The highlight of Redshift 2026.2 is Texture Displacement, a new geometry-altering method that allows artists to render highly detailed surfaces directly from displacement maps while receiving near-real-time viewport feedback. Displacement is now governed by a global render-settings switch, replacing the slower, tessellation-heavy process used in earlier builds. The feature works in both GPU and CPU modes, automatically adapting to scene scale and camera distance. For production artists, this finally brings interactive sculptural surface depth comparable to native displacement workflows in offline renderers.

UV Context Projection: procedural mapping inside the shader

A new UV Context Projection node provides direct control over projection type, scale, rotation and translation inside the Redshift shading graph. It eliminates many round-trips to the DCC host for UV adjustment and supports both conventional UVs and triplanar mapping. By integrating coordinate management at shader level, the node enables consistent material behaviour across host applications such as Cinema 4D, Maya, Houdini, 3ds Max and Hydra/Solaris.

Lighting improvements and colour fidelity

Redshift 2026.2 updates its IES light implementation, letting users override light intensity either by luminous power or by peak intensity, improving physical accuracy for architectural and product-visualisation work.
The Sun and Sky model produces smoother shadows and more accurate low-angle lighting, addressing the flicker and banding visible in earlier versions. Volumetric rendering has been corrected to handle light transmission behind zero-opacity geometry, and spotlight textures now maintain sharpness when soft shadows or fog are active. Together these refinements make photometric lighting behaviour more predictable and compositing-friendly.

Broader GPU support and Metal refinement

The renderer now officially supports AMD RX 9000 Series GPUs, widening the available hardware base for Windows and macOS users. Both CUDA and Metal back-ends have been re-tuned for lower IPR latency, with improved hardware ray-tracing throughput on supported cards. On macOS, Maxon fixed instability in the texture-baking pipeline and restored full OSL shader matrix output, ensuring parity with other platforms. Artists on Apple M3 and M4 systems should see markedly fewer driver-related IPR crashes.

Integrated Substance access

Redshift 2026.2 introduces the Substance Sampler connector, shared with Cinema 4D 2026.1. This allows Substance textures to be imported directly into Redshift material graphs, streamlining material creation for look-development tasks and product visualisation. Exposed Parameters in Substance get also fully exposed in Cinema4D / Redshift , if you expose them before export.

Platform-wide refinements

Across DCC integrations, Redshift 2026.2 delivers smaller but practical updates. Cinema 4D gains a viewport preview light for the Sun and Sky object, new default settings for Light and Cloud primitives, and fixes to AOV handling when adding or deleting passes. Maya improves render-layer stability and updates RS Cloud defaults for more balanced scattering and transmittance. 3ds Max corrects data corruption in the RS Brick shader and adds a new default Map ID of 1 in RS Maxon Noise. Houdini and Hydra/Solaris now support version 21.0.512 while dropping legacy 20.x builds, adding Resolution Mode and husk headlight parameters to the Redshift LOP.

Engine-level reliability

The underlying renderer benefits from multiple engine-wide corrections. Shader baking has been repaired for non-centimetre scene units, and depth AOVs now respect global unit scaling. Ray Switch and cylindrical-projection bumpmapping artefacts are resolved, as are incorrect lighting results in IPR when Camera Space Render is active. Sun-sky shadow quality is improved, greyscale texture projections now output correct colour channels, and OSL shader validation blocks unsupported closure loops. Hardware Ray Tracing back-ends deliver faster interactive previews and concurrent shader-ball rendering, while IES and cloud lighting computations now yield physically consistent results.

Bug fixes and stability

The December 2025 release closes an extensive list of stability issues across all hosts. Network-stored textures no longer trigger crashes on macOS, and IPR behaviour for wind-animated RS Clouds is fixed in both Maya and 3ds Max. Volume-clipping errors caused by incorrect scene-scale calculations are corrected, and motion-blur handling for sprite baking now produces accurate results. Data corruption in older RS Brick parameters has been resolved, though affected shaders may require manual rebuilds. Together, these maintenance fixes make Redshift 2026.2 significantly more predictable for heavy-render workloads.

