IntroductionWelcome| 00:04 | Hi! I am Rob Garrott, and I would
like to welcome you to Cinema 4D R12
| | 00:07 | Essential Training.
| | 00:09 | Cinema 4D is a 3D modeling and animation
package that is used by artists all over
| | 00:13 | the world to create amazing motion
graphics and effects for the entertainment
| | 00:16 | industry, as well as architectural
renderings and product visualizations.
| | 00:21 | In this course, we are going to learn
the fundamentals, so you can get started
| | 00:23 | creating your images and animations.
I will show you the basics of the interface
| | 00:27 | layout and how to navigate through the 3D world.
| | 00:29 | We will explore the creation of objects
and the tools used for organic modeling.
| | 00:33 | I will walk you through the integration
of Cinema 4D and After Effects, and we
| | 00:39 | will look at the newly redesigned
Dynamics engine for creating realistic
| | 00:42 | movement and object collision.
| | 00:43 | We will also dive into the other
specialized tools in Cinema 4D, including
| | 00:47 | MoGraph, XPresso and Body Paint.
| | 00:50 | Even if you are brand new to Cinema 4D,
I am going to explain just how this
| | 00:53 | incredibly deep
application works from the ground up.
| | 00:56 | In addition to using Cinema 4D
professionally since the late 1990s, I have been
| | 00:59 | teaching 3D motion graphics at the
Arts Center College of Design in Pasadena,
| | 01:02 | California for nearly 8 years.
| | 01:04 | I think you are going to be as excited
as I am about unlocking the potential of
| | 01:08 | this amazing application.
| | 01:10 | Let's dive into Cinema
4D R12 Essential Training.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using the exercise files| 00:00 | If you're a premium member of the
lynda.com Online Training Library, or if you're
| | 00:04 | watching this tutorial on a DVD-ROM,
you have access to exercise files used
| | 00:09 | throughout this title.
| | 00:10 | The exercise files are organized by
chapter, and in Chapter 8, for example, you
| | 00:14 | will see that there is a start file and
an end file Cinema 4D files. And in some
| | 00:20 | cases, there are subfolders
containing additional project files.
| | 00:25 | If you don't have access to the exercise
files, you can follow along from scratch
| | 00:28 | or with your own assets.
| | 00:29 | Now let's get started.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
1. Getting StartedUnderstanding the CINEMA 4D workflow| 00:00 | The 3D animation process is very complex.
| | 00:02 | In the early days of 3D, slow computers
and primitive software made the process
| | 00:06 | extremely difficult.
| | 00:09 | In 2010, however, modern applications like
Cinema 4D can handle the process with ease.
| | 00:12 | There are a lot of steps to the process
of actually creating both still images
| | 00:16 | and animation, but the basic
order of events is like this.
| | 00:20 | We are going to start off by modeling
objects in our scene, and this can involve
| | 00:23 | primitive objects like cubes and
pyramids, or it can involve more complex shapes,
| | 00:27 | like the Hyper NURB object for
creating a smooth, flowing, organic shapes.
| | 00:31 | Once you have your models created,
then you are going to want to start
| | 00:34 | lighting and texturing.
| | 00:35 | So the lighting process is the
illumination of objects within a scene, and you
| | 00:39 | will use objects called lights that
behave in a way that's very similar, but not
| | 00:43 | exactly like the way
things work in the real world.
| | 00:45 | There is a wide variety of light types
that are designed to help you simulate a
| | 00:48 | lot of different real-world situations.
| | 00:51 | The texturing process is adding color and
surface texture to your objects in a scene.
| | 00:55 | Now if you look around at the world, all
the objects that you see, the services
| | 00:59 | that they have can be divided into
categories: is it shiny, is it smooth, is it
| | 01:04 | bumpy, is it reflective, is it
transparent? Cinema 4D breaks materials into
| | 01:09 | those kinds of categories to give
you tremendous flexibility over how you
| | 01:13 | texture your objects.
| | 01:15 | The animation process involves giving
movement to your objects using keyframes
| | 01:19 | or other techniques.
| | 01:20 | Now animation can be very simple, like a
ball bouncing down stairs, or it can be
| | 01:24 | incredibly complex, like a 3D animated character.
| | 01:26 | It really is dependent on the situation.
Either way, Cinema 4D has amazing tools
| | 01:31 | for managing that process.
| | 01:33 | Rendering involves creating pixels
from your scene so that they can be
| | 01:36 | manipulated in another application.
| | 01:38 | What you see in the editor window when
you're working inside a Cinema 4D is not
| | 01:42 | the finished product.
| | 01:43 | You have to convert those objects
into pixel-based images that can be then
| | 01:49 | manipulated in a program like
Photoshop, if for still images, or Adobe After
| | 01:52 | Effects, for animation.
| | 01:54 | Cinema 4D is never a stand-alone; the
end results that you get out is always
| | 01:58 | brought into another compositing package.
| | 02:00 | This gives you a lot of control over
your image, and allows you to create amazing
| | 02:03 | effects that go above and beyond
what C4D's rendering engine can do.
| | 02:08 | The compositing process involves
bringing your images from Cinema 4D, once they
| | 02:12 | are rendered, into a program
like Photoshop or After Effects.
| | 02:15 | You have a lot of control in these
applications, using filters and other
| | 02:19 | compositing techniques, to really
create beautiful effects that wouldn't be
| | 02:23 | possible if you work with
just Cinema 4D by itself.
| | 02:26 | By breaking this complex process into
these tasks, Cinema 4D makes 3D animation
| | 02:30 | very approachable, allowing you to make
projects that look great and get through
| | 02:34 | them in much less time.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Clarifying the differences between 2D and 3D| 00:00 | Up until a few years ago, when you
used the term 3D, it usually referred to
| | 00:04 | animation that was created using a
modern 3D animation tool, like Cinema 40,
| | 00:08 | Maya, or 3D Studio Max.
| | 00:10 | Now, however, 3D is often confused
with stereoscopic, which produces a
| | 00:15 | three-dimensional effect by
superimposing two matching but slightly offset
| | 00:19 | images that are viewed with
special glasses or equipment.
| | 00:23 | Even though Cinema 4D is capable of
producing stereoscopic animation, for the
| | 00:27 | purposes of this training series, 3D
means simply animation that moves in three
| | 00:31 | dimensions that was created by a
popular 3D package like Cinema 4D.
| | 00:35 | 2D animation is the process of
creating hand-drawn or computer-drawn images a
| | 00:40 | single frame at a time, and these images
will move in a linear fashion, producing
| | 00:45 | an animated effect. And I have here in
After Effects a very simple animation of
| | 00:48 | a guy jumping up and down, and I have
drawn out single frames of this animation
| | 00:52 | over time. And when you add these frames
all together, it looks like a cute little
| | 00:56 | guy jumping up and down.
| | 00:58 | I will do a ramp preview of this, so that
you can see it animating back and forth.
| | 01:06 | The 3D animation process expands on
this idea by allowing objects to move along
| | 01:10 | a Z axis. And you could see in this
interface here, I've got a plane, and I've
| | 01:15 | got axes that are defined by
these colors red, blue, and green.
| | 01:19 | This world space that we're setting
in here allows the computer to create
| | 01:23 | objects in a way that is much more
realistic and much more deep than a
| | 01:27 | traditional 2D animation process.
| | 01:29 | I am going to hit Play here on the
interface, and you can see this animation going
| | 01:33 | out. It's a pretty realistic
dropping of these cubes onto this sphere.
| | 01:40 | Now the computer is able to draw this
animation in a very accurate way, using a
| | 01:44 | series of keyframes and algorithms that
free the artist from having to do things
| | 01:48 | one frame at a time.
| | 01:50 | The 3D animation process is only
limited by your imagination and the computing
| | 01:53 | power at your disposal;
| | 01:55 | individual artists as well as huge
companies, like Pixar, create magic everyday
| | 01:59 | with a variety of
off-the-shelf and custom tools.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Understanding how 3D software works| 00:00 | The process of creating an image using
3D software is computationally intensive--
| | 00:04 | that is to say it takes a lot of
computing power to generate that image.
| | 00:07 | In the early days of the development of
the 3D software, engineers were severely
| | 00:11 | limited by the strength of
computers over their day.
| | 00:13 | In response, the software they
created to render 3D space, called the Render
| | 00:17 | Engine, incorporated a lot of visual
and mathematical simplifications of the
| | 00:21 | real-world situations
they were trying to produce.
| | 00:23 | These adaptations by the early
programmers dominate how all current 3D software
| | 00:27 | behaves, regardless of what company makes it.
| | 00:30 | In the real world, our eyes perceive
the world around us not by the objects
| | 00:34 | themselves, but by the
photons that bounce off of them.
| | 00:37 | So photons travel from a light source
through space, and they hit a surface, and
| | 00:41 | they bounce off of that surface and
they may bounce off of many services and
| | 00:44 | eventually land on our eyeball.
| | 00:46 | Our eyeball then
interprets those photons as images.
| | 00:48 | The wavelength of light that the
object bounces is what determines the
| | 00:52 | color that we perceive,
| | 00:53 | so the amount of photons that exist in
reality is way beyond any computer that
| | 01:00 | is currently available or may ever be
available to accurately calculate. And so,
| | 01:04 | the software engineers came up with
the idea of rays, and rays sort of behave
| | 01:08 | like photons, but not really.
| | 01:10 | What they do though, is they allow the
render engine to see objects in the scene.
| | 01:15 | So I have a very simple scene here. I
have got a sphere, and I have a camera and
| | 01:19 | a light, and there are rays that emit
from both of these types of objects.
| | 01:23 | Keep in mind, this is a gross
oversimplification of how the render engine
| | 01:26 | works, and I am sure a programmer would
cringe at the way I am explaining it, but I
| | 01:30 | really want you to understand not the
technical aspects, but really what's
| | 01:33 | happening in the render engine.
| | 01:35 | So if I hit Play here, I have set up a
little animation that illustrates the
| | 01:39 | idea of how these rays emit.
| | 01:40 | So when I hit the Render button, this
would happen. And these lines that we see
| | 01:46 | in the scene here represent those rays.
| | 01:49 | And so, we have rays that it emit from
the camera point of view, and we have
| | 01:52 | rays that emit from the light's point
of view, and those rays go into the scene
| | 01:56 | and they strike an object.
| | 01:57 | You can see they are hitting our
sphere here. And if I switch to look through
| | 02:00 | the camera, some of those rays are
traveling off into space, and some of those
| | 02:04 | rays are making contact with the sphere.
| | 02:06 | The rays that travel off into space,
they never come back to the render engine. They
| | 02:10 | produce black around the image.
| | 02:13 | The rays that hit the sphere, they tell
the render engine a lot of information
| | 02:16 | about that sphere, and they say, "Hey,
there was light coming from this angle.
| | 02:20 | It has a material on it that
has this color associated with it.
| | 02:24 | Therefore, you should draw pixel at
this location on-screen of this RGB value,
| | 02:29 | and that's what the render engine does a
zillion times when you hit that render button.
| | 02:33 | So when I hit this white clapboard
here, which is the Render and Active View
| | 02:36 | button, you can see that I get this
beautifully rendered sphere with black
| | 02:41 | around it. And all of that is based on
those calculations, which are, once again,
| | 02:45 | designed to simulate what
happens in the real world.
| | 02:48 | With a basic understanding
of how a 3D render engine works,
| | 02:51 | an artist can get tremendous
control over the creation of 3D stills
| | 02:54 | and animation.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Navigating the viewports| 00:00 | Now this large central window that we see
inside interface is called the viewport.
| | 00:04 | It's also referred to as the Editor
window, and this viewport is really the
| | 00:09 | expression of the 3D space
that we are going to be working in.
| | 00:13 | If you remember your geometry from high
school, the 3D space can be divided into
| | 00:18 | a series of planes and axes, and
those planes and axes have positive and
| | 00:22 | negative values, and you can see
them expressed here in the viewport.
| | 00:26 | At the center of the viewport is the
world center, and this world is divided up
| | 00:30 | into axes and planes, and there
are colors associated with them.
| | 00:34 | The red axis is always x axis. The y
axis--if I navigate down, I am going to
| | 00:40 | navigate in this viewport. You can't
see the top of the y axis, because it's
| | 00:43 | extending off the screen, I am going
to use this icon up here in the upper
| | 00:47 | right-hand of the
viewport. And to navigate down,
| | 00:50 | if I click on this and drag downward, I
can now position the viewport, and that's
| | 00:56 | navigation within the viewport.
| | 00:57 | Now there are keyboard shortcuts for
that. We are going to talk about that in
| | 01:00 | a subsequent movie.
| | 01:02 | So these axes are color coordinated
and their colors are very important, and
| | 01:06 | it's very easy to remember: XYZ, RGB.
| | 01:09 | The x axis is always red, the y axis is
always green, and the z axis is always blue, and
| | 01:14 | that holds true for objects, as well
as the world that you're working in.
| | 01:18 | The arrows are very important as
well because the direction of the arrow
| | 01:22 | indicates the positive direction for that axis.
| | 01:24 | So this is the positive x side of the axis,
this is the negative x side of the axis.
| | 01:30 | This is positive z, negative of z,
positive y and negative y down here.
| | 01:35 | This viewport is showing us the
Perspective view, but sometimes the Perspective
| | 01:40 | view can be tricky to understand.
| | 01:41 | So the programmers, in their infinite
wisdom, gave us orthographic views or views
| | 01:45 | without perspective. And in order to
access those, I need to click on this icon
| | 01:50 | right here. And this will switch my
viewport from a single Perspective view to
| | 01:55 | a four-way split screen, showing me the
Perspective as well as the orthographic views.
| | 02:00 | So there are three orthographic used by
default, but you can set up others, and
| | 02:04 | the default orthographic views are the
top view here, the front view here, and
| | 02:08 | the right view here.
| | 02:10 | And really, what these orthographic views are
| | 02:12 | is they show us planes, and the planes
are defined by two axes. And the top view
| | 02:17 | is defined by the x and z axis
and that defines the x-z plane.
| | 02:23 | The front view is defined by the x
and y axis, and this is the x y plane.
| | 02:29 | The right-hand view, z and y,
it's the z-y plane, or y-z plane.
| | 02:34 | Now I can navigate inside of these
views using these icons in the upper
| | 02:38 | right-hand corner of the viewport.
And if I want to navigate in the right-hand
| | 02:43 | view, I can click on this
Pan icon, and I can pan around.
| | 02:46 | I am moving left, right, up, and
down in this orthographic view.
| | 02:50 | If I grab this icon right here, I can
do a dolly move, and I am moving into or
| | 02:55 | out of that right-hand view if
I click and drag left or right.
| | 02:59 | Up and down doesn't work. You have
to drag it left or right. And you can
| | 03:02 | dolly in or dolly out.
| | 03:05 | And that works for each of these views.
| | 03:07 | If I click in the top view, I can pan around.
| | 03:09 | I can dolly in or out. And the
same holds true for the front view.
| | 03:13 | And in the Perspective view, there is
third icon available to me, and that is this
| | 03:17 | Orbit icon. And if I click on
this, I can orbit around my scene.
| | 03:24 | In the orthographic views, this icon
does not work. That orbit is based on a
| | 03:28 | 3D perspective view and since you don't have
3D perspective in these views, you can't orbit.
| | 03:33 | That's the basics of the viewport,
and the navigation that we use in there
| | 03:37 | with those icons is a little bit
clunky. And in another movie in this
| | 03:39 | chapter, I'm going to show you how to
move around much more efficiently using
| | 03:43 | keyboard shortcuts.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Navigating using a three-button mouse and keyboard shortcuts| 00:00 | Moving around in Cinema 4D is
very much a two-handed operation.
| | 00:03 | Whether you use a mouse or a tablet,
there are a few important shortcuts that
| | 00:07 | will help you navigate with these.
| | 00:08 | Now the most important thing I want
to talk about in this movie is the use of
| | 00:12 | a three-button mouse.
| | 00:13 | If you're on a PC, three-button mouse
is standard operating procedure, and you
| | 00:17 | don't really need to change anything.
| | 00:19 | On a Macintosh, if you're using a
Mighty Mouse, then there are some important
| | 00:23 | changes we need to make
in the System Preferences.
| | 00:25 | I am going to go to the Apple menu,
and go to System Preferences. And in the
| | 00:29 | system preferences window, I'm
going to click on the Mouse icon.
| | 00:32 | Now I have a Mighty Mouse attached to
my scene, and I need to make sure that my
| | 00:38 | buttons are arranged correctly.
| | 00:40 | The way the Mighty Mouse works is it's
got a left-hand side, a right-hand side,
| | 00:44 | and then a middle scroll wheel here in
the center, which is actually a ball.
| | 00:47 | The Primary Button is set correctly:
that's going to be our left mouse click.
| | 00:51 | The Secondary Button is set correctly:
that's going to be a right mouse click.
| | 00:54 | The middle scroll ball, we need
to make sure is set for Button 3.
| | 00:59 | Now if you have it set to be anything
other than Button 3, go ahead and turn
| | 01:02 | it to Button 3 now.
| | 01:03 | This is going to make the Mighty
Mouse behave like a three-button mouse on
| | 01:06 | Windows, or like a three-button mouse
that you would get from a third party.
| | 01:10 | The buttons that are on the side of the
mouse are right now set for Button 4.
| | 01:14 | We can leave those alone or disable them;
it really doesn't matter. We won't be
| | 01:17 | using them for the navigation inside Cinema 4D.
| | 01:19 | So I'm going to close up the
preferences and get back into Cinema 4D.
| | 01:24 | Navigating in Cinema 4D
is a two-handed operation.
| | 01:27 | Now this large window in the center of
the interface is called the viewport,
| | 01:30 | also called the Editor window, and
this grid area represents the Perspective
| | 01:35 | view. And we're looking at our world from
approximately a 45 degree angle, and looking
| | 01:40 | down at the center of the world.
| | 01:41 | That world, we are going to need to be
able to move around in, and there are
| | 01:44 | some important keys we're
going to use to do that.
| | 01:46 | First up is the number 1 key on the
keyboard. If you hold that key down,
| | 01:50 | that allows you to pan.
| | 01:52 | Now I'm dragging in a circular motion
right now, and then if I drag left and
| | 01:56 | right, I can pan left and right.
| | 01:57 | If I drag up and down, I can pan up and down.
| | 02:00 | So you can have a lot of freedom of
movement, but it's really only in two dimensions.
| | 02:05 | Next step is the number 2 key.
| | 02:07 | The number 2 key, if I hold it down,
and click with my left mouse button,
| | 02:11 | if I drag left and right, I can dolly in/out.
| | 02:15 | That's very important. Do not drag up and
down, because that doesn't do anything;
| | 02:18 | you want to drag left and right.
| | 02:20 | And this is a physical dolly move.
