IntroductionWelcome| 00:00 | (Music playing)
| | 00:03 | Hi! I am Ian Robinson and welcome to
Cinema 4D 11.5 Essential Training.
| | 00:08 | Cinema 4D is a cutting-edge
3D modeling and animation tool.
| | 00:12 | In this course, we'll cover everything
you need to get started with creating
| | 00:15 | 3D motion graphics, from modeling, to
animation, to integration with other design tools.
| | 00:21 | We'll start by creating simple models
using Cinema's primitive objects, and move
| | 00:25 | on to modeling with NURBS and Polygons.
| | 00:27 | We'll finish with some advanced
modeling techniques using HyperNURBS.
| | 00:32 | Then, we'll explore how to texture and
light your scene, even diving into the
| | 00:35 | basics of BodyPaint, where we can
create more advanced and detailed textures.
| | 00:40 | Then we'll check out Cinema 4D's
powerful animation tools including MoGraph,
| | 00:44 | where you can push your 3D designs
further than ever before with Cloner
| | 00:48 | objects and Effectors.
| | 00:50 | Finally, we'll wrap things up by
exploring just how easy it is to integrate
| | 00:54 | your projects for compositing and final
output through After Effects or even Motion 4.
| | 01:00 | I've been teaching and designing motion
graphics for over ten years and I think
| | 01:03 | you'll find Cinema 4D to be a very
powerful part of your production toolset.
| | 01:07 | So, let's get started with
Cinema 4D 11.5 Essential Training.
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| Using the exercise files| 00:00 | If you are a Premium member of the
lynda.com Online Training Library, or if you
| | 00:05 | are watching this tutorial on a DVD-ROM,
you have access to the exercise files
| | 00:10 | used throughout this title.
| | 00:11 | I have the files on my desktop in a folder.
| | 00:14 | Let's go ahead and open the folder, so
I can show you how things are laid out.
| | 00:18 | You'll find a number of folders that
correspond to the chapters throughout
| | 00:22 | the title, and within each folder, you'll
find Cinema 4D projects used as starting points.
| | 00:28 | At the bottom, there is a Media folder
that contains different pieces of media
| | 00:32 | that we'll be using throughout the course.
| | 00:35 | If you are a Monthly subscriber or
Annual subscriber to lynda.com, you don't
| | 00:39 | have access to the Exercise Files,
but you can follow along from scratch
| | 00:43 | with your own assets.
| | 00:45 | So let's get started.
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| Understanding CINEMA 4D bundles and editions| 00:00 |
I am recording this video from the
MAXON website, because I just kind of want to
| | 00:04 |
show you the different offerings that MAXON has.
| | 00:07 |
In this course, we'll be covering
Cinema 4D and BodyPaint, but we'll also be
| | 00:11 |
covering some of the different modules
that don't necessarily come as a part of
| | 00:15 |
the core of Cinema 4D.
| | 00:17 |
So, I went to the maxon.net website and
just clicked under Products, and you can
| | 00:21 |
see here we have four main features.
| | 00:24 |
Cinema 4D and BodyPaint actually come as
one unit if you buy Cinema 4D as the core.
| | 00:31 |
You can buy BodyPaint as a
separate application, if you want to try and
| | 00:35 |
integrate it with 3ds Max, or Maya, or
Lightwave, as you can see here on the website.
| | 00:41 |
But if you buy the core
Cinema 4D, it comes with BodyPaint.
| | 00:44 |
Now, there are individual modules.
| | 00:47 |
Let's go ahead and check those out.
| | 00:50 |
As you can see, the different modules
allow you to create different things,
| | 00:53 |
like Advanced Render goes into Global
Illumination, so you can create some nice
| | 00:58 |
photorealistic renders.
| | 00:59 |
MoGraph, which has really kind of taken
the broadcast industry by storm, is a
| | 01:03 |
great motion graphic module to add to Cinema 4D.
| | 01:09 |
Let's jump back to the
Editions & Bundles section.
| | 01:13 |
Under Editions & Bundles, you notice
MAXON has actually created different
| | 01:17 |
editions, depending upon what you are
trying to do, whether it's engineering or
| | 01:21 |
architecture or broadcast,
which is one of the new editions.
| | 01:25 |
But really the best bang
for the buck are the bundles.
| | 01:28 |
So, if we look here, there is an XL
Bundle, which includes the Advanced Render,
| | 01:33 |
MOCCA, Thinking Particles, and NET Render,
but the version we are using for this
| | 01:37 |
course is the Studio Bundle, which
comes with a lot of the different modules.
| | 01:41 |
As you can see, we have MoGraph and
Dynamics and Sketch and Toon and Advanced
| | 01:47 |
Render, all as a part of the Studio Bundle.
| | 01:49 |
Now, if you have any questions about
exactly what you'd like to purchase or what
| | 01:54 |
each bundle comes with,
feel free to give MAXON a call.
| | 01:57 |
Their customer service is excellent.
| | 01:59 |
But for now, I just wanted you to see,
in this course, we are using the Studio
| | 02:03 |
Bundle, just so we have access
to most of the other modules.
| | 02:08 |
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| Exploring new features in R11.5| 00:00 |
Cinema 4D 11.5 has a boatload of new features.
| | 00:04 |
For example, the render engine
has been completely overhauled.
| | 00:07 |
Now, you'll receive faster and
better renders using bucket rendering.
| | 00:11 |
The Picture Viewer has been overhauled.
| | 00:13 |
Now, you can add filters to your
renders and compare different render settings
| | 00:16 |
directly in the Viewer, before
you ever send off your final render.
| | 00:20 |
There is much tighter integration
with external compositing applications.
| | 00:24 |
For example, Motion 4 is now supported
with true 3D space, lights, and cameras.
| | 00:30 |
You can create solids for your After
Effects project for placements in your
| | 00:34 |
composites, and you can even
export your Cloner information.
| | 00:38 |
MoGraph has been totally rewritten
with MoGraph 2, and the new Dynamics engine.
| | 00:43 |
MoDynamics will help you create realistic
object interactions with your MoGraph objects.
| | 00:49 |
There are also new tools, like MoSpline,
which will allow you to create new
| | 00:52 |
flexible spline animations.
| | 00:54 |
And finally, the Effectors have been
much improved to help with deforming and
| | 00:59 |
sorting your cloned objects.
| | 01:01 |
Now, even though this list might not
seem that long, wait until you actually
| | 01:05 |
start using some of the new tools.
| | 01:07 |
I often stop and think to myself,
how did I ever do it before?
| | 01:12 |
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| Understanding 3D| 00:00 | In this video, I am just going to give
you a basic overview of some of the terms
| | 00:04 | and objects we will be seeing
as we move throughout this course.
| | 00:07 | If you are brand new to 3D, some of
these terms may not be that familiar.
| | 00:11 | So I am not going to dive too deep
into any specific area. I just want you to
| | 00:15 | have a general idea of what
some of these different terms mean.
| | 00:19 | So, first off, this large center area
in our screen is called the viewport.
| | 00:24 | This is the area that we will go
ahead and move around in to view and
| | 00:29 | manipulate our 3D objects.
| | 00:31 | Now, notice as I am moving around the
scene here, I have this very faint green line,
| | 00:36 | red line, and blue line.
| | 00:38 | These are showing me the
coordinates in three-dimensional space.
| | 00:41 | They are measured by Y, X, and Z. This
area here, towards the center is
| | 00:48 | known as the Origin.
| | 00:50 | This is the center of the entire project.
| | 00:53 | Now, the Cylinder that's floating in the
center of the screen, if I go ahead and
| | 00:56 | select it, this is what's
known as a primitive object.
| | 01:00 | Primitive objects are just basic
objects you can use to get started in
| | 01:04 | your modeling process.
| | 01:06 | They are primitive because their
parameters haven't been fully defined yet.
| | 01:10 | Notice this little box right here on
the edge. If I click-and-drag, notice I
| | 01:14 | can drastically change the scale and size of
the radius of the specific primitive object.
| | 01:21 | You can see all the different primitive
objects by clicking on this Cube button
| | 01:25 | up here at the top of the screen, and
you can see we have a bunch of different
| | 01:29 | primitives we can start
modeling our 3D objects from.
| | 01:32 | Now let's explore some of the other objects.
| | 01:34 | I will just turn off the visibility
of my Cylinder here and I want to show
| | 01:39 | you a Polygon object.
| | 01:42 | Notice it's very similar to the Cylinder.
| | 01:45 | That's because I used a similar
primitive to actually get started.
| | 01:50 | So modeling with Polygons
works kind of like molding clay.
| | 01:53 | You can sort of push and pull the
different pieces of geometry around.
| | 01:58 | And you might be thinking, well, what
are the different pieces of geometry?
| | 02:01 | Well, if I click on my Polygon object
here, you notice you can see these lines,
| | 02:06 | and these tools over here on the left-
side of the interface allow me to select
| | 02:10 | the different types of Polygon geometry.
| | 02:13 | So this one here allows me to select
the individual points along the Polygon.
| | 02:20 | With the points selected, I can go
ahead and change where these points live in
| | 02:24 | three-dimensional space.
| | 02:27 | Polygons are also made up
of edges, as well as faces.
| | 02:33 | And again, these are just different
ways we can select this geometry, so we can
| | 02:37 | go ahead and manipulate it and change the shape.
| | 02:40 | Now, the next type of geometry I want
to show you is called a NURBS object.
| | 02:43 | NURBS stands for Non-Uniform Rational B-Splines.
| | 02:50 | Now, what in the heck does that mean?
| | 02:52 | Well, basically this type of geometry
is created at its core from a spline.
| | 02:59 | So let me go ahead and dissect it a
little bit here, so you can see more of
| | 03:02 | what I am talking about.
| | 03:05 | As you can see here, I have
got three different splines:
| | 03:08 | my recycle text in the center, a first
level of outline, and a second level of
| | 03:12 | outline, and each one of these splines
has been dropped into an Extrude NURBS.
| | 03:19 | So if I go ahead and activate the outer
green spline Extrude NURB, you can see
| | 03:24 | now I have some geometry that's been created.
| | 03:26 | Now, you might be thinking,
"Well, what are splines?"
| | 03:29 | Well, if you have ever used Photoshop
or Illustrator, when I go into Point mode here,
| | 03:33 | you might recognize these
points with the handles coming out of them.
| | 03:37 | These are called Bezier Splines,
which are very similar to Bezier Paths in
| | 03:42 | Photoshop or Illustrator.
| | 03:43 | So it's these splines that
are the core of NURBS objects.
| | 03:51 | Now, when we view our different objects
in the scene, there is something we need
| | 03:56 | to do to actually add color and
style, and that's called a Material.
| | 04:01 | Now, we have covered the two core ways
to model in CINEMA 4D, Polygons and NURBS.
| | 04:08 | But there is another way,
and that's called HyperNURBS.
| | 04:11 | If I turn my Polygon object back on
in the scene here, you can see it's a
| | 04:17 | rather rudimentary model.
| | 04:20 | But if I activate my HyperNURBS,
notice it smoothes out that model, so now I
| | 04:25 | have really, really nice, smooth geometry.
| | 04:29 | To model something this smooth
would take a fair amount of time, but
| | 04:32 | HyperNURBS makes it easy.
| | 04:34 | Basically, you can take your Polygon
object and drop it into a HyperNURBS object
| | 04:39 | and it kind of smoothes everything out.
| | 04:41 | This is sort of a hybrid
between NURBS and Polygon objects.
| | 04:46 | So once we have our models built, we
need to actually apply colors and that
| | 04:52 | happens when we apply a Material.
| | 04:54 | So let's jump to Materials.
| | 04:58 | You may notice this is the same model
that we had up a second ago for our NURBS
| | 05:03 | object, and yes, it is.
| | 05:06 | But if I go ahead and render the
scene here, you notice I have a Material
| | 05:11 | applied that made the inside look like
bark and the color around the edge is
| | 05:17 | also another kind of Material.
| | 05:18 | You can see Materials down here
in the bottom of your project.
| | 05:23 | Now, the bark Material
required something called a Texture.
| | 05:27 | Now, the Texture was used as an integral
part to actually create this bark Material.
| | 05:33 | So with my rendered scene here, as you
can see, I have other things going on in
| | 05:38 | the scene, for example, lights and shadows.
| | 05:43 | Now, you can create lights and
shadows just by creating lights.
| | 05:46 | And we can see the different
lights over here in our Object Manager.
| | 05:52 | If I pull way out in the scene, you can
kind of see some of the lights here off
| | 05:56 | on the sides, and these lights were
used to actually light this specific scene.
| | 06:04 | You can use a camera to
move around your scene as well.
| | 06:07 | Let me switch to the view from this
camera, and you notice now I can actually
| | 06:12 | move around the view through
the eyes of this specific camera.
| | 06:17 | This is kind of neat, because you can
use the camera to actually change the type
| | 06:21 | of view. Just like 35mm camera, you can
change lenses with a camera in a scene.
| | 06:28 | You can actually change the Focal
Length or the Width and actually distort
| | 06:32 | what you are seeing.
| | 06:34 | So all in all, this concludes our
quick tutorial of understanding 3D.
| | 06:40 | Now rest assured, we are going to
cover each one of these specific areas more
| | 06:46 | in depth as we move throughout the course.
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|
|
1. Getting StartedOverview of the interface| 00:00 | This video is designed to give you a
basic overview of the interface of CINEMA 4D.
| | 00:06 | In the overall sense, I want to show you
just how well designed the interface is
| | 00:10 | and how user-friendly the experience can be.
| | 00:13 | Let's get started at the top.
| | 00:15 | Obviously, we have typical pull-down
menus you would find in just about any
| | 00:18 | application, where the core features
of the application are broken down.
| | 00:22 | Now, if you have the basic CINEMA 4D
bundle, you might not necessarily see
| | 00:26 | things like MoGraph or Hair. Don't panic.
| | 00:30 | These are just different sections created
because of the expansion with the extra bundles.
| | 00:36 | The next group of icons, down
here, is called the toolbar.
| | 00:39 | The toolbar is divided into sections.
| | 00:41 | This area, down here in the left, allows for
selection and manipulation of your objects.
| | 00:46 | The center area here allows you to
determine what settings you would like to
| | 00:50 | output for your different files.
| | 00:52 | For example, I could create a
web video, or a video for a DVD, or
| | 00:57 | high-definition video.
| | 00:58 | This section, right here, opens up a
bunch of sub-menus to allow you to create
| | 01:03 | everything from lights, to
basic objects, to particles.
| | 01:08 | In the middle section here,
we have our Render settings.
| | 01:10 | This is where you can set the
Resolution and file you would like to output from
| | 01:14 | CINEMA 4D, for example, a still
frame for a print piece or video for web.
| | 01:20 | This is an area we will be coming to
often, so I am just going to show you some
| | 01:23 | of the different settings.
| | 01:24 | For example, this left button right here.
| | 01:27 | This will render the Active
view in your Viewport down here.
| | 01:31 | Let's press that button so
I can show you what I mean.
| | 01:33 | This is a pretty high preview as to what
the file will look like when we go to output.
| | 01:38 | So you will see me use this
quite often in the course.
| | 01:41 | The next set of buttons, right
here, allow me to create objects.
| | 01:44 | If you click-and-hold, notice I
get different palettes that pop-up.
| | 01:49 | I know this because of the little black
triangle underneath of the specific buttons.
| | 01:53 | So I can create everything from basic
primitive objects, all the way to lights,
| | 01:58 | to more advanced features,
like deformations and particles.
| | 02:01 | To jump over here to the Object
Manager, this is an area where I can select
| | 02:06 | individual objects in my scene.
| | 02:08 | It's also a place where we can organize
and create hierarchy for our animation.
| | 02:12 | We are not going to get to that right now.
| | 02:15 | But notice this area down below the
Object Manager, this is called the Attribute
| | 02:20 | Editor, and as I select different
objects, the Attribute Editor will update, so
| | 02:25 | I can see the different
options available for each attribute.
| | 02:29 | Also, notice when I select an
individual attribute, sometimes I have
| | 02:33 | different sections that are called
channels, where I can choose the different
| | 02:37 | attributes to select.
| | 02:40 | Down here at the bottom, we have the
Coordinates Manager, where I can type in
| | 02:43 | specific attributes for whatever
object or objects I have selected.
| | 02:47 | For example, with the Cube, if I were
to move its position, I can go ahead and
| | 02:52 | type, I don't know, any number, like 500,
on the x-axis and when I click Apply,
| | 02:58 | it's going to move 500 units on the x-axis.
| | 03:02 | And again, with the Cube selected, the
Attribute Editor up here has updated,
| | 03:06 | letting me know it's now
500 units down on the x axis.
| | 03:12 | Let's go ahead and undo by pressing
Ctrl+Z or Command+Z on your keyboard.
| | 03:16 | Now, since the Cube is selected in the
Viewport, if you look in the lower left
| | 03:19 | area of the interface, notice we have
the Materials Manager, and there's a white
| | 03:24 | box around this turquoise Material
that's letting me know that that Material is
| | 03:28 | actually a part of that Cube.
| | 03:30 | I also know that because in the Object
Manager I have this thing up here called
| | 03:35 | the Material Tag, and it's applied to the Cube.
| | 03:39 | If we deselect the Cube, you will notice I
have no more white box around the Material.
| | 03:45 | If we select the Sphere here, notice again,
there's no white box around this Material.
| | 03:49 | So if we want to apply a Material to
the Sphere, we can just click-and-drag it
| | 03:53 | right onto the object in the Viewer.
| | 03:56 | And notice the tag is now
updated in our Object Manager.
| | 04:00 | Now, to get back down to the lower left
portion of the interface, just above the
| | 04:04 | Material Manager, I have this thing
that looks sort of like a ruler, and that's
| | 04:08 | called the Timeline.
| | 04:10 | If you look in the Timeline, there
is a green box with a 0 next to it.
| | 04:13 | That's letting me know that I
have my playhead placed at Frame 0.
| | 04:17 | If you click-and-drag that green box,
notice it moves down the Timeline.
| | 04:22 | Now I have moved 35 Frames down the
Timeline, and I know that, again, because
| | 04:26 | the number right next to my playhead.
| | 04:28 | Also, there is this well over here
letting me know exactly where my playhead is,
| | 04:32 | where I can just go ahead and
highlight the number and type any Frame, for
| | 04:37 | example, 50, and press Enter on my
keyboard to move my play head down.
| | 04:42 | To jump to the left side over here,
this area is called the toolbox.
| | 04:46 | This is where I can select
different tools that will allow me to select
| | 04:50 | different parameters of each object.
| | 04:52 | For example, right now,
we are in the model tool.
| | 04:55 | So if I clicked on the Cube, I could
easily select the Cube, and you see I have
| | 04:59 | these things on the Cube called Control axes.
| | 05:03 | And to move the Cube around, all I have
to do is click on any of these axes and
| | 05:08 | I can move the Cube.
| | 05:10 | Notice as I am dragging the Cube, I
am getting a number in the center,
| | 05:13 | letting me know exactly how far I am
dragging it, and that is also updating
| | 05:17 | in my Attribute Editor.
| | 05:19 | Now, what about the rest of these tools?
| | 05:21 | Well, they work for Polygon objects.
| | 05:24 | This object here is called a
parametric primitive, which we will cover later
| | 05:28 | on in this chapter.
| | 05:29 | But Polygons have their own specific
set of parameters that you can select, and
| | 05:35 | those are points, edges, and faces.
| | 05:38 | If we click on the Polygon tool, it
doesn't look like much has changed, but with
| | 05:42 | my Live Selection tool selected, if
I just click-and-drag anywhere on the
| | 05:47 | Polygon, I can select the specific faces.
| | 05:50 | Now, with those selected, if I click
on one of the control vertices to move
| | 05:54 | things, it's only moving
those faces of the Polygon.
| | 05:57 | You can do the same thing with
edges and points on the Polygon.
| | 06:01 | I am just going to Undo that last move.
| | 06:04 | So to cover one last major feature of
the interface, let's look up at the upper
| | 06:08 | right-hand corner of our Viewport.
| | 06:10 | These are the Control tools that allow
us to move around and view our objects
| | 06:15 | from different points in the scene.
| | 06:17 | Just so we can see how they work in
the default manner, let's choose our
| | 06:20 | model tool and make sure to click anywhere
else in the scene to deselect all the objects.
| | 06:27 | Now, to cover the tools, go ahead and
click-and-drag on this one tool with the
| | 06:31 | two circular arrows and the dot in the middle.
| | 06:33 | If you click-and-drag
around, notice we are orbiting.
| | 06:37 | This lets us orbit around the origin of the
scene, which is actually in the center here.
| | 06:43 | If we go ahead and click-and-drag our next
tool here, this moves us closer or further away.
| | 06:49 | If we grab the last tool to the left,
this will allow us to pan around the scene.
| | 06:53 | Now, there are many more controls in
the Viewport, and we will cover those
| | 06:57 | features in depth in our next video,
as we move throughout the chapter, going
| | 07:01 | more in depth into all the
different features of the interface.
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| Using viewports| 00:01 |
As you begin to learn CINEMA 4D and
create bigger and more complex models,
| | 00:05 |
it will become increasingly more important to
feel comfortable navigating around your scene.
| | 00:09 |
That's where the Viewports come in,
this large area here in the center.
| | 00:12 |
It's going to help you
view and navigate your scene.
| | 00:15 |
So to show you what I mean, let's get
started by looking at these icons in the
| | 00:19 |
upper right hand corner here.
| | 00:21 |
We will work our way from left to right.
| | 00:23 |
The first icon in the upper
left, here, is the Pan tool.
| | 00:26 |
If we click on that, we can pan up
and down, left and right, in our scene.
| | 00:32 |
This center area, here, is
actually called the Origin.
| | 00:35 |
This is the center of everything
that we are building in CINEMA 4D.
| | 00:40 |
This next tool, here,
allows you to Track In and Out.
| | 00:43 |
So you can zoom in and out of your scene.
| | 00:47 |
The next tool will Orbit Around.
| | 00:49 |
If I click on that, we can orbit
around the scene, and notice, it's
| | 00:52 |
orbiting around the origin.
| | 00:54 |
If you select an object in the scene
with this Live Selection tool in the
| | 00:57 |
model tool, now when we click our
Orbit Around tool, we are orbiting around
| | 01:01 |
the selected object.
| | 01:04 |
This last button, here on the right,
is called the Full Screen button, and
| | 01:07 |
it allows you to view your scene full screen,
or when you click it in different views.
| | 01:13 |
So, up in the upper left corner, you
see here we have the Perspective View.
| | 01:17 |
Over here, we have the Top View,
Front View, and the Right View.
| | 01:21 |
As you can see, looking at all three
of these different views, in addition to
| | 01:25 |
our Perspective View, we have a much
better idea as to the organization and
| | 01:30 |
placement of our objects in 3D space.
| | 01:33 |
So, for example, if we would like the Sphere
to line up with the Cone, it's very simple.
| | 01:39 |
You just click on your Control
vertices and you can move it in the scene,
| | 01:43 |
and you notice now I am starting to see a
little bit better exactly where the objects are.
| | 01:49 |
Now, we will go more in depth about
manipulating your objects in a later video.
| | 01:53 |
I just wanted you to see
in the different Viewports.
| | 01:56 |
You can see the different placement a
little bit better when you view your scene
| | 02:00 |
from these different angles.
| | 02:02 |
One more note about these other windows.
| | 02:04 |
These are called Orthogonal View windows.
| | 02:07 |
That's because they
actually live in two-dimensions.
| | 02:10 |
If we click on the Orbit Around tool and drag,
notice I am not orbiting around the scene.
| | 02:16 |
I only have the ability to
zoom in and out and Pan around.
| | 02:19 |
Now, if I wanted the Top View to be
full screen, I would just click the Full
| | 02:23 |
Screen button in the Top View.
| | 02:25 |
To get back, we just click the button
again and select our Perspective View.
| | 02:30 |
It's important to understand when you
are in the multiple views, if you select
| | 02:34 |
the other window by clicking anywhere
in the Viewer, when you go to Render
| | 02:39 |
your scene by clicking the button, it renders
the scene of the window that you had selected.
| | 02:44 |
I know I have them selected when I
click in the scene, because I can see
| | 02:48 |
this faint white line that's highlighted
around each window when I select in the Viewport.
| | 02:54 |
So let's go back to Full Screen here.
| | 02:58 |
If you are coming to CINEMA 4D from Maya, you
might be wondering if there are key commands.
| | 03:02 |
And yes, the key commands are actually the same.
| | 03:05 |
You just have to hold down Alt or Option.
| | 03:07 |
If you right-click and drag while
holding down Option, you can zoom in and out.
| | 03:12 |
If you left-click and drag while
holding down Option, you can Orbit.
| | 03:17 |
If you middle-click and drag, that
will allow you to Pan around your scene.
| | 03:22 |
Now, on occasion, you will have
your scene set up where you can't see
| | 03:26 |
any specific objects.
| | 03:29 |
Let's say, for example, I want
to center this specific object.
| | 03:33 |
Well, we have pull-down menus in our
Viewports as well, where I can just come up
| | 03:38 |
under Edit and say, Frame Selected Object.
| | 03:42 |
Notice the key command is O. You can
do the same thing with Frame Selected
| | 03:46 |
Elements, but we will get into that in
a later video, because that has to deal
| | 03:51 |
with actual geometry.
| | 03:53 |
To go back to the default scene, you can
just say Frame Default, and your window
| | 03:57 |
returns to the default scene where
the origin is back at the center.
| | 04:01 |
Lastly, in your Viewports, it's
important to understand this pull-down.
| | 04:05 |
This is called the Filter menu.
| | 04:07 |
This will allow you to turn on and
off the visibility of different objects.
| | 04:12 |
Now, I know this Sphere object is a
Polygon object because of this triangle icon.
| | 04:18 |
If I go to Filter, I can turn
that off by just deselecting.
| | 04:22 |
Notice when I go to Render the
scene, the object is still there.
| | 04:25 |
It's just filtering the
view in the specific Viewport.
| | 04:30 |
To turn it back on, I could select All
and turn everything on, or I could just
| | 04:34 |
select the specific geometry.
| | 04:36 |
Now that we know a little bit about how
to move around and view our scene, it's
| | 04:39 |
probably going to be important to
understand how to move objects in your scene,
| | 04:43 |
which is exactly what we will
be covering in the next video.
| | 04:46 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Translating and moving objects in the viewport| 00:00 | As you saw in the first video in this
chapter, creating an object in the scene
| | 00:04 | is really only the beginning of the process.
| | 00:07 | In this video, I am going to show you
the different ways you can manipulate your
| | 00:10 | object once you've added it to your scene.
| | 00:13 | These are typically called Translations.
| | 00:15 | Let's select a cube in the center of the scene.
| | 00:17 | Notice we have these arrows sticking out.
| | 00:19 | These are called Control Vertices.
| | 00:22 | If you click on any of them and drag,
while holding down your mouse button, you
| | 00:25 | will move that specific
object just on the Control Vertice.
| | 00:30 | So if I click on this blue one, I'm
moving in Z. If I click on the green one,
| | 00:34 | I'm moving in Y. If I click on the X,
you guessed it, I am moving in X.
| | 00:38 | Now, there are tools that can help
you control the translation of objects.
| | 00:42 | They are up here in the upper left-hand side.
| | 00:45 | We have the Move tool.
| | 00:46 | With the Move tool, if just click and
drag anywhere in the scene, you notice I'm
| | 00:50 | moving everywhere in three dimensions.
| | 00:52 | I know this because, down here in the
Coordinates Manager, it's updating as I click and drag.
| | 00:59 | So, that being said, I could actually
type numbers into the Coordinates Manager.
| | 01:03 | Let's just type 50 and I am going to
hit tab to move to the next field and then
| | 01:07 | 80, tab and 200, and then if we click
Apply, we've now applied that translation.
| | 01:14 | Now, back to the Move tool, and
for that matter, any of these tools.
| | 01:17 | When they are selected, you
can lock off specific parameters.
| | 01:22 | So, for example if I only wanted to move
the box on the X-axis, I could deselect
| | 01:26 | both Y and Z, and then click anywhere
in the scene and drag holding my mouse
| | 01:31 | button down and the object only moves on X-axis.
| | 01:34 | Let's turn Y and Z back on, and you
can also make adjustments to your object
| | 01:39 | using the Scale tool.
| | 01:40 | With the Scale tool selected, again, if
I just click anywhere in the scene and
| | 01:43 | drag, I can automatically
scale the size of the object.
| | 01:48 | Now, with these handles in the Scale
tool, if I just click directly on the Y
| | 01:53 | handle and I bring up and down, you
would think I could just scale this object
| | 01:57 | as well and it would only scale on the Y-axis.
| | 02:01 | That's just not the case
with a primitive object.
| | 02:03 | You have to go into this
tool called the Object tool.
| | 02:06 | When you select the Object tool, then
you can click on the different handles and
| | 02:10 | resize the specific object.
| | 02:13 | This is translating just as objects and I only
use this tool when I am trying to create models.
| | 02:20 | Let's go back up to the Use
model tool and select this sphere.
| | 02:24 | Now, notice the Scale tool is still selected.
| | 02:27 | Again, if I click and drag anywhere in the
scene, I can go ahead and make an adjustment.
| | 02:30 | If I click on one of the axis handles,
I can distort this specific object
| | 02:35 | without having to use the model tool, because
this object is a polygon object. Now, don't worry.
| | 02:41 | We will be going more into the
different types of geometry later.
| | 02:44 | So the last tool is Rotation tool.
| | 02:47 | Let's select cube again.
| | 02:49 | With Rotation tool, you'll notice we
have all these different axis bands now.
| | 02:54 | If I just clicked anywhere in the
scene and started dragging around, the
| | 02:58 | rotation happens oriented to my specific view.
| | 03:02 | If I click within this yellow circle
and drag around, I can freely rotate the
| | 03:07 | object around the scene.
| | 03:08 | Now you guessed it.
| | 03:09 | With the bands, if I click specifically
on the different axis bands, the object
| | 03:14 | will rotate only on that specific axis.
| | 03:17 | Now, with a cube off-center like this
that, let's switch back to the Move tool.
| | 03:20 | Now, if I wanted to move on the X-axis,
let's just deactivate Z and Y, click and drag.
| | 03:27 | You'll notice the object
is moving on its X-axis.
| | 03:30 | That's because we're actually
using the Object Coordinate System.
| | 03:33 | The button right next to Y and Z allows
you to switch to World Translation mode.
| | 03:38 | World Translation mode works based on
these axes that you can see on the origin.
| | 03:43 | Let me go ahead and move this object
up here by clicking on its Y handle.
| | 03:48 | Let me zoom in, so you can see
a little bit better, and rotate.
| | 03:51 | This axis is Z, this red one is X, and
this green one is Y. If I pull out here,
| | 03:57 | you can actually see the letter Y and
underneath the sphere here is X. So let
| | 04:02 | me rotate back around and if we want
to move this object only on X-axis,
| | 04:07 | according to the Worldview, make sure
we are in the World Coordinate System,
| | 04:12 | and just click and drag anywhere in the scene,
and now you notice the handles are being ignored.
| | 04:17 | It's just moving along the X-
axis in the World Coordinate System.
| | 04:21 | Let's reactivate our locks so we can
translate on all X, Y, and Z, and switch
| | 04:26 | back to the Object Coordinate System.
| | 04:29 | So with these nice buttons in the
toolbar, I can easily switch between the
| | 04:32 | different tools, but if you want to
just use key commands, there is E for the
| | 04:37 | Move tool, R for the Rotation
tool, and T for the Scale tool.
| | 04:41 | You can also deactivate the different
channels by clicking X, Y, and Z. You can
| | 04:48 | toggle between the World and the
Object mode, just by pressing W.
| | 04:51 | Now, that we have covered the key
commands, let me show you one other button
| | 04:55 | right here in the toolbar.
| | 04:57 | If you click and hold on a button, you
notice we get a menu that pops up, giving
| | 05:01 | us the last several tools that we've used.
| | 05:03 | This is a great way to quickly switch
back and forth between different tools
| | 05:07 | because there are a plethora of tools
under each one of these different menus.
| | 05:12 | So, whether you want to control an
object directly, or control its place in the
| | 05:15 | World, Translations will get you there.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Touring the Attribute Manager| 00:00 | The Attribute Manager is the one thing I
use the most when working in Cinema 4D.
| | 00:05 | Basically, anytime you want to change
something, whether it's the parameters
| | 00:08 | of an object or how the tool functions, 90%
of the time, you'll use the Attribute Manager.
| | 00:12 | To show you what I mean, let's make
sure we have the Live Selection tool
| | 00:16 | selected and we're in the model tool.
| | 00:19 | Now, let's click on the cube
object in the center of your Viewport.
| | 00:23 | Notice when I selected the cube object,
the Attribute Editor updated over here.
| | 00:27 | So, needless to say, the Attributes
Editor is located in the lower right-hand
| | 00:31 | corner of the interface, and you'll
notice it's clearly enabled attributes.
| | 00:36 | So with the cube object selected, we
can easily manipulate the object just by
| | 00:40 | changing these different values.
| | 00:43 | So I can quickly and easily change the
position of the cube on the Z-axis by
| | 00:47 | clicking twice to highlight all the
numbers and you can just type, let's say, 200.
| | 00:51 | Now, we have moved the cube in the scene.
| | 00:54 | We can also change this value just by
clicking on the arrows to the right, up, or down.
| | 01:00 | If you hold down Shift as you click Up or
Down, notice it moves in increments of 10.
| | 01:05 | Even if you make adjustments to other
parameters, for example, this is the scale
| | 01:09 | marked with this S. If I click on the
Up Arrow here, notice it's moving in
| | 01:14 | hundreds, but when I hold down Shift,
now it's moving in increments of tens.
| | 01:19 | Now a really fast way to change
parameters is to leave your mouse hovering over
| | 01:23 | the specific area and just scroll with
your Scroll Wheel up and down, and that
| | 01:28 | will change the values as well.
| | 01:30 | Now, notice these buttons right here.
| | 01:31 | These are called Channels.
| | 01:33 | Anytime an object has a lot of
different options you can adjust, you'll see
| | 01:37 | different channel buttons.
| | 01:38 | As you click through the different
channel buttons, you can change different
| | 01:41 | parameters of the specific
object you have selected.
| | 01:45 | Now, let's select the sphere in our Viewport.
| | 01:46 | With the sphere selected, notice now
we have the polygon object selected in
| | 01:51 | the Attribute Editor.
| | 01:53 | So, again, we could go ahead and make
different changes just by hovering and
| | 01:57 | scrolling with our Scroll Wheel.
| | 01:59 | Now, let's say, for example, I want
to go back and change the parameter of
| | 02:03 | our cube object, but I don't necessarily
want to have to go select it in the Viewport.
| | 02:08 | Well, you can do that
using this back arrow here.
| | 02:10 | As you click the back arrow, it moves
back through the different parameters and
| | 02:14 | options that populated the window.
| | 02:16 | So as you can see, now we have the
options for the cube object, even though the
| | 02:20 | cube object is not selected.
| | 02:22 | So if we go ahead and adjust the Z-axis
one more time, you'll notice I am making
| | 02:28 | adjustments to my cube,
yet I don't have it selected.
| | 02:31 | Now, if you select other objects
around the scene, the Attribute window will
| | 02:35 | update with those as well.
| | 02:37 | For example, if I click on the Move
tool, now I have Move tool options.
| | 02:41 | Notice the different channels.
| | 02:43 | If I select on an object, in the
Objects Manager, for example, this red
| | 02:47 | object here, this is called a texture tag and
it's applying the red material to our sphere.
| | 02:53 | So, again, notice the
channels within that object.
| | 02:56 | Now, if I want to see the object that
this material is applied to, obviously I
| | 03:01 | could look up here in the Objects
Manager, but there is an easy way to jump to
| | 03:05 | the different attributes of the parent
object just by clicking this up arrow.
| | 03:10 | This moves you up to whatever
object is the parent of the item you
| | 03:15 | currently have selected.
| | 03:16 | Now we've covered the different arrows,
if you click the Search field, you could
| | 03:20 | search for a specific parameter.
| | 03:23 | Notice as I start to type length,
now it's only giving me the specific
| | 03:26 | parameters for length.
| | 03:28 | Let's go ahead and clear that field
by clicking the X button to the left.
| | 03:32 | You can toggle on and off, the Search
feature just by clicking on the magnifying glass.
| | 03:37 | Now, I think it's excellent how the
Attribute window updates as you click on
| | 03:40 | different objects, but sometimes you
want to be able to selecting another object
| | 03:44 | while still seeing what's
going on in Attribute window.
| | 03:46 | So, for example, if I select this cone,
but I still want to go back and make
| | 03:51 | adjustments to my sphere.
| | 03:53 | Well, notice when I clicked on
the cone, I don't have anything in
| | 03:56 | Attributes window, but if I click
on the sphere, notice now I have the
| | 03:59 | options for the sphere.
| | 04:01 | So, if you want to keep a window from
changing in Attribute window, you can
| | 04:04 | click this Lock button.
| | 04:06 | Notice now, the top line
here has gotten dark-gray.
| | 04:08 | Now, I can still go in and make
adjustments to the individual parameters.
| | 04:13 | That's fine, but notice as I click
on the different objects in the scene,
| | 04:17 | they're still getting selected in the
Object Manager, but the Attribute Manager
| | 04:20 | is still dealing specifically with the sphere.
| | 04:24 | That's because I have locked this
window and it will no longer update.
| | 04:27 | Let's unlock that and I want
to show you one other scenario.
| | 04:30 | Sometimes, you want to have more
than one Attribute window open.
| | 04:34 | So, it's pretty easy to do that you,
just click this Plus button, and the new
| | 04:38 | Attribute window will automatically open up.
| | 04:40 | So now, if I select another object, for
example, the sphere, I can now compare
| | 04:46 | the coordinates of the cone object to
the coordinates of the polygon object,
| | 04:52 | because I have both Attribute
windows open at the same time.
| | 04:56 | And for that matter, I could go
ahead and re-doc this window, but that's
| | 05:00 | something we'll cover in a later video.
| | 05:03 | For now, as you can see, the Attribute
Manager is an integral part of completing
| | 05:07 | any project in Cinema 4D.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using the Object Manager| 00:01 | I just had to create a scene that
contained a lot of different elements so I
| | 00:05 | could show you some of the features
of the Object Managers, which is in the
| | 00:09 | upper right-hand corner over here.
| | 00:10 | It's going to move the Attribute
Editor slightly out of the way, so we can go
| | 00:14 | ahead and make some adjustments here.
| | 00:16 | Now if you watched the last movie, I
told you that Attribute Manager was the one
| | 00:20 | thing that I used most in Cinema 4D.
| | 00:21 | Well, that was only partially true.
| | 00:23 | In most cases, when I select an
object to work on, I am selecting it in
| | 00:27 | the Object Manager.
| | 00:28 | Object Manager is kind of the
Attribute Manager's yin to yang, its peanut
| | 00:33 | butter to its jelly.
| | 00:34 | When I select something in the
Object Manager, it's usually to change its
| | 00:38 | parameters in the Attribute Manager, but
the Object Manager is more than a handy
| | 00:42 | way to select things in your project.
| | 00:44 | It's really your
project's central nervous system.
| | 00:47 | It's usually the first place you go when
you want to look at how a project is build.
| | 00:50 | For any of you who might be previous Maya
users, it's very similar to using the Outliner.
| | 00:56 | So let's look at our scene here.
| | 00:57 | As you can see, we have a floor object
and then we have our JetCart, and I am
| | 01:03 | just selecting these by
clicking right on the text.
| | 01:06 | And then we have a robot in the
little JetCart here, and then we have a
| | 01:10 | three-point light stage.
| | 01:11 | Now anytime you see this Plus button here,
what that's letting us do is minimize
| | 01:16 | and maximize the objects
contained within that specific object.
| | 01:20 | So, for example, let's click the Plus
button next to the three-point light stage.
| | 01:25 | As you can see, it contains
all these different lights.
| | 01:28 | Let's open up the robot.
| | 01:31 | As you can see, there is another
Plus button next to the body geometry.
| | 01:34 | If we go ahead and click on that, it'll
open up everything contained within the body.
| | 01:39 | So not only is this a handy way to
minimize and maximize things, but this is
| | 01:43 | actually a hierarchy where you can
control different things in the scene.
| | 01:48 | For example, if I selected a head, and
I click on the Control Vertice, I can go
| | 01:53 | ahead and move the head.
| | 01:54 | But then, if I click on the body, I
can choose the Y Control Vertices and you
| | 01:58 | notice everything that's below the
body also gets moved in the scene.
| | 02:03 | Let's just undo that really quickly.
| | 02:07 | So you might be wondering how to
create something underneath something else.
| | 02:13 | Well, it's pretty straightforward.
| | 02:14 | For example, let's select the JetCart
here, and just click and drag on one of
| | 02:20 | the control vertices, and you notice
that robot is not working with the JetCart.
| | 02:24 | So let's undo that by just pressing
Command or Ctrl+Z, and let's drag and drop
| | 02:29 | the robot into the JetCart.
| | 02:31 | The way you do this is to click on
whatever object you'd like to move, click and
| | 02:35 | hold with your mouse button down and
move down over the object you'd like it to
| | 02:39 | be contained within.
| | 02:41 | Notice, as I move down over the
text JetCart, I get this box with an
| | 02:44 | arrow pointing down.
| | 02:45 | That will let me know, when I let go,
the robot is now contained within the
| | 02:50 | JetCart, and as you can see with the
JetCart expanded, I've got a lot of things
| | 02:55 | going on within that specific object.
| | 02:59 | So let's minimize the JetCart, here,
just by clicking the Minus button, and
| | 03:03 | now when we select the JetCart and move on its
parameters, the robot is moving with the JetCart.
| | 03:09 | Now, we'll get more into hierarchy
later on, but I just wanted to give you
| | 03:13 | that, so you could understand how things are
getting moved around in the Objects Manager.
| | 03:17 | Let's undo the move.
| | 03:20 | Let me move our robot right
back into the JetCart there.
| | 03:24 | Okay, so with the JetCart selected, if
you wanted to expand the parent and all
| | 03:30 | the children, if you hold down Ctrl
when you click, it expands absolutely
| | 03:35 | everything so you can see the entire
hierarchy of everything that's contained
| | 03:40 | within everything else.
| | 03:42 | So let's show you, for example,
if I Ctrl+Click on the body, it'll
| | 03:46 | minimize everything.
| | 03:47 | Now if I just open it up just by clicking,
notice the other objects below have not expanded.
| | 03:53 | Again, if I just Ctrl+Click and
Ctrl+Click, everything is expanded.
| | 03:57 | So now that we know a little bit about
the hierarchy and how to expand and group
| | 04:02 | different things together by dragging
one object onto the other, let's look at
| | 04:07 | some of these other options here.
| | 04:09 | This circle we will get to later, when
we get to the Layers video, but these two
| | 04:13 | circles, here, determine some important things.
| | 04:16 | If we click once on the upper circle here
next to the JetCart, go ahead and click once.
| | 04:21 | That green is letting me know that
this will be viewed in the scene.
| | 04:24 | If we click again, notice I get a red button.
| | 04:27 | Now I can't see the cart in the scene,
but if we go to Render by clicking this
| | 04:32 | button up here in the top-center, the
cart and the robot are still visible.
| | 04:37 | That's because the top button
controls the visibility of the objects in the
| | 04:41 | Editor, whereas the lower button,
here, controls the visibility of the
| | 04:45 | objects, when you render.
| | 04:46 | So, go ahead and click twice on the
lower button and re-render the scene and
| | 04:50 | you'll notice now, we have an empty scene.
| | 04:52 | Notice we can turn on and off all
these options all the way through
| | 04:57 | each individual object.
| | 04:59 | Now, what if you want to turn a bunch
of these on, or a bunch of these off?
| | 05:03 | Well, if you just click and drag down,
notice I get a Paintbrush, and as far as
| | 05:08 | I drag my mouse, it'll keep
turning those individual buttons on.
| | 05:12 | If I click and drag down again,
now I am turning them all off.
| | 05:16 | Click and drag down again.
| | 05:17 | We're back to our normal default state.
| | 05:19 | Now, what if I want to turn both the
Editor and the Renderer on and off together?
| | 05:26 | If you hold down Alt or Option on your
keyboard and then click, notice they will
| | 05:30 | both update, as you click in one of them.
| | 05:33 | If you keep mobbing to the right
here, notice these different objects.
| | 05:37 | If we click on them, their name
pops up in the Attribute Editor.
| | 05:41 | So, when we select this, this is called
a Phong Tag, which we'll get too later
| | 05:45 | when we get into materials.
| | 05:46 | And if we click on the next one, it's
a Texture Tag, which helps control how
| | 05:50 | the materials apply.
| | 05:52 | Okay, now, as you can see, this scene
gets very, very deep, very, very quickly,
| | 05:58 | as you create multiple objects.
| | 05:59 | So, sometimes you want to be
able to just search for something.
| | 06:03 | So, let's minimize the JetCart and go up
to the top area here, and you notice we
| | 06:09 | have a Search feature.
| | 06:11 | It's the same search feature that
you found in the Attributes video.
| | 06:14 | So if we go and click on that, let's say, I
want to look for eyes, like the eyes of the robot.
| | 06:19 | Notice as I start typing
eye, the eyes pop up here.
| | 06:23 | Now, I can select that object very quickly.
| | 06:26 | Let's go ahead and clear the Search field.
| | 06:28 | You can toggle the visibility of the
Search field just by clicking on and off.
| | 06:32 | Notice on the right we get the same
option that we had in the Attribute window,
| | 06:36 | where we can create another Objects Manager.
| | 06:40 | Let's go ahead and close the
additional Objects Manager.
| | 06:44 | Let's move on to some key commands.
| | 06:46 | Let's say I'd like to duplicate this
JetCart with the robot and everything.
| | 06:50 | If you hold down Control as you click
and drag, you can automatically make a
| | 06:54 | duplicate of whatever you had selected.
| | 06:56 | Notice now I have two JetCarts.
| | 06:58 | And so, as you see, we have a
pretty complicated scene building.
| | 07:02 | If I go ahead and expand all of the
different things contained within this new
| | 07:06 | copy, you can select different
objects within the Objects Manager, just by
| | 07:10 | clicking your up-and-down arrows.
| | 07:12 | So, as we continue to work our way
through this series, you will come to know
| | 07:15 | and love the Object Manager.
| | 07:17 | We will continue to explore some of the
more advanced capabilities but for now
| | 07:21 | you've got the basics to get started.
| | 07:23 | So let's keep going!
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Customizing the interface| 00:00 | The interface of Cinema 4D is very user-
friendly in its standard configuration,
| | 00:04 | but I'm sure there is going to be a
time where you'll want to actually add a
| | 00:07 | custom layout, designed just
to your own specific liking.
| | 00:11 | And it's really nice because Cinema 4D
makes that really easy and really versatile.
| | 00:16 | Let's get started by looking in the
upper left corner of the Attributes Editor.
| | 00:20 | You have this little icon here.
| | 00:21 | It's called the Grasp icon.
| | 00:23 | If we click on that and start to drag, we
can move this window anywhere in the interface.
| | 00:29 | So, for example, if I wanted Attributes
to be over on the left-hand side of my
| | 00:32 | Viewer, I could just drag
and drop it right there.
| | 00:36 | Notice since I moved that, the Objects
Manager has just taken up the rest of the scene.
| | 00:41 | If we want to move that back, just, again,
click on the Grasp icon and drag back
| | 00:46 | down towards the bottom.
| | 00:47 | Notice I know I am at the bottom when
that white bar appears at the bottom,
| | 00:51 | and we could let go.
| | 00:52 | So as you can see, this Grasp
icon is all over the interface
| | 00:58 | Now if you're coming to Cinema 4D
from Maya, you might be familiar with
| | 01:01 | the concept of shelves.
| | 01:03 | You can create the same kind of
thing in Cinema 4D using tabs.
| | 01:06 | So for example, across the top of
the page here, I have a toolbar.
| | 01:10 | Now if we go to the Grasp icon
just to the left of the toolbar and
| | 01:15 | right-click, we can make a tab.
| | 01:17 | Go down and choose Make Tab.
| | 01:20 | Now since we've turned this into a tab,
we can add a bunch of other tabs all the
| | 01:24 | way across here and
create our own sets of buttons.
| | 01:28 | So to do that, let's actually
create a tab for our primitive objects.
| | 01:33 | If you come up to the Primitive
Object icon in the toolbar, click and hold,
| | 01:37 | notice we have a list of all of our
primitive icons, and sure enough, we have a
| | 01:42 | Grasp icon going across the top of the menu.
| | 01:44 | If I go ahead and select that, I've now
separated the menu from the pop-up window.
| | 01:51 | So if you notice, the Grasp icon here
is on top of these buttons and the Grasp
| | 01:56 | icon here is to the left.
| | 01:58 | Since we're going to be dropping this
in like a tab behind the toolbar, let's
| | 02:02 | move the Grasp icon to the left.
| | 02:05 | Go ahead and right-click on the
Grasp icon and choose Transpose.
| | 02:10 | Now, with the icon on the left, my
buttons will be laid out left to right.
| | 02:16 | Now, I am sure you've noticed I
haven't really changed anything as far as the
| | 02:19 | layout, but if we right-click back on
our Grasp icon and go to Rows and Columns
| | 02:24 | and change it to 2, now you notice
we have a much longer set of buttons.
| | 02:30 | So to go ahead and turn this into a tab,
go ahead and click on the Grasp icon
| | 02:34 | and drag it directly onto the standard tab.
| | 02:36 | Just make sure you are on the
right side of the Standard tab.
| | 02:39 | That way, when you let go, the new
palette is created behind the Standard
| | 02:43 | tab, on the right side.
| | 02:45 | If I go ahead and select the Standard tab,
now you notice we have a new palette.
| | 02:50 | If you want to rename the palette, go
ahead and right-click directly on the
| | 02:53 | text and choose Rename.
| | 02:55 | Let's rename this Primitives.
| | 02:58 | Now, when we click OK, we've
updated the name of our tab.
| | 03:01 | Now that we know how to create tabs
and move different parts of the interface
| | 03:05 | around the scene, I want to show you
how you can actually add individual
| | 03:08 | buttons to the scene.
| | 03:10 | If you go up under Window, go to
Layout and choose the Command Manager.
| | 03:15 | Now let's look at the Command Manager.
| | 03:18 | This is actually a collection of
all the commands within Cinema 4D.
| | 03:21 | Now, as you can see, there
are a lot of commands here.
| | 03:25 | So, if you're looking for a specific command,
for example, I want to find the Loop tool.
| | 03:30 | I'll just click right here in the
Search field and type loop, and as I bring
| | 03:35 | that up, here is my Loop Selection.
| | 03:37 | So, if I want to add the Loop Selection
into my Primitives tab, let me go ahead
| | 03:42 | and just select the Primitives tab here.
| | 03:43 | All you've to do is just drag the Loop
Selection icon right into the toolbar.
| | 03:49 | Now when we let go, the button has been added.
| | 03:52 | Let me go ahead and close the Command Manager.
| | 03:54 | Now, if you remember, everything
got highlighted with the blue line.
| | 03:58 | If I go ahead and right-click within my
toolbar, I can choose Edit palettes and
| | 04:03 | I get those blue lines back.
| | 04:04 | This will allow me to select
individual buttons and move them around within
| | 04:08 | placement of the other buttons.
| | 04:10 | Always make sure to go back
and turn Edit palettes off.
| | 04:14 | Now, if you want to delete an
individual button, all you do is just right-click
| | 04:18 | on top of that button and choose Delete Command.
| | 04:22 | That way that individual
button has been deleted.
| | 04:24 | So now that we know how to create
different layouts and tabs and things like
| | 04:29 | that, it would probably be
pretty good to learn how to save them.
| | 04:32 | Well, we can save our layout by going
up under Window>Layout and choose Save
| | 04:37 | Layout as, and you'll notice if I
click on the folder here, there is a folder
| | 04:43 | that's already been created in the
Cinema 4D Library for this preference.
| | 04:47 | So I can go ahead and change the layout name.
| | 04:50 | Let's call it ClassLayout.
| | 04:54 | When we click Save, if we go back
under Window in Layout, you'll notice the
| | 04:59 | ClassLayout is now an option.
| | 05:01 | And you might be thinking to yourself, "
Well, what are all these other options?"
| | 05:05 | Well, as it turns out, Cinema 4D
has a bunch of other preset layouts.
| | 05:09 | Let me show you Animation.
| | 05:11 | Go ahead and choose Animation and you
will notice, now, the layout of the window
| | 05:15 | has completely changed.
| | 05:17 | I have the Timeline down here on the bottom,
and things have been optimized for animation.
| | 05:22 | You can easily get to these
different window layouts with this button in
| | 05:25 | the upper left corner.
| | 05:27 | If you click and hold, notice
here, all the different layouts.
| | 05:30 | Now, if you have the BodyPaint module,
you can easily switch to BodyPaint just
| | 05:33 | by selecting that different layout.
| | 05:35 | If I go ahead and click here, you
can go back to our Standard layout.
| | 05:40 | And for that matter, if you start moving
palettes around and create some kind of
| | 05:44 | mess where you can't tell exactly
where you are, just come back up under here
| | 05:48 | and choose your Standard layout.
| | 05:51 | And if by some chance you've hidden
this button, remember, you can always go up
| | 05:55 | under Window>Layout and
choose your Standard Option
| | 06:00 | Now, these other options underneath,
actually just change the pull-down menus at
| | 06:04 | the top of the page.
| | 06:05 | So for those of you who have BodyPaint,
you can switch to BodyPaint, and then,
| | 06:10 | if you click again, notice that
the menu set has changed as well.
| | 06:14 | So let's go ahead and change back to
Standard, and I hope you've enjoyed the
| | 06:20 | tour of how to customize and save the
interface in Cinema 4D, and I hope you
| | 06:25 | find it as flexible and helpful as I do.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Adjusting render settings| 00:00 | So, creating a project is
just one part of the process.
| | 00:03 | In order to actually create any files,
like a JPEG or a QuickTime or Windows
| | 00:07 | Media, you actually have to go
throw a process called Rendering.
| | 00:11 | So, as you can see, I have a scene here
containing some of the things we will be
| | 00:14 | creating, as we move throughout this course.
| | 00:16 | Now, if you look in the center of your
toolbar, at the top of your screen, you
| | 00:19 | will notice there are three
buttons that have clapboards.
| | 00:22 | Let's start by clicking the leftmost button.
| | 00:25 | This is called Render Active View, and
this will give us an idea as to what our
| | 00:28 | scene will look like when
we actually go render it.
| | 00:30 | This is perfectly fine about 90% of the
time when you are trying to preview your
| | 00:35 | project, as you are
manipulating different settings.
| | 00:38 | Sometimes, you actually have to
go in and create an actual Render.
| | 00:42 | But before you do that, you need to
set up your Project settings, and you do
| | 00:45 | that by going to the Render Settings.
| | 00:47 | Click the button on the right
with the clapboard, and it opens up a
| | 00:50 | Render Settings window.
| | 00:51 | First thing you will notice is Render Engine.
| | 00:54 | We will just leave this at Full Render,
but it's important to note that CINEMA
| | 00:57 | 4D does support external Render
engines like CineMan and 3Delight.
| | 01:01 | So let's go to the Output Settings.
| | 01:05 | This is where we actually set
the resolution of our project.
| | 01:08 | If you click on the Arrow button,
right next to the word Preset, under
| | 01:11 | Output, and you notice we get a
dropdown menu, with options from Screen, to
| | 01:16 | Web, to Film/Video.
| | 01:18 | Notice CINEMA 4D even supports Print.
| | 01:21 | If we choose Letter, notice it
will even render a 300 DPI image.
| | 01:25 | This is kind of nice, because you
can not only set the Size, but the
| | 01:28 | specific Resolution.
| | 01:29 | Let's go back up to the arrow and go
to Film/Video, and let's set our Project
| | 01:34 | Settings for the rest of this course.
| | 01:35 | I want to choose DVCPRO HD 720 23.976.
| | 01:41 | This is commonly referred to as DVCPRO HD 720p24.
