Cinema 4D 2026.4 Adds Scatter System, Liquid FX and Redshift 2027

MAXON has released Cinema 4D 2026.4, introducing a procedural scatter engine, liquid simulation enhancements, and the Redshift 2027.0 renderer update. The release targets studios managing increasingly complex scenes by shifting heavy lifting from manual placement to node-driven automation.

The Scatter Generator and Scatter Tag represent the most significant structural addition. Rather than relying on traditional cloners that duplicate objects uniformly, the new system populates surfaces using distribution modes including Surface Grid, Area Weighted, UV Grid and Spline Projection. Density maps, relaxation algorithms and overlap removal allow genuinely non-overlapping placements. Filters restrict instances by altitude, slope, curvature and mesh boundary distance, while voronoi noise functions group assets into dense clusters with per-object IDs. Because the system integrates directly with MoGraph, artists can apply post-scatter variation and animation without baking geometry first.

Liquid FX addresses a longstanding bottleneck in fluid simulation. Instead of increasing overall simulation resolution to capture fine detail — a process that scales memory consumption exponentially — the new module layers spray, foam and bubbles procedurally on top of existing liquid caches. A Liquid FX Emitter generates particles based on estimated trapped air and wave crest data, while a Liquid FX Modifier converts existing particles. Spray moves by inertia, foam drifts along surface velocity fields, and bubbles rise with simulated buoyancy, automatically switching types based on neighbor counts.

For pipeline interoperability, MAXON added direct copy-and-paste functionality between Cinema 4D and Autograph, a motion design application developed by French studio Autograph SAS. Cameras, lights, primitives, planes, text, nulls and their keyframed or expression-driven animation transfer natively. Motion generated through MoGraph, constraints or rigs arrives baked per frame, matching viewport playback. MoText and Text splines convert to editable Autograph text layers, while unsupported objects fall back to nulls.

Redshift 2027.0 overhauls GPU memory management with granular VRAM allocation, improved resource sharing with other accelerated applications, unified-memory support and parallel scene loading across multiple GPUs. The largest performance gains target high-memory architectures and multi-GPU render nodes. A new procedural fur system generates fibers, woven textiles and knitted materials at render time rather than as dedicated scene geometry, supporting motion blur, instancing and UV controls. Redshift Live now compiles shaders faster and supports refraction, transparent shadows, area light spread and ray-traced depth of field during interactive preview rendering. Workflows also extend to NVIDIA RTX Spark devices.

CAD import expands significantly in this build, adding native support for 3MF, AMF, 3D Experience (.3dxml), CREO, IFC, Inventor, NX and Solid Edge formats alongside existing Catia V5, Open JT, IGES, STEP and SolidWorks compatibility. The expanded format list now runs on Windows ARM architecture, reflecting the growing adoption of ARM-based workstations in enterprise environments. A new Resample Textures command transfers materials between objects with completely different UV maps but similar shapes, specifically designed for moving shading from high-polygon meshes with poor topology onto Remesh generator outputs where standard attribute transfer fails.

Interface updates focus on reducing visual clutter in dense scenes. Tag Grouping collapses an object’s tags into visual clusters in the Object Manager without altering execution order. Tag Content Preview renders polygon, edge and point selections, vertex maps and soft selections directly in the viewport without requiring editable conversion, functioning even on procedural selections from primitives and generators. A Random Shading display mode draws every object in a distinct color without modifying its actual Display Color property, aiding segmentation in complex assemblies. View Occluded Selections ensures selected components remain visible behind overlapping geometry.

Node-based workflows gain the Nodes Field object, which builds custom fields from a node graph more efficiently than Python Fields and with greater capability than Formula Fields. Both the Nodes Field and the new Nodes Effector are MCP-compatible, allowing custom fields and effectors to be constructed with AI assistance. The Sample Field node batches field sampling inside loops for Scene Nodes setups.

Color management transitions fully to ACES 2.0 via an updated OCIO configuration. The Auto mode in Bitmap, MoGraph Color and Vertex Map shaders has been removed; scenes created prior to version 2026.4.0 convert Auto settings to explicit modes upon import. Color space names now save alongside their index values within scene files, preventing misalignment when configurations change. Spaces group by family with commonly used options prioritized at the top of menus.

MAXON resolved dozens of stability issues spanning modeling, UV editing, MoGraph caching and Neutron node evaluation. Fixes address crashes during Boolean operations involving invalid point data such as NaN or infinite values, Symmetry node failures generating missing polygons, and excessive memory consumption on scene load. Modeling corrections include proper Loop Cut and Path Cut behavior on polygons connected to N-gons, accurate snapping on 3D scan meshes with invalid geometry, and correct Bridge tool curvature calculations. The update is available now for current subscription holders.