The Commander

General

You can call up the Commander by pressing Shift+C or by clicking on the magnifying glass icon at the top of the left palette on the CINEMA 4D interface.

The Commander lets you access commands, objects, tools, tags, scripts, as well as all assets without having to wade through managers and menus. Just enter the name or parts of it into the Commander and immediately all elements will be displayed (incl. existing keyboard shortcuts) to which the letter combination applies. You do not have to worry about upper or lower case, currently not executable elements are displayed grayed out. For some terms consisting of several words, they can be enclosed in quotation marks to find exactly this string (e.g., "Team Render" or type: "scene objects"). Also, to distinguish between "mode" and "model", for example, quotation marks are useful.

The Commander works context-dependent by default: for example, the hits are sorted depending on which manager - by the way, this is displayed in the window title bar - or mode is active.

Example: You search for "glass". If the commander was called up in the:

• Material Manager: glass materials are listed first.
• Object manager: glass objects are listed first.

So the Commander tries to give you the most intelligent way to put the appropriate elements at the beginning of the hit list. In dong so, grayed-out elements, for example, will also tend to be positioned at the end of the list.

You can also define favorites (Heart icon), they would be listed higher in the list.

As a logical operator "|" ("or") works, i.e., if you enter cube|ball, all elements will be found to which "cube" or "ball" applies. Of course, there is also the "and" operator, but for this a simple blank is enough: cube ball finds elements to which both apply.

Interactive operation

The following can be done with the search hit list:

• Selected elements with a blue background (multiple selection possible) can be called using Return. Depending on their type, useful things happen: e.g., tags are assigned to selected objects, objects are created, etc. Alternatively, you can double-click on a list entry.
• In the hit list you can navigate with the cursor keys Up/Down/Left/Right - the last two only work in tile view. At the first and last hit element, you will jump back to the search line.
• Ctrl + F or Tab jumps back to the search field.
• Selected entries (multiple selection possible; if you press the Shift key, the elements will be combined in an expandable palette) and can be dragged and dropped into palettes. A functionality that was previously reserved for the Command Manager.
  If you want to save a changed layout permanently: Main menu: Window | Customize | Save as Start Layout.
• Selected commands can be dragged into the view as a HUD. For objects, the Shift key must be pressed for this purpose.

The different functions of the Commander

The Search Bar

Just type a name into the Search Bar and all matching elements will be listed sorted immediately. Small example:

• cyl: Finds all elements that contain "cyl" in the name or keyword, e.g., also the Node "Projection(Cylinder Mapping)".
• type:object cyl: Finds only objects containing "Zyl", e.g., the Cylinder Field object.

The first hit is always selected and can be called up immediately by hitting the Return key. Otherwise, use the Up/Down cursor keys to jump to the last or first hit element.

For more details - including syntax - see the Asset Browser description under Search Line.

Via Ctrl + F you can jump to the Search Bar or show it at any time.

Additionally, in comparison to the Asset Browser there are the search operators.

• xlicense / xLicense: Here you will find all assets that are exclusively available for the specified license type (subscription, perpetual, trial, lite, student, education, cineware, mxo).
• license: Here you will find all assets that are intended for the specified license type (subscription, perpetual, trial, lite, student, education, cineware, mxo).
• Scope / Context: This allows you as a user to search for elements that are needed for an explicit workflow. Assuming you want to display all corresponding elements when working with UV coordinates, type scope:uv. All UV commands, tools and tags are then listed. scope knows the following arguments: Animation, Asset Browser, Bullet (old Bullet Dynamics), Camera, Cloth, Exchange, Lighting, Material, Mesh, MoGraph, Node Editor, Object Manager, Painting (BodyPaint 3D painting functions), Particles, Powerslider, Pyro, Redshift, Rendering, Rigging, Sculpting, Spline, Substance, Team Render, Tracker, Viewport, Python, UV, Other.

• type / Type is already known from the Asset Browser. In particular for the Commander it knows additional types; it can then found in each case:

  • object / Object: All objects (e.g., cube, clone object, bend object), these are a superset of the search arguments described below.
  • command / Command: All commands (e.g., Render in Image Manager, Optimize, Connect + Delete Objects).
  • generator: All generator objects. (e.g., Subdivision Surface, Extrude object).
  • deformer: All Deformers (e.g., Bend, Spline Wrap object).
  • effector / Effectors: All MoGraph effectors (e.g., Random, Step).
  • force: All Force objects (e.g., Attractor, Wind object).
  • filter: All Volume Filters (e.g., Smoothing SDF, Rotor Vector).
  • primitive / basic objects: All Primitive objects (e.g., cube, sphere).
  • field / Field: All Fields such as Linear Field, Random Field.
  • sceneobject: Scene objects such as Sky, Background, light and camera objects.
  • helper object: Objects such as Null object, empty polygon/spline object.
  • tool / Tool: All tools (e.g,. Move tool, Brush tool, Paintbrush tool).
  • tag: All tags (e.g., Display tag, Alignment tag, Soft Body tag).
  • script: All created or loaded scripts.
  • hotkey: All commands that can be executed with hotkeys (s. Command Manager, column Type) are provided (e.g., rotate object, scale camera).
  • manager: All commands that call up a Manager (e.g., Attribute Manager, Material Manager).
  • mode: All program modes (e.g., point, symmetry, UV Edit mode).
  • node_om: All Node-based assets that work in the Object Manager. Here we are dealing with Capsules. Drag and drop them into the Object Manager.