00:01:47.38]
Now, if you don't know
anything that I said, don't sweat it.
| | 01:49 | This is just an HD setting that we
are going to use that I think is a great
| | 01:53 | balance between being HD, but not
necessarily being so large that it's going to
| | 01:58 | bog everybody's systems down.
| | 02:00 | Now, there's one little issue we
have to correct, and that's called the
| | 02:02 | Pixel Aspect Ratio.
| | 02:04 | If we want to render this scene on our
computer monitors, everything would look
| | 02:08 | kind of squished, and since we are not
going back to HDV Tape, let's just go
| | 02:12 | ahead and change the Pixel Aspect Ratio to 1.
| | 02:16 | This way, when we render things,
they will be in proper proportion.
| | 02:19 | The next setting, down
here, is called Frame Range.
| | 02:21 | This is where you can tell CINEMA 4D to
render the Current Frame, All Frames, or
| | 02:26 | just the Preview Range.
| | 02:27 | Let's leave this set to Current Frame
right now, just because we are not going
| | 02:31 | to get into animation very
much until the animation chapter.
| | 02:35 | For you video folks, this is
where you can set your Field setting.
| | 02:38 | Again, we will just leave that at None.
| | 02:40 | If we go to Save, this is where we can
specify where we would like to save our file.
| | 02:45 | If you want to choose a folder,
click the button with the three dots on
| | 02:48 | the right-hand side.
| | 02:49 | This will open up a window,
asking us to type a name for our file.
| | 02:53 | So I will just call this Class, and click Save.
| | 02:58 | Now we can jump to Format.
| | 03:00 | This is where we can specify
everything from Photoshop, to JPEG, to QuickTime
| | 03:05 | Movie, or Windows Media, if
you are on a Windows machine.
| | 03:08 | You can even change the Depth settings.
| | 03:10 | But let's leave all this set to the
default settings, because, again, we are not
| | 03:14 | going to get much into this until
we get into the animation chapter.
| | 03:18 | The next setting I want you
to look at is Anti-Aliasing.
| | 03:21 | By default, Anti-Aliasing is set
to Geometry, which is a low setting.
| | 03:25 | It's usually perfectly fine,
but I like to work with Best.
| | 03:28 | This way, when we render our images,
we are seeing everything at the best
| | 03:31 | possible resolution.
| | 03:33 | Now, there is a Filter setting that I
do change when I go into animation, I
| | 03:36 | change it to Animation.
| | 03:37 | This just changes the Filter to kind of
optimize the image, to take into account
| | 03:42 | the motion that happens when you
are playing back frame after frame.
| | 03:45 | Let's go ahead and leave
this to Still Image for now.
| | 03:48 | Now, just so we don't have to go back
through all these settings again, we
| | 03:51 | should save these settings as a Preset, and
you do that under the Render Setting button.
| | 03:56 | If you go ahead and click the Render
Setting button on the lower left-hand
| | 03:59 | corner, we can go ahead and choose Save Preset.
| | 04:04 | When you choose Save Preset,
go ahead and type the name.
| | 04:07 | We can call it C4D Class.
| | 04:10 | Now, I have already saved this as a
Preset, so I am just going to click
| | 04:13 | Cancel and show you.
| | 04:14 | But go ahead and press OK to save your Preset.
| | 04:18 | Now, when we go to the Render Settings
button, if you go to Load Preset, there
| | 04:22 | is where our Preset is.
| | 04:24 | Now, when we choose that, we are halfway there.
| | 04:26 | To actually render out of these settings,
you need to click this little target
| | 04:30 | button, to the left.
| | 04:32 | Once that button is highlighted white,
now you know when you go to render your
| | 04:36 | project, it will be set to these settings.
| | 04:39 | So, anytime, from now on, when you
create new projects, automatically open your
| | 04:43 | Render Settings, go to Render
Setting, and load the Class Preset.
| | 04:46 | Then, just make sure to click that
one button, and we are good to go.
| | 04:51 | When you are in your project and you
have made different adjustments, you don't
| | 04:55 | have to worry about going up to
File and saving your render settings.
| | 04:58 | They are automatically embedded
within each individual project.
| | 05:01 | So we can go ahead and just close the
Render Settings window, and I know that
| | 05:04 | setting is embedded within this
01_07_Render_Settings project.
| | 05:09 | Now, there is one last thing I need
to show you, and that's how to create
| | 05:12 | preview renders as you are
working through your scene.
| | 05:15 | This center button here, if you click
and hold, this is where we can turn on an
| | 05:20 | option called Interactive Render Region.
| | 05:23 | What this does, it draws a box around
the scene, so if there is a specific
| | 05:27 | area that we are tweaking, we can go ahead
and just choose that specific area to render.
| | 05:33 | We can change the
Resolution by clicking on this arrow.
| | 05:36 | Yours might be down here in the middle.
| | 05:38 | If you click and drag to the bottom, notice
it's going to preview at a low Resolution.
| | 05:42 | As you click and drag to the top,
it will preview at a high Resolution.
| | 05:46 | What's nice about this window, as I
continue to rotate around the scene, or
| | 05:50 | move, or make any adjustments in my
Object Manager, those adjustments will be
| | 05:54 | reflected in the Interactive Preview Render.
| | 05:58 | Let's go ahead and turn that off by
clicking on the same button, in the top of
| | 06:01 | the screen, and turn off
Interactive Render Region.
| | 06:04 | Now, to actually create the file of
your project, you don't click this
| | 06:08 | button here on the left.
| | 06:09 | This is just giving us a
preview as to what it would look like.
| | 06:12 | To render your project, you have to
click and hold on the center button and
| | 06:16 | render it to the Picture Viewer.
| | 06:18 | When you let that go, you will
see the Picture Viewer pop-up.
| | 06:21 | Now, we will be getting more into
detail about the Picture Viewer later in
| | 06:24 | this title.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Introducing primitives| 00:01 | Primitives are one of the basic building
blocks for creating models in CINEMA 4D.
| | 00:04 | If you come to the top of your
screen, you will see a blue Cube.
| | 00:07 | Let's click and hold to open up the
Primitives palette, so we can continue to
| | 00:11 | refer to this through the rest of this video.
| | 00:14 | I am just going to rip the palette
off by clicking on the top up here, and
| | 00:17 | dock it just above the Attributes by
clicking and dragging, until I see that white line.
| | 00:21 | Now, let's get started by
creating a Cube Primitive.
| | 00:24 | Just click on the button, Cube.
| | 00:26 | Now, the first thing you will notice.
| | 00:28 | We have our axis handles, but
we also have these orange Cubes.
| | 00:33 | Now, the orange Cubes are letting me
know I can resize that primitive object.
| | 00:37 | So, if you click and drag on any one of
these Cubes, it will allow you to adjust
| | 00:41 | the size along the X, Y, and Z-axes.
| | 00:45 | Now, these objects are named primitive
because they are actually being computed
| | 00:48 | within CINEMA 4D, and a typical 3D
model is made up of polygons or NURBS.
| | 00:54 | So as we continue going through the
course, we will actually convert these
| | 00:57 | primitive objects into
Polygon objects for further editing.
| | 01:02 | But for right now, let's just focus on
what we are doing with primitives here.
| | 01:05 | If you want to scale the entire object
in proportion, just grab your Scale tool.
| | 01:09 | Click anywhere in the scene,
off of the primitive object.
| | 01:12 | If you click and drag, you can dynamically
resize your object and it stays in proportion.
| | 01:17 | Let's go back to our Live Selection tool
here and look at another primitive object.
| | 01:23 | Let's delete the primitive Cube, just by
selecting it in the Object Manager, and
| | 01:26 | pressing Delete on your keyboard.
| | 01:28 | Let's go on to check out a Capsule.
| | 01:31 | Capsule makes a basic pill shape, and
you notice here, there's a lot of lines
| | 01:35 | over the capsule, and those are called
Segments, when it's a primitive object.
| | 01:39 | So you can change the amount of
Segments and it changes the amount of detail
| | 01:43 | in the object itself.
| | 01:45 | You can also adjust different things like the
Radius, as well as the Height of the object.
| | 01:50 | Now, again, we have these orange Cubes
that we can click and drag to dynamically
| | 01:54 | adjust, in our scene.
| | 01:56 | Now, look in the bottom
of your Attribute Editor.
| | 01:58 | There's also an option for Orientation.
| | 02:00 | If you click on +Y, you can orient the object.
| | 02:03 | So let's say, for example, we
want it to be oriented on the Z-axis.
| | 02:08 | Now, if you look at the blue Z-axis,
you will notice the object is completely
| | 02:11 | oriented to the Z-axis.
| | 02:13 | Let's look at one more primitive object.
| | 02:15 | I am just going to
select the Capsule and Delete.
| | 02:19 | This is called the Cone.
| | 02:21 | If you click on the Cone, you'll
notice we have some options for Radius,
| | 02:25 | Segments, and Rotational Segments,
and again, there's the Orientation.
| | 02:29 | So, we can dynamically resize, again,
by clicking on the orange handles.
| | 02:34 | Now, I know I am being redundant
here, but I just want to show you all
| | 02:37 | the different options.
| | 02:38 | Now, there is a sneaky hidden thing about Cones.
| | 02:41 | If you go to your Attribute Editor,
under the Top Radius, and click and hold on
| | 02:45 | the arrows, notice now we are making a
little bit more of a cylindrical shape.
| | 02:49 | And now we have a new control handle.
| | 02:51 | If we click and drag on that
control handle, we can dynamically resize.
| | 02:55 | With objects like the Cone and
Cylindrical objects, oftentimes there's a channel
| | 03:01 | called Caps, and if we click
on that, we can round our Caps.
| | 03:05 | So let's go ahead and
select the top box right here.
| | 03:07 | And you notice now the top part of the
Cone has become rounded, and we get the
| | 03:12 | same dynamic handles.
| | 03:13 | If you click and drag, you can bring
it up, or you can adjust the other side.
| | 03:20 | So I encourage you to go through all
the different primitive objects and see
| | 03:24 | what other shapes you can make.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Modeling with primitive objects| 00:00 | Now that we know a little bit about
how to adjust the parameters of our
| | 00:03 | primitive objects, let's build a model with it.
| | 00:07 | Go up to the primitive objects
button at the top of the page.
| | 00:09 | Click-and-hold and let's create a Cone.
| | 00:12 | We're going to use this cone
to create the body of a robot.
| | 00:17 | Drag it up in the scene by clicking on
the Y-axis handle, and orbit around using
| | 00:22 | our Control tools in the
upper right-hand corner.
| | 00:25 | Let's go ahead and zoom in so we
can see the scene a little bit better.
| | 00:29 | With the cone selected in the
Attribute Editor, make sure you are under
| | 00:32 | the Objects channel.
| | 00:33 | In the Objects channel, let's increase
the Top Radius so that we actually have a
| | 00:38 | wider cylinder on the top and on the bottom.
| | 00:41 | Let's decrease the Bottom Radius.
| | 00:42 | This way, we have a good taper to our body.
| | 00:46 | Now that we have our body set with our first
cone object, let's create a head for the body.
| | 00:51 | And I want to use a cone
object for that, as well.
| | 00:53 | So rather than going back up to the top
palette, let's hold down Ctrl, click on
| | 00:58 | the Cone, in the Object Manager, and
drag down, and you'll notice you get this
| | 01:03 | Plus symbol with an arrow pointed to the left.
| | 01:05 | If you let go, now we
have a second cone created.
| | 01:09 | Now that we have more than one cone, let's
double-click right on the text and rename them.
| | 01:15 | So this one we'll rename 'Head', and
the upper Cone we can rename 'Body'.
| | 01:21 | Now, select the Head cone
in your Objects Manager.
| | 01:24 | Let's move it up in the scene
by clicking on the green arrow.
| | 01:27 | Now, if you accidentally click on the
dynamic adjustment square, don't sweat it.
| | 01:31 | Just let go over your mouse and then
click on the green arrow to move it up.
| | 01:36 | If you want to frame the object
that's selected, press S and now we have
| | 01:40 | automatically framed
ourselves on the view of the Head.
| | 01:43 | So since most people's heads aren't
nearly half the same size as their body,
| | 01:47 | let's go ahead and make some adjustments.
| | 01:49 | Let's adjust the Height down to around 150.
| | 01:52 | Even though this is going to be kind of a robot
figure, let's round out the head a little bit.
| | 01:56 | So switch from the Objects channel
to the Caps channel, in your Attribute
| | 02:00 | Editor, and let's select the Top and
Bottom options, and you'd notice now we've
| | 02:05 | rounded out the head, and we
also have new dynamic sliders.
| | 02:09 | So if you click-and-drag on any of
the dynamic sliders, you notice you can
| | 02:13 | resize the amount of rounding on object.
| | 02:17 | Let's adjust the lower slider down.
| | 02:20 | Now we can reposition our head down a
little bit, to place it over the body.
| | 02:24 | To better see exactly how far down
we need to move the head, let's switch
| | 02:28 | to 4-Up View, by clicking in the button in
the upper right-hand corner of your Viewer.
| | 02:33 | Now, in 4-Up View, let's go to the
Front section, which is labeled in the upper
| | 02:36 | left corner, and if you click-and-drag
down, using your Pan tool, you notice now
| | 02:42 | if we click on the green object axis,
we can move our head down and we don't
| | 02:47 | necessarily have to orbit
around in our Perspective View.
| | 02:50 | Now the only thing I really want to
change is the actual size of the head, and
| | 02:54 | we can go back to the Object
channel and look for our Adjustments.
| | 02:58 | But if you notice, I have an option for
the Top Radius and the Bottom Radius, as
| | 03:02 | I click on the arrows to
change the values up and down.
| | 03:06 | Notice there is no option to
change the exact size of the object.
| | 03:10 | Well, if we go up and choose our Scale tool,
you can click-and-drag anywhere off of your model.
| | 03:15 | Just click-and-hold down your mouse
and drag, and you can resize the head.
| | 03:20 | Now the head has been resized.
| | 03:22 | Let's re-grab the Move tool and
position it back down in the scene.
| | 03:27 | Let's switch back to Perspective View
by clicking the button in the upper right
| | 03:30 | corner of the Viewer.
| | 03:31 | If you click-and-drag, in the Object
Manager, you can draw a selection around
| | 03:35 | both the Head and the Body.
| | 03:37 | Now, press S on your keyboard and
we've re-centered ourselves on the head and
| | 03:41 | the body of the robot.
| | 03:44 | So there are couple more things I want
to add, two arms and a little helmet.
| | 03:48 | So let's rotate around, just so we
can see things more from the front.
| | 03:52 | Notice I am looking at the red axis, so I
know I'm looking right at the front of the robot.
| | 03:56 | Let's start by creating our helmet.
| | 03:58 | So, again, go back up to the
Primitives pop-up at the top center of your
| | 04:01 | screen and choose Sphere.
| | 04:03 | This time, let's change the amount of
the Radius in the Object channel or your
| | 04:07 | Attribute Editor by clicking on the lower arrow.
| | 04:09 | We'll adjust it down to 61.
| | 04:12 | We can click-and-drag up again with our Y-axis.
| | 04:16 | As you can see, if we orbit
around here, the helmet is quite tight.
| | 04:21 | So let's increase the Radius just a
little bit, and now since I only want a half
| | 04:26 | of a circle to make the helmet, if you
go under the Type pull-down, right here
| | 04:30 | where it says Standard, go ahead and click.
| | 04:32 | There is an option for Hemisphere.
| | 04:33 | If we choose that and we orbit
around the scene, you notice, now, we have
| | 04:38 | successfully kind of placed the
little helmet on our character.
| | 04:43 | First, I'm going to click on the Y-
axis to position it down on our robot a
| | 04:47 | little bit here, and now that it's
positioned at the right height, let's
| | 04:50 | grab our Rotation tool.
| | 04:53 | If you click on the green axis band, you
can rotate it around on the Y, so let's
| | 04:57 | go ahead and rotate it
around to the right on the Y-axis.
| | 05:01 | Now if you click-and-drag on the blue
band, we can adjust it back on the Z-axis.
| | 05:06 | Now that we have repositioned the
helmet, let's click anywhere in our Object
| | 05:10 | Manager to deselect.
| | 05:12 | Now, click the Render Active View button
to see what the model is going to look like.
| | 05:15 | So now, we can finish exploring
the primitives by creating some arms.
| | 05:20 | Go to the same pop-up menu at the top of the
screen, and this time, let's choose Cylinder.
| | 05:26 | Let's make sure to grab our Move tool
and slide the cylinder out to one side.
| | 05:30 | Let's orbit around and zoom in a
little bit, using the controls in the upper
| | 05:34 | right corner of the screen.
| | 05:36 | Now, if I click on the Pan tool, we
can go ahead and see a little more detail
| | 05:40 | with our primitive object.
| | 05:41 | Let's click on the interactive handle,
on the edge, and change the Radius.
| | 05:46 | If you click on the orange grabber
interactive handle at the top and click down,
| | 05:51 | you can change the Length.
| | 05:53 | Now, let's position the arm further
back up in the screen and drag it back to
| | 05:58 | the left, just using our Control axis.
| | 06:00 | So we position, again, by using our
controls in the upper right viewer,
| | 06:05 | rotate around the scene.
| | 06:07 | If we want another arm with the exact
dimensions as this arm, let's go ahead and
| | 06:12 | hold down Ctrl, click on the Cylinder,
and just drag it up until you see this
| | 06:16 | arrow point to the left with
the Plus symbol underneath of it.
| | 06:19 | Now, we've created a duplicate.
| | 06:21 | If you click-and-drag on the Z-axis
handle, you can reposition the arm to be on
| | 06:26 | the other side of our robot.
| | 06:28 | Now, we'll tweak this model a little bit
more in our video dealing with Deformers.
| | 06:33 | But for now, I think you can see
how you can quickly create a model,
| | 06:37 | using primitive objects.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using deformers to refine objects| 00:00 |
In this video, we are going to use Deformers
to add more detail to our primitive objects.
| | 00:05 |
Then, in our Object Manager, we are
going to organize things with a hierarchy.
| | 00:10 |
And then at the end, we will group
everything together, using a Null object.
| | 00:13 |
Let's get started with some housekeeping.
| | 00:16 |
If you notice, we named some of the
objects, but not the rest of them.
| | 00:19 |
Double-click on the Sphere text in your
Object Manager and rename it 'Helmet'.
| | 00:25 |
The Cylinder here, let's double-
click and just rename it 'Arm'.
| | 00:28 |
Since we are going to be modeling one
arm, we don't need the other one, because
| | 00:32 |
we can just duplicate the
first one once we finish modeling.
| | 00:36 |
Select Cylinder.1 and press
Delete on our keyboard to delete it.
| | 00:40 |
Now, let's deactivate everything else
in the scene by clicking-and-dragging on
| | 00:43 |
the green checkmarks.
| | 00:46 |
Now, select the Arm in your Object
Manager, go to your toolbar at the top of the
| | 00:49 |
screen, click-and-hold on the icon that
looks like a purple shape, over towards
| | 00:54 |
the right hand side, here.
| | 00:56 |
Once you click-and-hold, the
Deformer palette will open.
| | 00:58 |
Let's get started by adding a Bend Deformer.
| | 01:01 |
Now, you notice our Arm and the Bend
Deformer are in two different places.
| | 01:05 |
Let me show you a neat little trick.
| | 01:06 |
Click-and-drag on the Bend
Deformer and make it the child of the Arm.
| | 01:10 |
With the Bend Deformer selected, in
the Coordinates Channel, let's change all
| | 01:14 |
the position data, X, Y, and Z to 0.
| | 01:18 |
And you notice the Bend Deformer
automatically centers itself on its parent object.
| | 01:23 |
This works with any
object in the Object Manager.
| | 01:26 |
Now, it just so happens this is also the
way you apply a Bend Deformer to an object.
| | 01:31 |
You make the Deformer the
child of the other object.
| | 01:35 |
So with the Bend Deformer selected,
let's zoom in on the scene here.
| | 01:38 |
And you can see I have this orange
box, and these are called Grabbers.
| | 01:42 |
You will see them all over,
with different Defomers.
| | 01:44 |
Now, if you click-and-drag on the Grabber,
that will begin to adjust the deformation.
| | 01:48 |
Let's go ahead and stop here
and take a look at our arm.
| | 01:52 |
While it's sort of distorting, its not
really bending, and the reason for that
| | 01:56 |
has do with the Object Channel.
| | 01:59 |
If you select the Arm in the Object
Channel, there are actually Segments
| | 02:04 |
that create geometry.
| | 02:05 |
In order to create a Bend, you have
to increase the amount of Segments.
| | 02:08 |
So let's increase the amount of Height
Segments up, and you'll notice, the more
| | 02:12 |
Segments we have, the smoother the Bend.
| | 02:15 |
You need to be careful about adding too
many Segments, because eventually that
| | 02:19 |
will start to increase your Render time.
| | 02:20 |
Now, with the Bend Deformer selected,
if we continue deforming, I want you to
| | 02:24 |
make note of something.
| | 02:25 |
As I drag, the actual Arm
geometry is getting stretched out.
| | 02:31 |
At the bottom of the Object Options
for the Bend object, there is an option
| | 02:35 |
for Keep Y-Axis Length.
| | 02:36 |
If we select that, it keeps the
original length of the object.
| | 02:40 |
Now, I actually happen to like the
deformation that's happening, so let's
| | 02:44 |
just leave that deselected, so we can
see how long the arm is in proportion
| | 02:49 |
to everything else.
| | 02:50 |
Let's pull back out and reactivate our
other geometry, clicking-and-dragging on
| | 02:55 |
all the other red axis'.
| | 02:57 |
To reposition the Arm, select it in the
Object Manager, and let's just click on
| | 03:01 |
the axis and drag it over and down.
| | 03:04 |
It's actually looking pretty good,
in terms of Size, so I think we will
| | 03:07 |
just leave it alone.
| | 03:09 |
Now, let's apply one more Deformer
to add a bulge onto our robot's arms.
| | 03:13 |
Go ahead and deactivate the rest of the
geometry by clicking-and-dragging on the
| | 03:17 |
green checkmarks and re-select your Arm.
| | 03:20 |
Click-and-hold to open the Deformer
palette, and this time, let's choose Bulge.
| | 03:26 |
Again, to reposition Bulge, make
it the child of the Arm object.
| | 03:30 |
Change its coordinates back to 0.
| | 03:33 |
Now that there two Deformers
underneath our geometry, it's important to
| | 03:36 |
understand there is an order of operations.
| | 03:39 |
So, right now, there is the
Bulge and the Bend happening.
| | 03:43 |
But Deformers are applied from the top-down.
| | 03:46 |
So with this Bend, here, moving the
geometry, I don't really know exactly where
| | 03:51 |
I am applying the Bulge, because
the Bend is moving the geometry.
| | 03:54 |
So to show you what I mean, let's
deselect Bend, and you notice, here's where my
| | 03:58 |
armed geometry actually lives.
| | 04:01 |
Now, let's resize the Bulge Deformer.
| | 04:03 |
Select the Bulge Deformer, and in the
Objects section, let's change the size on
| | 04:07 |
the X to 100, and then on
the Y to 150, and the Z to 100.
| | 04:12 |
If we orbit around the scene, here, you
can see the arm is still well contained
| | 04:16 |
within the Deformer.
| | 04:17 |
It's just a little bit smaller, so we
can make the Bulge a little more specific.
| | 04:22 |
Reposition the box up in your geometry
and then click on the orange Grabber.
| | 04:26 |
Click-and-drag to the left
to make the Bulge larger.
| | 04:30 |
Click-and-drag to the right to make it smaller.
| | 04:32 |
Let's make the Bulge a little larger.
| | 04:35 |
Now, pay attention to the mode.
| | 04:37 |
Limited mode works in a limited fashion.
| | 04:39 |
So as I make my adjustments here,
notice it's still deforming, even though the
| | 04:44 |
geometry is outside of the Bulge.
| | 04:47 |
But the Bulge is not being applied
outside the bottom or the top of the Deformer.
| | 04:52 |
So it's just being limited by the
top and the bottom of the Deformer.
| | 04:55 |
If we drag back on X-axis here, and
change the mode to Within Box, now when we
| | 05:02 |
drag the Deformer off, the second
the geometry gets out of the Deformer.
| | 05:05 |
The deformation stops being applied.
| | 05:09 |
Let's switch things to Unlimited.
| | 05:11 |
And you notice, if we follow the curve
of the deformation, right when these two
| | 05:16 |
sides would actually intersect,
the geometry goes negative.
| | 05:20 |
So it's actually applying
the deformation everywhere.
| | 05:25 |
Let's change this back to Limited.
| | 05:27 |
Now that we have a decent size Bulge,
let's go back and reactivate our Bend
| | 05:31 |
Deformer to see what happens.
| | 05:33 |
And you notice the Bulge is still
evenly distributed along the arm.
| | 05:36 |
It's a little distorted because, again,
the Bend is pulling the geometry a
| | 05:41 |
little bit, but I think this is
exactly what I was looking for.
| | 05:44 |
Let's reactivate the rest of the geometry
by clicking-and-dragging on the red axis.
| | 05:49 |
So as you can see, if we rotate around
here, we do have the arm actually set
| | 05:54 |
up in the right place.
| | 05:55 |
Now, to reposition the whole arm, I
am going to make sure to select my Arm
| | 05:58 |
object and just drag down a little bit. Okay.
| | 06:02 |
We can go ahead and collapse the Arm
object because we don't need to see
| | 06:04 |
the Deformers anymore.
| | 06:06 |
To duplicate the arm, hold down Ctrl,
click-and-drag in the Object Manager, and
| | 06:10 |
you notice you will get this
Plus button with the arrow.
| | 06:13 |
When I let go, now I have another arm. Okay.
| | 06:16 |
Now, we have seen how Deformers
can add details to your model.
| | 06:19 |
In the next video, we are going to go
over hierarchy as we duplicate the arm and
| | 06:24 |
finish off the rest of the geometry.
| | 06:27 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Grouping objects| 00:00 | So, we are continuing on where
we left off in the last project.
| | 00:03 | As you can see, we have some
Deformers applied to our Arm object.
| | 00:07 | Now, it's time to duplicate the
arm and create a sense of hierarchy.
| | 00:11 | If you haven't done so already,
collapse the Arm object, so we don't see
| | 00:15 | the Deformers anymore.
| | 00:16 | With the Arm object selected, click
on it, hold down Ctrl, and drag up, and
| | 00:23 | notice you get this Plus button with an arrow.
| | 00:25 | That's letting us know
that we have created a copy.
| | 00:27 | If we let go, now we have
another copy called Arm.1.
| | 00:32 | Making sure we are in the model tool,
with the Move tool selected, go ahead and
| | 00:36 | click on the Z-axis to drag the other
arm to the other side of the geometry.
| | 00:42 | Now, with the arm selected, we can go
ahead and rotate it around the scene.
| | 00:45 | If you grab your Rotation tool, you
can click on the green Bend and drag
| | 00:49 | around to the right.
| | 00:51 | If you hold down Shift as you drag,
notice it snaps in five-degree increments.
| | 00:55 | Now, we need to switch back to the Move
tool again, and click on the Z-axis to
| | 01:00 | drag the arm over to the other side.
| | 01:02 | Notice since we applied the Rotation,
the axes of the arm actually switched
| | 01:06 | around the opposite direction.
| | 01:08 | If I select Arm, notice the axes are
pointed towards us, and to the right, and
| | 01:11 | then if we select Arm.1, the
axes are the other way around.
| | 01:14 | But to be safe, we really should
change the axis of this Arm object, but
| | 01:18 | honestly, if we are going to animate
this arm, I would move the axis all the way
| | 01:21 | up to this shoulder area.
| | 01:23 | For right now, let's focus on actually
getting a sense of hierarchy with our object.
| | 01:29 | Now, I just want to make sure everything
is even between the two sides of the robot.
| | 01:33 | I can kind of tell with the
Deformers here, I am close but not quite.
| | 01:37 | So, let's select the original arm,
and we notice the position is 0, -7.77.
| | 01:42 | Let's go and round that off to -7.
| | 01:46 | And then down here, under Z,
let's change it to 225.
| | 01:49 | And now, if we select Arm.1,
notice we are at -7 again.
| | 01:56 | So let's do -7, and what was Arm, 225, so
let's change the Z to -225, the exact
| | 02:07 | opposite of the other one.
| | 02:09 | Now, if we orbit around the scene here,
you can see the geometry is symmetrical.
| | 02:14 | The Bend Deformers are a little off, but
the geometry is working perfectly well.
| | 02:19 | So this is great for now.
| | 02:21 | Let's move on to hierarchy.
| | 02:22 | Select the Body in the Object Manager,
and click on the Z-axis handle and just
| | 02:26 | move the body around.
| | 02:27 | You notice nothing else
moves around in the scene.
| | 02:31 | That's because we have no hierarchy.
| | 02:33 | Let's just Undo that last move
and add some shoulder into the body.
| | 02:38 | The way we do that is by clicking
on the object and dragging it down.
| | 02:42 | Let's say we want to add the arms to the body.
| | 02:44 | Click on the Arm and drag it down into the body.
| | 02:47 | Click on Arm.1 and do the same exact thing.
| | 02:50 | Now, with the Body selected, click on
the Z-axis and move around, and you notice
| | 02:54 | now the arms are working in
conjunction with the body.
| | 02:58 | Let's Undo that last move.
| | 02:59 | Go ahead and collapse the body for
now because I want to create a hierarchy
| | 03:04 | between the Head and the Helmet.
| | 03:06 | So, you guessed it.
| | 03:07 | Let's make the Helmet the child of the Head.
| | 03:09 | Click-and-drag the Helmet down into
the Head, in your Object Manager, making
| | 03:13 | sure the arrow is pointing
down, as opposed to the left.
| | 03:17 | As long as the arrow is pointing down,
when you let go, the Helmet will now be
| | 03:21 | the child of the Head.
| | 03:22 | Of course, since the Head follows
the Body, you click on the Head and
| | 03:27 | drag-and-drop it up into the Body.
| | 03:30 | So, now we have some pretty good hierarchy here.
| | 03:32 | If we select the Body, no matter
what changes we make, everything moves.
| | 03:37 | If you select the Head and choose
Rotation, notice the Helmet moves.
| | 03:41 | Let me just Undo that last move.
| | 03:44 | Now, of course, if we were to animate
this, again, I mentioned it earlier, we
| | 03:48 | would want to change the
position of the object axes.
| | 03:51 | But for right now, I think you
have a firm grasp on hierarchy.
| | 03:54 | So just to clean things up a little bit
more, I am going to take our Body object
| | 03:58 | here and actually group it into a Null Object.
| | 04:02 | You can create groups by selecting as many
objects as you want in your Object Manager.
| | 04:06 | Go up under Object, and choose Group Objects.
| | 04:10 | When I choose that, a Null Object is
automatically created at the center of all the geometry.
| | 04:16 | So let's double-click that and we can
go ahead and call that Robot, and hit
| | 04:22 | Return on your keyboard.
| | 04:24 | Let's expand the Robot Null Object, and you
can see it contains all the other sub-objects.
| | 04:30 | So when you have objects highlighted
and go to Objects, and choose Group
| | 04:34 | Objects, it creates a Null Object.
| | 04:36 | But that's not the only
way to create a Null Object.
| | 04:39 | Drag the geometry out of the robot by
clicking on the Body and pulling it up.
| | 04:44 | Let's select the Robot
Null Object and press Delete.
| | 04:47 | Now, if you want to create a Null
Object, there are two other ways you can do
| | 04:50 | it, besides grouping.
| | 04:52 | If you come up to the toolbar at the
top of your menu, click-and-hold on this
| | 04:56 | icon here with the array of boxes.
| | 04:59 | Underneath, in the lower
right side, we have Null Object.
| | 05:03 | That's one way to add a Null Object.
| | 05:05 | We will go ahead and press
Delete to delete that one.
| | 05:08 | You can also come up under
Objects and choose Null Object.
| | 05:12 | So, as you can see, there are a lot of
different ways to create Null Objects.
| | 05:16 | So, again, just to keep the scene
organized, let's click on the Body object,
| | 05:19 | drag it into our Null Object,
and rename our Null Object, Robot.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Optimizing models for animation| 00:00 | Anytime you create anything in 3D,
unfortunately, there's going to be a fair
| | 00:04 | amount of preparation.
| | 00:06 | For example, there are plenty of times
when geometry will look just fine, but
| | 00:09 | not necessarily be ready to animate.
| | 00:11 | To show you what I mean, let's
select the right arm of the robot model we
| | 00:15 | created earlier in the chapter.
| | 00:16 | Now, I can already tell there's a problem,
because the Control vertices are down by the hand.
| | 00:21 | If we grabbed the Rotation tool, and
clicked on the blue axis to rotate, we
| | 00:25 | would notice, this is not exactly
where we would we like the arm to rotate.
| | 00:29 | So let's Undo that and fix the problem
by switching to our Object Axis tool.
| | 00:35 | Grab the Move tool, and let's switch to
the 4-Up View so we can easily move the
| | 00:39 | Control vertices up to the shoulder.
| | 00:42 | But if you notice, there's another problem.
| | 00:44 | Now, the geometry is kind of
sliding all over the place.
| | 00:46 | This has to do with the two
Deformers that are applied to the arm.
| | 00:49 | Make sure to Undo so our
model is back in its place.
| | 00:52 | Now, we need to convert this geometry,
but we are not going to use this Make
| | 00:55 | Object Editable button.
| | 00:56 | This time, with the right arm selected,
go up to the Objects pull-down menu in
| | 01:00 | the top of the Object Manager.
| | 01:01 | And there's an option
called Current State to Object.
| | 01:05 | This will flatten both the
Deformers into our new geometry.
| | 01:09 | Go ahead and select that, and you
will notice we still have the original
| | 01:12 | geometry and our Polygon geometry.
| | 01:15 | Now, typically, I would save another
copy of the project, so we could always go
| | 01:18 | back to the old geometry.
| | 01:20 | So, let's select the original
geometry, and just press Delete.
| | 01:24 | Do the same process for the left arm.
| | 01:26 | Select the geometry.
| | 01:27 | Go up to the Objects pull-down.
| | 01:29 | Choose Current State to Object,
and Delete the original geometry.
| | 01:33 | Now, we are actually ready
to move the Control vertices.
| | 01:37 | Let's select the right arm, and we
still have our Object Axis tool set up.
| | 01:41 | So, we will switch back to 4-Up View,
and grab the Y-axis and bring it up to
| | 01:45 | around the shoulder point.
| | 01:47 | And then we can click on the Z-axis in the
Right View to bring that point back over.
| | 01:51 | Let's do the same process for the left arm.
| | 01:53 | Select the left arm.
| | 01:54 | Again, in Object Axis tool, we
can just bring it up, and then over.
| | 02:00 | Now, typically, I would be a stickler
for exact coordinates, so everything would
| | 02:03 | be in perfect symmetry, but in this
video, I just want to show you a basic
| | 02:07 | overview of the basic
principle of optimizing your model.
| | 02:10 | So now that we have the Control vertices
in their proper place, if we went ahead
| | 02:15 | and grabbed our Rotation tool and
clicked on the Rotation Band, you notice now
| | 02:19 | that the shoulder is moving the proper way.
| | 02:21 | Now, it's kind of popping out on the
top here, and we could easily fix that
| | 02:24 | just by moving the geometry down a little
bit in our robot and everything would be okay.
| | 02:30 | But I think you get the general idea.
| | 02:31 | You always want to make sure that the
Control vertices are in the right place
| | 02:35 | before you go to animation, and if you
have Deformers on your object, it makes
| | 02:39 | sense to go up under Objects, and
choose Current State to Object, just so you
| | 02:42 | are dealing with one solid set of geometry.
| | 02:46 | So the last thing we need to do,
select our robot, and with the model tool
| | 02:50 | selected, go ahead and move it around,
and you notice some of the geometry is
| | 02:53 | not in the proper hierarchy.
| | 02:55 | So let's Undo that, and we will just
Click and Shift+Click on each eye, and drag
| | 03:00 | it in to become children of the Head.
| | 03:03 | And then, we can click on the Jet, and
just click-and-drag it right in to be
| | 03:06 | a child of the Body.
| | 03:09 | So as you can see, with a little bit
of preparation, you can make somebody's
| | 03:12 | life a little bit easier
when it comes to animation.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Introducing keyframing| 00:00 | While there are several ways to create
keyframes in CINEMA 4D, we are going to
| | 00:03 | cover how to add keyframes in the
Attribute Manager as an overview of the
| | 00:07 | concept and process. Don't worry.
| | 00:09 | We have an entire chapter dedicated
to keyframing, later in this course.
| | 00:13 | Now, if you are not sure exactly what
keyframing is, it's derived from the
| | 00:17 | days of cell animation.
| | 00:19 | It's when a master animator would
actually create just the keyframes of a scene.
| | 00:23 | For example, if it were, like, a rabbit
jumping down the road, the artist would
| | 00:27 | probably create the initial frame, and
then, maybe, when the rabbit was up in
| | 00:31 | the air, and then the rabbit was down
on the ground, and then he would pass
| | 00:34 | those keyframes off to other artists to
create all the other frames in between.
| | 00:40 | Well, it's kind of the
same process in CINEMA 4D.
| | 00:43 | You just create the keyframes and then
CINEMA 4D will create everything in between.
| | 00:47 | To show you what I mean, let's
select the Body of the robot.
| | 00:51 | Now, I would just like this robot to
kind of bounce up and down in the scene.
| | 00:55 | So if I just click on the Y-axis, I
can go ahead and move him up and down.
| | 01:00 | As we move the robot up and down,
check out the Coordinates Channel in
| | 01:04 | the Attributes Editor.
| | 01:06 | It's the Y-axis that's updating.
| | 01:08 | So let's go ahead and add a keyframe there.
| | 01:10 | So I would add a keyframe directly into Y-axis.
| | 01:14 | Select the Y, hold down Ctrl, and
click on the little circle on the other
| | 01:18 | side of the P, here.
| | 01:19 | The P stands for Position.
| | 01:20 | Let's go ahead and click on that.
| | 01:23 | Now, I know I have added a
keyframe because the circle is now red.
| | 01:26 | I also know, because this area down here,
the Timeline Ruler, there is a little
| | 01:31 | blue box underneath our playhead,
which is this green box, right here.
| | 01:36 | If I click-and-drag the play head,
notice you can see the keyframe.
| | 01:41 | So let's click-and-drag
our play head to frame 45.
| | 01:46 | With the play head on frame 45, let's
go ahead and move our model up in the
| | 01:51 | scene, and now take a look at the circle
next to the P on the Y-axis. It's yellow.
| | 01:57 | That's letting us know that there's a
track that's been created, and on that
| | 02:01 | track is a keyframe, and the
keyframe value is different than the current
| | 02:05 | value on the Y-axis.
| | 02:08 | So to add another keyframe, all we
have to do is hold down Ctrl and click.
| | 02:13 | Now if you look in our
Timeline Ruler, we have two keyframes.
| | 02:17 | Click the Play button, just below the
Timeline Ruler, on the right-hand side, here.
| | 02:22 | Now, when the playhead moves back,
you notice our robot is moving up.
| | 02:26 | Let's stop Playback for a second and add
another keyframe, all the way at the end, at 90.
| | 02:33 | Take a look at the Y-axis,
as I drag the robot back down.
| | 02:38 | Now we can go ahead and press Ctrl,
and click again, and you notice we
| | 02:41 | have three keyframes.
| | 02:43 | Go ahead and press Play, so
we can check this out. Okay.
| | 02:49 | Now, if we want this whole thing to
happen faster, we can click on any of the
| | 02:54 | keyframes in the Timeline
Ruler and reposition them.
| | 02:59 | If you want to move all three
keyframes at the same time, click-and-drag on
| | 03:03 | the little markers.
| | 03:05 | Now, with all three selected, you can just
click on one and drag them all in the Timeline.
| | 03:11 | Lastly, to delete a keyframe, all you
have to do is right-click directly on the
| | 03:15 | keyframe and choose Delete.
| | 03:17 | Now, since we had all three
keyframes selected, all three got deleted.
| | 03:20 | Let me Undo that, and just click
anywhere in this lower area in the Timeline
| | 03:26 | Ruler to deselect all three of the keyframes.
| | 03:28 | Now, if we select and right-click on
one of the keyframes and choose Delete, we
| | 03:32 | have deleted just that specific keyframe.
| | 03:34 | So there you have it, the basics of adding
and sliding your keyframes in your project.
| | 03:39 | Now, don't worry.
| | 03:40 | We will be diving more in depth with
keyframes in the animation chapter.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating and applying basic materials| 00:00 | In this video, we are going to apply
some Materials to our basic primitive
| | 00:04 | little rocket robot here.
| | 00:06 | And the idea is to just go over the basics.
| | 00:10 | We have a whole chapter later on in
the title dedicated to Materials, but for
| | 00:14 | now, I want you to get familiar with
the concept of creating a basic Material,
| | 00:18 | and applying it to your model.
| | 00:20 | So, let's get started in the Materials Manager,
in the lower left corner of your interface.
| | 00:26 | Click on File, and choose New Material.
| | 00:30 | With the New Material selected,
notice there are options that pop up in
| | 00:34 | the Attribute window.
| | 00:35 | Each one of these things across the top,
here, is called a Channel, and it takes
| | 00:39 | multiple Channels to make up a Material.
| | 00:41 | Just to show you the Material Editor
really quickly, if you double-click the
| | 00:45 | Material in the Materials Manager, we
have a Material Editor, where we can
| | 00:49 | actually add a lot more Channels.
| | 00:51 | But like I said, this is just a basic
overview, so we are not going to get
| | 00:54 | into this just yet.
| | 00:55 | Let's go ahead and close the Material
Editor and change the color of this Material.
| | 01:00 | The Color, well here, if you just click once,
it automatically opens the Color Picker.
| | 01:06 | Now, if you don't like the specific
Color Picker, you can choose all these
| | 01:09 | different Hue, Saturation,
RGB. You get the idea.
| | 01:13 | There are a whole bunch of
different ways of choosing color.
| | 01:16 | But for now, let's just choose a basic
color that we can put onto our model.
| | 01:20 | So I am going to go choose a color
that's very lightly saturated and rotate my
| | 01:25 | hue over to a basic blue color. Let's click OK.
| | 01:31 | And to apply this Material,
you can do a number of things.
| | 01:35 | First, you can drag-and-drop straight from
the Material Editor right onto your object.
| | 01:40 | Notice the second my mouse got over the
geometry, it turned into a Plus button.
| | 01:45 | So if we let go, it has
automatically added the Material to the piece of
| | 01:50 | geometry that ranks
highest in our Object Manager.
| | 01:54 | Since these other objects are actually
located underneath the Body object, it
| | 01:59 | automatically applied the Material to
everything else in the scene. That's fine.
| | 02:03 | If we go ahead and create a New Material,
by going down in the Material Manager,
| | 02:07 | choosing File > New Material.
| | 02:10 | Let's change the color now to something a
little more sinister. We will go to red.
| | 02:15 | Now that we have the red Material,
let's drag it and drop it directly into
| | 02:20 | the Object Manager.
| | 02:21 | Let's choose the Left_eye.
| | 02:22 | When we let go, notice,
now the Left_eye is textured.
| | 02:26 | Everything else still has the
texture of the parent object.
| | 02:30 | If we want to quickly just move this
texture from the Left_eye to the Right_eye
| | 02:34 | by making a copy, make sure to hold
down Ctrl, click on your Material, and drag
| | 02:39 | it down right next to the Right_eye,
and when you let go, we have automatically
| | 02:43 | applied that Material.
| | 02:44 | Now, there is one other way to apply
Materials to multiple objects rather than
| | 02:49 | each individual objects while still
underneath the main Body hierarchy, and
| | 02:53 | that's with grouping the objects together.
| | 02:56 | So I want to go ahead and group the
two arms into a new Null Object, but
| | 03:00 | you notice we still have the RightArm geometry
here that we had converted in the last video.
| | 03:05 | So go ahead and select that and press Delete.
| | 03:08 | Now, we can select the RightArm.
| | 03:09 | Hold down Shift, and select the left arm.
| | 03:11 | If we go up under Objects and choose
Group Objects, now they have both been
| | 03:17 | grouped into one new Null Object.
| | 03:19 | Let's double-click that and call it Arms.
| | 03:23 | Now, with the Null Object selected,
let's go ahead and create a new Material
| | 03:26 | here really quickly, by
clicking File > New Material.
| | 03:30 | Choose any color you like.
| | 03:32 | I am just going to choose kind of a
dark gray, and click OK, and to apply the
| | 03:36 | Material you just drag it and drop
it directly onto the Null Object.
| | 03:40 | Now, if we render our scene, I am looking at
the model, and I kind of want to change things.
| | 03:45 | What's nice, once you have applied a
Material to an object, if you go back to
| | 03:49 | the Material Editor, you
can change that Material.
| | 03:52 | Let's double-click the
blue Material of our Body.
| | 03:56 | If you double-click the Material,
it opens the Material Editor.
| | 03:59 | Let's just change things up
by changing the color again.
| | 04:02 | Click in the color wheel, and we
will just drag down to create even a
| | 04:07 | darker blackish color.
| | 04:09 | Then, close the Material Editor.
| | 04:12 | Now if we render our scene, you notice
our model has taken on a whole new form.
| | 04:17 | Now, we understand how to
apply textures and change textures.
| | 04:21 | But as you can see, things can get kind
of complicated really quickly with all
| | 04:25 | these different tags that keep appearing,
and sometimes you will end up with a
| | 04:29 | lot of materials in your Material Editor.
| | 04:32 | So it's really important to understand
exactly what CINEMA 4D is showing you
| | 04:36 | when you select an object.
| | 04:37 | For example, the Arms Null Object
is selected and it has this gray
| | 04:42 | Material applied to it.
| | 04:43 | Notice the white box around the Material.
| | 04:45 | That's also set up down
here in the Material Manager.
| | 04:49 | Even if I select this black Material to
edit it in the Attribute Editor, notice,
| | 04:55 | since the Arms Null Object is still
selected in the Object Manager, it's still
| | 05:00 | being shown down here, but I can
still make changes to the other Material.
| | 05:05 | If you found Materials remotely
interesting, or you want to learn a little bit
| | 05:08 | more about how to apply your Materials,
feel free to jump to the Materials
| | 05:12 | chapter, where we will go
a little bit more in depth.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Getting organized with layers| 00:00 | The Layer Manager is a great way to
organize a lot of elements in your scene.
| | 00:04 | Now, if we render our scene here, you
can see a model that we will actually be
| | 00:08 | creating later as we move throughout the course.
| | 00:11 | And if you are joining me from the
earlier videos, the robot that we had
| | 00:14 | created, I just went ahead and added some
other textures to it and placed him in a cart.
| | 00:19 | And I know we haven't covered Lights and
the Camera yet, but trust me, don't worry.
| | 00:23 | I just wanted to give you an example of a scene.
| | 00:26 | Once you actually start building
your scenes with lights and cameras and
| | 00:29 | multiple objects, you can see, as we
expand our Null Objects, here, the scene
| | 00:33 | tends to get really busy, really quickly,
if I open up all the different things
| | 00:37 | in the Object Manager.
| | 00:39 | So, this is where the Layer Manager comes in.
| | 00:41 | Let me go ahead and just collapse the
Robot and the JetCart and our Lights.
| | 00:46 | If you come up under
Window, choose Layer Broswer
| | 00:52 | Now that the Layer Browser is floating,
let's tear it off and dock it right
| | 00:56 | above the Attribute Manager.
| | 00:57 | Just click the little square here next
to the word File and drag, and you notice
| | 01:01 | it snaps around to all the
different areas in the interface.
| | 01:04 | Let go of your mouse right when the
white line is above the Attribute Editor.
| | 01:08 | Now, we have successfully
added our Layer Browser.
| | 01:11 | Adding objects to the Layer
Browser is pretty straightforward.
| | 01:14 | Typically, it starts when you create a layer.
| | 01:16 | So if you go to File, you can say New Layer.
| | 01:19 | Now you notice we have a Name here,
layer, and a bunch of switches.
| | 01:23 | And we will get through those switches
in a second, but let's go ahead and start
| | 01:26 | organizing our scene.
| | 01:28 | For this first layer, let's double-
click the name and we will call it Robot.
| | 01:34 | Now, to add an object to a layer, all
you need to do is click on it and drag it
| | 01:37 | down into the layer.
| | 01:39 | Now, if you notice, one of the first
options here is this V, which turns on
| | 01:45 | and off the visibility.
| | 01:46 | Now, if you just clicked on this and
dragged it down, if we turn off the
| | 01:48 | visibility, notice the Robot didn't turn off.
| | 01:52 | Well, that's because we added the Null Object.
| | 01:56 | But if we expand things, we didn't add
anything else underneath the Null Object.
| | 02:01 | And the reason I know this, the green
color right here is letting me know the
| | 02:04 | Robot has been added, but
nothing else underneath has.
| | 02:08 | So to add an object and all its children,
hold down Ctrl, click on that object
| | 02:13 | and drag it into your layer, and
then when I let go, notice its added
| | 02:16 | everything, including my
Materials, into this layer.
| | 02:19 | Now, when we turn off and on the
visibility, we can see that the robot is
| | 02:23 | appearing and disappearing.
| | 02:24 | Let's go ahead and close
that and create a new layer.
| | 02:29 | Let's double-click that and call it Cart.
| | 02:33 | Now, again, since the JetCart is
contained within the Null Object, we need to
| | 02:37 | hold down Ctrl as we click-and-
drag the Cart into the new layer.
| | 02:41 | Now, for the Floor, since it's just one
object and it's not containing anything
| | 02:45 | else, if you just right-click,
you can choose Add to New Layer.
| | 02:50 | And let's double-click
that layer and call it Floor.
| | 02:53 | Now, if you notice, our Robot color
and our Floor color are pretty similar.
| | 02:57 | If you want to change the color of a
layer, just double-click and choose a new
| | 03:00 | color in the Color Picker.
| | 03:02 | You can also add things that aren't
necessarily models, for example, this Light setup.
| | 03:06 | We have a couple of different
Lights and another Null Object.
| | 03:09 | So, we will just go to
File and choose New Layer.
| | 03:12 | We will call this Lights.
| | 03:15 | And for that matter, we might as well
add the Camera to the same layer, so we
| | 03:17 | will call it Lights Camera.
| | 03:21 | And again, I will double-click on
the color, and just choose a slightly
| | 03:24 | different color here. Okay.
| | 03:25 | So to add our Lights Camera, I will
just go ahead and click on one, hold down
| | 03:31 | Shift, click on the other, and
Ctrl, drag down to the bottom.
| | 03:35 | That way everything has been added.
| | 03:39 | Now, since we have added our Lights
and Camera, we can turn on and off the
| | 03:43 | visibility, and notice it
turns on and off the Lights.
| | 03:46 | Now, this next switch over is just
as important as the visibility switch,
| | 03:51 | because this switch determines the render.
| | 03:53 | So for example, if I turn off the Robot
and I turn off the Cart, if I click our
| | 03:58 | Render button up here at the top of
the screen, you will notice the Cart and
| | 04:02 | the Robot still render.
| | 04:03 | That's because we haven't selected this switch.
| | 04:05 | So to turn the visibility off in the
Renderer, go ahead and click on those
| | 04:08 | buttons, and now when we re-
render, our scene is empty.
| | 04:12 | I will just turn those back on.
| | 04:14 | You can also turn on and off the
different objects in your Object Manager by
| | 04:18 | clicking on the button.
| | 04:19 | Notice the Robot is disappearing.
| | 04:21 | Same thing with the Lights.
| | 04:23 | But notice it hasn't
changed the scene whatsoever.
| | 04:27 | Let's say you have things set up
perfectly or animated beautifully, you can use
| | 04:30 | layers to lock off access to specific items.
| | 04:34 | Notice I can't select, but I can
expand, but notice I still can't
| | 04:38 | select anything else.
| | 04:41 | Let's turn the lock back off, and this
next button here allows us to turn on
| | 04:46 | and off animations.
| | 04:47 | So, if we had keyframes on a specific
object, you could turn that on or off.
| | 04:51 | Now, these next three buttons here
pertain to specific modeling tools.
| | 04:55 | Now, one of these you might be
familiar with is the Deformer.
| | 04:59 | Let's go ahead and select
the Robot and Solo this layer.
| | 05:02 | The first button here turns on Solo,
which means this is the only thing we
| | 05:06 | can see in the scene.
| | 05:07 | Now, if we click the icon underneath the
D for Deformer, it turns off any Deformer.
| | 05:12 | If we expand my Robot geometry here, you'll
notice the left arm has a Bulge and Bend Deformer.
| | 05:18 | With that deselected,
now I have turned that off.
| | 05:20 | So as you can see, layers are a great
way to add organization to your scenes.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
2. Modeling with NURBSCreating splines| 00:00 |
Splines are a series of points
connected by a pass in 3D space.
| | 00:04 |
Though they actually contain no
dimension they are the basis of NURBS modeling.
| | 00:09 |
And if you skipped the Intro chapter
and aren't really familiar with NURBS
| | 00:12 |
objects you might want to watch
the video titled Understanding 3D.
| | 00:16 |
Now if you've ever used Adobe
Illustrator or the Path tool in Photoshop, you are
| | 00:21 |
actually already familiar with one
form of Spline creation, and there are
| | 00:25 |
actually several different kinds of
Splines you can create in Cinema 4D, as well
| | 00:28 |
as a whole host of pre-built Spline objects.
| | 00:32 |
I find myself using Splines most often
to easily create organic structures based
| | 00:37 |
on the structure's profile or
skeletal structure if you will.
| | 00:42 |
Let's get started by understanding
the tools used to create Splines.
| | 00:45 |
Then we can move through the rest of this
chapter using Splines to create NURBS objects.
| | 00:49 |
So to create a Spline in Cinema 4D, go
up to the Spline pop-up menu and let's go
| | 00:54 |
ahead and just rip that off and add it
to the top of our scene just so we can
| | 00:58 |
reference it as we move
throughout the rest of this video.
| | 01:01 |
And since I mention Path Splines in
Photoshop and Illustrator, let's get started
| | 01:05 |
creating a Bezier Spline Path.
| | 01:07 |
Go ahead and click Bezier and just left-
click in the scene a couple of points,
| | 01:12 |
and you'll notice as I click
throughout the scene here, the path travels
| | 01:16 |
directly through each one of my points.
| | 01:19 |
If you click and drag you notice,
you can drag out Bezier handles.
| | 01:24 |
Now, since I created this Spline in
the Perspective View, I am having a hard
| | 01:28 |
time seeing exactly where this
Spline lives in three-dimensional space.
| | 01:33 |
If you click on the Orbit tool and orbit
around, you'll notice that it defaulted
| | 01:37 |
to actually creating the Spline on
the ground plane, and if you go to the
| | 01:42 |
Structure menu here, you'll notice it
actually shows you exactly where each one
| | 01:47 |
of the points are on this plane.
| | 01:49 |
Notice none of them have any Y value.
| | 01:53 |
So with the fifth point selected,
which is actually the sixth point, because
| | 01:57 |
there is a zero point as well, I can go
ahead and double-click on any value and
| | 02:02 |
just type a new number to move that point.
| | 02:05 |
Let's go back to our Objects menu
and go ahead and delete this Spline
| | 02:10 |
because, most times, when you create
Spline paths, you're actually in one of
| | 02:14 |
these Orthogonal views.
| | 02:15 |
Let's create the path from the front.
| | 02:18 |
Now let's go ahead and create another
Bezier path, and since I just deleted my
| | 02:22 |
Bezier path, I have to go back up here and
choose Bezier again and click in the window.
| | 02:27 |
Go ahead and click and drag out a
couple different control handles.
| | 02:31 |
So I want to show you how
to manipulate these handles.
| | 02:33 |
When you are done creating your
points, go ahead and press Enter on your
| | 02:37 |
keyboard to set your path and you
will notice now you can't see the points
| | 02:41 |
that created the path.
| | 02:42 |
Go ahead and grab your Use Point tool
and now we can see the points again.
| | 02:46 |
So to move the points, just go ahead
and click on the point and click on the
| | 02:50 |
different axis handles to move the Spline point.
| | 02:53 |
Now, if we want to change the Bezier
handles, go ahead and click on the Bezier
| | 02:57 |
handle and you'll notice they
both move exactly the same way.
| | 03:01 |
If you want to "break the handle"
hold down Shift on your keyboard and then
| | 03:06 |
click on one of the handles, and you
notice I can move to handle independently
| | 03:10 |
of the other handle, just holding down Shift.
| | 03:13 |
Now if I let go of Shift and click on
one of the handles, notice it keeps the
| | 03:17 |
angle that I have set, but still
moves them both at the same time.
| | 03:22 |
Now if I want to reset these handles,
go ahead and right-click anywhere in the
| | 03:26 |
scene, off of your object.
| | 03:28 |
And if we choose Equal Tangent
Direction now you notice it actually moved the
| | 03:33 |
tangents to become straight again.
| | 03:35 |
Let's choose a different point here.
| | 03:37 |
Hold down Shift, and change the angle
again, and we'll just right-click again
| | 03:41 |
and say Equal Tangent
Direction, so we can see it again.
| | 03:45 |
Now, if you are ever in a situation
where you can't actually click and drag out
| | 03:50 |
these handles you might
accidentally have your Selection tool selected.
| | 03:54 |
Notice I can select a point with the
Selection tool, but when I go to click on
| | 03:57 |
the handle I can't actually
grab that handle. Don't panic.
| | 04:02 |
Just grab your Move tool, and that will
allow you to go ahead and grab the handles.
| | 04:06 |
Should you ever want to add a control
point, go ahead and hold down Ctrl and
| | 04:11 |
just click right on the Spline.
| | 04:14 |
Now I have automatically created a new point.
| | 04:17 |
Again, let's just Ctrl+
Click right on the Spline.
| | 04:21 |
Now that we have covered some options
for Bezier Splines, let's go ahead and
| | 04:25 |
look at another one, B-Spline.
| | 04:28 |
Just select the Spline in your Objects tab
and press Delete and we will choose B-Spline.
| | 04:34 |
Now with B-Spline, you won't actually see
your Spline until you create three points.
| | 04:40 |
Notice as I continue to add points,
the Spline that's getting created doesn't
| | 04:45 |
actually move through any of the anchor points.
| | 04:48 |
This is a great tool if you are trying
to create a really smooth organic shape,
| | 04:53 |
and again to set your Spline go
ahead and press Enter on your keyboard.
| | 04:58 |
Let's look at one more.
| | 04:59 |
I will just go ahead and delete the B-Spline.
| | 05:01 |
This time, let's look at Akima
and just click through the scene.
| | 05:05 |
And you notice Akima rounds out the
Spline as well, but much like Bezier, this
| | 05:11 |
Spline path will actually travel
through each one of the individual points.
| | 05:17 |
Now, let's explore some of
the pre-built Spline objects.
| | 05:20 |
Go ahead and delete the Spline
object we just created and let's choose
| | 05:24 |
Rectangle, and you notice when the Rectangle
pops up, I don't have any points to adjust.
| | 05:29 |
If you want to change the height or
width of your rectangle object, go ahead and
| | 05:34 |
just change it in the Attribute menu.
| | 05:36 |
Now, one of the nice things about a
Rectangle object, if I want to actually
| | 05:41 |
create a rounded edge rectangle, all
you have to do is select the Rounding box
| | 05:47 |
and it automatically rounds out that rectangle.
| | 05:50 |
And again, if I want to change any of
the settings I can just change the numbers
| | 05:54 |
here in the Attribute window and
adjust the rectangle accordingly.
| | 05:58 |
Now, much like parametric primitives,
when you create pre-built Spline objects
| | 06:03 |
in order to actually get added points,
you have to come up and click the Make
| | 06:07 |
Object Editable button or press C on
your keyboard, and now you will notice we
| | 06:12 |
have our Spline path.
| | 06:14 |
And this brings me to the start point,
and what I mean by that, every path has a
| | 06:20 |
point that it uses as its start point,
the very first point that gets set on the
| | 06:24 |
scene and the way you can see that
is the color shading of the Spline.
| | 06:29 |
So, for example here, notice it starts
with white and then it gets slightly more
| | 06:35 |
blue as you move around the Spline.
| | 06:37 |
So if I deselect Close Spline, you'll
notice this is actually my start point and
| | 06:43 |
this is now my endpoint.
| | 06:45 |
Let's go ahead and close the Spline again.
| | 06:47 |
If you want to change the start point,
all you have to do is select that point.
| | 06:51 |
I am going to go ahead and grab my
Selection tool and just select this point in
| | 06:54 |
the lower left corner.
| | 06:56 |
If you right-click anywhere in the
scene, you can set the first point and
| | 07:00 |
now you notice my first point is traveling
around the opposite direction and it's over here.
| | 07:05 |
So if I reselect my Spline and
deselect Close Spline, you notice now I have
| | 07:11 |
changed my first point.
| | 07:12 |
Okay, now there is one last tool in
creating Spline objects I really want to show you.
| | 07:17 |
Let's go ahead and delete the Spline we
just created and we'll choose a Linear Spline.
| | 07:22 |
So let's go ahead and
make a sharp-angled Spline.
| | 07:27 |
Go ahead and set your Spline
object and grab the Use Point tool.
| | 07:33 |
Let's select this upper left-hand
corner and right-click to open up the menu,
| | 07:38 |
and the tool I want to
show you is called Chamfer.
| | 07:41 |
Chamfer rounds out any point that you
have selected and you notice its icon very
| | 07:47 |
clearly shows you it changes the
one point into two rounded points.
| | 07:51 |
So to round this out with this tool selected,
go ahead and just click and drag in the scene.
| | 07:56 |
I am dragging to the right and you
notice as I drag, it's now rounding out
| | 08:01 |
that individual point.
| | 08:03 |
And in the Attribute menu I can go
ahead and type a specific number, if I'd
| | 08:08 |
like to change that.
| | 08:10 |
Now, if you select the Flat option, it just
goes ahead and makes your path angled again.
| | 08:15 |
Let's go ahead and deselect that,
and you can see Chamfer is actually an
| | 08:20 |
excellent tool to use to create
some nice curves to your Splines.
| | 08:25 |
So now that we can create and edit our
Splines directly in Cinema 4D, you might
| | 08:30 |
be interested to know you can also
import your Splines using Adobe Illustrator
| | 08:34 |
files, which we'll do in our next video.
| | 08:38 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Importing Illustrator files| 00:00 |
We are starting this in Illustrator to
show you that Cinema 4D does support the
| | 00:04 |
use of Adobe Illustrator files.
| | 00:06 |
When you go to import them, they
actually get converted to Spline objects.
| | 00:10 |
The key thing to remember when
saving your files is to save them as
| | 00:14 |
Illustrator version 8.
| | 00:16 |
Now another thing that I typically
recommend, when you are laying your type out
| | 00:19 |
in Illustrator, it's
converting your type to Outlines.
| | 00:22 |
If you go up under Type and choose
Create Outlines, that will make it so the
| | 00:27 |
text is no longer editable.
| | 00:28 |
I found this actually helps when
you are dealing with different fonts,
| | 00:31 |
especially in Illustrator you may have
a ton of fonts loaded up and you don't
| | 00:35 |
necessarily want to have to worry
about packaging those fonts if you have to
| | 00:38 |
send your files around to anyone else.
| | 00:40 |
So, again, go up to Type
and say Create Outlines.
| | 00:43 |
Now, there is one other thing you
should consider when saving your Illustrator
| | 00:47 |
files, and that's the zero point.
| | 00:50 |
So to show you, go up to View and turn on
Show Rulers, if they are not already visible.
| | 00:56 |
And you will notice, in this document
across the top, 0 is in the center and on
| | 01:01 |
the side 0 is in the center, and the
reason this is important, where the two 0
| | 01:06 |
points intersect is where the control
handles will appear in Cinema 4D when you
| | 01:11 |
import this Illustrator file.
| | 01:13 |
Now, by default, the 0 points are
set to the upper left-hand corner.
| | 01:17 |
So, to change the 0 point, just go
ahead and click in this upper left corner
| | 01:22 |
here and drag out, and notice whenever I
let go, that's where the 0 points will be set.
| | 01:28 |
So, again, I am going to click up
here and drag to the center and let go.
| | 01:33 |
And now when we save this Illustrator
file, the control handles will be in the
| | 01:37 |
center of this object.
| | 01:39 |
So let's go to File and choose Save As,
and since I'd already saved this file
| | 01:44 |
before, it's added the word converted
to this Illustrator file, and that's
| | 01:48 |
what happens when you open an older version
of an Illustrator file into the newer version.
| | 01:53 |
It names it converted.
| | 01:54 |
So let me go ahead and just delete the
word converted and I will save it in the
| | 01:59 |
Media folder, which is in our
Exercise folder and click Save.
| | 02:03 |
And when I click Save it's asking me if
I want to replace, since I had already
| | 02:07 |
had this document saved there.
| | 02:08 |
I'll go ahead and click Replace.
| | 02:11 |
Now, when the dialog box opens,
you will see Version Illustrator CS4.
| | 02:16 |
Go ahead and click and
change that to Illustrator 8.
| | 02:20 |
Now, when we click OK, it's going to ask us if
the older version is okay. We'll just say OK.
| | 02:26 |
Notice the icon has now changed as
well to the older Illustrator icon.
| | 02:30 |
Now that we have this saved, we
can jump back in the Cinema 4D.
| | 02:33 |
Now, to import the Illustrator file,
go up to File and choose Merge.
| | 02:38 |
Navigate to your Media folder in your
Exercise Files, choose Recycle and click
| | 02:43 |
Open, and you'll get this
Illustrator Import dialog box.
| | 02:47 |
Make sure to deselect Connect
Splines and we can go ahead and leave
| | 02:51 |
Group Splines selected.
| | 02:52 |
When you click OK, the Illustrator file
is now imported into the document, and
| | 02:58 |
you will also notice the control
handles are now right in the center of our
| | 03:02 |
newly imported Illustrator file.