What I mean by that is that the camera is
| | 02:25 | moving physically into or out of the
scene. We're not changing the focal length
| | 02:30 | of the lens. We're physically moving
the camera closer to or further away from
| | 02:33 | our subject, in this case
the center of the world.
| | 02:36 | The number 3 key in the Perspective
view allows us to orbit around, and that
| | 02:41 | orbit by default is around the center of
the world if you don't have anything selected.
| | 02:45 | Now if I have a cube in the scene, I'm
going to add a cube, and I'm going to use
| | 02:48 | these handles on the cube to actually
move the cube on the positive X axis.
| | 02:55 | That movement is constrained to that
axis, and we'll talk more about that in a
| | 02:59 | subsequent movie. But what I want to
show is that Cinema 4D orbits around
| | 03:03 | whatever object you have selected.
| | 03:04 | I'm just going to move this cube way off in
space so that it's far away from the world center.
| | 03:10 | And if I have the cube selected, my
camera is going to orbit around that cube.
| | 03:15 | If I deselect it, it's going to orbit
around the world center, and that's a
| | 03:19 | really important distinction.
| | 03:20 | So the camera, by default, orbits
around what you have selected.
| | 03:23 | If you don't have anything selected,
it orbits around the world center.
| | 03:26 | The interface that we're looking at,
the viewport by default, is set for the
| | 03:29 | Perspective view, but there are other
types of views that you have access to.
| | 03:33 | And by using the middle mouse button
and clicking any place in the viewport,
| | 03:38 | that switches you to a four-way split screen.
| | 03:40 | That's why it's so important to
have a three-button mouse, because this
| | 03:44 | navigation between screens is
incredibly important, and it's the fastest way to
| | 03:48 | get there is to middle-mouse-
click in any of these windows.
| | 03:51 | So whichever window I middle-mouse-click
in, if I middle-mouse-click in the Top,
| | 03:54 | that window becomes fullscreen.
| | 03:56 | If I middle-mouse-click, again,
it brings me back to the four-way.
| | 04:00 | So I can quickly navigate from the
Right view by middle-mouse-clicking, and
| | 04:04 | I can navigate to the Perspective
view by middle-mouse-clicking, and I can
| | 04:08 | get back out again.
| | 04:10 | On the Mighty Mouse, it can be a little
bit difficult to middle-mouse-click, so
| | 04:13 | you may want to disable your scroll
wheel in the same Preferences window that we
| | 04:16 | changed the button control earlier.
| | 04:18 | The next thing I want to talk about is
another shortcut for moving in the views,
| | 04:22 | and that's using F1 through F5 keys.
| | 04:25 | Now once again, there is a setting we
need to change on the Mac, and we're going
| | 04:28 | to double-check it here
in our system preferences.
| | 04:30 | If you're on the PC, you
don't need to worry about it.
| | 04:32 | In the Macintosh, the F keys
are not always on by default.
| | 04:36 | If you've just done a clean install of
your operating system, the F keys can
| | 04:39 | provide a different function than what you
would normally want to have in Cinema 4D.
| | 04:42 | So I'm going to go to the Apple
menu > System Preferences, and go to the
| | 04:47 | Keyboard, and I want to make sure
that Use all F1 and 2 Keys as standard
| | 04:51 | function keys is turned on.
| | 04:53 | That's very important, because we're
going to be using the F1 through 5 keys for
| | 04:57 | navigating through these windows
as well. That's another shortcut.
| | 05:00 | And if we don't have these turned on
when we hit the F1 key on Macintosh, then
| | 05:04 | we'll get some other
function that is mapped to that key.
| | 05:07 | So if I turn off those preferences now,
and I use the F1 through 5 keys, F1 is
| | 05:13 | the Perspective view. Right now we're
looking in the Perspective view, so if I
| | 05:15 | hit it nothing will happen.
| | 05:17 | F2 gives us the Top view, F3 gives us
the Right-hand view, F4 gives us the Front
| | 05:22 | view, and F5 gives us the split screen.
| | 05:25 | So we can go back to the
perspective view by hitting F1 right here.
| | 05:29 | So now Cinema 4D has two different undo buffers.
| | 05:32 | It has the standard undo buffer, which
includes mouse clicks and creating and
| | 05:36 | deleting objects and those kinds of things.
| | 05:38 | It also has an undo buffer
for the viewport as well.
| | 05:41 | So I want to talk about the
standard undo buffer right now.
| | 05:44 | Up here in the interface, there are two
arrows: an arrow going backwards and an
| | 05:47 | arrow going forward,
which is grayed out right now.
| | 05:49 | These are the Undo and Redo buttons.
| | 05:51 | You can click these buttons, or
you can use the keyboard shortcut.
| | 05:54 | The keyboard shortcut for undo is Command+Z
or Ctrl+Z. Now, I'll undo that movement of the cube.
| | 06:00 | Now there are 30 levels of undo
inside of Cinema 4D, but we can change that
| | 06:04 | at anytime by modifying them in the Preferences,
and we'll talk about that in a later movie.
| | 06:08 | The redo is a little bit different.
If you're used to using Adobe
| | 06:12 | applications, then you're used
to doing Shift+Command+Z for redo.
| | 06:15 | Well, that doesn't work in
Cinema 4D. It's Command+Y for redo.
| | 06:19 | So if I hit Command+Y or Ctrl+Y on the
keyboard, I can redo those movements.
| | 06:23 | And in Cinema 4D, even mouse clicks
are part of the undo. Deselect this cube.
| | 06:29 | So if I hit Command+Z or Ctrl+Z on
the keyboard, then that will reselect
| | 06:33 | my cube, because I just deselected it, and
mouse clicks are part of that undo buffer.
| | 06:38 | Any navigation changes we do in the
viewport can be undone or redone, so as I
| | 06:42 | use the 3 key, if I hold down 3
and orbit around my cube here, if I don't
| | 06:46 | like that orbit I just did, I can
hold down the Shift+Command+Z or
| | 06:49 | Shift+Ctrl+Z. So Shift+Command+Z on the
Macintosh, or Shift+Ctrl+Z on the PC,
| | 06:57 | will give you this undo buffer.
| | 06:59 | So if I do Shift+Command+Z right now, it
will undo the viewport changes that I just did.
| | 07:05 | If I do Shift+Command+Y, it will redo
the viewport changes that I just did.
| | 07:09 | So if I middle-mouse-click, or hit F5
on the keyboard to get to the four-way
| | 07:14 | split screen, these views here
are called the orthographic views.
| | 07:18 | They do not have perspective,
so they're orthographic views.
| | 07:21 | And so, the way you navigate in those is by
using just the 1 and 2 keys by themselves.
| | 07:26 | The number 1 key, if I click in the Top
view and drag around, that allows me to
| | 07:30 | pan in any of these views.
| | 07:32 | If I use the number 2 key in any of
the orthographic views and drag left and
| | 07:36 | right, I can zoom in or out in those views.
| | 07:38 | Right now, I'm zooming out, so
I can see my cube in the scene.
| | 07:43 | So that's the number 1 key to do a
pan, the number 2 key to drag left or
| | 07:47 | right to dolly in/out.
| | 07:49 | Now that you can move round in 3D
space, we're ready to explore the Cinema
| | 07:52 | 4D interface.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Touring the interface| 00:00 | The Cinema 4D interface is comprised
of menus, managers, and viewports, all
| | 00:04 | contained inside of a shell window.
| | 00:06 | This shell allows the programmers to
bypass the operating system and make the
| | 00:10 | application identical between operating systems.
| | 00:13 | The only difference is the Ctrl key
on PCs and the Command key on Macs.
| | 00:16 | So as you can see here, I'm on a
Macintosh, and Cinema 4D is actually
| | 00:21 | existing inside of a shell.
| | 00:22 | And if I move this window
around, that shell moves with it.
| | 00:25 | The first thing you'll notice about
this shell is that there are no menus
| | 00:28 | across the menu bar.
| | 00:30 | The only thing you see at the top menu
bar is the Apple menu, Cinema 4D, and the
| | 00:34 | Window menu, which allows
you to close and minimize.
| | 00:37 | None of the other menu items are
contained in the Macintosh interface;
| | 00:40 | they are all inside of this window.
| | 00:42 | The next thing you'll notice is
that there are a lot of menus.
| | 00:45 | If you look across the top here, we've
got the main menu bar, and then each of
| | 00:49 | these windows around it has
its own set of menu items.
| | 00:53 | And so when I'm going to be working
through these lessons with you, I'm going to
| | 00:56 | very specific about which
menu I'd like you to access.
| | 00:59 | So let's talk about the interface a
little bit more and work a way around it.
| | 01:03 | We're going to be working sort
of clockwise around the interface.
| | 01:05 | So across the top here, we've got a menu
bar, and this menu bar duplicates a lot
| | 01:10 | of the functionality in all
these icons that we see on-screen.
| | 01:14 | You could, actually, if you wanted to,
hide all the icons in the interface by
| | 01:17 | customizing it and then work just off the menus.
| | 01:20 | So even though the icons are there on-
screen, you can always get to them by
| | 01:23 | clicking and pulling on one of these menus.
| | 01:25 | So right below the main menu bar is the
main toolbar or icon bar, and this icon
| | 01:30 | bar contains icons for a
lot of different functions.
| | 01:33 | There are functions for undo and redo.
| | 01:35 | There are movement and navigation tools.
| | 01:38 | There are axes-oriented tools,
rendering tools, and then objects that you can
| | 01:43 | use for constructing your scene, as
well as filters for controlling what
| | 01:48 | objects you select in the scene,
and also something called the Content browser,
| | 01:52 | which is a way for navigating through your
computer without actually leaving the application.
| | 01:56 | Next up, clockwise on our trip through
the interface, is the Object Manager.
| | 02:00 | The object manager is the physical
representation of whatever you have in your scene.
| | 02:04 | Now I'm going to add a cube object,
and we'll talk more about how to create
| | 02:08 | objects in a subsequent movie, but if I
click on the cube icon right here, I'm
| | 02:12 | going to add a cube to the scene.
| | 02:13 | Now you'll notice that I have a cube
here in the scene, and now I have a cube
| | 02:16 | in the Object Manager.
| | 02:18 | The Object Manager is divided now into three
columns, and these columns are very important.
| | 02:22 | You have the Object column, you have
the middle Status column, and you have the
| | 02:26 | Tag column over here on the right.
| | 02:28 | In the Object column, I'm able
to change the name of my object;
| | 02:31 | I could change the name of this cube by double
-clicking on it and calling it "super cube."
| | 02:37 | The Status column shows
me the status of my object.
| | 02:40 | Is it attached to a layer?
| | 02:41 | Is it going to be visible in the
Editor or Render window, which is what these
| | 02:45 | two dots right here represent?
| | 02:46 | If I select my super cube and go to the
basic properties of the super cube--and
| | 02:50 | this window down here is called the
Attribute Manager, and we're going to talk
| | 02:53 | about that more in a subsequent movie
as well--I can see that I've got some
| | 02:57 | items here and some choices.
| | 02:59 | The Visible in Editor and Visible in
Renderer elements are related to these two dots.
| | 03:04 | If I change the Visible in Editor to on
--it's set to Default right now, which
| | 03:09 | means is that is gray--if I change
it to on, it's going to turn green;
| | 03:12 | that means the object will always
be visible in the Editor window.
| | 03:15 | If I change it to Off, now it's
invisible in the Editor window, but it will
| | 03:23 | show up in a render.
| | 03:24 | And same thing goes for
the Visible in Renderer icon.
| | 03:27 | If I'll change this to On, it will
always render, even though it's not visible
| | 03:32 | in the Editor window.
| | 03:34 | And if I change it to Off, it will be off.
| | 03:36 | This may seem a little bit confusing now,
but we'll talk more about this in another movie.
| | 03:40 | Let's keep moving through the interface.
| | 03:42 | So the Attribute Manager shows us the
modifiable properties of our objects.
| | 03:46 | And this manager will change depending
on what type of object you have selected,
| | 03:50 | and it will change whether or not
you have a tool or an object selected.
| | 03:53 | For example, if I click on this icon up
here in the main icon bar--this is the
| | 03:58 | Move tool--if I click on that, I now
see the properties for the Move tool.
| | 04:02 | If I click on the Selection tool
right next to it, I see the properties for
| | 04:05 | the Selection tool.
| | 04:06 | If I click on my super cube, I see
the properties for the super cube.
| | 04:09 | So this Attribute Manager
changes continuously throughout your
| | 04:12 | working experience.
| | 04:13 | Right next to the Attribute
Manager is the Coordinate Manager.
| | 04:16 | The Coordinate Manager shows you the
location of the access point for your
| | 04:21 | object, or your selected objects in
the scene, or the components of those
| | 04:25 | objects as well, and that's a big difference.
| | 04:27 | In the Attribute Manager, you have a
coordinate property for your object.
| | 04:30 | So, for example, I'll click on my cube.
| | 04:32 | I see the coordinate properties,
and these coordinate properties show me where
| | 04:35 | my cube is, and we'll talk more
about those in another movie as well.
| | 04:39 | The Coordinate Manager can show me
those same values, but it can also show me
| | 04:42 | where the subcomponents that
make up that cube are as well.
| | 04:46 | Next to the Coordinate Manager is
the Material Manager, and the Material
| | 04:49 | Manager is where we create materials that are
going to give our objects color and texture.
| | 04:54 | And it has its own separate menu items
that allow us to create new materials.
| | 04:59 | And I can create a new material,
and that material has its own set of attributes
| | 05:02 | that show up in the Attribute Manager.
| | 05:04 | Right above the Material
Manager are the time controls.
| | 05:07 | Now I have a Time slider right here
that allows me to navigate in time.
| | 05:12 | Cinema 4D is an animation package and
you can animate in frames over time.
| | 05:17 | And that allows you to create
really incredible animation effects, but
| | 05:20 | fundamental of that is moving through time.
| | 05:22 | And this green rectangle, if I click
and hold on it and drag left or right, I'm
| | 05:26 | now navigating through time in my interface.
| | 05:29 | And this window here indicates the
frame that I'm currently parked on.
| | 05:33 | If I move my green rectangle to frame
35, you'll see it shows me that I'm on
| | 05:38 | frame of 35 right here.
| | 05:39 | Now this field is the preview range.
| | 05:42 | The preview range shows me how many
frames I'm going to see in this Time slider.
| | 05:46 | Right now, it defaults from 0 to 90, or
91 frames, but if I want to see just 60
| | 05:51 | frames, I can go from frame 0 to frame 59.
| | 05:54 | 5, 9, and I can type in 59, and hit
Enter, or Return, on the keyboard, and you
| | 06:00 | saw that my Time slider shifted in size.
| | 06:02 | I'm now only looking at 59 frames.
| | 06:05 | Now keep in mind, these values have no
impact on how many frames you can render;
| | 06:09 | it's just a preview range.
| | 06:10 | The preview range can also be
controlled by dragging this little handle left or
| | 06:15 | right, and I can zoom into my preview
range by dragging that left or right.
| | 06:19 | The limit on it is
controlled by this field right here.
| | 06:22 | Right next to the preview
range are the playback controls.
| | 06:25 | And I can rewind my animation back to
zero, I can hit Play, play forward, I can
| | 06:30 | also play backwards, and I
can skip one frame at a time.
| | 06:34 | So I can click through my frames, or I
can go right to the end of the animation.
| | 06:39 | I can also record keyframes with these
red icons, and we'll talk about those in
| | 06:42 | the animation chapter.
| | 06:44 | So continuing around the interface, on the left
-hand side of the window are the modes icons.
| | 06:50 | These icons change the way our tools
behave and so I call them mode icons,
| | 06:54 | because them calling tools
would be very confusing for me.
| | 06:57 | So I've been using the program for a
very long time, and this is just one spot
| | 07:00 | where I just disagree with the
way the programmers intended it.
| | 07:02 | And so, if you look at the manual, it
will say tools, but I call them modes.
| | 07:07 | Also, there is a hint bar down the very
bottom of the interface, if you look at
| | 07:11 | this little area right here
next to the current time indicator.
| | 07:15 | If I hover over one of these icons and
over any icon in the interface, I will
| | 07:20 | get a little hint telling
me what that icon means.
| | 07:23 | And you'll see that as I hover over
this icon, it's called the Use Model tool.
| | 07:27 | Now I call that Model mode, and I'll do
that consistently throughout this series.
| | 07:31 | This icon here which looks like a ball
changing into a gridded ball is the Make
| | 07:36 | Object Editable icon, and we'll talk
about that in the modeling chapter.
| | 07:40 | The button right above it is the Layout
button, and the Layout button allows us
| | 07:43 | to switch the arrangement of
our palettes and menus and icons.
| | 07:47 | So if I click on this and hold,
I can switch the layout from the
| | 07:51 | Standard layout, which is what
we're looking at right now, to something
| | 07:53 | called the Animation layout.
| | 07:55 | It's the same application;
| | 07:57 | we've just rearranged the palettes and icons to
optimize them for animating on a single screen.
| | 08:02 | I'm going to switch back to the
Standard layout by clicking on that and going
| | 08:05 | to back to Standard.
| | 08:06 | This interface can seem intimidating
because there is a lot of stuff here, but
| | 08:10 | as we work through this Essential
Training series, we're going to be going
| | 08:13 | through each of these in much more detail.
| | 08:15 | And I think you'll find that once you
get used to them, they're going to make
| | 08:18 | a lot of sense.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Configuring project settings| 00:00 | When you create a new project in Cinema
4D, the project settings will establish
| | 00:04 | global values for your project--that
is to say values that will be used
| | 00:07 | throughout your project.
| | 00:08 | I have the Cinema 4D interface in
front of me. And when you create a new
| | 00:12 | document you can have multiple documents open in
Cinema 4D, but you can't have no documents open.
| | 00:17 | So I've got an empty document right
here. And the Attributes Manager, if I raise
| | 00:22 | this window up here, is showing me the
document settings. It defaults to showing
| | 00:25 | you that when you don't have anything
open, or you don't have anything selected.
| | 00:29 | And so the Project Settings show me
some key information about my project. I'm
| | 00:33 | going to enlarge this window by hovering
my mouse over this double line here and
| | 00:37 | dragging to the left, so that I
can see everything in that window.
| | 00:40 | So the Project Settings show me things
like my Document Scale, the 3D world is
| | 00:45 | really completely relative.
| | 00:47 | There is no up or down or left or right,
and also the objects can be any size.
| | 00:52 | I can make a cube, and that cube could
be a mile wide, or it can be a millimeter
| | 00:55 | wide. It's really up to you.
| | 00:57 | And if you're an architect, you may
want to work in real-world values, so you
| | 01:00 | can change those values to be Feet, or
Inches, or Millimeters, or Centimeters,
| | 01:05 | or Kilometers if you wanted to.
| | 01:06 | The Document Scale though, I generally
always leave at 1, because I don't want
| | 01:11 | to mess with that size relative to
anything else that I'm working on.
| | 01:14 | I always want to make sure that I'm
working on a project, and multiple projects,
| | 01:17 | that my document scale stays
consistent throughout that process.
| | 01:21 | The Frames Per Second control
how many frames we're animating at.
| | 01:24 | Generally speaking, video is
animated at 30 frames per second.
| | 01:27 | There are some variations on that
within the HD spectrum, and also, if you're
| | 01:30 | doing film, that might be 24 frames per second.
| | 01:33 | Once again, you can change that right here.
| | 01:35 | The Minimum and Maximum Time relate to
this preview range that we see down here.
| | 01:40 | And you can control those here, or you
can set them down here in this window;
| | 01:43 | it really doesn't matter.
| | 01:45 | Level of Detail relates to how much
information is Cinema 4D giving you in this scene.
| | 01:52 | And you can maximize your playback speed
by reducing the level of detail overall.
| | 01:57 | I would normally leave it at 100%,
unless you working on a very complex scene
| | 02:00 | and my computer is really chugging, trying
to reproduce it--then I'll turn that down.
| | 02:04 | When I render, it will still render at
100% detail, so I'll still get the full
| | 02:07 | quality. It's just for what you
are working within the viewport.
| | 02:11 | Now the Default Object Color and View
Clipping and things, I'm going to leave alone.
| | 02:15 | There is one button I want to talk to very
much about, and that's the Linear Workflow.
| | 02:19 | The Linear Workflow is brand-
new to Cinema 4D version 12.
| | 02:22 | And it's one of the reasons that the
Cinema 4D R12 files cannot be opened by
| | 02:27 | previous versions of Cinema 4D.
| | 02:29 | So if you have a file that you're
creating in Cinema 4D, in version 12, and you
| | 02:33 | want to pass it off to
someone in 11.5, you can't do that.
| | 02:36 | You are going to have to export your
objects out a different way. But Cinema 4D
| | 02:38 | R12 can open any previous version of
Cinema 4D so if you have a version 5 file, R12
| | 02:44 | will be able to open in.
| | 02:45 | If you have a version 10 file, same
thing, and you can open it, no problem.
| | 02:48 | The Linear Workflow, I'll talk
about when we get into the rendering and
| | 02:51 | compositing chapters later on in the
series, but it's a very important step in
| | 02:55 | getting more accurate color for your renderings.
| | 02:58 | Under the Info, there is a lot of
information you can input in the file for
| | 03:02 | things like author and copyright and
to help people that might use your file
| | 03:06 | identify you, and also to help them
understand what's going on in the file.
| | 03:09 | You can type in notes and things and
have that show up for anybody who wants to
| | 03:13 | use your file on later date.
| | 03:15 | The Dynamics field controls how the
dynamics engine behaves, and we'll talk more
| | 03:20 | about the dynamics engine in another chapter.
| | 03:22 | The Project Settings are the place to
start when first beginning a new project.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Setting application preferences| 00:00 | The Preferences in Cinema 4D allow you
to customize the application to change a
| | 00:03 | variety of properties.
| | 00:05 | Everything from the color of the
interface to how objects are imported and
| | 00:08 | exported can be controlled here.
| | 00:10 | Now the Preferences screen is one of
the deepest in the whole application, and
| | 00:13 | for the sake of time, rather than walk
through everything, I'm going to cover
| | 00:16 | just the ones I think are
most important for everyday use.
| | 00:19 | So here in the interface, under the
main menu bar, under the Edit menu, at the
| | 00:24 | very bottom is Preferences, and I
can hit Command+E or Ctrl+E key on the
| | 00:28 | keyboard to get there as well.
| | 00:29 | Now when I let go of that, I
get the Preferences window.
