Reference Cinema 4D Basic Features Configuration Preferences
Function available in CINEMA 4D Prime, Visualize, Broadcast, Studio & BodyPaint 3D

Interface

Language

Choose a language for Cinema 4D’s interface from the installed language sets. After quitting and re-launching Cinema 4D, all messages, menus and dialogs will change to the new language.

Scheme

Choose one of the installed schemes from this drop-down list.

Function available in CINEMA 4D Prime, Visualize, Broadcast, Studio & BodyPaint 3D

Highlight Features

This function helps you discover new features in Cinema 4D. Menu items, icons and Attribute Manager settings will be colored differently for easy recognition. After the element is called up for the first time its color will be dimmed slightly and after you’ve selected it 5 times its color will return to the normal interface color.

This menu offers the following selection options:

  • Off: No items will be highlighted
  • Load Custom Files: Load special marker files (.*res) to arbitrarily mark menu items, icons, settings
  • R18: New features added to R18 that were not in R17 will be highlighted
  • R19: New features added to R19 that were not in R18 will be highlighted

Creating marker files

In short: a marker file (*.res) is a text file that lists command and parameter IDs, which are then marked.

  • In the first line of the text file, a name can be given for the marker file with which the file will be displayed.
  • In the second line a command is highlighted (in this example the command for creating a cube).
  • To find out which number lies between the brackets (each command has a unique number), you can either refer to the Script Log or the Customize Commands Manager. Don’t forget to add the semicolon at the end of the command.

  • In the third line a setting is highlighted (Fillet for a cube).
  • Ctrl/Cmd+Alt+right-click on a setting and select ID to Clipboard (Feature Highlight). This will load the following text into the cache: OCUBE-OCUBE-ID_OBJECTPROPERTIES-PRIM_CUBE_DOFILLET, // Fillet.

Fading

Disable this option if the above-mentioned fading should not take place. The features will then remain highlighted.

Reset Highlights

Since the highlighting will be removed completely after you’ve used the feature 5 times you can click on this button to reset the highlight function. This cannot be undone and all highlighted features will remain so until they have been used 5 times.

GUI Font
Monospaced Font

Defines the character set that Cinema 4D will use (menus, dialog windows, etc.).

Important for you: the GUI Font. This is used throughout Cinema 4D. Monospaced Font is mostly used in dialog windows for displaying scripts.

Tip
Changes will take effect after Cinema 4D has been restarted.

RELEASE 21

Show Mac Menu Bar

Cinema 4D can now display its main menu bar as a Mac menu bar under macOS (option enabled: top of example image) or as the older version (option disabled: bottom of example image).

The Apple-compliant main menu bar differs slightly from the Cinema 4D main menu bar in its functionality:

  • Some commands that have their own settings in the Cinema 4D menu (black cog wheel at the right of the command) will always be called up with the command options window when opened. This window can be prevented from opening if you simultaneously press the Alt key. The command will then be executed with the default settings.
  • Mac-specific functions such as Cmd/Ctrl + for opening the preferences menu or the macOS command search (Help menu) now work.
  • Calling up the Help from individual commands and Highlight Features does not currently work.

Show Bubble Help

If the Bubble Help option is enabled, help information appears next to the pointer when the pointer is over an icon.

A bubble help will be displayed for parameters that are controlled by XPresso that contain information about XPresso tags, Nodes and Ports:

Show Icons in Menu

Show Shortcuts in Menu

Here you choose whether, in addition to the normal command descriptions for menu items, Cinema 4D displays icons (Show Icons enabled) and/or keyboard short-cuts (Show Short-cuts option enabled).

RELEASE 21

Online Content

This option can be enabled or disabled to defeine if the Help (see Interactive Help function) should be called up from the Maxon servers or from your local computer. For the latter you will have to download the Help at www.maxon.net/de/support/downloads. This will let you use the Cinema 4D help offline.

This and the next option can auslo be defined via the Environment Variables.

Field Remapping Graph

The Fields’ Remapping tab contains a function preview of the Remapping settings. Since these take up a lot of space, they can be hidden using this setting’s options.

You can choose from the following options:

Create New Object at View Center

By default, Cinema 4D creates objects at the origin of the world coordinate system. However, If the origin is off-screen, a new object may be created out of sight.

If this option is enabled, new objects are created in the center of the active view instead, i.e., always within view.

Insert New Object At

Paste New Object At

Use these settings to define where new or pasted objects should be inserted into the Object Manager’s hierarchy. A deciding factor for placement is the currently selected object itself. If multiple objects are selected, the new or pasted object will be inserted at the top of the hierarchy.

New or pasted objects will be inserted as follows:

Attribute Manager Selection Limit [10..100000]

Defines the maximum number of elements such as objects or keys that can be edited in the Attribute Manager. For example, if the value is set to 10 and 477 objects are selected, only the first ten elements will be taken into account. The value of 10 used in this example has little practical use; use a much higher value.

Script Word Wrap

Wherever scripts can be displayed (e.g., in the Script Manager), this option determines whether or not lines of script should automatically be given line breaks when they reach the right edge of the text field. The line with the break will be highlighted with >> at the right.