The True Costs of Cinema 4D and Blender
This list reflects the viewpoint of a 3D artist with over 15 years of experience in Cinema 4D, who is gradually exploring Blender with the goal of integrating it into daily workflow, striving to achieve a level of comfort in Blender without sacrificing the advantages offered by Cinema 4D.
Cost Summary: Cinema 4D vs. Blender
Cinema 4D Costs:
- Annual Costs: Approximately $2382.50 for subscriptions, excluding perpetual rights for most products.
Blender Costs:
- One-Time Costs: Essential addons for a comfortable workflow total $272. Additional enjoyable addons increase the total to around $913.10.
And now, here’s a detailed explanation of how I arrived at these prices.
The True Costs of Cinema 4D (Annual and One-Time Costs)
Annual Costs (Subscriptions):
- Cinema + Redshift: $983
- Greyscalegorilla: $468
- Xparticles: $526.50
- HDRI Light Studio: $220
- Forester Maintenance: $125
- Forester Expansion Pack 1 and 2: $60
- Total annual (only for the duration of use): $2382.50
One-Time Costs:
- Forester: $350
- Forester Expansion Pack 1 and 2: $214
- At year-end, the permanent possession: Only Forester and its Expansion Packs
Note:
- For Cinema 4D, annual costs are subscriptions, without perpetual usage rights for most products at the end of the year.
- Prices may vary for the European market.
- Wherever possible, Indie licenses are preferred.
The True Costs of Blender (One-Time Costs)
Addons Important to Me:
- J-Mograph Geometry ($29): Gives the feel of having MoGraph in Blender. Not as extensive, but quite good and sufficient for me.
- Photographer ($22): Helps to set up the camera faster, make quick adjustments to alter the look, and set depth of field. It’s not magical, but makes work easier, giving a feel somewhat akin to working with Redshift’s renderview in C4D.
- HDRI Maker ($69): A perfect replacement for my favorite plugin, “HDRI Link” from Greyscalegorilla. Even better than in C4D, with many HDRs included. Unfortunately, only available in C4D as an overpriced subscription.
- Materializer ($35): A great plugin that significantly improves texture creation, surpassing C4D’s functionality. Creates automatic masks that I can easily control.
- Clean Panels ($18): Essential for organizing plugins in Blender neatly, as handling many plugins in Blender can become cluttered.
Total for important addons: $272
These addons are crucial for working comfortably in Blender, enhancing the user experience and efficiency, and making Blender more comparable to Cinema 4D in certain aspects.
All Used Addons:
- Light Wrangler ($19.50): Like C4D’s lighting tool but better.
- Gobos Light Textures ($24.65): Offers textures for light sources with good resolution.
- Geoscatter ($99): My replacement for Forester, with many plants included without extra costs.
- Forestation ($66.75): Features scanned trees that look fantastic. Comparable to Laubwerk.
- Flip Fluids ($76): Somewhat a replacement for XParticles, though with fewer functions.
- Realtime Materials ($49): A quick aid for material creation, useful for fast materials without a subscription.
- Extreme PBR ($89): Useful for quick material updates without extra costs.
- Pivot Transform ($15): Handy for moving pivot points, a great tool.
- Smart Fill ($3): Comparable to C4D’s bridge function, definitely worth it.
- Kit Ops 2 Pro ($35): Fascinating for quick 3D model creation, particularly for kitbashing models, though used less frequently.
- Grid Modeler ($20): Great for adding simple geometry into 3D models, not often used in daily routine.
- Bend Face ($12): Useful for repositioning objects, not a daily tool but great to have.
- OCD ($22.40): Good for making geometries look used, especially stones.
- Random Flow ($15): Fascinating for adding fine details into simple geometries.
- Serpens ($24): Used occasionally to expand Blender’s UI, more convenient than Python scripting.