Viewport Hardware

Texture Mode

Texture Interpolation controls which method is used to interpolate the textures when you zoom objects in the viewport: Nearest or Linear. Nearest uses the color of the nearest pixel in the texture, causing hard transitions in the zoomed texture. Linear uses linear gradients (i.e. linear interpolation) to create smooth or blurry transitions in the zoomed texture.

Texture Interpolation set to Nearest (top right) and Linear (bottom right).

Linear Mip Map

This method, which transitions between consecutively, internally "stockpiled" effigies of the texture that are continuously reduced in size, offers the best image quality:

Various settings and their effects.

Anti-Aliasing

Use this selection menu to define the degree of antialiasing that will be displayed while working in the Viewport (not when rendering).

Maximum Transparency [0..10]

This value defines the number of transparency layers that will be drawn correctly. It can be increased if faulty displays occur for several consecutive objects in a row that have different transparent materials:

At left a value that is too small, at right a larger Maximum Transparency value.

A value of 0 will disable the correct rendering and will display the transparency as a raster effect.

Maximum Lights [1..1000]

Use this setting to define the maximum number of light sources will calculate (in the order in which they appear in the Object Manager). Higher values will lead to slower display times.

UV Editor Anti-Aliasing

The texture view can also be smoothed using the UV meshes displayed there. However, this is not always desired when working with UV components. Non-smoothed displayed components can sometimes be positioned more precisely - if snapping isn’t used.

Maximum Shadows [0..100]

Use this setting to define how the shadows of light sources are displayed (in the order in which they appear in the Object Manager). A value of 0 will result in no shadow being displayed. The presence of very many shadows can slow down the display. Shadows are one of the most render-intensive GPU framework features, which is why this option can be used to define a maximum number.

Use Shader Cache

If enabled, the compiled Shaders in the Project will be saved. In rare cases, enabling this option can cause the graphics card’s driver (applies only to Hardware OpenGL) to crash the application. If this occurs, disable this option.

Enable Dithering in Viewport

Note the marked brightness gradations at the left (don’t be irritated by the JPEG artefacting).

Banding can occur when you have gradual gradations in brightness (in the example above it occurs on the transition from RGB 69, 69, 69 to RGB 70, 70, 70). Dithering can visually resolve hard color transitions.

Information

Here you will find a range of information about the hardware used by Cinema 4D for displaying in the Viewport. This is only for informational purposes and will adapt accordingly if, for example, a new graphics card is installed.

• GPU: The graphics card model
• Framework: The framework that Cinema 4D uses. On a Mac, for example, this is Metal and on a PC OpenGL, i.e., the interface that Cinema 4D uses to generate the display. In the following, the term GPU Framework will be used when referring to the Viewport display.
• Version: This is the current GPU Framework version. The minimum requirements are listed under Required. You can, for example, update the Framework version by installing a new graphics card driver.
• Shader Language: The shader language version can be important for plug-in developers and is therefore displayed here.

These days, graphics cards have the ability to display quite a bit in the Viewport, which was previously the exclusive realm of renderers. Thanks to the computer games industry, high-end 3D graphics can now be displayed fluidly, i.e., with a high frame rate. This is something that Cinema 4D also profits from. Maxon is constantly improving the display quality in the Viewport without the need for rendering. Cinema 4D S22 in particular has taken another major step towards supplying render quality in the Viewport (see below). In conjunction with this, note the Viewport Renderer (previously OpenGL), with which you can output the scene as it is displayed in the Viewport.

Complex reflections, shadows, hair (with limitations) and other effects can be displayed unrendered in the Viewport.

Nevertheless, you shouldn’t expect any miracles: Not all special lighting material properties in Cinema 4D can be displayed by the GPU Framework. Of course there is no guarantee that the Viewport display will be even close to the rendered result (depending on the effects used). Furthermore the GPU Framework and the Cinema 4D renderers are simply too different. However, for many applications, the GPU Framework can delivery good results, including for animations.