In this video we will explore how we can simulate realistic “kick up dust” from wind that is blowing over a surface in Maxons Cinema 4Ds internal Pyro simulation tool. The most likely use case is the effect you probably know from a helicopter taking of or landing.
As I learned yesterday, this effect is known as “downwash”.

Learn how to solve for air pressure and use the output of the moving airfield to automatically create and simulate dust picked up from the ground and carried away by the air movement realistically.

CHAPTERS

00:00 Intro

00:48 Tut Overview

01:31 C4D Scene Setup: Geometry

03:02 About Pyro Solvers

04:33 Setting up a Pyro Domain

08:26 Setting up the Downwash Wind

10:33 Setting up Vectors (Velocity)

14:57 Offsetting the Collision Landscape

15:57 Caching the 1st (Base) Simulation

16:30 Setting up the Dust Emitter Vertex Map

18:33 Simulation Scene Object

20:21 Field Force

20:49 Finalizing the Downwash Sim

23:00 Looking at the Results

Download the Tut Scene by becoming a Patreon member. No matter which tier!

VIDEO RELATED LINKS:
Maxon’s Official Website: https://www.maxon.net/
Octane C4D Otoy Official Website: https://render.otoy.com/forum/viewfor…

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If you’ve ever wondered what happens when a VFX artist spends too much time obsessing over pixels and lighting, well, welcome to my world! You can find all my latest experiments, tutorials, and general nerdy shenanigans here:

Website: silverwing-vfx.de
Patreon: patreon.com/SilverwingVFX (Get scenefiles for all of my tutorial scenes also while supporting me)
Instagram: instagram.com/silverwingvfx (Finished 3D projects and engagement with the community)
YouTube: youtube.com/@SilverwingVFX (Updates and news about my work and what I am up to)

And if you’re into retro gaming and deep-dive nostalgia, check out the big article I wrote for this magazine: my love letter to the legendary Game Boy. Because nothing says “true love” like an 8-bit screen and a battery life that could outlast modern smartphones.

The post C4D Pyro Tutorial: Helicopter Kickup Dust first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Raphael Rau.

For those who don’t know the tool: Autograph is a motion graphics, VFX, and compositing app that mixes 2D and 3D, supports OpenFX, and fits alongside Maxon Cinema 4D, Red Giant, and Universe workflows.

The free license that actually means free

Maxon now offers Autograph team licenses completely free for commercial use, starting May 7, 2026. Teams of any size can use it at no cost, and the same free commercial stance also applies to individual use. Studios, agencies, brands, educators, and in-house teams can use the team licenses. The terms describe no output limitations, no time restrictions, and no conditions for using Autograph in commercial work.

The free team setup also keeps the command-line functionality and Python support included. Team usage also does not get limited to, or counted as, the seat count in the team license agreement, because users can run Autograph beyond the seat limit under individual accounts. So, one VFX-Artist can EASILY fill the pipeline for dozens or hundreds of compers. As it always has been ;)

Standards, plugins, and the “please do not break our colour pipeline” list

Autograph supports USD, OpenEXR, ACES, OpenColorIO, and OpenFX. If your pipeline already speaks those dialects, you can keep your existing expectations about interchange, image containers, and colour management, then see how Autograph behaves under real shots. On the effects side, Autograph integrates with Universe and select Red Giant tools. The Red Giant tools include Magic Bullet Looks, Cosmo II, Mojo II, Optical Flow, Real Lens Flare, Renoiser, Shine, and Starglow.

Autograph also launches with support for third-party OpenFX plugins from RE:Vision Effects, BorisFX, and Digital Anarchy, with those plugins available through their own marketplaces. If your facility already lives on OFX, that matters a lot more then anyone likes to admit.

Training and onboarding, with fewer excuses

Autograph users get full access to the excellent Cineversity Training library, including an Introduction to Maxon Autograph multi-part series led by Chad Perkins. That should help teams onboard faster, or at least fail faster, which also counts as progress. On the distribution side, Autograph team licensing became available beginning May 7 at the Autograph page on maxon.net.