| | 00:32 | Now it's divided into two sections:
| | 00:34 | On the left-hand side, we have
the categories of preferences.
| | 00:37 | On the right-hand side, we'll have
the contents of those categories.
| | 00:40 | So right now, I'm on the Interface category.
| | 00:42 | You see it is highlighted gold here.
| | 00:44 | And I can change things about my interface here.
| | 00:47 | I only have the English language
installed, but you can work in a wide variety
| | 00:50 | of languages inside the interface.
| | 00:52 | The Scheme allows me to
change the color of the interface.
| | 00:55 | Right now, it's defaulted to the Dark
interface, which I actually prefer, but
| | 00:57 | I'll show you what the light one looks like.
| | 00:59 | I'll click on the pull down here and
go to Light, and you can see it has
| | 01:02 | switched the color of the menus and palettes.
| | 01:05 | I don't like this layout. It is a little bit hard
on the eye, especially when you're going to be looking
| | 01:08 | at the application for a long amount of time.
| | 01:10 | So I'm going to switch this back to Dark.
| | 01:12 | Next up on the important preferences
are the Input Devices, and if I click on
| | 01:16 | that, here's where I can control a
little bit about how my mouse moves inside
| | 01:20 | the viewport, but also I can control the orbit.
| | 01:23 | If you're coming from an application
like 3ds Max, the orbit is reversed in Max,
| | 01:27 | and so you can reverse that orbit
here by clicking on this icon right here.
| | 01:30 | And that will make the behavior a little
bit more comfortable for you, depending
| | 01:34 | on what you're used to.
| | 01:35 | Now I'm going to leave mine alone, because I
like the way Cinema 4D orbits just as it is.
| | 01:39 | Now the Files options allow us to
control where Cinema 4D looks for textures.
| | 01:44 | Now by default Cinema 4D looks
in some very specific places.
| | 01:47 | If you're working on a network or
working with other artists in the studio, you
| | 01:51 | can all share assets from a single
location and input that location here in the
| | 01:55 | Texture Paths field.
| | 01:57 | Also in here is the Auto-Save option and
you can activate that Auto-Save option,
| | 02:01 | and tell it where to save the files to.
| | 02:03 | By default, it will save
it to the Project Directory.
| | 02:06 | Now I normally leave Auto-Save off.
| | 02:07 | That's because I'm a very habitual saver.
| | 02:10 | I actually have my hand over the
Command and S keys at all times when I'm
| | 02:14 | working, just out of lots of
years of getting burned by not saving.
| | 02:17 | So I normally leave Auto-Save off,
but feel free to turn it on if you want to.
| | 02:21 | So I'm just going to turn that off right now.
| | 02:24 | Next up are the Units, and the
units in 3D space really are arbitrary.
| | 02:28 | A cube can be 200 units on a side,
but those units could be miles or they
| | 02:32 | could be millimeters.
| | 02:33 | It really doesn't matter.
| | 02:35 | It is all about your perception of the scene.
| | 02:37 | And so, for example, if you're an
architect, you may want to work in real-world
| | 02:40 | values, so that you're working in feet
or inches, or millimeters or centimeters.
| | 02:44 | It's really all up to you.
| | 02:46 | I normally leave it alone.
| | 02:47 | I don't even pay attention to what those
values are, unless of course I am going to
| | 02:50 | be passing something off to
someone I know who cares about it.
| | 02:53 | Most of the time, I just ignore it and
leave them on the default value of centimeters.
| | 02:56 | The Animation Unit defaults to Frames, but you
can also change it to Seconds or SMPTE timecode.
| | 03:01 | I always work in frames,
and so I leave this value alone.
| | 03:05 | You can also decide what sort of
color picker you'd like to use.
| | 03:08 | Cinema 4D by default works in RGB values.
| | 03:11 | It does not work in CMYK at all.
| | 03:13 | So it works in either RGB or HSV,
and you can change that value here.
| | 03:17 | I'd normally work in RGB.
| | 03:19 | I'll leave that alone.
| | 03:20 | The Cinema 4D Color Picker is on by
default, but you can use the System Color
| | 03:24 | Picker if you want to.
| | 03:25 | Next up are the Import/Export options.
| | 03:27 | And when I click on that, you see I
get nothing on the right-hand side here.
| | 03:31 | That's because there is a black
triangle next to that, and anytime you see a
| | 03:34 | black triangle, that indicates that
there are additional values underneath that.
| | 03:38 | So if I click on this black triangle,
I can see all these Import options.
| | 03:43 | And Cinema 4D is a very friendly
application, and it works really well with
| | 03:47 | other apps, and so there is a wide variety
of options that you can choose from here.
| | 03:51 | For example, if you need to send
something to a Maya artist, you can save it out
| | 03:55 | in an FBX file format that is very
friendly with how Maya works, and the same
| | 04:00 | thing holds true for 3D Studio.
| | 04:01 | So you can really have a lot of flexibility.
| | 04:03 | You can import files from
those applications as well.
| | 04:06 | The Preferences window can be daunting,
but the most important rule is, don't
| | 04:09 | change anything unless you
understand what it does, and if you do change
| | 04:13 | something, make a very careful note of
what the original value was, so you can
| | 04:16 | always get back to it.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
2. Creating and Understanding Objects: Hierarchical RelationshipsExploring the importance of object hierarchy| 00:00 | Now I know you're all chomping at the
bit to create objects and animations in
| | 00:03 | Cinema 4D, but before we get into that,
I want to spend a few minutes talking
| | 00:07 | about a really fundamental concept,
and that's the idea of parenting.
| | 00:11 | More than any other application I've
ever worked with, Cinema 4D is absolutely
| | 00:14 | dependent on the relationships between objects.
| | 00:16 | There are three possible states for
these relationships: parent, peer, and child.
| | 00:20 | To understand what that means,
let's think about our Solar System.
| | 00:23 | Our galaxy, the Milky Way, is the parent
of our Sun, and our Sun is the parent of
| | 00:27 | the earth and all the other
planets of the Solar System.
| | 00:30 | The planets are children of the Sun
and they're also peers of one another--
| | 00:33 | that is to say they're at
the same hierarchical level.
| | 00:36 | These relationships are essential for a
smooth running Solar System, and they're
| | 00:39 | essential for animating
and modeling in Cinema 4D.
| | 00:41 | Now I have here the Cinema 4D project file
for the animation that you just saw on-screen.
| | 00:47 | Now there is a lot of different object
types in this project file, and it's organized
| | 00:50 | in a very specific way for animation
purposes. And we haven't really gotten into
| | 00:54 | any of that stuff. The important thing to
take away from everything I am talking
| | 00:57 | about is not how I built this file,
but the relationship between objects.
| | 01:00 | So just try not to think about how it
was built, and just focus on the idea of
| | 01:04 | parenting and how
they're related to one another.
| | 01:06 | So let's scrub through the animation
using the Time slider down here and to take
| | 01:10 | a look at what's going on.
| | 01:12 | So we zoom in on the Sun, just
like we did in the original animation.
| | 01:15 | Now we're going to stop here about
halfway through the transition to Mercury, and
| | 01:20 | I'm going to uncheck the Look through
Camera icon, which is this little guy
| | 01:23 | right here, so we can see the greater
world here and understand like how the
| | 01:26 | objects are related to one another in space.
| | 01:29 | So we've got this Solar parent, and the
Solar parent is the overall parent for
| | 01:34 | all the objects in the Solar System.
And I've only built it out to earth,
| | 01:39 | because that's where the animation stops.
| | 01:41 | The Solar parent is a null object, and a
null object is simply an axis point in
| | 01:45 | space with no geometry associated with
it. And it's currently positioned at the
| | 01:48 | center of the world, which is in this
case the center of our Solar System. And
| | 01:53 | the first child underneath that is
the Sun object. And the Sun is simply a
| | 01:56 | sphere object with a material on it,
and it is free to rotate underneath the
| | 02:01 | Solar parent without affecting any of
the other objects in the Solar System.
| | 02:05 | Now the Sun has its own rotation, which
of course does dictate the planets in
| | 02:09 | real life, but we have a little more
freedom to do things in a more creative way
| | 02:13 | in our Cinema 4D file.
| | 02:14 | So what I've done is I've set up a
series of null objects that will control
| | 02:18 | each of my planets, and the Mercury
orbit object, for example, is another null.
| | 02:22 | It's at the exact center of the Sun,
which is also a child of the Solar parent.
| | 02:28 | And that Mercury orbit object controls
the rotation of the planet Mercury. And
| | 02:32 | that planet Mercury orbits in a perfect
arc around the Sun. And it allows me to
| | 02:36 | position it very carefully, so that it
will be intercepted by the camera on its
| | 02:39 | path out to the planet earth.
| | 02:42 | So within that Mercury orbit object
is another child, and that child is the
| | 02:46 | planet Mercury itself. And if I zoom
in on that planet, you can see that the
| | 02:52 | object itself is free to rotate around
its own local axis, all the while still
| | 02:59 | rotating around its Sun.
| | 03:02 | So it can rotate in a perfect arc.
| | 03:03 | Let me back up a little bit,
so you can see what that means.
| | 03:06 | We will rotate in a perfect arc around
the Sun, but locally it's free to rotate
| | 03:11 | around its own axis.
| | 03:12 | So you can see we have a lot of control
with this setup, and that's really the
| | 03:15 | heart of animating and modeling
inside of C4D is the control you get from
| | 03:19 | creating these hierarchical relationships.
| | 03:21 | So within these--the Mercury orbit, the
Venus orbit, and the Earth orbit objects--
| | 03:26 | are providing the same function;
they're providing an access point around which
| | 03:30 | each of the planets can move in a
smooth arc. And the Earth Parent--hitting the
| | 03:34 | letter O on the keyboard, zoom in that
local earth space, and I can look at the
| | 03:38 | earth and moon together in the same
frame. And the Earth Parent is controlling
| | 03:43 | the position of both earth and the
moon underneath its own earth orbit.
| | 03:47 | That gives me the freedom now to have an
earth object that can rotate separately
| | 03:52 | and a Moon object that can
rotate around the Earth as well.
| | 03:56 | So you can see that these rotational
values that we're seeing here in the
| | 03:58 | Coordinate Properties are all
relative to the parent, and you will hear me
| | 04:03 | use that phrase a lot.
| | 04:04 | They're either relative to the center
of the world, or they're relative to an
| | 04:07 | object that it's parented to.
| | 04:09 | So, for example, the moon orbit object,
you can see its position in space overall
| | 04:14 | is very far out from the center of the world.
| | 04:16 | If we hit the letter H on the keyboard
to frame it out, you can see the moon is
| | 04:20 | itself way out here on the world Z axis.
But its moon orbit position is 000, and why is that?
| | 04:28 | That's because it's relative to the Earth
parent, which is out here in space as well.
| | 04:33 | The Earth Parent on its X axis is
30,000 units on the negative X axis. I'm
| | 04:41 | approximating here, but it's that value
right there, 30,000 units on the negative
| | 04:45 | X axis, and I know it's negative
because of the minus here in the field.
| | 04:49 | So the Earth Parent is 30,000
units on the negative X axis.
| | 04:52 | The moon orbit object is at zero, and
that's because its position is relative to
| | 04:57 | the Earth Parent. And if we go down
the hierarchy here, you can see that the
| | 05:01 | Earth Parent is at -30,000. The earth
orbit is at zero at the same location.
| | 05:06 | So position is relative to the
parent or the center of the world.
| | 05:10 | If I look at the Solar parent object,
it's at the center of the world, and
| | 05:13 | its position is 000.
| | 05:15 | If I move the Solar parent, hit E on
the keyboard and move it out on the X
| | 05:19 | axis, you can see all my other objects
shifted with it. And if I click back on
| | 05:24 | the Solar parent to see its position,
I've moved to 5000 units. But if I click
| | 05:29 | back through the earth orbit, for example, earth
orbit is still at 000, relative to its parent.
| | 05:35 | The same can be said for
rotational values as well.
| | 05:37 | So if we look at the rotational values,
the rotational values of the earth orbit
| | 05:42 | is at -89, even though the Solar parent
is at zero, so that rotational value of
| | 05:46 | -89 is relative to the Solar parent.
| | 05:49 | If I rotate it around, you can see I
rotate my Solar parent 37 degrees, the earth orbit
| | 05:56 | object is still at -89.
| | 05:59 | Now Scale is another animal entirely,
and what I want to show is the idea that
| | 06:04 | scale gets inherited by the children.
And so if we scrub through the animation
| | 06:09 | back towards the beginning, you can
see that the Sun scales up from zero over
| | 06:15 | just a few frames, and comes into
position. That gives us the illusion that
| | 06:19 | we're zooming into the Sun at a very fast velocity.
| | 06:22 | So if I scrub through the animation
and back up just a little bit to right
| | 06:24 | here, you can see that my Solar parent
has keyframes on it that are animating
| | 06:29 | it from zero to one.
| | 06:30 | Now at this point in time,
the scale value is at .352.
| | 06:34 | If I take the Sun and unparent it,
you can see if I select the Sun object,
| | 06:39 | its scale value is one.
| | 06:40 | If I unparent it from the Solar parent,
then suddenly its scale value shifts to
| | 06:46 | .352. That's because the Sun
inherited that scale value from its parent.
| | 06:50 | If I drop it back into position, now it
goes back to one again. That's because
| | 06:56 | relative to its parent, its size did not change.
| | 06:59 | So it inherits that scale value from the
parent, and it's relative to its parent as well.
| | 07:05 | Object relationships drive
much of the functionality of C4D.
| | 07:08 | As we start to introduce other object
types into the lessons, I'm going to make
| | 07:12 | careful note of how they work with
other objects, and these relationships are
| | 07:15 | going to drive all of the
functionality that we're going to experience in
| | 07:17 | future chapters.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating, selecting, and transforming objects| 00:00 | Creating objects is really simple in C4D.
| | 00:02 | All you have to do is take a look at
this little area of icons on the screen, and
| | 00:06 | anytime you can see a little black
triangle here, if I click and hold on that, I
| | 00:10 | get a secondary panel that pops open
showing me a whole list of other icons--a
| | 00:14 | lot deeper than just a
single I have ever seen before.
| | 00:17 | If I select one of these objects,
I'll be creating that object.
| | 00:20 | So let's create a cube.
| | 00:21 | So I add a cube to the scene, and
you'll notice now the cube is listed in the
| | 00:25 | Object Manager. And what I want to be
able to do is to move that cube around,
| | 00:29 | and so I can click on these handles
here and move the cube along a given axis.
| | 00:35 | And I can move it on the Z axis or the Y axis.
| | 00:38 | I'm going to hit Ctrl+Z or Command+Z
to get back to the center of the world.
| | 00:42 | Now there's going to be a lot of
times we're going to want to be able to
| | 00:45 | select that object in the Editor window, and
I'm going to use the Selection tool to do that.
| | 00:50 | Over here on the left-hand side of
the icon bar at the top of the screen is
| | 00:53 | the Selection tool.
| | 00:54 | It looks like an arrow inside of a circle.
| | 00:56 | If I click that guy, I will
get the Live Selection tool.
| | 00:59 | You will notice there is
attributes here for the Live Selection tool.
| | 01:03 | If I click any place off of
that object, I've deselected it.
| | 01:06 | If I select the object again here in the
Editor window, I have selected it again.
| | 01:10 | I don't normally like to select my
objects that way with the Selection tool, and
| | 01:14 | the reason is that when you get a very
complicated scene, and you've got hundreds
| | 01:17 | of objects in there, you're not
necessarily sure exactly what you're selecting.
| | 01:21 | So I don't normally use the
Selection tool in that way.
| | 01:23 | I normally use the Selection tool to
select the subcomponents of objects, and
| | 01:26 | we'll talk about that in later movies.
| | 01:29 | When I do select objects, I might
prefer to select them in the Object Manager,
| | 01:31 | because that gives me the ability to
precisely grab exactly what it is I want to
| | 01:35 | select, and know, with confidence,
that I've grabbed the right object.
| | 01:39 | When I'm moving objects in C4D, I want
to be very careful about what axis and
| | 01:43 | what plane that I'm moving them on.
And in order to be really confident about
| | 01:47 | that, there's a very cool
feature that I need to turn on.
| | 01:49 | So under the Filter menu, in any of
the views--in this case, I'm in the
| | 01:52 | Perspective view--is the Axis Bands.
Now Axis Bands is down here, but I can turn
| | 01:57 | them on by just hitting the All option.
| | 02:00 | So when I let go of the All option, I get
these gray bands connecting each of my axes.
| | 02:05 | The axis bands define planes, and a
plane is two or more axes that define that
| | 02:10 | plane. And what I want to do is if, say
for example, I want to move this cube
| | 02:15 | just on the X and Z planes, if I
highlight that axis band, I can move my cube.
| | 02:20 | No matter which direction I move it, it's
only going to move along the X and Z plane.
| | 02:25 | To see what that looks like precisely,
let's look at them in the Orthographic view.
| | 02:28 | If I grab that axis band again, and
orbit this around--sometimes it's a
| | 02:32 | little tough to grab the band, so you
have to orbit around your object a little
| | 02:34 | bit so you can grab the band precisely.
| | 02:36 | When I move that, you will see that in
each of the views, it's only moving on
| | 02:41 | the X and Z plane. It's not moving on Y.
If I grab the Y-Z band, it's only going
| | 02:46 | to move on the Y and Z plane.
| | 02:50 | So it's a really convenient way to
constrain the movement of your object to a
| | 02:54 | single plane, and very important
for keeping your objects aligned.
| | 02:57 | Next up in the important tools are the Move tool,
and the Move tool allows us to move an object.
| | 03:03 | It may be a little bit confusing
because when I select the Move tool, nothing
| | 03:06 | really changes visibly in the port.
| | 03:08 | Let's say we go back to Perspective view here.
| | 03:11 | The Move tool and the Selection tool
look nearly identical, as far as the handles
| | 03:15 | of your object go.
| | 03:16 | So when I grab the Selection tool and
I switch back and forth the Move tool,
| | 03:20 | nothing really changes except for the
attributes here. But what the Move tool
| | 03:23 | allows me to do, which the Selection
tool doesn't, is it allows me to move an
| | 03:27 | object without actually clicking on the
handles. And that can be very important
| | 03:31 | when you're working in a very complex scene.
| | 03:32 | You don't necessarily want to grab
the object itself. You want just move it
| | 03:36 | freeform here. And so I can click
any place in the gray area and drag the cube
| | 03:41 | around without actually clicking on
the handles. And if I'm in the Selection
| | 03:44 | tool, and I click out in the
gray area, it deselects the cube.
| | 03:48 | So it's a very different behavior.
| | 03:50 | If I click and drag here--of course, I
don't have the cube selected. I have to
| | 03:54 | actually select the cube.
| | 03:55 | I'll click on the cube in the Object Manager
and I can click and drag and move it around.
| | 03:59 | I can also use the handles the same
way I would with the Selection tool, and I can
| | 04:03 | use the axis band as well.
| | 04:05 | So there is a lot of ways to move it,
and it just depends on the situation we're
| | 04:08 | on, precisely how you do it.
| | 04:10 | So the next thing I want to talk about is
the Scale tool. And I'm going to close
| | 04:14 | this scene up and start over with a
fresh scene: Command+W or Ctrl+W. Don't
| | 04:17 | bother saving. And let's add a
different object. Enough with the cube.
| | 04:22 | Let's do a cylinder. Yay!
| | 04:24 | So what I want to be able to do
is change the size of the cylinder.
| | 04:27 | There are several ways I can do that in C4D.
| | 04:30 | Now the Scale tool, which is this icon
right here--or T on the keyboard--and now I
| | 04:36 | get these handles that allow me
to change the scale of my cylinder.
| | 04:39 | You would expect that if I click on this red
handle here, it would only scale on the red axis.
| | 04:44 | You'll notice that when I click on that,
the cylinder gets uniformly large, and
| | 04:50 | that's because the Scale tool has two
different modes. The first mode is model
| | 04:54 | mode, and you'll notice on the icons
over here on the left-hand side of the
| | 04:57 | interface these icon here.
| | 04:59 | Now in the hint bar, down here at the
bottom left of the screen, when I hover
| | 05:02 | over that, it says, Model tool. It's
called model tool, but I call it a mode,
| | 05:06 | because it changes the
behavior of an existing tool.
| | 05:09 | And so, when I select that icon and use
the Scale tool, it's physically changing
| | 05:14 | the properties of that cylinder.
| | 05:16 | If I go to the cylinder and look at
the Object Properties, when I use the
| | 05:20 | Scale tool, you'll see that the
radius and height are changing, not the
| | 05:24 | coordinate property scale.
| | 05:26 | Now if I click on the Object tool or
Object mode, down here at the bottom and left
| | 05:31 | of the screen, and use the Scale tool,
watch what happens to the Scale value here
| | 05:35 | in the Coordinate properties.
| | 05:37 | I click and drag that,
and the Scale value changes.
| | 05:41 | Under the Object property, you can
see that the radius and height don't
| | 05:44 | change, but the Scale value does, and that's
very important when it comes time to animate.
| | 05:48 | So the rule that you want to follow is,
never use the Scale tool in this mode,
| | 05:52 | Object mode, unless you're going to be
animating the scale, and you want to be
| | 05:56 | very careful about that, because you
can really screw up your animation if you
| | 06:00 | use the Scale tool incorrectly.
| | 06:02 | There's one other important thing I
want to talk about with the Scale tool, and
| | 06:05 | that's how scale relates to objects.
| | 06:07 | I'm going to add a cone that will allow
this to see the effect a lot more dramatically.
| | 06:13 | I am going to move this cone over on the
positive X axis. And the cone itself, if
| | 06:17 | I select it and look at its properties,
Coordinate properties is set to one.
| | 06:21 | I'm going to go to my cylinder now and
change the scale from .7 on the Y axis to say 2.
| | 06:27 | Now my cylinder just got taller.
