Cinema 4D vs. SketchUp

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Cinema 4D
Score 9.0 out of 10
N/A
Maxon, headquartered in Germany, offers Cinema 4D, an animaton suite for 3D artists, which the vendor states is suitable for beginners and seasoned professionals alike, who can take advantage of Cinema 4D’s wide range of tools and features to achieve stunning results for demanding, fast-paced 3D production.N/A
SketchUp
Score 8.4 out of 10
N/A
SketchUp is 3D modeling software with an emphasis on usability. SketchUp is a Trimble product.
$119
per year
Pricing
Cinema 4DSketchUp
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Free
$0.00
per year
For Schools (free with G Suite or Microsoft education account)
$0
For Students
$55.00
per year
For Educators
$55.00
per year
Studio for Students / Educators (Desktop version)
$55
per year
Shop
$119.00
per year
Pro
$299.00
per year
Professional
$299.00
per year
Studio (Windows only)
$699
per year
Studio
$1199.00
per year
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Cinema 4DSketchUp
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details——
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Cinema 4DSketchUp
Top Pros
Top Cons
Best Alternatives
Cinema 4DSketchUp
Small Businesses
Onshape
Onshape
Score 9.5 out of 10
Onshape
Onshape
Score 9.5 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Onshape
Onshape
Score 9.5 out of 10
Onshape
Onshape
Score 9.5 out of 10
Enterprises
Rhino
Rhino
Score 8.8 out of 10
Rhino
Rhino
Score 8.8 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Cinema 4DSketchUp
Likelihood to Recommend
9.7
(5 ratings)
8.0
(47 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Usability
10.0
(1 ratings)
7.0
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
10.0
(1 ratings)
8.5
(14 ratings)
User Testimonials
Cinema 4DSketchUp
Likelihood to Recommend
Maxon
Photorealistic Rendering (it takes a LONG time to render for print, but it's insanely realistic). Commercial Production Graphical Integration into print materials (and digital) We did a lot with brochures and billboards. Hi Res rendering takes hours, but the output set us FAR apart from the run-of-the-mill competition we had.
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Trimble
SketchUp is great for individually studying options for building design. It is an awesome conceptual tool to be able to quickly model and manipulate a building to study different designs. It is not good for complex geometries, especially curves. Surfaces have a hard time registering and cutting into one another. It also eventually needs to go into Revit to be more realistic as it is not good as a documentation tool
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Pros
Maxon
  • Seemingly endless selection of tools
  • clear and powerful manipulation tools
  • effect use of hotkeys for navigating the 3D space
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Trimble
  • Quickly exploring solutions in 3D: We get a lot of "what if" and "what would that look like" questions. While hand-sketching and hand-drafting can be fairly quick, SketchUp allows me to quickly create 3D and 2D views of a detail or solution, change dimensions and materials in a flash, and show a client or installer the plan in minutes.
  • Creating professional design documents in LayOut: Projects of any scale need good documentation. Using a combination of SketchUp and LayOut, I can create a Design Intent Set, plans for permitting, a set for mechanical trades to mark-up, etc. Having clear, appropriately-scaled drawings with dimensions or notations is a must, and we don't always have the time or budget to get an architect involved!
  • Using live files to guide discussions: Not all clients are "visual" people, so opening their model and orbiting around their space in real time has been extremely helpful. Clients and trades enjoy the perspective views so much that we often include them in the full-sized drawing sets to give a good "overall" view of the project intent. For complex or tight spaces, sometimes un-rendered plans and elevations just aren't enough!
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Cons
Maxon
  • Weak UV mapping interface.
  • Redshift integration is not 100% seamless yet.
  • Weight-mapping is a nightmare.
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Trimble
  • Ability to import Revit files and libraries.
  • Ability to export true curved vector linework. There are some workarounds, needs to be refined.
  • Create an OPEN MAPS connection. Since the split from Google, the source for high-quality aerials is limited.
  • Ability to dock all menus to the master window on a Mac
  • Ability to develop dockable menu trays on a Mac
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Likelihood to Renew
Maxon
No answers on this topic
Trimble
We typically wait a few years in between renewing, as even older versions are powerful tools for modeling, and we make sure the amount of feature changes are worth the re-investment.
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Usability
Maxon
For reasons mentioned before: an intuitive interface and speed of the viewport, speed of loading, and ease of plugin integration. The MoGraph module encourages experimentation and the creation of highly modifiable scenes. Crashes are extremely rare and the support team and community are hyper-responsive to requests for help. For real... Maxon's staff hangs out in Slack and Discord communities, regularly assisting users with issues. No support ticket required.
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Trimble
It is very user friendly and easy to learn. It's simplicity allows for a low learning curve so more people can learn it faster. The downside is that most schools are no longer teaching it, so many younger professionals come out of school not knowing it and knowing more complex software and they have a hard time "dumbing down" their skillsets
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Support Rating
Maxon
Maxon's staff regularly hangs out in Slack and Discord communities, ready to assist. This goes beyond the support ticket system, which is also extremely robust. Hundreds of optimizations and bugs are fixed in every patch, even when the user experience is already 99.9% smooth. This is a proactive, not reactive, support and engineering team at Maxon.
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Trimble
Sketchup is so intuitive; I can't recall ever looking for official support. However, there are many user forums online that can answer more questions. The usefulness of the online forums is, however, tempered by the fact that there have been many versions of the software under different ownership and support regimes, and thus finding the right information for the right version of the software can be a challenge.
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Alternatives Considered
Maxon
Well, I go for cinema 4D if I want to create dynamic animation instead of Autodesk 3ds Max as I can easily create that animation compared to Autodesk 3ds Max.
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Trimble
We have not evaluated any other competing software to this one. I heard about this software from a friend who teaches how to use it. She showed me in just a few minutes and I was HOOKED. I saw immediately the possible help it would be to my business. Thank you.
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Return on Investment
Maxon
  • Producing quality training content reduces mistakes and improves ebitda for our restaurants
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Trimble
  • It's good in the sense that you can quickly make a drawing and speeds up the design process. Not sure how to quantify that from a ROI perspective.
  • Also, good for editing an image after the fact. We can easily add a dimension that was forgotten in the original image.
  • Allows team members to understand a design easier than on other software platforms.
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ScreenShots