Small print energy, big pipeline implications

Maxon Autograph 2026 is here

Autograph is a unified environment combining 2D animation, compositing, and 3D capabilities, aimed at motion designers, 2D and 3D artists, compositors, and content creators. The whole thing leans on speed, an intuitive workflow, and a quick learning curve, unlike your current wokrflow of hoarding After Effects presets and hoping nobody opens the comp.

As always, test new tools and new licensing models before you bet a delivery date on them, even when the price tag reads zero.

Where this lands in the DP universe

If you have been following the Autograph saga , free commercial team use removes the usual tax where you spend weeks proving a tool works, then spend months arguing about who pays for it.

The new kid on the block!

It also makes Autograph a much easier sidecar in a compositing pipeline, because adoption friction drops. You can pilot it on a real project, with real plates, and real colour management, without waiting for a purchasing window.

If your artists already lean on Red Giant style effects, the built-in integration path matters, but the licensing for those tools still remains separate. And if the rollout goes through the Maxon App, expect the usual studio questions about installs, updates, and permissions.

Pricing

Autograph team licenses are free for commercial use.

https://www.maxon.net/de/article/maxon-makes-autograph-free-for-teams?srsltid=AfmBOoonp5vfGFNA–bYMgL5ol-M1Jx5GN4ljh323-5jIVkxiGayKhpJ
https://www.maxon.net/autograph

The post Autograph, now free for teams first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

For those who don’t know the tool: Autograph is a 2D plus 3D compositor with a USD core, can hook into Maxon Studio and Red Giant, and imports SVG from Adobe Illustrator and Figma plus PSD from Affinity and Adobe Photoshop.

Free now, with a catch that is not scary

Maxon has released Autograph 2026.0.0 and made it free for anyone with a (free) MyMaxon account. The same release adds native integration with Maxon Studio for searching, navigating, and applying Red Giant effects, and it adds full OpenFX support for third-party plugins. Pricing beyond that free individual access is not specified yet.

The Autograph pitch in plain production terms

Autograph is a motion graphics and compositing application that mixes a layer-based timeline with a 3D mode for manipulating 3D assets. Think Nuke met After Effects at the Flame Birthday party, and they got drunk.

From the left..

The new kid on the block!

The timeline includes a standard layer stack and a dope sheet, then it switches into a 3D workspace when you need to push assets around in depth.

Autograph also promotes a responsive design workflow aimed at delivering multiple resolutions and aspect ratios from a single project file. Autograph calls these “responsive-design compositions”. Elements can be positioned relative to frame dimensions so one project can render multiple aspect ratios without duplicating layouts.

On the feature list side, Autograph describes itself as a tool for motion graphics, VFX and compositing, plus 2D and 3D projects. So, eveything Comp. It also sports a GPU-powered engine and extensible capabilities as part of how the tool approaches performance and expansion.

OpenUSD 3D inside a compositor timeline

Autograph includes an integrated 3D workspace powered by OpenUSD. The 3D space blends with the 2D workflow and supports extruded vector shapes and text, using compositions as textures, and compositing with multi-pass renders inside the same application.

That same 3D space is useful for motion designers who want depth, lighting, and dimensional design without moving to another application, and for 3D artists who want to streamline texture creation and final composite across the broader toolchain.

Plug-ins, Studio integration, and the new OFX door

Autograph 2026.0.0 introduces full OpenFX support. That matters if your shop already lives and dies by OFX (because, why wouldnt it…), or if you want a compositor that does not treat third-party effects as an afterthought.

The release also adds native integration with Maxon Studio. The stated goal is quick search, navigation, and application of Red Giant effects from inside Autograph. Capsules are explicitly not available in Autograph yet.

One naming change also comes with the re-release: Instancer has been renamed to Cloner, aligning naming with Cinema 4D terminology. The Sources do not list additional feature renames beyond that one.

System requirements and supported platforms

Autograph 2026.0.0 supports Windows and macOS. On macOS, the supported versions listed are macOS 15 Sequoia and macOS 26 Tahoe, and the supported hardware requirement listed is Apple Silicon M1 or better, with 16 GB of memory.

