Help is Just a Click Away

When we ask customers about their favorite feature in Cinema 4D, the top answer might surprise you. Some folks mention features like MoGraph or Volumes, but the vast majority point to the Help System. In many ways it makes sense - we’ve long emphasized clear and easily accessible help content so that users can understand all the great features in Cinema 4D.

Help in Cinema 4D is just a click away - hover over any icon or menu item and press Control-F1, or right-click on any property in the Attribute Manager and choose Show Help. You’ll get a clear overview of the object, command or parameter. If you prefer browsing, just point your web browser at help.maxon.net and navigate through the categories of interest.

To make sure we can continue to provide great up-to-date help content in the future - especially with more frequent subscription updates - we changed Release 21 to open the online help in the system browser. We did this for a few reasons. We think the first place you should look for help is online - where we can be sure it’s up-to-date. We can add content and make corrections without needing to deliver an online update with each change. We’ve also moved the logic for which help page to show out of the Cinema 4D source code and into the help content itself - which makes it easier to maintain and extend the help.

We’ve gotten a fair amount of user feedback about the change, alerting us to some consequences we didn't fully consider or didn't have a chance to address before Release 21 shipped. The feedback boils down to three main issues - the current solution is slower, in many cases an embedded C4D window is preferable to the system browser, and an offline solution is necessary in some cases.

Based on your feedback, our development team has rolled up their sleeves and found some ways to speed up the help and optionally display the help within an embedded C4D window. We’ll also once again offer an offline option for those that need it. You’ll be able to download a separate archive of the offline help and choose in C4D's preferences between the most up-to-date online help and the offline copy on your computer. This way if you have to be offline, or if you’re just on a plane for a few hours, you’ll still have access to Cinema 4D’s fantastic help.

You’ll see these changes soon when we release our first Service Pack for Release 21 - a bug fix update that will be available to both subscription and R21 perpetual customers.