Hasta La Motion!

How many Render_FinalFinalv2 files have you had to make over the years? Avoid that mess entirely using tokens in Cinema 4D.

No longer will you need to worry about overwriting previous takes and renders, and easily keep tab on the latest version of your project with tokens.

Cinema 4D R17+ includes a series of standard tokens that you can use, but using the Cineversity CV-Tokens opens up even more possibilities and overall ease.

Download CV-Token from Cineversity

To follow along with this tutorial, you’ll want to grab CV-Token. This C4D tool from Cineversity will allow you to setup the file naming process, and not have to worry about it again.

Cineversity CV-Tokens

The download is available to Cineversity Premium subscribers. If you have a Maxon Service Agreement, you should have a coupon for the Cineversity premium subscription, so be sure to check for that.

You can learn more about CV-Tokens here on Cineversity. If you have installed the CV-Toolbox, you will have CV-Tokens available in C4D.

What are Tokens?

Tokens append your project file name with additional pieces of data. It’s an automated way to add information like take numbers, settings, dates, and more.

Standard Cinema 4D Tokens

• $PRJ – Project File Name
• $CAMERA – Current Camera Name
• $TAKE – Current Take Name
• $PASS – Multi-pass or Object Channel Name (Defined Multi-pass Names)
• $USERPASS – Multi-pass or Object Channel Name
• $FRAME – Current Animation Frame
• $RS – Current Render Settings Name
• $RES – Image Resolution
• $RANGE – Animation Range
• $FPS – Frames-per-second or Frame Rate

CV-Tokens Options

• $YYYY – Date Year
• $YY – Date Year
• $MM – Date Month
• $DD – Date Day
• $HH – Date Hour
• $MM – Date Minute
• $SS – Date Second
• $CVAUTHOR – Project Author Name
• $CVUSERNAME – OS Username
• $CVCOMPUTER – OS Computer Name
• $CVRENDERER – Current Render Engine
• $CVHEIGHT – Render Height (1080p, 720p, etc)

Now what’s great is that you can combine these tokens, and therefore never have to worry about naming your renders.

My Go-To Tokens

For all my renders, this is my go-to setup for tokens:

…/…/04_Renders/01_C4D/$cvRenderer/$take/$MM_$DD_$YY/$hh_$mm_$ss/$prj_$take_$camera_$res_

Let’s break that down.

You’ll see that it starts with two directories, which then go to a folder called 04_Renders, then another folder called 01_C4D.

From there, it will create a new folder on its own using the $cvRenderer token.

Since I jump between Arnold, Octance, Redshift, and Physical, I like to keep them separated out. That way I’ll always know exactly what I created these images in.

Then it will go into a folder from the take name. (Be sure to check out my takes tutorial too.)

Now we are in the most important section, the date and the time. I have it setup to Month_Date_Year, then Hours_Minutes_Seconds.

If you are rendering a lot of test images out, you don’t want to worry about overwriting or adding version numbers to your file names. By using date and time, you will never overwrite a render again. 

Now finally, to know what project I’m working on, that’s where this final portion comes into play. These is where we’re actually creating the name of our output.

The name of my output is Project Name_Take Name_Camera Name_ Resolution.

Now it’s worth saving this string in either a default project, or somewhere on your desktop that you can easily reference.

With this setup, you don’t have to worry about overwriting previous renders, which is pretty much the worst feeling.

Build Your Own Token String

At the 12-minute mark of this tutorial, I’ll show you how to change the tokens to your own liking. We’ll use the tokens and add “/” to separate renders into folders.

The post Use Tokens and Never Name Your Render Files Again appeared first on Greyscalegorilla.