Now, if you've needed to make a tall
| | 06:30 | cylinder, you might make a tall
cylinder by changing the Scale value here, but
| | 06:34 | that's a bad thing to do.
| | 06:35 | If I have to parent something to that
cylinder now, it's going to behave weirdly
| | 06:38 | when I try to move it around.
| | 06:40 | So let's see what that means.
| | 06:41 | If I take the cone and make it a
child of the cylinder object, look at
| | 06:45 | the cone's size now.
| | 06:47 | Its scale values are all different
than what it was when it was unparented.
| | 06:51 | That's because scale is
inherited from the parent.
| | 06:54 | If I just leave the cone like that, it
looks fine, but what happens when I try
| | 06:58 | to rotate that cone?
| | 06:59 | If I use the Rotate tool--R on the
keyboard--and grab the X-band here, and rotate
| | 07:04 | it around that axis, you'll see the
cone start to smear, and that's because
| | 07:08 | those scale values are being inherited
by the parent. And it's trying to rotate
| | 07:12 | through that elongated Y axis. And it's
getting stretched along the Y axis. And
| | 07:17 | that's very bad for animation.
| | 07:19 | So you want to be very careful about how
you change the scale of your object.
| | 07:22 | If you need to make a long cylinder,
simply change the size of the cylinder and
| | 07:26 | don't change the scale.
| | 07:27 | So next, I want to talk a
little bit more in-depth about the
| | 07:29 | Rotate tool. You just saw me use it
to rotate that cone around, but let's
| | 07:32 | take a look at a new scene.
| | 07:33 | I'm going to close that up: Command+W or
Ctrl+W. And let's click on Oil Tank this time.
| | 07:39 | Under the Object Properties, change the
height of that oil tank to be
| | 07:42 | like 500 units, so it's a little bit longer.
| | 07:44 | Now I'll grab the Rotate tool--R on
keyboard--and you will notice that these
| | 07:49 | bands show up around the axis point.
And these are called rotation bands, and
| | 07:52 | they are color coordinated to the axes
that they're going to rotate around. XYZ,
| | 07:57 | RGB--that's the important thing to remember here.
| | 08:00 | So around the X axis, the red axis, if
I grab the red band, my cylinder, my oil
| | 08:05 | tank will rotate around the red axis.
The green band rotates at around the green
| | 08:09 | axis, or Y. The blue band rotates at
around the blue axis, or Z. There are two
| | 08:15 | other modes for the Rotation tool.
| | 08:17 | If I click any place inside this yellow
circle and not on a band, I can rotate
| | 08:23 | the oil tank freely. Command+Z or Ctrl+
Z to get back to a straight oil tank.
| | 08:32 | The next mode for the Rotation tool
is if I click and drag outside of this
| | 08:37 | yellow circle and rotate, it rotates
on a plane that's perpendicular to the
| | 08:43 | camera, is at right angles to the
camera, so that plane will change based on
| | 08:46 | how I'm looking at my oil tank.
| | 08:48 | So if I rotate to about here, and
rotate, you can see it rotates differently
| | 08:52 | than it did when it was down here.
| | 08:55 | So that is on a plane that's
perpendicular to the camera.
| | 08:58 | So as you can see, there's a lot of
ways to create, move, and select the objects,
| | 09:02 | and these tools will become
essential in later chapters.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Understanding object categories: Comparing active and passive objects| 00:00 | Cinema 4D has many objects that can
be found under a variety of menus.
| | 00:04 | Regardless of what menu they come from
though, all objects in C4D fall into two
| | 00:08 | categories: passive objects and active objects.
| | 00:11 | Passive objects just sit there
when you add them to the scene.
| | 00:13 | They don't explode or flip
around magically or move on their own.
| | 00:17 | That's not to say they're not
cool or important, because they are.
| | 00:19 | They just need a little help to be magical.
| | 00:22 | Active objects, on the other
hand, do in fact do something.
| | 00:25 | Either on their own or in combination
with other objects, they can create amazing
| | 00:28 | animation and effects,
| | 00:29 | usually by taking a passive
object and doing something with it.
| | 00:33 | Across the top of the interface here,
we've got the icon bar, and I am going to
| | 00:36 | click and hold on the Cube icon
here, and this is the primitive object.
| | 00:40 | Anytime you see a black triangle
here, don't forget that you can click and
| | 00:44 | hold on this object.
| | 00:45 | Creating an object in
Cinema 4D is really simple.
| | 00:47 | All I do is select one of these
icons and let go, and instantly a cube is
| | 00:51 | added to the scene.
| | 00:52 | Now the cube is a primitive object,
but a primitive object falls in the
| | 00:56 | category of passive objects.
| | 00:57 | I've just added this cube to the
scene, and it doesn't do anything except
| | 01:00 | sit there being a cube.
| | 01:01 | If I hit Play down here in the Time
bar, you can see the time is moving and
| | 01:06 | nothing is happening. It's just a
cube sitting there being a cube.
| | 01:08 | I want to stop playback and rewind back
to zero by clicking on the Rewind button.
| | 01:13 | That is a passive object.
| | 01:15 | Now I am going to disable the cube's
active check mark here by clicking on this
| | 01:19 | green check box and add an
active object to the scene.
| | 01:23 | Now under this icon, when I click and hold,
| | 01:25 | these, or all of the particle system objects,
and I am going to add an emitter to the scene.
| | 01:29 | The emitter object is an active object.
| | 01:32 | When I hit play, it actually
does something all on its own.
| | 01:35 | It's spitting particles into the scene.
| | 01:38 | The emitter object is also something
called a generator object, which we're going
| | 01:42 | to talk about in the next chapter.
| | 01:43 | But a generator object needs a
child in order to produce some results,
| | 01:47 | so I am going to take the cube--the first
thing I'll do is stop playback, and I am
| | 01:51 | going to activate the cube again to
make it visible in the scene, and I'm going
| | 01:55 | to select the cube, and I am going to
change the size of it down to say 10 x 10 x
| | 01:58 | 10, and that was under the
Object Properties that I did that.
| | 02:04 | If I take this cube and make it a
child of the emitter, and then under the
| | 02:08 | Emitter Properties, turn on Show Objects,
| | 02:13 | it instantly shows those cubes being
spit out. And when I hit play, I am spitting
| | 02:17 | cubes into the scene, and that's
the power of the active objects.
| | 02:20 | Active objects will take a passive
object, or sometimes other active objects as
| | 02:24 | well, and actually generate something with them.
| | 02:27 | So active objects and passive objects
aren't more important than the other.
| | 02:30 | As you can see, they're really
dependent on each other for creating
| | 02:33 | something cool.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Comparing object types| 00:00 | Within the two broad categories of
passive and active objects, there are a whole
| | 00:03 | host of object types.
| | 00:05 | Understanding what the category they
fall into, and how they relate to the other
| | 00:08 | objects, is the foundation
of understanding Cinema 4D.
| | 00:11 | So first up in the objects is the null
object, and it's the most important object
| | 00:15 | in the application, I think, because it
is used literally throughout all of your
| | 00:20 | animation and modeling. And what a null
object is, if I click and hold on the
| | 00:24 | primitive objects here, at the very
bottom on the left-hand side is the null
| | 00:27 | object, and it's an access point that
has no geometry associated with it.
| | 00:31 | You'll use nulls for grouping objects
together and also for controlling around
| | 00:36 | what point in space that
they'll animate or rotate or scale.
| | 00:39 | So it is really crucial, and it's
something you'll use literally all the time
| | 00:43 | throughout your workflow.
| | 00:44 | Next up is the primitive objects and the
primitive objects, I am going to access
| | 00:48 | by clicking and holding on the
cube, and their icons are blue.
| | 00:53 | The icon color in Cinema 4D is very
important because it tells you what category
| | 00:56 | the objects fall into and what
type of object you are dealing with.
| | 01:00 | So the primitive objects are all
blue icons like this, and they include
| | 01:04 | geometric shapes, like
cubes and spheres and cones.
| | 01:07 | They are all passive objects;
they don't actually do anything.
| | 01:10 | Each of them is controlled by a formula
that's defined by the computer, and you
| | 01:14 | can change the parameters.
| | 01:15 | For example, I can add a cube to the
scene, and I can change the size of the cube
| | 01:19 | by adjusting the object properties.
| | 01:21 | Next up for the polygonal objects, and
a polygonal object is what a primitive
| | 01:26 | object will turn into once you make it editable.
| | 01:29 | The making-editable processes is
something we'll cover in the modeling chapter,
| | 01:33 | and what it really means is to take the cube
and convert it into its most basic elements.
| | 01:37 | Right now, my cube consists of a formula
that's defined by the software, and that
| | 01:42 | formula contains the parameters of the
size and the number of segments--how many
| | 01:46 | polygons are on each side.
| | 01:47 | But when I click this icon right here
and make it editable, the icon for my cube
| | 01:51 | is changed into a triangle.
| | 01:53 | That tells me that the cube is now a
polygon object, meaning that I no longer
| | 01:57 | can change the parameters of it.
| | 01:59 | There are lots of things I can do
with it from a modeling standpoint;
| | 02:02 | I just can't change those parameters anymore.
| | 02:04 | So this object is now been
converted into a polygonal object.
| | 02:08 | Next up are the spline objects. Now, I am
going to close this scene, and just don't
| | 02:12 | save it, and right next to the
primitive objects are the spline objects.
| | 02:16 | A spline is a fancy way of saying a path.
| | 02:18 | If you've worked with Photoshop or
Illustrator or After Effects at all, you've
| | 02:22 | seen splines; they just call them paths.
And there are a lot of different types
| | 02:25 | of splines other than the kind that
you see in Photoshop and Illustrator, and
| | 02:28 | some of them are Bezier. Bezier is what you
normally see in Photoshop and Illustrator.
| | 02:32 | A B-spline is a very special type of
spline that we're going to cover in the
| | 02:35 | spline chapter, coming up next.
| | 02:36 | But really what a spline is is a
passive object, and it contains a series
| | 02:41 | of points that are connected by a
line in space, and that line can take on
| | 02:45 | a variety of shapes.
| | 02:46 | There is a free-form splines, and then
there is also spline primitives, and you
| | 02:50 | could see some of the spline primitives
down here, like the Star, the Cogwheel.
| | 02:53 | I'll add a cogwheel to the scene.
| | 02:55 | A cogwheel is a spline object that
I can control the parameters of. And I
| | 03:00 | can change the number of teeth. I can
change the inner and outer radius to
| | 03:03 | make the teeth larger.
| | 03:05 | So there is a lot of properties that
you can change on this spline primitive.
| | 03:09 | Now remember the splines are passive,
their icon is blue, and they could be
| | 03:12 | combined with other types of active
objects to produce all kinds of effects.
| | 03:17 | Next up are the operator objects, and the
operator objects are purple icons. And I
| | 03:22 | am going to click and hold on the Bend
object here, which is this first icon up.
| | 03:26 | An operator object is an active object,
and it's a very special type of active
| | 03:30 | object that works on its parent or its peer.
| | 03:33 | We are going to cover the bend deformer in a
little more detail in two chapters actually.
| | 03:37 | The important thing to remember on
them is they work in their parent or peer.
| | 03:39 | So I will just really quick set up a
little bend here, and I am going to close the
| | 03:43 | scene up, don't Save, and I'm going
to add a bend object to the scene and
| | 03:49 | then I'll add a cube.
| | 03:51 | If I make this bend a child of the
cube--remember, I said it works on its
| | 03:54 | parent or its peer--
| | 03:55 | by parenting bend the deformer to
the cube, that allows me to modify the
| | 04:00 | properties of this cube with the bend deformer.
| | 04:03 | So if I go to the bend deformer's
object properties and adjust the strength, I
| | 04:07 | can now bend this cube.
| | 04:09 | Now the cube isn't bending--for a very
important reason. Under the Cube property
| | 04:12 | is a number of segments along the Y
axis. I need to change that value, and
| | 04:16 | suddenly I can actually bend this cube.
| | 04:18 | So that's the operator object.
| | 04:21 | Now, all operator objects
work essentially the same way.
| | 04:23 | There are active objects that
work on their parent or their peer.
| | 04:26 | Next up are the generator objects.
| | 04:28 | So let's close this scene up again,
Command+W or Ctrl+W, and then don't save.
| | 04:32 | Generator objects always have a green icon.
| | 04:35 | Generator objects are also active objects,
and a generator object needs a child or
| | 04:40 | multiple children in order to
generate some sort of result.
| | 04:43 | One that you'll come across
quite a bit is the Extrude NURBS.
| | 04:45 | So I am going to add an Extrude
NURB to the scene. Its icon is green.
| | 04:49 | Now the Extrude NURB needs a child, and in
particular it needs a spline object as a child.
| | 04:54 | So I am going to click and hold my
spline objects and add a star to the scene.
| | 04:59 | If I make the star a child of the
Extrude NURB, suddenly I get an extruded star.
| | 05:03 | And you can see that the star extends
into the distance, and I can control a lot
| | 05:07 | of properties into this.
| | 05:08 | Now we'll be covering these properties again
in more detail later on, but that is the idea.
| | 05:12 | All of the generator objects work on
either one child or multiple children to
| | 05:17 | generate some sort of result.
| | 05:18 | Next up are the effector objects.
| | 05:20 | An effector object is a very special
type of object that was introduced with the
| | 05:24 | introduction of MoGraph a couple of
versions back, and I'm going to close this
| | 05:27 | scene up again: Command+W
or Ctrl+W and don't save.
| | 05:31 | Under the MoGraph menu is the
Effector category, and their icons are purple.
| | 05:36 | You'll note from earlier that the
deformer objects all have purple icons as well,
| | 05:40 | and that's because the
effector objects are kind of a hybrid.
| | 05:43 | They can be used to modify generator
objects, but they can also act as an
| | 05:48 | operator as well, meaning they
can work on their parent or peer.
| | 05:50 | So let's see what that means.
| | 05:51 | I am going to add a MoGraph cloner,
which is a generator object, to the scene.
| | 05:56 | So that's generator. It needs a child or
children to generate some sort of result.
| | 05:59 | So I'm going to add a cube to the scene and
then make that cube a child of the cloner.
| | 06:06 | Underneath the cloner object, I'm
going to adjust the Count so I get a lot of
| | 06:09 | cubes, and then I'm going to add
an effector object to the scene.
| | 06:14 | Now, under the MoGraph menu > Effector, I
am going to add a random effector to the
| | 06:18 | scene. And the random effector will
randomize the position of these clones, and so
| | 06:24 | this random effector is
now modifying this generator.
| | 06:26 | We'll be covering MoGraph in a lot
more detail later on in the course,
| | 06:30 | but for now the important thing to
remember is that the Random effector falls in
| | 06:34 | the category of effector objects which
are used to modify generators, or they can
| | 06:38 | act as an operator object.
| | 06:40 | Next up are the scene objects, and the
scene object includes things like lights
| | 06:44 | and cameras. And if I click and hold on this
icon right here, I'll see the scene objects.
| | 06:50 | A light is a great example of that.
| | 06:51 | I am going to add a light to the scene.
And when I do that you'll notice that my
| | 06:55 | little tower that I made with the
cloner and the random effector has gone black
| | 06:59 | on me. That's because the
light is now inside of it.
| | 07:01 | So let's drag that light out, and you
could see that the light is now affecting
| | 07:05 | the entire scene. And so that's why they
call them scene objects, because they can
| | 07:08 | be used to affect everything in your world.
| | 07:11 | It's probably pretty obvious that the
light falls in the category of active objects.
| | 07:15 | Next up, are the materials and
materials are not really objects per se.
| | 07:19 | They are used to affect other objects.
| | 07:22 | But I would throw them in the object
types because really they're essential
| | 07:25 | for giving your scene personality and life and
modifying the objects that you have in the scene.
| | 07:30 | The materials are created and managed
down here in the Material Manager on the
| | 07:33 | bottom left of the interface.
| | 07:35 | I am going to go to the File menu and
do New Material, and this material can now
| | 07:39 | be used to give color to this little
tower that I made with the MoGraph cloner.
| | 07:44 | So if I go under the Color property
and just change it to something really
| | 07:47 | obvious like red, for example, and I'll
take this material and drag it onto the
| | 07:52 | cloner object, you could see that
material now is modifying that cloner and my
| | 07:57 | tower has turned red.
| | 07:58 | So materials are not really objects per
se, but they're active elements, and they
| | 08:02 | are used to modify just
about anything in the scene.
| | 08:05 | This is just a very quick overview
of the wide variety of objects in C4D.
| | 08:09 | In later chapters, we'll go into
detail on quite a few of these to illustrate
| | 08:12 | how they can be used to make magic in Cinema 4D.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using the Attribute Manager to modify object attributes| 00:00 | The Attribute Manager is where you
change the modifiable properties of anything
| | 00:04 | and everything in C4D.
| | 00:06 | The contents of this window will change
continuously throughout your project as
| | 00:09 | you select different objects and tools.
| | 00:11 | Each time you click on something in
the interface, the Attribute Manager will
| | 00:14 | display the attributes of that
element, no matter what it is.
| | 00:17 | This makes the Attribute Manager
the go-to spot for all kinds of
| | 00:20 | crucial information.
| | 00:21 | So I am going to add a primitive
object to the scene, and let's skip the cube
| | 00:25 | and go right to the pyramid.
| | 00:26 | That's a little more interesting.
| | 00:28 | When I add the pyramid to the scene, I
immediately see the Attribute Manager
| | 00:31 | change, and the Attribute Manager
changes every time I select something.
| | 00:35 | So I am going to click on the
Move tool up here in the toolbar.
| | 00:38 | When I click on the Move tool, the
Attribute Manager now shows me the modifiable
| | 00:41 | properties of the Move tool.
| | 00:43 | To get back again, I can use this back
arrow to get me back to the properties for
| | 00:47 | the pyramid, and I can use the forward
arrow to get me back to the Move tool.
| | 00:51 | The icons across the top here, I
will come to those in just a second.
| | 00:54 | What I want to talk to you right now is
about the sections of the Attribute Manager.
| | 00:57 | Now, each one of these guys I can
click on and get to a different set of
| | 01:01 | attributes for my Move tool.
| | 01:02 | When I click on the pyramid, I can now
select the basic properties, which allow me
| | 01:07 | to change things like the name and that
whether or not it's assigned to a layer
| | 01:11 | and some other properties that we will
cover as we go throughout the series.
| | 01:14 | The next up is the Coordinate property,
and the Coordinate property shows me
| | 01:17 | where the object is in space, what
size it is, and the rotation values.
| | 01:21 | Remember, the values that you see in
these fields are relative to the object's
| | 01:24 | parent or to the center of
the world, one of the two.
| | 01:27 | New to version 12 is the Freeze
Transformations option, which is really crucial
| | 01:31 | when you're getting into character animation.
| | 01:33 | What Freeze Transformations allows
you to do is to lock the coordinate
| | 01:36 | properties into a specific value that
you can then animate from more easily.
| | 01:40 | For example, if I rotate this pyramid--
I am going to rotate it just randomly--
| | 01:44 | and you'll notice when I go back to
the pyramid that the values for the
| | 01:48 | rotation are now randomized.
| | 01:50 | It just grabbed it and just
rotated it all over the place.
| | 01:52 | If I click on the Freeze All
button, I can now freeze a rotation.
| | 01:57 | You'll notice that even though my
pyramid is now rotated randomly here around
| | 02:01 | the world axis, it shows up still at 0, 0, 0.
