create a AutoAlloc<GeListHead> and add some child nodes. Store this in a GeDialog.
2. In your GeDialog create a TreeView. Set the TreeViewCustomGui->SetRoot( mygelisthead->GetFirst(), &treeviewfuncs, this));
3. In your TreeViewFunctions::GetFirst() { return root;}
4. When setting your treeview layouts, add a checkbox. layout.SetInt32(TREE_COLUMNS_CHECK, LV_CHECKBOX);
5. Implement the functions for IsChecked and SetCheck
6. Run your code and when you click on the checkbox it will enter an endless loop somewhere in the c4dplugins code.

The reason for this is (2). Instead of calling SetRoot(mygelisthead->GetFirst()...). I should have just passed in the GeListHead.

Then for (3) I should have returned the First element: GeListHead op = (GeListHead)root; return op->GetFirst();

With these changes it works, but that took a while to figure out.

@m_magalhaes said in Larger BaseMaterial Preview Renders:

The function looks like this. As you can see the progressRef and progressIndex are passed arguments. While BASEBITMAP_DATA_PROGRESSHOOK looks like you just need to pass a function (here a lambda), i still don't know what the context is good for. Sorry i don't have enough time to investigate more and give you a better answer. I will try to find more time this week.

Be aware that this is marked as Private and "hack". So, it could change in the futur.

Thanks. Looks like I was passing in the ProgressHook correctly but still for some reason I do not get any callbacks to it. Perhaps it is because I am not passing in an actual document filename, not sure. But I am still getting the correct renders back even though my ProgressHook does not get called, just would have been nice to see the progress on larger images.

The context in this situation would have been great for me to let me set the progress in my progress dialog. So that is what it is useful for.

It is fine that it is private and may change, I am only using this for internal tools to generate images, IE not a customer facing tool.

Thanks for the help.

@m_magalhaes said in Larger BaseMaterial Preview Renders:

Progress hook can be defined to the basebitmap, BASEBITMAP_DATA_PROGRESSHOOK and BASEBITMAP_DATA_PROGRESSHOOK_CTX must be defined.

Would you be able to show me exactly how these should be used? And what the Function declaration passed to BASEBITMAP_DATA_PROGRESSHOOK should look like?

Thanks!
Kent

I actually sell a plugin that lets you specify a python file to run on startup but before the scene loads. And it also can call another python file after a scene loads. This is mainly used by Render Farms.

https://plugins4d.gumroad.com/l/callpython

You would start C4D like this

c:\Program Files\Maxon Cinema 4D R25\Cinema 4D.exe -runpython "F:\createcube.py"

That is exactly what I am looking for @m_magalhaes , thanks! I will test this later today. Although it looks like I need to pass in a document path and am wondering how I could possibly use whatever internal document that the renderers are using. Since in cases like Octane (and now I believe Redshift) they do not ship with any "library/materialpreview" c4d files at all. I will try passing an empty filename and see what happens.

I think I should be able to make a direct call to the Material using Message() with the following data filled out.

MatPreviewGenerateImage* image = (MatPreviewGenerateImage* )data;

I am going to try this now but if this is not recommended then please let me know. This may require me to make calls to other "MATPREVIEW_XXXX" messages as well, since ideally I want to use the default scene supplied by the renderer itself and not have to pass in my own document.

Is it possible to create a render of a material at a higher resolution? Can I make a call that would allow me to get an image at 512x512 from BaseMaterial->GetPreview()?

Also you need a new R25 tag so we can tag our posts accordingly.

You should definitely be using the built in language system that C4D has. You have string files in your resource folder. One for each language that you want to support. Then C4D handles all this for you and will use the appropriate string file depending what language C4D is set to use (which you change via the preferences->Interface section). This is what @ferdinand posted already above, I just wanted to re-iterate this.

@m_magalhaes so what your saying is there is absolutely no way for a developer to create a drag drop event at all for gradients.

I would like to formally request a way to allow us to drop a Gradient, or list of GradientKnots, onto a Gradient in the UI.

DRAGTYPE_GRADIENT

Cheers,
Kent

Thanks. The only time I pass true is when I want the memory to be deleted by the internals of the Filename. Otherwise I always leave it false since it is data I create and own. So it is doing what I expect it to which is great to know. And the docs should be updated to simply state that when true the Filename takes ownership of the data and will be deleted when it goes out of scope. The rest of the notes in that paragraph are not required.

Note that I have asked this question before but I got no answer. So I am asking again to try to get a clear answer.

What data do I need to pass into GeUserArea::HandleMouseDrag so that I can allow dragging and dropping my own gradients onto a Gradient?

I have a list of GradientKnots. I want to allow dragging and dropping of this data into a Gradient.

What should the DRAGTYPE be? And what should the data be?

Thanks,
Kent

edit: The mentioned previous topic [ added by @ferdinand ]