AI assistants are increasingly being used to control creative software and speed up tasks. After Adobe added its own AI assistant in Photoshop earlier in the year, Maxon's now added native support for third-party chatbots in Cinema 4D.
The update means you can now use Claude, ChatGPT or Codex AI assistants to carry out workflows in what is one of our picks as the best 3D modelling software and the best animation software.
Maxon's not introducing its own AI assistant. Instead, it's added a built-in Model Context Protocol (MCP) whose server enables artists to direct Claude, ChatGPT or Codex AI assistants within Cinema 4D workflows.
Artists can then provide natural language instructions to the assistant of their choice to eliminate some of the more procedural, iterative and repetitive manual processes, theoretically without interrupting creative flow.
Maxon cites examples like organising imported objects into a consistent hierarchy, creating object and material variations, preparing multipass renders, organising scenes, and handling basic 3D camera tracking, UV mapping, rigging and animating. The videos below demonstrate processes for motion tracking and for automating repetitive tasks like creating render queue jobs and building scene variations from CSV data.
Maxon says its approach is designed to keep artists in control. Every action happens through Cinema 4D's own tools in the artist's own scene, running locally on their own computer. The results remain native Cinema 4D scene data rather than a flattened generated output, allowing artists to review, refine, undo or iterate on them as they work.
The MCP is switched off by default, requiring users to proactively enable it. The server is protected by an MCP adapter access token, and artists can choose which groups of Cinema 4D tools their assistant is permitted to use.
Actions are performed through Cinema 4D’s own API, and each batch of MCP-driven changes is broken down in the undo history. Commands are also written to a local audit log, providing visibility into what actions the assistant has taken.
The decision to support third-party AI assistants echoes how Maxon added 3D model generation in Cinema 4D via Tencent’s HY 3D AI engine.
MCP support is available beginning today in Cinema 4D 2026.4 or later on Windows and macOS. A new Cinema 4D iPad app is slated for release before the end of the year.
The MCP connection can be activated without additional installs. You can learn more on the Maxon website.