| | 03:05 |
Notice in the Object Manager that the
word recycle is now a Spline object, and
| | 03:10 |
if we expand the group here, you
will notice that it's grouped a bunch of
| | 03:13 |
different Splines, and if we select
the different Splines you can see in the
| | 03:16 |
Viewer exactly which Spline is which.
| | 03:20 |
Now there are a couple more things we
need to do to optimize this file before we
| | 03:23 |
start creating geometry.
| | 03:25 |
First thing, letters like this e on
the end here actually have more than one
| | 03:30 |
path associated with them.
| | 03:32 |
That's because we
converted the text into outlines.
| | 03:35 |
When that happens, letters that have
more than one path that aren't connected
| | 03:40 |
actually get divided up into two Spline objects.
| | 03:43 |
So what we need to do is actually connect
these two Spline objects to create one object.
| | 03:49 |
So make sure to select Path 12 and
hold down Shift and select Path 13 and
| | 03:55 |
the command we want to use is under
the Objects section, and we want to
| | 03:58 |
choose Connect and Delete.
| | 04:00 |
That way, it will connect the path and
then delete the original two paths that
| | 04:05 |
were originally imported.
| | 04:07 |
Again, let's select Path 6, the
other e, and can do the same process.
| | 04:12 |
Select Path 6, hold down
Shift and select Path 7.
| | 04:15 |
Now, I'll go to objects and
choose Connect and Delete.
| | 04:17 |
Now, the last thing we need to do to
optimize this is actually breakout the
| | 04:22 |
letters separate from the two other outlines.
| | 04:25 |
So let's go ahead and select the top-
most Spline object, Recycle, and you will
| | 04:30 |
notice that's the actual large outline.
| | 04:32 |
So let's drag Path 2 up and out of recycle.
| | 04:37 |
Now, recycle is its own separate object.
| | 04:40 |
If I turn off its visibility, you can see
it's no longer containing the other paths.
| | 04:46 |
Now, when I select Path 2, that
actually has the next outline.
| | 04:50 |
Now, there is a little gotcha with this
because Path 2 also contains these two
| | 04:55 |
inner circles within the c's themselves.
| | 04:57 |
So the way to fix this is to select
all the children of Path 2 by clicking on
| | 05:01 |
the first one and then Shift+Clicking
on the last one, and we will drag all
| | 05:06 |
those children out of Path 2.
| | 05:09 |
Now, like I said, Path 3 and 4 are also
supposed to be with Path 2, so we can go
| | 05:14 |
ahead and hold the Ctrl key down to
select both 4, 3, and 2, and we could do the
| | 05:21 |
same command, Objects>Connect, and Delete.
| | 05:25 |
Now, we have Path 3, 1, and if we turn
off the Visibility, you'll notice it's
| | 05:30 |
now one separate object.
| | 05:33 |
So, of course, the last thing we can do
is actually group all of these letters
| | 05:39 |
into one new object.
| | 05:41 |
The reason I am not connecting all
these letters is I still want to be able to
| | 05:43 |
individually control each letter.
| | 05:45 |
So this time, we'll select all the
letters and instead of choosing Connect and
| | 05:50 |
Delete, we'll just choose Group Objects.
| | 05:54 |
And you notice it places those new
Splines objects into a new Null Object, and
| | 05:59 |
I'll just call this Letters.
| | 06:02 |
And we can rename the Recycle outline,
BigOut, and we can call this, InOut
| | 06:11 |
Okay, so now that we know how to
import and optimize our Illustrator file,
| | 06:16 |
we are actually going to jump to the
next movie where we can cover how to
| | 06:18 |
create geometry.
| | 06:21 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Extruding splines from an imported Illustrator file| 00:00 | So we have our Illustrator
file imported into CINEMA 4D.
| | 00:03 | Now it's time to create some geometry.
| | 00:06 | Let's get started by selecting the
BigOut Spline object, and to create geometry,
| | 00:10 | we will use Extrude NURBS.
| | 00:12 | So hold down Alt or Option on the
keyboard and go up and choose Extrude NURBS.
| | 00:18 | Now, since we held down that key,
you notice the BigOut Spline object was
| | 00:22 | automatically added as the
child of the Extrude NURBS object.
| | 00:26 | This actually created the geometry.
| | 00:28 | So to better see what we are looking
at, let's go ahead and just press the
| | 00:31 | Render button, and it will show
you that we have some geometry.
| | 00:35 | If you rotate around the scene here,
you notice it has a front and a back side.
| | 00:39 | And if we zoom in kind of
close, you can see the edge here.
| | 00:43 | Again, if I render, it's nice and sharp.
| | 00:46 | Now, there are some options that you
have with Extrude NURBS in relation to this
| | 00:51 | edge, and they are called Caps.
| | 00:52 | If I go ahead and turn the Start Cap
off by choosing None, you notice it
| | 00:57 | actually turned off the face.
| | 00:59 | I can turn off the End Cap as well,
and you can see there is actually no
| | 01:03 | geometry on the front or the back,
but I still have my extrusion.
| | 01:07 | Let's go ahead and turn the Caps back on
and change the Start Cap to Fillet Cap.
| | 01:14 | What this does is it adds this
Beveled edge and it keeps the Cap.
| | 01:17 | If I just chose Fillet, you notice it
would have the Beveled edge but no Cap.
| | 01:22 | So, we will choose Fillet Cap.
| | 01:24 | You notice it added one large
Bevel, at a Radius of 5 units.
| | 01:29 | If I go ahead and crank that Radius up,
you notice the Bevel is getting larger.
| | 01:33 | So I think that Radius is a little much.
| | 01:35 | I will go ahead and bring that back
down to around 10, and let's increase
| | 01:39 | the number of Steps.
| | 01:40 | You notice as we add Steps, now when I
render, we have a nice soft pillowy edge
| | 01:45 | that's been created.
| | 01:46 | Now, there are a couple
of different Fillet types.
| | 01:49 | The one that I chose was Convex.
| | 01:51 | If we go ahead and change that to Linear,
notice it still keeps the Steps, but
| | 01:56 | when I render, we have
that kind of sharp edge again.
| | 01:59 | There is Half Circle, which actually
adds sort of a rounded edge to it and
| | 02:04 | pushes your face back a
little bit, which is sort of fun.
| | 02:07 | And there are 1 Step and 2 Steps.
| | 02:11 | Feel free to click through the different
Fillet types and explore the different options.
| | 02:15 | Right now, let's actually choose Half Circle.
| | 02:18 | Now, the other thing to consider is
this option here, called Constrain.
| | 02:23 | If we go ahead and select that, you
notice the geometry gets smaller again.
| | 02:27 | With Constrain on, no matter if I have a
Fillet Cap or a Cap, the actual size of
| | 02:32 | the geometry does not change.
| | 02:34 | Let's go back to Fillet Cap and turn
off Constrain, and you notice here, when I
| | 02:39 | switch between Fillet Cap and Cap, it's
actually adding extra geometry to create
| | 02:45 | that rounded half circle. Okay.
| | 02:47 | Let's take a closer look at our geometry here.
| | 02:50 | Move over to the lower right-hand corner
of the geometry, and you notice we have
| | 02:54 | this very bad error that's occurred.
| | 02:57 | If we go ahead and render that, see.
| | 02:59 | It's actually going to show up in the Render.
| | 03:01 | So this error is actually
caused by your Spline object.
| | 03:05 | So in the Object Manager, make sure
to select the BigOut Spline object, and
| | 03:09 | under Attributes, go to Object, and you
will notice there is an option here for
| | 03:14 | Intermediate Points.
| | 03:15 | By default, this was set to Adaptive
when we imported this Illustrator file.
| | 03:19 | Now, to better explain this, let's right
click on the words Intermediate Points,
| | 03:24 | and choose Show Help.
| | 03:26 | You notice in the Help menu, there is
a pretty clear explanation as to the
| | 03:29 | different ways that the Spline path will
change as you choose the different options.
| | 03:36 | So None, we just have zero points
created in between the individual points that
| | 03:42 | were used to create the Spline object.
| | 03:45 | As we go through, you can see
Natural sort of naturally spaces them out.
| | 03:49 | Uniform is very specific.
| | 03:51 | Each intermediate point is actually at
the exact same distance from the next.
| | 03:57 | When we go to Adaptive, it actually
creates more points the sharper the curve gets.
| | 04:01 | I will go ahead and close my Help menu.
| | 04:04 | Change Adaptive to Uniform, and
now you notice our error has actually
| | 04:09 | disappeared, and if you increase the
number of points in the Uniform, notice you
| | 04:14 | can actually get a more defined geometry.
| | 04:16 | Let's go ahead and crank that back
down to around 12, and pull back out and
| | 04:21 | re-center our object, and press Render.
| | 04:24 | And you notice now we have a
slightly better render of this scene.
| | 04:28 | I am still having a slight problem
with the sharpness of this one edge here.
| | 04:33 | When I render it, there is a
slight error that's happening there.
| | 04:36 | But for now, that's actually pretty good.
| | 04:39 | Let's go ahead and continue
extruding the other parts of this model.
| | 04:42 | Select the InOut Spline object.
| | 04:44 | Again, hold down Alt or Option on
your keyboard and choose Extrude NURBS.
| | 04:49 | Now with this extrusion applied, let's
just move the object out a little bit, so
| | 04:54 | it pops out from the BigOut outline.
| | 04:57 | We can go back through these Extrude
NURBS and change the Caps to a Fillet Cap
| | 05:01 | and make some different adjustments.
| | 05:04 | But for right now, I am fine
with just leaving it as the Cap.
| | 05:07 | Let's go ahead and extrude our main letters.
| | 05:09 | Hold down Alt or Option again.
| | 05:11 | This time, choose Extrude NURBS,
and you'll notice nothing happens.
| | 05:15 | Well, even if you move the
geometry out here, nothing is happening.
| | 05:19 | Notice the geometry is just out there.
| | 05:22 | The reason nothing is happening is when
you use a grouped set of Spline objects
| | 05:27 | like this, with Extrude NURBS selected,
if you go to the Object section in your
| | 05:32 | Attribute Editor, you want to select
Hierarchical, and this will now apply that
| | 05:37 | extrusion down through
each individual Spline object.
| | 05:42 | Let's go ahead and move that back a
little bit and press Render, and you notice
| | 05:46 | now we have kind of a funky looking title.
| | 05:48 | We can finish this off by adding some
Materials, which I will do really quickly.
| | 05:53 | Let's go under File, and choose New
Material, and we will just change the color
| | 05:58 | of that Material over to green.
| | 06:01 | Let's apply that green to
the BigOut Extrude NURBS.
| | 06:05 | Wow, kind of electric.
| | 06:07 | And then we can just quickly, if
you Ctrl+Click and drag, create a new
| | 06:12 | Material in Material 1.
| | 06:15 | Let's change that color to
kind of a yellowy-brown color.
| | 06:23 | Drag that Material on to
our InOut Spline object.
| | 06:26 | And lastly, we can go ahead and
create one more Material here, and change
| | 06:29 | the color over to white, and we will just
add that to our Extrude NURBS recycle text.
| | 06:36 | Now, there are some other tips and
tricks to texturing Spline objects that have
| | 06:41 | been extruded, and we will definitely
cover those in the Material section.
| | 06:45 | But for now, you know how to
import and create extruded geometry
| | 06:48 | using Illustrator files.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Troubleshooting extrude NURBS| 00:00 | Sometimes, when you extrude a Spline object
in CINEMA 4D, you will end up with errors.
| | 00:04 | Now, I would like to use the example from
the last video, keeping in mind one thing.
| | 00:08 | The problem with doing
troubleshooting videos is the fact that I can
| | 00:11 | troubleshoot this specific model, but that may
not necessarily fix your model or your situation.
| | 00:18 | So in this video, I am going to go
through a couple of different techniques, a
| | 00:21 | different options to look at that
hopefully can be a solution for you, but at
| | 00:26 | least, you can actually have some basis to
start troubleshooting your own model issues.
| | 00:31 | All right.
| | 00:33 | So if we zoom in on the model here,
you will notice at the sharp point when I
| | 00:38 | render this, I am getting this sort of error.
| | 00:43 | This just has to do with the thickness
of this half circle and the sharpness of
| | 00:47 | this individual angle.
| | 00:48 | There are a couple of ways to troubleshoot this.
| | 00:51 | So first off, we will just start with
the Extrude NURBS themselves and actually
| | 00:55 | look at the geometry.
| | 00:57 | With our Extrude NURBS object selected,
if we go down to the Attribute Editor,
| | 01:01 | under Caps, we have a type of geometry
that's actually being used to create the
| | 01:05 | extrusion, and that's N-gons.
| | 01:08 | So one thing you want to try and do
when you create your 3D models is actually
| | 01:12 | have really clean geometry.
| | 01:14 | So if I change this to Triangles, you'll
notice we get all this striation that's
| | 01:18 | going on to create this screen object.
| | 01:21 | Now, so I can see things better, let's
go ahead and turn off the visibility of
| | 01:25 | our other two Extrude NURBS.
| | 01:26 | I am just holding down Alt or Option
as I double-click the top circle to turn
| | 01:31 | off both the visibility in
the Editor and the Renderer.
| | 01:34 | Now, to get back down to the geometry
type, let's change this to Quadrangles,
| | 01:40 | and select Regular Grid.
| | 01:43 | And this way, we will get a
little bit more clean geometry.
| | 01:46 | We still have some of these triangles
right around the edge here trying to deal
| | 01:50 | with these curves, but this already, to
me, is looking a little bit more clean.
| | 01:55 | Now, we still haven't fixed this issue.
| | 01:58 | So what we are going to be looking
at is the interplay between the actual
| | 02:02 | geometry of the model itself, the
settings of your Spline objects' Intermediate
| | 02:08 | Points, and the settings you
used to create the different Caps.
| | 02:13 | So with Quadrangles and the Width set
to 10, let's go ahead and change the
| | 02:18 | number of Intermediate Points
that we used for this Spline object.
| | 02:22 | And you'll notice, as I bring this down,
I am slowly fixing this error. All right.
| | 02:29 | Well, when I get this down to 3, let's
go ahead and render and check it out.
| | 02:32 | That actually looks pretty darn good.
| | 02:35 | Now, that appeared to fix this problem
for this specific model, but let's look
| | 02:41 | at some of the other
settings that we could have tweaked.
| | 02:43 | I am just going to change this back
up to 12 for right now, so we can look
| | 02:46 | at another setting.
| | 02:47 | A lot of times, if it's not important
whether the geometry changes or not, I
| | 02:52 | will just check Constrain, and you notice
that appears to have fixed the issue, as well.
| | 02:58 | Just a little bit of fuzziness
there, but it's significantly better.
| | 03:02 | Now, if you have to not use
Constrain, then you can go back to the
| | 03:07 | troubleshooting technique of changing
the Intermediate Points, Interpolation
| | 03:12 | and/or the settings under that Interpolation.
| | 03:14 | So let me go ahead and crank this back down.
| | 03:16 | We will set this down to 2, and when
we render it, you notice at 2, I am
| | 03:21 | starting to get some bumps here on
some of the different curves, and that's
| | 03:25 | just because there aren't quite enough
Intermediate Points to make up a little
| | 03:29 | more smooth geometry.
| | 03:31 | Now, another way of troubleshooting
things with the Extrude NURBS selected is
| | 03:35 | changing the size of the Quadrangles.
| | 03:38 | If I change this up to 20,
that gives me less geometry.
| | 03:42 | Sometimes this is actually a good thing.
| | 03:44 | When you have less geometry, it means
a little bit less time in rendering.
| | 03:47 | Let's go ahead and press the Render button.
| | 03:50 | This is actually looking pretty darn good.
| | 03:51 | Now, other times, if you had a very,
very complex shape, you want to actually
| | 03:56 | change the width of the
Quadrangles down to, let's say, 5.
| | 03:59 | And you notice when I go to 5 here, I
am getting very few Triangles along the
| | 04:04 | edge, and actually, this is probably
the setting that I would use to do the
| | 04:08 | final render of this individual project.
| | 04:11 | So as you can see, when you Extrude
NURBS, there are a couple of different
| | 04:14 | options you could check, the Constrain
options, the type of geometry used in the
| | 04:19 | Extrude object, and then the
Interpolation of the actual Spline object itself
| | 04:26 | If you go through changing those
different settings, I am pretty sure you can
| | 04:29 | find a solution for your
geometry in your specific projects.
| | 04:35 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating and arranging text| 00:00 | Creating 3D text in Cinema
4D is pretty straightforward.
| | 00:04 | Text is created as a Spline primitive,
which you can then drop into an extrude
| | 00:08 | NURBS to create geometry.
| | 00:10 | Now the MoGraph module can also create
text with its own text generator, and
| | 00:14 | that has some pretty amazing capabilities,
but we will cover that in the MoGraph chapter.
| | 00:18 | For now, let's explore
text as a Spline primitive.
| | 00:21 | I think you'd be pretty impressed
with just how flexible text could be.
| | 00:26 | To create your Text Spline object, go up
to your Spline pop-up menu and choose Text.
| | 00:31 | And in the Attribute window
is where we can set our Type.
| | 00:35 | Now, in the last project, we built a
title called Recycle and I have a really
| | 00:39 | bad tendency to forget to put out my recycling.
| | 00:42 | So in this video, I would like to type
the words, 'today, please', because maybe
| | 00:48 | this way, I'll actually
remember to put on my recycling.
| | 00:51 | Now you notice when I added this text
in here, it hasn't populated the Viewer
| | 00:55 | in, and if you just click outside of
the text box, you'll notice the text
| | 01:00 | populate your Viewer.
| | 01:01 | We'll just zoom out here so
we can see this little better.
| | 01:05 | And we have a couple of different options.
| | 01:07 | We can adjust the alignment of
the text left, right or middle.
| | 01:12 | I like mine in middle so we will leave
it there, and you can adjust the height,
| | 01:16 | which is the overall size of the text.
| | 01:19 | I'll leave that back at 200.
| | 01:22 | The Horizontal Spacing actually
controls the kerning between the letters.
| | 01:26 | I will just undo that, and the Vertical
Spacing controls the space between the lines.
| | 01:31 | I will go ahead and bring that to -
28, just so it's a little tighter.
| | 01:35 | Now this option, Separate Letters, will
actually allow you to create individual
| | 01:40 | letters when you convert this text from
a Spline object into a Polygon object.
| | 01:46 | But let's wait on that just for a little bit.
| | 01:49 | You can also control the exact
plane where the text appears.
| | 01:52 | For example, if I choose ZY now, you'd
notice it's running along the Z-axis.
| | 01:58 | I'll just go ahead and leave that in
its default settings along the X-axis.
| | 02:04 | Now, to extrude the text, all you have
to do is hold down the Alt key or the
| | 02:08 | Option key if you are on a Mac, and
click and hold and bring up Extrude NURBS.
| | 02:13 | With that key down when you let go, the
text has automatically made a child of
| | 02:18 | the Extrude NURBS object.
| | 02:20 | So this is the same Extrude NURBS object
that we just covered in the previous video.
| | 02:25 | So with the text extruded let's go
ahead and adjust how deep the text is.
| | 02:31 | I actually think this is extruded a little
too far, so let's change this down to about 10.
| | 02:36 | That will make the text a little more narrow.
| | 02:39 | Increasing the subdivisions
actually adds a little bit more geometry.
| | 02:43 | If I zoom in here you can
see along the extrusion.
| | 02:47 | Now I don't really need all that extra
geometry, so I'll just leave that back at 1.
| | 02:51 | Go into the Caps section.
| | 02:54 | Let's add a Fillet Cap, and I want to
increase the number of steps just to kind
| | 02:59 | of round this out a little bit, and
let's bring the Radius down just so it's
| | 03:03 | not quite so large.
| | 03:05 | The last thing I want to choose is
constrain this way the actual size of the
| | 03:09 | text doesn't change when
you add your Fillet Cap.
| | 03:12 | Now if you find out more about Extrude
Objects, you might want to check out the
| | 03:15 | video on using Illustrator
files with Extrude Objects.
| | 03:19 | We went pretty in-depth in that video.
| | 03:21 | So we keep going with text here.
| | 03:23 | Let's go ahead and select our text
object and select Separate Letters.
| | 03:28 | Now with the text object selected,
let's convert this into polygons, and you
| | 03:33 | notice immediately, we lose our geometry.
| | 03:36 | We can fix that by selecting our
Extrude NURBS object and under Object
| | 03:41 | choose Hierarchical.
| | 03:43 | This slows the Extrude NURBS process
down through all of the geometry in the
| | 03:47 | newly created group of letters.
| | 03:50 | Now since we have that Separate
Letters option selected, notice Cinema 4D
| | 03:54 | actually created a Spline for each
individual letter, and you notice it added
| | 03:58 | the control handles perfectly placed on the
baseline, right next to each Spline object.
| | 04:04 | So, now with the Move tool, I can go
ahead and move each individual text object
| | 04:09 | just by clicking on each letter and
dragging on the different axis handles.
| | 04:14 | Now as I rotate around the Viewport,
notice I am positioning the letters in
| | 04:18 | three-dimensional space.
| | 04:19 | I am just going to undo that
| | 04:26 | Now, there is another way to arrange
each individual letter and that's using
| | 04:29 | the Arrange function.
| | 04:30 | But before we get started, let's
create a Spline to arrange the letters on.
| | 04:35 | Let's go to the top view and create a B-Spline.
| | 04:39 | We will just start in the left side
of the screen, clicking once, and we'll
| | 04:43 | go back towards the Z, and then click
over towards the X, and now we have a
| | 04:48 | nice curved Spline.
| | 04:52 | We'll rename this Layout1.
| | 04:56 | Now, we are all set to
arrange each individual letter.
| | 04:59 | Let's jump back into our Perspective
View and select all the letters by clicking
| | 05:05 | on the first letter and Shift+Clicking
all the way through the question mark.
| | 05:09 | Now, with those selected, go up
under Functions and choose Arrage.
| | 05:16 | And let's change the Select mode to
Along Spline, since we want to arrange these
| | 05:21 | letters along this back Spline, let's
choose Layout1 by clicking and dragging
| | 05:26 | while holding down the mouse button.
| | 05:28 | Drag Layout1 into the Spline drop well.
| | 05:31 | When we let go, now we know Layout1
will be the Spline used to layout the text.
| | 05:37 | And there are a couple of options.
| | 05:39 | Now, I am going to disable the Y
option because I don't want the text to
| | 05:43 | actually move up and
interfere with the word, today.
| | 05:46 | Let's go ahead and deselect Y, but I
do want the text to move on the X and on
| | 05:51 | the Z. The Z is obviously the depth and X
is left and right across our Viewport, here.
| | 05:58 | We can enable different
things, like Scale and Rotation.
| | 06:02 | Let's go ahead and just enable Rotation
and click Apply, and you will notice the
| | 06:06 | text has changed its layout.
| | 06:08 | Unfortunately, the alignment
was off when we enabled Rotation.
| | 06:12 | Let's go ahead and change it to +X, and now
you notice our text has changed its position.
| | 06:18 | If I pull out and rotate around the scene,
you'll notice the please text has now
| | 06:23 | moved right along the Spline.
| | 06:26 | Now, if you make a change to this
Spline this isn't linked directly to the
| | 06:31 | text, so if I go ahead and grab my
Move tool and using my Point tool here
| | 06:37 | select the middle point, oops!
| | 06:38 | Let me rotate around here so I can
actually select that middle point.
| | 06:42 | There we go, and drag the Spline back.
| | 06:45 | You notice now the text is not linked up.
| | 06:49 | It's easy enough to rearrange the text.
| | 06:52 | Just reselect your letters, and
under the Most Recent tools options let's
| | 06:58 | choose Arrange, and click New Transform, and
it will automatically compute a new transform.
| | 07:05 | But you notice it kept the last Arrange option.
| | 07:09 | So, as you can see, creating text in
Cinema 4D is pretty straightforward and
| | 07:13 | easy, but with some more quick
functions like Arrange, it opens up a whole host
| | 07:18 | of options when you are ready to lay things out.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using Sweep NURBS objects| 00:00 | Sweep objects are a lot like
Extrude NURBS, but with more control.
| | 00:04 | You have one spline that
creates the profile of the extrusion.
| | 00:08 | Then you have another spline that
actually creates the path that that extrusion
| | 00:12 | will travel along, thus
creating your Sweep object.
| | 00:15 | So let's get started by
creating a basic Sweep object, a vine.
| | 00:20 | Change to the Top view and grab your B-
Spline tool from the Spline pop-up menu
| | 00:25 | at the top of the screen.
| | 00:27 | Just click up and down over your X-
axis to create a nice curved spline.
| | 00:32 | I chose B-Splines because it
automatically rounds out these curves.
| | 00:36 | Once you're done creating your B-Spline,
press Enter on your keypad to set it.
| | 00:41 | Now let's go back to the
Perspective view to create the profile shape.
| | 00:45 | Let's just use Circle
from the Spline pop-up menu.
| | 00:47 | Now, I think the Radius is high, so
let's change that down to around 20.
| | 00:53 | Now, we are ready to create our Sweep object.
| | 00:56 | Click and hold on the NURBS pop-up
menu and choose Sweep NURBS and there is
| | 01:01 | a specific order you need to pay attention to
as you add your splines to your Sweep NURBS.
| | 01:05 | The first spline you want to drop in is
the Path spline, making sure the arrow
| | 01:09 | is pointed down when you drop
the spline over the Sweep NURBS.
| | 01:12 | Now, let's add our profile curve.
| | 01:15 | Just click-and-drag the Circle the same
way you did the spline, and now you'll
| | 01:19 | have a nice shaped vine.
| | 01:21 | If you go ahead and press Render, you
can see it sort of just looks a plastic
| | 01:26 | pipe right now but it's going to
get a little closer here in a second.
| | 01:30 | Select your Sweep NURBS object and you
notice we have some pretty dense geometry.
| | 01:34 | Now, this is a NURBS object, so since
we are in NURBS, let's change our display
| | 01:40 | setting from Wireframes to Isoparms
and change your shading from Gouraud to
| | 01:46 | Gouraud Shading with Lines.
| | 01:48 | Now, when we look at our Sweep NURBS
Options in the Attribute menu, notice the
| | 01:52 | first option is Subdivisions.
| | 01:54 | If we crank that up, that just adds a
little bit more geometry along the Sweep object.
| | 02:00 | Again, if we go and Render it, it's going to
look the exact same way it did in the past.
| | 02:05 | So let's change this to make
this look a little bit more organic.
| | 02:07 | With your Sweep NURBS selected,
let's look first at the End Scale.
| | 02:12 | If we change this number down to zero,
as I repositioned on the screen here,
| | 02:16 | you'll notice when I Render, now we
have a much more organic looking shape.
| | 02:20 | Now we have an End Scale option here, which
is set to zero, but there is no start scale.
| | 02:25 | So I can't scale that end
unless I go to the Detail section.
| | 02:30 | If this isn't already opened in your
project, click the little triangle to the
| | 02:33 | left of the word Details, and you'll
notice we have two graphs controlling the
| | 02:37 | Scale and the Rotation.
| | 02:40 | So let's drag the left handle here down
and you'll notice on the left-hand side.
| | 02:45 | We now have the scale happening.
| | 02:47 | And since we had End Scale left at zero, we
still have the original setting from earlier.
| | 02:52 | Let's go ahead and Render this and check it out.
| | 02:55 | That is starting to look a lot more like a vine.
| | 02:57 | But you see you can have a more
clear understanding as to this graph.
| | 03:00 | Let's make some changes.
| | 03:02 | Click in the center point and drag up
and then click on your end spline and drag
| | 03:07 | down, and you'll notice the curve of
this graph determines the scale of your
| | 03:13 | Sweep NURBS and the graph works from to right.
| | 03:16 | So, if we add more points in
here and adjust the scale just by
| | 03:20 | clicking-and-dragging, you notice
now we can start wide, and get skinny,
| | 03:24 | get wide, and skinny.
| | 03:26 | You get the general idea.
| | 03:28 | To reset the scale, go ahead and right-
click and say Reset to Default and just
| | 03:32 | drag the left handle back down to the bottom.
| | 03:36 | So there you have it, a
basic Sweep NURBS object.
| | 03:39 | Now, I want to show one of the other
options available when you're using Sweep
| | 03:43 | NURBS and that's the use of a rail spline.
| | 03:48 | Now, a Rail Spline requires a third
spline in this object and to better
| | 03:53 | illustrate this, we are actually
just going to create a whole new object.
| | 03:56 | So let's turn off the Visibility.
| | 03:57 | I am holding Alt or Option and just
clicking twice to turn off the visibility in
| | 04:02 | both the Editor and the renderer.
| | 04:03 | You can go ahead and collapse our
original Sweep NURBS and now even if we hit
| | 04:08 | Render, our scene is blank.
| | 04:11 | So now, let's create our
Sweep NURBS with the Rail Spline.
| | 04:13 | Let's get started by creating our Path spline.
| | 04:17 | So let's switch to the Front view and
so we can see how rail splines work.
| | 04:22 | Let's create two splines.
| | 04:24 | Go to Spline Object pop-
up menu and choose Bezier.
| | 04:27 | Let's create two straight lines.
| | 04:31 | I will just create one in the left
over here by clicking and going down the
| | 04:34 | bottom and clicking and press Enter
on your keyboard to set the spline.
| | 04:38 | Let's grab the Bezier tool again and
repeat the process, making sure to press
| | 04:44 | Enter on the keypad to set the spline.
| | 04:46 | Now let's rename our splines.
| | 04:48 | We call Spline 1, Rail.
| | 04:51 | That's our new spline that we are
going to use in our Sweep NURBS object.
| | 04:55 | First one, we can just call Path,
just like the previous version.
| | 04:59 | Now, we need to create our Profile spline.
| | 05:02 | So now let's go back to the
Perspective view and under the Spline pop-up
| | 05:05 | menu, choose Circle.
| | 05:07 | The circle is a little large, so let's
change the Radius to around 100 and the
| | 05:12 | object we are actually going to create
is a leaf, which may seem kind of strange
| | 05:17 | for a Sweep NURBS but I think it is a
great job of explaining how rail splines
| | 05:21 | work within Sweep NURBS.
| | 05:23 | So let's create an Ellipse and this is
going to create the profile of our leaf,
| | 05:29 | once we actually create the Sweep NURBS object.
| | 05:32 | So change the Y Radius down to around 20.
| | 05:35 | This way it will be a little bit more flat
when we add it to our Sweep NURBS object.
| | 05:39 | So now we have our Path, our
Rail spline and our Profile.
| | 05:44 | Let's go ahead and rename Circle actually
Profile and create our Sweep NURBS object.
| | 05:51 | Now, just like the last time, you
start with the Path spline and then you add
| | 05:56 | the Profile spline and you notice immediately,
we have some geometry that's been created.
| | 06:04 | Now let's add the Rail Spline.
| | 06:06 | If you just drag and drop it right in,
Cinema 4D gets a little bit confused
| | 06:10 | because it's expecting to see
the Profile as the topmost spline.
| | 06:15 | So to change this, let's drag the Rail
spline down to the bottom because the
| | 06:19 | hierarchy in Sweep NURBS is the Profile
spline on top, the Path spline next and
| | 06:24 | the Rail spline last.
| | 06:26 | So now with everything setup properly,
let's select our Rail spline and make
| | 06:31 | sure to use the model tool and with
the Move tool selected, let's move the
| | 06:35 | spline and as you can see, the spline is
actually determining the scale of this object.
| | 06:42 | As I move it, notice the
scale is actually changing.
| | 06:46 | Now if I rotate this object by
clicking-and-dragging in my Rotation Band,
| | 06:52 | you'll notice here that the spline is
actually causing a distortion in the
| | 06:56 | Sweep NURBS object.
| | 06:58 | If we select our Sweep NURBS here,
you'll notice we have Use Rail Direction and
| | 07:03 | Use Rail Scale selected automatically.
| | 07:06 | Now let's make sure our Rail profile is
actually rotated back to zero, and let's
| | 07:12 | get the basic shape of our leaf.
| | 07:14 | I will just grab the Selection tool so
we don't have those rotate handles up
| | 07:19 | there and grab the Sweep NURBS object.
| | 07:23 | Now if we go to the Object section
under Details, if you're not seeing this,
| | 07:28 | make sure that that's expanded.
| | 07:30 | Let's go ahead and change the
first point of scale down and now let's
| | 07:35 | click-and-drag up in the middle and
you'll notice this is actually doing
| | 07:39 | absolutely nothing to this object, and
that's because we don't have any geometry
| | 07:44 | in the cross-sections for
this spline to be able to bend.
| | 07:48 | So we need to actually go to both the
Path spline and the Rail spline and change
| | 07:54 | the Intermediate Points.
| | 07:55 | So let's start with our Rail spline
and change the Intermediate Points to
| | 07:59 | Subdivided and do the same for the Path and
now you notice we have some smooth geometry.
| | 08:06 | If we go back to our Sweep NURBS
object, now we can go ahead and scale down
| | 08:11 | the other end, and now we are getting
something that looks a little bit more
| | 08:14 | like a sort of Aspen leaf.
| | 08:17 | Let's pinch down the very
first scale, almost to the bottom.
| | 08:20 | Don't go all the way down because if
you do, notice it flattens the object out,
| | 08:24 | just really, really close, and click on
the middle and let's adjust this so this
| | 08:29 | actually has a little bit
more of an Aspen leaf-type shape
| | 08:37 | Okay, now it's not really getting quite
as wide as I would like, so let's grab
| | 08:42 | our Rail spline and
drag it out.
| | 08:48 | So now we are getting much closer to
the actual shape of a three-dimensional,
| | 08:52 | sort of puffy, but three-dimensional leaf.
| | 08:56 | Typically, leaves have a spline
that goes along the back of them.
| | 09:01 | So let's go ahead and add
that to our Sweep NURBS object.
| | 09:04 | We can do that by changing the Profile.
| | 09:07 | So select the Profile spline and let's
turn off the visibility for our Sweep NURBS.
| | 09:13 | Now, drag the Profile spline out of our Sweep
NURBS so we can go ahead and make some changes.
| | 09:18 | Press O on your keyboard with the Profile
selected and it will frame up quite nicely.
| | 09:23 | Now, let's switch to the Front view.
| | 09:26 | Again, I am going press O on my
keyboard and in order to get points to edit
| | 09:31 | here, we need to actually convert the object.
| | 09:33 | So, press the Object Editable
button or C on your keyboard.
| | 09:38 | Now with the Move tool selected, and the
Profile selected, we should be able to see our points.
| | 09:43 | But it's really important to make sure
that we have the Use Point tool selected,
| | 09:47 | so we can see the points on our spline.
| | 09:50 | Now, I want to select this topmost point,
but sometimes this happens where the
| | 09:54 | handles overlap the point.
| | 09:55 | So just quickly click on a different
point and let's select this point here.
| | 09:59 | Now, if you right-click anywhere in the
scene, choose the Chamfer tool and this
| | 10:04 | is going to actually
create two points out of one.
| | 10:07 | So if you just click-and-drag with
the Chamfer tool selected, we are
| | 10:11 | creating two points.
| | 10:13 | So we will just drag that out just a
little bit, and let go off of your mouse
| | 10:17 | and now click-and-drag again and
we will create two more points.
| | 10:22 | Now we have four points created.
| | 10:24 | Let's go back to our Selection tool and
click off of the spline and let's just
| | 10:28 | go ahead and reselect these two points.
| | 10:32 | Now with the two point selected, just
move them up a little bit and this will
| | 10:35 | create our bump for our leaf.
| | 10:38 | So drag the Profile spline back down into
the Sweep NURBS and turn on its visibility.
| | 10:44 | Let's go back into the Perspective view
and zoom out and rotate around and sure
| | 10:51 | enough, we have a spine attached to our leaf.
| | 10:54 | If we go ahead and hit Render in the
scene, now you can see we've created kind
| | 10:58 | of an organic shape using
Sweep NURBS and a Rail path.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using Lathe NURBS objects| 00:00 |
If you've ever taken woodworking or
shop class, hopefully you've got some
| | 00:03 |
experience with the lathe machine.
| | 00:06 |
Lathe objects in Cinema 4D
work in the same fashion.
| | 00:09 |
All you've to do is create the profile
of your model and Lathe objects will spin
| | 00:13 |
that around to create a cylindrical object.
| | 00:16 |
It's a fast easy way to create things like
table legs or baseball bats, wineglasses.
| | 00:22 |
You get the idea.
| | 00:22 |
So let's get started by
creating a basic wineglass shape.
| | 00:27 |
Let's switch to the Front view, and
since a wineglass is a pretty organic shape,
| | 00:31 |
let's create the profile from the B-
Spline, in the Spline Object pop-up menu.
| | 00:34 |
Let's zoom-out so we have a little
bit more room to create the object.
| | 00:40 |
Now, it's important to understand
when you create Lathe objects that they
| | 00:43 |
spin around the Y-axis.
| | 00:45 |
So when you're creating your first and
your last points, you want them to be as
| | 00:49 |
close to the Y-axis as possible.
| | 00:51 |
Let me go ahead and click my first
point and then create a basic glass shape
| | 01:03 |
And it seems like no matter how much
room I use, I always want to create more.
| | 01:10 |
And there we have it, the most ridiculous
looking wineglass ever. But, don't worry.
| | 01:14 |
If you want to go back and change some
of the points, select your Move tool and
| | 01:17 |
just select that point
and tweak your spline object
| | 01:30 |
So as you can see, I could probably sit
here all day and continue tweaking this,
| | 01:34 |
but that won't teach you lathe object,
so I'll just go ahead and stop for now.
| | 01:39 |
Let's go back to the Use model tool,
select our spline object and move it
| | 01:44 |
back up in the scene.
| | 01:46 |
So now we're ready to
actually create our lathe object.
| | 01:50 |
Hold Alt or Option on your keyboard
and in the NURBS Object pop-up menu,
| | 01:54 |
choose Lathe NURBS.
| | 01:55 |
Now you see some thing is happened.
| | 01:59 |
If we go back to our Perspective view
and press O to frame the selected object,
| | 02:04 |
you'll notice we have our wineglass.
| | 02:06 |
Let's go ahead and press the
Render button so we can check it out.
| | 02:08 |
Now if you rotate around to the bottom here,
you might notice there's a tiny little point.
| | 02:15 |
Well that's actually a hole that's been
created because I didn't quite get the
| | 02:20 |
first point right on the Y-axis.
| | 02:22 |
The easiest way to fix this is by
selecting your Spline object and go to
| | 02:26 |
the Structure tab and under the
Structure tab make sure Point 0 on the
| | 02:32 |
X-axis is actually set to 0.
| | 02:34 |
And now we have a perfectly closed Lathe object.
| | 02:39 |
Let's look at the last point as well.
| | 02:41 |
If we go ahead and spin around here
really quickly, you'll notice if I deselect,
| | 02:45 |
I have a hole there too.
| | 02:46 |
It's kind of hard to see but
if I zoom in, there you can see.
| | 02:51 |
So again, to fix that, we'll select our
Spline object and in the Structure menu,
| | 02:56 |
go down to the X and let's change that to 0.
| | 03:01 |
So now that we've changed that,
let's deselect and zoom back out.
| | 03:07 |
Now this is looking pretty good but if
I hit Render, you'll notice there are
| | 03:10 |
some jagged edges that have come up
here and that's actually an easy fix.
| | 03:14 |
If you go ahead and select your Lathe NURBS
object, there is an option for Subdivisions.
| | 03:19 |
If you just go ahead and crank that up,
that'll give you more geometry, so when
| | 03:22 |
you go to Render, you'll
have a nice smooth glass.
| | 03:25 |
Now there is one last thing I want
to show you with Lathe NURBS and it's
| | 03:29 |
pretty interesting.
| | 03:30 |
If you select your Lathe NURBS object,
there is this option for Movement.
| | 03:34 |
What this does is it allows you to
spin around objects but create things like
| | 03:39 |
seashells or I don't know, a
pigtail or curly cues. You get the idea.
| | 03:44 |
If I crank up Movement here, you'll
notice that it'll actually spin this around
| | 03:50 |
and move up as it's spinning
creating kind of a corkscrew shape.
| | 03:55 |
Let me just type in like 800, and you
see now we have this pretty neat organic
| | 04:02 |
shape, but it's kind of neat to
understand you can actually lathe an object
| | 04:07 |
more than 360 degrees.
| | 04:09 |
If I go ahead and crank this up to,
let's say 800, now you'll notice I am
| | 04:14 |
starting to get something that
looks a little bit more like a seashell.
| | 04:18 |
Now we could sit here and tweak our
profile spline and make some adjustments
| | 04:22 |
and I am pretty sure you could see
how quickly you can end up creating an
| | 04:26 |
object, like a seashell.
| | 04:27 |
So while Lathe NURBS are great to
create any basic cylindrical object, like the
| | 04:32 |
wineglass, as you can see with
Movement on your Lathe objects, you can create
| | 04:36 |
some pretty complex shapes
from screws to seashells.
| | 04:41 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using Loft NURBS objects| 00:00 | I like to think of loft objects as an
interesting way to model with the basic
| | 00:04 | skeleton of an object.
| | 00:05 | Then you can wrap it with your loft,
kind of like early airplanes had a
| | 00:09 | basic wood skeleton and then they
were wrapped with fabric to actually
| | 00:13 | create the wings and such.
| | 00:14 | So, that's exactly what we're going to do.
| | 00:17 | Create the skeletal structure for a
wing and wrap it using a Loft NURBS object.
| | 00:22 | Since I want the wing to lay across
the scene, let's get started by switching
| | 00:25 | to the Right view and we can start
with the Circle spline object from the
| | 00:30 | Spline pop-up menu.
| | 00:33 | Now, with the Circle selected in the
Object Manager, go to your Attributes and
| | 00:36 | change the object to an ellipse
by selecting the Ellipse option.
| | 00:39 | Now, let's change the Radius down to 20.
| | 00:43 | This is giving us a good basic
structure to create the profile of the wing.
| | 00:47 | To take this further, we need to
convert the object by pressing C or clicking
| | 00:51 | the Make Editable button.
| | 00:54 | Now, we want to make sure to use the Point
tool and now we can see our points in our object.
| | 00:59 | Let's get started by selecting this top object.
| | 01:01 | Now, sometimes, when you have points
directly underneath your handles, it's
| | 01:05 | easier just to quickly select
another point and then select the point
| | 01:08 | you're looking for.
| | 01:09 | Let's move this top point forwards just so
we have more of that typical wing structure.
| | 01:13 | Then, we'll grab our bottom point, move
it slightly backwards and up so we have
| | 01:18 | a little bit more of that wing shape.
| | 01:20 | Now, I want to add another point.
| | 01:22 | So let's go ahead, making sure the Move
tool is selected, and pressing the Ctrl
| | 01:26 | key to click and add a point on our spline.
| | 01:29 | Let's so ahead and drag that down so we
get a little bit more of that air foil shape.
| | 01:34 | Now, this endpoint still isn't quite
sharp enough, so let's go ahead and select
| | 01:39 | the endpoint and I am going to zoom-in
here, just so we can get a little closer
| | 01:43 | to our handles and drag our handles
down just a little bit. Here we go.
| | 01:48 | I didn't want to just change it to hard
interpolation because sometimes when you
| | 01:52 | snap the handles completely straight and
you have that sharp edge, it's a little
| | 01:56 | too sharp and you'll get
some strange texturing here.
| | 01:59 | So now that we have our profile set,
let's switch back to the Perspective view
| | 02:03 | and grab our Use model tool.
| | 02:07 | Now we can create more splines
to create the profile of our wing.
| | 02:11 | Let's get started by duplicating
the spline in the Object Manager.
| | 02:15 | Hold down Ctrl, click on your
spline and drag up and let go.
| | 02:20 | And now we have a spline copy.
| | 02:22 | Let's go ahead and move that to the left.
| | 02:24 | I am going to zoom out a little bit
more and rotate around the scene and
| | 02:29 | repeat the same process.
| | 02:31 | Holding down Ctrl, I'll
drag the copied spline up.
| | 02:34 | And now, I have a third spline.
| | 02:37 | And I could continue adding more and
more profiles, as I needed more detail in
| | 02:42 | the wing, but for right now, three is plenty.
| | 02:44 | So let's go ahead and make some
adjustments to these profiles.
| | 02:48 | Since I want the wing to start at one
size, get a little bit bigger and then
| | 02:52 | scale down towards the end, I am going
to ahead and scale this last profile on
| | 02:57 | Z-axis to make it small.
| | 02:59 | Select the Scale tool and just click
right on the Z-handle and let's drag
| | 03:04 | it back to the left.
| | 03:05 | Now this has gotten a little distorted,
so I'll squash it back down again, just
| | 03:10 | by scaling on the Y-handle. All right.
| | 03:13 | Let's grab our middle spline here and
just scale that out a little bit and
| | 03:19 | again, I'll scale this up just so we
have a little bit more dimension to it.
| | 03:24 | And now I think we're good
to actually create our wing.
| | 03:28 | That second one might be a
little big yet, but we'll see.
| | 03:32 | Go up under the NURBS pop-up
menu and choose Loft NURBS.
| | 03:35 | Now, I just happened to create these
three profiles out of the same profile,
| | 03:40 | but you can have different profiles if you
want to create a different looking object.
| | 03:44 | So let's get started by dragging
our first spline into the Loft NURBS.
| | 03:48 | Then we'll drag our second spline
in and you notice the loft is already
| | 03:53 | starting to happen.
| | 03:54 | When we drag our third spline in, now you
can see we actually have the start of our wing.
| | 03:59 | Now I can go ahead and center up the
wing here, grab the Move tool and you can
| | 04:04 | still select individual
splines and make adjustments.
| | 04:07 | So I'll grab our last spline
here and move it towards the back.
| | 04:11 | And now, we actually have a
pretty darn cool wing shape.
| | 04:15 | If we go ahead and zoom in on the end
here, you'll notice I do have a cap on
| | 04:20 | the end of this wing.
| | 04:21 | If you select your Loft NURBS, we have
Caps here and I could change this to all
| | 04:27 | the other different Cap options that
we've covered pretty extensively in the
| | 04:31 | rest of this chapter.
| | 04:32 | So for now, I'll just leave it on that main Cap.
| | 04:35 | We'll go ahead and rotate around here and
you can see I also have a cap on the other end.
| | 04:43 | So let's Render to see what it looks
like and as you can see we've created a
| | 04:48 | pretty nice straightforward
wing profile using Loft NURBS.
| | 04:52 | Loft NURBS are a great way to create
organic models easily just by creating some
| | 04:57 | key profiles of your shape using Spline objects.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
3. Modeling with PolygonsIntroducing polygon modeling| 00:00 | You might be asking yourself,
what exactly is a polygon?
| | 00:03 | Well, it's nothing to be afraid of.
| | 00:05 | They're flat objects made up of points
joined together by edges to create a face.
| | 00:11 | It only takes three sides to make a
polygon and those are called triangles.
| | 00:15 | Four sided polygons are called
quadrangles and more than four sided polygons
| | 00:21 | are actually called N-gons, kind of like an
algebra where an N stands for any other number.
| | 00:26 | Now let's look at a few, so I can
better show you exactly what I mean.
| | 00:30 | The easiest way to create a polygon
object in Cinema 4D is to start with one of
| | 00:35 | your primitive objects.
| | 00:37 | Let's get started by creating a sphere.
| | 00:39 | And you notice this primitive object
is actually made up of four-sided faces.
| | 00:43 | But it's not actually a polygon
until we press C or click the Make
| | 00:48 | Object Editable button.
| | 00:50 | Now that we've actually converted
this into a polygon, you'll notice it's
| | 00:54 | actually changed the icon.
| | 00:56 | Let me undo that and then Redo so
you can see the change that's actually
| | 01:01 | happened in your Object Manager.
| | 01:03 | This is the symbol for a polygon.
| | 01:05 | Now with the polygon object selected,
I can move it around using the model
| | 01:10 | tool but actually if you go now to Use Point tool,
notice I can click on these different points.
| | 01:16 | Let me zoom-in a little bit more so I
can show you what I am talking about.
| | 01:20 | If you press Shift as you click
around, you can select more than 1 point.
| | 01:25 | The reason you'd want to select these
points, you can actually go ahead and move
| | 01:28 | these around using your control
handles to create some different shapes.
| | 01:33 | Now with polygons, you can select points but
you can also select edges using the Edge tool.
| | 01:41 | And if you click and drag with your
Live Selection, you can select more edges
| | 01:46 | but you can also select
faces using the Polygon tool.
| | 01:50 | Now if I click and drag, I am
selecting the faces of the polygon.
| | 01:55 | Now it's really important when you're
using the Live Selection tool to pay
| | 01:58 | attention to one setting.
| | 02:00 | Let's select the Live Selection tool
and then our Attribute Editor over here,
| | 02:04 | take a look at this one parameter,
Only Select Visible Elements.
| | 02:09 | Notice when I clicked and dragged here,
I selected a bunch of polygon faces.
| | 02:13 | Since I had Only Select Visible
Elements selected, it didn't select any of the
| | 02:19 | other faces on the other
side of the polygon object.
| | 02:22 | To show you how that can happen, let's
go ahead and deselect Only Select Visible
| | 02:26 | Elements and click and drag
to select a bunch of faces.
| | 02:30 | Now as we rotate around you
notice these faces that were behind our
| | 02:34 | selection also got selected.
| | 02:37 | So, this is a parameter you want to
make sure to pay attention to as you're
| | 02:41 | making your changes and selecting
different things in your polygon object.
| | 02:45 | Now one of the last things I want to
show you about polygon objects is this
| | 02:48 | thing called Normals.
| | 02:49 | And in order to view Normals in the
scene, with multiple faces selected, let's
| | 02:53 | go up under the Edit menu and choose Configure.
| | 02:57 | Now if I chose Configure All, I'd be
configuring all the different viewports.
| | 03:01 | I only want this to pop-up in the
Perspective viewport, so I just chose Configure.
| | 03:06 | Now in the Attribute Editor select the
Tinted Polygon Normals box and now you'll
| | 03:12 | notice I am getting these
little lines that come out.
| | 03:14 | These lines actually show us the
direction that the polygons are pointed.
| | 03:19 | So if I select just one face, you'll
notice the normals are determining the
| | 03:25 | direction your control handles are pointing.
| | 03:28 | The reason I point this out, as you
move through polygonal editing sometimes
| | 03:33 | you'll delete faces and replace faces.
| | 03:36 | And when you do that on occasion,
the normals will get flipped around.
| | 03:40 | So, unless you have Tinted Poly
Normals selected, you may not necessarily
| | 03:45 | see that error happen.
| | 03:46 | So typically when I'm modeling with
polygons I like to have this selected, but
| | 03:51 | you know, again, its personal preference.
| | 03:53 | So now that we know a little bit about
polygons, it's important to understand
| | 03:57 | that polygonal modeling is like
modeling with clay where you push and pull your
| | 04:01 | different faces, edges and points
around to actually create your object.
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| Using Extrude| 00:00 | If you haven't heard me say it before,
Polygon Editing is a lot like working with clay.
| | 00:04 | There is a lot of pushing and
pulling used to create different 3D shapes.
| | 00:08 | An Extrusion is the easiest way to
push and pull your objects while adding
| | 00:12 | geometry to your basic shape.
| | 00:13 | We will get started by creating a simple
stylized video game Go Kart based on an
| | 00:18 | old-school mining cart.
| | 00:21 | Go up to your Primitives pop-up menu,
and let's choose Polygon, and let's change
| | 00:25 | the Width to 300 and the Height to 400.
| | 00:30 | This will be our basic shape where
we will actually start to Extrude
| | 00:36 | this polygon upwards.
| | 00:39 | Now if I converted this polygon
right now, you notice we are not seeing
| | 00:43 | any white lines here.
| | 00:44 | That means there's no geometry.
| | 00:46 | Therefore, what we need to do
is actually add some segments.
| | 00:51 | Let's add five segments into here and
now our Polygon Primitive is ready for
| | 00:57 | conversion to an actual polygon object.
| | 01:00 | Go and press C on your keyboard or
click the Make Object Editable button.
| | 01:04 | Now, let's look at one of the
more commonly used tools in Polygonal
| | 01:08 | modeling, and that's Extrude.
| | 01:10 | Under the Structure menu
go down and choose Extrude.
| | 01:14 | Since we don't have anything selected,
if we just click and drag anywhere in
| | 01:20 | this scene off of our object all the
Polygon faces are automatically selected.
| | 01:24 | Therefore, as I drag upwards, I'm now
creating three-dimensional geometry.
| | 01:30 | Now you notice there is no
divisions vertically along this extrusion.
| | 01:35 | Well, in the Subdivision section of your
Extrude go ahead and crank that number up to 4.
| | 01:44 | Now we have a geometric shape but you
notice as I move down underneath the cart
| | 01:48 | here there is no bottom.
| | 01:50 | So make sure Create Caps is selected.
| | 01:53 | This way, when the extrusion actually
happens, the base is actually capped.
| | 02:00 | Now we have a truly three-dimensional object.
| | 02:03 | Now let's grab our Live Selection tool
and explore one of the other options.
| | 02:07 | Let's move our model down so
we can better see the top part.
| | 02:10 | Now what I would like to do is
actually bore out the center of this and push
| | 02:14 | this whole section down, so we
actually create the inside of the cart.
| | 02:19 | Notices as I move this down the edges of
the polygon object actually have no depth.
| | 02:25 | This is where Extrude Inner comes in,
just go ahead and undo that and go back up
| | 02:31 | under your Structure menu and
this time, choose Extrude Inner.
| | 02:35 | With Extrude Inner selected, it's really
important make sure Preserve Groups is checked.
| | 02:40 | Therefore, when we click Apply you
notice we've actually created a little sharp
| | 02:46 | edge here, so when we move this
down there is some sense of dimension.
| | 02:51 | Now it didn't quite work because
we didn't have enough subdivisions.
| | 02:57 | Let's just undo that last Extrude Inner
and adjust the Offset to about 10 so we
| | 03:02 | can see things a little more easily
and we will add another subdivision.
| | 03:06 | Now when we click Apply let's look
at the edge of are polygon object.
| | 03:13 | Notice we have a thicker edge and
once we move these faces down, I have
| | 03:19 | something that looks a little bit
more like what I was looking for.
| | 03:23 | Now I am just going to undo one more
time, so you can see what would happen if
| | 03:28 | we didn't have Preserve Groups checked.
| | 03:31 | If we deselect Preserve Groups and
click Apply notice I've actually added my
| | 03:37 | Extrude Inner to each
individual face separately.
| | 03:41 | So it's really important when we are
creating this to go ahead and make sure
| | 03:46 | Preserve Groups is checked and click Apply.
| | 03:49 | Now all we have to do is just move
the faces down, and if you grab the
| | 03:52 | Control Axis, you can go ahead and push that
down towards the bottom of your polygon object.
| | 03:59 | So let's zoom out here and now you can
see we've quickly and easily created the
| | 04:04 | base structure for our Mining Cart.
| | 04:07 | As we continue to move throughout the
rest of this chapter and the next, you'll
| | 04:11 | see this model come more to fruition,
but for now we thoroughly explored
| | 04:15 | Extrude and Extrude Inner.