Availability and update guidance

Redshift 2026.2 ships with Maxon App 2025.12 and is included in all Redshift and Maxon One subscriptions.
Because this version alters displacement and shader parameter storage, studios should re-validate existing materials and test render nodes before migrating active projects.

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The post Redshift 2026.2: Texture Displacement and UV Context Arrive first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

Maxon released Cinema 4D 2026.1 on 3 December 2025 as part of the Maxon One December update.
The version expands the unified simulation framework, enhances MoGraph placement tools, improves project-variant management, and delivers a wide set of smaller workflow fixes.

Liquid Flow: GPU-accelerated fluids inside the unified simulation

The new Liquid Flow system extends Cinema 4D’s unified simulation framework to support fully GPU-accelerated fluid behaviour. According to Maxon’s documentation, it integrates seamlessly with existing Pyro, Cloth, and Soft Body solvers, and supports interaction among all simulated elements in a single scene. Liquid Flow exposes parameters for viscosity, surface tension, and emitter behaviour, allowing artists to iterate interactively. GPU compute mode is available on supported NVIDIA and Apple Metal devices.

MoGraph: Advanced Distributions and Capsule-based control

MoGraph’s Advanced Distributions introduce new procedural placement types (Stack and Cannonball and a Hexagrid) designed for building layered or spherical arrangements of clones without custom formulas. These distribution modes work with Effectors, Fields, and Capsules, and can be baked or referenced for product-visualisation layouts or dense motion-graphics assemblies. The update also refines Field layer previews and caching behaviour, reducing redraw lag in high-clone scenes.

Take System: faster iteration and clearer hierarchy

Cinema 4D 2026.1 updates the Take System to simplify the creation of multiple look variations. The new behaviour includes automatic naming, consistent render-setting inheritance, and improved preview switching.
This revision targets motion-graphics artists who iterate colourways, camera setups, or lighting passes for client reviews.

Cineware for Unreal: better fidelity and re-import handling

The Cineware for Unreal Engine plugin gains improved lighting consistency and material assignment during export and re-import. Updated metadata handling preserves naming and hierarchy when projects move between Cinema 4D and Unreal. Interactive playback performance within Unreal has also been tuned for scenes containing animated geometry and dynamic caches.

Viewport, interaction, and asset fixes

The 2026.1 release delivers numerous stability updates and UI refinements documented in Maxon’s changelog:

• Viewport stability: reduced crashes when manipulating large MoGraph instances and multi-viewport setups.
• Spline modelling: corrected Tangent and Control-Point editing behaviour.
• Redshift integration: improved synchronisation of material previews and displacement updates.
• Pyro caching: faster cache rebuilds when adjusting simulation domains.
• Capsule Assets: fixed scene-reload issues with procedural Capsules containing nested Field nodes.

While not as headline-grabbing as the Liquid Flow rollout, these smaller changes contribute directly to daily production stability.

Unified Simulation Framework: one solver, multiple domains

Cinema 4D’s unified simulation approach continues to consolidate solvers under a shared architecture.
Liquid Flow joins Cloth, Pyro, and Soft Body within the same system, allowing bidirectional interactions such as fluid–cloth or smoke–liquid coupling. Simulation caches remain GPU-accelerated but can still be baked to CPU for network rendering. This alignment also simplifies export to Redshift’s volumetric rendering and compositing in After Effects through Cineware.

Quality-of-life improvements

The release notes list over 50 usability and reliability adjustments. Highlights include:

• Faster Undo/Redo operations for geometry-heavy scenes.
• Corrected timeline scrubbing when previewing cached dynamics.
• Updated OpenColorIO configuration handling for consistent colour management across Maxon One apps.
• Restored Viewport Filter settings persistence between sessions.

Collectively, these fixes target workflow friction rather than headline innovation — an area professionals will likely appreciate more than marketing slogans.

Availability and testing reminder

Cinema 4D 2026.1 is included in active Maxon One and Cinema 4D subscriptions, downloadable through Maxon App v2025.12 or newer. Users with perpetual licences under maintenance can check eligibility through Maxon’s support portal. As always, artists should benchmark GPU simulations and rendering performance before updating production environments. Pipeline compatibility with render-farm nodes and Unreal export should be validated per project.

The post Cinema 4D 2026.1: Fluids, Distributions, and Practical Fixes first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.