| | 02:05 | That makes animating pyramid much easier.
| | 02:07 | So let's add a second object to the scene.
| | 02:09 | Let's add a cone this time, which is
very similar to the pyramid except it has
| | 02:13 | some slightly different properties.
| | 02:15 | I am going to move this cone on the
negative X axis, and get it out of the way
| | 02:19 | so they are both in different locations.
| | 02:22 | The Attribute Manager shows you the
attributes for each of these objects as I
| | 02:26 | click on them, but what if you wanted
to be able to modify the attributes for
| | 02:30 | both objects at the same time?
| | 02:31 | I can select both objects, and then the
attributes that they have in common will
| | 02:35 | now be available to me.
| | 02:37 | In this case, I have got some object
properties, which I can change just the
| | 02:40 | orientation, or I can change the coordinates.
| | 02:42 | If I, for example, put in Y value and
make them both 500 units on the Y axis,
| | 02:48 | they both will jump 500 units on the Y axis.
| | 02:52 | Now, you'll notice that they are local,
and because in my pyramid when I froze
| | 02:58 | the transformations, it moved in a
different direction, so that's why with freeze
| | 03:01 | transformations, you have
to be really careful with.
| | 03:04 | The next situation that you might
find yourself in is wanting to have both
| | 03:07 | properties for both objects up on-screen
at the same time, and that's where either
| | 03:11 | the Lock button or the New
Attribute Manager button come into play.
| | 03:15 | If I click on the pyramid, for example,
and I click the New Attribute Manager
| | 03:20 | button, I can add a new Attribute
Manager to the scene that can be floating
| | 03:24 | around in the interface.
| | 03:25 | That allows me to see the properties for
both the cone and the pyramid at the same.
| | 03:29 | So I can select the cone property. And
you can see that my pyramid Attribute
| | 03:32 | Manager did not change, and I can
modify the pyramid and change its value.
| | 03:36 | Let's move it back to 0.
| | 03:37 | So it's back at the center of the world.
| | 03:39 | I can also move the cone back to the
center of the world here as well. 0, 0, 0.
| | 03:42 | You can see I can easily make changes to
both of these objects without having
| | 03:48 | to click back and forth on the objects
to get their attributes to show up in
| | 03:51 | the Attribute Manager.
| | 03:54 | One last element is the Lock icon.
| | 03:57 | The Lock icon allows me to
lock down an Attribute Manager.
| | 04:00 | So, for example, if click on my cone and
click the Lock button, now when I click
| | 04:05 | the pyramid I don't see the attributes,
and that allows me to modify elements
| | 04:09 | and click other objects in the scene,
and it allows me to modify the properties
| | 04:13 | of the object that I still have selected,
even though I am clicking on other objects.
| | 04:16 | So the Attribute Manager can be a
little problematic sometimes when you're
| | 04:20 | clicking on things in scene, and this
allows you to lock it off so that it
| | 04:23 | doesn't jump around on you.
| | 04:25 | The other icons in the top of the
Attribute Manager that I didn't cover are
| | 04:29 | essential in other types of the
animation and modeling, but they're not really
| | 04:33 | crucial to really
understanding C4D at this time.
| | 04:36 | The most important thing to remember
about the Attribute Manager is that even
| | 04:39 | though it will change constantly, a
simple click on the element you would like
| | 04:42 | to see will get it right
back to where you need.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating a basic model with primitive and null objects| 00:00 | Creating models in 3D can be a very
complex task, or it can be really simple.
| | 00:05 | The key is to decide ahead of time
what you're trying to create and how much
| | 00:08 | detail it needs to have.
| | 00:09 | Once you have those key questions answered,
their technique falls right into place.
| | 00:13 | So my goal for this exercise is to
create an airplane with just 3D objects.
| | 00:18 | So what I did was I spent a
few seconds making a sketch.
| | 00:22 | If I go out to the Finder here, I'm
going to open this sketch up in Preview.
| | 00:25 | This is not a very good sketch.
| | 00:27 | But the key is the quality of this
sketch isn't nearly as important as the fact
| | 00:31 | that you've made it.
| | 00:32 | The process of making the sketch helps
you visualize the kinds of pieces that
| | 00:35 | you'll need for your model.
| | 00:37 | As you can see from this sketch, my fuselage
is really just a sort of a squished out cone.
| | 00:42 | My wings are just an elongated cube
that's been flattened, and the same thing goes
| | 00:46 | for my control services and tail back here.
| | 00:49 | So, this process that I went through
to make the sketch helps me visualize
| | 00:52 | the kinds of objects I'm going to
need to create when I get into Cinema 4D.
| | 00:57 | So let's go back to Cinema 4D now, and
start off by adding a cone to the scene
| | 01:01 | for the fuselage, because we're going
to build our plane around the fuselage.
| | 01:05 | So let's add a cone to the scene.
| | 01:07 | The Cone Properties under the Object
Properties will allow us to change the
| | 01:12 | orientation of the cone.
| | 01:14 | Well, I want to build my plane along
the Z axis, and so I want my cone to
| | 01:18 | flow along the Z axis.
| | 01:18 | So I'm going to take my Orientation,
and change it be positive +Z. You can see
| | 01:23 | my cone flips over.
| | 01:24 | And that was without actually rotating
it; all I have done is changed the way
| | 01:27 | the software is drawing the cone.
| | 01:29 | Next up, I want to change the shape of the cone.
| | 01:31 | So let's start off by making the
Height about to say 1,000 units or so.
| | 01:36 | Then I'm going to go to the
height and go 1,000, and Enter.
| | 01:41 | Then I'm going to change the
shape of the end of the cone here.
| | 01:46 | So under the Caps property, I can activate
the bottom cap, and that will round it off.
| | 01:52 | That's going to become the nose of my plane.
| | 01:54 | Under the Object Properties, I'm
going to take the Top Radius, and enlarge
| | 01:58 | that up just a bit.
| | 01:59 | You can see that makes the back
of the cone a little bit fatter.
| | 02:03 | Let's go ahead and,
rather than have that be flat,
| | 02:05 | I'm going to go to the Caps property
again, and activate the Top cap to round
| | 02:09 | that off, and that becomes our fuselage.
| | 02:13 | Next up, let's create the wings.
| | 02:15 | So, I'm going to add a cube to the scene, and
the cube comes up at the center of the world.
| | 02:19 | Anytime you add objects in C4D,
| | 02:20 | they always show up at the center of the world.
| | 02:22 | So I always build my models around the
center of the world, and that makes the
| | 02:25 | organization or the objects really easy.
| | 02:28 | So I'll take my cube now.
| | 02:30 | Let's make it flat. Say on the Y axis,
I'm going to scrub the value here, so you
| | 02:33 | can see which value I'm changing.
| | 02:35 | I'll take this Y value, and make it say 5 units.
| | 02:39 | That's going to make a really thin wing.
| | 02:41 | That's maybe a little too thin.
Let's make that 10.
| | 02:43 | Then on the X axis, I'll scrub that value,
so you can see which one I'm changing.
| | 02:47 | I want to make the wings nice and wide here.
| | 02:50 | Let's make it say about a
thousand units again; 1,000.
| | 02:56 | This wing, if you zoom in on, it's
kind of a square, and really a wing would
| | 03:00 | have a nice, soft leading edge.
| | 03:01 | So I'm going to change the Fillet property.
| | 03:04 | Fillet is a fancy way of saying "rounding" in 3D.
| | 03:07 | So if I click on the Fillet option,
you can see the wing becomes rounded.
| | 03:12 | That's a little more interesting
to look at than just a flat square.
| | 03:15 | The plane flies around a center of
gravity, and that's how I want to build
| | 03:18 | my plane here in C4D.
| | 03:20 | So right now, the wings on this
type of plane are really where the
| | 03:24 | object rotates around.
| | 03:25 | So if I take my cone, I don't want
to have my cone sticking this far out,
| | 03:28 | I want to take the cone, and
move it on the Z axis back a bit.
| | 03:33 | It's pretty good right about there.
| | 03:34 | So now the wings are going to be right
and sort of in the middle of the fuselage.
| | 03:37 | Now we can create the canopy
where our pilot would sit.
| | 03:40 | I'm going to use a capsule object for that.
| | 03:43 | So I'll add a capsule to the scene.
| | 03:44 | Notice it comes in at the center of the world.
| | 03:47 | I'm going to change the
Orientation once again to +Z. When I do that,
| | 03:52 | the capsule disappears.
| | 03:53 | But it's right inside the fuselage.
| | 03:55 | So let's take that capsule and raise it up
on Y, and then let's move it back just a bit.
| | 04:04 | Then I'm going to rotate it.
| | 04:05 | Now in order to really see what's going on
here, I'm going to switch to the four-way view.
| | 04:09 | So I'm going to middle-mouse click
here and middle-mouse click again in the
| | 04:12 | Right-hand view to bring that to the full screen.
| | 04:14 | Now if I grab the Rotate tool, I can
click outside the yellow circle here, and
| | 04:19 | drag, and rotate my capsule up into position.
| | 04:22 | Well, I'm looking to line up this green
band with this black line here, so make
| | 04:27 | sure that they're parallel.
| | 04:28 | Now when I switch back to the Move tool,
I can take that Y handle and drag it
| | 04:32 | up, and my canopy lines up
nicely with the fuselage.
| | 04:36 | When I go back into the Perspective
view, I can adjust the Y axis on the
| | 04:41 | canopy, and get it settled in
a position a little bit better.
| | 04:44 | Next up, I want to create the tail and
control surfaces for the backend of the plane.
| | 04:49 | Rather than duplicate this process
over, add a cube and make it flat and
| | 04:52 | everything, I'm just going to
start with a cube that I have already.
| | 04:55 | Let's take this cube, hold down the Control key on
the Mac or the PC, and drag a copy down to create a copy.
| | 05:02 | I could also copy and paste it into
the scene, but I'd like to do a Ctrl+Drag
| | 05:05 | like that whenever possible.
| | 05:07 | It's really a fast way to make a copy.
| | 05:09 | So, I'm going to rename this
horizontal stabilizer, which is the surface at
| | 05:13 | the back of the plane.
| | 05:14 | So I'll call it Horiz, and
then Stabil. There we go.
| | 05:19 | Now I'm going to need to move this back,
| | 05:21 | so I would grab the Z handle for it, and drag
it all the way back to the end of the plane here.
| | 05:27 | Now in the Object Properties for
this cube object that I've called
| | 05:30 | horizontal stabilizer,
| | 05:31 | I'm going to change the X value from
1,000, let's bring it down to say
| | 05:37 | maybe, let's call it 400. There we go.
It's a little bit fat.
| | 05:44 | So let's change the Z value
from 200 to say 100. There we go.
| | 05:49 | Then I'll drag it back into
position just a little bit more.
| | 05:53 | That becomes our horizontal stabilizer.
| | 05:55 | Now, we can repeat the process for the tail.
| | 05:57 | I'll take the horizontal stabilizer,
and then I'll hold down the Ctrl key,
| | 06:02 | and make a copy of that.
| | 06:03 | Let's rename this object and call it "Tail."
| | 06:07 | The tail now needs to point on the Y axis.
| | 06:09 | I have a couple of choices.
| | 06:10 | I can either rotate the tail into position,
or I could change the properties here.
| | 06:15 | So let's change the properties, since
that's I think a little bit easier to do
| | 06:17 | than rotating it, because we
don't have to guess about anything.
| | 06:20 | So if I go to the X value, I
want it to be the same thickness,
| | 06:24 | so I change the X value to be 10, and
then I'll change the Y value to be say
| | 06:29 | 100, and then the Z value,
I can leave at 100 for now.
| | 06:34 | We're going to adjust
these values in just a second.
| | 06:36 | Next, I need to move that tail into position,
| | 06:38 | so I grab the Y handle, and drag it right up.
| | 06:42 | Now, that is a little bit short, so
let's change the Y value to be say 150.
| | 06:48 | I think that's looking a
little bit better. There we go.
| | 06:51 | So now you can see we've got our tail, and
our horizontal stabilizer at the back all built.
| | 06:57 | Now we're ready for the propeller.
| | 06:59 | When I'm modeling in C4D, I always like to
build things around the center of the world.
| | 07:03 | Right now, my plane is actually in the
center of the world, and it's kind of in the way.
| | 07:06 | So what I'm going to do is click on
the first check mark here in the Object
| | 07:10 | Manager, and drag down, by
holding the mouse key down.
| | 07:14 | That's going to disable
all of my primitive objects.
| | 07:16 | When I let go, everything disappears.
| | 07:17 | Now they're all still in the scene.
| | 07:18 | I can turn them back on again by
clicking and panning up again, or clicking and
| | 07:22 | panning down to turn them off.
| | 07:23 | So it's really easy to
turn these objects off and on.
| | 07:26 | I have the scene empty now, so it's
going to make it really easy to model my
| | 07:29 | propeller in position.
| | 07:30 | A common mistake that new modelers
make is to try and model the propeller in
| | 07:34 | position on the plane, and that
makes things really difficult.
| | 07:37 | What I prefer to do is to model the
propeller at the center of the world, and
| | 07:40 | then move it into position on the plane.
| | 07:42 | That's what we're going to do here.
| | 07:43 | So let's start off by making the
central shaft for the propeller.
| | 07:46 | We're going to use a
capsule object to do that again.
| | 07:49 | So I'm going to change the
Orientation to be +Z once again.
| | 07:53 | That's going to flow
along the length of our plane.
| | 07:55 | We don't need quite this many segments
for our propeller shaft, because it's
| | 07:58 | going to be pretty small in the plane.
| | 08:00 | So let's bring this down to
say 12 on the Rotation Segments.
| | 08:04 | Then in the Height Segments,
we're going to only need one really,
| | 08:06 | so we'll change that down.
| | 08:08 | We'll leave the Cap Segments alone.
| | 08:09 | So that's the central shaft
around which our propeller will rotate.
| | 08:13 | Now what I'm going to do
is add a disc to the scene.
| | 08:16 | The disc object is going to
become one of the propeller blades.
| | 08:19 | So right now, it's on the wrong axis,
| | 08:22 | so let's change the
Orientation, once again, to +Z.
| | 08:24 | Now the disc has a cool property called Slice.
| | 08:29 | I can change that slice by
activating the Slice option.
| | 08:33 | You can see it cut my disc in half.
| | 08:35 | By adjusting these values left and right, I
can adjust where my disc starts and stops.
| | 08:41 | Let's zoom in on that a little bit more.
| | 08:43 | Actually, that's not too bad
for a thickness for a propeller.
| | 08:47 | Now what I do want to change though, is
under the Object Properties, is change
| | 08:49 | the Outer Radius, and make the
Outer Radius a little bit bigger.
| | 08:55 | That's not a bad ratio.
| | 08:57 | What I'm trying to find is a good ratio
between the shaft and the propeller blade.
| | 09:01 | Let's make that Outer Radius
just a bit larger. There we go.
| | 09:06 | Now I can call this one "Prop Right."
| | 09:10 | When I name objects, I try to name them
from the point of view of the object itself.
| | 09:14 | So from the planes point of view,
this becomes the right propeller.
| | 09:19 | Now I'm going to make a copy of this
Prop Right object, and then rotate it
| | 09:24 | around into position on
the other side of the object.
| | 09:27 | I can use the Slice option
also, and change it here,
| | 09:29 | but in this case, I'll just rotate it around.
| | 09:31 | That way I don't have to
guess about what the values are.
| | 09:33 | So I use the Rotate tool--R on the
keyboard--and rotate my propeller around.
| | 09:37 | I'll hold down the Shift key to
constrain the rotation to even increments, and
| | 09:42 | rotate it 180 degrees around.
| | 09:45 | Now, I've got my propeller.
| | 09:46 | To make it a little more aerodynamic, I
can just rotate these propeller blades a
| | 09:51 | little bit around their X axis.
| | 09:52 | I'll grab the Prop Right object
and rotate it just the other way.
| | 09:57 | That's going to look a
little bit more realistic.
| | 10:00 | Let's rename this object and call
it "Prop left," by the way. Prop left.
| | 10:05 | These propeller elements
need to rotate with the capsule.
| | 10:08 | So let's rename this
capsule, and call it "Prop shaft."
| | 10:12 | Then take both of these objects,
| | 10:13 | I'm going to draw a rectangle around
both the Prop left and right objects, and
| | 10:17 | then drag them down, and make them
children of the Prop shaft object.
| | 10:21 | Now when I select the Prop shaft and
rotate it, they all rotate together, just
| | 10:25 | like a real propeller would.
| | 10:27 | Now I'm ready to turn my plane back on,
so I can activate all of these objects
| | 10:32 | by clicking on the check
marks and panning down again.
| | 10:34 | When I let go, everything is in position.
| | 10:37 | I've got a problem: my
propeller is huge compared my plane.
| | 10:39 | But that's really easy to
fix with the Scale tool.
| | 10:42 | Let's move this forward on the Z
axis, and get it into the position.
| | 10:49 | Then we're going to adjust
the size of this propeller.
| | 10:52 | So let's use the Scale tool now.
| | 10:54 | I'm in model mode, which allows me to
resize the prop shaft without actually
| | 10:58 | changing the physical scale of it.
| | 11:01 | What that does is in fact
change the object properties of it.
| | 11:04 | So watch what happens.
| | 11:05 | When I click on this Prop shaft object
and scale down, I'm going to drag to the
| | 11:09 | left, and change the size
of it--right about there so.
| | 11:12 | I'll twirl up Freeze Transformations.
| | 11:14 | The Coordinate value still are at 1.
| | 11:17 | What changed was the physical
radius and height of my propeller shaft.
| | 11:21 | It did the same thing for the
children as well, which is really nice.
| | 11:25 | I think that's just a
good size for my propeller.
| | 11:27 | It's got a good proportion to it,
relative to the size of plane.
| | 11:30 | When my plane flies, I want
all the parts to move together
| | 11:33 | so I'm ready to group things
together under a single null object.
| | 11:36 | So let's go the primitive objects here,
and click and hold, and add a null.
| | 11:39 | If you remember, a null is just an
access point in space with no geometry
| | 11:43 | or anything associated with it, and use it
for grouping and organizing your objects.
| | 11:47 | So let's take all of these elements
and make them children of the null.
| | 11:51 | I'll call that null Plane. There we go.
| | 11:55 | So now when I twirl that Plane element open
and closed, I can see all the parts of my plane.
| | 12:01 | More importantly, when I move this
plane object around in the scene, my plane
| | 12:07 | will rotate with it.
| | 12:08 | I can adjust its rotation, and bank it,
make cool sound effects while I'm doing it.
| | 12:13 | It's always a lot of fun to do that.
| | 12:15 | If you were to watch me in my studio,
you'd hear me making all kinds of crazy
| | 12:18 | sound effects while I work.
| | 12:19 | It helps to keep me awake, and also
helps keep the creative juices flowing.
| | 12:24 | So you can see with just a few simple
objects, we've made a fun little plane.
| | 12:27 | The key though, to this whole process
was the few minutes I spent sketching out
| | 12:31 | the original design.
| | 12:32 | Let's open that up, so we
can see what it looks like.
| | 12:34 | So I'll just resize the window, and
compare the sketches side by side.
| | 12:38 | You can see that compared to sketch, my
primitive plane here looks pretty close.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
3. Working with SplinesCreating and working with splines| 00:00 | A spline is two or more points
that are connected by a line.
| | 00:03 | Sounds simple, right?
| | 00:04 | But that's simple statement unlocks a
whole world of possibilities in Cinema 4D.
| | 00:09 | The term "spline" is a fancy way of
saying a path, and you're used to seeing paths
| | 00:13 | in Photoshop and
Illustrator and After Effects.
| | 00:15 | Paths in Cinema 4D are just as
powerful, and also just as easy to use.
| | 00:19 | Let's take a look at the spline icon.