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| Adding detail with Bevel| 00:00 | So we are continuing on building the model
that we started at the beginning of this chapter.
| | 00:06 | And we are going to add a little
bit of detail to the edge of our model
| | 00:09 | using the Bevel Command.
| | 00:11 | So select the Polygon in the Objects Tab
and let's go ahead and rename this Body
| | 00:15 | for the body of our Go kart.
| | 00:17 | And as you can see we just have a
series of polygons that made up this kind
| | 00:25 | of Go Kart bucket like structure, and
right now what we want to do is soften
| | 00:31 | this edge of the cart.
| | 00:34 | Let's go ahead and select just that top edge.
| | 00:38 | Now it's being little bit problematic
because my Live Selection Radius is set here to 10.
| | 00:43 | If we set that to 5, we can click up
here it's a little bit better, there we go.
| | 00:49 | If you want to select everything all
around the top it's easier to go up under
| | 00:53 | Selection and actually choose Loop Selection.
| | 00:57 | Now you notice as I roll over my
geometry it's creating different loops for
| | 01:02 | me to possibly select.
| | 01:04 | If you move your mouse right over the
left corner down here and click, now I
| | 01:08 | have selected the entire face.
| | 01:10 | So now, we are ready to use our Bevel.
| | 01:13 | Go up to Structure and choose Bevel and
if you just click and drag anywhere in
| | 01:18 | the scene, we are
automatically adjusting our bevel.
| | 01:22 | And as I drag to the right and drag to
the left, notice the parameters changing
| | 01:27 | in our Attribute Window in the
lower right corner of the screen.
| | 01:30 | Now unfortunately this is
causing a bit of an error.
| | 01:34 | If we go ahead and render here you'll
notice I'm getting this strange shading
| | 01:39 | and what's happening is a shading error
and that's happening because the angles
| | 01:44 | here are a little bit too sharp for geometry.
| | 01:46 | So let's go ahead and undo that right
now and I think we have probably be better
| | 01:50 | off rather then applying the Bevel
to the face applied to each edge.
| | 01:56 | So, a quick way to change selections
when you have a bunch of faces set, so go
| | 02:01 | up under the Selection option
here and choose Outline Selection.
| | 02:06 | Now all we have to do is position our
mouse and I am going to make sure both
| | 02:10 | edges are selected just by moving my
mouse ever so slightly up here and when I
| | 02:15 | click, now it's going to
outline the Selection that I had.
| | 02:18 | We will go back to Bevel tool under
our recently used pop-up menu here in
| | 02:22 | the top, choose Bevel.
| | 02:25 | Now instead of clicking and dragging,
I just want to change a couple of
| | 02:28 | different options here.
| | 02:30 | Let's change the Inner
Offset to 3 and click Apply.
| | 02:34 | Well we are still getting that same error.
| | 02:37 | Let's undo and increase our
Subdivisions to about 2 and notice when we click
| | 02:43 | Apply it's kind of hard to see, but as
I roll my mouse over here you can see I
| | 02:48 | have some more subdivisions.
| | 02:49 | Let me zoom in here so you can
see that a little bit better.
| | 02:52 | But again, we're still having the
same errors here and this is still a
| | 02:57 | rather sharp selection.
| | 02:58 | So, under Type let's change it from
Linear to Convex, and now you'll notice as I
| | 03:05 | move around here we have a much nicer
bevel and if I actually move out and orbit
| | 03:11 | around and render the scene, you
notice it actually looks pretty good.
| | 03:16 | I'm still getting some dark edges right
here which again are shading errors, but
| | 03:21 | think I know another way of fixing that.
| | 03:24 | Let's go ahead and just grab our
Selection tool, so we don't accidentally bevel
| | 03:27 | something else in the scene
and click on her Phong Tag right.
| | 03:33 | Under the Phong Tag, we have this
Phong Angle option and what this does is it
| | 03:38 | actually helps to deal with shading errors.
| | 03:42 | It's applying a smooth to the shading
of this object and the smooth is not
| | 03:47 | starting until about 80 degree.
| | 03:49 | So let's change that angle down to
around 30 and now when we go ahead and render
| | 03:54 | you will notice we are not
getting those dark edges.
| | 03:57 | So sometimes, as you are modeling your
geometry, it's really nice to actually be
| | 04:02 | able to up under the Phong Tag and
change that Phong Angle because it'll go in
| | 04:07 | and actually allow you to
fix some rather tight angles.
| | 04:12 | So, we've applied a Bevel to our
face and we applied a Bevel to an edge.
| | 04:17 | Let's see what actually happens
when we apply a Bevel to a point.
| | 04:20 | I am just going to rotate around
here so we see the bottom of our cart.
| | 04:25 | Select the Geometry in Object Manager
and let's make sure we use our Point tool.
| | 04:31 | Select the lower left point and go
ahead and press Shift and select our lower
| | 04:35 | right point, we are selecting the lower
left and right corners of our mine cart.
| | 04:41 | Now let's go back up under the recently
use tools pop-up menu and select Bevel.
| | 04:46 | If we just click and drag again we're
dynamically updating what happens in the
| | 04:50 | Bevel process and you notice it's
automatically added two points in between each
| | 04:56 | one of these edge points and that's
because we have two subdivisions set here.
| | 05:02 | So, what Bevel does when you apply to a
point is actually flatten out the geometry.
| | 05:07 | Now the downside of this when you do
it on a corner, you'll get some random
| | 05:11 | geometry that sometimes can be rather
problematic when you go to texture your object.
| | 05:16 | Let's just undo that but I wanted you
to see exactly what happens when you
| | 05:21 | apply a Bevel to a point.
| | 05:24 | So, whether you're trying to flatten
things out or round them out, the Bevel
| | 05:27 | tool is a great place to start.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Refining a model| 00:00 | So we're continuing on building our go
-cart style mine cart here and I want
| | 00:06 | to get into some of the finer details of
refining your model using polygonal editing.
| | 00:12 | First thing we want to do is add kind
of a lip around the top edge of the cart,
| | 00:15 | just to give it a little bit more refinement.
| | 00:18 | And the way we'll do that is by
using these two edge loops here.
| | 00:23 | Let's get started by selecting the edge loops.
| | 00:26 | Go ahead and use the Edge tool, and
if we go ahead and click on one of the
| | 00:31 | edges, that's not quite what I am trying to do.
| | 00:33 | I want to select the
entire thing all the way around.
| | 00:36 | So, go up under the Selection menu and
choose Loop Selection, and select the top
| | 00:43 | edge loop, and then hold down
Shift and select the next edge loop.
| | 00:47 | So, the first thing I want to do is
bring these two edges together, so our
| | 00:52 | little lip we're creating
is a little more narrow.
| | 00:54 | The easiest way to do that
is by using the Scale tool.
| | 00:58 | Now, since I want them to just go
together, let's scale only on the y-axis,
| | 01:02 | so click right on the y-axis, drag down, and
you notice, now we're narrowing out that lip.
| | 01:08 | And since I want this to be a little
closer to the top, let's grab the Move tool
| | 01:12 | and move them up on the y-axis.
| | 01:14 | Now that's starting to look a little bit
better and we could go ahead and start our Extrude.
| | 01:21 | Go up under the Structure
menu and choose Extrude.
| | 01:26 | And if you click-and-drag anywhere in
the scene, you'll notice extrude with the
| | 01:31 | edges selected, if I go ahead and zoom-
in here, it's just adding more edges.
| | 01:36 | Notice we had four subdivision sets, so
that's why it has added four edges right here.
| | 01:41 | So, that's not quite exactly what I am
looking to do, so just undo and this time
| | 01:47 | let's select the face.
| | 01:48 | Under Selection, choose the Fill
Selection and go ahead and click the faces.
| | 01:54 | So, now with the faces
selected we're ready to add our bevel.
| | 01:59 | Since we just used the tool, go up
under the recently used tools pop-up menu
| | 02:03 | and choose Extrude.
| | 02:04 | And you'll notice we still have
the last settings that we used from
| | 02:09 | clicking-and-dragging.
| | 02:10 | So, let's reset the values by
clicking the Reset Values button.
| | 02:15 | Now go ahead and click
Apply with the default values.
| | 02:18 | And you'll notice right here on the edge,
if I zoom-in, this Extrude has caused
| | 02:24 | the corner to actually come apart.
| | 02:26 | And not has to do with
this maximum angle setting.
| | 02:29 | So, let's undo that last setting and
change the maximum angle to 91 degrees.
| | 02:34 | The reason I am doing this, this
corner is 90 degrees, so I want the maximum
| | 02:39 | angle to be 91 before it ignores the extrusion.
| | 02:43 | So now, since I pressed Enter on the keypad,
it automatically applied the extrusion.
| | 02:47 | If we go ahead and zoom-out here and
hit the Render button, you can see, now
| | 02:53 | it's just added a little bit more detail.
| | 02:55 | That's pretty close, but I would
actually like the Offset to be a little larger.
| | 02:59 | So, let's change that to
10 and say New Transform.
| | 03:02 | Now, unfortunately, when I did that,
it actually created two extrusions here.
| | 03:07 | So, let's undo both and leave the
Offset set to 10 and click Apply.
| | 03:14 | Okay, this has started to look
pretty close, but there's one more thing I
| | 03:18 | want to do and that's add definition between
the front of the cart and the back of the cart.
| | 03:24 | And the easiest way to do that, in my
opinion, is to just kind of pull the front
| | 03:29 | of the cart out, so it has a
little bit more angle to it.
| | 03:33 | The way to do that is to go ahead
and selected these front faces here.
| | 03:37 | Let's grab our Live Selection tool and
just click-and-drag and you'll notice, as
| | 03:42 | I rotate around here, it's
only selecting the front faces.
| | 03:45 | So, if I grab my Move tool here, you
notice I've added some geometry to the
| | 03:50 | front of the cart but I haven't
actually changed the inside at all and that's
| | 03:55 | not what I am looking for.
| | 03:56 | I'd actually like to add some
distortion to the front of the cart.
| | 04:00 | So, let's undo that and grab the Ring selection.
| | 04:04 | Now, with the Ring selection selected,
click up towards the top of your geometry
| | 04:09 | and you'll notice it's actually gone
through and selected a ring, all the way
| | 04:13 | around the front and the back of the geometry.
| | 04:18 | This is what I am looking for, as far as,
selecting the front part but we need
| | 04:22 | to deselect all the rest of this.
| | 04:24 | So, let's go up under our Selection
tools by clicking-and-holding and choose the
| | 04:30 | Rectangle Selection tool.
| | 04:31 | So, now that I have the right selection
tool, let's switch to a view where I can
| | 04:35 | more easily deselect the polygons I don't want.
| | 04:38 | So, let's switch to Top view.
| | 04:41 | It's hard to tell exactly where the
front and the back of the cart is.
| | 04:44 | So, let's go back to Perspective view
really quickly and rotate around the scene.
| | 04:49 | And you'll see, I have the blue z that's
popping out of the back part of the cart.
| | 04:54 | So, let's jump back into the Top
view here and we know this is the back.
| | 04:58 | So, these are the polygons we want to deselect.
| | 05:00 | Go ahead and hold Ctrl down, since we
already have some polygons selected,
| | 05:05 | this way when we drag our selection box,
it'll deselect any of the polygons we select.
| | 05:11 | And you'll notice, I am having a slight issue.
| | 05:12 | It's not deselecting these polygons.
| | 05:14 | Well, the reason it's doing that, Only
Select Visible Elements is selected in
| | 05:18 | our Attribute Editor. So, deselect that.
| | 05:22 | Now hold down Ctrl and redraw your box.
| | 05:25 | Now, we've deselected those back polygons.
| | 05:27 | I am still having problems selecting
these polygons, so let's just switch
| | 05:30 | really quickly to the Live Selection
tool, hold down Ctrl and just click on
| | 05:34 | that one set of polygons.
| | 05:36 | Now even though I have Only Select
Visible Elements selected, I know all the
| | 05:40 | other polygons are deselected including
the one that's directly underneath this
| | 05:44 | one because I am not seeing any more of
the orange-yellow polygons highlighted.
| | 05:50 | Now, let's jump back into Perspective view.
| | 05:53 | If we grab our z-axis and just drag
out here, you'll notice now we're getting
| | 05:58 | the distortion I've been looking for.
| | 06:01 | This looks pretty cool, but I want it to
actually be a little bit more of a soft distortion.
| | 06:07 | This is rather jagged, the
way this is setup right now.
| | 06:10 | So, let's undo that command
and rotate around the scene here.
| | 06:16 | Instead of just moving these faces,
I am going to grab the Move tool and
| | 06:20 | enable Soft Selection.
| | 06:23 | Now you notice with Soft Selection
enabled, I am getting this yellow circle
| | 06:26 | and that's letting me know how much of
this geometry is going to get distorted
| | 06:29 | as I make my changes.
| | 06:31 | So, if we drag the radius out a little
bit and let go, you notice the distortion
| | 06:35 | is going to affect a lot more
than just this front section.
| | 06:38 | Let's go ahead and drag that down a
little bit here, just so we have the radius
| | 06:43 | kind of emanating out from the front section.
| | 06:46 | Now we can go and grab our z-
axis handle and just pull out.
| | 06:51 | Now, when we look at this, it's
actually distorting a little too much out
| | 06:55 | in this lower section.
| | 06:56 | So, I am just going to undo that and
grabbing our Selection tool and deselect
| | 07:02 | the first two faces and
deselect this one edge here.
| | 07:06 | It's just being a slightly problematic
because it's that polygon. There we go!
| | 07:12 | Now it's still going to distort a
little bit because we have this one long
| | 07:15 | polygon in the back, but I don't think
that's going to be too much of an issue.
| | 07:18 | Let's go ahead and move this forwards
again, and I'm still getting a little bit
| | 07:23 | more of that distortion.
| | 07:25 | So, I think I can fix this
by adjusting the rotation.
| | 07:28 | If we go ahead and click on the Rotate
tool and grab the red axis handle here
| | 07:33 | and drag it out, now I am getting a
crazy distortion, which again isn't quite
| | 07:38 | exactly what I was looking for
because it's distorting back.
| | 07:41 | So let me undo that really
quickly and we'll just undo the
| | 07:46 | distortion altogether.
| | 07:48 | So, let's take one last one of this and
deselect the back polygon here because I was incorrect.
| | 07:53 | It is actually causing an issue.
| | 07:54 | You want to make sure, Only Select
Visible Elements is selected and press
| | 08:00 | Ctrl+Click and that'll
deselect that back polygon.
| | 08:03 | Now, when I move around here, you can
see the selection isn't being distorted
| | 08:08 | nearly as much down towards the bottom here.
| | 08:11 | And just to play it a little safe, I am going
to press Ctrl and deselect this one polygon.
| | 08:15 | So, now when we pull this forwards,
I am just going to get that one
| | 08:20 | distortion in the top section here
and that's actually little bit more like
| | 08:25 | what I was looking for.
| | 08:26 | It's just a soft subtle change and if
you want this to pull a little bit more,
| | 08:31 | feel free to choose your Move tool
and change the radius or the strength of
| | 08:36 | your Soft Selection.
| | 08:37 | But for right now, this is a
little bit more what I was looking for.
| | 08:41 | Just to add a little bit more
definition in our polygon object here.
| | 08:46 | So, when we go ahead and Render this,
now you notice I have a little bit more
| | 08:51 | style added to our body.
| | 08:53 | Now we're going to take this one step
further in the next chapter when we get
| | 08:57 | into HyperNURBS but for right now,
I think we're doing pretty well.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating and saving selections with selection tools and sets| 00:00 |
In this video, we're going to create and
save some selections for our mine cart.
| | 00:04 |
We'll use those selections to
apply some different materials.
| | 00:07 |
So, if you're not familiar with
applying materials, you might want to check out
| | 00:11 |
the Applying Basic Materials video in
our Intro chapter for getting started.
| | 00:15 |
So let's get started by selecting our
Body polygon object in the Objects Manager
| | 00:21 |
and you'll notice I have this yellow
area around here and that's letting me know
| | 00:26 |
Soft Selection is still selected.
| | 00:29 |
So, go to your Move tool, if you're still
seeing this, and deselect Soft Selection.
| | 00:35 |
Now, let's grab our Live Selection tool
and just click anywhere in the scene off
| | 00:39 |
our objects, so we deselect all the polygons.
| | 00:42 |
Now the first thing I'd like to
select is this upper lip area here.
| | 00:46 |
I'd like to apply a
different color to that upper lip.
| | 00:49 |
So, the easiest way to do that is to just go
ahead and try and click on one of the polygons.
| | 00:55 |
Now, if you notice, if I just click on
one, it's only selecting one, not all the
| | 00:58 |
ones all the way around.
| | 01:00 |
So, if we go to our Selection tool,
let's choose the Loop selection.
| | 01:04 |
So, if you notice as I drag around here, I
am having a hard time selecting this loop.
| | 01:09 |
So, let's go ahead and zoom-in a
little closer to our geometry and if you
| | 01:12 |
position your mouse right over the
edge corner and click, now I've created a
| | 01:18 |
selection for this loop.
| | 01:21 |
Now, I'd like this color to not only
apply just to the front of this lip but
| | 01:25 |
also the top and the bottom.
| | 01:26 |
You'll notice, as I rotate around here,
the only thing selected is the outer face.
| | 01:32 |
So, it's actually pretty easy to add
those other polygons using a command under
| | 01:37 |
Selection called Grow Selection.
| | 01:40 |
If we go ahead and click that, you'll
notice it has automatically selected
| | 01:44 |
all the polygons that are neighboring the
polygons that we had selected in both directions.
| | 01:49 |
Notice both the lower and
upper polygons are selected.
| | 01:53 |
So, now that we've our proper
selection, let's go ahead and save this
| | 01:58 |
selection for use later.
| | 02:00 |
Again, since the Body is selected,
we're good to go with saving our selection.
| | 02:03 |
So, go up to Selection and choose Set Selection.
| | 02:08 |
And you'll notice this triangle up here,
and this is called a Polygon Selection Tag.
| | 02:13 |
Now in the Attribute Editor,
we can go ahead and rename this.
| | 02:16 |
I'll just call this Lip.
| | 02:18 |
If you click anywhere outside of that
tab, when we go ahead and click back on
| | 02:22 |
here and you notice the
name Lip has been applied.
| | 02:25 |
So, to check how this selection
works, let's go ahead and grab our Live
| | 02:29 |
Selection tool and just
click anywhere in the scene.
| | 02:31 |
Obviously, we have to
have our body selected first.
| | 02:33 |
So, select your object and click
anywhere in the scene and you notice, now I
| | 02:38 |
don't have anything selected.
| | 02:40 |
If I click another polygon here and
select my Polygon Selection Tag, I can click
| | 02:47 |
Select Polygons and it'll
load the selection again.
| | 02:50 |
But you notice it
doesn't deselect anything else.
| | 02:53 |
So, it's important to understand, when
you have a tag selected, you need to make
| | 02:57 |
sure none of the other polygons are
selected when you load that Polygon
| | 03:02 |
Selection Tag back up.
| | 03:03 |
So again, with that Tag selected,
let's choose Select Polygons.
| | 03:07 |
So, as you can see here, we have
our nice Polygon Selection saved.
| | 03:10 |
Let's deselect all the polygons and now I
want to add some racing stripes to our cart.
| | 03:17 |
And I'd like it to actually go
around this area and this area here.
| | 03:23 |
So, this time, under Selection,
let's grab the Ring Selection.
| | 03:28 |
When I choose Ring Selection, it's
not only going to grab all the faces on
| | 03:32 |
the front, but it's also going to grab the
faces all the way around the back as well.
| | 03:37 |
So, let's go ahead and just click in
this upper polygon area here and you
| | 03:42 |
notice as I rotate around scene, I am seeing
all the polygons selected all the way around.
| | 03:48 |
That's perfect.
| | 03:48 |
That's exactly what I am going for.
| | 03:50 |
I could save this selection as the left
stripe and then save another selection
| | 03:55 |
for the right stripe, but since I want
them both to be the same color, we'll
| | 03:59 |
just save one selection.
| | 04:00 |
So, hold down Shift on your
keyboard and click the next loop.
| | 04:05 |
Now, with both of these selected, if we
went up under Selection, we are going to
| | 04:08 |
choose Set Selection right
now, a bad thing would happen.
| | 04:12 |
I'd actually blow away my other selection
because you can see this white box here.
| | 04:17 |
That's letting me know that that
Selection Tag is actually still selected.
| | 04:21 |
So, let's click anywhere else in the
Object Manager and reselect our Body and
| | 04:27 |
you notice, now, that Tag isn't selected.
| | 04:29 |
So now, we're actually set to go up
under Selection and choose Set Selection.
| | 04:35 |
Let's name our selection here, Stripes.
| | 04:39 |
So, you notice for each one of the
selections we have a new polygon triangle.
| | 04:46 |
Now we're almost done because we
have the different polygon selections.
| | 04:51 |
Now all we have to do is
apply the basic materials.
| | 04:54 |
So let's make sure we deselect our
geometry by grabbing our Live Selection tool,
| | 05:00 |
making sure the Body is selected
and click anywhere else in the scene.
| | 05:04 |
Now let's create some basic materials.
| | 05:06 |
In the Materials Editor, at the
bottom of your window, choose File and
| | 05:09 |
choose New Material.
| | 05:11 |
We will make the cart a dark red color.
| | 05:14 |
If you double-click, it'll open
Material Editor and under Color I can just go
| | 05:18 |
ahead and drag red up and
drag everything else back down.
| | 05:23 |
There's a nice bright red.
| | 05:24 |
You can close the Material Editor and
just to make things quicker, if you hold
| | 05:29 |
down Ctrl, click on your Material and
drag to the right, and you let go, you'll
| | 05:32 |
notice you've made a new material.
| | 05:35 |
Now, with the Material.1 selected,
let's go ahead and make this color black.
| | 05:39 |
I change the color by going to the
Attributes section under Color and clicking
| | 05:44 |
and adjusting the color.
| | 05:45 |
Now we have one more color to create
and let's go ahead and click-and-drag and
| | 05:52 |
this one we'll make a light gray.
| | 05:54 |
Again, go to the Attributes Editor
and on the Color tag, just click in the
| | 05:57 |
swatch and drag to create a gray color.
| | 06:01 |
So, to apply red to the overall body
of the cart, all we've to do is just
| | 06:05 |
click-and-drag it right in the Viewer.
| | 06:07 |
And now the entire cart is red.
| | 06:09 |
Now, I want to stripes to actually be black.
| | 06:12 |
So, let's grab the black material, and
under the Stripe selections, let's go
| | 06:18 |
ahead and drag the material up to
our Body object and you notice, it has
| | 06:22 |
actually replaced everything.
| | 06:24 |
That's because it doesn't know that I only
want to apply that material to the selection.
| | 06:30 |
So, what we need to do is drag our
Selection Tag by clicking-and-holding and
| | 06:34 |
dragging down into the
Selection area in our Attribute Window.
| | 06:39 |
Now we have the black stripes applied.
| | 06:41 |
There is one more color we have left to apply.
| | 06:43 |
Let's go ahead and select our Body and drag
the gray material up on to the body object.
| | 06:49 |
Now again, with the gray material
selected, we can go ahead and just
| | 06:53 |
click-and-drag on our first Selection
Tag and drag it down to the lip area.
| | 06:59 |
Now, if we go ahead and render, you
notice we have a gray lip with the black
| | 07:04 |
stripes and a red cart.
| | 07:06 |
This is still looking kind of rough,
but don't worry, when we get into the
| | 07:10 |
Material section we'll go in and
actually tweak these materials, but for right
| | 07:14 |
now, I think you have a firm
grasp on setting selections.
| | 07:17 |
And I found, as I create more
complex models, I save more and more for
| | 07:21 |
selections for use later on, either in
the texturing process or if it took a
| | 07:27 |
long time to create a complicated
selection, but I don't want it to select
| | 07:30 |
again, going through all that process.
| | 07:32 |
So, with Setting Selections, saving
and reselecting areas really can make
| | 07:37 |
your life easier.
| | 07:39 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Connecting objects with the Bridge tool| 00:00 | The Bridge tool is one of the most user
-friendly tools you can use to connect
| | 00:04 | separate pieces of geometry.
| | 00:06 | We are going to create housing for a jet
engine, and connect that to a cube that
| | 00:10 | we will use as a mounting bracket when
we go to add it to our mine cart model.
| | 00:15 | So let's get started by choosing a
primitive that looks a little bit like a
| | 00:18 | jet engine housing.
| | 00:19 | Go up to your Primitive pop-up menu
at the top of the page and choose Tube.
| | 00:22 | Now, I know this doesn't look like it right
now, but let's go ahead and change things.
| | 00:28 | Making sure your tube is selected in
the Object Manager, go to your Attributes
| | 00:31 | and under Object, let's change the
orientation, change it to +Z. This way it's
| | 00:38 | oriented the correct way.
| | 00:39 | But it's still sort of looking more like a
millstone as opposed to a jet engine housing.
| | 00:45 | So let's change our Inner Radius up
to around 80, and let's adjust the
| | 00:50 | Outer Radius down to 100.
| | 00:53 | This is a little closer,
but it's still kind of stubby.
| | 00:57 | So, increase the Height to 300.
| | 01:00 | Now, it's always a good idea to
add a little bit of extra geometry to
| | 01:03 | your objects so you have something to play
with as you continue your modeling process.
| | 01:08 | So let's increase the number
of Height Segments to five.
| | 01:13 | Later on, I am going to want to make
this look a little bit cartoony by having
| | 01:17 | the front and back sections be a
little bit larger than the middle section.
| | 01:21 | So, we want to make sure we have
enough Height Segments in order to do that.
| | 01:24 | Now, let's spin around and look at our edges.
| | 01:27 | We have an option for a Fillet.
| | 01:29 | So let's go ahead and select that and
you'll notice it's nicely rounded the
| | 01:33 | edge of our Tube Object.
| | 01:34 | The only problem with this, I am
modeling this to eventually go into a
| | 01:39 | HyperNURBS object, which
we'll create the smoothing.
| | 01:42 | So, I don't need that much detail right now.
| | 01:45 | So let's go ahead and decrease
the number of Segments down to one.
| | 01:49 | Now, don't panic if you're
seeing this shading error.
| | 01:52 | This is the Phong tag.
| | 01:53 | And the reason I know there is an error,
see how light this is and dark this is.
| | 01:57 | If we went ahead and hit Render,
you'd see some strange things happening on
| | 02:01 | the edge of our model.
| | 02:02 | Well, it's the Phong tag
trying to smooth out these angles.
| | 02:06 | So, if you select the tag and
change the Phong Angle in your Attribute
| | 02:10 | Editor down to around 30, now the Phong is
no longer trying to smooth such a sharp angle.
| | 02:17 | Anything above 30 degrees,
it's just kind of ignoring.
| | 02:20 | So if we press Render, now you
notice it's a little bit more smooth.
| | 02:23 | I know you can see the jagged edges,
but again HyperNURBS are going to take
| | 02:28 | care of this later.
| | 02:29 | So, now that we have our Tube Object
created, let's create our mounting bracket.
| | 02:33 | We'll start with a Cube primitive.
| | 02:36 | Click on the Y axis and
drag it above our engine.
| | 02:39 | We want the mount to be above the
engine because we will put this sort of
| | 02:42 | underneath the wing of our model.
| | 02:45 | Let's change the height of our
cube on the Y axis down to 20.
| | 02:49 | We just want to have a flat surface that
we can stick to the outside of our cart.
| | 02:55 | So, this sort of works right
now, but it's a little too wide.
| | 03:00 | So let's change the Size on the X axis
to around a 100, and we can go ahead and
| | 03:05 | leave Z alone, but there's something
you need to consider when you're looking
| | 03:10 | connecting objects, and
that's the actual geometry.
| | 03:14 | What we want to do is take some of the
faces of the Tube Object, and extrude
| | 03:19 | them up to connect to some of
the faces on the Cube Object.
| | 03:23 | So obviously, we need to add
some segments into our Cube Object.
| | 03:28 | Let's add four Segments, so
we have four polygon faces.
| | 03:33 | Now, let's increase the number of
Segments on the Y to around 3, this is just
| | 03:37 | giving us a little bit more geometry.
| | 03:39 | So when we go to smooth it out, there will
be a little more data for it to deal with.
| | 03:43 | And then increase the
number of Segments on the Z axis.
| | 03:48 | So now, as we rotate around here, you
can see I have some polygon faces that I
| | 03:52 | can actually mount my engine to.
| | 03:56 | The Cube Object is good to
go for conversion to polygons.
| | 04:00 | Let's go ahead and do that.
| | 04:02 | Now, the Tube is a little bit more of a
guessing game, in terms of which faces
| | 04:08 | were going to pull up towards the cube,
because as you can tell, each one of
| | 04:12 | these faces are facing in a
slightly different direction.
| | 04:15 | So sometimes when I am creating a
slightly more complicated model, before I
| | 04:21 | convert my primitive object, I will
just make a copy, just in case, my
| | 04:25 | conversion doesn't work
quite the way I wanted it to.
| | 04:28 | So hold down Ctrl, click-and-drag on your
Tube to make a copy in our Object Manager.
| | 04:33 | Let's just turn that off in the editor
by clicking twice on the upper circle to
| | 04:36 | turn off the visibility.
| | 04:38 | Now, let's reselect our top Tube and convert.
| | 04:41 | So, we have our Tube and our Cube.
| | 04:44 | So let's go ahead and rename these.
| | 04:46 | Tube, we'll call at Housing, and
the Cube we will call this Mount.
| | 04:52 | Now, let's start by extruding
the faces of the Housing up.
| | 04:55 | Now, I would like four pieces coming up
from the Housing to attach to the Mount.
| | 04:58 | So let's choose four polygon faces, try
and choose ones that are up at the top
| | 05:04 | and let's zoom in here, so we have a
little bit more control over our selection,
| | 05:08 | one, two, three, four.
| | 05:13 | And go up under Structure and choose Extrude.
| | 05:16 | Just click-and-drag anywhere
in your viewer to extrude up.
| | 05:20 | And you'll notice, as we zoom out
here, this isn't quite lining up.
| | 05:25 | There weren't quite enough segments
around to, actually, have these be
| | 05:29 | perfectly symmetrical.
| | 05:31 | The only thing that's perfectly straight is
this edge loop that's right here, on our geometry.
| | 05:36 | Notice it's lying straight on the Y axis.
| | 05:40 | So had we not made a copy of this Tube,
it'd be a little frustrating right now.
| | 05:44 | We'd have to sit here and Undo, Undo,
Undo, Undo or just start all over, which
| | 05:48 | is part of the modeling process.
| | 05:50 | So, like I said, if you think you might
have issues, it's always a good idea to
| | 05:53 | make a copy of your
primitive before you convert it.
| | 05:56 | So let's go ahead and delete this
Housing polygon and select our Tube, and
| | 06:02 | turn its visibility back on, rename your Tube,
Housing, and now, let's deal with the geometry.
| | 06:10 | I notice have my Extrusion tool still selected.
| | 06:12 | So I am just going to grab my Selection
tool here and reselect Housing, so I get
| | 06:16 | my options in the Attribute Editor.
| | 06:18 | Let's increase the number of Rotational
Segments, and you notice when we add two
| | 06:22 | segments, now we have a face that's
perfectly straight across the top.
| | 06:26 | So now, I can choose polygons on
either side, and they will extrude up in
| | 06:31 | an organized fashion.
| | 06:32 | So now, we are ready for conversion.
| | 06:34 | Go ahead and press C on your keyboard,
or click the Make Object Editable button
| | 06:39 | in the upper left corner.
| | 06:40 | Now with the Housing converted, make
sure you're in the Polygon tool mode and
| | 06:45 | select some faces, holding down Shift
after I select the first face, so I can
| | 06:52 | select all the faces.
| | 06:54 | Now, we can go to our Recent
tools pop-up menu and choose Extrude,
| | 06:57 | click-and-drag anywhere in the scene.
| | 06:59 | Again, it's always a good idea to add a
little geometry when you have long faces.
| | 07:03 | So let's increase our Subdivisions here.
| | 07:07 | Now, we have the mount.
| | 07:08 | Again, I'm noticing I have
my Extrusion tool selected.
| | 07:10 | So let's grab our Selection tool just so
I don't accidentally extrude something.
| | 07:15 | We will go ahead and try and move our
mount up on the Y axis, but we want to
| | 07:19 | make sure we are in the model tool mode.
| | 07:22 | So let's go ahead and move that up.
| | 07:25 | Now, I want to look at the
different polygons, on this object.
| | 07:31 | So if we go back and grab our Use
Polygon tool, you can see we have one, two,
| | 07:36 | three, four faces that I would actually
like to connect these mounting brackets to.
| | 07:42 | When you use the Bridge tool, if
you're trying to connect two objects, it
| | 07:45 | actually makes sense that
those two objects get connected.
| | 07:48 | So the first thing I always recommend,
when you're using the Bridge tool is
| | 07:52 | actually to connect the two pieces of
geometry to make one piece of geometry.
| | 07:57 | That way, when you Bridge the two pieces
together, it will actually all stay as one piece.
| | 08:03 | Otherwise, when you created a bridge, if
you want to move either one of objects,
| | 08:08 | the object would move and the newly
created bridge would just disconnect from
| | 08:12 | where you had drawn it.
| | 08:13 | So let's go ahead and start by
connecting these two polygons.
| | 08:17 | So the easiest way to do that, I will
just click-and-drag a selection box around
| | 08:20 | both so they are both selected.
| | 08:22 | Go up under Objects and choose Connect.
| | 08:25 | Now, when you choose Connect, it's going
to automatically combine both pieces of
| | 08:30 | geometry and leave the original pieces
of geometry still in your Object Manager.
| | 08:35 | I don't want to do that right now.
| | 08:36 | I want to actually connect and delete.
| | 08:38 | This way it combines both of them
and then deletes the original geometry.
| | 08:42 | Now, I am just doing that because I
know we are on the right track right now.
| | 08:46 | So, if you notice, CINEMA remembered
that I had these four faces selected.
| | 08:52 | And if you right-click anywhere in the
scene with those four faces selected, I
| | 08:56 | get a menu that gives me the options
that pertain specifically to what I'm doing
| | 09:00 | in the scene with these four polygons selected.
| | 09:02 | So you notice, Bridge is
right up here at the top.
| | 09:05 | Let's go ahead and select Bridge, and
rotate around so we can click on the
| | 09:10 | corner of one of our selected polygons.
| | 09:13 | And you notice, when I clicked there
it accidentally went ahead and connected
| | 09:17 | the polygons across the way.
| | 09:19 | So let's Undo that.
| | 09:20 | We will rotate around here.
| | 09:23 | So we don't have this happen again,
what we actually need to do is select the
| | 09:27 | other polygon faces.
| | 09:28 | Grab your Selection tool and let's go
ahead and select holding Shift, one of the
| | 09:34 | polygon faces up at the top.
| | 09:36 | Let's hold down Shift and
select all the other faces.
| | 09:39 | I am just going to rotate around
here so we can select all four. Okay.
| | 09:44 | Now with four faces selected, let's go ahead
and grab our Bridge tool again by right clicking.
| | 09:49 | If you grab the corner of one and drag
up, you notice it's kind of created this
| | 09:56 | little bit of a mess.
| | 09:57 | And what's happened, since I had more
than one face selected, when I grabbed the
| | 10:01 | Bridge tool, it actually tried to
bridge all the faces I had selected.
| | 10:06 | I am just going to Undo this right here.
| | 10:08 | What you really need to do
is go one face at a time.
| | 10:11 | So I will just click anywhere in the
scene having my Live Selection tool
| | 10:15 | selected to deselect everything.
| | 10:16 | And we will get started by selecting one
of the polygons in this upper area here.
| | 10:21 | Let's go ahead and zoom in, and
then rotate around, hold down Shift and
| | 10:28 | select our other polygon.
| | 10:30 | I Ctrl+Click to deselect the other polygons.
| | 10:33 | Now, I have a very clear
order of operation here.
| | 10:37 | I want this face to connect to this face.
| | 10:39 | So if we go ahead and right-click and
choose our Bridge tool, if you click on
| | 10:43 | one of the corners, make sure that
corner lines up with the corresponding corner
| | 10:47 | of the polygon you're trying to attach it to.
| | 10:50 | Now we have a nice bridge.
| | 10:53 | So let's try it from the other side.
| | 10:56 | Grab your Live Selection tool, select
the one face, rotate around, hold down
| | 11:00 | Shift and select the other face.
| | 11:03 | Again, right-click and choose the Bridge tool.
| | 11:07 | I think you get the idea.
| | 11:08 | We will go ahead and speed through
to when all of these are connected.
| | 11:13 | So now, if we zoom out here, you'll
notice we have our engine with the bracket,
| | 11:18 | symmetrically mounted.
| | 11:20 | So, with the Bridge tool, you can
quickly and easily connect multiple polygon
| | 11:24 | objects with selected faces.
| | 11:26 | But just so you know, you can
also bridge edges together as well.
| | 11:30 | Remember, when using the Bridge,
there is no substitute for well thought
| | 11:33 | out geometry.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using the polygon tools| 00:00 | If you've been going to the previous
videos about polygon modeling, you might
| | 00:04 | think modeling with polygons
is kind of a rigid process.
| | 00:08 | Starting with primitives, like cubes,
and extruding and beveling isn't really
| | 00:12 | nearly as organic as
modeling with clay. Well, fear not.
| | 00:16 | We are going to cover some of the tools
that should get you pretty stoked if you
| | 00:19 | really like pushing and
pulling your models around.
| | 00:22 | Let's get started by adding some
life to this engine housing with our
| | 00:25 | different Polygon tools.
| | 00:28 | So, as I'm looking at the engine model
here, the first thing I want to do is
| | 00:32 | actually fix some of the
smoothing errors that I'm noticing.
| | 00:36 | If you are joining me from the last
video, when we went ahead and connected
| | 00:40 | everything, the Phong Tag reverted back to
its normal Phong Angle, which is 80 degrees.
| | 00:45 | If you go ahead and select the Phong Tag,
and adjust the Phong Angle down to 30,
| | 00:49 | we're not going to get nearly
the errors that we were getting.
| | 00:53 | Now, if you're not sure what those
errors mean, basically the Phong Tag also
| | 00:58 | helps smooth out your geometry.
| | 01:00 | And when we lower the Phong Angle,
the Shader is no longer trying to smooth
| | 01:05 | out these sharp edges. Okay.
| | 01:08 | So now let's get started
with our specific Polygon tools.
| | 01:12 | Let's select the engine so we can see
the geometry, and if you're not seeing
| | 01:15 | this type of you, make sure your Display
settings are set to Gouraud Shading and Wireframe.
| | 01:21 | Now, I'd like to add a little style to
this and make it look a little bit more
| | 01:25 | like a cartoon type engine.
| | 01:27 | So rather than having the cylinder
be straight, let's make the center a
| | 01:32 | little more narrow.
| | 01:33 | Make sure you have the Polygon tool
selected and go to Selection and we will
| | 01:37 | do a Loop Selection.
| | 01:38 | This way we can easily just select all the
polygons around the center of our object.
| | 01:43 | If you just grab the Scale tool and
click-and-drag anywhere on your canvas,
| | 01:47 | notice we can make the center
bigger or we can make it more narrow.
| | 01:50 | Now, don't drag it too far down,
because you'll notice the inside geometry
| | 01:54 | will start to pop out.
| | 01:55 | So, that's looking pretty good.
| | 01:56 | Let's grab our Live Selection tool and
click off of our model, so we don't have
| | 02:00 | any of the polygons selected any more.
| | 02:02 | Now, I would like to distort the end of
this model and pull the edges out, so it
| | 02:06 | sort of looks like it's moving so fast.
| | 02:08 | It's sort of melting.
| | 02:10 | And the best way to do that is to use
some of the Polygon tools we haven't
| | 02:13 | quite explored yet.
| | 02:14 | And just so we don't distort any
part of the model other than the area we
| | 02:18 | are trying to focus on, let's go ahead and
a selection of the back area of the engine.
| | 02:24 | Go up to your Selection tool
and choose Rectangle Selection.
| | 02:28 | Now, just so I don't accidentally select
some other geometry, we are going to go
| | 02:32 | ahead and switch to the Top View.
| | 02:33 | And in the Top View, let's just
click-and-drag around our end polygons.
| | 02:39 | I still want to select all these faces.
| | 02:41 | So I am going to try one more time, there we go.
| | 02:44 | Now, we can go ahead and switch back to
Perspective View, and you will notice, I
| | 02:48 | have some these extra faces selected.
| | 02:50 | So let's go ahead and grab our Live
Selection tool, hold down Ctrl and
| | 02:54 | deselect these extra faces. Okay.
| | 02:57 | So now, we have our last
set of ring selected here.
| | 03:00 | Just so I don't have to go through the
process of selecting that again, I am
| | 03:04 | going to make sure my engine is
selected, and then under Selection, we will
| | 03:08 | set this selection. Let's name it End.
| | 03:11 | Okay.
| | 03:12 | Now, at any given time, when I have my
engine selected, even if I don't have
| | 03:17 | anything selected, we can choose
that tag and say Select Polygons. Okay.
| | 03:22 | Let's zoom in here, and in order to get
this distortion, let's right-click and
| | 03:26 | choose the Magnet tool.
| | 03:28 | Now, notice the spherical shape.
| | 03:29 | That's the influence of the Magnet tool.
| | 03:32 | Since I already have polygon selected,
it's snapping to the different points,
| | 03:37 | and that's because in the Options
here, I have Nearest Point selected.
| | 03:40 | If you are not seeing these options in
your Attribute Editor, make sure you have
| | 03:43 | the Magnet tool selected.
| | 03:45 | Now, let's just click on one of
these polygons and drag it back.
| | 03:48 | I will drag some more.
| | 03:52 | Now, you have to be careful
when you are dragging these.
| | 03:55 | Notice as I am dragging this here, if
we rotate around, I am slightly adjusting
| | 04:00 | the edge of this inwards or outwards,
and I really don't want to do that.
| | 04:04 | So let's lock off the
transformation so it only happens on this Z axis.
| | 04:11 | So, we will just undo the last
set of distortions. There we go.
| | 04:17 | Let's change the influence on X to 0 and Y
to 0, and if notice, Z is still set to 100%.
| | 04:26 | Now, if we click-and-drag, notice
it's only distorting along the Z axis.
| | 04:30 | So this is really, really helpful when
you are trying to create a distortion and
| | 04:35 | you don't want your model to
distort any other ways. There we go.
| | 04:39 | All right.
| | 04:40 | That's actually looking pretty cool.
| | 04:42 | One thing that's concerning me, when
I am dragging this out, I am getting
| | 04:45 | some really long faces.
| | 04:46 | And so, if I want to actually distort
this in any other fashion, I probably want
| | 04:50 | to add some geometry.
| | 04:52 | So let's look at another tool that I
use quite often in polygon modeling and
| | 04:56 | that's the Knife tool.
| | 04:58 | The way the Knife tool actual works,
typically, I recommend working in
| | 05:01 | an Orthogonal View.
| | 05:02 | This way, when I click-and-drag, I know
the polygons are going to get cut across
| | 05:08 | this specific axis, whereas in a
Perspective View, I'm not exactly sure if this
| | 05:14 | is cutting on a straight line.
| | 05:16 | To use your Knife tool, go ahead and click
and hold your mouse button down and drag.
| | 05:20 | And if you hold down Shift as you
drag, you notice the line will snap in
| | 05:25 | 45 degree increments.
| | 05:27 | Let's go ahead and let go there, and if
we pop back into our Perspective View,
| | 05:32 | you you'll notice that didn't really
work too well, and that's because we've
| | 05:35 | already distorted this geometry.
| | 05:37 | And since it couldn't make a
straight line all the way through with these
| | 05:41 | distortions, it just sort of
stopped at the cut about halfway down.
| | 05:45 | Well that's not really a good thing.
| | 05:47 | So let's undo that.
| | 05:49 | And this time, under mode,
instead of Line, let's choose Loop.
| | 05:54 | Now, when we move the Knife tool over
our polygons, notice the loop is actually
| | 05:58 | distorting along the end distortion.
| | 06:01 | So if we go ahead and just move it back
a little bit and click, now you notice,
| | 06:06 | we have made a really nice
through some distorted geometry.
| | 06:10 | So, I think you will find
the Knife tool very helpful.
| | 06:13 | Now, I know, I made the clay analogy,
and I showed you one tool that allows you
| | 06:17 | to push and pull things.
| | 06:18 | Well, let me show you one more
that's actually really kind of exciting.
| | 06:21 | If you right-click, this time I
want you to choose the Brush tool.
| | 06:26 | Now, with the Brush tool selected,
you'll notice the Options pop up in the
| | 06:30 | Attribute menu, and the thing I want
you to look at is this mode called Smear.
| | 06:35 | If just click-and-drag, notice I am
kind of distorting the polygons in a very
| | 06:39 | similar fashion to what I was
doing initially with the Magnet tool.
| | 06:45 | That's kind of cool, but that's
really not what I was looking to do.
| | 06:49 | So let's look at one of the other mode Options.
| | 06:52 | Let's see what Twister looks like.
| | 06:54 | With Twister selected, just go ahead and
click-and-drag and now look what's happening.
| | 06:58 | I can actually twist the polygons around
and it's creating a really cool distortion.
| | 07:03 | Now, you have to be really careful when
you do this, because if twist too hard,
| | 07:07 | you'll get overlapping polygons and
that can cause all kinds of problems.
| | 07:11 | So, I am just going to
undo that a little bit here.
| | 07:13 | I am going to rotate around to
make sure it's all squared away.
| | 07:17 | And we will adjust the
Strength down to about 50.
| | 07:20 | Now, when I click-and-drag, I can get
a nice little twist to my geometry but
| | 07:25 | nothing that's going to be a little too crazy.
| | 07:28 | So, feel free to go back through and explore
some of the different modes in the Brush tool.
| | 07:34 | I think you would be pretty impressed.
| | 07:35 | Now, there is one last set of tools I
want to cover with Polygon tools, and
| | 07:40 | those are the tools used to actually
create polygons or stitch up holes.
| | 07:46 | So let's pretend we have a client
that wants us to actually cut a hole in
| | 07:50 | the side of our engine.
| | 07:51 | So, when we add the turbine unit in there,
we could actually peak in and see the
| | 07:55 | slats spinning around.
| | 07:57 | So let's just switch
back to Live Selection tool.
| | 08:00 | Let's choose these two polygons
here just by clicking and dragging.
| | 08:04 | And to delete a face, all
you have to do is press Delete.
| | 08:07 | But before I do that, I want to make
sure in my Live Selection tool I had Only
| | 08:10 | Select Visible Elements selected.
| | 08:12 | This way I am not accidentally
selecting any geometry behind my surface.
| | 08:17 | So let's go ahead and press Delete, and you
notice, I still don't have a hole on inside yet.
| | 08:23 | So let's select those other two just by
clicking and dragging and press Delete.
| | 08:28 | Now, we have a hole that can
peak right inside the engine.
| | 08:31 | And again, since we are pretending
it's a client, why don't we pretend like
| | 08:34 | they change their mind.
| | 08:35 | Let's say they want us to patch up this hole.
| | 08:38 | Well, you can do that.
| | 08:39 | If you go ahead and right click,
there are a couple of different options.
| | 08:43 | The first one I want you to
check out is Close Polygon Hole.
| | 08:47 | This is a very straightforward preset
solution for polygon holes that are all
| | 08:53 | the way encased with geometry.
| | 08:55 | So if I just moved to this inside edge
here, and let me zoom in so you can see
| | 09:00 | this a little bit better. Okay.
| | 09:04 | So if I can just click on this inside
edge here, you notice now, if I rotate
| | 09:09 | around, we've actually sealed that geometry.
| | 09:12 | Let me go ahead and render that so you
can see what it looks like. There we go.
| | 09:16 | Now, instead of just using the same
tool to seal this outside, let me show
| | 09:20 | one of the other tools.
| | 09:21 | Let's make sure to right-click anywhere
in the gray area, and this time, we will
| | 09:25 | choose the Create Polygon tool.
| | 09:26 | Now the way this tool works is point to point.
| | 09:29 | So, if you go ahead and click on the
first point, and then move your mouse over
| | 09:32 | to the right, you don't have
to hold down the mouse button.
| | 09:35 | Notice this line is snapping to
the other vertices in the model.
| | 09:39 | So let's just go ahead and click here to
our next point and then click here, and
| | 09:45 | I am going around the
quadrangle to actually set my polygon.
| | 09:49 | Now, I could keep going, but since I
have four sides and my polygon is set, go
| | 09:54 | ahead and click the Create Polygons button.
| | 09:56 | That will go ahead and set that.
| | 09:58 | Let's close the next one.
| | 09:59 | Just click around the corners, and then
when you are done, click Create Polygon.
| | 10:04 | And if we move out here and press
the Render button, now you notice the
| | 10:08 | engine is sealed up again.
| | 10:09 | Now this is looking pretty good, but it
still needs a little bit more smoothing,
| | 10:14 | which we are going to get
to in the HyperNURBS chapter.
| | 10:17 | But for now, I hope you enjoyed the
tour of the different Polygon tools.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
4. HyperNURBSSmoothing things out with HyperNURBS| 00:01 | HyperNURBS are a great way to smooth
out your sharp edged models, and if you're
| | 00:04 | coming to CINEMA 4D from Maya, you
might know them as Subdivision Surfaces.
| | 00:08 | Anyway, HyperNURBS are really powerful
way to create organic shapes that could
| | 00:13 | go from sharp edges right into smooth curves.
| | 00:16 | We're going to use HyperNURBS to
smooth out our jet engine housing.
| | 00:20 | But first, let's get started just
applying HyperNURBS to a generic primitive,
| | 00:24 | just so you can see exactly what's going on.
| | 00:28 | So let's select our Engine and hold
down Alt and double-click on our Visibility
| | 00:32 | button so we turn it off in
both the Editor and the Renderer.
| | 00:35 | Now let's make a cube primitive.
| | 00:38 | Now to create a HyperNURBS object, all
you have to do is go to over from the
| | 00:41 | cube and click on this icon right here.
| | 00:44 | That will add a HyperNURBS object.
| | 00:46 | Now to make this effect in another object,
you need to make that other object the child.
| | 00:51 | So, click-and-drag your cube up into the
HyperNURBS and make sure the arrow is pointing down.
| | 00:57 | Now that the Cube is the child of the
HyperNURBS, you notice we've got smooth geometry.
| | 01:03 | If you select your HyperNURBS object,
now you can see the newly created geometry
| | 01:08 | based on dropping your
object into the HyperNURBS.
| | 01:11 | Now since HyperNURBS work with
parametric objects, you can easily still drag on
| | 01:15 | their handles and make their
distortions, and you'll notice HyperNURBS will
| | 01:20 | update along with your distortion.
| | 01:23 | But I would say the most typical workflow is
working with HyperNURBS on polygon objects.
| | 01:28 | So let's select the Cube and
click the Make Object Editable button.
| | 01:34 | Now with the cube selected, let's make
sure we're in any other mode than the
| | 01:37 | model tool, and now we can go ahead
and right-click and access any of our
| | 01:42 | polygon modeling tools.
| | 01:44 | For now, let's just grab the Knife,
and you notice I'm getting a band that's
| | 01:48 | letting me know exactly
where the knife is going to cut.
| | 01:51 | So let's move it up towards the top
here and just click to apply your cut.
| | 01:56 | And now you notice we have drastically
changed the shape of that object because
| | 02:00 | we've added more geometry.
| | 02:02 | If I add another cut
further down, you guessed it.
| | 02:05 | I'm changing the shape yet again.
| | 02:08 | Now, if you want to see what your
object looks like without HyperNURBS
| | 02:11 | activated, go ahead and deselect the
green check mark and that will turn
| | 02:16 | off your HyperNURBS.
| | 02:17 | Now, I'm just going to grab my
Selection tool so I don't continue cutting
| | 02:21 | the polygon object.
| | 02:23 | But as you can see, we added two new
cuts here and that drastically changed how
| | 02:27 | the object looked in our HyperNURBS.
| | 02:30 | Now with HyperNURBS selected, there
are some options you what to look at.
| | 02:34 | The first option I want you to look at
is Subdivision Editor, and then the next
| | 02:38 | one is Subdivision Renderer.
| | 02:39 | Now what this allows you to do, with
Subdivision Editor, I can crank up how many
| | 02:44 | subdivisions I would like
this HyperNURBS object to create.
| | 02:48 | And what the Subdivision Render
does is lets you determine exactly how
| | 02:53 | many subdivisions you want to
create when you go to render your object
| | 02:57 | into the Picture Viewer.
| | 03:01 | So, what this allows you to do is set
your editor resolution relatively low, and
| | 03:06 | you can set to render
resolution significantly higher.
| | 03:10 | This way as you work through adjusting
your HyperNURBS object, you can continue
| | 03:15 | to work at a high rate of speed.
| | 03:17 | But then when you go to actually
render your project, you'll have a nice
| | 03:20 | smooth HyperNURBS object.
| | 03:23 | Now, the thing you need to keep in mind
when you increase the subdivisions to a
| | 03:26 | higher number that's going to
exponentially increase your render time.
| | 03:29 | So now that we've adjusted some of
these settings, let's just go ahead and
| | 03:33 | take the render back down and take the
Editor back up, and let's see what our
| | 03:37 | Engine would look like.
| | 03:38 | Go ahead and drag the cube out of the
HyperNURBS object, and we can turn off its
| | 03:43 | Visibility, and just drag the engine in.
| | 03:46 | Now, obviously we need to turn it on its
Visibility to see exactly what happened.
| | 03:51 | So, let me rotate around
the scene here and hit Render.
| | 03:56 | It's really starting to look pretty smooth.
| | 03:58 | Let's go ahead and deselect just so
you can see what it looked like before,
| | 04:02 | so, before and after.
| | 04:06 | So, now that you've seen a little bit
about how HyperNURBS can smooth things
| | 04:10 | out, you really should check out the
next video where we're using Weighting to
| | 04:14 | take HyperNURBS to the next level.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating organic models by weighting HyperNURBS| 00:00 | Weighting allows you to control exactly
which areas of the object distort and how much.
| | 00:06 | So to get started, let's select our
engine, and under your Filter, make sure
| | 00:11 | that we have HN Cage selected.
| | 00:16 | That will allow you to see the actual
cage geometry that's around the outside of
| | 00:21 | your HyperNURBS object.
| | 00:23 | Now, there are three modes to weighting
HyperNURBS, there are Polygon, Edge and Point modes.
| | 00:32 | So, let's go and get a selection here
that we'd like to use weighting to distort.
| | 00:38 | I'd like to actually distort this
top edge of our model, because if I go
| | 00:42 | ahead and render to the Editor here
really quick, you'll notice I have a
| | 00:45 | nicely rounded edge.
| | 00:47 | Well, when I go to stick this to the
side of our car, I don't want a rounded
| | 00:52 | edge, because that will
create a funny-looking gap.
| | 00:55 | So, what we want to do is actually
have a really sharp edge here, and if we
| | 00:58 | click back on our HyperNURBS object,
making sure to select the geometry within,
| | 01:04 | you can see our cage comes all
the way out to the edge here.
| | 01:07 | So just so I can select the top set
of points, let's jump and use our Point
| | 01:13 | tool, and change to the Right View.
| | 01:17 | Let's zoom in here so we can see things a
little bit better and move up in the scene.
| | 01:23 | Now we'll just drag our Rectangle
Selection tool over the top two areas of the cage.
| | 01:29 | Now when switch back to Perspective
View, all we have to do is go up under
| | 01:33 | Structure and choose Weight HyperNURBS.
| | 01:38 | Now with this selected, just click-and-
drag anywhere in the scene off your object.
| | 01:43 | I'm dragging to the right
to increase the weighting.
| | 01:47 | Now since I had the points selected, if we
go ahead and render, what's going on here.
| | 01:52 | It's just pulling the individual points out.
| | 01:54 | It's not quite what I was going for.
| | 01:56 | So, we'll just undo that.
| | 01:58 | If you hold down Shift as you drag, the
geometry will not only get attracted to
| | 02:04 | the points you have selected, but
anything else that's attached to those points.
| | 02:08 | So, since I have edges connecting all
those points, when I hold down Shift and
| | 02:13 | drag it will change the
weighting for everything.
| | 02:15 | So let's go ahead and render, and
that's actually started to look pretty cool.
| | 02:19 | It even went ahead and added a little
extra detail here in the corner between
| | 02:24 | the points that I had selected and the
points that I didn't.Now another way to
| | 02:29 | view your weighted HyperNURBS
object is by clicking on this tag.
| | 02:34 | This is the HyperNURBS weight tag.
| | 02:36 | If you notice here, it's
highlighted in red, all the areas that have
| | 02:41 | actually been weighted.
| | 02:42 | So, if you click through here, notice
there's been some weighting here and the
| | 02:47 | geometry underneath, as well as above.
| | 02:51 | I think this weighting geometry
underneath has caused some errors in the polygon.
| | 02:57 | They're kind of small, but
they are there nonetheless.
| | 03:01 | So we might want to go back and just tweak
this, maybe just select the top set of faces.
| | 03:07 | So let's go ahead and do that really quickly.
| | 03:10 | If you select your HyperNURBS weight tag
and press Delete, notice we've actually
| | 03:15 | deleted that weighting that
was on the HyperNURBS object.
| | 03:19 | So let's go ahead and reselect our
engine here, and instead of selecting all the
| | 03:24 | points, let's just go back in and use
the Polygon tool making sure we have Live
| | 03:28 | Selection tool and click-and-drag
just choosing our top set of polygons.
| | 03:35 | I'm going to rotate around, make
sure that's all set up properly.
| | 03:40 | Now, so everything is attracted to the
edges and everything else, make sure to
| | 03:43 | hold down Shift as you click-and-drag,
but obviously, we have to go back up and
| | 03:47 | choose our Weight HyperNURBS tool again.
| | 03:50 | So, Shift+Click-and-Drag, and now we've
increased the weighting in this one specific area.
| | 03:57 | If we rotate around here, it's actually
done a pretty decent job, and I'm still
| | 04:02 | having issues there, if
we go and render that out.
| | 04:07 | So it's looking pretty good, but if
you rotate around underneath, you can see
| | 04:10 | it looks like we're having that issue,
but when we actually go to Render,
| | 04:14 | notice it solved the problem.
| | 04:16 | So let's look at our weighting one more time.
| | 04:18 | You can see there's that harsh edge
around there, but like I said, when we
| | 04:22 | checked render, it worked out just fine.
| | 04:25 | You notice, now the weighting is
just applied up around towards the top.
| | 04:29 | Now there is another way you can tweak
your HyperNURBS, and that's by increasing
| | 04:33 | the amount of Subdivisions.
| | 04:35 | Right now, we have three in the
Editor, and four in the Renderer.
| | 04:40 | So, in the Editor, when I go ahead and
click this Render Active View, it's just
| | 04:44 | showing me a view of what the
Renderer would look like when it's edited.
| | 04:49 | To actually see what it's going to
look like when we render through the
| | 04:52 | Renderer, let's go and
Render to the Picture Viewer.
| | 04:57 | Now when we click here, you notice we
actually have some distortion, and that's
| | 05:01 | caused by not having our aspect ratio checked.
| | 05:05 | So ahead and make sure Show Aspect
Ratio is selected, and now you can actually
| | 05:09 | see the way this is going to look.
| | 05:11 | Let's change our Magnification to 100
here, and you can see it's nice and smooth.
| | 05:17 | It's really hard to tell the difference
from one to the other, but there is one
| | 05:21 | extra set of divisions, but since it
was so close, we could go ahead and turn
| | 05:27 | down the Subdivision Renderer.
| | 05:28 | That way, we'll save a
little bit of time on our render.
| | 05:32 | Now there are different types of HyperNURBS.
| | 05:34 | There is Catmull-Clark (N-Gons
), Catmull-Clark and Linear (R7).
| | 05:40 | N-Gons and Catmull-Clark work pretty
much the same way just with N-Gons allowing
| | 05:47 | the HyperNURBS to create N-Gons
when it smoothes out the object.
| | 05:51 | Linear, however, allows for a
much higher setting for you render.
| | 05:56 | Notice, I can crank this way, way up.
| | 05:59 | Now I don't know why we'd necessarily
want to do this, but you can, with Linear.
| | 06:03 | The only bad thing with Linear, if
you notice, when I go ahead and try and
| | 06:07 | render this here, the
weighting has been thrown away.
| | 06:11 | You actually have to be in Catmull-
Clark or Catmull-Clark (N-Gons) to see your
| | 06:17 | weighting in your HyperNURBS object.
| | 06:19 | So I want you to go ahead and have
fun creating new and interesting models
| | 06:24 | just so you can see how you can drop
them into HyperNURBS and distort them
| | 06:29 | using weighting.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
5. Modeling ObjectsModeling with Array| 00:00 |
Now using an array object can really
help simplify creating models that are a
| | 00:06 |
little bit repetitive.
| | 00:07 |
What I mean by that, if you
look at the icon here, you can see.
| | 00:11 |
It makes like a circular array.
| | 00:14 |
If you look in our Object Manager,
you'll notice I have a Wheel here.
| | 00:18 |
In this wheel, I'm going to eventually
stick into the bottom of the cart we've
| | 00:22 |
been working on for a while.
| | 00:26 |
If you want to explore how I built this,
all it is is just three primitive objects.
| | 00:31 |
But as you can see, our
object is missing spokes.
| | 00:34 |
So, we're going to use array to
create the spokes for this wheel.
| | 00:40 |
So to get started, let's go
ahead and choose Cylinder.
| | 00:43 |
To make sure it's oriented the right way,
let's change it to +Z. This way it's
| | 00:50 |
oriented along the Z-axis, and we
can go ahead and decrease the Radius to
| | 00:56 |
somewhere around 15, and
just crank up the Height.
| | 01:00 |
If you just click-and-hold on the
number, we can go ahead and crank that up.
| | 01:03 |
Now, we don't necessarily need
the height for the entire diameter.
| | 01:08 |
We just need the height for the
radius from the center back out.
| | 01:13 |
So, I'm just going to do some
quick math here and say 155.
| | 01:18 |
Okay, now with this Cylinder object
selected, we're ready to use our array.
| | 01:25 |
So, if you go to top of your page right next to
the HyperNURBS object is the Add Array object.
| | 01:31 |
Let's add our array, and then
drag the Cylinder in as the child.
| | 01:36 |
Now you notice, we've created an array.
| | 01:38 |
Now it looks a little bit more like
something to steer a ship than a wheel.
| | 01:42 |
But I think you get the idea.
| | 01:43 |
It took our original cylinder and
then created an array out of it.
| | 01:48 |
So, if you look at our Attribute Editor here,
we still have the Cylinder object selected.
| | 01:52 |
So select your array, and let's
look at some of the options here.
| | 01:56 |
We can adjust the Radius.
| | 01:57 |
So, since our spokes are coming out of
the wheel, let's drag that number down.
| | 02:03 |
Just click-and-hold on the lower arrow and
it will slide the pieces right into place.
| | 02:10 |
Now if we hit Render, we have our spokes,
but notice the Wheel render is turned
| | 02:15 |
off, so let's turn that on and hit Render again.
| | 02:18 |
And now, we actually have
used array to create this wheel.
| | 02:21 |
I can stop here, but the whole
point of this is to show you the array.
| | 02:25 |
So let's look at some of the
other options really quickly.
| | 02:27 |
I'm going to go ahead and rotate around here.
| | 02:32 |
Let's turn off the Visibility of our wheel.
| | 02:35 |
Now you can crank up the number of
copies, or bring it back down, just leave it
| | 02:40 |
at 7, and you can also adjust the Amplitude.
| | 02:43 |
If I click-and-hold, you notice the
Amplitude goes up, but I can't really see
| | 02:48 |
what's happening here, because I
haven't adjusted the Array Frequency.
| | 02:52 |
If we click-and-hold that up, now
you notice it's adjusting the actual
| | 02:56 |
frequency of the Amplitude.
| | 02:59 |
So obviously, you could imagine
what happens when you keyframe these
| | 03:04 |
different parameters.
| | 03:05 |
You could really kind of keyframe
some pretty interesting things happening.
| | 03:09 |
So, now that you see how Amplitude
and Array Frequency interact, let's look
| | 03:13 |
at Render Instances.
| | 03:15 |
Right now, if I were to convert this
array into an editable object, let's
| | 03:19 |
look at what happens.
| | 03:21 |
When we go ahead and click Make
Object Editable and expand the Array group,
| | 03:25 |
you'll see I have eight separate
parametric cylinders. Let's Undo that.
| | 03:32 |
If you select Render Instances, now
when I go ahead and go to convert this, I
| | 03:37 |
only have one cylinder and then seven
other instances of that same cylinder.
| | 03:43 |
So if I were to go ahead and make a
change, let's say, change the Height to 300,
| | 03:49 |
now all those instances are changing.
| | 03:52 |
But had I not had Render Instances
checked and done the conversion, I would have
| | 03:58 |
had to go through each
individual cylinder and make the change.
| | 04:02 |
Also, creating instances cuts down
significantly on your render time, because
| | 04:06 |
the computer is really only trying to
compute for that one individual cylinder.
| | 04:10 |
Then it can just translate
for all of the other instances.
| | 04:14 |
So let's go ahead and Undo until we
get our cylinders back in place, and
| | 04:19 |
turn our wheel back on.
| | 04:21 |
You'll notice we've successfully
completed our Array object with the Wheel.
| | 04:25 |
So now that we've created our wheel,
let's go ahead and take the array and group
| | 04:30 |
it in our Wheel group.
| | 04:33 |
Now with that grouped when we select
the wheel, we can go ahead and rotate
| | 04:38 |
around, and you'll see, our array is
now joined with the rest of the geometry.
| | 04:45 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Array object axis| 00:00 | So, as you can see, we're actually
starting with a finished project here.
| | 00:04 | I wanted you to see exactly
what it is that we're creating.
| | 00:07 | Now the nose cone was made
with a simple cone primitive.
| | 00:10 | We're going to use Array to create
this inside set of turbine slats here.
| | 00:17 | If you notice, they're all at a slight angle.
| | 00:20 | I wanted to show you this as an example,
because building this might be little
| | 00:25 | frustrating unless you know how
Array handles an object's axis.
| | 00:29 | So let's get started by actually
turning off the finished version, and
| | 00:35 | we'll create our own.
| | 00:37 | Let me go ahead and turn off the Engine as well.
| | 00:39 | So let's get started by
creating one of those slats.
| | 00:42 | We'll start with the primitive cube.
| | 00:44 | Go ahead and click on the Add Cube
object at the top of your page and let's
| | 00:49 | adjust the settings.
| | 00:51 | I've already gone through this and set
up a bunch of the settings already, so I
| | 00:55 | know the dimensions I'm going for.
| | 00:57 | Now it's already taken a fair amount of
trial and error to come up with these settings.
