Create Menu
In this menu you will mainly find the different material types for selection in order to create them as a new material in the Material Manager. Identical selection options are also available to you after clicking and holding on the + symbol in the header area of the Material Manager or via the Redshift menu and its Materials sub-item.
New materials are automatically created at the top, or as the first element in the Material Manager.
What is created as a material when this command is called up is defined via the Preferences settings with the Preset Material setting of the Material section. Auto is selected by default, which means that the appropriate Default Material is created for the selected renderer. For Redshift, this is the Redshift Default Material.
As an alternative to calling this command, simply click on the + symbol in the header area of the Material Manager or double-click in the Material Manager to create a new, preset material.
If you want to create other material types from time to time, you can find them by clicking on the + symbol in the header area of the Material Manager or here in the Create menu in the Materials, Support or even Classic Materials categories. It therefore makes sense to configure Preset material in the Preferences menu for the most frequently required material type.
In general, these are the methods for creating a new, preset material:
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Call the above command.
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Double-click on an empty area of the Material Manager.
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Simply click on the + symbol in the header area of the Material Manager.
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Drag&Drop a bitmap from the Explorer or Finder into the Material Manager.
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Drag & drop a color box or a color field from the color selector into the Material Manager.
This menu is only available if Redshift has been selected as the renderer in the Render Settings. You will find all native Redshift material types here, e.g., to be able to directly call up materials specialized in the representation of car paint, hair or pyro volumes.
An overview of the functions of these materials can be found in this help section.
The Standard and Material entries are the most versatile, as these materials can be used to describe and display many common surfaces. For this reason, the Default material is also selected as a preset material when Cinema 4D is installed, which is created, for example, after double-clicking in the Material Manager or by simply clicking on the + symbol in the header area of the Material Manager. If necessary, this default setting can be adjusted via the Preferences settings under Material/PresetMaterial.
This menu is only available if Redshift has been selected as the renderer in the Render Settings. Here you will find materials optimized for specific tasks. These usually consist of a Default Material on which additional Nodes are already present, e.g., for the calculation of Ambient Occlusion (AO) or the display of color gradients along the UVW coordinates. All of these materials only provide default settings and can therefore also be created manually by adding Nodes to a Default Material.
- AO: A material in which brightness gradients are calculated based on the distances between objects (Ambient Occlusion, or AO for short).
- UVW: The read UVW coordinates of the geometry occupied by this material are converted into RGB color values and color the surface of the object accordingly.
- Noise volume: A Maxon Noise Node varies the brightness of this material and can be individually adjusted in pattern and coloration.
- OSL: An OSL Node controls the surface color of a Default Material. Program code can be executed within the OSL Node to develop your own shaders.
- Substance: This opens a file dialog that you can use to load the .sbsar file of a Substance 3D asset. A Default Material is created with corresponding links to a Substance 3D material Node, which is used to read out the substance properties. Dragging an .sbsar file from the Finder or Explorer to the Cinema 4D interface has the same effect. A Redshift Default Material is created for this substance asset.
Classic materials
Classic materials are the materials intended for the standard/physical renderer, in contrast to the modern Redshift materials. However, Redshift is also able to render some properties of Classic Materials to a limited extent. To be able to use all the possibilities of Redshift, however, you should only work with the native Redshift materials if possible.
Classic Materials that are not based on Nodes and do not perform special functions (such as volumetric shaders or Sketch and PyroCluster materials) can be converted to Nodes for this purpose. You will find the corresponding functions in the Material menu of the Material Manager.
The scope of this menu item also changes slightly depending on the active renderer. If Redshift is active in the Render Settings, only the entries for New Default Material, New Node material and New Hair material are available here.
This command works like New Default Material, except that a physically correct material is created. The color properties of the surface are also displayed via the reflectance of the material. Two levels are created there as standard:
- a diffuse layer that corresponds to the previous (activated) color channel.
- a rough, slightly reflective plane with a Fresnel effect, which virtually takes over the part of the former highlight.
Please note that this is only a preset of the already known and unchanged material system and does not contain any new functionality.