On Windows x64, the supported operating systems listed are Windows 10 version 22H2 and Windows 11. The minimum CPU requirement listed is a 64-bit Intel or AMD CPU with AVX2 support. The minimum GPU requirement is either an NVIDIA GPU from the Maxwell generation or newer with at least 4 GB of VRAM, or an AMD RX 570 or RX 580 with 4 GB or 8 GB, or a discrete GPU with at least 4 GB VRAM and support for OpenCL. The memory requirement is 16 GB.

Test new tools and updates before you put them into a production-critical pipeline!

https://support.maxon.net/hc/en-us/articles/26689114527388-Autograph-2026-0-0-April-15-2026

The post Maxon Autograph 2026 is here first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

Maxon Digital Twin is an upcoming application currently in development that lets users import cleared-for-use CAD or 3D product models and refine them with materials, textures, lighting, perspective, and environmental interactions to achieve photorealistic outputs.

The application is intended to help brands and marketing teams maintain visual accuracy and creative control as product imagery moves across platforms and creative tools. Users can integrate Digital Twin with popular design software and AI enabled graphic tools of their choosing but use of AI is optional and not required. Maxon has stated that Digital Twin is not an AI agent and does not train on user or artist content.

How the Workflow Functions

The workflow begins with a cleared-for-use CAD or 3D model of a physical product. Users then refine the asset in the Digital Twin interface, controlling materials, textures, lighting and environment to achieve photoreal output. The resulting digital model can then be adapted to different scenes and backgrounds without needing repeated physical photography or separate reshoots. The tool automatically matches key visual elements, such as lighting, reflections, and perspective, to user-provided backgrounds.

Integration With Other Tools and AI

Maxon emphasises that Digital Twin is a standalone application and not part of its existing product lineup. The company will support integration with other design and creative applications, including third-party tools that may use AI to generate backgrounds or complementary assets. Those integrations are at the user’s discretion and are optional for the workflow. Maxon has clarified that it is not itself developing an AI agent as part of Digital Twin.

Market Context

Maxon is entering a segment of product visualisation and marketing tools that includes other software capable of similar workflows. Tools like Adobe Substance 3D Stager and KeyShot also enable photoreal asset creation, often with optional AI features. Maxon has not publicly confirmed exactly which applications Digital Twin will integrate with on release.

Availability and Release

Digital Twin is announced as in development with no release date, pricing or system requirements confirmed at this time. Maxon has said further details and integrations will be shared in future updates.

The post Maxon Previews Digital Twin first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

Cinema 4D represents a decisive break with its legacy colour system. New projects now default to OCIO (OpenColorIO) with ACEScg as the working render space. Instead of juggling Redshift’s OCIO workflow and Standard/Physical’s ICC-based linear workflow, artists now work under a unified model.

The new pipeline enforces a three-stage structure: input, working, and view. Every texture, material colour, and data map must be explicitly tagged with its source colour space. Rendering calculations occur in wide-gamut ACEScg, which is linear by definition. At output, results are mapped to a display space via a view transform, typically the ACES tone mapper, though OCIO configurations allow alternatives such as AgX or Filmic.

The advantages are clear. Lighting and shading now behave consistently across renderers, with greater fidelity in highlights and shadows, and predictable desaturation in overbrights. But adoption requires care. Legacy projects will not automatically match the new defaults, and asset libraries must be properly colour-managed. Maxon provides templates in the Asset Browser, but the burden falls on studios to test, calibrate, and align their pipelines.

Liquids, UDIMs, and AI in Cinema 4D

Beyond colour, Cinema 4D deepens its Unified Simulation Framework with GPU-accelerated liquid dynamics. Fluids can be spawned from a dedicated Liquid Fill Emitter, or converted from particles using a Liquify Modifier. Once active, fluids respect viscosity, surface tension, and collisions with rigid bodies. Artists can shape results with forces already present in the simulation system. For render, a Liquid Mesher object converts the fluid particles into polygonal geometry.