| | 01:01 | So, I'm going to talk you through the
settings right now, but I think you'll see
| | 01:05 | some of the pitfalls as we continue
moving through building this project.
| | 01:09 | Now, with this Cube, just to kind of
show you how Array works, if we create a
| | 01:13 | new Array object by clicking on it in
the top up here, and adding our Cube
| | 01:18 | underneath, you can see already that
we have a bit of an issue, because the
| | 01:24 | slats are pointed in the wrong direction.
| | 01:27 | So let's take our Cube out of the Array
for right now and rotate the Cube down.
| | 01:34 | Just click on the red axis handle, and
hold down Shift as you drag, in that way
| | 01:40 | it will snap in 5 degree increments.
| | 01:42 | When it gets down to -90, I
think it will be pretty good.
| | 01:45 | Let's go ahead and drop the Cube in
the Array, and you'll notice, absolutely
| | 01:50 | nothing has changed with what
we had done about a second ago.
| | 01:55 | That can be a little bit frustrating,
specifically when you're just trying to
| | 01:58 | get the geometry to line up properly,
so you can achieve a specific effect.
| | 02:03 | Even if we go and adjust the Array,
let's go ahead and adjust the Array up at 90
| | 02:07 | degrees, and they're still
pointing in the wrong direction.
| | 02:11 | So, let's just undo that,
and drag our Cube back out.
| | 02:16 | So, the Array as you could tell is set up
to actually work along the floor plane here.
| | 02:22 | So, what we want to do is get our
geometry to work in conjunction with that.
| | 02:27 | So let's change our Cube settings.
| | 02:29 | Let's make the X 2, so it's really
narrow like a slat, and I'm just going to
| | 02:34 | switch back to our Live Selection tool
so we can see things a little bit better.
| | 02:40 | Also, let's change our Pitch back up to 0, and
now we need to adjust the size on the Y axis.
| | 02:48 | Let's change that down to 10 and
adjust the size on the Z axis up to 70.
| | 02:54 | So now, if you notice it's kind of hard to see.
| | 02:58 | Let me zoom in here, we have our
slat kind of laying flat on the ground.
| | 03:06 | Let's zoom back out and
drop the Cube into the Array.
| | 03:09 | Now this is starting to look pretty promising.
| | 03:11 | If I rotate around here, you can
see everything is on the proper plane.
| | 03:17 | So let's go ahead and line up our objects.
| | 03:20 | Select your Array object and
change the Radius down to around 80.
| | 03:26 | Now this is lining up a little bit
better and the amount of space that's left
| | 03:30 | here is okay, because we have that nose cone.
| | 03:34 | Let's increase the number
of Copies up to around 40.
| | 03:37 | Now that's looking a little bit better.
| | 03:40 | Now there's one other issue we're running into.
| | 03:43 | If you notice, all these slats are
perfectly flat, they're pointing directly at
| | 03:47 | the camera, and the slats in the
engine are actually slightly angled.
| | 03:52 | So, what we need do is go back
and change the angle of our Cube.
| | 03:55 | Let's drag it out of the Array for right now.
| | 03:58 | If we remembered anything from a second
ago, you remember that the Array object
| | 04:02 | will actually ignore how you've
rotated your object in the scene.
| | 04:07 | If I go ahead and adjust my
rotation here of my object and just drop it
| | 04:11 | right back into the Array, you notice it's
still perfectly straight pointed to the camera.
| | 04:18 | So let's just undo that and undo our rotation.
| | 04:22 | What we really need to do is adjust
the Rotation of the object's axis.
| | 04:27 | The first way we do that is convert
our primitive into a polygon object so we
| | 04:32 | can actually use the Object Axis tool.
| | 04:34 | Now when we go ahead and rotate the object
axis, let's rotate it down to around -15.
| | 04:41 | Although it doesn't look like anything
has changed, let's just drop that Cube
| | 04:45 | back into the Array, and sure enough, now we
have a nice 15 degree angle to all of our slats.
| | 04:53 | That's because we made the
adjustment in the Object Axis.
| | 04:58 | So now all we have to do, we can
collapse the Array and select the Array and
| | 05:02 | rotate its Pitch back up 90 degrees.
| | 05:07 | So if I spin back down here, we can
see the Array is in the proper area.
| | 05:12 | Now what we need to do is
line it up with the Engine.
| | 05:15 | So let's turn our Engine visibility back
on, and as you can see, we have some of
| | 05:20 | the slats that are poking out.
| | 05:21 | Well, let's drag it up towards the
front of the engine, and we could definitely
| | 05:26 | decrease the Radius of
our Array here a little bit.
| | 05:30 | So with the Array selected, let's go
ahead and change the Radius down to,
| | 05:34 | I don't know, 40, no. Let's try 50.
| | 05:39 | Okay, that's looking good, and if we
slide this back here, now you can see we
| | 05:43 | have our Array, and it's just behind
the nose cone, and it's all contained
| | 05:48 | within the engine and we
have angles to our slats.
| | 05:52 | So to finish things up, let's go ahead
and delete the example Array from the
| | 05:56 | beginning of the video, just by
highlighting it, and press Delete on your
| | 06:00 | keyboard, and let's make sure to turn
back on the Render capabilities for the
| | 06:05 | Engine just in case you
want to render the scene.
| | 06:08 | And lastly, we want to take the Array
and just drop it into the Engine group.
| | 06:13 | Now when you select the Engine group,
making sure you're in the model tool,
| | 06:16 | anytime you move around,
everything including the Array will move.
| | 06:22 | So remember, when you're dealing
with the Array, and you want to change
| | 06:25 | how something is oriented within the
Array, you have to adjust things on
| | 06:28 | the object's axis.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Modeling with Symmetry| 00:00 | Now a lot of people use
Symmetry objects in Character modeling.
| | 00:03 | It's a great way to allow you to model
only one side of a model and then you can
| | 00:07 | drop that into the symmetry object and
have it create an exact mirror duplicate
| | 00:12 | of the other side of the model.
| | 00:13 | Now we'll get started showing you the
example of that typical workflow, but I
| | 00:17 | want you to know we have the cart
body that we've created earlier.
| | 00:21 | And we'll go ahead and use Symmetry to
add the wings and engine to both sides.
| | 00:26 | But for now, let's go ahead and
turn that off and get started with our
| | 00:31 | Character model example.
| | 00:32 | So let's do that with a primitive sphere.
| | 00:35 | Go up to Primitive Objects
pop-up menu and choose Sphere.
| | 00:38 | Press S on your keyboard to center it in
the screen and let's go ahead and press
| | 00:42 | C and convert this to Polygon object.
| | 00:45 | So make sure to use our Point tool
and with Live Selection selected, we can
| | 00:51 | easily select points.
| | 00:53 | Now, in order to see how this
works with the Symmetry Object.
| | 00:56 | Let's go ahead and add one.
| | 00:58 | Click on the Array Object and hold
and you'll notice we have Symmetry.
| | 01:03 | Now that we've added the Symmetry
Object, let's make this Sphere the child of
| | 01:07 | the Symmetry Object.
| | 01:08 | This way, as we make changes on
one side it'll update on the other.
| | 01:13 | Now since we already have some points selected,
go ahead and click and drag on the X axis.
| | 01:18 | And if we rotate around the scene here,
you'll notice I'm actually getting an
| | 01:22 | update on the other side of our sphere object.
| | 01:25 | So far, we're trying to pull out, I don't
know, ears, or something, for Mickey Mouse.
| | 01:29 | This would be a good way to start.
| | 01:31 | Now also notice, this is
rotating around the Z-axis.
| | 01:36 | So, if we go to our Symmetry Object here,
by default the Mirror Plane is set up
| | 01:40 | on the Z-axis and the Y-axis creating
a plane that literally goes up in the
| | 01:47 | middle of our scene.
| | 01:49 | Now if we select our Sphere, making
sure we are back with our model tool and
| | 01:54 | drag the Sphere out to the right, I
want you to notice that our geometry from
| | 01:58 | the original sphere did not get thrown away
when we dragged it into the Symmetry Object.
| | 02:03 | So in order to keep things light and
editable, what we can do is go ahead and
| | 02:07 | just create half a sphere.
| | 02:09 | So, I'm just going to undo our latest
move and drag the Sphere back up out of
| | 02:14 | the Symmetry Object.
| | 02:16 | Now since we've already made this
object editable, let's go to the Point tool
| | 02:20 | and switch to our top view.
| | 02:23 | Now we can grab a Rectangle Selection
tool and delete the left side of the sphere.
| | 02:28 | Let's go ahead and zoom in here and
click and drag a box around our points.
| | 02:34 | Now if we hit Delete, unfortunately this
wouldn't really work because we need to
| | 02:38 | make sure Only Select
Visible Elements is deselected.
| | 02:42 | So now if I deselect it, let's go
ahead and drag the box around these points
| | 02:47 | again and press Delete on your keyboard.
| | 02:49 | Now we've successfully
deleted half of the sphere object.
| | 02:54 | And if we select our sphere object in
the Coordinates section of the Attribute
| | 02:58 | Editor, we notice it's lying exactly on the
origin of the World System, which is 0, 0, 0.
| | 03:05 | This is important when we go back into
our Perspective View here and we drop our
| | 03:11 | Sphere into the Symmetry Object.
| | 03:13 | It's really important that this
sphere lies directly on the 0 axis.
| | 03:19 | If we go ahead and change X to 10,
notice since we deleted half the geometry, we
| | 03:25 | now have the big crack in
the middle of our scene.
| | 03:27 | So let's go ahead and undo that.
| | 03:30 | As long as everything is lining up
evenly on the 0 axis, when we go to render
| | 03:34 | this, notice we don't
have a scene and our object.
| | 03:37 | And that's because in the Symmetry
Object, we have Weld Points selected and the
| | 03:42 | points are weld within the Tolerance of 0.01.
| | 03:46 | The Tolerance determines how far away
from the plane the points can be before
| | 03:51 | they are welded together.
| | 03:53 | So, now that we've covered the basics
of how symmetry works in creating a basic
| | 03:58 | character model which obviously this
isn't anywhere near a character yet.
| | 04:02 | I think you get the idea of
how symmetry works for model.
| | 04:07 | Let's go ahead and delete this
Symmetry Object by selecting and pressing
| | 04:10 | Delete on our keyboard.
| | 04:12 | Now let's start adding the
wings and engine to our Cart object.
| | 04:15 | Let's go ahead and turn the
Visibility back on, and zoom back out.
| | 04:19 | Why don't we just select the
Cart and press S on our keyboard?
| | 04:24 | Now you can see it just looks sort of
like a bathtub but when we start adding
| | 04:27 | wings and engine, it'll look like our
mine cart for our video game style cart.
| | 04:35 | So, to add the wing into the scene,
just go up under File and choose Merge.
| | 04:40 | Navigate to the unfinished folder in
our model section, in our Media folder.
| | 04:45 | In there, you'll find our Wing.
| | 04:46 | Go ahead and press Open and you'll
notice our wing has been added to the scene.
| | 04:51 | Now we modeled this wing in the Loft NURBS
video, so you can see it's made out of Loft NURBS.
| | 04:57 | That's perfectly fine.
| | 04:59 | If we go ahead and add another
Symmetry Object and drag the Loft NURBS right
| | 05:05 | back into the Symmetry Object,
notice it works perfectly well.
| | 05:09 | Now we are going to use Symmetry
this time to just place the wing.
| | 05:12 | So let's grab the Move tool and just move
our wing over to the left side of our cart.
| | 05:18 | Now let's move it up the body of the
cart here a little bit, and as you can see
| | 05:24 | the wing here is a little bit large
for the size of the body of our cart, so
| | 05:30 | let's grab the Scale tool and just scale down.
| | 05:34 | If you rotate around the scene here, you
notice we have wings tied to our little mine cart.
| | 05:41 | So, we go ahead and render this
just to see what it looks like.
| | 05:43 | It's actually looking pretty good.
| | 05:46 | Actually, I might want to move the
wings just a little bit further back.
| | 05:49 | Okay, that's just -- So let's close
that Symmetry object for now and we'll add
| | 05:56 | the airplane engines.
| | 05:58 | Go to File and choose Merge.
| | 06:01 | Go and choose the Engine project and click Open.
| | 06:05 | Now let's move this over to the right side here
and you notice the engine is a little bit big.
| | 06:10 | So we'll go ahead and grab our Scale
tool and just scale this down, clicking
| | 06:13 | anywhere in the scene.
| | 06:14 | Okay, so that's looking pretty good.
| | 06:19 | Now if you saw our Weighting NURBS video,
that's where we created the curves for
| | 06:25 | this mounting bracket.
| | 06:27 | If you notice the bracket is perfectly
flat on the top, and that's because I
| | 06:30 | wanted to add it to the
flat edge of our cart body.
| | 06:35 | So all we have to do is select our
Engine and, with the Rotate tool, let's go
| | 06:40 | ahead and rotate 90 degrees.
| | 06:43 | I am holding down Shift as I grab the
rotation band, so it snaps in 5 degree increments.
| | 06:48 | Now we can grab our Move tool and position our
engine, right up against the body of our cart.
| | 06:56 | Now when we get close here and notice
it's sort of disappearing we can go ahead
| | 07:00 | and zoom in and move right
over to the edge of our body.
| | 07:05 | We could switch to another view, but I kind
of want to be fancy and use the snap handles.
| | 07:10 | Now this is the X-axis we're moving on,
and if I go ahead and deselect Y and Z
| | 07:16 | and click and drag in the scene,
you'll notice it's moving up and down.
| | 07:19 | That's because we are in
Object Coordinate System.
| | 07:21 | Let's switch to the World Coordinate
System and now it's going to move on
| | 07:24 | the World's X-axis.
| | 07:27 | So we'll get it right up against the
edge here and let's render that and
| | 07:30 | see what it looks like. Oh.
| | 07:32 | It's kind of hard to see
because it's all dark under there.
| | 07:34 | Let's go ahead and move back, Render.
| | 07:37 | Actually, I think that's looking all right.
| | 07:38 | I know it's little dark for now but we can
tweak it later if we have to, there we go.
| | 07:44 | Okay, that looks petty good.
| | 07:45 | So let's go ahead and move back and now
it's time to create our second engine.
| | 07:52 | All you have to do is close our Engine
null object and create a new Symmetry
| | 07:57 | group and drag and drop our
Engine under the new Symmetry Object.
| | 08:02 | The reason I didn't just drag it in
the first Symmetry Object, well, let me
| | 08:06 | show you what happens.
| | 08:07 | If I drag the Engine right down under
there, notice the other wing has disappeared.
| | 08:12 | So, the Symmetry Object is just
looking for the first object here.
| | 08:15 | So, we created a new one just for our Engine.
| | 08:19 | So, we can go ahead and just rename
our Symmetry objects and we'll be good
| | 08:25 | to go.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Modeling with Booleans| 00:00 |
If you've ever used the Pathfinder in
Illustrator, you're already familiar with
| | 00:04 |
the concept of Booleans, and for that
matter if you've ever used a cookie-cutter
| | 00:08 |
you are familiar with the concept of Booleans.
| | 00:10 |
You are using one shape
to cut out another shape.
| | 00:13 |
So, we'll get started by using a Boolean
process to actually cut the corners out
| | 00:18 |
of the bottom of our cart.
| | 00:20 |
And the reason I want to do that, I
want to actually add these materials.
| | 00:24 |
So, we'll add the Paint on to the
body of the cart and the Glass into the
| | 00:28 |
corners, kind of creating
lights or little portals.
| | 00:31 |
So let's get started by
creating our cookie-cutter.
| | 00:34 |
Hold down Alt or Option and let's
turn off the Visibility of the cart.
| | 00:38 |
And we'll start with the Primitive Cylinder.
| | 00:41 |
With the Cylinder selected in your
Object Manager, let's go down under Object
| | 00:45 |
and make sure to orient this on the +X
.Now we can go ahead and click on our
| | 00:50 |
Z-axis handle and bring cylinder out towards
us and turn the Visibility of the cart back on.
| | 00:55 |
Again, I'm going to hold
Option on my keyboard or Alt.
| | 00:57 |
Now in order to do the process,
all you have to do is make sure the
| | 01:01 |
geometries overlapping.
| | 01:03 |
So drag the cylinder until it's cutting
a little bit of the cart out and let's
| | 01:07 |
drag that over to one side, just so we can see
exactly where these cuts going to take place.
| | 01:16 |
Now I don't want a sharp edge on this cut,
I'd like to round it out a little bit
| | 01:19 |
since everything else on
this model is so smooth.
| | 01:22 |
Easiest way to do that is
to change our cookie-cutter.
| | 01:25 |
So select the cylinder, and in the
Caps section, let's select Fillet.
| | 01:30 |
Now by default, this makes
it really long fillet curve.
| | 01:35 |
And if you do a Boolean with a long
curve like this as the process cuts through
| | 01:43 |
the different faces of geometry,
sometimes you'll end up with some pretty
| | 01:46 |
complicated geometry on the other side.
| | 01:48 |
Let's go ahead and minimize this
by changing the Radius down to 5.
| | 01:54 |
If we zoom in closer here, you can see
now we still have our nice rounded edge,
| | 01:59 |
but it's not can be
crossing so many faces of geometry.
| | 02:02 |
Let's bring the number of Segments
down to 4, a little bit here as well.
| | 02:06 |
Now that we have one side of our
cookie-cutter done, let's make an exact
| | 02:10 |
duplicate on the other side of the cart.
| | 02:12 |
Now since we modeled this cart
exactly on the Z-axis, the Symmetry object
| | 02:17 |
will work beautifully.
| | 02:18 |
Click and hold on your Array object at
the top of the screen and choose Symmetry.
| | 02:23 |
Now we can drag our cylinder into the
Symmetry Objects, and you notice we've
| | 02:27 |
created a copy on the other side.
| | 02:29 |
Now one thing I recommend when you do
a Boolean process is to simplify the
| | 02:33 |
geometry as much as possible.
| | 02:35 |
So right now, what we have is
one cylinder and a Symmetry object.
| | 02:39 |
So with the Symmetry object, Cinema
4D is actually having to create another
| | 02:43 |
process to create this
other object on the other side.
| | 02:47 |
So to simplify that, just select your
Symmetry object and press C to convert it
| | 02:52 |
to an editable object.
| | 02:53 |
Now if we expanded the Null object,
you'll see we have one cylinder object
| | 02:58 |
that's a polygon object that should
make the Boolean process a little bit
| | 03:02 |
easier on the computer.
| | 03:04 |
Now if we expand our Cart Null object,
you notice we have Engine, Wings and the
| | 03:08 |
Cart body that's been smoothed
out with a HyperNURBS object.
| | 03:12 |
So we only really need to use the
cart body to process this Boolean, and
| | 03:18 |
since we have a HyperNURBS object, let's
simplify the situation by making the object editable.
| | 03:23 |
Select your HyperNURBS object and make
sure the Renderer has the same amount of
| | 03:27 |
divisions as the Editor.
| | 03:29 |
This way when we convert it, we are
not going to introduce any new geometry
| | 03:32 |
into our cart body.
| | 03:34 |
Now that we've done that, go ahead and
press C on your keyboard and now our body
| | 03:38 |
is completely editable.
| | 03:39 |
Let's go ahead and create a Boolean object.
| | 03:41 |
I'm going to select Symmetry up at the
top here, so when we create the Boolean
| | 03:45 |
object by clicking and holding on Array
and choosing Boolean it ends up at the
| | 03:49 |
top of our Object Manager.
| | 03:51 |
Now we are ready for our operation.
| | 03:53 |
All we have to do is drag our Symmetry
Object into the Boolean and then drag our
| | 03:57 |
cart body into the Boolean.
| | 04:00 |
You'll notice if we zoom into the scene here,
I'm just going to deselect our cart body.
| | 04:05 |
We have actually
successfully cut out the corners.
| | 04:09 |
So select your Boolean Object and let's
look in the Attribute Editor, what's going on.
| | 04:14 |
The Boolean Type is set to A
subtract B, the top-most object is A and the
| | 04:19 |
second object is B. I typically recommend
selecting Create single object and Hide new edges.
| | 04:27 |
Notice when we select Hide new edges,
all this extra geometry that's been
| | 04:31 |
created is just hidden from view right now.
| | 04:35 |
You go ahead and select Create Phong
breaks at intersections to eliminate
| | 04:38 |
some shading errors.
| | 04:39 |
Now if we go ahead and press Render,
you notice we have a nice clean cut, and
| | 04:44 |
all we have to do now is
actually create the inverse of this cut.
| | 04:49 |
Select your Boolean object hold down Ctrl,
click and drag up to make a duplicate.
| | 04:56 |
Now let's rename our original Boolean
Body and our new one we'll call this Lights.
| | 05:03 |
Now we haven't created the lights yet
because we need to change the Boolean Type.
| | 05:06 |
So change A subtract B into A intersect
B. Now when we go ahead and Render, you
| | 05:12 |
notice we have one smooth piece of geometry.
| | 05:15 |
Minus one, slight issue.
| | 05:17 |
You notice we have some slight
texturing errors that are happening here, but
| | 05:20 |
you'll notice that gets smoothed
out when we apply our materials.
| | 05:23 |
If you look in your Material Manager,
I've created two materials already.
| | 05:27 |
So, we can see what this is
going to look like. Don't worry.
| | 05:29 |
We're going to go more in-depth
with Materials in the chapter solely
| | 05:33 |
dedicated to Materials.
| | 05:35 |
So let's go ahead and drag our Paint
material in the Materials Editor up onto
| | 05:40 |
the cart Body, and go ahead and
drag the Glass up into the Lights area.
| | 05:46 |
Now if we pullback in the scene and
go ahead and render, notice we have
| | 05:50 |
transparent lights in the scene.
| | 05:51 |
If we go ahead and zoom up and rotate
around, you can see with my lighting I can
| | 05:56 |
see specular highlight there, we
have a nice transparent piece of glass.
| | 06:02 |
So I have to admit, when I first
started modeling I tried to make everything
| | 06:05 |
with Booleans, and trust me, I love me
some Booleans, but I must warn you while
| | 06:10 |
they are powerful you can complicate the
geometry of your models pretty quickly.
| | 06:16 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
6. FunctionsDuplicate| 00:00 | Can I just say how excited I
am to share Duplicate with you.
| | 00:03 | Really, I am sure quite a few of you
thought to yourself, Duplicate, that's
| | 00:07 | pretty self-explanatory.
| | 00:09 | But really, you have no idea, with the
Instance objects inside of Duplicate.
| | 00:13 | You can make thousands of copies of
your models, all within the same scene, and
| | 00:17 | it won't bring your computer to its knees.
| | 00:19 | Let's get started by creating a Cube Primitive.
| | 00:22 | Let's change its Size
down to 40 on all dimensions.
| | 00:26 | Now with the Cube selected, go up
under Functions and choose Duplicate.
| | 00:30 | And in the Attribute Editor, you will
notice there are eight copies, and the
| | 00:34 | Clone mode by default is set to Copies.
| | 00:37 | Let's change that to Render Instances.
| | 00:40 | If we had chosen Copies, it would
literally make eight duplicates of the actual
| | 00:43 | geometry of the model and
create eight new models.
| | 00:47 | Now, if you end up creating hundreds or
even thousands of copies, this is going
| | 00:51 | to bring your computer to its knees.
| | 00:53 | So, what you want to do
is choose Render Instances.
| | 00:57 | This way the process really only
processes the original geometry and then uses
| | 01:02 | a completely separate algorithm to
come up with all the Render Instances, and
| | 01:07 | this allows you to create a large
number of copies, and you won't have the
| | 01:12 | problems of extra geometry.
| | 01:15 | So let's go to the mode pull
down menu and choose Linear.
| | 01:19 | And you notice Positions in Enable by default.
| | 01:21 | Let's turn off Y and Z, so the
transformation only happens along this X-axis.
| | 01:27 | Now, let's change the Move to 40, and click
Apply at the bottom of the Attribute window.
| | 01:33 | Now, the reason I chose 40 is
because the size of the Cube was 40.
| | 01:37 | This way when we make the copies, they would
all butt perfectly right up next to each other.
| | 01:42 | If we change the Move to, let's
say, 60, now you notice they are
| | 01:46 | perfectly spaced between each
individual Cube, and there's a little bit
| | 01:49 | of space in between.
| | 01:50 | Now, this is important
because Per Step is enabled.
| | 01:55 | If we deselect Per Step, the 60 unit
move would only be computed between the
| | 02:00 | first and the last Duplicate.
| | 02:03 | So let's turn Per Step back on.
| | 02:05 | You can enable Scale and make
adjustments on each individual axis, but these
| | 02:09 | adjustments happen over
the length of the Duplicates.
| | 02:13 | So let's change the Scale down to 40 on
all the axes, and you notice by the time
| | 02:17 | we get down to the last one, it's at 40%.
| | 02:20 | Also notice, since we actually clicked
Apply the first time, as we have been
| | 02:24 | making these other changes, the update
has been happening in real-time, because
| | 02:28 | we have Realtime Update selected.
| | 02:30 | Now let's take this
Duplicate function up another level.
| | 02:33 | Change the mode from Linear to Along Spline.
| | 02:36 | And we need to create a Spline, so
quickly come to your Spline objects pop
| | 02:40 | up and choose Helix.
| | 02:42 | Let's adjust the Helix settings
so that it points straight up.
| | 02:47 | Change its Plane to XZ in the Attribute
Editor, and let's change its End Radius to 0.
| | 02:54 | This way, as it spirals up, it gets more narrow.
| | 02:58 | Now, reselect your Cube, and notice the
Duplicate function has disappeared. That's okay.
| | 03:03 | If you go back and choose Duplicate
again, it remembers the last settings that
| | 03:08 | you had, and since we had Along Spline
selected, it's waiting for us to drag our Spline in.
| | 03:14 | So go ahead and click, in one motion,
holding down your mouse button, drag and
| | 03:19 | drop the Helix into the Spline drop well.
| | 03:22 | Now we have to go back and click Apply, and
we have our Duplicates moving along the Spline.
| | 03:28 | So let's Enable Scale one more time
and change the Scale back down to 40, and
| | 03:34 | let's increase the number of Copies.
| | 03:35 | You can choose whatever number you like.
| | 03:38 | I am going to choose 65.
| | 03:39 | And here you can see we have created a
pretty interesting shape very quickly.
| | 03:43 | Now, since all the Copies reside in
the Null Object, we can actually texture
| | 03:48 | all the copies as well.
| | 03:49 | Go to your Material Manager
under File, and choose New Material.
| | 03:53 | Let's quickly add a Gradient to this material.
| | 03:55 | In the Attribute Editor, under Color,
go down to the Texture arrow, click
| | 04:00 | and choose Gradient.
| | 04:02 | Now that we have created our Material,
just drag it and drop it up to the
| | 04:05 | Cube_copies, and you notice its
applied the Material to all the copies
| | 04:10 | within the Null Object.
| | 04:11 | Now also notice, the original Cube,
since it's outside of the Null Object, does
| | 04:16 | not have a Texture on it.
| | 04:18 | To add the Texture we could either
make a copy onto our original Cube or just
| | 04:22 | drag it and drop it into the Null Object.
| | 04:25 | Obviously, I have to deselect the
Copies first, so I am just dragging the
| | 04:28 | Cube, and there we go.
| | 04:30 | Now our Cube has the Texture applied.
| | 04:33 | So let's open our Cube_copies Null
Object and select one of the Duplicates.
| | 04:39 | You notice the Render Instance in
the Attribute Manager has the Cube as
| | 04:44 | the Reference Object.
| | 04:46 | Well, let's change the Reference
Object from the Cube to the Leaf that's been
| | 04:51 | sitting in the bottom of our project.
| | 04:53 | If we turn the Leaf visibility back on,
you will notice it's on the origin.
| | 04:57 | Now, let's select the bottom Cube,
scroll up to the top, hold down Shift, and
| | 05:01 | select the top Cube.
| | 05:03 | Notice all 65 instances have been selected.
| | 05:06 | Now to make the change all we have to
do is go back down to our Leaf, drag it
| | 05:10 | and drop it into the Reference Object
well, and you notice now we have Leaves
| | 05:16 | duplicated all along the Spline.
| | 05:19 | We scroll back up to the top and deselect
our Copies, and rotate around the scene here.
| | 05:25 | You notice both the original Cube and
the original Leaf are still visible.
| | 05:29 | So let's open our Cube_copies and turn
off the visibility of the original Cube.
| | 05:36 | If we turn off the visibility of our
Leaf, notice all the Duplicates get
| | 05:39 | turned off as well.
| | 05:41 | So, what we actually have to do is
move the Leaf object by grabbing our Move
| | 05:45 | tool over towards the base of the Spline.
| | 05:48 | And the reason it didn't move the
Leaf to the beginning of the Spline was
| | 05:52 | because we had already completed the
Duplicate function with the Cube object.
| | 05:57 | So anytime you swap it out, you need
to make sure the original object ends up
| | 06:01 | where the first object was.
| | 06:03 | So needless to say, I love the Duplicate
feature, and if you really wanted to go
| | 06:07 | crazy, you could take all the stuff
and group it into one Null Object and
| | 06:11 | Duplicate the Duplicates.
| | 06:13 | Now as I am sure you can imagine, you
can create some pretty dramatic effects
| | 06:16 | using the Duplicate function.
| | 06:18 | And just because I used a still
object to Duplicate this specific example,
| | 06:23 | doesn't mean you can't take an
animated object and Duplicate that as well.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Arrange| 00:00 | So, if you are joining me from the last
movie, you might be thinking yourself,
| | 00:03 | great, now I have a ton of objects in
my scene and what if I want to change
| | 00:07 | how they're laid out.
| | 00:09 | Well, that's where Arrange comes in.
| | 00:10 | We can't go back to Duplicate,
because it'll duplicate our duplicates.
| | 00:15 | So if you have a bunch of objects in
your scene, whether they were created with
| | 00:19 | Duplicate or not, the Arrange
function is really going to be helpful.
| | 00:22 | Let's get started by analyzing our scene.
| | 00:24 | In the upper right corner you'll
notice here, I have a leaf that we had
| | 00:28 | actually created in our NURBS chapter,
and we have a bunch of instances of that
| | 00:35 | leaf that we made copies of.
| | 00:37 | If I select any of the instances, I can, by
all means, position each one individually.
| | 00:43 | But what if we want to change the
layout of all of these rather quickly?
| | 00:47 | Well, if you select all the objects you
want to reposition, so I'll just select
| | 00:51 | all of the cubes, and go up
under Functions and choose Arrange.
| | 00:56 | Now if you look in the Attribute Manager,
you'll notice we have similar options
| | 00:59 | to what we had with Duplicate.
| | 01:01 | We can change these to Linear, so
let's go ahead and change that to Linear.
| | 01:04 | Let me pull the window up here and make an
adjustment to how we want these to move linearly.
| | 01:10 | So let's say, we want them to move not
on Y, but let's move them on X by 50, and
| | 01:18 | click Apply, frame the scene
here, press S on your keyboard.
| | 01:21 | Now you'll notice I've actually
rearranged all the leaves in the scene.
| | 01:26 | Let's change it to Circle, and now as I
make changes, it will constantly update.
| | 01:31 | Since I already did the scale to
the objects before when we created the
| | 01:34 | duplicate copies, that's
why they're scaling now.
| | 01:38 | But let's enable Scale and change it to 300.
| | 01:40 | You notice now they're scaling around over 300.
| | 01:46 | So, as you can see, using
Arrange is pretty straightforward.
| | 01:51 | You just select any of the objects that
you would like to arrange in your scene
| | 01:54 | and go ahead and click Apply.
| | 01:57 | So as I'm looking at the scene, I noticed
I didn't select my original leaf as well.
| | 02:01 | So just to show you that this works,
if you select absolutely everything,
| | 02:05 | let's select our leaf in the bottom, Shift+
Click and select all of the different copies.
| | 02:09 | We'll go back up to our Arrange.
| | 02:11 | If we click New Transform, now notice
they've all moved, but the extra object is
| | 02:18 | now incorporated into the circle.
| | 02:20 | So again, if you want to take
something like this to the next level, you can
| | 02:23 | bounce back and forth between Arrange
and Duplicate and Arrange and Duplicate
| | 02:28 | and just create duplicates of
duplicates and arrangements upon arrangements,
| | 02:33 | anything that your heart desires.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Randomize| 00:00 | Sometimes when you build your scene
using Duplicate or Arrange, you'll end up
| | 00:04 | with something that looks pretty neat.
| | 00:06 | But it's a little too uniform, so
you want to introduce some randomness.
| | 00:10 | Well, that's where Randomize comes in.
| | 00:12 | Let's start by looking at our scene.
| | 00:14 | Expand the Leaf_Copies null object,
and you notice we have our leaf, which we
| | 00:18 | created in the Sweet NURBS video, and
copies of the leaf, and these copies are
| | 00:23 | actually instance objects that
reference the original leaf geometry.
| | 00:28 | So if we want to randomize all of
these differently leaves, we have to select
| | 00:31 | all of the different leaves.
| | 00:31 | So I'm going to click on the first one,
hold down Shift, and click on the last one.
| | 00:35 | Now with all the leaves selected, go
up under Functions and choose Randomize.
| | 00:40 | Now Randomize is kind of
an interesting function.
| | 00:43 | Let me show you what I mean.
| | 00:44 | Let's change this Scale on the X to
40 and the Y to 40, we can leave Z
| | 00:51 | alone, and click Apply.
| | 00:54 | Now you notice it's randomized the
size of that 40% in either direction.
| | 00:59 | So it could have gone up to 140 or
it could have gone down to 40% of what
| | 01:04 | its original size was.
| | 01:05 | Now, you have to be careful when
you're using this, because now that it's
| | 01:09 | computed this transformation, these
are the new dimensions of the object.
| | 01:15 | So, if I click New Transform again.
| | 01:18 | It multiplies out again, and if you
click Reset Values, it only goes back
| | 01:23 | to those original values, based on the
previous time that you would hit New Transform.
| | 01:29 | So basically, Reset Values just resets
to the last setting you had used, before
| | 01:35 | the last time you clicked Randomize.
| | 01:37 | So, don't panic if you end up in
that situation and you haven't quit your
| | 01:40 | application or anything like that, you
can actually keep hitting Undo until you
| | 01:44 | get back to the original state.
| | 01:46 | So let's choose Rotation this time, we'll
have it rotate on X 40 and 40 and click Apply.
| | 01:56 | Now we have our rotation here.
| | 01:58 | If you click the Seed button, notice
it changes the random nature, so you can
| | 02:04 | still have the same parameters, just
choose a slightly different Seed of the
| | 02:09 | last transformation.
| | 02:10 | Well, it's nice that you can be so precise
with the creation and placement of your objects.
| | 02:15 | It's even better to know that you
can interject a little randomness
| | 02:18 | with Randomize.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Transfer| 00:00 | Sometimes you actually just want to
move one object in the scene to be in the
| | 00:05 | place of another object in the scene.
| | 00:07 | So, I just kind of threw together this
scene with a bunch of Leaves and our Cart
| | 00:12 | that we have been modeling.
| | 00:13 | And let's just orbit around here, so you can
see it's sort of flying out of all these Leaves.
| | 00:18 | Now, let's just say, for example, I
want to change the Position and Angle of
| | 00:23 | this Cart to match up with this specific Leaf.
| | 00:28 | Well, first off, if I open my Leaf_
Copies here, I have to scroll through this
| | 00:32 | huge list of Leaves to figure
out exactly which one this is.
| | 00:34 | So, let me show you a neat little shortcut here.
| | 00:36 | If you go up under the View menu, down
here, Scroll to First Active, will scroll
| | 00:41 | you down in your Attribute Manager to
the specific object that you want to swap.
| | 00:47 | Now, this Leaf here is called Cube.43,
because I duplicated a bunch of Cubes and
| | 00:51 | then changed the reference objects.
| | 00:53 | But that's neither here nor there.
| | 00:56 | In order to change the Position of
this object to take the Position of that
| | 01:01 | object, we are going to use Transfer.
| | 01:02 | So, if you go up under your
Functions and choose Transfer, let's read
| | 01:06 | through the options.
| | 01:07 | First thing, it says Transfer To.
| | 01:10 | Well, I don't want this to be
transferred over here, so why don't we start by
| | 01:16 | selecting our Cart, and
go up under Transfer again.
| | 01:19 | We could just click right here in the
recent tools button, and Transfer To.
| | 01:24 | Well, I remember that was Leaf.43,
so let me go down here to 43 and just
| | 01:30 | click-and-drag Cube.43 right
into the Transfer To drop well.
| | 01:35 | Now, what's interesting, I can Move,
I can also Scale, and I can Rotate.
| | 01:40 | Since I have this Scaled the way I like it.
| | 01:42 | Let's go ahead and deselect Scale.
| | 01:44 | But I would like to Move it and Enable Rotation.
| | 01:47 | Go ahead and click Apply.
| | 01:49 | Now you notice the Cart is
occupying the exact system that the Cube is.
| | 01:54 | But it's a little off, and that
has to do with our object axes.
| | 01:59 | If we select Cube.43, and click on the
axes, notice the Z-axis for the Leaf is
| | 02:05 | pointing back towards us, whereas in
the Cart, that's where the Z-axis is
| | 02:11 | pointing, when we actually modeled the Cart.
| | 02:13 | So sometimes when you use this, you
actually have to kind of adjust things after
| | 02:17 | the initial transform has been done.
| | 02:19 | This is actually a relatively easy fix.
| | 02:21 | All we have to do is just grab the
Rotate tool, and we can rotate our model
| | 02:25 | around, until we get it
positioned in the place we would like.
| | 02:31 | I will just move it slightly up
there on the Z, so it takes up the same
| | 02:36 | position, and we can go back down
to 43 and turn off the visibility.
| | 02:43 | Now we have successfully moved
our model from one place to another.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Disconnect and Split| 00:00 | Now, we are starting with the Symmetry
object, so I can show you an example when
| | 00:03 | you want to use Split and/or Disconnect.
| | 00:06 | So if you are not too familiar with
Symmetry, you might want to check out our
| | 00:09 | Symmetry video, but just to kind of
give you an overview, you notice we have a
| | 00:13 | Symmetry object that contains a Capsule.
| | 00:16 | As I move the Capsule around the scene here,
it's mirrored in Symmetry on the other side.
| | 00:20 | If we select our Symmetry object, in
the Attribute Manager, notice the mirror
| | 00:24 | plane runs right along the Z and Y-axis.
| | 00:27 | So what does this actually mean?
| | 00:30 | Well, if I deselect everything in the
scene and try to just click on this other
| | 00:34 | geometry here, you notice it's
actually selecting the original capsule.
| | 00:39 | That's because this doesn't
exist without the Symmetry object.
| | 00:42 | So, if we want this other capsule to
be its own object, we have to convert
| | 00:48 | the Symmetry object.
| | 00:49 | So select Symmetry, go to your Make
Object Editable button, and now you notice
| | 00:54 | we have a Null Object, which, if we
expand, we have one Capsule, which, as you
| | 00:59 | can see, if I grab one of my axis
handles here and slide it around the scene,
| | 01:03 | it's one actual object.
| | 01:05 | So, in the model tool, even when I
select this object, since its part of this
| | 01:10 | object, I am not going to be
able to select this separately.
| | 01:13 | The only way to select this separately is
to go into any one of these other tools.
| | 01:19 | So let's choose the use Polygon tool.
| | 01:21 | Making sure the Capsule is selected
again, let's choose a Rectangle Selection
| | 01:26 | tool, and make sure to
deselect Only Select Visible Elements.
| | 01:29 | This way, when we click-and-drag our
Selection box around the Polygon object,
| | 01:34 | the entire object is selected,
whether we could see the faces or not.
| | 01:38 | Now this is when Split comes into play.
| | 01:40 | Go up under Functions and go down to
choose Split, and you will notice now
| | 01:45 | we have two Capsules.
| | 01:47 | Make sure to switch back to the model
tool, and since we have the top Capsule
| | 01:51 | selected, let's go ahead
and move up on the Y-axis.
| | 01:55 | Now you notice it did keep the
original geometry, but it did create a second
| | 01:59 | Capsule, made up of only the
faces that we had selected.
| | 02:02 | Now, we have a slight issue, since
the Control vertices are over here and
| | 02:06 | our objects over there.
| | 02:07 | So, we are going to use another
command really quickly under Structure
| | 02:09 | called Axis Center.
| | 02:11 | What we want to do is center the
axis to the object we have selected.
| | 02:15 | So, if we click that, now our
object axis is within our object.
| | 02:20 | Now, this video is called Disconnect and Split.
| | 02:23 | So we actually started with
Split, now we need to perform some
| | 02:27 | Disconnect functions.
| | 02:28 | Let's turn off the visibility of our
original geometry and zoom in here so we
| | 02:33 | can see our Capsule.
| | 02:35 | So now, all we have to do to use
Disconnect is select something in our geometry.
| | 02:40 | So, I am just going to go back into our
Polygon tool, and draw a box around an area here.
| | 02:48 | Again, if you rotate around, notice
since I didn't have Only Select Visible
| | 02:52 | Selected, it's selecting the whole thing.
| | 02:54 | So, I will just click once to bring our
Rectangle Selection Option up here, and
| | 02:58 | turn on Only Select Visible
Elements and just select some new Polygons.
| | 03:02 | Now, if I wanted to knock these
Polygons out so I could actually cut a hole in
| | 03:07 | here, but still retain the original polygons.
| | 03:11 | That's when you can use Disconnect.
| | 03:13 | If we choose Disconnect, it's going to
ask me if I should preserve groups or not.
| | 03:18 | Now, if we choose Preserve
Groups, look what happens.
| | 03:22 | It moves this up, but I still have
all these faces grouped together.
| | 03:27 | If I go ahead and try and click on one
face, and move, notice these faces are
| | 03:33 | still stitched together.
| | 03:35 | But it did disconnect that
group of faces from the geometry.
| | 03:40 | So let's go ahead and do this one more time.
| | 03:42 | I am just going to select some more
pieces here, and go up under Functions
| | 03:46 | and choose Disconnect.
| | 03:47 | And this time we will deselect Preserve Groups.
| | 03:50 | When we click OK, you notice
things flattened out in this geometry.
| | 03:54 | If I go to render the scene here,
notice I have all these edges.
| | 03:57 | That's because it disconnected each
individual Polygon, and they are completely
| | 04:00 | separate from each other.
| | 04:01 | Now, since they are all selected,
when I click to drag up, they will all
| | 04:05 | move out as one piece.
| | 04:07 | But if I go ahead and click-and-drag and
just select that group and move it out,
| | 04:11 | now they are completely separate,
because I chose to not preserve groups.
| | 04:16 | Now that we have gone over both
Disconnect and Split, I want you to notice if
| | 04:20 | I reselect our Capsule and go back
into our model tool, all the geometry that
| | 04:25 | we disconnected from our Capsule is still
actually connected as a part of the geometry.
| | 04:32 | If you want to split that
off, you can choose Split.
| | 04:35 | But there is another function we are
going to get to in the next video, but for
| | 04:38 | now, we have thoroughly
covered Disconnect and Split.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Explode Segments| 00:00 | The Explode Segments function is one of
my favorite functions to use, because it
| | 00:04 | helps me separate out
individual elements for my models.
| | 00:07 | So to better illustrate my point, let's
go up and select our Text object in the
| | 00:11 | top of our Object Manager.
| | 00:13 | And you notice in the Attribute
window here, the text is still editable.
| | 00:16 | So we could retype anything,
change the font. You get the idea.
| | 00:20 | Now, the function, Explode Segments,
requires this object to be editable.
| | 00:24 | So, press C on your keyboard
to make this an editable object.
| | 00:29 | You notice now it's a Bezier Spline, and
it's all connected still as one object,
| | 00:34 | if I jump into Object mode, here.
| | 00:36 | Now, if I were in Point mode, I could
go ahead with my Live Selection tool
| | 00:41 | and select individual points of any letter
that I would like to go ahead and separate out.
| | 00:46 | So with all those points selected for X,
let's go up under Functions and choose Split.
| | 00:51 | I want to show you this because
Split works in a similar fashion.
| | 00:55 | It does actually create extra geometry.
| | 00:57 | If I go back into my model tool and
slide this out, you notice when we did
| | 01:03 | Split, it made a copy of the
points that I wanted to break out.
| | 01:07 | But what if I want to
separate out each individual letter?
| | 01:10 | Well, let's go ahead and delete our
Duplicated Spline, by selecting it in
| | 01:14 | the Object Manager and pressing
Delete on your keyboard, and select the
| | 01:18 | Explode Spline object.
| | 01:20 | Now go up under Functions
and choose Explode Segments.
| | 01:23 | And you notice there are automatically
things grouped underneath the Spline object.
| | 01:28 | If we expand that window, now you
notice each individual Spline is broken out,
| | 01:33 | even within the letters, like P, the
inside of the P is one Spline and the
| | 01:37 | outside is another Spline.
| | 01:39 | So as you can see, Explode Segments
works great with Spline objects, but you
| | 01:43 | don't necessarily need to be in Point
mode, as you could see, because we are
| | 01:47 | using the model tool at that specific time.
| | 01:49 | Let's see exactly what it's like
when you explode a Sphere object.
| | 01:54 | Now, the Sphere object, here, is a Polygon.
| | 01:57 | I can tell by the icon up here.
| | 01:59 | If we just went directly to Functions
and chose Explode Segments, we wouldn't
| | 02:03 | really notice much of a difference.
| | 02:05 | Again, that's because this
is a seamless Polygon object.
| | 02:08 | So, what we need to do first is disconnect
all the Polygon objects that make up the Sphere.
| | 02:14 | So select the Sphere, and let's go in
to use our Polygon tool, and then choose
| | 02:18 | our Rectangle Selection tool.
| | 02:20 | Let me rotate around so I can
just select the Polygon Sphere.
| | 02:24 | You want to make sure to deselect Only
Select Visible Elements in the Attributes
| | 02:28 | for your Rectangle Selection tool.
| | 02:29 | Now click and drag a box only around the sphere
and you notice we have all the faces selected.
| | 02:35 | Now we are ready to actually go to our
Functions and choose Disconnect.
| | 02:42 | And make sure to deselect Preserve Groups
so each individual polygon here is now a separate object.
| | 02:48 | Now we're ready to actually for to
our Functions and choose Explode Segments.
| | 02:53 | If you notice under the Sphere now,
each individual Polygon is broken out
| | 02:56 | into its own object.
| | 02:58 | Now, to give you a dramatic example as
to what you could do with each Polygon
| | 03:02 | broken out into a separate object,
let's select our first Sphere child here and
| | 03:08 | hold down Shift, and select our last one.
| | 03:11 | Go to Functions and choose Randomize.
| | 03:14 | What I am doing is just randomizing the
position of each one of these Polygons.
| | 03:19 | So let's just randomize the Move, 50
and 50 on the X and Y, and why not 50 on
| | 03:26 | the Z. Let's do the same thing with
Rotation, 40, 40, and 40, and click
| | 03:32 | Apply, and you notice now we have
exploded each one of these Polygons into
| | 03:39 | its own individual object.
| | 03:41 | Not like you would, but if you did
want to take this one last step further,
| | 03:45 | since you have all the Polygons
selected, you can right-click and always add
| | 03:50 | Extrude and click-and-drag anywhere in
the scene if you wanted to actually add
| | 03:54 | some dimension to your Polygons.
| | 03:58 | So, if you are just trying to create
some interesting random shapes, or really
| | 04:02 | just trying to break out a letter from
your Spline object, the Explode Segments
| | 04:06 | function is a great place to start.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Connect| 00:00 | So really, if you have been following
this chapter, we have been disconnecting,
| | 00:03 | splitting, and even exploding.
| | 00:05 | So sure, I can appreciate the therapy
involved in some good destruction, but
| | 00:10 | really, it's time we start putting
things back together again with Connect.
| | 00:14 | So as you can see here we have a
Spline object with some text called Explode,
| | 00:21 | and let me go ahead and hide the Sphere
now, so you can better see this, and I
| | 00:24 | will bring this forward.
| | 00:25 | If we expand our Spline object, you
will notice each individual Spline,
| | 00:29 | including the insides of the
letters, have all been broken out into
| | 00:33 | individual objects.
| | 00:34 | Well, what if you did this and then
for some reason you decided you wanted to
| | 00:38 | bring it all back together again?
| | 00:40 | Well, that's when Connect comes in.
| | 00:42 | So let's select Spline.3, and
hold down Shift and select Spline.4.
| | 00:47 | What I want to do is combine
these two Splines so they are all one
| | 00:51 | self-contained Spline.
| | 00:52 | If you come up under Objects, with
both Splines connected, you notice we have
| | 00:56 | two different options with Connect:
| | 00:58 | we have Connect and Connect+Delete.
| | 01:00 | If we choose Connect, it just makes
an additional Spline that's combined
| | 01:04 | between both Splines.
| | 01:06 | That's not what I am going for,
so I will just press Delete.
| | 01:09 | And if we select both Splines, you
can come up under your Objects and
| | 01:12 | say Connect+Delete.
| | 01:14 | This way this individual Spline
is the only copy of that letter.
| | 01:19 | Now, if I want to connect the entire
word, just come up and select the top
| | 01:23 | Spline, scroll down, and press Shift
and select the bottom Spine, and you
| | 01:26 | guessed it, come up under Objects.
| | 01:29 | Let's choose Connect+Delete.
| | 01:31 | So even though it's a child of this top
Spline, let's go ahead and drag it out
| | 01:34 | and we can Delete the parent object there.
| | 01:36 | So, if you notice we have now connected
our Spline back into one word for Explode.
| | 01:43 | You can do the same thing
with your other Polygon objects.
| | 01:46 | So let's turn off the visibility of the
Spline object here and select our Sphere.
| | 01:51 | If we open that up, you notice each
individual Polygon is its own thing.
| | 01:55 | I am just going to press S
to center us on the object.
| | 01:59 | Now if we want to reconnect all these
Polygons, we will go through the same function.
| | 02:03 | Select the first Sphere Polygon,
scroll down, hold down Shift, and select the
| | 02:07 | last one, go up under
Objects and choose Connect+Delete.
| | 02:11 | And again, we can drag our child Sphere
object up and Delete the original, and
| | 02:17 | here you notice we have connected all
of these pieces back into one object that
| | 02:24 | I am now sliding around the screen.
| | 02:27 | So, even though this really might look
disconnected in the eyes of the software,
| | 02:31 | it's just one big happy piece again.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Converting modeling objects| 00:01 |
So now that we have gotten through
functions, I can actually jump back to what
| | 00:04 |
we had done using our modeling objects.
| | 00:06 |
To show you what I mean,
let's look in the Objects Manager.
| | 00:09 |
If you select the Wings object here,
you notice it's a Symmetry object.
| | 00:14 |
I know that because of the icon.
| | 00:16 |
If we expand our Symmetry object here
and just select the Loft NURBS, making
| | 00:20 |
sure you have the Move tool
selected and the Polygon tool, if you just
| | 00:24 |
click-and-drag, you notice as I move
one Wing, the other Wing is moving, and
| | 00:30 |
that's because, again, of the Symmetry object.
| | 00:32 |
This can be problematic when you
go to create your animation, because
| | 00:35 |
technically this other
Wing really doesn't exist yet.
| | 00:40 |
We need to actually create geometry for this.
| | 00:43 |
So let's Undo our Move and optimize
this so we can use it for an animation.
| | 00:50 |
The easiest way to do this is to select
the Wings Symmetry object, go up under
| | 00:54 |
Objects and say, Make Editable.
| | 00:56 |
Now you notice we have our Null Object.
| | 00:58 |
If we expand that, you can see our Wings
have been converted into one solid Loft
| | 01:03 |
NURBS object, with two Caps on
either side of the Wings. That's perfect.
| | 01:08 |
Now that that's been changed, let's go
ahead and drag that up in our Object Manager.
| | 01:13 |
If we select our Engines, we can do the
same thing, but just so you can see what
| | 01:17 |
we are dealing with, we have our
Engines in the Symmetry object, and they are
| | 01:21 |
actually made up of an Array
that was created with the Cube.
| | 01:24 |
That's what's creating these Slats.
| | 01:25 |
And then our Engine itself, the Body,
has a Hyper NURBS object over top of it.
| | 01:32 |
So, we have a lot of different things
that we are going to be converting here.
| | 01:35 |
Select the Engines symmetry object and
this time, just press C on your keyboard.
| | 01:39 |
That's the key command to
make an object editable.
| | 01:41 |
Now when we expand the Engines'
Null Object, we have a Sub Null Object
| | 01:47 |
containing our Array, which has all of
the individual Slats and the Cones, and
| | 01:53 |
of course the Engine
Housings, named Smooth_Engine.
| | 01:56 |
So let's expand the Smooth_Engine here,
and let's just drag that up into our
| | 02:02 |
Engines Null Object.
| | 02:03 |
I am just trying to get everything
organized into one specific place.
| | 02:09 |
Notice we have our Cone objects here.
| | 02:11 |
So, what we need to do is actually
separate these Cones, because I want them to
| | 02:15 |
spin, but if I grab my
Rotation handle here, you get it.
| | 02:19 |
That wouldn't really work.
| | 02:20 |
So let me just Undo.
| | 02:22 |
With our Cone selected, let's go ahead
and actually move them back out here, and
| | 02:27 |
we can orbit around the
scene and split these apart.
| | 02:29 |
Just grab our Rectangle Selection
tool, draw a Lasso around the one Cone.
| | 02:36 |
Now I need to switch over to the
Polygon tool and draw the Lasso again.
| | 02:40 |
So, we can actually just
select the individual faces. Okay.
| | 02:43 |
Now with this selected, we can go
up to our Functions and choose Split.
| | 02:49 |
You notice we have new
geometry that's split off here.
| | 02:51 |
If we go ahead and switch back to our
Object tool and Move, we have one of
| | 02:56 |
the Cone separated.
| | 02:57 |
So let's go ahead and call
this LCone for the left Cone.
| | 03:02 |
And we can do that function one more
time, making sure we use the Polygon
| | 03:06 |
tool and drag around the right side of
Polygons, now let's go ahead and right
| | 03:10 |
click and choose Split.
| | 03:14 |
And again, if we choose this Cone,
and grab the Move tool, notice I need to
| | 03:19 |
switch back to my Object
tool again. Sorry about that.
| | 03:22 |
And click-and-drag.
| | 03:24 |
You notice now the Object Axis
for a newly created Cone is on the
| | 03:28 |
completely opposite side.
| | 03:31 |
So first off, let's rename this cone
RCone, because it will be on the right side
| | 03:36 |
of the cart, and we can delete our
original geometry just by selecting it and
| | 03:40 |
pressing Delete on our keyboard.
| | 03:42 |
Now, let's deal with moving the Object Axis.
| | 03:45 |
Sure, I could grab my Object Axis tool
and sit here and drag it around, and try
| | 03:51 |
and make sure it's in the exact
correct position, but there's a faster way.
| | 03:55 |
If you go up under Structure, go to
Axis Center, you can Center the Axis To
| | 04:00 |
whatever you have selected.
| | 04:02 |
So, when we select that, notice the handles
automatically jump over to our other Cone.
| | 04:08 |
So now, with our model tool we can go
ahead and drag the Cones back into place.
| | 04:13 |
But before we do that, let's deal
with this issue of these Arrays.
| | 04:18 |
Notice the geometry.
| | 04:19 |
Let me rotate around the scene here
so you can see a little bit better.
| | 04:22 |
I will go ahead and turn off the
visibility of those Cones, just by clicking
| | 04:27 |
once, twice, and then dragging
down to turn off the visibility.
| | 04:32 |
So as you can see we have a ton of
geometry that's been created, and if I move
| | 04:37 |
any one of these pieces, notice
another piece on the other side is connected.
| | 04:42 |
So, we need to split these apart. Let's Undo.
| | 04:46 |
Now, this is an interesting case,
because if I selected all of these objects and
| | 04:51 |
gone and done a Split on each one,
I would have to be dealing with each
| | 04:55 |
individual Polygon every single Split function.
| | 04:57 |
That will take a long time.
| | 04:59 |
What we are going to do is
actually connect these Polygons.
| | 05:03 |
So select Cube.41, scroll down,
hold down Shift, and click on Cube.1.
| | 05:09 |
Now with all these Polygons selected,
go up to the Objects menu, and instead of
| | 05:14 |
choosing Connect, let's choose Connect+Delete.
| | 05:17 |
This way, all the geometry is
connected into one piece, and then all the
| | 05:21 |
subsequent original source geometry is deleted.
| | 05:24 |
So now, again, if we just click on in
the axis handle, we can bring out the
| | 05:29 |
Arrays, and you can see that we have
successfully merged everything together.
| | 05:34 |
But you guessed it.
| | 05:35 |
We need to do the Split command for the Arrays.
| | 05:39 |
So let's make sure we are using our
Polygon tool and our Rectangle Selection
| | 05:43 |
tool, and let's draw a rectangle
around the far set of Array objects,
| | 05:49 |
right-click, and choose Split.
| | 05:52 |
And let's go ahead and
rename that new geometry RSlats.
| | 05:55 |
We will do that function one more time.
| | 06:01 |
Again, making sure we use the Polygon tool.
| | 06:04 |
Trying a Rectangle selection, right
-click, Split, and rename LSlats.
| | 06:12 |
We can select our original
geometry and press Delete.
| | 06:17 |
Now we have to do the same
function for these Control vertices.
| | 06:21 |
So, go up under Structure,
Axis Center, and Center Axis To.
| | 06:26 |
Do the same thing for RSlats.
| | 06:30 |
Since the Slats are nicely organized
together in this Array Null Object, let's
| | 06:35 |
just rename these Slats, and
we can go ahead and close that.
| | 06:40 |
Because we are going to animate
these Slats later, let's drag their Null
| | 06:44 |
Object out of the Engines group and
make sure it's on its own at the bottom of
| | 06:49 |
our Objects Manager.
| | 06:52 |
Now we have a Null Object with nothing
in it, so let's go ahead and Delete that,
| | 06:57 |
and when we select the Engines, really,
this isn't the full Engine, this is just
| | 07:02 |
the Housing, so let's go
ahead and rename that Housing.
| | 07:06 |
We can turn the visibility
of our Cones back on, just by
| | 07:09 |
clicking-and-dragging down.
| | 07:10 |
And this is just me being me, but I am
going to move the Housing down towards
| | 07:14 |
the bottom, because visually the
Cones being in front, I want to see them
| | 07:18 |
higher in my organization.
| | 07:20 |
Now we can drag the Engine Null Object
up and out of the two other Null Objects,
| | 07:25 |
because these are just
extra and we don't need them.
| | 07:28 |
Select the Cart Null and Delete.
| | 07:29 |
We are almost there.
| | 07:32 |
We have to convert the Body and the Lights.
| | 07:34 |
And I want to keep these separate.
| | 07:36 |
So, go ahead and select the
Body and press C on your keyboard.
| | 07:40 |
We can do the same thing with
Lights, press C on the keyboard.
| | 07:44 |
Notice any selection tags that we had
had in the original geometry has been
| | 07:48 |
translated into the new geometry.
| | 07:50 |
We don't need these anymore, so let's go
ahead and drag a Lasso around them, and
| | 07:54 |
just press Delete on our keyboard.
| | 07:57 |
And just to double check our Wings,
we will open that up, and it looks like
| | 08:00 |
everything is squared away.
| | 08:03 |
And just so our Body and our Lights
are all in one contained object, let's go
| | 08:07 |
ahead and select both, go to Objects
and Group these together, creating a new
| | 08:12 |
Null Object, which we can rename Body.
| | 08:16 |
Let's move back down on the scene
and zoom out, and you notice we need to
| | 08:21 |
actually put our Slats and
the Cones back into the body.
| | 08:25 |
So select the Slats, switch to the 4-
Up View, and if we just pull back in the
| | 08:31 |
overhead view here, you can see the
Control vertices are nowhere near our actual
| | 08:36 |
Engine Slats up here.
| | 08:37 |
So let's expand the Slats Null Object
and we need to do one more axis change.
| | 08:43 |
Since a Null Object isn't actually
geometry itself, we need to do a slightly
| | 08:48 |
different structure function.
| | 08:50 |
So if we select both pieces of
geometry and then go up under Structure and
| | 08:54 |
choose Axis Center, instead of just
doing a normal Axis Center, we want to do
| | 09:00 |
the Center Parent To function.
| | 09:02 |
This way, when we select that
function and then we select the parent, you
| | 09:06 |
notice now all of a sudden the vertices are
centered on one of the pieces over our geometry.
| | 09:13 |
Now again, since this doesn't actually
contain geometry itself, when we did that
| | 09:16 |
function it just kind of
grabbed on to one of the pieces.
| | 09:19 |
So let's just make sure we have the
Slats Null Object selected, and grab our
| | 09:24 |
Object Axis tool and just move the
Control vertices back to the center here.
| | 09:31 |
Now let's switch to the Top View, and
with our model tool selected, we can just
| | 09:36 |
move our Slats back into the Engines here.
| | 09:39 |
Move it back a decent amount, there we go.
| | 09:43 |
So now, let's deal with our Cones.
| | 09:45 |
If you select the LCone, we can go ahead
and just move it back in the scene here.
