Cinema4D Layer Browser Trick

First thing is first, sorry for going so long without a post. Life has been pretty crazy lately (in a good way) and I’ve neglected some important things and people unfortunately, one of them being TMB. Not to worry, here’s a tip that hopefully will excite you as much as it did me.

The Layer Browser (LB) in Cinema4D is a killer tool, and is super helpful for scene management. Within the LB you can do cool stuff like turn off hypernurbs, exclude your layer from the Object Manager, and nest layers together in a hierarchy. But one thing that can be a pain is adding a huge nest of objects from the Object Manager to a layer. (Picture to the right is a faux unwieldy Object Manager, I realize that it’s not the LB. Keep reading)

Shame the Old way

The old way I used to accomplish this was to select the parent object, right-click->Select Children, then right-click again and Add to Layer. Sure that seems pretty easy, but it’s too many unnecessary steps - Maxon has given us a great little trick to circumvent that process.

Cheer the New way

All you have to do is hold down the Control key (NOT the Command key on a Mac, but the CONTROL key) and drag your desired layer on to the top Parent object…. BOOM! Cinema automatically applies your layer to every child in your hierarchy. Sweet.

Little work flow enhancements like this add up. Imagine how many menus and right clicks and window openings you do throughout the average work day. It’s a lot. If you can shave even 2 or 3 seconds of little things like this, it may be the difference between getting your render to the client in time or making up an excuse so your producer doesn’t eat your brains.

Stay keyframey San Diego.