Blender and Cinema 4D both are advanced modelling, sculpting and animation software used for creating different styles of animation, models, visual effects etc. They are used by different industries for different purposes ranging from advertisement to commercial production of animation works and marketing. They are used in designing assets for games and movies. Both come with robust sculpting, animation, texturing and visual effects features. There is always been confusion in choosing software for the work which would be best suited for them. So let’s understand the key differences between these softwares.
Cinema 4D is a 3D software suite which was built for purposes like modelling, architectural design, rendering, animation, game assets development, VFX, visualization etc. It was first released in 1990 for Amiga operating system later other versions were released which support other operating systems like Windows, Mac, Linux etc. Its stable version was launched in April 2022. It is under the authorship of Philip Losch and Christian Losch.
Advantages of Cinema 4D
- It has an easy to use interface which helps beginners a lot.
- It has various in built tools like bone structures which make character rigging very easy.
- It allows customization using python scripts.
- It supports importing files from other 3d animation software.
Disadvantages of Cinema 4D
- It is heavy software which requires dedicated RAM for smooth functioning.
- Rendering takes lots of time.
Blender is also an animation software developed by Blender Foundation. It is free and open-source software and it was initially released in 1994. It is written in different programming languages like C, C++, Python etc. It comes with tons of features like modelling, sculpting, UV unwrapping, rigging etc.
Advantages of Blender
- One of the main advantages of a blender is that it is completely free for everybody.
- It allows importing files from other 3D animation software like Maya, 3ds Max etc.
- It has one of the largest communities to provide support at all times.
- It supports nearly all types of operating systems like Windows, Linux, MacOS etc.
- It allows third-party plugins for enhancing its capabilities.
Disadvantages of Blender
- It requires graphic drivers above OpenGL 3.0 to run the software.
- It is not of industry standard.
Following is a table of differences between Blender and Cinema 4D:
|
Cinema 4D |
Blender |
|
| 1. | Cinema 4D can be understood as a 3D modelling and animation software which comes with features like texturing, VFX, animation etc. | It is an animation tool used for creating different types of animations, visual effects, motion graphics etc |
| 2. | It is not open source. | It is open-source software. |
| 3. | It is the best choice for large organizations and animation industries | It is the best choice for individuals or small companies. |
| 4. | It saves files as C4D files which can be used in after effects as well. | It saves files with the .blend file extension. |
| 5. | It was developed by Maxon. | It was developed by the blender foundation. |
| 6. | It is for 3D animation and does not support 2D animation. | It supports 2D animation along with 3D animation. |
| 7. | It is easier to learn as compared to Blender. | It has a complex interface and learning it is a bit difficult. |
| 8. | It does not support 3D printing. | It supports 3D printing functionalities. |