| | 09:50 |
And let's set its
Position to -190 on the Z-axis.
| | 09:56 |
And we can do the same
thing with the RCone, -190.
| | 09:58 |
And now that they are both perfectly
straight, select one, Shift+Click on the
| | 10:05 |
other, and we can just grab the control
axis and pull it back into the engine.
| | 10:10 |
Let's switch back to our Perspective
View, so we can have a better view and see
| | 10:14 |
exactly how far the Cones are supposed to go in.
| | 10:20 |
So as you can see, when you optimize
your model there is a little bit of
| | 10:24 |
conversion that has to take place, but
with a little hard work, and some Null
| | 10:29 |
Objects, and Axis Center
command, you are good to go.
| | 10:33 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
7. MaterialsExploring material channels| 00:00 | It's really channels that help you build
your materials and here we have a scene
| | 00:05 | built entirely with pre-made materials
that I've found in our Content Browser.
| | 00:09 | Now even though we have the same sphere
in the scene, we have vastly different results,
| | 00:13 | and if you notice, the center
sphere doesn't have anything on it.
| | 00:17 | It just has the normal Phong texture tag.
| | 00:19 | So we're going to create a material to
apply on the sphere, focusing on some of
| | 00:23 | the more key channels
used in our Material Manager.
| | 00:26 | Go down to the Material Manager in
the lower-left corner, click on File and
| | 00:30 | choose New Material.
| | 00:32 | We could edit the texture here in the
Attribute Editor, but I want to open the
| | 00:35 | actual Material Editor.
| | 00:37 | Double-click on your texture in the
lower-left corner and take a look at this
| | 00:43 | list on the left side.
| | 00:44 | These are actually the channels that
make up the material that we're assembling
| | 00:49 | in the upper-left corner.
| | 00:50 | Now just so we can see things better,
right-click in the Preview up there
| | 00:53 | and choose Open Window.
| | 00:56 | If yours opened up a little
smaller, don't sweat it.
| | 00:58 | Just click and drag in the lower
right-hand corner to make it large.
| | 01:03 | So in our Color Channel,
let's look at some of the options.
| | 01:07 | We have a typical RGB slider and
you notice as I change the values,
| | 01:12 | we're just changing the color.
| | 01:14 | We can also adjust the brightness of that color.
| | 01:17 | Notice if I take it down, it
almost goes to complete darkness.
| | 01:20 | So let's drag that all the way to the right.
| | 01:22 | Now underneath you can
actually load up a texture.
| | 01:26 | There are two different kinds of
textures you can create in these channels.
| | 01:29 | The first kind if you click on the
arrow allows you to load an image.
| | 01:33 | So in the Open pop-up window, navigate to
the Texture folder in your Media folder.
| | 01:38 | Let's load the Stripe.tif file.
| | 01:41 | Click Open to open the file and you'll
get this pop up window asking us if we want
| | 01:45 | to copy this file into the
search path of the document.
| | 01:49 | Basically, this file would then be copied
into the same place we're saving the file.
| | 01:54 | This makes it very easy to organize
all your textures when you go to move
| | 01:57 | your project between machines, but
since we're organized right now, let's go
| | 02:00 | ahead and just click No.
| | 02:02 | So now you notice the white with the
black stripe in the center has now been
| | 02:06 | loaded onto our material.
| | 02:08 | Down underneath we can change whether this is
an Additive mode or Subtract mode or Multiply.
| | 02:14 | Let's switch it to Add and now you
notice the black stripe is allowing the color
| | 02:18 | underneath to show through.
| | 02:20 | If we adjust our Mix Strength here,
you notice we can adjust how the texture
| | 02:25 | mixes with the color.
| | 02:26 | Now there is another way you can
add a texture as opposed to an image.
| | 02:30 | If you click on the arrow and click
Clear, let's go ahead and click on arrow
| | 02:33 | this time and you notice below,
we can add different effects.
| | 02:38 | Let's choose Gradient and I know
it's kind of subtle right now but if you
| | 02:42 | click the button that's titled
Gradient to the right of the arrow button,
| | 02:46 | we have Gradient options.
| | 02:48 | So sure enough, if you click and drag
on this little color chip here, we can
| | 02:52 | move how the color is mapped in the image.
| | 02:54 | I am not seeing this update very
brightly because we lowered the Mix.
| | 02:58 | But if you notice, I'm giving the
appearance of some type of indentation here
| | 03:03 | just by creating such a sharp
angle between the two colors.
| | 03:07 | To go back to our Color
channels, click the Back arrow in the
| | 03:09 | upper-right corner.
| | 03:11 | Now we've created a procedural texture,
meaning Cinema 4D is computing this
| | 03:16 | gradient to apply to the texture.
| | 03:19 | And if you don't like any of these,
click on the arrow and choose Clear.
| | 03:23 | So the other default option is Specular.
| | 03:25 | This actually really helps
accentuate the 3D nature of your models.
| | 03:30 | If we go ahead and adjust the Width here,
you notice we can make the object look
| | 03:34 | a little more shiny, if we make it
really narrow or we can make the object look
| | 03:38 | a little more washed out and a
little more dull in my opinion.
| | 03:42 | You can adjust the Height, which is
just the brightness of that highlight.
| | 03:45 | Go ahead and feel free to click
through all the different sliders to see the
| | 03:49 | different textures that you can
create in the Specular channel.
| | 03:52 | Now another channel used
quite often is called Luminance.
| | 03:55 | If we go ahead and select that, notice
the texture washes out to complete white.
| | 03:59 | This is actually controlling
the brightness of your material.
| | 04:02 | So if we drag that down to the left
and slowly increase the brightness, here
| | 04:07 | you notice it's starting to washout the image
because we're creating luminance with white.
| | 04:11 | If we go ahead and adjust our color,
you could click in the Color window and
| | 04:16 | adjust the slider this way, and just
click and drag to choose a specific color.
| | 04:22 | Now that's tinted our material a little
bit, but I think it looks kind of cool.
| | 04:26 | If you want to move colors between
channels, there is a really neat shortcut.
| | 04:30 | All you do is click and drag in the Color well.
| | 04:33 | So let's go ahead and drag it up to the
Color channel and now when we get over
| | 04:37 | the other color, we can drop it and
now you notice we have the same color
| | 04:41 | between our Color channel
and our Luminance channel.
| | 04:43 | Now just to add a little bit more detail,
we're going to add two more channels.
| | 04:48 | Transparency. If you go ahead and make
sure that's active, you notice by default
| | 04:52 | it's set to 100% Brightness.
| | 04:55 | Let's drag that down to around 36-37%.
| | 04:59 | Now we can sort of see
through the texture a little bit.
| | 05:01 | The next option I want to look at is Reflection.
| | 05:04 | Let's enable Reflection and you
notice now it's giving us the simulation of
| | 05:08 | reflection here, because it doesn't know the
exact objects that are in the scene to simulate.
| | 05:14 | So it's showing us how the reflection
would actually operate on this material
| | 05:18 | with the default reflection.
| | 05:19 | So drag the Brightness down a little
bit and if you choose Additive, I've found
| | 05:24 | sometimes that really
accentuates the different reflections.
| | 05:28 | Now that we have our materials set,
we'll go ahead and close the Material Editor
| | 05:31 | and drag and drop the material
right onto our center sphere.
| | 05:36 | If you go ahead and render the scene,
notice now the material has been applied.
| | 05:40 | And you notice with Luminance selected,
the green is really starting to bounce
| | 05:44 | off of the other objects
that have reflection set up.
| | 05:48 | It's kind of brightening up the scene.
| | 05:50 | Now I know you're thinking to
yourself, these other textures look pretty
| | 05:53 | interesting, how do we create those?
| | 05:55 | Well, it's actually pretty simple.
| | 05:56 | All you do is go to the Window pull-
down menu and choose Content Browser.
| | 06:01 | Now in window, you'll notice
we have a bunch of Presets.
| | 06:03 | Navigate to the Cinema 4D preset and
you'll notice we have a folder called Materials.
| | 06:07 | If you double-click the Materials folder,
there will be a list of more options.
| | 06:12 | Let's go ahead and open the basic
folder right now and you can see here all the
| | 06:16 | different materials that I
use as an example in the scene.
| | 06:19 | Let me scroll down here, so
you can see the Wood material.
| | 06:23 | Now if you'd like to add one of these
materials to your project, go ahead and
| | 06:26 | double-click on it and it
automatically loads into the Material Manager.
| | 06:30 | Another way to add the material is to
literally just drag and drop it right on
| | 06:34 | the Content Browser right onto the
other material you'd like to replace.
| | 06:39 | Now when we render our scene, you
can see we have our new material.
| | 06:42 | So as you can see, materials can get
pretty deep pretty quickly and we've just
| | 06:47 | barely scratched the surface, but I
hope you're inspired to go ahead and
| | 06:51 | manipulate your own materials in the
different channels of the Material Editor.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Shaders| 00:00 | Now the default material we've been
using up to this point in the course is
| | 00:03 | pretty powerful for creating
different textures in Cinema 4D.
| | 00:06 | But wait, you've guessed it,
there is more. Yeah, shaders.
| | 00:10 | And actually shaders are just like materials.
| | 00:13 | They just have different channel
options optimized for specific uses.
| | 00:18 | So as you can see here
there is a shader for wood.
| | 00:21 | There is one for kind of
tarnished metals where you can mix two
| | 00:24 | different channels together.
| | 00:26 | We have one that's great for shading
biology type animations, marble shader and glass.
| | 00:33 | And I made the effort of actually
making sure to leave the names of the
| | 00:37 | different shaders down
here, so you can see them.
| | 00:39 | But just so you know, as I am clicking
through the different shaders, when you
| | 00:42 | have one selected, for example the
Floor here, it's just says Material because
| | 00:46 | that's the default material.
| | 00:48 | If I click on Banzi here,
we can see it's the Banzi shader.
| | 00:51 | So your shaders always listed in the
upper-left corner of your Attribute window.
| | 00:56 | Now just so you know where all these
shaders came from, go to your Window and
| | 01:00 | open the Content Browser.
| | 01:02 | As you can see I've been kind of
snooping around already, but just so you know
| | 01:05 | where we are, in Presets under CINEMA 4D,
in your Materials, you notice they'll
| | 01:11 | actually have folders named after
each one of these different shaders.
| | 01:15 | So if I open the Danel folder, you can
tell that it's actually great at creating
| | 01:19 | different metallic-like textures.
| | 01:23 | Feel free to browse through the
different folders and see all the different
| | 01:26 | pre-built shaders that
already are in your Content Browser.
| | 01:29 | If you want to use any of them, all
you have to do is just drag them down
| | 01:33 | into your Layer Manager or you can
drag them right onto your object or just
| | 01:37 | simply double-click.
| | 01:40 | So let's close the Content Browser for
right now, and let's select the Banzi shader.
| | 01:46 | Notice we have an option for Wood.
| | 01:47 | If we go to the Wood channel, there
are specific settings like Ring Intensity
| | 01:52 | and Core Variance and Variance Scale.
| | 01:54 | You get the general idea.
| | 01:55 | You can go in here and tweak things,
and with the shader, you can make some
| | 01:59 | pretty realistic looking wood.
| | 02:01 | Now in order to make these changes and
see them update in the scene, you can
| | 02:05 | always go up under your Display
Settings and open Enhanced OpenGL and go
| | 02:09 | through the different settings.
| | 02:10 | But since that's different for
everybody's computer, what I'm going to do is
| | 02:14 | click and hold on the Render and
Picture Viewer option and choose
| | 02:17 | Interactive Render Region.
| | 02:19 | Notice it creates a box in
the center of your scene.
| | 02:21 | You can grab any of the corners here
to focus on a specific area, and if you
| | 02:26 | grab an edge, it will allow
you to reposition the window.
| | 02:30 | This little right arrow here will allow
you to increase the level of detail as
| | 02:34 | you make your changes.
| | 02:35 | So let's go ahead and change
some of the settings in the wood.
| | 02:38 | The first thing I'm going to do is
double-click on this color chip here and
| | 02:41 | change the color of the wood,
so it looks a little more green.
| | 02:45 | And we can go ahead and change the
brown by double-clicking it and let's go
| | 02:48 | ahead and make that sort
of a white and click OK.
| | 02:51 | Now we have a very green and it almost looks
like an apple core, but you get the general idea.
| | 02:56 | I can see this update with
the Interactive Render Region.
| | 02:59 | Let's go ahead and move our window over
to our second sphere over from the right.
| | 03:04 | This one is the Mabel shader and as
you can tell, it has a lot of different
| | 03:08 | channels that you can tweak.
| | 03:10 | This is great for creating surfaces
that have a lot of veins, like marble.
| | 03:15 | So let's go ahead and change the Veining
Turbulence by clicking on this button here.
| | 03:19 | Feel free to choose any of the
different options and you'll notice now it's
| | 03:22 | updated back to our shader.
| | 03:27 | So I encourage you to go through each
one of the different shaders yourself and
| | 03:30 | adjust some of the options to see what
kind of new materials you can create.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using Bump and Displacement maps| 00:00 | One of the great things about textures
is the fact that it actually saves you a
| | 00:03 | lot of time in the modeling process.
| | 00:06 | To show what I mean, we're actually
going to check out two different channels:
| | 00:09 | a Bump channel and a Displacement channel.
| | 00:11 | And as you can see in the lower-left
corner, I have been nice enough to create
| | 00:15 | two different materials, one for our
Bump map and one for our Displacement map.
| | 00:19 | So, let's double click the Bump
map and open the Material Editor.
| | 00:23 | In the upper-left corner, I'm going
to go ahead and right-click and open a
| | 00:26 | window, so you can have a little
larger view as to what I'm doing.
| | 00:31 | Let's jump right to the Bump map, go
ahead and make sure it's activated and then
| | 00:36 | right next to the word Texture,
click the arrow and choose Noise.
| | 00:41 | This is a procedural texture meaning that
the software is actually creating the noise.
| | 00:46 | So the really nice thing about this
is it won't pixelate when you move your
| | 00:49 | camera really close to the object.
| | 00:51 | Also, if you click on the button right
next to arrow titled Noise, we get to
| | 00:56 | adjust all the different
options used to create this Bump map.
| | 01:00 | We have control over the Color, the Seed,
the Noise, the Space and just see now
| | 01:05 | the Noise shader isn't tied
specifically to the Bump channel.
| | 01:08 | You can load this into
any of the other channels.
| | 01:10 | Now, since we're on the Bump
channel, it doesn't make sense to change
| | 01:13 | either color, because actually its
black-and-white value is going to
| | 01:16 | determine the amount of the Bump.
| | 01:19 | I just wanted to jump unto this section
so you could see we can actually change
| | 01:23 | the type of Noise for this Bump map.
| | 01:26 | So if you click on the button for Noise,
notice we have all these different options.
| | 01:30 | Go ahead and choose Gaseous and now we
get a texture that looks a little bit
| | 01:35 | more like an Orange.
| | 01:37 | So, I think it would be kind of cool if we
change this material to look like an Orange.
| | 01:40 | So go back to the Color channel
and adjust the Color up to orange.
| | 01:44 | I am going to drag the slider over here
and then click an orange area and click OK.
| | 01:50 | Now, we have an orange color.
| | 01:53 | If I wanted to accentuate things, I
can go ahead and load the Noise back into
| | 01:57 | the Color channel as well but really,
this is starting to look pretty good.
| | 02:01 | Now, there's an interesting thing with
Bump channels and that's the fact that
| | 02:05 | it's actually not distorting the geometry.
| | 02:08 | To show you exactly what I mean,
let's go ahead and close our Preview and
| | 02:11 | Material window right now, and drag the
Bump material right on to our objects.
| | 02:17 | Let's zoom in really close and render the scene.
| | 02:22 | Now even though it looks like there's
some distortion on the material, this is
| | 02:27 | actually turning out to look really nice.
| | 02:29 | If you look really closely on the
edges here, it's actually smooth and there
| | 02:33 | isn't all of this ridging in the Bump.
| | 02:36 | That's because Bump maps just
give the illusion of geometry.
| | 02:40 | So, if you actually want to distort
something in three-dimensional space and
| | 02:44 | save on your modeling time, you can
actually go to the Displacement channel.
| | 02:48 | So, let's double-click on the
Displacement material, at the bottom of
| | 02:51 | your Material Manager and instead of going
to Bump this time, let's go to Displacement.
| | 02:57 | Make sure it's active and load a
texture into the Texture channel.
| | 03:02 | Again, we'll just go ahead and load Noise in.
| | 03:05 | Now, this is looking pretty neat.
| | 03:07 | Let's go ahead and apply this on to our sphere.
| | 03:11 | Before we do that, I just want to delete
the old texture and now we can drag the
| | 03:15 | Displacement texture onto the sphere.
| | 03:19 | Now, we can't see anything.
| | 03:20 | Let's go ahead and render and you'll
notice this doesn't look quite like this
| | 03:26 | and that's because you need to actually
enable Sub-Polygon Displacement. Because
| | 03:31 | the Displacement map is displacing as
much as it can based on the amount of
| | 03:35 | geometry we have, but we need to
actually divide up each one of the individual
| | 03:39 | polygons to get the bumps to be this bumpy.
| | 03:42 | So, go ahead and select Sub-Polygon
Displacement and now let's re-render our scene
| | 03:46 | and you'll notice now this is
significantly bumpier than our original Bump map.
| | 03:53 | The downside to this is the fact that
this does significantly increase the
| | 03:57 | render time but as you can see,
I didn't have to go into any Modeling section.
| | 04:02 | All we did is make
adjustments in our Material Editor.
| | 04:05 | So, remember, when you go to add details
to your textures, you can add Bump maps.
| | 04:09 | You can add Displacement maps.
| | 04:10 | Just remember it's a little bit of a
gamble with you render times whether you
| | 04:13 | use Bumps or Displacements.
| | 04:15 | A lot of times Bumps are just great.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Applying materials to objects caps| 00:00 | Now, it's kind of interesting when you
create models that use Caps because there
| | 00:04 | are actually some hidden letters that
you can type into the Selection area to
| | 00:08 | have the material only apply to
specific areas of your geometry.
| | 00:12 | So, to show you what I'm talking about,
let's go ahead and look at our model first.
| | 00:16 | So, I'll just render this scene,
so you can see I have some text.
| | 00:21 | If we select our extrude object here
at the top called Text, you'll notice I
| | 00:25 | have caps with the Fillet Cap
and it's a 2-Step Fillet Cap.
| | 00:29 | Now, if I select on InnerOut, you'll notice
that has Caps as well, as well as OuterGreen.
| | 00:35 | Now what I would like to do is find
a material that could go inside of this
| | 00:40 | specific outline here.
| | 00:42 | So let's go to our Content Browse.
Under Window, go to Content Browser and
| | 00:47 | let's look for a material to apply.
| | 00:48 | Just go to CINEMA 4D, under Materials
and let's look in the Basic section.
| | 00:54 | Now, I would like to add some kind of
bark in here and I think there's some
| | 00:59 | appear towards the top. Yeah, bark.
| | 01:01 | Okay!
| | 01:02 | So to add our bark to our object, all
we have to do is just drag it down into
| | 01:06 | the Material Manager and let's
minimize our Content Browser.
| | 01:10 | Now, if we want this to apply just to
the outside of the green area, go ahead
| | 01:14 | and drag your bark right up onto the
OuterGreen object and just so things update
| | 01:20 | as I continue to make changes, let's
turn on our Interactive Render Region and
| | 01:24 | you'll notice this is not quite
exactly what I was looking for.
| | 01:28 | So the first thing you want to check is
how the textures are projected on your
| | 01:32 | geometry and this is UV mapping.
| | 01:34 | So let's change that to Flat since this
is relatively flat, and we just turn up
| | 01:38 | the detail here, so we
can see a little bit better.
| | 01:41 | Sure enough that's the texture but I'm
not getting that outer area selected.
| | 01:46 | That's because textures have an order
of priority that work from right to left.
| | 01:50 | So for example if I select the bark
texture and drag it to the left on the other side
| | 01:55 | of the green texture, now you'll notice
we only have the green texture in the scene.
| | 02:00 | So, how do we fix this problem?
| | 02:02 | Well, there are a couple of different ways.
| | 02:05 | Since we have the green object on
outside, I want to put in the code for the
| | 02:08 | selection for the outer area.
| | 02:11 | In the Attribute Manager under Texture
Tag, there's a Selection area and the Cap
| | 02:16 | areas are actually known as R1 and R2.
| | 02:20 | So, if we type capital R1, and hit Enter,
now the green is only applied to the
| | 02:27 | rounding that's happening on
the front side of the model.
| | 02:31 | Notice if I rotate around here, I still
have the bark coming through the other side.
| | 02:37 | If I rotate up here a little bit more, you
can see it's kind of stretching over the edge.
| | 02:41 | That's fine.
| | 02:41 | I'm never going to see that side of
the texture but we could change the bark
| | 02:45 | texture to cubic to help deal with that.
| | 02:48 | Let's go ahead and come back here now.
| | 02:50 | Now I would like to actually apply the same
bark texture to the inside of our letters.
| | 02:56 | So select the Text extruder up at the
top and you'll notice we have Caps,
| | 03:00 | a Fillet Cap and an End Cap, and since
I want to use the same bark texture,
| | 03:05 | just drag-and-drop the
bark texture up to the text.
| | 03:08 | Now again we're having the
same issue with the projection.
| | 03:10 | So let's change that to Flat and it
actually replaced all of the text and
| | 03:16 | that's not what I want.
| | 03:18 | To have a texture only cover the front
face, what you have to do is type C1.
| | 03:25 | Now, there's R1 and R2, and C1 and C2.
| | 03:29 | Anytime it's 1, it's the front side object.
| | 03:32 | Anytime it's 2, it's the
back side of the object.
| | 03:35 | So now once I go ahead and click
anywhere else in the scene, you'll see the
| | 03:39 | white outline pop right
back out again from my text.
| | 03:43 | So, we can turn Interactive Render
Region off and go ahead and render our scene.
| | 03:48 | And as you can see, I still have
my two caps on my text but now we've
| | 03:53 | successfully map the bark on the front
face of the text and on the front face
| | 03:59 | of our outer stroke.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Applying materials to a complete model| 00:00 | We're going to start this video
actually with the project that we created at
| | 00:04 | the end of Chapter 3.
| | 00:06 | I want to show you what happens when you
create a polygon model with selections,
| | 00:09 | and then try and smooth
that out with HyperNURBS.
| | 00:12 | Add a HyperNURBS object and drag-and-
drop the body of the cart up into the
| | 00:17 | HyperNURBS object and look at what happens.
| | 00:21 | As the geometry got smoothed out, so
did the textures, and you notice the
| | 00:25 | color that used to occupy the lip is now
getting stretched out with the rest of the geometry.
| | 00:30 | This usually works great for
character animation because you don't want
| | 00:33 | your texture slipping.
| | 00:35 | But for this, we basically have
to go back and redo our selections.
| | 00:40 | So let's get started by
jumping into our project.
| | 00:43 | So as you can see, we have our cart
smoothed out with the wings and the engine.
| | 00:46 | Let's go ahead and apply some
textures to the rest of the cart.
| | 00:50 | We'll start by selecting the
polygons for the stripes in the body.
| | 00:54 | So expand the Body null object
and select the body of the cart.
| | 00:57 | Let's rotate around and
zoom in just a little bit.
| | 01:01 | Until we select the entire loop, let's go up
to our selection area and add Loop Selection.
| | 01:09 | Once you have a vertical selection, just hold
down Shift and click again, and click again.
| | 01:13 | I think that's about right, we have 3 here.
| | 01:17 | Let's leave a space of 2, and Shift
+Click, Shift+Click, Shift+Click.
| | 01:23 | So if we orbit around here, you can see
we have two stripes evenly spaced and
| | 01:30 | now we're ready to save our selection.
| | 01:33 | Select the body, go up under
Selection, and choose Set Selection.
| | 01:38 | Let's name our selection in
the Attribute Editor, under Name.
| | 01:41 | Let's call it Stripes.
| | 01:47 | Let's reselect the body, and now we
can select just the polygons on the lip.
| | 01:53 | I'm going to zoom in a
little bit more, and here we go.
| | 02:00 | Click, Shift+Click and Shift+Click.
| | 02:04 | Now let's do one more. Shift+Click.
| | 02:07 | Okay, now that we have those polygons set,
go up under Selection and set the selection.
| | 02:14 | Let's rename our selection
in the Attribute Editor, Lip.
| | 02:17 | Now that we have our selections, let's
pull back out here and rotate around so
| | 02:21 | we can add our stripes.
| | 02:23 | I want the material to have the
same properties as the red paint.
| | 02:26 | So let's just duplicate the paint by
holding down Ctrl, clicking on the paint,
| | 02:30 | and dragging to the right.
| | 02:33 | Now we can rename this paint,
and we'll call it Stripes.
| | 02:37 | Now I want to show you something, even
though I have Stripes selected here, and
| | 02:41 | that's what's in my Attribute Editor,
I still have a white box around the Paint.
| | 02:44 | That's just letting me know that I have
the Body geometry selected, and any of
| | 02:49 | the materials that are applied to the
Body geometry would have a white box
| | 02:52 | around them in the Material Editor.
| | 02:54 | But fear not. Stripes is selected and
I know that's what's in the Attribute
| | 02:58 | Editor because it's labeled over here, Stripes.
| | 03:01 | So let's go ahead and just
change the color to black.
| | 03:04 | Click in the Color well and choose OK.
| | 03:06 | Now that we have our black stripes, all
we have to do is drag-and-drop them up
| | 03:11 | to the body of our cart.
| | 03:13 | Now the order of operation
for textures is right-to-left.
| | 03:17 | So since we've placed the black
texture on top of the cart, when I render the scene,
| | 03:21 | you'll notice the
cart is completely black.
| | 03:23 | While I think that looks pretty cool,
I still want that to only apply to the stripes.
| | 03:28 | So, let's find our Stripes selection by
clicking on the little orange triangle
| | 03:33 | right here, and you
notice there is the selection.
| | 03:37 | So let's select our material, and in
the Tag section, let's click-and-drag the
| | 03:42 | left orange triangle down here
into the Selection drop well.
| | 03:46 | Now, if we render our scene, you'll
notice we have the stripes applied to our cart.
| | 03:51 | I'm going to hold off on texturing lip
right now, because I want to choose a
| | 03:55 | texture for the wings.
| | 03:57 | We can do that in the Content Browser.
| | 03:59 | If we go up under Window and choose
Content Browser, you can tell I've already
| | 04:05 | been kind of poking around in here, but
to show you where we are, if you go to
| | 04:09 | the Presets area under Materials,
there are a whole host of options.
| | 04:14 | Now, I want something kind of shiny and
metallic, so I'll go to the Danel section.
| | 04:21 | I think the aluminum will work perfectly.
| | 04:23 | So let's just drag that
down into our Material Manager.
| | 04:27 | We can minimize our Content Browser for now.
| | 04:29 | So we're gong to apply the aluminum
material to the lip and the wings.
| | 04:34 | So let's get started by applying it
to the lip, since the Body geometry is
| | 04:38 | already open here in the Attribute Editor.
| | 04:41 | Go ahead and select the body and now drag
the aluminum material up to the geometry.
| | 04:46 | Now, under Selection, let's drag the
right selection down into the drop well.
| | 04:52 | Now when we render, you'llnotice we have
this cool kind of stripe around the lip.
| | 04:58 | Let's check out our wings.
| | 04:59 | Notice we have a Loft NURBS object, so
let's go ahead and apply the aluminum to
| | 05:03 | the Loft NURBS object.
| | 05:04 | Now let's render the scene one more time.
| | 05:07 | That's looking pretty cool.
Let me go ahead and pull back here.
| | 05:10 | Now, just in case you want to see how
the material process is working, as you're
| | 05:14 | making changes, you can always turn on
the Interactive Render Region by clicking
| | 05:18 | up here in the center and
choosing Interactive Render Region.
| | 05:22 | I find it a little distracting for right now,
so I'm just going to go ahead and turn that off.
| | 05:27 | Let's apply the same red
paint texture to the engine.
| | 05:30 | If we expand our Engine option here,
you notice we have the Engine Housing and
| | 05:34 | then we have the Cones.
| | 05:36 | So let's apply the red paint to the Housing.
| | 05:39 | Since we already have the red paint
down here in our Material Manager,
| | 05:42 | all we have to do is just drag-and-
drop it right up to the Housing.
| | 05:47 | If we render our scene, now we
have the red paint on the engines.
| | 05:52 | Now, the Cones, I can't quite make up my
mind whether I want to do black or aluminum.
| | 05:55 | I don't know. Let's try black.
| | 05:57 | Click-and-drag the black texture right up to
one cone and drag it up to the other cone.
| | 06:04 | Now when we hit Render, you'll notice we
have our cart textured and ready to rock.
| | 06:11 | Now it's looking really good, and I
think I'm pretty much done, but we can add a
| | 06:16 | texture to the slats.
| | 06:17 | So let's go ahead and select our slats
here, and if we expand the null object,
| | 06:22 | you notice there are a lot of
cubes that make up these slats.
| | 06:25 | Now I don't have to texture each individual one.
| | 06:28 | We can just leave the null object, and let's drag
-and-drop the aluminum right up onto the slats.
| | 06:34 | Now, if I go ahead and hit
Render, we can check out the scene.
| | 06:38 | I really don't like that very much, so
let's select the texture and just hit Delete.
| | 06:43 | We'll leave it with the default gray Phong tag.
| | 06:45 | I think that works just fine for now.
| | 06:47 | So let's render the
scene and take one more look.
| | 06:51 | Now, you may have been going through
this entire process, going wait, wait,
| | 06:54 | it's really dark. I can't see the
top of wings and all that other stuff.
| | 06:58 | Now typically, I like to add a light set up
as I'm applying my textures and materials.
| | 07:02 | But since we really hadn't got into
lights too much, I didn't do that.
| | 07:07 | But just in case you want to do that,
if we go to the Content Browser
| | 07:10 | under Window > Content Browser,
there is a default Light Setup right
| | 07:16 | above our Material folder.
| | 07:18 | The one I like to choose most
often is 3 Point Light Stage.
| | 07:22 | The only little gotcha with this you
have to watch out, when I render the scene here,
| | 07:26 | you'll notice it's
adding a yellow tint to everything.
| | 07:29 | So if you expand the Light null object
and choose FX_light, under General,
| | 07:34 | we could change this color back
to white and be good to go.
| | 07:41 | So as you can see, we can see our cart,
fully textured, and we're ready to go.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Placing textures with the Texture tool| 00:00 |
Now, I'm sure there'll be a time
where you'll create a graphic in another
| | 00:04 |
application that you'd like to
load up and apply to your model.
| | 00:06 |
Well, you're in luck.
| | 00:07 |
We're going to map a number graphic
onto one of the wings of this jet cart.
| | 00:13 |
So if you go to the Material Manager,
under File, let's create a new material.
| | 00:18 |
In the Attribute Manager, go to the
Color section and we'll load a graphic
| | 00:22 |
into the Texture area.
| | 00:23 |
Click the arrow button and choose Load Image.
| | 00:26 |
Make sure to navigate to the Texture
folder in your Media folder in your
| | 00:29 |
Exercise Files, and we'll load 44.tif.
| | 00:33 |
When you click OK, you'll see this
contextual menu pop-up, asking us if we want
| | 00:37 |
save a copy into the same folder
where we're saving our project file.
| | 00:41 |
If you're relatively organized,
you don't have to do this.
| | 00:44 |
But if you might be sending your project out
to a bunch of other people, you might want to.
| | 00:48 |
I'm just going to click No for now,
and you can see our graphic has been
| | 00:51 |
loaded into the material.
| | 00:53 |
Now, let's apply the material to the wing.
| | 00:56 |
In your Material Manager, click-and-
drag the new material up to your Loft NURBS
| | 01:00 |
object in the Wings null object.
| | 01:03 |
Now you can see immediately the
texture has been applied, but unfortunately,
| | 01:06 |
there is white that's
overridden the aluminum underneath.
| | 01:09 |
Just to double-check, let's go ahead and
render, and you can see that's what's happened.
| | 01:13 |
Again, this is just because of the
order of operations with textures. They work
| | 01:17 |
from the right and work their way to the left.
| | 01:19 |
Now this graphic was created with an
Alpha channel, which is actually a channel
| | 01:23 |
you can see in the
Channels palette of Photoshop.
| | 01:25 |
But it determines the
transparency of your graphic.
| | 01:29 |
This graphic did have an Alpha channel.
| | 01:31 |
So let's activate the Alpha channel
by double-clicking the material in
| | 01:35 |
the Materials Manager.
| | 01:36 |
Now we have the Material Editor open.
In the Color channel, make sure you
| | 01:40 |
see the texture thumbnail and just click-and-
drag on that thumbnail down to the Alpha channel.
| | 01:46 |
You notice the Material Editor will
switch and all you have to do is drag that
| | 01:50 |
graphic right into the
button next to the texture.
| | 01:53 |
Now, our Alpha channel has actually been
loaded, but it hasn't been applied yet.
| | 01:58 |
If you notice, we can still see the white.
| | 01:59 |
So select the Alpha channel to apply it.
| | 02:02 |
Now you can see a thumbnail
of your Alpha channel as well.
| | 02:06 |
Let's go ahead and close the window.
| | 02:08 |
Now, I'm getting this strange
error where I can't see the wings.
| | 02:11 |
If you go up under Display and enable
Stacked Materials, you should be able to
| | 02:16 |
get your wings back.
| | 02:17 |
We've successfully loaded the material,
but you can see it's not really mapped
| | 02:20 |
properly onto the geometry.
| | 02:22 |
If we go back to our Object Manager
and select the material, the Attribute
| | 02:26 |
Manager should change.
| | 02:28 |
Now in the Tag section, you should
notice a pull-down for Projection.
| | 02:32 |
Let's change UV Mapping to Flat.
| | 02:35 |
This way the texture is actually
trying to be projected flat as opposed to
| | 02:39 |
wrapped all the way around all the geometry.
| | 02:42 |
We can fix this by
interactively adjusting the texture.
| | 02:44 |
Let's select our Loft NURBS
and grab the Texture Axis tool.
| | 02:48 |
And you notice here we have controls
over where the texture is being projected.
| | 02:54 |
So I'd just like the texture to be
on this wing, so let's drag it over.
| | 02:57 |
Now, there is an adjustment we need to
make, because this number is being tiled.
| | 03:01 |
So select the Texture tag and deselect Tile.
| | 03:04 |
Now, we only have one copy of the texture,
and as you can see, it's trying to project.
| | 03:09 |
Let me rotate around the scene here.
| | 03:11 |
The scene is rotating slowly just because I
have the Stacked Textures feature turned on.
| | 03:15 |
Okay, you can see it's trying
to project down the Z axis here.
| | 03:19 |
So all we really need to do
is rotate our Texture axis.
| | 03:22 |
So if we grab our Rotation tool, we can
click on the Rotation band to adjust the
| | 03:28 |
actual projection itself.
| | 03:29 |
I'm going to hold down Shift as I adjust
this to make sure I'm exactly at 90 degrees.
| | 03:35 |
Now if we rotate around here, you can see
our number has been applied to the wing.
| | 03:39 |
Let me do a preview render here, and
you can see that looks pretty good,
| | 03:43 |
although I'd like the number
to face the other direction.
| | 03:46 |
So we'll just go back and reselect our
Loft NURBS and click on the Axis band
| | 03:51 |
and rotate our texture around.
| | 03:54 |
Again, I'm going to hold
down Shift so it snaps to 180.
| | 03:58 |
So let's rotate back
around and render the scene.
| | 04:01 |
So you can see you can easily
create textures in other applications and
| | 04:05 |
apply them in CINEMA 4D.
| | 04:07 |
If you have to do some tweaking,
you can use the Texture tool.
| | 04:10 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Animated textures| 00:00 | So as you can see, we have some
geometry here in the middle of the scene.
| | 00:03 | Let me go ahead and render it.
| | 00:06 | What we're going to do instead of
having this big pillowy white outline of
| | 00:10 | geometry, we're going to replace that
geometry with fog so it looks kind of interesting.
| | 00:16 | So, the way we'll do that is go to
the Materials Manager and choose a
| | 00:20 | new shader called Fog.
| | 00:24 | Now Fog is a shader that will apply
fog to whatever geometry you apply it to.
| | 00:29 | Now the neat thing about it,
it actually can animate.
| | 00:32 | So, to see what it looks like, just
drag the Fog shader right on top of the
| | 00:38 | OuterGreen material.
| | 00:41 | Now, it's replaced the material and if
we go ahead and render one frame,
| | 00:46 | you'll see it doesn't
look very dramatic quite yet.
| | 00:49 | That's because we have
the default settings here.
| | 00:52 | So, first thing, let's change the
Type to Exponential. What this does,
| | 00:56 | it decreases the fog intensity along the y-axis.
| | 01:01 | So, it just gives a little bit more
variance when we adjust the Turbulence.
| | 01:06 | So let's bring the Turbulence up to around 45.
| | 01:10 | Now you can see in our Preview window
that things have changed a little bit.
| | 01:14 | Now just so we can see what's going on,
let's go and turn on our Interactive
| | 01:18 | Render Region here and crank up the detail,
just so we can see that fog a little bit better.
| | 01:24 | I know it might be kind of hard to see, but
you can there's dark areas and light areas.
| | 01:28 | You might be thinking to yourself, how
do I deal with this when I want to see
| | 01:32 | how it actually animates?
| | 01:34 | There are a couple of
different things you can do.
| | 01:36 | The first thing, if you go to the Material
itself and right-click right on top of the icon.
| | 01:45 | First off, let's open a new window.
| | 01:48 | Now, with that new window open, if
yours isn't large like this, go ahead and
| | 01:52 | just drag it out so it's a little larger.
| | 01:55 | Go ahead and right-click
again and choose Animate.
| | 01:58 | Now you'll see a red box pop-up,
and that's just letting you know it's
| | 02:01 | loading frames into render.
| | 02:03 | Now we can tell our Fog Shader
has actually started animating.
| | 02:08 | So, this is looking pretty neat.
| | 02:09 | But let's crank up the thickness of our fog.
| | 02:12 | So, go ahead and change
the Thickness number to 300.
| | 02:15 | Now to animate this again, we go ahead and
right-click on our preview and click Animate.
| | 02:22 | Again, it's going to load up, and then
we can see it's actually moving around.
| | 02:27 | So, now that we've seen a basic preview in our
thumbnail, let's get a preview in our project.
| | 02:35 | Go ahead and click-and-hold on your
Picture Viewer render, and go down to the
| | 02:39 | bottom and choose Make Preview.
| | 02:42 | We want to make sure we use a Full
Render in the Preview Mode, so it
| | 02:45 | renders full resolution.
| | 02:47 | But we don't have to render
the entire size of our project.
| | 02:50 | So we'll leave our Image Size at 320.
| | 02:53 | If you're on a PC, obviously, you
could choose AVI as opposed to QuickTime,
| | 02:57 | and if you click your Options button here,
you can choose a different kind of compressor.
| | 03:02 | Let's go ahead and click OK.
| | 03:04 | You notice in the bottom left here,
I'm getting an update letting me know how
| | 03:08 | the calculation is going. Okay.
| | 03:12 | Now we have the Picture Viewer open,
and to play our render all we have to do
| | 03:16 | is press Play on the Play button, and
you notice we have our fog animating in
| | 03:20 | the background of our recycle title.
| | 03:25 | So, as you can see, this is just a taste
of what we are going to be getting into.
| | 03:29 | Obviously, we'll go more into
animation in our chapter on animation and
| | 03:33 | definitely more about
rendering in our rendering chapter.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
8. Lights and CamerasGetting started with lights| 00:00 | Good lighting can go a long way to
make the difference between a decent
| | 00:03 | scene and an amazing one.
| | 00:05 | Now before we add new lights to the scene,
I want to show you something kind of important.
| | 00:10 | If you go into your Render Settings and
go to the Options section, notice there
| | 00:14 | is this option for Auto Light.
| | 00:16 | If we turn that off, and then render
the scene, notice the scene goes black.
| | 00:21 | I'm seeing a little bit of refraction
and stuff here, and that just has to
| | 00:24 | do with our textures.
| | 00:25 | But the important point I want to show you.
| | 00:28 | Without Auto Light On,
the entire scene goes black.
| | 00:32 | So later on, notice when we add a light,
everything else will go dark other than
| | 00:36 | that first light we just added.
| | 00:38 | Now, let's explore some different kind of
lights by adding some lights to this cart.
| | 00:43 | If you notice next to the Add
Array Object, there is a Light object.
| | 00:46 | If you click-and-hold, you can see we
have a whole bunch of options for lighting.
| | 00:51 | Let's go ahead and tear this off, and
drag it into the top of our interface,
| | 00:55 | just so we have it for reference.
| | 00:57 | I am just going to rescale my window.
| | 01:00 | Let's get started by
actually adding a Floor object.
| | 01:04 | If you click the Floor button here,
notice a floor has been added and while it
| | 01:08 | may look like it's just getting cut
off right here at the edge, when you
| | 01:11 | actually go to render,
the floor goes on infinitely.
| | 01:14 | As you can tell, it's gray.
| | 01:16 | Now, if we rotate around the scene here,
you'll see this blue line and this
| | 01:20 | blue line in the viewport is just
letting me know where the horizon is.
| | 01:23 | Again, when I render, you can see the
floor goes all the way out to the horizon.
| | 01:27 | All right, that's enough about the floor.
| | 01:29 | So, let's go ahead and drag that to
the bottom of our Object Manager, just
| | 01:32 | because I like to keep
things in general order there.
| | 01:36 | Let's get started by adding a light.
| | 01:38 | In the upper left corner, click Light.
| | 01:41 | As you can see, the outside
of the scene has gone dark.
| | 01:44 | Since the light was made at the origin,
and so was the model, there are all
| | 01:48 | kinds of stuff bouncing around.
| | 01:49 | Because it's little confused.
| | 01:51 | It's in the middle of some geometry.
| | 01:52 | So, let's go ahead and pull
the light up into the scene here.
| | 01:57 | If we rotate around, we can just
click on the axes and pull the light
| | 02:02 | out towards the front.
| | 02:03 | I'm going to drag it over
towards the left side here.
| | 02:06 | Now if you notice, with the light
controls, I can see it in the scene, but when
| | 02:11 | we actually go to render, the light is
not visible, we're just seeing how the
| | 02:15 | light is lighting the scene.
| | 02:17 | Also, you might notice there aren't any shadows.
| | 02:20 | Well, if we go to our Attribute
Manager, our Light object has a couple of
| | 02:24 | different channels we can adjust.
| | 02:25 | There is one specifically for Shadows, but
we're not going to get into that right now.
| | 02:29 | Let's look at the General section.
| | 02:31 | First off, we can change the color of the light.
| | 02:33 | So, let's click in here and
make the light a little bit warmer.
| | 02:36 | We'll make it a nice
bright yellow and click on that.
| | 02:40 | Notice when we change our light and go
ahead and render again, you can see
| | 02:44 | it has drastically changed the scene.
| | 02:46 | Now, it's kind of not pleasing to me.
| | 02:48 | So, I'm going to change the light back to white.
| | 02:51 | There is a pulldown for Type. Just
because we created the light using the Light
| | 02:55 | button up here doesn't mean we can't
change the type of light we created.
| | 02:59 | For example, in the pulldown menu, see I
have Spot Light and I also Spot Light up here.
| | 03:05 | So, if I like this position, I could
easily just choose Spot Light and
| | 03:08 | you notice I get this wireframe here
showing me the spread and the direction of the
| | 03:12 | new Spot Light I just created.
| | 03:15 | If we grab the Rotation tool, we can go
ahead and rotate our light around, just
| | 03:19 | like any other object.
| | 03:21 | Select the light in the Object Manager,
so we can see it in the Attribute window.
| | 03:26 | If you notice the Intensity is set
to 100, so let's go ahead and drag the
| | 03:29 | Intensity of that Spot Light down.
| | 03:31 | Now, I want to make some change to
the width of this light, so let's go to
| | 03:35 | Details and you notice we
have Inner Angle and Outer Angle.
| | 03:39 | So, let's change that Outer Angle to 90,
and now you notice we have a nice soft
| | 03:45 | diffused Spot Light.
| | 03:47 | As you can see, there are a bunch of
other options under the Spot Light, but
| | 03:49 | I don't want to stick specifically with
the Spot Light, so let's add another
| | 03:53 | light to the scene.
| | 03:54 | Let's add an Area Light.
| | 03:55 | If we go ahead and click the Area Light, let's
grab our Move tool and move it up in the scene.
| | 04:01 | As you can see, the Area Light
generates a big soft amount of light.
| | 04:06 | It's very similar to the first light that
we added, which is called an Omni Light.
| | 04:11 | The difference with the area light is its
brightness and how it affects the specularity.
| | 04:15 | It makes a little sharper specularity
highlight than the typical Area Light.
| | 04:20 | Now, the closer you move the light to
the object, the more vibrant and the more
| | 04:25 | accentuated the different
details are going to appear.
| | 04:28 | I know it's hard to see, but there
is actually a specular highlight here.
| | 04:31 | Let me go ahead and render it, and you
can see I've got a specular highlight
| | 04:35 | right around the edge here and
then on the back section of our model.
| | 04:40 | If I take this light and move it way
back and render the scene here, you can
| | 04:46 | see I have that same specularity, but
it's not quite as bright and accentuated.
| | 04:51 | Notice you can choose different
shapes for the Area Light under Detail.
| | 04:55 | By default, its set up for Rectangle,
but you could choose a Disc or even a
| | 05:01 | Sphere to adjust that light.
| | 05:03 | Notice with the Sphere,
I get a slightly different effect.
| | 05:06 | Feel free to click through the
different options and see how that light has
| | 05:11 | changed the lighting of your scene.
| | 05:14 | Now let's deactivate both of these lights
and add one more light, the Infinite Light.
| | 05:20 | If you go ahead and check that,
notice no matter where I move this light in
| | 05:24 | relation to the model,
nothing changes with that lighting.
| | 05:29 | And the reason this is happening,
the Infinite Light is just lighting in a
| | 05:33 | direction and since it goes on
to infinity, there is no falloff.
| | 05:38 | So, if you want to adjust an Infinite
Light, the only way to really make an
| | 05:42 | adjustment is to change the
direction that it's pointing.
| | 05:46 | So, if I change the angle here, even
though the light is on the other side of
| | 05:50 | the object, you can see here it's
changing how that object is lit, again
| | 05:57 | because it's just an Infinite Light.
| | 06:00 | So, that was just a very quick tour
into lights, but I hope you're as inspired
| | 06:04 | as I was the first time I saw lights
in a 3D project, because it seems to
| | 06:09 | bring everything to life.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Getting started with cameras| 00:00 | Working with cameras in CINEMA 4D can
be a lot of fun, because it allows you to
| | 00:05 | act like your own director.
| | 00:07 | You can literally have control over
every single element of the camera, from the
| | 00:12 | lens to the position. You name it.
| | 00:15 | So let's get started by creating a camera,
and then we'll switch our view to see
| | 00:20 | what things look like through that camera.
| | 00:21 | So to create a camera, go to the Light
pop-up menu and click-and-hold, and you
| | 00:26 | notice we have a Target Camera and a Camera.
| | 00:29 | Let's just choose Camera for right now.
| | 00:32 | You notice we get this green line
that's going around the edge here.
| | 00:36 | Let's pull back so I can
show you what's happening.
| | 00:39 | As you can see, we actually have a
camera that's been created in the scene.
| | 00:44 | It was created at the exact position
where we were when we-- this is actually
| | 00:50 | really helpful when you go through animation.
| | 00:52 | To view what we're seeing in the
camera, you can switch to the Camera View
| | 00:57 | relatively quickly and
easily a couple of different ways.
| | 01:00 | The first way is to go up to the
Camera section in our viewport and click on
| | 01:04 | Cameras, go to Scene Cameras and choose Camera.
| | 01:09 | So now you notice we've automatically
jumped into the view from that Camera.
| | 01:13 | Now, so it doesn't have quite the
generic name. I'll just call this something
| | 01:18 | little less generic like Camera 1.
| | 01:20 | You can have multiple cameras in your scene.
| | 01:22 | This is really neat, because it allows
you to animate all this different cameras
| | 01:25 | and you can render out all those
different scenes and then go edit your project
| | 01:30 | in another application.
| | 01:32 | So while viewing through the camera,
let's look at the different ways we
| | 01:34 | can navigate our scene.
| | 01:36 | First off, we can just move in and
out and orbit around, but if you notice,
| | 01:41 | when we orbit around, it's actually
orbiting around the axis of the camera,
| | 01:44 | whereas in the past we'd always been
orbiting around the center point of the
| | 01:49 | World or the origin.
| | 01:51 | Well, if you want to change the rotation,
in the Attribute Editor for the camera
| | 01:55 | at the bottom down here,
there is a pull-down for Rotation.
| | 01:57 | Go and change Default to World.
| | 02:01 | Now when we orbit around our scene, you
notice we're orbiting around the World.
| | 02:05 | This is probably a little
bit more familiar to you.
| | 02:07 | Now you don't have to be in the Camera
View to actually move the camera around.
| | 02:12 | You can switch to view from another
camera by going back up under the Cameras
| | 02:16 | menu and choosing Editor Camera.
| | 02:18 | Now we'll jump back to the last
view we had before we switched to
| | 02:22 | viewing through the camera.
| | 02:24 | Now going to this Cameras pulldown
menu is nice and easy, but you can actually
| | 02:28 | switch back and forth a little bit
more quickly using this little button in
| | 02:31 | your Object Manager.
| | 02:32 | If you go ahead and select it,
you switch to the Camera View.
| | 02:35 | Then if you deselect it by clicking on it,
now we've switched back to the Editor View.
| | 02:40 | So now that we're back in our Edit View,
let's pull back in the scene and look
| | 02:44 | at the actual camera controls themselves.
| | 02:46 | Notice it's just like any
other object in the scene.
| | 02:49 | As I move around, I'm actually seeing
a graphic representation as to what the
| | 02:54 | camera will be seeing.
| | 02:55 | So you can just move it around by
clicking on the axis handles, or you can
| | 03:00 | grab your Rotation tool and rotate around
and make adjustments to your camera that way.
| | 03:06 | Now, there is another way you can
animate your camera using a Target Camera.
| | 03:10 | You can make your camera a child
of whatever object you're animating.
| | 03:15 | But we're going to get into all that stuff a
little while later in the Animation chapter.
| | 03:19 | For right now, just we're going to see
how you can position things on the screen.
| | 03:22 | Now I'm just going to undo the last few
views of the camera and jump back into
| | 03:26 | the Camera View to show you another
reason why I love working with cameras.
| | 03:31 | Go ahead and position your camera
relatively close to the JetCart.
| | 03:36 | Now a lot of times I'll have clients
that ask me to create really powerful fun
| | 03:41 | graphics and work with text a lot,
where they want the graphics to kind of
| | 03:45 | be distorted in larger than life.
| | 03:47 | Well, rather than trying to distort the
graphics in the traditional view, I just
| | 03:52 | create a camera and change its focal length.
| | 03:55 | So select the camera in the Object
Manager, go down to Focal Length.
| | 03:59 | This number does actually
correspond to typical lens sizes.
| | 04:02 | So if I wanted to go to a wide-angle
lens like 15 mm, I'll just change the
| | 04:07 | Focal Length to 15.
| | 04:10 | Now since the camera is at such a wide angle,
it appears as if the camera has moved back.
| | 04:15 | But if we just jump out really quickly
in the scene, you notice as I pull back here,
| | 04:20 | now I just have a much larger
viewing angle, but a more shallow depth.
| | 04:24 | So let's switch back to the camera and
just pull back in close to our object.
| | 04:30 | Now, it's kind of hard to see, but if
you orbit around, not below floor,
| | 04:34 | we're actually getting some
distortion to this geometry.
| | 04:38 | If we go ahead and change that down to
let's say 12 and zoom back up, I think
| | 04:42 | you can see a more accentuated version of that.
| | 04:44 | Now you want to be real careful, position
your cameras really close to your geometry.
| | 04:50 | Because if you haven't loaded in
high-resolution textures, or created a
| | 04:54 | really high-resolution model,
sometimes you can actually start to see the
| | 04:58 | geometry if you get too close.
| | 05:00 | So I encourage you to go play with
the Focal Length and Aperture Width and
| | 05:03 | Field of View of your camera, just so
you can see some of the different ways
| | 05:07 | you can view your geometry.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Volumetric lights| 00:00 | Now we covered the basics of lights,
but Volumetric Lights, they just kind of
| | 00:04 | take things up a notch.
| | 00:06 | I know I've said that a lot, but
we're going to create a pretty neat effect
| | 00:08 | using Volumetric Lights.
| | 00:10 | So let's add a Spot Light to our scene.
| | 00:12 | Go to the Add Light button at the top,
click-and-hold and choose Spot Light.
| | 00:17 | Now we'll just pull the Spot Light back
a little bit and I'll rotate around the
| | 00:23 | scene here, and just pull back a
second here, so we can see things.
| | 00:28 | Let's rotate our Spot Light.
| | 00:30 | Now I want to increase the angle of
this cone, so I'm going to switch to the
| | 00:34 | Model tool, and that will
turn on our interactive handles.
| | 00:37 | So if we grab one of the edge handles here,
we can make the width of the Spot Light change.
| | 00:43 | Now that we've changed the
width, let's render a preview.
| | 00:47 | And you notice it's lighting up the cart,
but I don't actually see the light itself.
| | 00:53 | So let's select the Spot
Light and turn on Visible Light.
| | 00:56 | Go down to the Visible Light parameter,
click on the pull-down and choose Visible.
| | 01:01 | Now when we render, notice we can actually
see the light coming and hitting our cart.
| | 01:06 | Now that looks pretty neat, but
let's change a few more settings.
| | 01:08 | I want to show you what happens when
you really crank up the Spot Light.
| | 01:12 | Let's grab the center point of
the Spot Light here and drag out.
| | 01:16 | Now to show you what this is
doing, in the Visibility section,
| | 01:19 | notice that Outer Distance is 862.
| | 01:21 | If I drag this out, now the
Outer Distance is changing.
| | 01:25 | So we've changed the
Outer Distance of our light.
| | 01:27 | If we go ahead and render, now you
can see it's a much more broad light.
| | 01:32 | Now this looks pretty interesting, but you
notice there is no variance in the light.
| | 01:36 | It's just sort of blasting out
everywhere, and it's not really considering any
| | 01:40 | of the geometry in creating any
shadows or anything interesting like that.
| | 01:45 | So let's go back to the General
settings and change Visible Light from
| | 01:48 | Visible to Volumetric.
| | 01:50 | Now render the scene and
let's see what going on.
| | 01:53 | Look, we have some striations here
and some shadowing that's happening.
| | 01:56 | Notice it's not just
blasting straight through the cart.
| | 02:00 | This is a lot more interesting.
| | 02:02 | But of course there are more
settings we have to explore.
| | 02:04 | So let's change Visible Light from
Volumetric to Inverse Volumetric and see what happens.
| | 02:11 | When we render the scene, check it out.
| | 02:13 | Now we're not seeing any
of the light beforehand.
| | 02:15 | We're just seeing the light afterwards.
| | 02:17 | This is a really cool way to achieve
different special effects, because we can
| | 02:21 | add Noise to Volumetric Light.
| | 02:24 | So let's jump to the Noise
section and turn Noise on.
| | 02:29 | Choose Visibility and
just quick render the scene.
| | 02:32 | I know it's kind of hard to see
here, so let's increase the Contrast.
| | 02:37 | Crank that up to about
200%, and now let's render.
| | 02:42 | You can see it's kind of
coming out a little bit more.
| | 02:45 | Let's go back to the General settings
of our light and change the Intensity up
| | 02:48 | to around something like 400.
| | 02:51 | Now when we render the scene,
it really looks like it's almost kind of
| | 02:54 | bursting in the flames.
| | 02:56 | Now there is one more
setting I want to show you in this.
| | 02:58 | If you select No
Illumination, look what happens.
| | 03:02 | When we render the scene, notice we're
not going to get special illumination on
| | 03:06 | the outside of the cart.
| | 03:07 | It's just only coming through the
areas where the light is shining through.
| | 03:11 | So let's go ahead and rotate
around the scene and render this.
| | 03:15 | And as you can see, we've
achieved kind of a really cool effect.
| | 03:19 | If we really want to take it another step,
we could add a light to the engine,
| | 03:22 | another light to the engine
and do the Inverse Volumetric with
| | 03:26 | No Illumination, and it really looked like
this is smoking its way down into the atmosphere.
| | 03:33 | Now I've got one more little example.
| | 03:35 | Go up to your Object Manager and
let's turn on the Shatter object.
| | 03:38 | And you might remember this project
from our Explode Segments video in
| | 03:42 | the Functions chapter.
| | 03:44 | Let's bring it up to the top of the screen.
| | 03:46 | Take this Shatter object and add some
Volumetric Lights to it, and see what
| | 03:51 | you can come up with.
| | 03:52 | We can turn off our JetCart.
| | 03:55 | So just move our Spot Light up, so
it intersects with the Shatter object.
| | 04:04 | Now let's zoom in a little bit closer.
| | 04:07 | So I don't know about you,
but I think that's pretty cool.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using the Exclude feature with lights| 00:00 | Sometimes when you create lights, you
want them to affect certain things in the
| | 00:04 | scene and not other things in the scene.
| | 00:06 | That's when Exclude comes into play.
| | 00:09 | So to show you what I'm talking about,
let's add some lights to the scene.
| | 00:12 | Let's add two lights.
| | 00:14 | We'll drag one up and over to the side, okay.
| | 00:19 | Then drag our other light up
and down to the other side.
| | 00:25 | So, let's say for example, I really like how
this light is lighting up the side of the cart.
| | 00:30 | If we render the scene here, we have
this really bright hotspot, which is
| | 00:34 | distracting from the model itself.
| | 00:37 | What I want to do is have
the Floor ignore the light.
| | 00:42 | If you select the light you'd like to
Exclude, if you go to the Scene channel,
| | 00:47 | notice the Mode by default is set to
Exclude, and now it has a big empty box
| | 00:53 | where we can drag our
object that we'd like to exclude.
| | 00:56 | So let's click on the
Floor and drag it into Objects.
| | 01:00 | Now it doesn't look like anything has
changed in the scene, but if we hit the
| | 01:03 | Render button, now
you'll notice no more hotspot.
| | 01:06 | But the side of the cart is still nicely lit.
| | 01:09 | Now you could also do the opposite.