It's right next to the primitive objects here,
| | 00:23 | this blue squiggle line here.
| | 00:25 | When I click on it, that gives me list
of all the spline objects in the Cinema 4D.
| | 00:29 | Now there is the Freehand spline,
and the other spline tools for
| | 00:32 | creating free-form splines.
| | 00:34 | There are also spline primitives as well.
| | 00:36 | So let's take a look, and start off
with a spline primitive, and then take a
| | 00:39 | look at some of the freeform splines
for drawing more complicated paths.
| | 00:43 | So I'll start off with a flower spline.
| | 00:45 | And a flower spline is simply a
flower-like shape that has some primitive
| | 00:50 | attributes that you can control,
| | 00:52 | for example, the Outer Radius and Inner Radius.
| | 00:54 | I can control how large the petals are,
how many petals I've actually made.
| | 00:59 | There are lots of things you
can do with the flower spline.
| | 01:02 | Now one thing you remember about
splines is that they do not render.
| | 01:05 | If I click on the Render in Picture
Viewer button, this white clapboard here,
| | 01:09 | if I click that once, you
see I get a black scene.
| | 01:12 | Now that's because splines don't render.
| | 01:13 | There are no geometry
associated with the spline.
| | 01:16 | Now that doesn't mean they're not
useful, because you can create all kinds of
| | 01:18 | modeling and animation with spline objects.
| | 01:21 | It's just that they don't render on their own.
| | 01:22 | So what I need to do in order to be
able to see this flower is I'll hit A on
| | 01:26 | the keyboard to redraw the frame, and I
will add an Extrude NURB to the scene,
| | 01:31 | and drag this flower
underneath the Extrude NURB.
| | 01:33 | The Extrude NURB creates geometry
based on the shape of the flower spline.
| | 01:37 | So let's see what that
looks like when we render it.
| | 01:39 | You can see, now we can see the
shape of the flower in three dimensions.
| | 01:45 | We're going to cover the Extrude
NURB more later in this chapter.
| | 01:47 | So let's focus back on the
spline objects themselves.
| | 01:50 | I'm going to n the delete this Extrude
NURB from the scene and just get
| | 01:53 | back to my empty scene and talk
about how to draw free-form splines.
| | 01:57 | So underneath the Spline icons, we've
got a several freeform spline tools.
| | 02:01 | Now I've never ever used the Freehand tool.
| | 02:04 | From a design standpoint, it's just not very
worthwhile to even waste your time with it.
| | 02:09 | Now it works just like a Pencil tool in
say Photoshop, or Illustrator, but it's
| | 02:13 | just not that useful.
| | 02:14 | What I prefer to do is to draw my
splines one point at a time. That gives a
| | 02:18 | lot more precision.
| | 02:19 | So, all of these other tools work in that way.
| | 02:21 | Now the Bezier Spline tool is what you're
used to seeing in Photoshop and Illustrator.
| | 02:25 | So I'm going to add a
Bezier spline to the scene.
| | 02:27 | Now this is a very important rule.
| | 02:29 | When you draw your splines, never draw
your splines in the Perspective view.
| | 02:32 | You want to draw your splines
in one of the orthographic views.
| | 02:35 | The reason for that is that Cinema 4D
draws the points in space based on the
| | 02:39 | angle of view with the camera.
| | 02:41 | So if I draw my spline in
this view--one, two, three, four--
| | 02:45 | I've drawn a really crude-looking Z shape here,
| | 02:49 | but that Z shape is not what I think it is.
| | 02:51 | If I orbit around, look how it's drawn it.
| | 02:54 | It's actually drawn that Z out on the
ground plane, and that's based on the
| | 02:58 | angle that I was looking at the world at.
| | 03:00 | So I'm going to delete that spline
completely and get back to the Bezier spline tool.
| | 03:05 | I'm going to switch to the Front View.
| | 03:07 | I'm going to draw the letter S. I'll use
the Spline tool the same way I'd use the
| | 03:11 | Pen tool in Photoshop or Illustrator.
| | 03:13 | If I click once, I get a single point.
| | 03:15 | If I click and drag, I get Bezier handles,
and that makes it really easy to draw
| | 03:20 | a very rough-looking letter S,
right here in the Orthographic view.
| | 03:27 | Now I can use the Selection
tool to grab individual points.
| | 03:31 | I can use the Move tool to
change the handles of those points.
| | 03:35 | If I want to adjust the tension of the
handles on one side only, I can use the Shift key.
| | 03:40 | Holding on the Shift key, and clicking
and dragging on that handle to break that
| | 03:45 | handle, that tangency.
| | 03:46 | A three-button mouse is really
important in this process, because when I
| | 03:50 | right-click, I'm going to get
a series of contextual menus.
| | 03:53 | And the contextual menus will change based
on the type of object that you have selected.
| | 03:57 | But for the spline object, when I right-
click, it gives me the opportunity to do
| | 04:00 | some things to the points of the spline.
| | 04:02 | I want to be able to change this
point back to what it was before.
| | 04:06 | So if I change this to Soft
Interpolation, that will reset the point handles
| | 04:10 | back to what they were before, and that allows
me to move them with the Move tool back again.
| | 04:15 | If I want to get a corner point
here, I can right-click and go to
| | 04:17 | Hard Interpolation.
| | 04:19 | That allows me to have
just a single corner point.
| | 04:22 | So let's undo that and get
it back to a Bezier handle there.
| | 04:26 | Now let's say you're not happy with the
shape of this, and I'd like to adjust the
| | 04:29 | endpoints of this letter S. Now, I can
add points to the end of the spline by
| | 04:33 | using the Move tool,
| | 04:34 | holding down the Ctrl key, and
clicking any place after the spline.
| | 04:39 | I can add points to the end of the spline.
| | 04:42 | Now that's great if you only want
to add points to this side of spline,
| | 04:45 | but what happens if you want to add
points to this side of the spline.
| | 04:48 | Well, that's where the
spline direction comes in.
| | 04:50 | You may have noticed that my spline
has a gradient color associated with it,
| | 04:54 | where there is white at one
end and blue at the other end.
| | 04:57 | That gradient color indicates
the direction of the spline.
| | 05:00 | White side is the starting point.
| | 05:02 | Blue side is the ending point.
| | 05:04 | That's based on the order in
which I clicked the points originally.
| | 05:07 | When I first drew this letter S, I
started here, and worked my way round
| | 05:10 | the spline this way.
| | 05:11 | So when you use the Move tool to add
points to a spline, it only adds points
| | 05:15 | to the ending point.
| | 05:16 | So, what I need to do is reverse the
direction of my spline and then add points
| | 05:20 | to this side over here. So I can
right-click, and go to Reverse Sequence.
| | 05:25 | Now you notice the color has changed.
| | 05:27 | Now I can use the Move tool and
add points to this side of the spline.
| | 05:30 | So I hold down the Ctrl key with the
Move tool active, and I can add points to
| | 05:34 | this end of the spline.
| | 05:35 | Let's take a look at one more spline type
and a very important command Close Spline.
| | 05:39 | So I'm going to delete this
spline from the scene again.
| | 05:43 | I'm going to go up to my Spline icons here.
| | 05:45 | I'm going to use something called a B-spline.
| | 05:46 | The B-spline is going be new to you if
you've never looked at a 3D application
| | 05:50 | before, because unfortunately,
Photoshop, and Illustrator, and After Effects
| | 05:53 | don't have the spline type.
| | 05:54 | I really wished they did. It's an amazing way to
create beautiful, free-flowing splines.
| | 05:58 | So the way the B-spline works is that
when I use this tool, the first time I
| | 06:02 | click, I get a single point.
| | 06:04 | The second time I click, I get a straight line.
| | 06:06 | The third time I click, I get an arc
based on the triangulated position of
| | 06:11 | these three points.
| | 06:12 | The fourth time I click, based on the
second three points, it creates another
| | 06:16 | arc, and so on, and so forth.
| | 06:17 | So it's really easy to make smooth,
free-flowing shapes with a B-spline.
| | 06:22 | When you go to move those points around,
you can click and drag on those points
| | 06:26 | and move them around in space.
| | 06:29 | It is really an easy way to
create a free-flowing spline.
| | 06:34 | Now I can quickly make that S in a way
that took about seven or eight points.
| | 06:39 | I've got much fewer points now with the
spline, and I can make a much smoother shape.
| | 06:43 | Now, the shape that I'm making while I'm
talking here isn't necessarily that smooth.
| | 06:47 | That's because I'm talking
and making it at the same time.
| | 06:50 | But you can see the power of that B-spline.
| | 06:52 | So, the next thing I want to be
able to do is to close the spline up.
| | 06:55 | So let's take this and add a few points to
the end here, and go one, two, and three.
| | 07:01 | Now I want to be able to close
the spline with the top right here.
| | 07:06 | In Photoshop and Illustrator and
After Effects, you end up clicking right
| | 07:09 | on that point right there, but there is
actually a better way to do that in Cinema 4D.
| | 07:13 | If I click on the spline object to
get the Object Properties back up,
| | 07:16 | I can select the Close Spline option.
| | 07:19 | When I click that it
automatically closes the spline up for me.
| | 07:22 | I can always unclose it at any time I want.
| | 07:24 | It makes it really easy to
open and close the spine.
| | 07:27 | Now remember, a spline by itself doesn't render.
| | 07:29 | In order to be able to see these
complex paths, we'll need to give them shapes.
| | 07:33 | That's where the NURB objects come in.
| | 07:35 | In the next few movies, we'll
take a look at some of them.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Selecting and transforming points on a spline| 00:00 | So a spline is an object that's made up of
points, and those points can be manipulated.
| | 00:05 | There are a couple of tools that I
want to talk about for manipulating and
| | 00:09 | moving those points.
| | 00:10 | So let's create a spline.
| | 00:11 | I'm going to go to the Front view here
and use the Bezier Spline tool, and just
| | 00:16 | create a quick spline here.
| | 00:18 | The shape isn't important.
| | 00:21 | So if I navigate out here to the
Perspective view, I now have access to these points.
| | 00:26 | Now the reason I have access to the
points is because of something called the
| | 00:29 | Point Mode icon over here.
| | 00:31 | Now if you hover over this icon, in the
bottom-left of the interface, you'll see
| | 00:35 | the words "Use Point Tool."
| | 00:36 | Now I call this a mode, even though
in the interface they call it a tool.
| | 00:40 | The reason I call it a mode is it
changes how the objects and tools behave.
| | 00:43 | To me, that's more of a mode than a tool.
| | 00:45 | So that's where I differ from
the guys who wrote the program.
| | 00:49 | But the important thing to remember is
that this gives you access to the points
| | 00:52 | that make up your object.
| | 00:54 | So what I can do now on the spline
is I can now start to select points.
| | 00:58 | I want to grab the Selection tool to do that.
| | 01:00 | Now if I click and hold on this icon,
there are several selection tools.
| | 01:04 | Now the first up is the Live Selection.
| | 01:06 | The way the Live Selection tool
works is I can click on a single point,
| | 01:09 | but I can also click and drag
to select more than one point.
| | 01:12 | This is called painting a selection.
| | 01:14 | Notice as I click and drag around,
I'm selecting multiple points.
| | 01:18 | Now if I want to remove points from that
selection, I can hold down the Ctrl key
| | 01:22 | and I can remove a point from the selection.
| | 01:25 | I can also remove multiple points by
Ctrl+Painting from the selection as well.
| | 01:29 | Once I have those points selected, I can
now move them around with the Selection tool.
| | 01:33 | So I can move those points with the
handles, or I can use the axis bands to move
| | 01:38 | those points around as well.
| | 01:40 | So the next selection tool I want to talk
about is the Rectangular Selection tool.
| | 01:44 | The Rectangular Selection tool allows you
to drag a rectangle around a selected point.
| | 01:49 | So, I can click and drag.
| | 01:51 | I tend to normally drag from the top
down, but you can drag any direction you
| | 01:56 | want to select points.
| | 01:57 | You can drag across the entire
screen to grab all those points.
| | 02:00 | Once again, holding down the Ctrl key
allows you to deselect those points.
| | 02:04 | Now once you have those points
selected, you can also rotate those points.
| | 02:07 | If I click on the Rotate tool, I can
rotate the points around at a given axis,
| | 02:12 | or I can freely rotate them.
| | 02:13 | One thing you'll notice about points in
general is that if I switch back to the
| | 02:17 | Selection tool now, I just used a
keyboard shortcut there: the Spacebar.
| | 02:21 | The Spacebar allows me to move from the
Rotation tool back to the Selection tool.
| | 02:26 | It moves in general from wherever
your last selected tool was back to
| | 02:30 | the Selection tool.
| | 02:31 | So if I select a single point and try
and use the Rotate tool by hitting the
| | 02:34 | Spacebar and to get back to it, I can rotate
that single point, because it has those handles.
| | 02:40 | What's really happening is it's rotating the
handles of the point and not the point itself.
| | 02:44 | If I try and use the Scale tool--the
letter T on the keyboard--on the single
| | 02:47 | point, it scales the handles.
| | 02:50 | You notice that it scales
those handles along their axis.
| | 02:53 | So, next up in the selection
tools is the Lasso Selection tool.
| | 02:57 | Now, the Lasso Selection tool allows me to draw
in irregular lasso selection around an object.
| | 03:03 | You'll notice as I draw that selection,
it fills in a ghost shape, showing me the
| | 03:09 | area that I've got selected.
| | 03:11 | So it's really handy for seeing
where it is you've drawn the lasso.
| | 03:14 | Once you let go the lasso, then
you end up selecting the points.
| | 03:17 | Same thing. Hold down the Ctrl key,
you can deselect from the points region.
| | 03:22 | The last selection tool is
the Polygon Selection tool.
| | 03:26 | The Polygon Selection tool is a little
bit different than the Lasso Selection
| | 03:28 | tool, because it allows you to click.
| | 03:31 | Each time you click, you're
drawing a point on a polygon.
| | 03:35 | So it's a way to make a more precise
irregular selection than you can with the Lasso tool.
| | 03:39 | When you are done selecting again, you
get back around of the other side of the
| | 03:43 | polygon, it will select the object.
| | 03:45 | So once again, I'm going to click, click,
click, click, click, click, and when I
| | 03:50 | come back around to that point, I click
again on that end point for the polygon,
| | 03:55 | and it selects the points.
| | 03:56 | And same thing. You can hold on the
Ctrl key to deselect those points.
| | 04:01 | So selecting and manipulating your
points is really crucial for creating
| | 04:05 | smooth, flowing, and elegant shapes using splines.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Modeling with splines: Sweep NURBS| 00:00 | The Sweep NURB object is really a lot of fun.
| | 00:02 | It's super easy to use as
long as you set it up correctly.
| | 00:05 | A Sweep NURB is a shape created by
taking one spline and projecting it along
| | 00:09 | the length of another spline.
| | 00:10 | To understand what that means,
take a look around your desk.
| | 00:12 | The cable attached to your mouse, or a
power cable, or an air-conditioning duct--
| | 00:16 | these are all great examples of Sweep NURBS.
| | 00:18 | Now the term NURB, Non-
Uniform Rational B-Spline,
| | 00:21 | has the word B-spline in it, but
don't take that to mean that you can only
| | 00:24 | use B-splines with NURBS.
| | 00:26 | I just happen to like using the B-
spline with the Sweep NURB object, but you
| | 00:30 | can use any type of spline at all.
| | 00:31 | It's a way for the computer software
to derive a very complex shape out of a
| | 00:35 | very un-complex shape.
| | 00:37 | So let's see what that means.
| | 00:39 | I'm going to draw a B-spline.
| | 00:41 | If you remember from the previous
movie, I like to draw my splines in
| | 00:44 | the Orthographic view.
| | 00:45 | So let's switch to the Orthographic view,
and I'm going to draw this in the front.
| | 00:49 | I'm going to grab my B-Spline tool.
| | 00:51 | Now the way that B-spline works is that
the first time I click, I get a single point.
| | 00:55 | The second time I click, I get a straight line.
| | 00:57 | The third time I click, I get an arc,
and that arc is based on the triangulated
| | 01:02 | positions of these three splines.
| | 01:04 | So, you can see there is a nice flow from
this top point down to the arc of the spline.
| | 01:09 | Now, the fourth time I click, I'm going
to get a new arc, and that arc is based
| | 01:14 | on the previous three points.
| | 01:16 | So you can see I have an arc based on
one, two, three, and I have another arc
| | 01:20 | based on one, two, three.
| | 01:22 | So let's just draw a few more arcs.
| | 01:23 | I'm going to just randomly
draw a fun little shape here.
| | 01:27 | The shape really isn't important,
because the cool thing about the B-splines and
| | 01:31 | the cool thing about Sweep NURBS is
that the splines stays live throughout the
| | 01:34 | modeling process, so I can always go
back and change my spline at anytime.
| | 01:37 | So let's switch back to the Perspective view.
| | 01:39 | You can see that I've drawn this spline
around the Z axis, and on the plane that
| | 01:45 | defined by the Y and X axes.
| | 01:47 | That's because I drew it in the Front view.
| | 01:49 | So let's add a Sweep NURB to the
scene, and see what that looks like.
| | 01:52 | So I'm going to go down to the NURB
icons here and click and hold and add a
| | 01:56 | Sweep NURB object to the scene.
| | 01:58 | The icons for the Sweep NURB
object actually looks like a tube.
| | 02:02 | But you'll notice that on the
tube are two little white lines.
| | 02:05 | Those white lines are very important,
because they indicate how many splines
| | 02:08 | you're going to need in
order to actually the Sweep NURB.
| | 02:11 | You're going to need a profile that's
going to become the outer shape of the spline.
| | 02:14 | You're going to need a length of spline
to create the actual length of the tube
| | 02:18 | that the profile becomes.
| | 02:20 | So, the length of the spline we have here
with our B-spline that we created a second ago.
| | 02:25 | Now what I want to do is go and add a profile.
| | 02:28 | So let's just start off with a circle.
| | 02:29 | I'm going to add a circle to the scene,
and that circle is really thick compared
| | 02:33 | to how big my spline is.
| | 02:35 | So let's change the Radius
down to say maybe 20 units.
| | 02:39 | The order that you put the objects
into the Sweep NURB is very important.
| | 02:42 | If I add a circle to the
Sweep NURB, nothing happens.
| | 02:45 | That's because the Sweep NURB is a
generator object, but it needs more than one
| | 02:48 | child in order to produce results.
| | 02:50 | If I drag the spline up and add it to
the Sweep NURB as a child of the Sweep
| | 02:55 | NURB, but below the circle, I then
get a swept path along that spline.
| | 03:00 | Now, the order is very important.
| | 03:02 | If I reverse this order, I
get a very different shape.
| | 03:05 | Now what's happening is it's taking this
spline and sweeping it along the circle.
| | 03:09 | That gives me a very different type of shape.
| | 03:11 | This is not necessarily bad.
| | 03:13 | It's just a different
result than what I expected.
| | 03:16 | So let's take the circle and
reposition it in the hierarchy here, so that
| | 03:19 | it's above the spline.
| | 03:20 | The spline itself is still alive,
| | 03:22 | so I can go in and grab
points anywhere on the spline.
| | 03:25 | I'm going to use my Selection tool,
and grab this point, for example.
| | 03:28 | I can move these, and
this spline is still active.
| | 03:30 | A lot of time what I like to do when I
draw my Sweep NURBS is I draw them in an
| | 03:34 | Orthographic view, and then I come back,
and add depth to them later to create a
| | 03:38 | more interesting shape.
| | 03:40 | So you can just work through this and
create a very complex three-dimensional
| | 03:44 | shape very quickly with that B-spline.
| | 03:47 | Now let's take a look at the
properties for the Sweep NURB object.
| | 03:49 | Now if I select this object and look
at the Attributes Manager, I've got some
| | 03:52 | very important properties.
| | 03:53 | Now there is a lot of stuff here.
| | 03:54 | I don't have time to
cover all of it in this movie.
| | 03:56 | So what I'm going to focus on is just the
things that are really essential to know.
| | 04:00 | So, first step is the End Scale.
| | 04:02 | The End Scale controls how long that
Sweep NURB is at the end of the spline.
| | 04:06 | If you remember from my
discussion on what a spline is,
| | 04:09 | my spline has a direction.
| | 04:10 | If I disable the Sweep NURB for a
moment and go into Point mode and
| | 04:13 | then select my path,
| | 04:15 | I can see the color.
| | 04:16 | That is white at this end
and then blue at this end.
| | 04:19 | So white is the starting
point, blue is the ending point.
| | 04:22 | So back on the Sweep NURB--let's
enable it, and select it again--
| | 04:25 | the End Scale will change how large my
object is at the end down here. So I can
| | 04:30 | scrub and make it larger than 100%,
or I can bring it down to 0, and get a
| | 04:33 | little rat tail in there.
| | 04:35 | If we render that, let's see
what that looks like when we render.
| | 04:37 | I'll click the Render in Active View button.
| | 04:39 | You can see I now have a shape that is
thick on one side and very thin at the other.
| | 04:43 | So that's the End Scale.
| | 04:45 | The End Rotation is also important,
| | 04:47 | but we won't we able to see the result
of the End Rotation,= because of the type
| | 04:50 | of path that I'm sweeping along the spline.
| | 04:52 | I'm sweeping a circle along there.
| | 04:54 | A circle, when it rotates,
still looks like a circle.
| | 04:56 | So let's add a different
shape to the Sweep NURB.
