The one thing that you get with Houdini for sure (not sure what Maya and others provide in that region) is the constant possibility of changing your geometry type and going back and forth between geometry types.

Say you start with a primitive because you don't need more than one point and want to keep your setup light, but for a different operation need to have a polygonal mesh so you can manipulate segments of the faces, and further down the line you would like a Nurbs surface because you would like UV coordinates for free (purely hypothetical example of course).   It is very customary in Houdini to convert your geometry in multiple ways depending on the operation you are doing. 

In C4d if you wanted to create a surface by lofting or sweeping curves, you are unable to access the data that surface represents unless you "bake" it, which means you have to keep a backup of your "live" geometry in case you need to make changes down the line etc...

There might be ways to access this data in C4d using Python, but that is beyond the reach of the every day user...

On Mar 14, 2012, at 10:57 AM, coen wrote:

Ah you see that as a hack too :)

I can see it's limitations. What other kinds of geometry are there in other apps that you're missing in c4d?

I find it quite versatile, but then again I haven't worked in anything else.

Coen

On 14Mar, 2012, at 6:20 PM, Alex Czetwertynski wrote:

Yes and no, it is a cool hack, but it doesn't work for every single type of operation you may want to do....

It is just astonishing that a modern 3d program commits you to one type of geometry only....

Alex

On Mar 14, 2012, at 12:32 AM, coen wrote:

If you are on R13 you might want to use the correction deformer which takes care of this.

Coen

On Mar 13, 2012, at 10:43 PM, Alex Czetwertynski wrote:

If you convert a primitive to polygons, there is no going back.