If we change the Mode to Include, now when
| | 01:14 | we render the scene, notice the
light is only illuminating the Floor and
| | 01:19 | ignoring what's happening with the cart.
| | 01:22 | So whether you want to Include or
Exclude, you might want to check the Scene
| | 01:26 | Settings in your Light object.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating and adjusting shadows| 00:00 | Shadows are an excellent way
to add a little bit more detail.
| | 00:04 | Well for that matter, a lot of detail
to your scene and as you can see here,
| | 00:09 | we have our Floor and our
JetCart and I have two lights.
| | 00:13 | So, the light I want to manipulate
is Light.1 and let's go to the General
| | 00:19 | section under Light.1 and enable Shadows.
| | 00:23 | If you notice, we have
three different shadow options.
| | 00:27 | Let's choose the first one and render the scene.
| | 00:29 | So, you can see with Shadow Maps to Soft,
I get a nice soft edge on my shadow.
| | 00:36 | Now this is pretty drastic coming from
this angle, because my light's way over here.
| | 00:41 | Typically, I'd try and compensate for this
problem by putting a light on the other side.
| | 00:45 | But that's for another time.
| | 00:47 | Let's go ahead and keep
going through the Shadow options.
| | 00:50 | The next option is Raytraced (Hard).
| | 00:53 | If you go ahead and render that one,
notice now we have a really harsh shadow.
| | 00:58 | Then the last one is probably the most
realistic option and that's called the Area shadow.
| | 01:02 | If we go ahead and enable that, notice
it takes considerably longer to render.
| | 01:08 | Now, the fact that this is actually
getting a little pixilated has to do with
| | 01:11 | the detail we're providing within the shadow.
| | 01:14 | Now, let's go into the Shadow channel and
look at some of the more specific results.
| | 01:18 | Transparency is really important if
you are lighting a scene when you have
| | 01:21 | transparent objects, like glass.
| | 01:24 | That way with a glass object, its
transparency will be taken into consideration
| | 01:29 | during the computation of the shadow.
| | 01:31 | Now to fix the graininess of the
shadow, we need to up our Minimum Samples.
| | 01:35 | Let's go ahead and double it to 16
and re-render the scene, and let's see
| | 01:38 | what that looks like.
| | 01:40 | It's very minimal, but they're actually
slightly softer and we could crank
| | 01:44 | this up to 50 or 100, but each time
you increase this number, it comes at the
| | 01:48 | cost in terms of rendering speed.
| | 01:50 | Now, we can also adjust the density,
which is how dark the shadow is.
| | 01:54 | Notice it's kind of pitch black underneath here.
| | 01:56 | So, let's change the density down
to around 50 and re-render the scene.
| | 02:00 | So, as you can see, adding shadows
can definitely help your projects look a
| | 02:06 | little bit more realistic.
| | 02:08 | Just always keep in mind that any of
these options can come at the cost of
| | 02:12 | your rendering time.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using target lights and target cameras| 00:00 | Just so you know, any light or
camera can be a target light or camera.
| | 00:03 | Cinema 4D just makes it easy with the
presets in our Light pop-up palette at
| | 00:07 | the top of the page.
| | 00:09 | Go ahead and click on the Add Light
object button and you'll notice we have a
| | 00:13 | Target Camera and a Target Light.
| | 00:15 | Now, both of these function in the same fashion.
| | 00:17 | So, when I teach you one, you should be
able to apply those principles to the other.
| | 00:21 | Let's choose Target Camera and
you'll notice by default the Target Camera
| | 00:25 | doesn't assume the same view
that we have in the Viewer.
| | 00:29 | It's automatically by default
placed in this position you see here.
| | 00:33 | So, if you want to reposition your
camera, all you have to do is just click on
| | 00:36 | the different control vertices
and we will move around the scene.
| | 00:39 | Now notice as I try and move the
camera around the scene, it's tied to this
| | 00:44 | specific area here and
that's called the Camera Target.
| | 00:47 | If we select the Camera Target in our
Object Manager and move it up in the scene
| | 00:51 | a little bit, here you can see no
matter where I move this Target Object,
| | 00:55 | the camera is going to go ahead and follow.
| | 00:57 | This makes the creation of complex
camera moves a lot easier, because you can
| | 01:01 | tie the target to the position of the
object you'd like the camera follow.
| | 01:06 | Let's create a really low angle of view
and animate the cart, so we get a really
| | 01:09 | interesting, dramatic shot.
| | 01:11 | Let's get started by
positioning the Camera Target.
| | 01:13 | There is a neat shortcut I want to show you.
| | 01:15 | Go ahead and just drag the target anywhere
else in the scene, kind of out of the way.
| | 01:21 | Now, if you take the Camera Target and
drag-and-drop it right down into your
| | 01:25 | JetCart, it's now become the child of
the JetCart and with the Camera Target
| | 01:29 | selected, if we change the coordinates
to 0, 0, 0, and notice now the target is
| | 01:36 | not at the origin of our scene.
| | 01:38 | It's actually in the same place as
the control vertices of the JetCart.
| | 01:42 | If we select the JetCart, notice the
control vertices don't move because they're
| | 01:46 | now in the exact same place.
| | 01:49 | Also, since the Camera Target is the
child of the JetCart, if we select our
| | 01:53 | JetCart, making sure we are in Object
Mode with the Move tool, and just go
| | 01:58 | ahead and move the cart around, notice
now the Camera Target is going to move
| | 02:02 | anywhere in the scene where the cart is.
| | 02:05 | So, let's create that dramatic
angle by repositioning the camera.
| | 02:09 | If we select the Camera in the Object
Manager, notice we know this is the Target
| | 02:13 | Camera, because it has a target tag
that's over here on the right-hand side.
| | 02:17 | So, now that we understand that,
just go ahead and click-and-drag down to
| | 02:21 | position our camera in the scene.
| | 02:23 | Now, I'm having a hard time
seeing exactly where my camera is.
| | 02:26 | So I am just going to switch to 4-up
view really quickly and then move out in
| | 02:30 | the scene so I can see exactly where I am.
| | 02:32 | Let's go ahead and rotate the camera
around the scene and just move it in
| | 02:36 | a little bit closer.
| | 02:38 | Notice I get the preview window of the
camera, so I can get a general idea as to
| | 02:42 | what it's seeing. I think the Camera
Target is a little low, so let's select the
| | 02:46 | Camera Target and just move it up in the scene.
| | 02:49 | Now to switch to the view of the camera,
let's switch back to Perspective view here,
| | 02:53 | and select this little
button right next to the Camera Target.
| | 02:57 | That will automatically
switch us to the Camera view.
| | 03:00 | So, it's looking pretty good, but
let's just jump back out really quickly,
| | 03:03 | select our camera and just move it
down a little lower in the scene.
| | 03:08 | Switch back to the view,
I think that's a little bit better.
| | 03:11 | Now back in the Getting Started chapter,
I know we covered the basics of adding keyframes.
| | 03:15 | So, we will add two keyframes in the scene.
| | 03:17 | But if you want to know more about
keyframes, there will be a whole chapter
| | 03:21 | later on in the title.
| | 03:23 | So, let's switch back to our Editor
View one more time and animate the cart.
| | 03:28 | Select our JetCart and let's move it
back in the scene just by clicking on the
| | 03:32 | Z-axis of the control vertices.
| | 03:34 | Now, with the JetCart in that new
position, let's select the Z property and just
| | 03:39 | press Control and click.
| | 03:41 | Notice our playhead is back at the
beginning and I know now I've set a keyframe
| | 03:45 | because if we move our playhead here,
you'll notice this blue box letting me
| | 03:49 | know there is a keyframe on frame 0.
| | 03:52 | So, go ahead and move your playhead
down towards the end of the timeline, and
| | 03:56 | let's reposition the JetCart.
| | 03:57 | I am just going to click on
the Z-axis and drag it forward.
| | 04:02 | Now to set another keyframe, all we have to do
is Control and click right on the yellow circle.
| | 04:08 | The yellow circle again is just kind of
letting us know, we have a keyframe on a
| | 04:12 | different place in the timeline and
now we have changed the parameter.
| | 04:15 | So, this value is different.
| | 04:17 | So, let's go ahead and select the
keyframe and now we know we have a keyframe
| | 04:20 | set because we have filled-in red
circle and we can see it in the timeline.
| | 04:23 | So, let's move back to the beginning
and press Play and we can see a general
| | 04:27 | preview as to what's going on.
| | 04:28 | Now, at the beginning of this video
I said any light or camera could be a
| | 04:33 | target light or camera.
| | 04:35 | So, let's change our Spot
Light to become a Target Light.
| | 04:38 | With the Spot Light selected, go under Tags and
under CINEMA 4D Tags go down and choose Target.
| | 04:46 | Now that we've added the tag, all we
have to do is tell the tag what target we
| | 04:50 | would like it to follow.
| | 04:51 | I could drag anything in the scene into
the target objects, but since I want it
| | 04:56 | to have the same target as the camera,
we will just drag the Camera Target.
| | 05:00 | Click-and-drag it and drop it
right into the Target object.
| | 05:04 | Now notice the light has repositioned
and if we play again, we can see that the
| | 05:09 | light is now following the cart as well.
| | 05:12 | So, I am just going to stop playback.
| | 05:15 | So, now that we know both lights and
cameras are functioning, let's switch back
| | 05:19 | to the Camera View and
watch a preview one more time.
| | 05:26 | That's looking all right, but now that
I can see it in the camera, I would like
| | 05:29 | to just tweak the Camera Target one last time.
| | 05:32 | So, let's jump back to our Editor View,
select our Camera Target and just move
| | 05:37 | it back a little bit in the cart.
| | 05:40 | So, let's create a render preview.
| | 05:41 | It's important to make sure you select
the camera that you would like to render
| | 05:44 | out before you go to render your preview.
| | 05:47 | So, let's click the Camera button,
go to our Render and Picture viewer,
| | 05:50 | click-and-hold, and choose Make Preview.
| | 05:53 | I would like the QuickTime to be a little
larger, so let's change the image size to 600.
| | 05:57 | Go ahead and press OK, and you'll
notice the preview is calculating in the
| | 06:02 | lower-left corner here.
| | 06:03 | Now, this may take a second on your
computer depending upon the processing power.
| | 06:09 | Now that it's rendered, go ahead and press Play.
| | 06:13 | And as you can see, we have both the
light and the camera tracking right
| | 06:20 | along with our JetCart.
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| Setting up three-point lighting| 00:00 | Three-point lighting is very common
technique designed to give the optimal
| | 00:03 | lighting for objects.
| | 00:05 | It's very common in both film and
photography and the idea is to create just
| | 00:09 | the right amount shadows, highlights, and
contrasts to really make your subject pop off the scene.
| | 00:14 | Let's get started by just rendering
this scene with the default lighting that's
| | 00:18 | set up in our Render settings.
| | 00:19 | And you will notice it looks pretty
good, but could look a heck of a lot more
| | 00:22 | dramatic with three-point lighting.
| | 00:25 | Now CINEMA 4D makes this really easy
because there is a preset in the Content Browser.
| | 00:29 | If you go up under Window and
choose Content Browser, navigate to the
| | 00:34 | Presets folder in CINEMA 4D under Light
Setups and you'll notice the 3 Point Light Stage.
| | 00:41 | There are a couple other lighting
setups pre-built in here, but let's just look
| | 00:44 | at the 3 Point Light Stage for now.
| | 00:47 | Double-click the 3 Point Light Stage to
apply it to your scene and you'll notice
| | 00:51 | if we expand a null object, we have
a Light Target and this is determining
| | 00:56 | exactly where the light is being thrown.
| | 01:00 | And all three lights have a target tag
that's tied to that specific Light Target.
| | 01:06 | So, what makes up three point lighting
is a Main_Spotlight, which if we go to
| | 01:10 | our General Setting here, notice it's
at full intensity, and it's the light
| | 01:14 | that casts shadows.
| | 01:15 | We'll just render a preview here in
the Editor and you can see I have shadows
| | 01:20 | being cast specifically by this Main_Spotlight.
| | 01:22 | Now, we have an FX_light.
| | 01:25 | Notice that light has a tint to it.
| | 01:27 | It's often used to help create a
specific feeling within a scene
| | 01:30 | with a different tinting.
| | 01:31 | So, for example, right now,
it's set up for yellow.
| | 01:34 | If we just open the Color Picker here
and move it over to blue, let's go and
| | 01:39 | re-render the scene.
| | 01:41 | You notice we get a slightly different feeling.
| | 01:43 | It's a little more cold and sterile
because it now has a blue highlight.
| | 01:47 | Also the FX_light is typically used to
just accentuate the highlights to really
| | 01:52 | help your model pop off the scene.
| | 01:54 | The last light is the Fill_light.
| | 01:56 | The Fill_light really helps your
shadows gain volume and also illuminate the
| | 02:01 | rest of the scene that's actually pretty dark.
| | 02:04 | Notice the Fill_light also doesn't have
nearly the intensity of the main light.
| | 02:08 | Again, because it's just meant to
kind of fill in the other areas.
| | 02:12 | Let's deactivate the Fill_light and
render the scene and you can see without the
| | 02:17 | Fill_light, the front area of the cart
gets pretty flat here but if we go ahead
| | 02:21 | and turn that on, it's just kind of
illuminated the scene, but it hasn't added
| | 02:25 | any more shadows to
distract from the main light.
| | 02:28 | So, as you can see, creating a three-
point light setup in CINEMA 4D is pretty
| | 02:33 | straightforward, again, because
there is a preset in the Content Browser.
| | 02:37 | But if you'd like to create your own
three-point light setup, by all means,
| | 02:40 | create some lights, add a target, and have fun.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
9. AnimationUnderstanding the timeline| 00:00 | The Timeline in CINEMA 4D is very full
featured and you can keyframe and view
| | 00:06 | keyframes from just about
any parameter in your project.
| | 00:11 | To show you what I mean,
let's open the Timeline.
| | 00:13 | If you go up under the Window pulldown at
the top of the page, we can choose Timeline.
| | 00:17 | Now as you can see, all the same
objects that we have in the Object Manager or
| | 00:21 | in the Timeline plus all of the Materials.
| | 00:25 | Now I would try and work with this but
since we're in a single window layout,
| | 00:29 | I'd rather just change the
entire layout of the interface.
| | 00:31 | So, let's close the Timeline.
| | 00:33 | Go to the Layout button in the
upper left-hand corner next to your
| | 00:36 | Viewport, click-and-hold and let's
change from Standard to Animation.
| | 00:40 | Now you'll notice our Timeline appears
at the bottom of the page and we have a
| | 00:44 | whole bunch of different tools and
options we can use to filter and further
| | 00:50 | refine everything going on in the Timeline.
| | 00:52 | As you can see, we're sort of
running out of space in the Timeline rather
| | 00:55 | quickly. If I scroll up and down
here you can see we have all these
| | 00:58 | different parameters.
| | 01:00 | And if I actually click to expand and
see everything that's within the JetCart
| | 01:04 | null object like the Wings or the Body,
we're running out of even more space.
| | 01:10 | So, a lot of times it makes sense to
turn this button on right here,
| | 01:13 | Show only Animated Elements.
| | 01:15 | When you turn that on, notice
nothing will appear in the Timeline.
| | 01:18 | Now to show you how things do appear in the
Timeline let's go ahead and animate something.
| | 01:23 | Select the JetCart in your Objects Manager.
| | 01:25 | Now let's move the cart back in the
scene, so we can have it kind of move from
| | 01:29 | the back of the scene to the front of the scene.
| | 01:31 | Just click on the Z-axis handle
and drag it back in the scene.
| | 01:35 | Now let's go to the Coordinates
section of the Attribute Editor and I want to
| | 01:38 | add a keyframe for all x, y and z.
| | 01:41 | So go ahead and select the P for
position and notice we get dark gray boxes
| | 01:46 | around all three parameters.
| | 01:48 | Now, when we press Ctrl and click on
one of the circles, we're actually adding
| | 01:52 | keyframes for each individual parameter.
| | 01:55 | And sure enough, you'll notice down
here in the Timeline we have our JetCart with
| | 01:59 | a folder for Position.
| | 02:00 | If we expand to see what's within that
folder, we'll see we've a keyframe for
| | 02:04 | Position X, Y and Z. This is great and
gives you an amazing amount of control
| | 02:09 | because you can click specifically on a
parameter and change its position in the Timeline.
| | 02:14 | Let's just undo that.
| | 02:16 | So, now let's just move our playhead a
little bit down the Timeline. We'll go up
| | 02:19 | to the Timeline ruler and
just drag down to around 40.
| | 02:23 | Notice I could have
clicked in the Timeline as well.
| | 02:25 | So, with our playhead on 40, let's
go ahead and reposition our JetCart.
| | 02:30 | Click on the Z vertices.
| | 02:32 | Let's bring it up towards the front a
little bit and why don't we bring it up on
| | 02:36 | the Y-axis a little bit.
| | 02:38 | Now, reselect your JetCart in the
Object Manager so we can get its coordinates
| | 02:42 | in the Attribute Manager.
| | 02:44 | Now with the Position selected, you'll
notice our keyframe circles have all changed.
| | 02:49 | We have two yellow and one red.
| | 02:51 | The red is telling us we have a
keyframe and it's the same value as it was
| | 02:55 | before, but we're not currently lying
on the keyframe. That's why it's hollow.
| | 02:59 | The other two tells we're not on the
keyframe but our values have changed.
| | 03:04 | So, let's just go ahead and press
Ctrl and click on any one of the Position
| | 03:08 | circles to add new keyframes.
| | 03:11 | Now if we move our playhead to the
beginning and press Play, our cart is
| | 03:15 | flying up in the scene.
| | 03:16 | Now sure we could go back and adjust
Rotation and tweak different things, but in
| | 03:21 | this video we're going to go more in-
depth about the Timeline specifically.
| | 03:25 | So we've learned about one way to
control how many things we see in the Timeline.
| | 03:30 | Let me show you another way.
| | 03:32 | If you deselect the Show Animated button,
I what you to choose View and then if
| | 03:37 | we go up to Link what we can do is
Link what's highlighted in the Timeline to
| | 03:42 | what's highlighted in the Object Manager.
| | 03:44 | Before we do that let me should you what I mean.
| | 03:46 | If I select the Engine up here in my
Object Manager, notice in my Timeline,
| | 03:51 | the Z position for the cart is selected.
| | 03:53 | If I want to actually select the
Engine I've to scroll down and find the
| | 03:57 | engine and select it.
| | 03:59 | So, they're totally independent of
each other unless you enable this option.
| | 04:02 | So we go to View and Link and
enable Link View To Object Manager.
| | 04:08 | Now once we do that, you notice when I
select each different thing in the Object
| | 04:13 | Manager now I'm seeing it
directly update in the Timeline.
| | 04:16 | Okay, let's get back and select our JetCart.
| | 04:19 | Notice we can see our keyframes.
| | 04:21 | I already showed how you can
slide individual keyframes.
| | 04:24 | Let's just add one more keyframe, so I
can further illustrate another way to
| | 04:29 | adjust the Timeline.
| | 04:31 | Since our playhead is on frame 75, let's
go ahead and just add a keyframe there.
| | 04:36 | If your playhead is anywhere else in
the Timeline that's fine. We just want to
| | 04:40 | have three keyframes.
| | 04:41 | So, since the cart is selected all we
have to do is just reposition the cart and
| | 04:46 | then Ctrl+Click on our position data.
| | 04:48 | Now we have three keyframes.
| | 04:51 | If I click on one keyframe, notice
I move that individual keyframe.
| | 04:55 | I can select multiple keyframes by
drawing a lasso around the keyframes and
| | 04:59 | then clicking-and-dragging and now you
notice both the keyframes are sliding in unison.
| | 05:03 | I can also use the Active Region tool.
| | 05:05 | If I select that, I can draw a box
around an entire region of keyframes and
| | 05:10 | dynamically resize how they are related.
| | 05:13 | This works wonders if you've got a
really complicated animation made up of tons
| | 05:17 | and tons of keyframes.
| | 05:20 | So, to deactivate the tool,
just click back on it.
| | 05:22 | Now to zoom into a specific set of
keyframes we can select our Position data and
| | 05:28 | if you click this Frame the view to all
selected keys button, now we've zoomed in on
| | 05:34 | this area of the Timeline.
| | 05:36 | We can zoom back out just by clicking our
tool in the upper-right corner and zooming out.
| | 05:40 | Now, there's one last control with the
Timeline, as far as its scale, I want to show you.
| | 05:45 | If we click the slider up here, this
will adjust exactly how closely we view the
| | 05:52 | specific frames in the Timeline.
| | 05:54 | Well notice when I dragged this,
my Timeline down here didn't update.
| | 05:59 | So we can go to View and under Link,
we can Link View with Preview Range.
| | 06:05 | So now when I click on that, if I
adjust the Preview Range, the Timeline
| | 06:09 | adjusts dynamically.
| | 06:10 | So as you can see, the Timeline is
rather full-featured and there are a ton more options,
| | 06:16 | but I think we have a pretty
strong foundation to get started by moving
| | 06:20 | on to our next video on keyframes.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Adding and controlling keyframes| 00:00 | Now if you haven't seen it already,
we are actually in the Animation layout.
| | 00:04 | If you go to the spot in the upper left
side of the interface, click and hold,
| | 00:07 | make sure to choose Animation.
| | 00:09 | That way you'll have the
Timeline at the bottom of the scene.
| | 00:12 | Now in this video I'm going to show
you a couple different ways we can add
| | 00:14 | keyframes and manipulate them in the Timeline.
| | 00:17 | We'll get started with a concept that
I'm sure you probably already understand
| | 00:21 | if you've been following along.
| | 00:23 | Let's select the JetCart and I want to
create a motion of the cart just kind of
| | 00:27 | bouncing up and down a little bit in the air.
| | 00:29 | So with the JetCart selected let's make sure we
have our Model tool and move up on the Y-axis.
| | 00:35 | Now I only want the cart to kind of
bounce up and down on the Y-axis, so all we
| | 00:39 | have to do is select the Y-axis in the
Coordinates Manager by clicking directly
| | 00:43 | on the Y. Now go ahead and press Ctrl
and click on the circle next to the P and
| | 00:48 | you'll see we have our
first keyframe in the Timeline.
| | 00:51 | Let's move our playhead down
in the Timeline to frame 24.
| | 00:54 | Now we can move the cart to another position.
| | 00:58 | Click on the Y-axis handle and drag down.
| | 01:01 | Go back to your Attribute Manager and
Ctrl+Click again to add another keyframe.
| | 01:05 | Now I know it's probably thinking, yeah, I
have added keyframes before. This is no big deal.
| | 01:10 | But let me show you one of the cool
things you can do actually in the Timeline.
| | 01:14 | If we move our playhead back to the
beginning by clicking the Go to Start button
| | 01:18 | in the Transport controls, we can go
ahead and press the Play button and you'll
| | 01:22 | notice the cart just
kind of goes down and stops.
| | 01:25 | Well, in the Timeline if you click
on the name JetCart and then go to the
| | 01:30 | Function section, we have these options
here called Track Before and Track After.
| | 01:36 | By default they are set to Constant.
| | 01:38 | When we record a keyframe in Cinema 4D,
it creates a track for that set of
| | 01:42 | keyframes, and that track
is called an Animation Track.
| | 01:46 | Now after the keyframes are recorded
or before the keyframes are recorded,
| | 01:50 | Cinema 4D can actually create animation.
| | 01:53 | Now, since we only set two keyframes
and I don't want there to be any jumping,
| | 01:56 | I'm just going to choose Oscillate.
| | 01:59 | To see what happens let's go and hit the
Play button and you notice now the cart
| | 02:03 | is actually bouncing up and down.
| | 02:05 | Now, let's see what happens when we
move our keyframes down in the Timeline.
| | 02:09 | Since we selected the JetCart name we
can just click on this yellow area above
| | 02:13 | the Timeline and drag and notice
both sets of keyframes are moving.
| | 02:18 | These numbers down here will let me
know exactly where I'm moving both my
| | 02:21 | first and last keyframe.
| | 02:23 | Let's move it out to about frame 30,
move our playhead back to the beginning,
| | 02:27 | and now you'll notice the animation doesn't
actually start until the beginning of the keyframes.
| | 02:33 | Now I think we've thoroughly covered
how to go to the Attribute Manager and
| | 02:37 | record keyframes, but there is another
way to record keyframes and it has to do
| | 02:41 | with these three buttons here.
| | 02:43 | It's this Record Position Keyframe
button and these buttons to the right of it--
| | 02:47 | basically these buttons are letting
me know what is going to get recorded
| | 02:52 | whenever I click this button.
| | 02:54 | So to give you better example, let's go
ahead and move our playhead back to the
| | 02:58 | beginning in the Timeline.
| | 03:00 | Now let's move our cart
back and click this button.
| | 03:06 | Notice a keyframe has been added.
| | 03:08 | Now since all these buttons were
selected if we actually expanded the
| | 03:13 | JetCart options, you notice we have a keyframe
for the Position, the Scale and the Rotation.
| | 03:18 | So let's go ahead and move our
playhead up to about frame 27.
| | 03:23 | Now we can move the cart forwards in
the scene and I want to pretend like the
| | 03:29 | cart kind of came to this point and
they we are to have it sort of tilt forward
| | 03:34 | and then bounce up and down
like it's sort of hovering.
| | 03:36 | So now that it's reached frame 27,
let's click the Record Position
| | 03:41 | Keyframe button again.
| | 03:42 | Now again this is recording the
keyframes of these specific parameters of the
| | 03:47 | object that we have selected.
| | 03:49 | So if we go to our Rotation tool, if
we move our playhead forward just a few
| | 03:54 | frames here, we can go ahead and
rotate the cart forward just a little bit.
| | 03:59 | This way when it stops it's going to
start to rotate up a little bit because we
| | 04:04 | already have a keyframe for the rotation.
| | 04:06 | So let's keyframe this new position
and then move the playhead down just a
| | 04:10 | little bit and we'll rotate
the cart back a little bit.
| | 04:15 | Now we can click our Record Keyframe
button again, and once again move the
| | 04:19 | Playhead down a little bit and
let's flatten things out with our cart.
| | 04:23 | Just so I can see exactly what rotation
I am setting, we'll select the JetCart
| | 04:28 | and in Attribute Manager
make sure it's actually set to 0.
| | 04:31 | And so that keyframe is recorded,
I'll just go ahead and press the Record
| | 04:35 | button one more time.
| | 04:37 | Okay, let's see what we've got.
| | 04:39 | Deselect the JetCart by clicking
anywhere in the Object Manager.
| | 04:42 | Move your playhead back to
the beginning and press Play.
| | 04:47 | Well, it's really rough right now, but
what we can do is manipulate the keyframes.
| | 04:53 | So let's stop playback for a second
and analyze what we've got going on.
| | 04:58 | Sometimes I've found if I just scrub
through the Timeline, I can actually better
| | 05:02 | see what's going on.
| | 05:03 | So, what I think it's happening,
this rotation from the top is going down a
| | 05:08 | little bit too fast.
| | 05:10 | So I'm going to look at where my
playhead is here and I can go ahead in the
| | 05:15 | Rotation area and just select these
next new keyframes by clicking and dragging
| | 05:20 | a lasso just around those two.
| | 05:22 | Now, when I go ahead and drag down here,
I am separating the Rotation that we
| | 05:26 | recorded from the Position and the Scale.
| | 05:31 | Now if we just scrub through the
animation again, we'll see it comes up and
| | 05:35 | bounces down a little bit more.
| | 05:37 | Okay, let's see what that
looks like in real-time.
| | 05:40 | Let's move it back and press Play.
| | 05:44 | Okay, it's still kind of herky-jerky,
but I think you get the general idea.
| | 05:48 | If we want to stretch this whole thing out,
I can go ahead and grab this one Other button.
| | 05:53 | If we click the Activate Region tool,
I can drag a region around all of these
| | 05:58 | keyframes to stretch them out.
| | 06:00 | So if I click on the one on the right,
notice how they're all kind of stretching out.
| | 06:05 | This is a great way to smooth out something
that might be happening just a little too fast.
| | 06:09 | So we can move our playhead back to the
beginning and press Play and check it out.
| | 06:15 | That's actually kind of cool.
| | 06:16 | Now I could sit here probably all day
and tweak these keyframes, but that's not
| | 06:21 | what we are here to do.
| | 06:22 | I just want you to understand how to
manipulate and record your keyframes in the Timeline.
| | 06:27 | Now I do want to tell you about our
next video, because I am rather excited
| | 06:31 | about the potential of further
refining this animation and we are going to do
| | 06:35 | that using F-Curves.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Fine-tuning keyframes using FCurves| 00:00 | If you're joining me from the last movie, we
are going to continue on with our animation.
| | 00:05 | Now if you haven't seen it already
let me play the animation so you can
| | 00:08 | see where we are at.
| | 00:10 | As you can see we have the cart kind of
flying in and then stopping and bouncing
| | 00:15 | around, and as you can see
it's a little herky-jerky.
| | 00:18 | So we're going to use some F-Curves
to see if we can smooth things out.
| | 00:22 | Let's stop playback.
| | 00:23 | Just so we can see things a little bit
better in the Timeline, let's click in
| | 00:28 | this gray area and drag up.
| | 00:29 | Now you can see we have a lot of extra
items in the Timeline that we may not
| | 00:35 | necessarily need to deal with at the moment.
| | 00:37 | So let's activate the Show
Only Animated Elements button.
| | 00:41 | Now we only have Position, Scale, and Rotation.
| | 00:44 | So let's preview the animation one
more time, moving our playhead back to the
| | 00:47 | beginning and pressing Play.
| | 00:55 | So I think what's bothering me is at the
end of the animation, but I'm not quite sure.
| | 01:00 | So what I'm going to do is solo each
individual track. So when there are set of
| | 01:06 | keyframes recorded on a specific
parameter that creates track, and I'm going to
| | 01:11 | have to move the Timeline down here
just a little bit so we can see this area
| | 01:16 | over here called the Attributes Editor.
| | 01:18 | Now with the Timeline open and the
track selected the Attribute Editor opens up
| | 01:23 | to show you Track with 3 Elements,
Position X, Y, and Z. Now there is this
| | 01:28 | awesome option called Solo Animation.
| | 01:31 | If we go ahead and select that, now
when we press Play it's only going to solo
| | 01:38 | that one specific parameter.
| | 01:41 | I think I see what's bothering me.
| | 01:42 | Let's press Play one more time.
| | 01:46 | It's just how abruptly the cart
actually stops when it moves, and if you notice here,
| | 01:51 | I've got several keyframes that are right
next to each other as far as the Position goes.
| | 01:56 | So let's see if we can spread them out.
| | 01:58 | I'll just draw a box around them and click
on the right side to drag it out a little bit.
| | 02:03 | Now, I drew my box around the Scale
and the Rotation as well just because I
| | 02:07 | remember when I animated it the
Rotation was kind of tied to what was going
| | 02:11 | on with the Position.
| | 02:12 | So I'll select our Position Track again
so we can see the Solo Animation check
| | 02:16 | box and preview our animation by pressing Play.
| | 02:24 | Okay, so it's kind of snapping back
a little harshly on this one keyframe.
| | 02:29 | So with the Position Track
selected, let's switch to F-Curve mode.
| | 02:33 | In the upper right area of your
Timeline at the top here, next to the key
| | 02:37 | we have this thing that looks
sort of like heart monitor.
| | 02:39 | Well, if you go ahead and select
that that will open up our F-Curves.
| | 02:44 | So if you select this specific
parameter the corresponding F-Curves will
| | 02:48 | populate the Timeline.
| | 02:50 | Now if I just click directly on
Position Z, it's only going to show me the
| | 02:54 | Position Z waveform.
| | 02:55 | Just so I can see things little better
I'm going to zoom out and zoom back in,
| | 03:00 | in the Timeline and you notice here
now I can see my curve a little more.
| | 03:04 | That's actually looking okay.
| | 03:06 | Let me look at the Y and then X. With
our Z Position selected, let's go up under
| | 03:12 | F-Curve, change it to Show Velocity
and you'll notice here now we can see the
| | 03:17 | velocity of the move that's actually
happening, and you can see how sharp this
| | 03:22 | is when it actually gets to the second keyframe.
| | 03:24 | So I want to try and
smooth that out a little bit.
| | 03:27 | Let's select that second keyframe and
you'll notice I get some control handles.
| | 03:32 | If we click and drag those control
handles, notice I'm just dragging a little bit
| | 03:37 | and you can see how drastically it's
making adjustments to the velocity.
| | 03:42 | Now since I want to smooth this out,
with that keyframe selected, I'm going to
| | 03:46 | look up at some of the these different
buttons, and this button right here,
| | 03:49 | if you click and hold we can
change the keyframe interpolation.
| | 03:54 | This is how the motion
goes through the keyframe.
| | 03:57 | So if we adjust this, let's adjust this
to Ease In and you'll notice that kind
| | 04:04 | of made a mess of things.
| | 04:05 | So let's actually start by flattening this out.
| | 04:09 | So choose Zero Angle and Length.
| | 04:12 | This flattens out the
interpretation of the keyframe.
| | 04:15 | Let me move up in the Timeline so we
can see our velocity a little bit better.
| | 04:19 | Now sometimes it actually makes sense
to just delete a specific keyframe and
| | 04:24 | I'm thinking since I have another keyframe
right here, I might be able to just delete this one.
| | 04:29 | So go ahead and select that
keyframe and press Delete.
| | 04:31 | Now you'll notice I'm getting a much
more smooth velocity curve to my Z position.
| | 04:36 | So let's move our playhead back
to the beginning and press Play.
| | 04:42 | That's actually looking a little better.
| | 04:44 | Now I can sit here all day and sort of
tweak this, but I think you understand a
| | 04:47 | little bit more about F-Curves.
| | 04:49 | Let's stop playback and turn off our Solo.
| | 04:52 | We can actually do that
right here in the Timeline.
| | 04:55 | If you just click on the button once
from the JetCart it solos everything and
| | 05:00 | if we click again, it will
turn off solo for all of them.
| | 05:04 | Now that all the parameters
are reactivated, let's press Play.
| | 05:12 | Okay, I personally would like to go and
adjust some of the backend F-Curves but
| | 05:16 | I think you guys have a firm grasp on
how F-Curves can help smooth out your
| | 05:21 | animations in Cinema 4D.
| | 05:22 | So I'm going to encourage you to go
ahead and do that process on your own.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Animation paths| 00:00 | Animation paths can save you a
lot of time and a lot of headache
| | 00:04 | creating keyframes.
| | 00:06 | The idea is to just draw a path and then
tell your object to travel along that path.
| | 00:12 | Now, if you've been following me
through the previous videos, you are probably
| | 00:15 | familiar with this scene.
| | 00:16 | But just in case you
haven't seen it, let's press Play.
| | 00:20 | And you notice our JetCart just
kind of flies in and then stops.
| | 00:23 | Since I want to actually change this
animation completely, let's go ahead and
| | 00:28 | start by deleting the track
that controls this animation.
| | 00:31 | So, select the JetCart and I just
happen to know that all these keyframes are
| | 00:36 | tied to just this one null object.
| | 00:38 | So all we have to do is right-click on the
JetCart null object and choose Show Tracks.
| | 00:44 | This will automatically open our Timeline.
| | 00:46 | Now with the keyframe selected, go
ahead and press Delete on your keyboard.
| | 00:51 | Let's close the timeline and now if
we go ahead and press Play, you notice
| | 00:57 | nothing is happening.
| | 00:58 | That's because we've deleted all the keyframes.
| | 01:00 | It's also important to note, when we
deleted that entire track, the JetCart
| | 01:06 | was placed in its position and it just
stayed in that position, so if it had
| | 01:11 | been rotated or offset or anything out of
the ordinary, it would stay in that position.
| | 01:17 | So, it's always a good idea to go
back and check your parameters and make
| | 01:21 | sure everything is okay.
| | 01:22 | I just wanted to make sure there is no
rotation on the cart. So we are fine.
| | 01:26 | Let's get started creating our
path by switching to the Top view.
| | 01:29 | Click the button in the upper right-
hand corner and in the Top view, let's go
| | 01:34 | ahead and check out the scene.
| | 01:36 | We need to zoom out here, so we can see
what's going on and have a little bit of
| | 01:42 | room to draw our path.
| | 01:44 | I'd like to create the path with a B-spline.
| | 01:46 | So go up to your Spline Object pop-up,
click-and-hold and let's choose B-Spline.
| | 01:51 | I am choosing B-Spline because
they create nice smooth curves.
| | 01:54 | Since I want the cart to be kind of flying
around, I want to use those smooth curves.
| | 01:58 | Let's get started by
clicking at the top of the screen.
| | 02:01 | We'll go ahead and click and click
and click, just kind of creating a nice
| | 02:06 | zigzag pattern here down through the scene.
| | 02:10 | Now that this is done, let's grab
our Live Selection tool and come back
| | 02:14 | and select our JetCart.
| | 02:15 | To tie the JetCart to the
spline, we have to use a tag.
| | 02:19 | So, with the JetCart selected, if you
go up to Tags, under Cinema 4D Tags,
| | 02:24 | we want to choose Align To Spline.
| | 02:26 | Now with that tag tied to the JetCart,
all we need to do is drag our spline into
| | 02:32 | the Spline Path dropwell here.
| | 02:34 | I want to show you something really quickly.
| | 02:35 | If you click on the spline,
notice the dropwell disappears.
| | 02:38 | Now most of the time when you select
something like this, you can click-and-drag
| | 02:43 | quickly and this won't disappear.
| | 02:46 | But if you are kind of slow on the mouse,
you might want to just lock this palette.
| | 02:50 | So, even if you go ahead and select
something else, the palette isn't going to change.
| | 02:55 | So, let's click-and-drag our spline into
the spline path and now, you notice our
| | 03:00 | cart has moved back to the back of the spline.
| | 03:03 | Let's make sure to unlock the
Attribute Editor and switch back to
| | 03:06 | our Perspective view.
| | 03:08 | So we can see things,
let's go ahead and move out.
| | 03:10 | I am just going to orbit around here a
little bit and move out a little further.
| | 03:16 | If we press Play, nothing is going to happen.
| | 03:20 | That's because when we do the
keyframe, it's positioned along the spline.
| | 03:23 | So, move your playhead back to the
beginning and let's create a keyframe right
| | 03:27 | now by holding Ctrl and
clicking the circle next to Position.
| | 03:30 | Now I'd like the cart to make it all
the way down the path, so let's move our
| | 03:33 | playhead all the way down to 90 frames and
change our Position to 100% and press Enter.
| | 03:41 | Now, if you go ahead and press Ctrl and
click on the position, we've set two keyframes.
| | 03:45 | If we move our playhead back to the
beginning and press Play, you see the cart
| | 03:49 | is zigzagging along the path.
| | 03:51 | Now, there is a problem here, because
as you can see, the cart isn't actually
| | 03:57 | changing direction as it moves down the path.
| | 04:00 | Well, you need to enable Tangential.
| | 04:03 | If you make sure that's selected, now the
cart will actually orient itself along the path.
| | 04:08 | If you go ahead and press
Play, look what happens.
| | 04:13 | The cart actually oriented itself backwards.
| | 04:15 | Now, this is not that uncommon.
| | 04:17 | Sometimes when you have curves that are
of this type and you've setup an object
| | 04:21 | like this, it tends to panic a little bit.
| | 04:24 | Let's go ahead and hold down Ctrl, click
on the Spline to create another spline.
| | 04:29 | What we are creating is called a rail spline
and it works just like rails on train tracks.
| | 04:35 | If you go ahead and double-click
on the name, we can rename it Rail.
| | 04:39 | Now let's go back and select our Align
To Spline tag, click-and-drag and drop
| | 04:44 | the Rail spline into the Rail Path dropwell.
| | 04:47 | Now you notice the
orientation has changed completely.
| | 04:51 | Just so we can better control the
situation for right now, let's select the Rail
| | 04:55 | Path and make sure we
have the Model tool selected.
| | 04:58 | Just drag up on the y-axis a little
bit and then on the x-axis, let's drag it
| | 05:03 | over and you notice as we drag it over,
we can kind of easily influence exactly
| | 05:08 | how things are oriented with the cart.
| | 05:12 | Notice when I drag it down to the side
here, things are oriented a little better.
| | 05:16 | Now, if we go ahead and press Play,
you can see the cart is still oriented in
| | 05:21 | the wrong direction.
| | 05:24 | Now there is one other way
to troubleshoot this issue.
| | 05:27 | Notice if we select the cart here and
try and change its coordinates, let's see
| | 05:31 | if we can change the heading here.
| | 05:34 | If you click-and-drag, notice
absolutely nothing is going to happen.
| | 05:38 | That's because again the orientation
is determined by the path or the spline.
| | 05:44 | So, if we select Align To Spline,
notice there is really no option for us to
| | 05:50 | kind of fix things other
than this specific pop-up menu.
| | 05:53 | Let's change it to x and see what happens.
| | 05:56 | There's one chance.
| | 05:58 | Let's change it to y, and let's go
ahead and move our playhead back.
| | 06:04 | As you can see, it's just oriented
itself to y. If we change it to X,
| | 06:10 | it oriented itself to the x.
| | 06:12 | So we could choose z and flip our
splines around, but there is one other thing
| | 06:18 | I'd like to recommend.
| | 06:19 | A lot of times when you tie an object to
a spline, the best way to do that is to
| | 06:25 | actually create a separate null
object to parent to that other object.
| | 06:31 | So, let's go up under Objects at the
top of our page and choose Null Object.
| | 06:36 | Now let's drag our Alignment
tag up on to the Null Object.
| | 06:40 | Now, all we have to do is drag our JetCart
up and make it a child of the Null Object.
| | 06:47 | Now when we select the JetCart and
choose the Rotation tool, notice we can
| | 06:51 | freely rotate the cart around and yet the
animation is still going to work very nicely.
| | 06:58 | And as a matter of fact, we could go
in and tweak this animation a little bit more,
| | 07:02 | for example, adjusting
the pitch as we go down this path.
| | 07:08 | I found the easiest way to do
that is with Automatic Keyframing.
| | 07:11 | So, we'll just do that really
quickly and then wrap things up.
| | 07:15 | So, with the JetCart selected,
let's turn on Automatic Keyframing.
| | 07:19 | Now you want to be very, very
careful when you are using Automatic
| | 07:22 | Keyframing, because it will record
keyframes for absolutely everything that
| | 07:26 | you would try and adjust.
| | 07:28 | So let's move our playhead back to the
beginning here and I like that pitch.
| | 07:32 | But I am just going to set a keyframe by
just toggling the rotation here a little bit.
| | 07:37 | Let's move our playhead down and then we
can rotate again, adding another keyframe.
| | 07:43 | Now if we move our playhead down again,
we can rotate out if we wanted to. I am
| | 07:50 | just going to rotate a little more sharply.
| | 07:51 | And we could rotate this here, back
the other way, and we'll just tweak this.
| | 08:01 | I can already tell this is going to be
little rough, but I think you'll get the idea.
| | 08:05 | Oops! I am grabbing the wrong band here but
that's okay, and let's go ahead and give
| | 08:11 | that one last rotation here, so it flies out.
| | 08:15 | Okay, now I'll make sure to turn off
Automatic Keyframing, move our playhead
| | 08:19 | back to the beginning, deselect our
cart so we can see things a little better
| | 08:23 | and go ahead and press Play.
| | 08:25 | As you can see, we've got a little
bit more control over our animation.
| | 08:29 | Obviously, there still need to be
tweaks, but I hope you learned a lot about
| | 08:34 | Align To Spline and how helpful
parenting a Null Object can make the process.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Linking animations with SetDriver and Driven| 00:01 | If you are joining me from the last
video, I went ahead and smoothed out the
| | 00:04 | rail paths that we had the cart sliding along.
| | 00:07 | And I took the liberty of
adding light to the scene.
| | 00:11 | Let's go ahead and render so
we can see what's going on.
| | 00:14 | As you can see, the cart is kind
of intersecting with our floor here.
| | 00:17 | So, let's go ahead and select our Rail spline,
Shift+Clicking to select our other spline.
| | 00:22 | Let's just move the whole thing up in the
scene, so we can see things a little bit better.
| | 00:26 | Okay, now what we are going to explore
is a set of XPresso tags and this is kind
| | 00:33 | of exciting because I know this is
just an Essentials course, so it's really
| | 00:37 | kind of neat to me to be taking
you into the world of XPresso.
| | 00:41 | What exactly is XPresso?
| | 00:43 | Well, basically it allows you to
control different parameters with different
| | 00:48 | parameters, which I know is a
really general way of describing it.
| | 00:51 | But the way to show you is to just illustrate.
| | 00:54 | Let's get started by selecting our
JetCart here and if you expand it,
| | 00:59 | you'll notice I added a camera into the scene.
| | 01:02 | So, let's select the camera by
clicking the little target here, so we can
| | 01:06 | switch to the Camera view.
| | 01:07 | This way I can quickly and easily
see exactly what we are going to do.
| | 01:12 | Our cart is moving through z space and
if I click and scrub my playhead here,
| | 01:17 | you can kind of see that the cart is moving.
| | 01:19 | Let me jump back out of the camera,
back to our Edit view so you can see
| | 01:24 | that the cart is moving.
| | 01:25 | And I know it's moving along the z-
axis because my little Orient tool is down
| | 01:29 | here showing me the z points this way.
| | 01:32 | So, what we are going to do is use the
movement of our null object along the
| | 01:37 | z-axis to actually drive the rotation--
| | 01:40 | let me switch back to the Camera
here-- of our slats in our engine.
| | 01:47 | So, the way we do this is to select the
Null Object and you notice as I scrub in
| | 01:51 | the timeline here, the z
coordinates are moving. So that's perfect.
| | 01:56 | If you just right-click on the letter z and go
up under Animation, we can choose Set Driver.
| | 02:04 | Now it doesn't look like
anything has happened and that's true.
| | 02:07 | We need to go down to the Slats
here and expand the Null Object.
| | 02:11 | Notice we have Left Slats and Right Slats.
| | 02:14 | So let's select the Left Slats here
and in the Coordinate Manager, let's
| | 02:19 | adjust the heading and you notice as I click
on the heading, that's the proper rotation.
| | 02:24 | So let's undo that last little rotation.
| | 02:26 | If we right-click right on the H,
we can go to Animation and choose Set Driven.
| | 02:31 | Now since we are only tying one parameter to
one parameter, we can go ahead and use Absolute.
| | 02:37 | Now you notice you've used your first
XPresso tag, which if we double-click,
| | 02:42 | will open up the XPresso Editor, which as
you can see created this little map here.
| | 02:47 | Now, this is a course on XPresso,
but I just wanted you to see, you've
| | 02:50 | actually jumped into some of the
more advanced tools in Cinema 4D.
| | 02:53 | Let's go ahead and close the
XPresso Editor and select the Right Slats.
| | 02:58 | Again, right-clicking on the H parameter in
our Rotation and choose Set Driven (Absolute).
| | 03:05 | Now if we scrub through, you can see the
rotation is actually happening on our Slats.
| | 03:11 | It's a very subtle thing, but it
adds a little bit to the animation.
| | 03:17 | So, just so you know what I did behind
the scenes, I added the camera to the
| | 03:21 | scene and I added it underneath the JetCart.
| | 03:24 | So, as the JetCart is moving down the
spline, we are tracking the camera movement.
| | 03:29 | Now, I think this looks kind of cool.
| | 03:31 | If we move our playhead back to the
beginning and press Play, you can we are
| | 03:34 | getting all the highlights and we are
getting some sense of movement through the ground.
| | 03:38 | But really to make this more
interesting, let's move our playhead back to the
| | 03:42 | beginning and move the camera out from
underneath the JetCart and just put it
| | 03:46 | right under the Null Object.
| | 03:48 | What this is going to do is allow our
camera to travel along with the Null
| | 03:53 | Object, but not necessarily
rotate in conjunction with the JetCart.
| | 03:58 | So, if we press Play, now you can see
we are getting much more of a live action
| | 04:03 | view of the JetCart.
| | 04:05 | So, if you want to take this a step further
by all means, add more cameras to your scenes.
| | 04:10 | Just remember, when you go to Render, select
the specific camera you'd like to render from.
| | 04:15 | So, let's actually render this scene so
we can see exactly what it looks like.
| | 04:20 | Again, making sure the camera is
selected, we'll go up under our Render Picture
| | 04:24 | Viewer and choose Make Preview.
| | 04:27 | Since I'd like this to be a little bit
larger I am going to change the Image Size to 700.
| | 04:32 | When I press Tab, you notice it will be
700x393, because it will keep the same proportions.
| | 04:37 | We'll do a full render because I want to
see all the lights and everything else.
| | 04:41 | Now this may take a second, so we may
just jump right back here in the field.
| | 04:45 | All right, now we can our
Viewer is a little jagged here.
| | 04:52 | We just need to change our View Size up to 100%.
| | 04:54 | That will smooth everything out.
| | 04:56 | Let me just open up the Picture Viewer here
a little bit better and now let's press Play.
| | 05:03 | As you can see, we've got our jet flying
through the scene and our engine blade spinning.
| | 05:08 | Now, if you want to add more drama,
feel free to go back into your
| | 05:11 | Primitives and replace the Floor with
a Landscape and like I said, feel free
| | 05:16 | to add more cameras.
| | 05:18 | Typically, since I liked this render,
I'd go ahead and adjust my Render
| | 05:23 | Settings and change my Format to
QuickTime and again under Output, I make sure
| | 05:31 | to render All Frames.
| | 05:34 | Now, when we click here and choose
Render to Picture Viewer, we'll get a full
| | 05:37 | resolution QuickTime video of the entire scene.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
10. Rendering and IntegrationExploring render settings for stills and animation| 00:00 | In our intro chapter we covered some
basic settings for setting up a render, but
| | 00:04 | now it's time to actually explore
some of the more in-depth features.
| | 00:08 | So navigate to the top of the screen
and click on the Render Settings button.
| | 00:12 | So like I said in the first chapter,
Cinema 4D does support using external
| | 00:17 | renders like CineMan. An excellent
one I suggest you checking out is
| | 00:21 | called 3Delight.
| | 00:23 | They'll even give you a version that
you can download and try for yourself.
| | 00:28 | If you go to Output Settings here you
went over the Preset Settings, but let's
| | 00:34 | look at some of the other options in here.
| | 00:36 | There is a new option in Cinema 4D
where you can set up your Render Region.
| | 00:40 | So if we had set up a Render Region
earlier, we can click Copy from Interactive
| | 00:45 | Render Region and it would automatically
only render that one specific area that
| | 00:50 | we had defined in our Render Region.
Just to show you really quick, if I turn on
| | 00:54 | my Interactive Render Region,
| | 00:55 | it's only going to render
this portion of the image.
| | 00:58 | This is great when you are
trying to preview things.
| | 01:00 | I really love the fact that this is
part of the new render settings export.
| | 01:06 | So we have our Pixel Aspect Ratio.
| | 01:08 | Again with this resolution if you
wanted to lay back to tape, you want to make
| | 01:12 | sure to change this back to HDV Anamorphic.
| | 01:17 | So again, I'll leave that back at Square,
and down here we have our Frame Range.
| | 01:22 | This is where we can change it
from Current Frame to All Frames.
| | 01:25 | Now we've changed this to last movie
when we went to render out, so we could
| | 01:28 | see exactly what our entire sequence look like.
| | 01:32 | If you click on the pull-down, let's see
what happens when you choose Preview Range.
| | 01:36 | Notice nothing has changed yet.
| | 01:37 | Well, if we move our Render Settings off
to the side here and change our Preview Range
| | 01:42 | to something in the middle of
the scene here, now you notice it's only
| | 01:46 | going to render from frame 12 to frame 49.
| | 01:48 | Let's change that back to All Frames.
| | 01:52 | Now if we go to our Save Settings here, let
me bring that back to the center of the screen.
| | 01:55 | I want to explain rendering an
image sequence out of an animation.
| | 02:01 | So let's specify a place for our file to save.
| | 02:04 | Click the three buttons on the right
and we'll just choose our Desktop and make
| | 02:08 | a new folder called RenderTest.
| | 02:12 | It's important to create a new folder
when you are rendering an image sequence.
| | 02:15 | If I just render the sequence directly
on to the Desktop, when we've got to the
| | 02:18 | Desktop it'd be covered with all of the frames.
| | 02:22 | So let's go ahead and save this as
a FlyCart, and we can click Save.
| | 02:29 | Now that we have specified where our files
are going to be saved, let's look at the Format.
| | 02:33 | For image sequences I always recommend
using TIFF, TARGA or Photoshop documents.
| | 02:41 | I just like these because they are uncompressed.
| | 02:44 | Now the reason you want to render to an
image sequence has to do with render time.
| | 02:49 | So if you are going to render over a
network, you want to render to a sequence.
| | 02:52 | So each one of the machines can easily
pull individual frames to render and then
| | 02:58 | they can all be later assembled on
one machine into the image sequence.
| | 03:02 | Cinema 4D has an excellent
network render capability.
| | 03:06 | Now as a single user I like using an
image sequence from the standpoint of being
| | 03:11 | able to stop my render at any given time.
| | 03:13 | When I stop my render, since each
individual frame is an individual file,
| | 03:17 | I have no chance of corrupting any of my
files other than the frame that it may
| | 03:21 | have been rendering at that specific
time, but that's fine because it makes
| | 03:25 | note of where it ended.
| | 03:26 | So the next time I come back to the
project and begin to render again, it will
| | 03:30 | pick up where it'd left off.
| | 03:34 | You can change the bit depth of your
render, and obviously this also depends on
| | 03:38 | the specific format you choose.
| | 03:40 | Now if you are on Windows or on a Mac, you
can render to QuickTime movie or Windows Media.
| | 03:45 | Just keep in mind when you are
rendering to a self-contained movie file,
| | 03:48 | you want to make sure that the render is
complete before you try and stop the
| | 03:52 | render, because the movie file being
self-contained needs all the data for the
| | 03:57 | movie to actually work properly.
| | 04:00 | Alpha Channel is very important.
| | 04:01 | If we go ahead and select Alpha Channel,
you can specify whether you want to
| | 04:05 | straight Alpha channel like in
Photoshop or a pre-multiplied Alpha channel like
| | 04:10 | in After Effects or Shake or
name your compositing application.
| | 04:15 | Let's just leave Straight Alpha
deselected for now and go down to the
| | 04:18 | Compositing Project File.
| | 04:20 | This is probably one of the most
powerful features of Cinema 4D.
| | 04:26 | It has amazing integration with
other applications, for example,
| | 04:30 | After Effects and Motion.
| | 04:32 | When we go to save the project file, if
we check Include 3D Data what's going to
| | 04:38 | happen, if we have any cameras in the scene,
| | 04:41 | is it will actually render an After
Effects project file or a Motion project
| | 04:45 | file with that camera.
| | 04:47 | So when you open those specific
applications, the camera and all the position
| | 04:51 | data is actually brought
through between the applications.
| | 04:55 | This is really powerful because if we
are adding any other elements in those
| | 04:59 | applications, we don't have to try
and retract the camera move to make sure
| | 05:03 | everything lines up properly.
| | 05:06 | We can quickly just save out the
project file by itself without doing a render
| | 05:10 | by clicking Save Project File.
| | 05:11 | I don't necessarily want to do that
right now, so let's move on to the
| | 05:15 | next option, Multi-Pass.
| | 05:18 | Multi-Pass kind of works in
conjunction with saving out your compositing
| | 05:22 | project file, but you can save Multi-
Pass files out without necessarily having
| | 05:27 | to save a project file.
| | 05:29 | So what is Multi-Pass?
| | 05:30 | Well, if we select it here, you
notice by default we can separate
| | 05:35 | each individual light.
| | 05:37 | So we could have a specific light
selected in our scene or we could just tell it
| | 05:41 | to render all of those lights.
| | 05:43 | If you select Shadow Correction during
the render, it takes an extra fine look
| | 05:47 | at the shadows, and make sure they are fine
when you import them into your other application.
| | 05:53 | Now if you did save out your project
file, when you choose specific things to
| | 06:00 | render out in Multi-Pass, when you open
that other project file whether it would
| | 06:04 | be After Effects or Motion, all of
the individual Multi-Pass layers will
| | 06:08 | automatically be layered in
your project in the proper order.
| | 06:12 | So let's add some more Multi-Pass options.
| | 06:14 | Notice down here on the lower-left,
there is a button for Multi-Pass.
| | 06:17 | If we click on that, these are all the
individual channels you can render out separately.
| | 06:22 | So for example, if I am not sure I am
going to light my shadows, I could render
| | 06:27 | out a separate pass just for my shadows.
| | 06:30 | Now notice that I have selected Shadow
when we go back to our Save menu, we have
| | 06:36 | this option here for Multi-Pass Image.
| | 06:38 | We can go ahead and create a new file
and a new name for that Multi-Pass image.
| | 06:45 | Keep in mind, when you go back to
your Multi-Pass as you continue to add
| | 06:50 | other effects, for example, let's say
I want to render my Specular highlights
| | 06:53 | on a separate pass.
| | 06:55 | When we go back to Save, we still
only have one option to create a name and
| | 06:59 | Cinema 4D will automatically
add Shadow or Specular on the end.
| | 07:03 | So let's look at Anti-Aliasing.
| | 07:06 | When we left off last time,
we had it set it to Best.
| | 07:09 | You can set it to Geometry or None, if you
want things to render a little bit faster.
| | 07:13 | I typically always leave mine at Best
because Cinema 4D is pretty fast anyway.
| | 07:18 | If you go to Filter, under Still
Image, let's change this to animation.
| | 07:22 | This adds a filter that takes into
account the difference in viewing an image
| | 07:27 | when it's viewed as a sequence
of frames versus one still image.
| | 07:32 | Now if you want to add a little bit
more detail to the image, you can change
| | 07:35 | your Minimum Level up.
| | 07:36 | So let's say we want to change it
to 4 by 4, we can our Max to 8 by 8.
| | 07:40 | Now that's going to add a little bit
more detail into the scene and just so
| | 07:46 | you know, you want to make sure to be
careful with this, because this will
| | 07:49 | increase your render time.
| | 07:50 | Finally, if we go to our Options,
notice this is the window where we could
| | 07:53 | turn off for Auto Light.
| | 07:55 | There are other options in here
that we could go ahead and change.
| | 07:58 | For example, if you want to
change how bright your scene renders,
| | 08:02 | you could change the Global
Brightness or the Render Gamma.
| | 08:05 | We'll play with the Render
Gamma when we get into the video on
| | 08:08 | global illumination.
| | 08:10 | You can also change the Reflection Depth.
| | 08:13 | This is how many reflections
get interpreted during the render.
| | 08:17 | Obviously as you increase this number,
you can increase your render times.
| | 08:20 | So now that we have everything all set
up, we can go ahead and close our Render
| | 08:24 | Settings, and let's turn off our
Interactive Render Region by selecting it.
| | 08:30 | Now we can save our project by
rendering the Picture Viewer, but we'll be
| | 08:33 | covering the Picture Viewer in another video.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Outputting a file using the picture viewer| 00:00 | We've seen the Picture Viewer pop up
from time-to-time throughout this course.
| | 00:04 | It's time to explore some features a
little more in depth, because now in our
| | 00:09 | R11.5 it's a place where we can go to
compare different settings and even try
| | 00:13 | out different post effects.
| | 00:14 | Also you can create a RAM
preview of your animation.
| | 00:17 | This is great because you can leave
your settings set up for an image sequence,
| | 00:20 | but still see the final
animation once it's rendered.
| | 00:23 | Let's explore the Compare feature,
but first let's change some settings in
| | 00:27 | the Render Settings.
| | 00:28 | So go up to the top-center of your
toolbar and click on the Render Settings button.
| | 00:34 | And make sure you are in the Output
section and change the Frame Range from All
| | 00:37 | Frames to Current Frame.
| | 00:39 | I'm just going to choose Current Frame.