| | 04:58 | That's one of the nice things about the
Sweep NURB is that everything stays live
| | 05:01 | when you're working with it.
| | 05:02 | So I click on the circle
and delete it from the scene.
| | 05:05 | Now, that Sweep NURB disappears,
| | 05:06 | but I can always add a new spline to it.
| | 05:08 | So let's add a star.
| | 05:09 | I'm going to make that star
smaller just by using the Scale tool.
| | 05:13 | So I hit T on the keyboard to bring up
the Scale tool, and just scale down my
| | 05:18 | star, and then add it to the Sweep NURB.
| | 05:20 | Now I've got this swept star along that path.
| | 05:23 | So now I've got the star
properties that I can adjust.
| | 05:26 | I can take the Outer Radius and change that.
| | 05:30 | But I can also, more
importantly, adjust the Sweep NURB.
| | 05:33 | If I select the Sweep NURB, I
can go to the End Rotation now.
| | 05:36 | I can adjust the End Rotation, and
along the length of my spline, the object
| | 05:40 | will start to twist.
| | 05:41 | You see, as I scrub that value, my shape
twists along the length of the spline.
| | 05:46 | That allows you to make
some very complex shapes.
| | 05:50 | Next step in the essential things about the
Sweep NURB is the Start Growth and End Growth.
| | 05:54 | I'm going to hit A on the
keyboard to redraw my scene.
| | 05:57 | The Start Growth and End Growth allow me to
adjust where on the spline the Sweep NURB starts.
| | 06:03 | So I can animate this property over
time and have a spline that grows on.
| | 06:08 | I'm just scrubbing the value now, but
you can set keyframes for this as well.
| | 06:12 | Same thing goes for the End Growth.
| | 06:13 | The End Growth starts from the other
side, and comes back towards the middle.
| | 06:15 | So it allows you to really control,
finely, where that shape starts and ends.
| | 06:19 | Now I'm going to adjust
the End Scale back to 100%
| | 06:23 | so my spline has the same thickness for
the start and the end, because the next
| | 06:26 | thing I want to show is the Details property.
| | 06:29 | If I twirl open the word "Details" here,
you'll notice that there is a little
| | 06:32 | triangle next to the word "Detail."
| | 06:34 | If I twirl that open, I now
have these two graphs here.
| | 06:37 | These graphs are very important,
because they give you a really precise control
| | 06:41 | over the scale and rotation of your Sweep NURB.
| | 06:44 | Now anytime you see a graph like this
in C4D, the left side of the graph refers
| | 06:48 | to the beginning of the spline, the right side
of the graph refers to the end of the spline.
| | 06:52 | So if I take this graph now, and I'm
going to adjust the scale, I can take the
| | 06:56 | beginning and make the beginning smaller.
| | 06:59 | I can take the end and make the end smaller.
| | 07:01 | My spine disappears completely,
because this line is now flat.
| | 07:04 | If I click in this graph in the
middle, I can make my spline fatter in
| | 07:08 | the middle as well.
| | 07:09 | I can shift these points.
| | 07:11 | I can add points at anytime.
| | 07:12 | You can see, I can also animate the
position of this point and really create an
| | 07:16 | undulating, sort of snake-like object
| | 07:18 | that's a lot of fun to watch move around.
| | 07:20 | Same thing goes for the Rotation.
| | 07:21 | I can take this Rotation value, and I
can adjust the rotation along the length
| | 07:26 | of the spline by adding or removing points.
| | 07:29 | Now I just clicked to add.
| | 07:30 | If you want to remove a point, just drag
down off of the graph and remove that point.
| | 07:35 | One last thing about the graphs: if you
draw a graph that you're not happy with,
| | 07:39 | you can always reset them at anytime
by right-clicking any place inside the
| | 07:42 | graph window and clicking Reset.
| | 07:45 | That will reset the graph.
| | 07:46 | You can just click back
again to draw a new set of points.
| | 07:50 | The Sweep NURB is one of those objects that you
start to see all around you in the real world.
| | 07:54 | It's an indispensable tool for all
kinds of modeling and animation projects.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Modeling with splines: Lathe NURBS| 00:00 | A lathe is a machine that spins a piece
of wood or metal around an axis, right
| | 00:04 | down the center of the object, allowing
a craftsperson to carve away bits of the
| | 00:08 | wood or metal to reveal
a rounded, smoothly flowing shape.
| | 00:11 | A baseball bat is a perfect example
of what you can create with a lathe.
| | 00:14 | So in Cinema 4D, there is an easy way
to create shapes just like that baseball
| | 00:18 | bat, except this time we are
going to create a wine glass.
| | 00:20 | The Lathe NURB object is underneath
the NURBS. And if you look at the icon for
| | 00:24 | it, once again there's a big hint in
the icon for how a Lathe NURB is used.
| | 00:28 | Its icon is green. That means it's a
generator. It's going to need a child to
| | 00:32 | generate some sort of result. And you
could tell by the icon that it's going to
| | 00:35 | need just one, because there is
just one white line on there.
| | 00:39 | So if I let go of the Lathe NURB and
add it to the scene, nothing happens.
| | 00:42 | What I need to do next is to draw the
spline that the Lathe NURB is going to use.
| | 00:46 | Now, I like to always draw my splines in
the Orthographic view. And in this case,
| | 00:51 | I'll draw the spline in the Front view.
| | 00:52 | So I'm going to middle-mouse-click and
go to the Front view. And I'm going to
| | 00:56 | deselect the Lathe NURB, so I don't have the
axis point in the middle of screen anymore.
| | 01:00 | I'm going to use a spline.
| | 01:01 | This time I am going to use a
Bezier spline to draw this shape.
| | 01:04 | So I am going to grab the Bezier Spline
tool, and in the Front view, I am going
| | 01:08 | to drag the axis down so that the X
axis--where the floor of the world is--is
| | 01:15 | right near the bottom of the screen.
| | 01:16 | Now, I am drawing a wine glass, and I
would like for my wine glass to sit on the
| | 01:20 | floor. That's why I am
drawing it in this configuration.
| | 01:22 | So you have to think of how the
wine glass would look if it were cut in half?
| | 01:25 | What we are going to be drawing is,
along one axis, the shape of the wine glass
| | 01:30 | around this Y axis. And so I'll take
this point, and I'll start here and go one--
| | 01:36 | and I will just roughly create a shape
here. And the beautiful thing about this is
| | 01:40 | that you can always go back
and change the shapes later on.
| | 01:43 | Now, this is going to be a really ugly
wine glass to start off with, and I am going
| | 01:47 | to refine the shape later.
| | 01:49 | So I am just going to rough-in these
points, and then I will click here and then
| | 01:53 | go back here and draw that in and
then click once here at the axis.
[00:01 :59.55]
Now, this wine shape--let's go back
to the Perspective view and enlarge the
| | 02:03 | scene so we can see it a little bit better.
| | 02:05 | So this really ugly wine glass now,
it's just like a cutout of the wine glass
| | 02:09 | and we need to add it to the Lathe NURB in
order to be able to actually see the geometry.
| | 02:12 | So if I select the spline and drag it
and make it a child of the Lathe NURB, suddenly
| | 02:17 | I get my heinous-looking wine glass.
And what I really want to do is to refine
| | 02:21 | this shape, but before I do, I want to
talk about a couple of things that are
| | 02:24 | going to go on with this.
| | 02:26 | If you look at the points on the
wine glass--and one of the beautiful things
| | 02:29 | about the Lathe NURB and all of the
NURB objects is that they stay live while
| | 02:32 | you're working with them.
| | 02:33 | If I click on the X handle for this
point that I have selected down here, I can
| | 02:37 | open up a hole in my wine glass. And
that's because, the way the Lathe NURB works,
| | 02:41 | is it revolves around this Y axis, but
if the point at the top and bottom of the
| | 02:46 | NURB aren't exactly flushed with this Y
axis, it's going to create either a hole
| | 02:51 | opening, or it's going to create an
overlapping scene, and that's not good.
| | 02:55 | So what I want to have is a situation
where my point is exactly flushed with the
| | 02:59 | Y axis, and that's where the
Coordinate Manager comes in.
| | 03:03 | The Coordinate Manager allows us to
use the numerical value of the selected
| | 03:08 | elements that we have to model very precisely.
| | 03:10 | So if I look at the Coordinate
Manager, it's showing me the location of
| | 03:14 | the selected point.
| | 03:15 | The Coordinate properties show me the
location of the axis point for the entire
| | 03:20 | spline, but the Coordinate Manager shows
me where that single point is in space.
| | 03:24 | And if I take this point and move it
onto zero on the X axis, I know that
| | 03:29 | it's exactly flush.
| | 03:30 | And if I switch to the Front view, I
can disable my Lathe NURB for a second,
| | 03:34 | and I can grab this point up here. I'll
grab my Selection tool and select that point.
| | 03:38 | I can do the exact same thing: select
the X axis in the Coordinate Manager
| | 03:42 | and set it to zero.
| | 03:43 | Now I know that these points are
exactly flushed on the Y. Now, that allows me
| | 03:48 | to remodel my spline and
make a little more elegant.
| | 03:51 | So if I can take these points now and
then move them around--now, there's a very
| | 03:55 | important tool that is not on currently,
and I'm going to activate it right now.
| | 03:59 | That's called the axis band.
| | 04:01 | And the axis band, if you go to the
Filter menu and just select All, that
| | 04:05 | activates the axis band, and it allows
me to click on this gray band here and
| | 04:09 | move the point around without having to
go back to the Move tool. You notice I
| | 04:12 | am still in the Selection tool,
and I can move this point around.
| | 04:15 | The Axis Bands allow you to constrain
the movement of your point, or select the
| | 04:19 | element to a single plane.
| | 04:21 | And it's very important when you are
working with a Lathe NURB, you don't want
| | 04:24 | to ever get your points out
of alignment along this Z axis.
| | 04:28 | If I move my point this way, suddenly
if I activate the Lathe NURB, I am going
| | 04:32 | to end up with very twisted geometry.
| | 04:34 | If I click the on Lathe NURB, you can
see that instead of flowing smoothly down
| | 04:38 | the glass, my points are now
shifting to the left, and that's very bad.
| | 04:41 | So I'm going to undo a couple of times
and get back to just before I moved
| | 04:45 | that point, and that was using the
Command+Z or Ctrl+Z on the keyboard.
| | 04:49 | Now, I can go back to the
Front view and refine the shape.
| | 04:52 | So I can take this point here and move it in.
| | 04:54 | Let's take all of these points and
move them out here a little ways and then
| | 05:00 | take that guy in just right there.
| | 05:02 | Now if I want to adjust the Beziers, I
have to switch back to the Move tool, but
| | 05:06 | I'm pretty good right now. Grab that
one and move it back here. There we go.
| | 05:12 | I am going to get a nice thin
shape on my glass. There we go.
| | 05:16 | And then down here at the base, I am going
to use the Coordinate Manager once again.
| | 05:20 | I want to have this point and this point.
| | 05:23 | I'll hold down the Shift key, or actually
paint a selection across both of those guys.
| | 05:27 | And then I am going to use the
Coordinate Manager to set the Y size to be zero.
| | 05:30 | That's going to flatten my points out
and make them exactly as same height in
| | 05:34 | the Y axis, so I set that Y to be zero.
| | 05:36 | You'll notice how they got flat.
| | 05:38 | Now what I want to do is make them
exactly flush with the ground plane. And I'll
| | 05:41 | set the Y position to be zero as
well, and then they jump right up.
| | 05:45 | I should have done that with this point
as well, but I will just move that one
| | 05:48 | by itself back to Y zero.
| | 05:51 | So let's refine the bottom of the glass,
again a little bit more here. I am just
| | 05:54 | going to drag that out and
get that into position there.
| | 05:57 | So that's pretty good, I think.
| | 05:59 | That's a much more
elegant shape than I had before.
| | 06:01 | And if I turn that on, you
can see I have the glass.
| | 06:04 | Now the base of wine glass
isn't normally that thick,
| | 06:07 | so I can just grab these
points and drag them on X axis.
| | 06:11 | Now, you'll notice I just
painted the selection like that.
| | 06:13 | I'm clicking with the Selection tool
and dragging around in a circle here to
| | 06:17 | select all those points.
| | 06:18 | I am going to bring that in towards the
central axis here and just to change the
| | 06:24 | size of the wine glass.
| | 06:25 | And I am watching the Perspective view to
see if I get the size right, and there we go.
| | 06:29 | I think that's the nice relationship
between the base and the top of the glass.
| | 06:32 | So now that I've got my wine glass,
let's take a look at some of the
| | 06:35 | properties on the Lathe NURB.
| | 06:36 | The Object properties, I can control
the angle, and that allows me to open the
| | 06:41 | wine glass up, close the wine glass up.
| | 06:44 | I can adjust the subdivisions, which
control how smooth the wine glass is around
| | 06:49 | that axis; how many times is it
being subdivided around that axis?
| | 06:53 | Now, the answer to that question, how
many times should I subdivide it is
| | 06:56 | dependent on entirely on how
close you get to the camera.
| | 06:59 | If I back out a little bit--I'll
do a Command+R or Ctrl+R to render--
| | 07:03 | you can see that from this distance, I
can still see quite a bit of fastening on
| | 07:06 | my objects, so that subdivision of
19 right there might not be enough.
| | 07:11 | If I back out quite a ways from here,
you can see at this distance that 19
| | 07:15 | looks pretty smooth.
| | 07:17 | So the answer to the question how much
should I subdivide depends entirely on
| | 07:20 | how closer you will be getting to the camera.
| | 07:22 | Now the movement of the object allows me
to adjust the offset. And I can actually
| | 07:27 | create some very complex, organic,
shell-like shapes by adjusting that offset, and
| | 07:32 | there is your curly slide at the kids' park.
| | 07:35 | So you can really have a lot of fun with
that in making some organic shapes out of that.
| | 07:39 | I am going to bring my Movement back
to zero to get my wine glass back again.
| | 07:43 | And the Scaling value adjusts as it
moves, how much does it scale. But once
| | 07:48 | again, that's really great for making
organic, free-form, sort of abstract shapes.
| | 07:53 | So as you can see, with practice,
the Lathe NURB can generate some truly
| | 07:56 | amazing shapes.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Modeling with splines: Extrude NURBS| 00:00 | If you've ever played with a Play-Doh press,
or tried to make macaroni pasta, then
| | 00:04 | you have seen an Extrude NURB in action.
| | 00:06 | An Extrude NURB simply takes as any spline and
extends it along a given axis as a close shape.
| | 00:11 | It has a zillion modeling uses, but it's
primarily used to create 3D type in C4D.
| | 00:15 | So, I am going to add a Text spline and
the text spline object, when I select it
| | 00:21 | and look at the Object properties,
has a field for Text. And I want to change
| | 00:24 | this and type out "lynda.com".
| | 00:28 | And when I click away from there, I
now have the words lynda.com on-screen.
| | 00:33 | Now, splines don't render.
| | 00:34 | The reason that they don't render is
because there is no geometry, and so
| | 00:37 | that the Extrude NURB object is going to
allow us to create geometry based on the splines.
| | 00:42 | So let's add an Extrude NURB to the scene.
| | 00:43 | And once again, if you look at the icon,
first off, it's green. That means it's
| | 00:47 | a generator object.
| | 00:49 | Secondly, you can see that there is a
white line around that cubular shape.
| | 00:52 | That means it's going to need one child
object in order to generate that extruded shape.
| | 00:56 | So if we let go the Extrude NURB and
take our text and add it to the Extrude
| | 01:01 | NURB, suddenly we have lynda.com extruded type.
Let's render that to see what it looks like.
| | 01:06 | So the cool thing about the text spline
is I can change this to be anything I want.
| | 01:11 | at any time. I can also change the
font at any time I want, and it all stays
| | 01:15 | alive under the Extrude NURB.
| | 01:16 | But let's take a look at the Extrude
NURB properties, first and foremost.
| | 01:19 | Under the Object
properties, we've got Movement.
| | 01:21 | The Movement controls how far the
Extrude NURB travels on a given axis, and by
| | 01:26 | default it travels just in the +Z direction.
| | 01:29 | Anytime you see three fields like this
in Cinema 4D, it's always X, Y, and Z. And
| | 01:35 | so you can see on the Z axis, which I
have highlighted here, that it's going 20
| | 01:39 | units on the Z axis.
| | 01:40 | So, if I change that to say
100, my type gets thicker.
| | 01:44 | I can make that a million if I wanted
to. I will just make it 100,000, and you
| | 01:47 | can see it goes off into the distance.
| | 01:51 | So there is no numeric limit on there,
but of course, if I try to put a million
| | 01:54 | in there, it might crash the computer,
so I don't want to do that right now.
| | 01:58 | The Subdivisions, not important until
you get to animating your object along a
| | 02:03 | spline, which we are going
to do later in the lessons.
| | 02:06 | So we are going to leave this at 1 for
now, because we're just going to keep our
| | 02:09 | type nice and simple.
| | 02:10 | The Iso Subdivision is not
something you ever have to worry about.
| | 02:13 | Flip Normal, same thing for now.
| | 02:15 | Hierarchical though is very important.
We are going to discuss that in depth
| | 02:18 | when we get into the next lesson
working with Adobe Illustrator.
| | 02:22 | So let's move on to the Caps.
| | 02:23 | I am going to change this to simplify
my scene a little bit. I am going to
| | 02:25 | bring this down back to let's say 20 units
and take a look at what the Caps property does.
| | 02:29 | If I click on the Caps, the Caps
refers to the face of the letter.
| | 02:33 | There is a start cap, which is the front
side of the type, and a back and end cap,
| | 02:38 | which is the back side of the type.
| | 02:39 | And if I check this pulldown, I have
got four attributes here: None, Cap,
| | 02:43 | Fillet, and Fillet & Cap.
| | 02:45 | Now Fillet is a fancy way of saying
rounding, and if I add Fillet and Cap, I can
| | 02:51 | add a bevel to my type.
| | 02:52 | And you can see, as I zoom in on this, that
my bevel is nice and thick and kind of square.
| | 02:57 | Now in the design world, heavily
beveled 3D type is kind of going out of style.
| | 03:02 | And so when I am creating my type now, I
don't normally like to add of big heavy
| | 03:06 | bevel like that, but I do always add a bevel.
| | 03:08 | What I do instead is I change the
size of that bevel, and the way you do
| | 03:11 | that is by going to the Radius field and
changing that from 5 units down to say 1 unit.
| | 03:16 | And you can see now, I have a very thin
bevel on my type, and let's see what that
| | 03:21 | looks like when you render.
| | 03:22 | First, I am going to do rendering, and
you can see that I've got a really nice
| | 03:26 | edge on there, and it's
picking up that bevel nicely, and
| | 03:28 | it adds a lot of personality to the
face of the letter, even though it's not
| | 03:32 | technically beveled per se.
| | 03:33 | Let's change it back to say a regular
cap, so no bevel at all, and render that.
| | 03:38 | You can see my type doesn't have
nearly as much personality. There's no
| | 03:41 | beveling on the edge to pick up that
light, and it just looks a lot flatter and
| | 03:46 | a lot more computer generated.
| | 03:47 | So once again, I'd go to the Cap, add
Fillet and Cap, and change the Radius to 1 unit.
| | 03:52 | Once again, you can make it as thick as you
want, but I like to keep it nice and thin.
| | 03:56 | I will bring that down to 1 unit
and do another render to test it out.
| | 04:00 | So getting back to this pulldown here, let's
take a look at the couple of the other options.
| | 04:04 | So, we have got Cap, which we
just saw, Fillet and Cap, we just saw.
| | 04:07 | If you do None, that leaves an
open-face type. Let's render that. You can see
| | 04:11 | that it gives a very thinly extruded
look to the type, and we can actually turn
| | 04:16 | off caps on the back side as well,
change that to None, and just have a hollow
| | 04:19 | type element that we can render
and see right all the way through.
| | 04:23 | Let's turn that back to Fillet only,
and Fillet only gives you just the bevel,
| | 04:28 | so we will change the end of the fillet as well.
| | 04:31 | Bring the Radius down to one,
so it matches the front.
| | 04:33 | You see that now we have no face, but
we do have rounding on there as well.
| | 04:38 | Now one thing I also forgot to
mention is that the number of steps has a
| | 04:40 | dramatic impact on how your rounding looks.
| | 04:43 | So let's go back to turn the Fillet
and Cap on for the front and back.
| | 04:47 | On the Radius, I am going to introduce
a larger radius into this, so let's just make this
| | 04:52 | front radius say 10.
| | 04:54 | And then the Steps controls how
round this transition is from the face at
| | 04:59 | the edge of the type.
| | 05:00 | So if I change the Steps to 2, you will notice
I now have two segments along the transition.