The system is optimised for speed and art-direction rather than exhaustive physics. It excels in motion graphics and short-form production where controllability outweighs realism. Large-scale fluid behaviour such as foam or spray remains outside its remit, but the system is fast enough to support iterative design directly in the viewport.

Cinema 4D also addresses long-standing UV workflow gaps with UDIM support and texel density tools. UV shells can be freely arranged across UDIM tiles, textures can be packed efficiently, and texel density can be standardised with presets for different production contexts, from game assets to cinematic props. For texturing artists, this means Cinema 4D finally integrates more smoothly with Substance Painter, Mari, and other UDIM-centric applications.

On the organisational side, the Asset Browser gains an AI search engine. It scans the visual content of assets rather than relying solely on metadata, and it runs entirely locally. This ensures that data never leaves the user’s machine, addressing privacy concerns while enabling faster retrieval across large studio libraries.

Redshift: Atmosphere and Efficiency

The bundled renderer, Redshift 2025.0, focuses on both atmosphere and interactivity. Its new Procedural Clouds system integrates with the existing Sun & Sky rig, allowing artists to generate volumetric skies without heavy voxel caches or external plugins. The system balances plausibility with art-directable controls, enabling environments ranging from photorealistic to stylised.

Redshift’s handling of displacement has also been upgraded. Artists can now preview and adjust displaced geometry interactively, with less reliance on dense subdivision. This shortens iteration cycles and lowers memory requirements for complex shaders.

A further improvement is the adoption of Scene Units. Shaders and materials now scale relative to the project’s world units, ensuring that displacement, noise, and procedural textures behave consistently across different projects. This eliminates one of the more persistent sources of unpredictability in cross-scene rendering.

Together, these refinements push Redshift closer to the expectations of large-scale production, particularly for architectural visualisation, cinematic environments, and real-time look-development.

ZBrush: Python Scripting and iPad Parity

ZBrush continues to expand in both desktop automation and mobile parity. On desktop, the arrival of Python scripting allows studios to build automation layers, connect ZBrush to asset management systems, or develop custom batch operations. For technical artists, this is a long-awaited way to make ZBrush play more predictably within pipeline automation.

Surface detail workflows have also been upgraded. The Surface Noise system now supports per-noise resets, alpha transforms, and undo/redo functionality. These refinements make it easier to layer and adjust procedural detail without destructive editing.

On the mobile side, ZBrush for iPad now supports 3D printing export, giving portable sculpting workflows a direct path to prototyping. The interface has been optimised for touch, with a repositionable bottom bar, customisable modifier wheel, and savable UI layouts. These features allow artists to adapt ZBrush to personal working styles, even on a compact device. Upcoming releases promise UV editing and hard-surface modelling tools on iPad, which would push it further toward full production parity with desktop.

Maxon Studio and Cineware for Unreal

Maxon Studio builds on its Capsule system, enabling editors and colourists to embed assets directly into templates. Capsules can now be reused across multiple projects, preserving brand consistency while cutting setup times. This supports large-scale editorial workflows where repeatability and visual consistency matter as much as flexibility.

For real-time pipelines, Cineware for Unreal Engine has been expanded. The bridge now respects Cinema 4D modifiers, creates material instances automatically, and enhances texture tag handling. The aim is to reduce the amount of re-authoring required when transferring assets between Cinema 4D and Unreal, a critical bottleneck in virtual production and interactive environments.

A New Identity for a Unified Ecosystem

All of this comes wrapped in Maxon’s new brand identity. Each tool now has a modular geometric logo, designed to echo the honeycomb motif of Maxon One. Colours and typography have been standardised to emphasise the sense of a single family of applications, rather than a loose collection. Maxon argues that this signals its evolution into a cohesive ecosystem, both visually and technically.

A Word of Caution

Cinema 4D 2026, Redshift , and ZBrush’s expanded toolset bring real technical progress, particularly in colour science, simulation, and automation. But adoption is not trivial. As always: validate before deployment.

The post Maxon Autumn Release: New Colour Science, Liquids, Clouds and a Logo first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.