The search operators just described - and many more (described at the Asset Browser) - can all be selected from a list that appears when you press the small button just to the right of the search input line.

The 2nd button next to the Search Bar lets you expand and collapse the Quick Filter:

This can be used to restrict hits to certain element types from the outset, which can then be further restricted with the following search line.

The first area, highlighted in red, shows various asset types, while the right highlight contains the following items normally housed in the Cinema 4D menus:

• Objects: Objects, tags and other elements related to the Object Manager, such as asset capsules.
• Tools: Commands, tools.
• Other: All other elements that are not placed in Objects or Tool (e.g., modes, manager calls, etc.).

By the way, multiple selection is possible in the red areas.

By clicking the All button (2nd from left) a definable - see 'All' Includes - set of element types is allowed. If you make settings there that differ from the default, the tab is marked with an asterisk. This way you know that possibly only a fraction of all available elements will be displayed.

The first tab Auto is a kind of context filter concerning the currently active Manager. When the Commander is open, you can, for example, click in the Material Manager, which will display only materials, but if you click in the Object Manager, only regular objects and tags that can be placed in the Object Manager will be displayed.

The thumbtack on the far right has 2 states and affects the behavior of the Commander in the layout;

• Activated: The Task Manager window remains open until you actively close it yourself. If you want to permanently place the Manager in the layout, this Pin icon must be activated.
• Disabled: The Task Manager window closes as soon as you have clicked somewhere outside or called an item from it. This also applies if you have the Manager included in the layout.

The hit list

The search terms entered in the Search Bar result in a hit list that works pretty much as already described for the Asset Browser. For this reason, we will not go into further detail here and refer to the asset list and downloading assets.

There a reference is always made to "assets", while here at the Commander "non-assets" like objects, tags etc. can also be found and called up.

If commands with options are listed in the Commander, the corresponding Cogwheel icon for calling up options will also be displayed so that you can make individual settings.

Likewise, the preset keyboard shortcuts are displayed for corresponding elements (e.g., commands).

The context commands

Smart Search

All existing smart searches are listed here. When one is selected, the corresponding search operators - if provided - are inserted in the Search Bar.

'All' Includes

You will get a list here, which you can use to define which element types the All tab should display. You already know most of the list entries from the Quick Filter. Select here what the All tab should display.

You will also find the following here:

• Classic elements: These are all the elements that can be called up from the Cinema 4D menus, such as commands, objects, tools, tags, etc., i.e., everything that the old Commander (prior to Cinema 4D 2023) could exclusively call.
• Reset to Defaults: This displays everything except Media. Media includes all the elements that are mostly part of other elements, such as bitmaps, videos, etc.

Reveal in category

This command is visible only for assets(Image, left red mark). The assets are all internally organized into categories/hierarchies.

For example, if you search for "pan", among other things, pans are actually listed here:

However, the category "Cookware", which may be of interest, is now also displayed for the pans. If you now want to display all cookware elements available there, call Reveal in category and pots, spoons, etc. will also be displayed.

Reveal in new Asset Browser

The command works similarly to the Reveal in category command just described, except that the object in question is displayed in a newly opening Asset Browser along with the category tree, which also lists the thematically related kitchen categories next to it, such as "Glassware". The Asset Browser gives you a little more overview - and more ways to manage assets.

Show details

Just like the Asset Browser, the Commander has a details pane that works in approximately the same way. Details can therefore be found described there in the details section.

For the Commander tabs Object, Tool and Other only a reduced info area is shown here, namely the tabs Info and Keywords, because the other functionalities do not make sense here. Primarily, the Commander detail area is used for assigning keywords to improve the search results for the above-mentioned elements of the 3 tabs (e.g., by using keywords to divide elements into groups that are suitable for you).

Example: You often start new scenes with three objects: a cube, a sphere, a ring. You could now assign the keyword "start1" to each of these 3 objects, for example. As soon as you then type "start1" in the Commander, exactly these 3 objects - and no other - will be shown to you (yes, of course this also works with a start file new.c4, but you can create as many different object collections as you like with the described method). Then select these objects and call Load to load them all into the Object Manager.

Show Help

For traditional objects - the elements contained in the menus of Cinema 4D - you can jump to the corresponding entry in the help here.