When using physical material, it is also advisable to use 
PBR Light (two-dimensional, inverse square decrease in brightness, visible in rendering and reflections).
The Physical material works with all Maxon renderers. With the older renderers, however, rendering times will be longer than with the old Default Material (partly due to the reflections, including the matt part).
This creates a Default Material based on material channels for classic renderers. A large part of these properties can also be interpreted by the Redshift renderer, but there are some limitations, e.g., if shaders are used within the material. If you want to render with Redshift, you should therefore also give preference to native Redshift material.
This refers to classic Node materials. Their Nodes are not compatible with Redshift's shader graph or Node materials. When rendering with Redshift, you should therefore use its own Node materials.
A classic Node material consists of at least two individual Nodes: a material Node and a Node that feeds it and controls the surface reflection behavior.
These Node materials are intended for advanced users, as you have to compile the material yourself from the numerous existing Nodes.
Double-click on the newly created Classic Node material to open the Node Editor.
Despite the use of Nodes, this material type is also one of the Classic Materials that are only supported by Redshift to a limited extent. It is therefore best to only use these materials if you also want to work with the Standard or Physical renderer.
The result is a Node-based but easy-to-use material whose channels are based on those of a Default Material or a Physical material. As with older versions of the program, a Uber material can be operated via the Attribute Manager or, after double-clicking on the preview area of the material in the Material Manager, also in the Material Editor. In reality, however, the Uber material consists of a complex network of material Nodes, which can also be viewed via the Node Editor. Therefore, the excess material can also be configured directly in the Node Editor. To do this, select the Uber material in the Material Manager and select
Right-click on the Uber Material Node and select Edit asset from the context menu to take a look at the Node structure of the material.
The Uber material is therefore a so-called material asset, i.e., a stored and encapsulated arrangement of material Nodes. You can also create and edit assets like this yourself in the Node Editor.
Details of this special material can be found under Uber Material.
Some notes on Node materials
- The size of the textures baked for OpenCL can be set as usual with Texture: Preview size (View tab). When changing Node values, it takes a moment for the textures to be baked before they can be displayed in the view. A progressive algorithm is used, which first displays smaller and then larger textures. You can switch off this gradual view enhancement (the defined texture size is then baked directly) if you activate the Animate Textures option in the same locatio.
- Node materials no longer require the old, outdated Material tag options of Add Texture or Use UVW for Bump.
Classic special materials
Here you will find some materials for special functionalities such as Sketch and Toon or Hair. Some of these materials are generated automatically if you use the corresponding functionality, e.g., via commands (e.g., Hair) or the Render Settings (e.g., Sketch). Others must be called explicitly here (e.g., PyroCluster).
Use this to create a new grass material (also known as Architectural Grass ).
This is used to create a Hair material.
Calling this command creates a PyroCluster material.
Use this to call up a new Pyrocluster VolumeTracer material.
If you would like to insert shadows into image material, the Shadow Catcher will serve you well.
Use this to create a Sketch material.
Extensions (only when using the Standard or Physical renderer)
This menu contains the Cinema 4D volume shaders. A description of these shaders can be found under 3D volume shaders.
Node material presets (only when using Standard or Physical renderer)
Under this menu item you will find some supplied Node material presets such as wood, metal, concrete, plastic, ceramic etc. for the Standard/Physical renderer. These materials are composed of completely normal Nodes. You can also view these materials for practice and learning purposes in the Node Editor (click on the Node Editor button of the Node material, then right-click on the Node and select Edit Asset).
Other commands
This function loads saved materials. You can also reload materials from another scene without having to open the scene. Then enter the name of the scene instead of a saved material. All materials in it are added to the current material list.
However, you need to be careful with textures:
Cinema 4D searches for all textures here. If the textures are not found there, an error message is displayed during rendering.
If you receive Cinema 4D scenes that you have not created yourself, they should always be saved with Save project incl. assets. This ensures that you always have the required textures available.
This function saves the active materials to the hard disk. A system dialog for saving files appears. With Add, you can load the material into another scene.
This function saves all materials of the active project in a file on the hard disk. For example, you can create material libraries. With Add, you can load the materials into another scene.