That way we can just compare this one
| | 00:43 | individual frame and then
render out the sequence later.
| | 00:46 | So let's go ahead and close Render
Settings for now and in order to render to
| | 00:52 | the Picture Viewer, I could click this
button right next to my Render Settings
| | 00:56 | just once or you can click-and-hold
and choose Render to Picture Viewer.
| | 00:59 | You should notice your scene rendering
out and in the lower right-hand corner
| | 01:04 | over here, you'll see the name of the
file, its bit depth, when it was created,
| | 01:09 | how much space it's taking, the
render time, you get the general idea.
| | 01:13 | Now another nice feature are
these channel options over here.
| | 01:16 | If you are not seeing these, you have
to click this button up in the upper
| | 01:20 | right-hand corner next to your
Move tool. Go ahead and click that.
| | 01:23 | We make sure we have the History
and Layer and Filter channel open.
| | 01:27 | Let's go to the Layers channel, and
you can see here we have different layers
| | 01:31 | since our Render Settings
were set up to render Multi-Pass.
| | 01:36 | In order to see each one of these
different layers let's change our setting here
| | 01:40 | to Single-Pass up at the top.
| | 01:42 | Now when I click on each individual
layer, my Viewer updates so I can see
| | 01:46 | exactly what's going on in that layer.
| | 01:49 | It also shows me the Transparency
setting as well as the blend mode of
| | 01:54 | each individual layer.
| | 01:57 | Let's change from Single-Pass back to
Image and look at our Filter settings.
| | 02:01 | Now I just want to go ahead and make
some minor adjustments and then kind of
| | 02:04 | compare this version to the other version.
| | 02:08 | So before we get started, let's go up
under Compare and say Set as A. Now,
| | 02:13 | I know it doesn't look like anything has
happened but if we actually go to the
| | 02:16 | History area, right over here you'll notice
this little green circle has a letter A in it.
| | 02:23 | Let's turn back to our
Filter, and Enable Filter.
| | 02:26 | Now I'm just going to
change some of these settings.
| | 02:28 | You can change these to whatever you like.
| | 02:30 | I'm just going to up the Saturation
and the Brightness and since it's a little
| | 02:34 | washed out up the Contrast, bring the
Exposure down just a little bit and
| | 02:40 | I'll pop the Gamma just a little more, okay.
| | 02:43 | Now if you like the settings that
you have adjusted, go ahead and choose
| | 02:46 | Create Post Effect.
| | 02:48 | What this does, it loads the
settings into your Render Settings.
| | 02:53 | So if I click on Color Correction,
now you'll notice it has the exact same
| | 02:57 | settings that we just
added in the Filter section.
| | 03:00 | So if we go ahead and close our Render
Settings and just render to the Picture
| | 03:05 | Viewer again, it will ask us if we
want to overwrite the original file.
| | 03:08 | You can go ahead and click No, and you'll
notice it still renders the individual frame.
| | 03:13 | The reason it can do this is its cache,
and you can set the Cache Settings
| | 03:17 | in your Preferences.
| | 03:19 | So while it's written a file to the
hard drive, it hasn't specifically
| | 03:22 | overridden the one individual
file that we originally created.
| | 03:27 | So now if we go back to the Compare Mode,
I can go ahead and set this one as B,
| | 03:33 | and you should be seeing a line
somewhere on your screen and if you click on it,
| | 03:37 | you can drag up and down.
| | 03:39 | Now, yours may be
Vertical instead of Horizontal.
| | 03:41 | If you come up under Compare,
you can just swap Horizontal and Vertical.
| | 03:46 | Also if you're not seeing these labels
here, you want to go up under Compare and
| | 03:50 | make sure to Show Text.
| | 03:52 | This way it's very easy to see exactly which
is A and which is B in terms of your render.
| | 03:58 | Since I kind of like these settings, I am
just going to go ahead and render out a sequence.
| | 04:04 | So we can go ahead and close the Picture
Viewer for now and open our Render Settings.
| | 04:08 | Just so we can render a sequence, I am
going to go to the Output Settings and
| | 04:12 | change Frame Range from
Current Frame to All Frames.
| | 04:17 | Now I'd like to see this image
sequence render out at full resolution.
| | 04:22 | So I'll just go ahead and leave our
settings at full resolution and close the
| | 04:27 | Render Settings window.
| | 04:28 | You notice if we go to Save, I'm
still set up as a Photoshop sequence.
| | 04:33 | So we go ahead and close our Render Settings.
| | 04:36 | Let's go ahead and render our sequence.
| | 04:38 | Click the Render to Picture Viewer
button. It'll ask if you want to overwrite
| | 04:41 | the files. Feel free to say Yes.
| | 04:44 | And now our Picture Viewer is
going to render each individual frame.
| | 04:48 | Now this may take a little while, so
I'll just duck out here and we'll come back
| | 04:53 | in a second once all of our frames have
been loaded up into the Picture Viewer.
| | 04:58 | So now that the scene is actually
rendered as a Photoshop sequence, we can go
| | 05:03 | ahead and move our playhead back to the
beginning by clicking this button over
| | 05:06 | here on the left and we can press Play
and you'll notice I am actually getting a
| | 05:12 | slow preview as it's
loading up each individual frame.
| | 05:16 | Now when we stop that just for a second
here and you'll notice this green area
| | 05:21 | here. This is actually the number of
frames that are loaded up into RAM.
| | 05:26 | So if I move my playhead back and
press Play now, you'll notice those frames
| | 05:32 | playback seamlessly.
| | 05:33 | But once we get to another area,
it has to kind of render those frames again.
| | 05:39 | It's also giving us this red number
over here on the left, letting us know that
| | 05:42 | it's not playing back
into full 23.976 frame rate.
| | 05:47 | In the lower right area next to your
playback controls, there is a flyout menu.
| | 05:52 | If you go ahead and click on that
arrow button, here you can actually set
| | 05:56 | whether you want those to Cycle or Ping
-Pong where it plays forwards and then
| | 06:00 | backwards, or you can
actually set a preset frame rate.
| | 06:04 | So let me go ahead and change this to
let's say 10 frames a second and move my
| | 06:08 | playhead back to the beginning.
| | 06:10 | When we load this up here and move
our playhead back and press Play,
| | 06:16 | you'll notice I am getting a much more
stuttery effects because I've limited the
| | 06:20 | playback to 10 frames a second.
| | 06:22 | So I'll just change this back to the
Sequence Frames per second, which is 23.976,
| | 06:29 | and let me show you where you can
actually change the Cache Settings so maybe
| | 06:35 | you could have a little bit
more loaded into your RAM.
| | 06:37 | If you go up under your Edit Settings
and under Cache Size, notice here I have
| | 06:42 | got Full Size, I could do Half, Third, Quarter.
| | 06:44 | If you go to Preferences here, this is
where you can specify exactly how much
| | 06:49 | memory you are going to use.
| | 06:51 | So if I go ahead and change this
up to let's say 1024 and close that.
| | 06:57 | Let's go ahead and move back to
the beginning and hit Render here.
| | 07:09 | And now you notice since I increased the
amount of the cache, I can now actually
| | 07:12 | load up all the frames in the sequence.
| | 07:15 | So as you can see the Picture Viewer
can be quite a help when it comes to
| | 07:19 | tweaking your final renders and getting
exactly what you want from your scene.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Setting up tags for After Effects and Motion| 00:00 |
I'd say one of the strongest features
of CINEMA 4D is its ability to integrate
| | 00:05 |
with external compositing
applications like After Effects and Motion.
| | 00:09 |
In this video, we'll be focusing
specifically on two tags that make that
| | 00:14 |
transition as seamless as possible, and
those two tags are the Compositing tag
| | 00:19 |
and the External Compositing tag.
| | 00:20 |
Now, you might be saying yourself well,
I can create just about anything that I
| | 00:25 |
want in CINEMA 4D, so why
wouldn't I just do that?
| | 00:27 |
Well, basically, it's a time issue.
| | 00:31 |
If you create something in CINEMA 4D and
you want to be able to create different
| | 00:34 |
versions, for example, one version that
says tonight at 7 o'clock Eastern, and
| | 00:39 |
another one that says tomorrow at 9
o'clock Western, you don't have to keep
| | 00:44 |
going back into CINEMA 4D and
rendering a 3D project every single time.
| | 00:48 |
You can render the main scene and
then go into another application that's a
| | 00:53 |
little bit quicker, like Motion or
After Effects, to just render out specific
| | 00:58 |
individual elements.
| | 00:59 |
So let's get started.
| | 01:00 |
Just so you can see our scene, let's
press Play on the playhead and as you can
| | 01:06 |
see here, we've got our
JetCart flying through the scene.
| | 01:10 |
Now just so we can sort of mirror the
scenario I was talking about a second ago,
| | 01:14 |
let's add an element that we could
easily go ahead and change and update in
| | 01:18 |
After Effects or even Motion.
| | 01:20 |
So right here where the cart banks,
I want to create an object that we can
| | 01:24 |
go ahead and swap out.
| | 01:26 |
To get started, all we have
to do is create a Cube object.
| | 01:30 |
Go up under the top center
and choose Add Cube Object.
| | 01:33 |
Now, I am going to switch to a
different camera view just by deselecting our
| | 01:36 |
Camera View target right
here in our Objects Manager.
| | 01:40 |
Now, I can just drag that cube up and
off to the side. Just so I can make sure
| | 01:47 |
that things aren't overlapping too much, I'll
just switch to the 4-Up view here for a second.
| | 01:51 |
Okay.
| | 01:53 |
Now to resize things, let's zoom in.
| | 01:56 |
I am just going to press S with the
cube selected and just kind of pull
| | 01:59 |
back here a second. Okay.
| | 02:02 |
So let's set our X to 800 and we'll
set our Y to 600 and Z, it really doesn't
| | 02:09 |
have to be too deep, so we'll set that to 2.
| | 02:12 |
So we have pretty much a flat plane here.
| | 02:15 |
Just so I can see the view a little bit
better, let's switch back to our Camera
| | 02:19 |
where we are actually going to render from.
| | 02:22 |
I think I'd like to rotate the screen.
| | 02:23 |
So just grab your Rotation tool and
let's go ahead and rotate the screen around.
| | 02:29 |
Just so it's not intersecting with the
cart here, let's just move it back in Z space.
| | 02:34 |
I am going to reselect the Cube and
move it back in the Coordinate section of
| | 02:38 |
the Attribute Editor. Let's do 800.
| | 02:43 |
Okay. So as you can see here the cart is
going to fly right past our little billboard
| | 02:47 |
and we should be good to go.
| | 02:49 |
Just because I am paranoid, I am just
going to rotate around here and make sure
| | 02:53 |
we are not intersecting and of course we are.
| | 02:55 |
So just pull that back a little
bit more, okay. Turn it around.
| | 03:00 |
Okay.
| | 03:03 |
I think we should be pretty good there.
| | 03:05 |
So After Effects can actually see where
the specific object is we need to add a tag.
| | 03:11 |
So with the Cube selected, let's go
up under Tags to CINEMA 4D Tags and
| | 03:17 |
External Compositing.
| | 03:18 |
This is one of the new features. We can
actually have a solid generated out of
| | 03:24 |
CINEMA 4D that we could then
in turn see in After Effects.
| | 03:28 |
Let's select the Solid and go ahead
and set its X to 800 and its Y to 600.
| | 03:34 |
This way it'll match up
with the size of the Cube.
| | 03:36 |
If I select the Cube and go to Object
properties here, you see X is 800 and Y is 600.
| | 03:42 |
Now, it's also important to pay
attention where your control vertices are on
| | 03:46 |
this specific object.
| | 03:47 |
So when we have Tag selected,
notice our Anchor Point is set to the Center.
| | 03:52 |
That's exactly where our control vertices are.
| | 03:54 |
So this way the transition will happen properly.
| | 03:57 |
Now, if you're not sure of the size of
the object you're going to be compositing
| | 04:01 |
in After Effects, sometimes it's
easier to actually move your anchor point to
| | 04:05 |
the upper left corner.
| | 04:06 |
So let's do that really quickly.
| | 04:07 |
Select the Cube and just convert it to
Polygons and we'll go ahead and drag our
| | 04:13 |
object axis to the upper left area of our Cube.
| | 04:17 |
We're just going to reposition
ourselves in the scene here for a second.
| | 04:21 |
And with the Move tool selected,
let's go to the Snap Settings and Enable
| | 04:25 |
Snapping and we'll just enable it
to a Point and if we drag over and up,
| | 04:32 |
once we get up to this top point here,
the control vertices will just snap really nicely
| | 04:37 |
to that upper left point.
| | 04:38 |
Now we can just go back into Object
mode and again with the Tag selected,
| | 04:44 |
make sure Anchor Point is now
set to the Top Left. Okay.
| | 04:48 |
Now that all that's set up, if we
render the scene, you'll notice we can
| | 04:53 |
actually see this object.
| | 04:55 |
I don't want this to
actually happen in the render.
| | 04:58 |
So what we need to do is add another tag.
| | 05:01 |
With the Cube selected, go up under Tags,
under CINEMA 4D, and this time let's
| | 05:06 |
choose a Compositing tag.
| | 05:08 |
The Compositing tag will actually allow you to
turn-off the specific visibility of your object.
| | 05:14 |
So I don't want it to cast or receive
shadows or be seen by the camera or seen by light
| | 05:20 |
or even Global Illumination,
if we had any those settings.
| | 05:23 |
So now if we go ahead and just scrub
around in our timeline here, you'll notice
| | 05:28 |
the cart will go ahead and fly right
past the scene, but if I go ahead and render,
| | 05:32 |
you notice now I'm not
seeing this specific billboard.
| | 05:37 |
Now, when I rotate it around the scene,
I did sort of offset the position of the
| | 05:41 |
camera a little bit, because
I did deselect the target.
| | 05:43 |
So I am just going to go ahead and
reposition the camera, so it's back down in
| | 05:47 |
the corner, again sort of
framed up to where we were.
| | 05:50 |
Now the last thing I want to do is add
a tag here for this cart, because I'd
| | 05:55 |
like to be able to put this cart
on top of anything in the scene.
| | 05:59 |
And the way you do that is to
create an Alpha channel for the cart.
| | 06:03 |
You can easily create an Alpha channel
using the same kind of Compositing tag.
| | 06:08 |
So let's select the JetCart Null
Object, go up under Tags > Cinema 4D and
| | 06:14 |
choose Compositing.
| | 06:15 |
Now I don't want to turn off any o the
visibility of this object, I just want to
| | 06:19 |
add what's called an Object Buffer.
| | 06:21 |
So if you go to the Object Buffer
channel and enable Buffer 1, this will
| | 06:26 |
actually render out an Alpha channel
as long as we have the settings set up
| | 06:30 |
properly in our render.
| | 06:32 |
So let's go to our Render Settings and
here's our color correction that we had
| | 06:36 |
set up a few videos back. And you
notice under Multi-Pass I have all the Lights,
| | 06:41 |
the Shadows and the Specularity of
the object, but I don't have this Object Buffer.
| | 06:48 |
So under Multi-Pass, let's go ahead
and click a button and choose Object Buffer,
| | 06:53 |
and it'll default to Group ID 1,
and that's fine because I have the
| | 06:57 |
Object Buffer set to 1.
| | 06:59 |
The reason we've multiple buffers,
if I had multiple objects I wanted to
| | 07:03 |
save out the Alpha channel, I would choose a
different buffer for each individual object.
| | 07:09 |
Okay. So now we're almost set to actually
create files by rendering to the Picture View.
| | 07:15 |
So before we do that, let's go to the
Save settings in our Render Settings and
| | 07:19 |
make sure we're set up properly.
| | 07:22 |
I've set up a render to a folder on
the Desktop and I named our file FlyCart.
| | 07:27 |
If we just go ahead and click on this
button over here with the three dots,
| | 07:31 |
this will allow you to specify exactly where
on your computer you'd like to save your file.
| | 07:36 |
So as you could see, I created a folder
on the Desktop called RenderTest and in
| | 07:39 |
there I am saving the file as FlyCart.
| | 07:42 |
Let me go ahead and press Save here.
| | 07:45 |
Now for the Multi-Pass image, we can
create any kind of name and for each
| | 07:48 |
individual multi-pass, CINEMA 4D will
customize the name so you know exactly
| | 07:53 |
which pass is rendered.
| | 07:56 |
So under the File, I am just going
to called this CartMult and Save.
| | 08:02 |
Now again, down here, under
Compositing Project File, I'll make sure Save is
| | 08:06 |
selected and since we're going to
After Effects for this example, I'll choose
| | 08:09 |
After Effects and we
definitely want to include 3D Data.
| | 08:13 |
Relative really only comes up if you
have multiple cameras and that's a whole
| | 08:17 |
other topic for another time.
| | 08:18 |
So let's go ahead and just close this out.
| | 08:21 |
Just so you can see exactly what I'm
doing, I am going to click and hold and
| | 08:25 |
choose Rendered to Picture View.
| | 08:28 |
Now, you'll see your Picture Viewer
updating here and it's telling me exactly
| | 08:34 |
what frame number is
rendering and the different passes.
| | 08:37 |
And if we jump down to our Finder here,
if I go to my Desktop, there is my
| | 08:41 |
RenderTest folder and you notice files
are actually being created in the Finder now,
| | 08:46 |
and as you can see, since it's an
image sequence, it's creating individual
| | 08:50 |
files for each layer of my Multi-Pass:
| | 08:54 |
my shadow, my diffuse layer,
each light, specularity.
| | 08:58 |
You get the general idea.
| | 09:00 |
So we've covered a lot in this video.
| | 09:02 |
We'll actually pick up with importing all
these files into After Effects in a later video.
| | 09:09 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Integrating with After Effects| 00:00 | Now we're continuing on where
we left off in the last video.
| | 00:04 | Just so you know what's going on, let's
go up into the Render Settings and you
| | 00:08 | can see we rendered out a Photoshop
sequence, a Multi-Pass image with Shadows,
| | 00:13 | Specular and an Object Buffer and even
incorporated a Color Correction that we had
| | 00:18 | made a few videos ago.
| | 00:20 | Now with all these settings, we went
ahead and rendered everything, making sure
| | 00:24 | to include our Composite After
Effects file with the 3D Data.
| | 00:28 | So if we go to our Finder, I actually
happen to render mine to the RenderTest folder
| | 00:35 | and if you scroll up and down here,
you can see we've created a bunch of
| | 00:41 | different Photoshop sequences and if
we continue scrolling down towards the
| | 00:46 | bottom here, you can see there's my AEC file.
| | 00:50 | Now in order for this to work, you've to
have the Cinema 4D plug-in installed in
| | 00:54 | your version of After Effects.
| | 00:56 | So where do you find the plug-in?
| | 00:58 | Well, I can show you here on the Mac.
On the PC you'd want to go to the Program section,
| | 01:02 | but in the Mac, it's in Applications
and if we scroll down to the MAXON folder,
| | 01:09 | we can go to Cinema 4D R11.5
and you'll notice right underneath the
| | 01:14 | application icon is a
folder for Exchange Plugins.
| | 01:18 | This will allow Cinema 4D to
interface with a whole host of
| | 01:22 | different applications.
| | 01:23 | The one we are interested in
right now is the aftereffects folder.
| | 01:26 | So let's go to the mac os x folder and
sure enough there is a CS3-CS4 folder.
| | 01:32 | In there, you'll find a zip file.
| | 01:34 | Now you want to make sure to double-
click the zip file and unarchive the plug-in
| | 01:39 | so it actually pops up.
| | 01:42 | Now to install the plug-in, all you
have to do is go back to your Adobe folder
| | 01:48 | but before I show you that, let me just
show you the PC version. It looks like this.
| | 01:52 | It has the .AEX on the end of it.
| | 01:54 | Okay, so back to installing the plug-in.
After you've unzipped your file,
| | 02:00 | you drag and drop the plug-in into the Adobe
After Effects CS4 folder and in the CS4 folder
| | 02:10 | you'll find a folder for Plug-
ins and as you can see, I just dragged and
| | 02:13 | dropped the C4D.plugin directly into this folder.
| | 02:18 | So now we're actually set
to launch After Effects.
| | 02:21 | Go ahead and double-click on After
Effects if you don't already have it open.
| | 02:27 | Now that After Effects is open, all we
have to do is go to File > Import > File.
| | 02:32 | Now you want to navigate to the folder
where you have rendered your project.
| | 02:38 | Ours is in the RenderTest folder, and what
we are going to look for is the .AEC file.
| | 02:43 | If we scroll down here towards the bottom,
I remember it was right down here. FlyCart.aec.
| | 02:49 | So if you notice when you select that,
it's this format Cinema 4D Composition.
| | 02:54 | If we go ahead and click Open, you'll
notice there are three folders that now
| | 02:58 | populate my After Effects project.
| | 03:00 | If we open this Special Passes folder,
you'll notice this is where we have our
| | 03:04 | Object Buffer 1, our RGB and Alpha
render and just a normal straight-up
| | 03:11 | Millions of Colors+ render.
| | 03:13 | If we open up the top folder here,
you'll notice we have a composition.
| | 03:16 | If you double-click the composition,
you can see After Effects is not only
| | 03:20 | imported all the specific layers from
the C4D project but it's actually put it
| | 03:26 | in the proper order.
| | 03:28 | Now this other folder here contains Solids.
| | 03:31 | Now the Solid is actually what got
generated when we created the tag in Cinema 4D,
| | 03:38 | telling it to
actually create a solid object.
| | 03:41 | If we scroll our playhead down here
just a little bit, you'll see there's
| | 03:45 | our solid and you'll notice the
anchor point actually came across in the
| | 03:49 | upper left-hand corner.
| | 03:51 | Now what's really neat about this is
the fact that this object actually is
| | 03:55 | living in a true 3D environment, and
that will allow us to actually create
| | 04:00 | anything and match it back
to this original camera move.
| | 04:03 | Now the problem I am having is the fact
this object is actually supposed to
| | 04:07 | be behind the cart, and we can fix
that relatively easily because we have
| | 04:12 | rendered this object buffer.
| | 04:14 | Notice if we double-click the Object
Buffer, you can see here it's just a
| | 04:18 | black-and-white rendering of the cart.
| | 04:20 | This is called an Alpha channel,
which is often used to determine the
| | 04:23 | transparency of an object.
| | 04:25 | So go ahead and close that window and
go back to our Comp and just click and
| | 04:29 | drag the object 1 render down
into the timeline just above the cube.
| | 04:34 | Now so the cube pops out from underneath
our new Alpha Channel here, all we have
| | 04:38 | to do is set the Track Matte to Luma
Inverted and now you'll notice the cart is
| | 04:45 | flying over top of the cube.
| | 04:49 | Also since Cinema 4D generated this
object, you can turn its visibility on and
| | 04:53 | off and notice that it's not married
to any other renders in the background.
| | 04:58 | So let's actually swap an image
in here in place of this red cube.
| | 05:04 | Now I rendered an image of the cart
out of global illumination as a still, so
| | 05:09 | let's go ahead and import that.
| | 05:10 | Now to import, all we have to do is
double-click anywhere in the Project pane
| | 05:13 | here and now we can import a file.
| | 05:16 | If you navigate to your Exercise Files,
in the Media folder, you'll notice there
| | 05:21 | is an option for GlobalRender.psd.
Go ahead and select that and now we have
| | 05:25 | imported that PSD into the project.
| | 05:28 | Let me show you what happens if you
just drag this right into the project.
| | 05:32 | It's just automatically going
to take over everything.
| | 05:35 | If I move around, notice nothing's
happening because this object is actually
| | 05:40 | living in a 2D world.
| | 05:41 | If I wanted to switch it to 3D, by
selecting the box here, even when I scroll around,
| | 05:46 | I've no idea where I
actually placed that render file.
| | 05:50 | So let's go ahead and delete GlobalRender
out of our timeline and select the cube.
| | 05:56 | Now hold down Option, click-and-drag on
the GlobalRender and as long as you hold
| | 06:01 | down Option, the cube will now
switch with the GlobalRender PSD render.
| | 06:06 | So now when we scroll here, check it
out. Automatically it's like the cart is
| | 06:11 | flying past its own
little billboard here. Okay.
| | 06:15 | This is pretty darn cool but
let's take it one step further.
| | 06:19 | Notice when I Option+Drag and swapped
out the material, if I press U on my
| | 06:24 | keyboard with layer 5 selected,
I have all of the keyframes required to
| | 06:28 | determine the position of this specific object.
| | 06:32 | Well, let's go ahead and add some text.
| | 06:34 | I am just going to grab the Text tool
up here in the top and click anywhere in
| | 06:39 | the canvas and I'll just type JetCart.
| | 06:43 | Now you may or may not have this font.
Last time I typed, I set things to
| | 06:47 | Impact at 125 point, so to set the
text I'll just press Enter on my keyboard
| | 06:53 | and now you notice the text is just living in a
2D world, it's not changing with the environment.
| | 06:58 | So, we need to change the text into a
3D world by going up under the Text and
| | 07:03 | selecting the 3D cube.
| | 07:05 | Now even though the text is disappeared,
I can get it back. All I have to do is
| | 07:09 | just select all the keyframes
here in the GlobalRender.psd.
| | 07:13 | Now if we go up under Edit and choose
Copy, we can move our playhead back to the
| | 07:19 | beginning and select our JetCart text
and go up under Edit and choose Paste.
| | 07:24 | Now when we scroll our playhead here, let me
go ahead and resize this image up to 100%.
| | 07:30 | Notice we have JetCart in the exact
same place as our PSD and notice the anchor
| | 07:37 | point for the JetCart is in the lower
left-hand corner and that anchor point
| | 07:41 | just happens to align with the anchor
point from the GlobalRender.psd that's in
| | 07:46 | the upper left-hand corner.
| | 07:48 | So if we want to go ahead and
reposition the JetCart text, just click on any of
| | 07:51 | the handles and dragging anywhere in 3D space.
| | 07:54 | Now you notice when I drag it above
the JetCart here, I'm having a similar
| | 07:58 | issue that I had before.
| | 08:00 | So I'll just quickly and easily fix
that by selecting our Object Buffer and
| | 08:05 | duplicating it, moving it above the
JetCart text and then with our JetCart text
| | 08:10 | selected, again we'll choose Luma
Inverted Matte and you'll notice now
| | 08:15 | as the cart flies, it goes right over
the text and the background image.
| | 08:20 | So just so we can see what the final
render looks like, let's move our playhead
| | 08:24 | back to the beginning and I'll do a
RAM preview, just by clicking the RAM
| | 08:27 | Preview button here in After Effects.
| | 08:29 | So you'll notice we have a cart
moving with our different lights and we're
| | 08:34 | flying and we have our
integrated billboard into the background.
| | 08:38 | So there you have it, seamless
integration between After Effects and Cinema 4D.
| | 08:43 | Now if you ever really wanted to go in
and tweak to your heart's content,
| | 08:48 | feel free to open up each individual layer
that's been imported into After Effects
| | 08:54 | and adjust the different settings to
see how you can change drastically the
| | 08:58 | final output render that
you rendered out of Cinema 4D.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Integrating with Motion 4| 00:00 | One of the exciting new features in R11.5
is its really tight integration with Motion.
| | 00:06 | Cinema 4D now supports exporting both
the 3D camera data as well as the lights
| | 00:12 | to actual 3D Motion projects.
| | 00:14 | So just so you know, we're continuing on
from the project where we created tags
| | 00:19 | for integration with After Effects and Motion.
| | 00:21 | Just so we can see what's going on in
the scene, we have a couple of different
| | 00:25 | compositing tags here on the JetCart
and on the Cube, as well as an External
| | 00:30 | Compositing tag where we went
to render out a solid object.
| | 00:34 | Now, this solid object will only render
into an After Effects project, but that
| | 00:39 | doesn't mean, we can't use
the External Compositing tag.
| | 00:42 | Let me show you what I mean by
exploring our Render Settings.
| | 00:46 | If we go into our Render Settings at
the top center of your toolbar, go ahead
| | 00:49 | and click the Render Settings button.
| | 00:52 | If you go down to the bottom, we've
already actually rendered out the Photoshop
| | 00:56 | sequence of the cart flying as well as
all of the different Multi-Pass layers,
| | 01:00 | the Shadow, the Specular, and even the
Object Buffer where we created the Alpha
| | 01:04 | channel for the cart.
| | 01:05 | But at the bottom we have our
compositing project files set up for After Effects.
| | 01:09 | If we click on the pulldown
menu, we can choose Motion.
| | 01:12 | Now instead of re-rendering everything,
all we have to do is click Save Project File.
| | 01:17 | Now Cinema 4D is asking us
where we'd like to save the file.
| | 01:20 | Let's go to the Desktop, under
RenderTest and go ahead and choose Save.
| | 01:25 | Now that our Motion project has been saved,
we can actually just jump right into Motion.
| | 01:30 | Let's close our Render
Settings and jump into Motion.
| | 01:34 | If you don't already have Motion open,
when Motion launches, you don't have to
| | 01:37 | have any project open.
| | 01:38 | Cinema 4D actually
creates a full Motion project.
| | 01:42 | So if you go up under File and choose
Open, I'll navigate to our RenderTest folder,
| | 01:47 | and you can see right
up here at the top, I have the
| | 01:49 | 10_05_Integration_Motion
project that got created.
| | 01:53 | So if we click Open, now since there
have been some updates to the application
| | 01:57 | Motion since this plug-in was rendered,
it may ask you this question.
| | 02:01 | Don't worry about it.
Just click Open as "Untitled".
| | 02:04 | Now, as you can see if I scrub
through my project, we've got our cart
| | 02:08 | that's actually moving around and we
have our light and everything seems
| | 02:13 | to have moved across.
| | 02:14 | If we press F5, we can see in our Layers
tab here, we have our different lights,
| | 02:21 | our different shadow layers, our
specularity layers, you get the idea.
| | 02:26 | There is our camera and sure at the
bottom here, check it out. There is our Cube.
| | 02:31 | If we open up our Timeline by
pressing F6 and go to the Keyframe Editor,
| | 02:35 | notice we have keyframes for
Position and everything else.
| | 02:39 | Well, I'm just going to go ahead and
move our playhead back to the beginning
| | 02:42 | here and import an image.
| | 02:46 | If you go to your File Browser,
navigate to the Media folder and let's
| | 02:50 | import GlobalRender.psd.
| | 02:53 | To import it into Motion, all I have to
do is just drag-and-drop it right onto
| | 02:56 | the comp, or you can drag and
drop it right into the Layers tab.
| | 02:59 | I'm going to drag and drop it just
above our camera in our Layers tab.
| | 03:04 | So, here we have our GlobalRender file.
| | 03:07 | Now, by default when I dragged and
dropped that in there, notice this layer is
| | 03:11 | actually in 3-dimensional space.
| | 03:13 | Well, this is good, because our cube
is actually in 3-dimensional space.
| | 03:18 | So making sure our playhead is on
frame 1, let's go ahead and select all the
| | 03:23 | keyframes from our Cube layer and just
go up under Edit, choose Copy and then if
| | 03:29 | you select the GlobalRender layer, you
can go up under Edit and choose Paste.
| | 03:35 | Now, our new image that we just
imported is actually going to be in the exact
| | 03:40 | same place where the Cube object was.
| | 03:42 | So, if we scrub our playhead here, let's
go ahead and change this Fit in Window.
| | 03:47 | You can the bounding box for the image,
but we don't actually see the image.
| | 03:51 | Well, if we drag our group all the way
up to the top of our comp here, making
| | 03:56 | sure it's all the way on top, you can
kind of see it, but the problem has to
| | 04:00 | do with the lighting.
| | 04:02 | So if we go into our Inspector in the
Properties tab, we want to make sure under
| | 04:07 | Lighting, then we have the Shading set to off.
| | 04:10 | Now you can actually see the full-fledged image.
| | 04:13 | If we scrub our playhead back and
forth here, you can see the cart is flying
| | 04:17 | right over the image.
| | 04:18 | Now, it's kind of the exact situation
that we had before. We need to actually
| | 04:23 | add our cart with its
Object Buffer above this layer.
| | 04:28 | The project files are imported into
the Media tab. I'm just going to rip the
| | 04:31 | Media tab out from behind the Layers
tab so I have it a little more visible.
| | 04:37 | You can see I have the CartMult_object_1,
which is the Alpha channel for the cart.
| | 04:41 | Just so I can place the cart on top of
the entire scene, I'll just create a new
| | 04:46 | layer here. Now before I drag the
Object Buffer into this layer, I'm going to
| | 04:49 | change the layer back to 2D, because I
don't want the layer to be floating in
| | 04:53 | 3-dimensional space.
| | 04:55 | Now when we drag the Object Buffer
into Group_1, you can see it's actually
| | 04:59 | placed directly on top of everything,
but since my playhead wasn't directly on
| | 05:03 | frame 1, the matte is not really lighting up.
| | 05:06 | So let's go back to our Timeline here,
and I'm just going to click-and-drag on
| | 05:10 | Group_1 and make sure it starts on layer 1.
| | 05:13 | Now if I turn the Visibility on and
off, you can see the Object Buffer is
| | 05:17 | actually lining up perfectly.
| | 05:19 | So now what we have to do is
add this as a Luma channel to our
| | 05:25 | 3-dimensional layer.
| | 05:26 | We can do that by selecting our 3-
dimensional layer group, and if we go up under
| | 05:31 | Object and choose Add Image Mask, we're
adding an image mask and it's going to
| | 05:36 | ask us what layer we'd like to add.
| | 05:39 | Well, if you drag-and-drop Group_1 into
the image mask here, now we've added an
| | 05:44 | image mask, but nothing has happened.
| | 05:46 | Well, nothing has quite happened yet,
because we need to tell Motion how to
| | 05:51 | interpret this image mask.
| | 05:52 | Let's go ahead and close the Media tab just
by clicking this X in the upper left here.
| | 05:57 | If you notice, by default the
Source Channel is set to Alpha.
| | 06:01 | This isn't an Alpha matte.
| | 06:02 | This is actually a Luma matte.
| | 06:03 | So what we need to do is change
the Source Channel to Luminance.
| | 06:08 | Now you notice its masking out perfectly,
but it's doing the wrong blend mode.
| | 06:12 | So we need to change it from Add to Subtract.
| | 06:16 | Now as we drag our playhead, you notice the
cart is moving right over top of our file.
| | 06:24 | So as you can see, with a little bit
of work, you can actually integrate and
| | 06:28 | do your final compositing in 3D, in
Motion as well as After Effects, directly
| | 06:33 | out of Cinema 4D.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Introducing Global Illumination| 00:00 |
If you want to create a really sharp-
looking render, you should check out
| | 00:03 |
Global Illumination.
| | 00:04 |
It was totally overhauled in Version R11,
and it'ss part of the advanced renderer, so
| | 00:08 |
you may not have this module.
| | 00:11 |
But if you do, you might be wondering exactly
what Global Illumination brings to the table.
| | 00:16 |
Well, basically, it allows you to
create photorealistic renders a lot more
| | 00:21 |
quickly and easily than you could with
traditional lights in your CINEMA 4D project.
| | 00:28 |
It does this by analyzing the scene and
looking at light in a real world type situation.
| | 00:33 |
What do I mean by that?
| | 00:34 |
Well, if you had a lamp that was
illuminating a shiny desk, the lamp would not
| | 00:40 |
only illuminate the desk, but the
reflections of that desk would help
| | 00:43 |
illuminate other items sitting
on the desk or around the desk.
| | 00:47 |
Well, global illumination looks at
everything in the scene and tries to
| | 00:52 |
figure out exactly how the light would
travel and interact with the objects in the scene.
| | 00:57 |
Whether a light would be generated or bounce
off or diffuse or you get the general idea.
| | 01:03 |
It's trying to simulate a
natural real-world situation.
| | 01:07 |
So, let's get started by
enabling Global Illumination.
| | 01:11 |
We do that in our Render Settings, so
click on the Render Settings button on the
| | 01:14 |
top-center of your toolbar.
| | 01:15 |
Go to the Effect button in the left
side of your Render Settings window.
| | 01:20 |
If you click, notice there is an
option for Global Illumination.
| | 01:24 |
Go ahead and select that, and
here you can see we have a couple of
| | 01:28 |
different settings.
| | 01:29 |
Now we'll explore these
settings later on in another video.
| | 01:32 |
Let's just enable Global Illumination
and work with the default settings for now.
| | 01:36 |
Go ahead and turn off your Render
Settings and let's just render the active view
| | 01:39 |
by pressing little
clapboard button here on the left.
| | 01:41 |
Now you notice I'm getting these
boxes moving around the scene and that's
| | 01:46 |
computing how the light rays
are bouncing around the scene.
| | 01:49 |
Well, if you look into Object Manager,
we don't have any actual lights in the scene.
| | 01:54 |
So, we probably aren't going to get very much.
| | 01:57 |
You might be able to see a little bit of this
highlight and that has to do with our textures.
| | 02:03 |
If I double-click on the Paint texture
here and go to the Illumination section,
| | 02:08 |
notice I've got Generate GI selected.
| | 02:11 |
So the Paint is actually generating
some global illumination, and that's what
| | 02:15 |
you're seeing in that one little area.
| | 02:17 |
Now, let's add some lights in the scene.
| | 02:19 |
We'll just do this quickly by
going to our Content Browser.
| | 02:23 |
Under the Presets in CINEMA 4D under Light
Setups, let's double-click 3 Point Light Stage.
| | 02:29 |
This way we've automatically
added some lights into the scene.
| | 02:32 |
Go ahead and close that and now press Render.
| | 02:36 |
So as you can see the box is moving
around the scene, if you look down here on
| | 02:39 |
the lower left, we're getting
in Irradiance Cache Prepass.
| | 02:43 |
So as the scene is being analyzed,
it's actually caching how the light is going
| | 02:48 |
to interact with the different objects.
| | 02:50 |
Now that looks kind of interesting, but
really, I found the fun begins when you
| | 02:55 |
actually start introducing Polygon lights.
| | 02:59 |
So, I know we've sort of explored the
basic light settings, but with Global
| | 03:03 |
Illumination we can use Polygon lights.
| | 03:06 |
Let's go ahead and use that.
| | 03:07 |
I'm just going to disable our 3 Point
Light Stage, just by making sure the stop
| | 03:13 |
lights are off for both
the Editor and the Viewer.
| | 03:16 |
So we create Polygon lights
just by creating a primitive.
| | 03:19 |
Let's use a primitive plane.
| | 03:21 |
So go up to the Primitive pop-up
menu, click-and-hold and choose Plane.
| | 03:25 |
I just want to create kind of a large
soft box lighting effect, just by making
| | 03:31 |
this plane sort of large and being
directly over top of the cart here.
| | 03:37 |
Okay, I'll just move that up in the
scene a little bit and rotate it back
| | 03:45 |
just a little bit there. Okay.
| | 03:47 |
So, we have the plane of the scene, but
we really haven't created our light yet.
| | 03:51 |
The way we do that is with materials.
| | 03:53 |
If you go to File and choose New
Material, you can see we have a material here.
| | 03:56 |
All we have to do is double-click to
open the Material Editor and deselect the
| | 04:01 |
Color Channel and we want to add Luminance.
| | 04:04 |
This will actually create light in the scene.
| | 04:08 |
I want to create a bright light, so
let's change the brightness up to around 150.
| | 04:12 |
Now we can close the Material Editor
and just apply the material to the plane
| | 04:16 |
that we dragged up at the top of the page.
| | 04:19 |
Now, let's hit Render and see what we've got.
| | 04:23 |
As you can see already, I've got a
slightly more realistic render of this light,
| | 04:28 |
hovering over top of the cart.
| | 04:30 |
Now there is a slight problem, the fact
that I can actually see the light, and
| | 04:34 |
then another issue, the fact
that there aren't any other lights.
| | 04:36 |
So let's just add some more lights to
the scene and I'll show you how we can
| | 04:41 |
take care of seeing our Polygon light.
| | 04:44 |
Just so we don't see the new light
when the scene renders, select the Plane object,
| | 04:48 |
go to Tags, under Cinema
4D Tags and choose Compositing.
| | 04:54 |
With the Compositing Tag selected,
just deselect Seen by Camera.
| | 04:58 |
Now when we go ahead and render, you can
see that the light is no longer in the scene.
| | 05:05 |
So to quickly add two more planes, I'm
just going to duplicate this plane by
| | 05:08 |
clicking-and-dragging,
while holding down the Ctrl key.
| | 05:12 |
I'll just rotate this plane around here
and move it back in the scene. Here we go.
| | 05:19 |
That's going to be pretty bright.
| | 05:25 |
So let me go ahead and rotate around here,
and we'll make this kind of a narrow light.
| | 05:31 |
Just so I have a different Brightness
value for this material, I'm going to hold
| | 05:35 |
down Ctrl and drag to the
right to create a second material.
| | 05:38 |
I'll call this second material,
material 2, and now with Plane.1 selected,
| | 05:45 |
I'll just drag Mat.2 to replace Mat.1.
So, now Mat.2, I can change its Luminance
| | 05:53 |
setting up to around 250.
| | 05:56 |
Just so we have another duplicate, Ctrl
+Drag in the Object Manager to make a copy,
| | 06:01 |
and let's drag this other one up.
| | 06:03 |
We'll change the Rotation just a
little bit, and I'll just move this
| | 06:07 |
slightly back in the scene.
| | 06:09 |
There we go, and select our cart.
| | 06:12 |
Orbit around the scene, here we go.
| | 06:16 |
Now even though we can see the light
here, when we go ahead and click Render,
| | 06:21 |
you won't see the light at all.
| | 06:22 |
Now I could go ahead and create a new
material and adjust the brightness and add
| | 06:27 |
that to the third light we've just created.
| | 06:29 |
But I think overall I'm just going to
need to brighten up the scene as a whole.
| | 06:33 |
So, let's just select our second material
here and adjust the Brightness up to around 350.
| | 06:39 |
We can do the same thing with material 1.
| | 06:42 |
Let's go ahead and bring that up to around 225.
| | 06:46 |
I'll just reposition the camera here.
| | 06:48 |
Obviously, we could turn the
Visibility off in the Editor and it would still
| | 06:54 |
render perfectly fine.
| | 06:55 |
I'll just turn that off so we can see this
little better, and now we can render the scene.
| | 07:00 |
So as you can see, just by using the
default settings under Global Illumination,
| | 07:05 |
and creating some Polygon lights,
you can quickly and easily start to create a
| | 07:09 |
scene that's a lot more photo-real and
take advantage of some of the beauty
| | 07:15 |
that is Global Illumination.
| | 07:18 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Fine-tuning Global Illumination| 00:00 | Hopefully you are joining me from the
last video. If not you should have a basic
| | 00:04 | familiarity with creating Polygon lights
and turning on Global Illumination, but
| | 00:10 | we're actually going to explore a
little bit more in depth rather than just
| | 00:14 | turning on the default settings.
| | 00:16 | So let's render our scene just so we can
see what's going on here and as you can see,
| | 00:22 | I'm generating a cache for this
file and that already gave me a hint as to
| | 00:29 | the settings of the Global Illumination.
| | 00:31 | Overall the scene looks a little
bit dark, so I'd like to make some
| | 00:34 | adjustments to that as well.
| | 00:36 | Let's go to our Render Settings just by
clicking the Render Settings button and
| | 00:40 | the default setting for Global
Illumination is IR (still image).
| | 00:44 | Now the way to change different
processes in Global Illumination is to adjust
| | 00:49 | the GI Mode, and there are two main
modes of Global Illumination, IR and QMC.
| | 00:56 | There is also one down here called the
Sky Sampler, which is really great if you
| | 00:59 | have a completely outdoor scene and
you want a nice realistic sun or outdoor
| | 01:05 | type sky setting which works with Sky,
but we are not going to get into that.
| | 01:09 | We will cover IR and QMC for just right now.
| | 01:13 | So first off, notice as I click through
the different settings here, if I click
| | 01:18 | on QMC or IR and QMC, these
four options never really change.
| | 01:23 | So I will just go back to my IR (still image).
| | 01:27 | So we will explore these four options
but first off let me explain the main
| | 01:31 | difference between IR and QMC.
| | 01:34 | IR generate radiance cache, which allows
you to cache the pre-passes required to
| | 01:39 | compute the light in the scene and
basically IR is analyzing the scene as a
| | 01:44 | whole, and trying to figure out how the
light rays bounce off and interact with
| | 01:49 | all of the different objects in the scene.
| | 01:51 | So it's great because you can cache
things, but the downside tends to be loss of
| | 01:57 | detail in some of the shadow areas
and also it doesn't really analyze every
| | 02:03 | single pixel in the scene.
| | 02:04 | Sometimes in your projects, that's
not that important, but sometimes it is.
| | 02:08 | So let's look at QMC. Under QMC we have
a Sampling Account and some different
| | 02:14 | details which we will get to in a
little bit, but QMC actually stands for
| | 02:18 | Quasi-Monte Carlo method, which means
each individual pixel is computed in
| | 02:24 | relation to how the light is
either created or reflected.
| | 02:28 | Now since natural light randomly
bounces light around QMC actually determines
| | 02:32 | the brightness for each pixel and
creates an even amount of light rays bouncing
| | 02:36 | off of each individual pixel.
| | 02:38 | So it tends to smooth things out a
little bit more than a true, true natural light,
| | 02:42 | but the disadvantage of QMC since it
does analyze every single pixel at render time.
| | 02:49 | So a lot of times people will choose
these mixed modes where we have both IR and
| | 02:55 | QMC and I want you to notice that
there are actual presets that give you a good hint
| | 02:59 | as to when to use each individual option.
| | 03:03 | So IR Camera Animation is great if you
have a still scene and you are just kind
| | 03:10 | of moving the camera through out the
scene. Whereas IR and QMC Camera Animation
| | 03:16 | is actually great if you have a full on
camera animation and the objects in the
| | 03:21 | scene are also moving around the scene.
| | 03:23 | There are options for still images and
you can definitely click and choose each
| | 03:27 | individual setting and sort of
explore to see which one works best for you.
| | 03:32 | Now before I get too much more in depth
about each individual options under IR
| | 03:37 | and QMC, let's explore these other options.
| | 03:41 | Diffuse Depth. This is actually how
many times the light will bounce off the
| | 03:46 | different objects before it starts to diffuse.
| | 03:48 | So for example if I had two mirrors
in front of each other and I had an
| | 03:53 | Infinite Diffuse Depth, the light
would just keep bouncing back and forth
| | 03:56 | between the mirrors.
| | 03:57 | If I have a Diffuse Depth of one,
the light would bounce off of one mirror and
| | 04:00 | then diffuse before it gets to the other.
| | 04:03 | So if you do two, I am sure you can
figure it out. It just kind of multiplies
| | 04:07 | out each time you adjust the Diffuse Depth.
| | 04:10 | Now typically when I set this setting, I will
choose a Diffuse Depth of one, two or three.
| | 04:15 | I found if you go above that sometimes you
are really going to run into high render times.
| | 04:19 | Now Primary Intensity and Secondary
Intensity is pretty well explained in the
| | 04:25 | help section of Cinema 4D.
| | 04:26 | So if we go ahead and right click on
Primary Intensity and choose Show Help,
| | 04:32 | you notice here it actually has an image
where we can see from left to right the
| | 04:36 | following primary and
secondary intensity values.
| | 04:39 | So you notice the primary value is the
intensity of the light that's actually
| | 04:43 | generating the brightness.
| | 04:46 | The secondary value is how that
light travels throughout the scene.
| | 04:49 | So you notice here 300 and 100,
still going to travel roughly the same.
| | 04:54 | It's just going to be a lot brighter in
its initial value, whereas here,
| | 04:58 | the Brightness can be roughly the same, but
actually it radiates further out through
| | 05:03 | out the scene because we
have a secondary value of 500.
| | 05:06 | Now all these settings you kind of
have to watch because they all will
| | 05:12 | impact your render times.
| | 05:14 | So let's go ahead and just change the
Diffuse Depth up to 2 and change Secondary to 200.
| | 05:19 | Now you can also brighten up the
scene by adjusting the Gamma setting.
| | 05:23 | Now there is a Gamma Setting for Global
Illumination here, but there is also a
| | 05:27 | Gamma Setting in your Options
area of your Render Settings.
| | 05:30 | I am going to go ahead and just
change the Render Gamma up to 2.0.
| | 05:34 | Okay, and then back under Global
Illumination here, since I have IR and QMC
| | 05:41 | Camera Animation setup, in the
Irradiance Cache, there is this option here
| | 05:45 | called Stochastic Samples.
| | 05:48 | If you are getting noise in your image
sometimes you want to actually increase
| | 05:52 | the Stochastic Samples.
| | 05:54 | So another setting that we might look
at is Oversampling. Go ahead and click
| | 05:58 | through this and look at
how this affects your scene.
| | 06:00 | Now the Irradiance Cache file, this
is kind of important. Any time you are
| | 06:04 | rendering with IR, you want to
make sure you have your cache files.
| | 06:08 | Now by default it will automatically
generate cache file whenever you render your scene.
| | 06:13 | If you want to set a custom location
for these files, you can go ahead and
| | 06:16 | select this and choose a specific folder
to save your Irradiance Cache files.
| | 06:20 | If you don't choose a custom location,
the IR Cache files will automatically be
| | 06:25 | generated wherever your project is saved.
| | 06:28 | Let me go ahead and close our Render
Settings and render the scene just so we
| | 06:32 | can see how the different setting
has kind of adjusted our render.
| | 06:38 | So overall we should see more detail as
well as a slightly brighter scene than
| | 06:42 | our previous render.
| | 06:45 | And one last thing I want you to
remember. Whether you are rendering a still frame
| | 06:48 | or rendering an animation, it should
help you choose the different GI settings
| | 06:53 | for your specific project.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Rendering with Sketch and Toon| 00:00 | In this video, I am going to show
you the basics of how to use Sketch and
| | 00:03 | Toon and Sketch and Toon is used to
help to create a very 2D looking render
| | 00:09 | out of our 3D application.
| | 00:12 | So to show you what I am talk about
let's jump to our Render Settings and in the
| | 00:16 | Render Settings to go to the
Effects button and enable Sketch and Toon.
| | 00:20 | With Sketch and Toon selected, in
the main channel make sure the Control
| | 00:25 | Level set to Simple.
| | 00:26 | Now to see the results let's go ahead
and render to our editor and you can see
| | 00:31 | pretty clearly that we have a
very sketched stylized result.
| | 00:37 | Now I want to tweak this so it looks
more just like a sketched outline and then
| | 00:41 | we are going to go ahead
and animate these outlines.
| | 00:44 | So first off let's look at the
shading in our scene and just so we can see
| | 00:49 | things update as we make changes, let's
enable our Interactive Render Region.
| | 00:53 | Okay. I will just go ahead and move
my Render Settings over here. Perfect.
| | 01:01 | Now in the Shading channel, let's look
at our object and by default it's set to
| | 01:07 | Shading and it's
quantizing to six separate levels.
| | 01:11 | If we change this number let's say down
to three, you notice the shading in the
| | 01:15 | model now only covers three different
levels of shadings as opposed to six.
| | 01:20 | Let's go ahead and change the shading
from shading to actual background and now
| | 01:27 | we're going to shade the model with
the same color from our background color.
| | 01:31 | So if we wanted have a different
background other than white, we could.
| | 01:34 | Now we come back to our Lines channel
here you notice we could select different
| | 01:39 | options but I think this is pretty
good for now. I'd like to just go ahead and
| | 01:43 | stylize these lines a little bit more.
| | 01:45 | In order to do that we need to make
some changes to actual sketch material
| | 01:49 | itself that's now appeared
in the Materials Manager.
| | 01:54 | So let's close a Render Settings
and double-click our Sketch Material.
| | 01:59 | In the Material Editor, notice we
have a simple Control Level. If we go to Strokes,
| | 02:03 | we can go ahead and enable our Strokes.
| | 02:07 | So with the Strokes enabled we can
stylize these strokes. For example if we
| | 02:12 | wanted to create a dashed pattern,
go ahead and select Pattern.
| | 02:16 | Now in a second the IPR will
update to show us a dashed pattern.
| | 02:21 | We could just offset and we can even
adjust the scale of the dashed lines.
| | 02:27 | Notice we're able to actually keyframe
these specific parameters if we'd like.
| | 02:32 | Now let's take this one step
further by actually stylizing strokes of
| | 02:36 | these dashed lines.
| | 02:37 | We can do that back in the Main channel.
| | 02:40 | Notice under Control Level there is a
second option here called Presets.
| | 02:44 | If we click on the Presets there are whole
host of other preset we could choose.
| | 02:50 | So let's choose a Pencil (Color Loose)
and you notice now we have a slight color
| | 02:56 | outline for our specific model.
| | 02:58 | I think this is pretty cool.
| | 03:00 | Now I'd like this to actually
draw on and animate on to the scene.
| | 03:05 | So in order to that, we need to change
our Control Level from Simple to Advanced.
| | 03:10 | Now with Advanced selected, let's go to
the Animate section and select Draw.
| | 03:16 | We can choose Single Strokes or All Strokes.
| | 03:19 | Let's just leave everything set out to
default and close our Material Editor.
| | 03:25 | Since our playhead is on frame zero,
notice we can't see anything in our
| | 03:29 | interactive render region.
| | 03:31 | Let's go ahead and disable
that and render a preview render.
| | 03:35 | Go ahead and click and hold on the
Picture Viewer and choose Make Preview.
| | 03:39 | I will choose an Image Size of 500 just
so we can see things and leave it set to
| | 03:45 | Full Render so we can get the full
detail of each individual stroke.
| | 03:49 | Now and press OK, it's going to take a
second render but when it's finished,
| | 03:53 | you should be able to see our cart
actually drawing on over time.
| | 03:59 | So now that our preview is
rendered, let's check it out.
| | 04:05 | And sure enough we have used Sketch
and Toon to actually create a highly
| | 04:08 | stylized sketch animation that's
flat and 2D from a 3D application.
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11. MoGraphGetting started with MoGraph| 00:00 | Now MoGraph is an individual module.
| | 00:02 | It doesn't come with just the straight
up version of CINEMA 4D, but if you've
| | 00:06 | bought the Studio Bundle,
it's definitely a part of that.
| | 00:09 | If you do have MoGraph on your system,
it will be in the pulldown menus at
| | 00:12 | the top of your page.
| | 00:13 | It should be right next to Dynamics.
| | 00:16 | Just so we can access things a little
more readily, let's rip this menu out of
| | 00:19 | the pull-down menu, just by
clicking on this bar at the top.
| | 00:22 | Now we can just drag it over to the
right side of our interface, just so we have
| | 00:26 | it docked in our interface.
| | 00:29 | Now the easiest way for me to think of
MoGraph, and this is a very simplified
| | 00:34 | way of thinking in MoGraph, it's kind
of like a cross between the Duplicate
| | 00:38 | function that we explored earlier and Particles.
| | 00:43 | The reason I say that the Duplicate
function is really cool. You can duplicate
| | 00:46 | things along spline and create all of
these interesting organic shapes, but
| | 00:49 | there is really no way to easily
keyframe all those different duplicates in
| | 00:54 | transition from the original
object to the duplicated objects.
| | 00:59 | Particles are great, because they
can allow you to create very organic
| | 01:02 | animations with many, many different
objects in the scene, but sometimes they
| | 01:06 | can be a little bit hard to control.
| | 01:08 | So MoGraph is kind of like a cross
between the two, because I can create
| | 01:13 | animations that look a lot like
particles, but have a little bit more
| | 01:16 | control like the Duplicate function,
but you can actually add in keyframing,
| | 01:21 | because it's MoGraph.
| | 01:22 | So enough talking, let's get started.
| | 01:25 | We'll just start by adding a basic
cube primitive to the center of the scene.
| | 01:29 | Let's change the size to 20x20x20.
| | 01:33 | Now let's start with a basic
MoGraph object, a Cloner object.
| | 01:38 | To clone a specific object, all you
have to do is drag that object into the
| | 01:42 | Cloner object, and now it's
automatically created clones.
| | 01:46 | If you select the Cloner object in
the Objects Manager, you can see all the
| | 01:50 | different options
available in the Attribute Editor.
| | 01:53 | By default, the Mode goes to Linear,
and I can go ahead and adjust the Count
| | 01:58 | just by clicking-and-dragging, and now you
can see I have a lot more clones in the scene.
| | 02:03 | So there is Linear, there is
Radial, and there is a Grid Array.
| | 02:07 | So let's choose Grid Array.
| | 02:10 | One thing that I want you to make sure
you have selected is Render Instances.
| | 02:14 | This will definitely speed up your
renders, especially as you create more and
| | 02:19 | more objects in your Grid Array.
| | 02:22 | So, let's go ahead and add some more objects.
| | 02:25 | Change the Count to about 8x8x8.
| | 02:29 | Let's just change the size
up to around 250 on all sides.
| | 02:34 | Now you can see I've got a pretty
dense set of cubes here actually.
| | 02:38 | I think it might be a little dense,
so let's change the Count back to 7x7
| | 02:42 | all the way around. There we go.
| | 02:43 | I think that's a little better.
| | 02:45 | Now, with the Cloner object selected,
you notice I could keyframe the size and
| | 02:50 | I could keyframe the Count, I could
keyframe the Mode even, but the fun really
| | 02:54 | begins when you get into effectors.
| | 02:57 | So with the Cloner object selected,
let's go ahead and add a Random Effector.
| | 03:03 | Notice automatically, the cubes
have randomly moved around the scene.
| | 03:07 | With the Random Effector selected,
notice the default option under parameters is
| | 03:12 | Position, and it's moving everything
up to 50 units on X, Y, and Z.
| | 03:19 | Now it's important to look at
this channel here called Falloff.
| | 03:23 | By default, the Falloff is set to Infinite.
| | 03:26 | So anything that's in this Cloner
object in the scene is going to be randomized
| | 03:31 | according to its position,
because that's what we have enabled.
| | 03:34 | If you adjust the Falloff to a
different shape, let's say a Sphere, now
| | 03:40 | the position will only be randomized for
the cubes when they're inside of the sphere.
| | 03:47 | If you're not seeing the sphere
falloff in the scene, make sure you have
| | 03:50 | Deformer selected in your Filter
menu, so you can actually see it.
| | 03:55 | So with Deformer visible, you notice I
have an option in here, which determines
| | 04:00 | the actual falloff from the deformation.
| | 04:01 | The inside is where all the objects
inside will be completely deformed up to 50,
| | 04:08 | based on our parameter settings.
| | 04:10 | The outside actually determines how
large the actual deformer is going to be.
| | 04:15 | So now I could go ahead and animate
the position of this going through our
| | 04:20 | different MoGraph object, and as you
can see, I can create kind of a complex
| | 04:25 | animation. Especially if we go into
parameters, we could adjust different
| | 04:29 | things like Rotation.
| | 04:30 | Let's adjust the Rotation to 45 degrees
on the pitch and you notice now as we
| | 04:34 | move through, not only are the
cubes moving, but they're also rotating.
| | 04:39 | Obviously, we could keep going through
the different parameters, but I want you
| | 04:42 | to understand the basics of
setting up some MoGraph in CINEMA 4D.
| | 04:48 | Now that we've covered a basic Cloner
object in MoGraph, I encourage you to keep
| | 04:52 | exploring by adding your own objects
and adjusting with different effectors to
| | 04:57 | see some of the different
results you can create in MoGraph.
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| Creating MoGraph text objects| 00:00 |
Now if you're joining me from the
last video, you'll recognize all my
| | 00:03 |
MoGraph options over here.
| | 00:05 |
If you just jumped directly to this video,
you want to go to the MoGraph menu at
| | 00:09 |
the top of your page and rip the menu
off and dock it over here on the right
| | 00:13 |
side of the interface.
| | 00:15 |
Let's go ahead and close that.
| | 00:18 |
Okay, so we're just going to explore
a basic Text object and use a Plain
| | 00:22 |
Effector to animate that Text object.
| | 00:24 |
Now, Text objects in MoGraph are a
little different than Text objects just set
| | 00:29 |
up in your spline primitives. Let me show you.
| | 00:32 |
When you click a Text object in MoGraph,
notice it's automatically already 3D.
| | 00:37 |
Now the nice thing about Text
objects in MoGraph, the fact that they can
| | 00:41 |
actually be controlled with different effectors.
| | 00:44 |
So, like I said, we're going to use a
Plain Effector to animate this text.
| | 00:48 |
So just click Plain Effector
while the Text object is selected.
| | 00:53 |
Now you notice automatically
the text is moved up in the scene.
| | 00:56 |
If we select our Plain Effector and go
to the Parameter options here, you notice
| | 01:00 |
under Position, by default it's
automatically moving everything up 100 on the Y.
| | 01:06 |
Let's just deselect the
Position options for now.
| | 01:09 |
I want to adjust the Scale.
| | 01:11 |
Now I'd like the text to disappear.
| | 01:13 |
So, in order to do that, we need to
actually go negative on the Scale.
| | 01:17 |
So if we adjust the Scale to -1, it's
automatically going to adjust the size of
| | 01:23 |
the scale of the text.
| | 01:24 |
Then as I rotate around the scene here,
you notice it's just kind of flattened it,
| | 01:27 |
because I'm only adjusting it on the X.
| | 01:30 |
If I choose Uniform Scale and then
say -1, now it's automatically going to
| | 01:36 |
uniformly adjust the scale of the text.
| | 01:40 |
Now, if you notice, even if I slide my
Effector around, nothing is happening and
| | 01:46 |
that has to do with the Falloff.
| | 01:47 |
It's set to Infinite.
| | 01:49 |
Let's change that to Box.
| | 01:52 |
In here, now you notice I have a box,
and if I adjust the position of the box,
| | 01:57 |
I'm adjusting how the text is
scaled throughout the scene.
| | 02:01 |
If I just click on this grabber on the
outside here, I can make the effector
| | 02:05 |
considerably larger.
| | 02:06 |
And if I click on the inside,
I'm actually adjusting the Falloff.
| | 02:09 |
So now as I click on the red axis handle here,
you can see I'm scaling this object down.
| | 02:16 |
Now, as you can see,
the text isn't completely gone.
| | 02:19 |
If I just render this,
you can see it's pretty small.
| | 02:21 |
That's because the effector
isn't all the way around the text.
| | 02:25 |
If I move my effector up so it's
actually centered on the text, now you
| | 02:29 |
notice when I render the scene, the text is
actually gone except for this one little area here.
| | 02:35 |
So let's click on the Plain Effector
and just drag across the scene and
| | 02:39 |
you notice the effector affects only
while it's inside of this specific area.
| | 02:46 |
The last thing I want to show you about
text is the fact that you can adjust the Caps,
| | 02:50 |
just like you did in any of
the other spline tutorials where we had
| | 02:54 |
different cap objects.
| | 02:56 |
You can go ahead and have Fillet Caps
and adjust it one step or two step and
| | 03:02 |
really kind of change how the text looks
still within MoGraph, but get the added
| | 03:07 |
power and benefits of being
able to use different effectors.
| | 03:11 |
Now just because I use the one Plain
Effector to affect this text doesn't mean I
| | 03:16 |
can't use another effector.
| | 03:18 |
If you select the Text object here,
I could go ahead and add a Random Effector
| | 03:23 |
to this as well, and you notice now,
my text is completely random in its
| | 03:28 |
position, because under the Random
Effector Parameter options, the Position is
| | 03:32 |
moving on 50 on all different areas.
| | 03:35 |
But if I go ahead and move my Plain
Effector, I'm still going to have the
| | 03:38 |
same Scale options.
| | 03:41 |
So you can layer multiple effectors
with your Text object and see which
| | 03:46 |
effectors are applied just by
clicking through the different channels.
| | 03:50 |
You notice by default the
effectors are affecting individual letters.
| | 03:54 |
I could have the effector adjust
just the words, or if you had multiple
| | 03:58 |
lines, just the lines.
| | 04:01 |
Now what if I wanted this Plain
Effector to scale the text, not around its
| | 04:06 |
center point, but around its
baseline at the bottom here?
| | 04:10 |
Well, that has to do with the
options down here under Axis.
| | 04:15 |
By default, the axis is
set to right in the middle.
| | 04:18 |
If we go ahead and drag the axis down
into the lower left, notice these green
| | 04:23 |
boxes on the screen have
now moved to the lower left.
| | 04:26 |
If I move around here, notice I'm
moving the axis of each individual letter.
| | 04:31 |
Now, as I select my Plain Effector and
drag through the text, you notice it's
| | 04:35 |
only scaling around the
lower portion of each letter.
| | 04:41 |
So, as you can see, animating text
in MoGraph is not only powerful, but
| | 04:46 |
versatile, because you can stylize
it with different Caps, you can apply
| | 04:50 |
multiple effectors, and you can apply
effectors to individual letters, words or lines.
| | 04:56 |
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