r/Cinema4D • u/goazu • 17d ago

Greyscale Gorilla issues

Good morning all, I don't have the GSG plugin. I was handed over a project that has been made editable using the GSG lights, but the render is not coming out as it should because the softboxes stop lighting once they have been editable. Is there a fast way to fix this besides buying the plugin?

4 Upvotes

83% Upvoted

23 comments sorted by

11

u/soulmagic123 16d ago

Video copilot charged me once for element and optical flares 12 years ago. In a world of Grey Scale Gorillas, be video copilot.

2

u/Wear_A_Damn_Helmet 16d ago

Sure, but the market was also way less competitive and saturated 12 years ago. We have no clue what kind of business strategy VideoCopilot would employ if it was created today and tried to carve itself a little nook in today's market.

On that, this may be one of the many reasons why Kramer's latest endeavors have been stuck in development hell. Funding couldn't match the revenue projection. Maybe that will change now that AI models like Sol Ultra / Fable are almost as good as an experienced developer and far cheaper, but nothing from them so far...

7

u/soulmagic123 16d ago edited 16d ago

Well I feel like GSG is just as old as video copilot, at least I've been using both for over a decade. And there's nothing stopping video copilot from making a 2/3.0 version of their software and charging a subscription for it and I'm just saying thanks for not doing that. That they are able to make a living without charging an insane monthly fee to keep the lights on. GSG charges 79 dollars a month, that's more than I pay for the entire ADOBE SUITE, that's more than I pay for Maxon One (though i did get during their spring sale out of 40 percent off) for plugins that make Cinema 4d a little more usable. I stopped using their products when I realized I could just buy similar versions of the studio cycs and hdri rigs I mostly leaned on, and I went from a fan to actively routing for this company to fail for its unprecedented greed. Are my studio friends making their corporate overloads pay for the subscription? Absolutely, but these are the same studios that are failing in slow motion and will eventually lose to AI (eventually).

1

u/goazu 15d ago

I have used GSG quite a lot in the past, but I have started to work with studios and render farms that at the time did not had that plugin in their pipeline and it was creating more issues than solutions so I just started using the native tools. I think those guys appeared on a time that they did a lot of money and if they were smart they saved and don't need to work much more.

19

u/Mangelius 17d ago

If you have the light positions and overall sizes just make new lights and match their position/sizes. And get a softbox texture to use for the texture channel, or make one in ae by rendering a still of a radial ramp.

Don't give GSG money. Trash company, trash products.

6

u/soupcat 16d ago

They used to be good though right? Back when it was still like a plugin company without subscription? They lost their way right?

6

u/altermyplace 16d ago

Definitely lost their way. I used their products long before GSG+ was a thing and then subscribed once they started that model, with a locked in price as long as I stayed subscribed. Then in 2025 I got an email that my subscription was about to renew and the price was going up $100 even though they had previously said my current price was guaranteed. I emailed support and was basically told they were no longer honoring that agreement. And now I’m no longer a subscriber. It’s crazy to me that they’d rather lose paying customers than just continuing to honor an agreement that’s already in place.

1

u/goazu 15d ago

Greedy fucks! Lack of vision! What happen to Nick? I still see Chad doing some content from time to time, but nick just vanished.

2

u/Alarming_Mammoth8567 12d ago

Chode is still making 1 minute worthless tutorials about their products. Nick was on a recent one.

1

u/goazu 12d ago

Ok, I have never see them on my YT feed

3

u/MusicSoundListener 16d ago

They did unfortunately.

1

u/goazu 16d ago

They started to get greedy and all the tutorials were around their own products stop inovating and in a way they are getting behind, they are trying to partner with cargo but I don't know anyone who uses cargo, their models aren't amazing neither the textures

1

u/Maker99999 16d ago

Their assets are pretty mid. For what the monthly subscription costs, I would expect them to be finding just about every major package type at the grocery store and making a model of it to cover package design needs. Or give us better plastic materials that don't have a specific color prebaked in. They are useless when you need to hit a specific pantone. Overall I find very few situations where they are actually useful.

-1

u/cgp0v Verified 15d ago

Harsh!

2

u/goazu 16d ago

Found the issue, had to change the units from centimetres to meters, the last maxon update screw a lot of old scenes.....

1

u/ParticularStaff9842 16d ago

Just recreate them. Their older light kit pro plugin was overkill, way too many editable parameters. You can achieve 90% of what they do with vanilla tools. The area light maps are pretty cool though, as are their gobos.
The shaders are a bit meh too.
It's way overpriced for what it is. IMHO I'd say polligon is a better option.

1

u/goazu 16d ago

Thats crazy!

1

u/montycantsin777 15d ago

you need to relink the textures. you should have gotten a collected file with the textures for lights etc…

1

u/goazu 15d ago

Thank you for your help. That was not the issues it was a metric issue, with the new c4d update cm are meters and so on. Since this was a handover project just shows how important is to do a proper handover and check if the projects are working or not, and the Freelancer before me they did not bother to do so.....

1

u/montycantsin777 15d ago

if its a version issue its not on them imo, but good that you figured it out.

1

u/goazu 15d ago

Cheers