Cinema 4D QuickThumb

Render tiny _thumb.jpg previews for any .c4d file without launching full Cinema 4D. The packaged tray helper EXE — download it, double-click, and start rendering thumbs in seconds.

Goal

• Speed up thumbnail rendering for heavy .c4d scenes that open slowly and make it easier to spot the correct version at a glance.

Result

• One hotkey (Alt+Shift+Q) generates a fresh thumbnail in seconds; no install step beyond running the bundled EXE.

Name	Demo
Cinema4D
QuickThumb

Quick Start

Hotkey	Tray	Logs toggle
Hotkey shows how selecting a .c4d file and pressing Alt+Shift+Q immediately kicks off a render.	Tray shows the same render kicking off from the tray icon with a left click on the app.	Tray Logs shows that you can disable the helper's log window whenever you prefer a quieter tray experience.

Requirements

• Windows with Cinema 4D Commandline.exe or c4dpy installed.
• Python 3.10+ (needed for running the scripts or rebuilding the EXE).
• Install every dependency in one go:

  pip install -r requirements.txt

Run the tray helper (EXE recommended)

1. Download release/QuickThumbTrayApp.exe from this repo (open it and hit Download raw file, or clone the repo to get it locally).
2. Double-click the EXE. Everything it needs (QuickThumb.py, the icon, tray assets, and dependencies) is already bundled.
3. A brief translucent hint appears at the top of the screen: select a .c4d file and press Alt+Shift+Q to render.
4. Right-click the tray icon any time to:
   • Pick a scene (Run QuickThumb...),
   • Toggle Show rendering logs (they start enabled so you can watch Commandline output), or
   • Exit the helper.
5. The first time you run it, point to Commandline.exe or c4dpy.exe. The path lives in quickthumb_tray_config.json for future sessions.
6. Need to tweak or debug the Python? You can still run python QuickThumbTrayApp.py, but the EXE is the recommended way for everyday use.

Build your own EXE

1. pip install -r requirements.txt
2. pyinstaller QuickThumbTrayApp.spec
3. Grab the binary from dist/QuickThumbTrayApp/QuickThumbTrayApp.exe and ship it anywhere.

Licensing

• The tray helper injects MAXON_LICENSE_METHOD and matching g_licenseMethod=... args so Commandline.exe will not pause for interactive licensing questions.
• The first run leaves license_method at auto, so Cinema 4D prompts you once (its own console asks for 1–4). After a successful render the selection is cached as MaxonApp, and future runs inject the correct flags automatically.
• Set license_method in quickthumb_tray_config.json (or via env var) to MaxonApp, MaxonAccount, LicenseServer, or RLM if you want to override the cached value.
• When using LicenseServer, fill license_server_url and optionally license_server_port. For RLM, set license_rlm_server.
• You can still override everything using the regular Cinema 4D environment variables if you need something custom.

Thanks

Big thanks to the open-source projects powering this toolchain: pystray, Pillow, keyboard, and PyInstaller.

Credits

Artie Hinz - artiehinz.com