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The user interface

This section shows you how to configure the Cinema 4D interface. This includes, for example, integrating windows into the user interface, creating your own icon command palettes or changing menu entries.

Restoring the standard layouts

You can restore the start layout at any time by selecting Standard (the default layout) or Start (if you have previously defined your own start layout) at the top right of the main menu.

Working with layouts

In addition to the conveniences that Cinema 4D already offers, there are a number of ways to customize the program so that it is perfectly adapted to your needs. The main areas include:

The various Cinema 4D start files are explained below. At this point, the handling of different screen layouts, the interfaces for daily work, will be dealt with.

No matter what you do to speed up the workflow in Cinema 4D, you should only ever make a few specific changes.

First assign a maximum of five of your own keyboard shortcuts, for example. As you work, you will get used to the shortcuts and learn them, and you will also find out which other functions you need so frequently that these should also be assigned a shortcut. Proceed in the same way in the other workflow areas - a few changes at the same time.

What is the point of being able to create your own working environment? Well, first of all, we are happy to admit that we are not omniscient - in particular, of course, we don't know how you prefer to work. Do you prefer icon or text toolbars, should the Material Manageralways be open or would you prefer the timeline? Of course, we could activate everything that is possible, but that would not help anyone. For example, when starting Cinema 4D for the first time, you would be knocked off your feet by the many windows, icons, menus, functions and options. Of course, you then called us to get further advice - apart from that ... you couldn't call it a workflow by any stretch of the imagination.

Far more important, however, is the fact that you as a company can enable several employees to work in their own individually designed environment. Anyone who has ever had to sit down at a colleague's computer to work on it knows what we mean. (In which directory, on which hard disk was the word processor?)

But not only that, each user can also use several layouts to create the right environment for each special case. It would be conceivable to have separate layouts, one for modeling (with the Structure and Material Manageropen) and another specifically for animating (without the structure and/or material manager, but with the timeline and recording icon bars open).

Of course, it is best to start with the default that we present to you at the first start. Work with it and observe yourself. Where do you reach most often? Can this be placed more centrally in the Viewport? Try to optimize (i.e. shorten) mouse paths. If you have to constantly move back and forth between the top left and bottom right corners of the screen on a 21-inch monitor with a resolution of 1600 x 1200 pixels, you can pin a medal for performance to your chest in the evening with a clear conscience - the doctor will fix your tennis elbow ...

You can find out what you need to do and what options are available to you in the flexible layout of Cinema 4D on the subpages of this page.

The functions for managing layouts can be found in the Window menu under Customize.

Switch R2L

For Arabic-speaking users: You will find the command Switch R to L in the Command Manager. This mirrors the entire Cinema 4D layout as well as the menus, all text arrangements, icons, icon bars, manager layouts, etc. This means that the layout is right-aligned and supports the Arabic writing and reading direction from right to left. Selecting the command again will switch back again.

The program language itself is still defined at Language (which, however, also switches the layout accordingly).

Special initialization files

Cinema 4D knows several special files, some of which are called up when the program is started and whose contents are integrated into the current user interface.

By default, these files should be located in your operating system-dependent user folder (you can easily find this by clicking on the Open Directory button at the bottom of the program preferences).

For the system administrators among you, there is a way to change this path using an environment variable.

In addition to the options listed below for saving standard scenes or standard layouts, any scene can also be specified as a standard scene directly in the Files section of the Preferences menu.

Template.c4d

This file is automatically loaded at startup with all the settings defined in it.

This is very effective, for example, if you always use the same scene-specific presets (e.g., a specific render preset or always the same frame rate) for your scenes.

You can find an overview of all the presets that are saved here under Preferences.

New.c4d

See Save as preset scene.

Template.l4d

This file is automatically loaded when Cinema 4D is started and the layout defined in it is created.

You can create this file by calling up the Window / Customize / Save as start layout function from the main menu bar.