| | 05:07 | Let's zoom in on this, so
we can get a feel for this.
| | 05:09 | And you will notice as I increase
the steps, it's going to get rounder.
| | 05:11 | So, I will just click these one at a
time. There is 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and
| | 05:18 | you can keep on going.
| | 05:20 | The more steps that you put in there,
the heavier the geometry gets in.
| | 05:24 | That means the more polygons it has.
| | 05:26 | Once again, the answer to the
question how many steps should I use,
| | 05:29 | it really depends on how close
you are going to get to the object.
| | 05:32 | Once again, if I zoom out my logo out
here, that rounding probably looks the
| | 05:37 | same as, let's try 3.
| | 05:39 | And if I render that, you can see three
steps there. It looks the same as 10 steps
| | 05:44 | from that distance. But when I zoom in
and get a nice and tight on this type,
| | 05:51 | and I will do a rendering
right there, so we can see that,
| | 05:54 | and this close, I can see a little bit of
fastening making up that edge, and there
| | 05:58 | are some other elements here,
that's caused by an overlap in the type.
| | 06:02 | That's because I have the radius on my
beveling set too high. If I would bring
| | 06:06 | that down, get into that zone there,
you can see that overlap will go away, and
| | 06:11 | that fixes that problem.
| | 06:14 | The Extrude NURB is a really
simple object, with a ton of uses.
| | 06:17 | The most important use though, is
creating type, and because there are some key
| | 06:21 | limitations in the type for C4D, most
of the time you will be creating type
| | 06:24 | in another program, like Adobe
Illustrator, and then bringing it into C4D for
| | 06:28 | extrusion.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Extruding and organizing paths from Adobe Illustrator| 00:00 | The beauty of Cinema 4D, and one of the
main reasons it's become so popular as a
| | 00:03 | design tool, is that it plays
really well with Adobe Illustrator.
| | 00:06 | The type tool in C4D, it really isn't
very good. But that's not a big deal,
| | 00:10 | since most designers create their type and
logos in Illustrator and then bring them into C4D.
| | 00:14 | Let's move over to Illustrator and
take a look at a file that I have
| | 00:17 | prepared ahead of time.
| | 00:18 | So I am going to go to the File menu
and do an Open and navigate to the Chapter
| | 00:23 | 03 Exercise Files folder, and
open up the ch03-06-start.ai file.
| | 00:29 | And what this is is an Adobe
Illustrator file that's been created, and all it
| | 00:33 | is is the word "EXTRUDE" in Arial Rounded
Bold, surrounded by a rounded rectangle here.
| | 00:38 | You will notice that the artboard here
in Illustrator is set to a specific size
| | 00:43 | that's different than what you
normally see in work in Illustrator.
| | 00:45 | That's because I like to create my artboards
in Illustrator based on the size that I'm
| | 00:49 | going to be working in my
final render in Cinema 4D.
| | 00:52 | And it's because I'm working in television
mostly, I work in HD, so I set my art
| | 00:55 | board to be in 1920 x 1080.
| | 00:58 | Now, the word "EXTRUDE" here is currently
in font data, and Cinema 4D cannot read
| | 01:02 | font data out of an Illustrator file.
| | 01:04 | We need to convert it to outlines. And
so I am going to select the both elements.
| | 01:08 | And I am going to go to the Type menu
and Create Outlines, and that converts the
| | 01:12 | font data into paths, so that now my
word "EXTRUDE" can be read by Cinema 4D.
| | 01:17 | There are a couple of other steps I need
to do first before we get it into Cinema 4D.
| | 01:21 | The first thing I need to do is choose
center of the word up on the page and then
| | 01:24 | center the ruler on the page.
| | 01:26 | And so to do that, I'm going to
select the element, hit Command+X or Ctrl+X
| | 01:31 | on the keyboard to cut it to the
clipboard, and then I'll go to the View menu
| | 01:35 | and Fit All in Window.
| | 01:38 | And that centers up the pasteboard in
the currently opened view, and I am going
| | 01:41 | to paste it down--Command+V or Ctrl+V.
And Illustrator, by default, pastes down in
| | 01:46 | the center of the currently opened
window. And so because my art board was
| | 01:49 | centered up in there, it pasted
down the center of the artboard.
| | 01:51 | The next thing I want to do is to reset
the ruler so that the zero point for
| | 01:55 | Illustrator is in the center of the screen.
| | 01:57 | And so I am going to go to the View
menu and do Show Ruler, so Rulers > Show
| | 02:02 | Rulers. And I'm going to go to the
Ruler Reset tool, which is this little white
| | 02:05 | square in the upper-left of the screen.
| | 02:08 | And you will note right now that the
ruler point is right there at the top-
| | 02:11 | left corner of the page. And so I am
going to drag my ruler, so that it is now
| | 02:16 | centered up in the logo. And so I'd use the
Smart Guides that are turned on, and I let go.
| | 02:22 | And now I have zero centered up vertically
and zero centered up horizontally on my logo.
| | 02:27 | Let's go ahead and
prepare this file for Cinema 4D.
| | 02:29 | Now when Cinema 4D reads an Illustrator
file, if there is overlapping paths--in
| | 02:34 | this case you will notice my rounded
rectangle is surrounding the word "EXTRUDE"--
| | 02:37 | sometimes it will merge all those guys
together. And so a good habit to get into
| | 02:41 | is to break this logo apart into two
separate elements, so that you can import
| | 02:46 | them, and you know that
everything comes in correctly.
| | 02:48 | So what I need to do is
to break this logo apart.
| | 02:51 | So, I am going to select the word
"EXTRUDE," just the word part of it, and hit
| | 02:56 | Command+X or Ctrl+X and
that cut that to the clipboard.
| | 02:59 | So what I am going to do is go to
the File > Save As menu, so File > Save As.
| | 03:04 | I am going to navigate to a
subfolder called ch03-ai for c4d.
| | 03:08 | And this is something I always do in
my project folders: I always make a
| | 03:11 | subfolder and put my Illustrator files
that I create specifically for Cinema
| | 03:15 | 4D in here. And so I am going to call this
one "logo border.ai," logo border.ai and hit Save.
| | 03:26 | And I am going to be presented with a
secondary screen that allows me to choose
| | 03:30 | which version of Illustrator.
| | 03:31 | Now Cinema 4D can only open Illustrator
version 8 files, and so if I navigate to
| | 03:36 | the Illustrator 8 file format and hit OK,
I'm presented with this warning screen,
| | 03:41 | warning me that I am saving to an older format.
| | 03:43 | I am okay about that, so I will just hit OK.
| | 03:45 | So now, I have got the logo border saved out.
| | 03:48 | Now, we can save out the Extrude type as well.
| | 03:51 | So I am going to go Command+F or
Ctrl+F to paste down the word "EXTRUDE" in the
| | 03:56 | center of the screen again, and I'm
going to remove the logo border--Command or
| | 04:00 | Ctrl+X. And then I'll go to the File >
Save As menu one more time, and in that
| | 04:07 | same folder, I will call this will
"logo type.ai," and I will hit Save.
| | 04:13 | I am presented with the same secondary
dialog. I tell it to be Illustrator 8.
| | 04:18 | Hit OK and ignore this warning.
| | 04:22 | There we go, and so that's
it for preparing the type.
| | 04:24 | Let's move back to Cinema
4D and load that type in.
| | 04:26 | Okay, so here we are in Cinema 4D, and
we are going to load in the type from
| | 04:31 | Adobe Illustrator. And so the way
you do that is under the Object
| | 04:33 | Manager file menu,
| | 04:34 | I am going to Merge Objects. And I'll
| | 04:38 | select that command, and it's going to
ask me to navigate to that folder for Ch
| | 04:42 | 03, and there is the ai for C4D.
| | 04:45 | So let's start off with the border.
| | 04:47 | I will select that file, hit Open, and
I am presented with this window.
| | 04:51 | And never change the scale.
| | 04:53 | I always leave that at 1. That way
things were imported at a one-to-one
| | 04:56 | size from Illustrator.
| | 04:57 | Connect Splines will connect all of the
compound paths--the letter O, for example,
| | 05:02 | is a good example of compound path.
| | 05:04 | It will come in as a single element and
not an inner and outer O. So I will hit
| | 05:09 | OK now, and now I have this logo border file.
| | 05:12 | One thing you'll note is that
the logo border is not in the screen.
| | 05:16 | Now this is a new behavior
that came in with Adobe CS5.
| | 05:19 | Something happened to the file format, the
way CS5 writes out the Illustrator files.
| | 05:23 | Normally when you save out an
Illustrator 8 file, we will use the ruler to put
| | 05:27 | the type in the center of the screen,
because we set the ruler in Illustrator to
| | 05:30 | be the center of the screen.
| | 05:31 | The 0 point here is in the upper-left
corner of the screen. So if I back out,
| | 05:36 | you can see there is my EXTRUDE type
right there in the center of screen.
| | 05:39 | I still do it the old way, even
though I know it's broken, and that's just
| | 05:43 | because I'm hoping that eventually they will
fix that function and that it'll come back again.
| | 05:48 | So just a word of caution: even though
you set the ruler point here, it'll still
| | 05:52 | show up in the bottom right-hand corner.
| | 05:54 | You could, if you wanted to, skip that
step, but I just still do it, in the
| | 05:57 | hopes that it will change.
| | 05:58 | So let's go back now to the
File menu and reload the type.
| | 06:01 | I'll go to Merge Object again, and logo
type, hit Open, and then hit OK on the
| | 06:07 | import screen, and there it is. Bam!
| | 06:09 | They show up exactly lined up perfectly.
| | 06:12 | I need to move these both to the center
of the world, so I will select the logo
| | 06:16 | type element, go to Coordinates and
then change the Coordinate property to be
| | 06:20 | 0x0x0, and I am using the Tab
key to navigate through that field.
| | 06:25 | And I'll select the logo border
now and change that one to be 0x0x0.
| | 06:31 | You will notice now that my EXTRUDE
type is aligned up at the center of the
| | 06:34 | world with the logo border.
| | 06:36 | Now we are ready to extrude.
| | 06:37 | So let's go to the NURB
objects and add an Extrude NURB.
| | 06:41 | I am going to extrude the type first,
so we will call this one "type ext," and
| | 06:46 | I'll take the logo type object, which
is really a null with all the individual
| | 06:50 | letters underneath it, and I'll put
that as a child of the type Extrude NURB.
| | 06:55 | Now the Extrude NURB, by default tries to
extrude the very first thing it encounters.
| | 06:58 | In this case, the very first it
encounters is this null object, logo type, and
| | 07:02 | that doesn't have any spline.
| | 07:03 | So what we need to do is tell the
Extrude NURB to look at all these splines
| | 07:06 | underneath the logo type, and
there is a button for that.
| | 07:09 | So underneath the Object properties
for the Extrude NURB is the Hierarchal
| | 07:13 | button. When I click that, now I get
my extruded type right there in 3D.
| | 07:18 | Next, we want to extrude the logo border,
and so I'm going to go back to the NURB
| | 07:22 | objects, add an Extrude NURB, and make
the logo border a child of the Extrude
| | 07:27 | NURB, and then select the Object
properties and adjust the depth of it.
| | 07:33 | You can see the border extruded just fine,
but I want to make it a little bit thicker.
| | 07:36 | So we are going to go to the
Movement and adjust that, make it 50, so it's
| | 07:39 | a little bit thicker.
| | 07:41 | And then we will take the type element
and make it a little bit thicker as well,
| | 07:45 | so make that 50 as well.
| | 07:47 | And now I want to add a little bit of a bevel.
| | 07:48 | Anytime I am working with extrude
objects, I always like to add a little bit of
| | 07:51 | beveling, even if the object isn't
supposed to be beveled per se. And that gives
| | 07:55 | it a nice like highlight edge
that will really catch light well.
| | 07:57 | So let's check the type. I am going to
go to Caps properties and do a start cap
| | 08:01 | with Fillet and Cap as the setting,
and then change the Radius to be 1.
| | 08:05 | And that gives me a nice, thin bevel,
and then I will do the same thing on the
| | 08:09 | border, change that to be Fillet and
Cap with a 1 radius. There you go.
| | 08:15 | If I render that now--Command+R--you
can see I get a really nice highlight edge
| | 08:19 | on my type that wouldn't have been there
if I had left it at the default values.
| | 08:22 | That's pretty much it for the logo extrusion.
| | 08:25 | What I want to do next is organize the
hierarchy a little bit, so I am going to
| | 08:28 | add a null object to the scene.
| | 08:29 | Underneath the primitives, add a null,
| | 08:31 | take both my elements by drawing a
rectangle around them in the Object Manager,
| | 08:34 | and make them children of that null.
| | 08:36 | And then I will name the null and call it "Logo."
| | 08:39 | That ensures that when I move this logo
around, all my parts move together, and I
| | 08:44 | can animate just the logo Null, and
everything will move nicely. That's it.
| | 08:48 | The most important things to remember
are make your document the same sizes
| | 08:51 | as you final render,
| | 08:52 | only outlines can cross into Cinema 4D, and
no filler stroke data will be translated.
| | 08:58 | If you follow those steps,
everything will come out just fine.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
4. Polygonal Modeling ToolsUnderstanding the basic components of 3D objects: Points, edges, and polygons| 00:00 | At their most basic level, all 3D
objects are made up of three simple elements:
| | 00:04 | points, edges, and polygons.
| | 00:06 | Just like the atoms and other
elements that make up our bodies, nothing can
| | 00:08 | exist in 3D without them.
| | 00:11 | In the previous chapter, we looked at
splines that are points connected by the
| | 00:14 | representation of a line that
can exist in several varieties.
| | 00:17 | Now we'll take a look at how points can be
used to create and manipulate complex shapes.
| | 00:22 | All objects in 3D are made up of points,
edges, and polys, so let's take a look
| | 00:24 | at what that means.
| | 00:26 | I am going to add a cube to the scene.
This cube exists as what's called a
| | 00:29 | parametric object. It's
also called a primitive object.
| | 00:31 | What that really means is that it's
mathematically generated by the software,
| | 00:35 | and so it has properties that we can change.
| | 00:37 | But those properties are really just
formulas that manipulate the locations of
| | 00:41 | points in space. And so if I take
this cube and click this icon over in the
| | 00:45 | left-hand side of the interface, this
is the Make Object Editable button.
| | 00:48 | The shortcut for that is the C on the keyboard.
| | 00:50 | But I am going to click this button,
and you will notice that the icon for the
| | 00:53 | cube will change from a
cube to a little triangle.
| | 00:56 | That triangle tells me that the cube is
now a polygon object, meaning that it's
| | 01:01 | been converted from its
parametric state into a non-editable state.
| | 01:04 | That doesn't mean we can't make changes to it;
| | 01:06 | that just means that the software
can't make changes to it nondestructively.
| | 01:10 | We have a whole host of tools that
allow us to access and manipulate this model
| | 01:14 | in a much more fundamental
way than we could before.
| | 01:16 | Over on the left-hand side of
the interface are the modes icons.
| | 01:20 | Now if you hover over them one at a time,
you will see that this is Model mode,
| | 01:24 | this is Axis mode, and this is Point
mode, but the interface calls them tools.
| | 01:28 | Now, I call them modes, because they
change the way the tools behave, and so
| | 01:32 | it's really important. When I am
calling the modes, you will notice that the
| | 01:35 | interface calls them tools. I just
really want to be really clear about that,
| | 01:37 | that's a Rob Garrottism, not
necessarily the way the computer software makers
| | 01:41 | intended it to read.
| | 01:43 | Over here on the left, we've got model
mode, which is the default mode that you
| | 01:46 | are in when you first launch the application.
| | 01:48 | Then Axis mode allows you to
change the axis points for objects.
| | 01:51 | This next button is Point mode, and
when I click this, you are going to notice
| | 01:55 | something about the cube.
| | 01:56 | When I click on it, it changed color.
And not only did he change color, but now
| | 02:00 | I can see little points at each of the
corners of the cube. And as I hover over
| | 02:05 | those points, they turn white, and
that tells me that I'm hovering over an
| | 02:09 | actual point on this cube.
| | 02:11 | Now, I am going to use the Selection
tool and paint a selection over that point.
| | 02:16 | And as I do that, the point becomes active.
| | 02:19 | Now points by themselves are simply a
location in space. That's all they are.
| | 02:23 | Points can be used in clouds to create
more complex shapes, but a point by itself
| | 02:28 | has no dimension at all.
| | 02:29 | And in fact, if I try to use the Scale
tool--T on the keyboard--and use the Scale
| | 02:33 | tool to drag left and right, you will
see nothing happens. Same thing for the
| | 02:36 | Rotation tool--R on the keyboard.
| | 02:38 | If I try and rotate this point, the
point rotates, but nothing actually
| | 02:41 | changes on the model.
| | 02:42 | Now if I go to back to the Selection
tool--I'll use the Spacebar there to get
| | 02:46 | me back to the selection
tool from the Rotation tool--
| | 02:48 | and I have hold down the Shift key to
paint a selection over this second point,
| | 02:52 | when I do that now, I can grab
both of those points at the same time.
| | 02:56 | Two or more points together do have dimension.
| | 02:59 | In this case, they have dimension
along their common axis. And if I use the
| | 03:03 | Scale tool, they will
scale along their common axis.
| | 03:05 | If I use the Rotate tool--R on
keyword again--they will rotate along
| | 03:10 | around their common axis.
| | 03:11 | I am going to Command+Z or Ctrl+Z
on the keyboard to get back to the
| | 03:15 | original state of the cube.
| | 03:16 | When I'm manipulating these points,
what I am really doing is manipulating
| | 03:20 | edges and polygons.
| | 03:21 | So let's take a look at what that means.
| | 03:23 | Next up over here on the modes is Edge mode.
| | 03:26 | So a point was simply a location in
space that can be grouped with other points
| | 03:29 | to create more complex
shapes, or clouds of points.
| | 03:32 | An edge is two or more points that
are connected by a straight line.
| | 03:35 | And if I go into Edge mode now--and I'm going
to get back to my Selection tool here--
| | 03:39 | and in Edge mode, I can highlight and
hover over the edges, the lines that
| | 03:44 | connect those points.
| | 03:45 | And if I select an edge, what I have
selected is the distance between two points.
| | 03:49 | That edge has dimension,
but only along its long axis.
| | 03:53 | So if I use the Scale tool now, you will see
that the edge will scale only in two dimensions.
| | 03:58 | If I use the Rotate tool, I can
rotate it freely in space, or I can rotate
| | 04:03 | it around its axis.
| | 04:04 | And remember, when you are rotating an edge,
| | 04:07 | what you are really doing is rotating points.
| | 04:11 | So as I move those, if I go back into
Point mode, I can see that the points
| | 04:15 | themselves have moved and
changed the shape of the cube.
| | 04:17 | So I am going to undo a couple of
times to get back to my undeformed cube.
| | 04:21 | Next up is Polygon mode.
| | 04:22 | Now a polygon is three or
more edges that define a surface.
| | 04:27 | A polygon comes in several flavors:
| | 04:29 | triangles, which are three-sided
polygons; quadrangles, which are four-sided
| | 04:33 | polygons; and N-gons,
| | 04:34 | which are polygons that
have more than four sides.
| | 04:36 | We will take a look at what an N-
gon is in one of the later movies.
| | 04:39 | Now let's take a look at Polygon mode.
| | 04:41 | I am going to click the Polygon mode
icon, and then go back to my Selection tool.
| | 04:46 | And as I hover over my object, you
will see that it tries to highlight the
| | 04:50 | entire side of the cube.
| | 04:52 | That's because, in this case, my cube is made
up of a single polygon on each of its six sides.
| | 04:56 | So if I click on a polygon, it becomes
highlighted and active. And if I orbit
| | 05:00 | around, I can see that each
side is a single large square.
| | 05:06 | So if I select that cube and move it
around, I am really moving the polygon, but
| | 05:12 | fundamentally what I'm doing is moving
the points that the polygon is made up of,
| | 05:16 | and the edges that go along with those points.
| | 05:19 | So I can move the polygon. I can
rotate the polygon. I can scale the polygon.
| | 05:23 | This is T on the keyboard
| | 05:24 | to get the Scale tool, R on the
keyboard to get the Rotate tool.
| | 05:28 | And I can rotate it several ways. Now, I'm
undoing that movement: Command+Z or Ctrl+Z.
| | 05:33 | Really, what I'm doing when I am moving that
polygon around is I am moving the points.
| | 05:36 | So let's rotate this polygon just a bit
and then go back to Point mode, and you
| | 05:40 | will see that all of the four points
associated with that polygon have moved.
| | 05:43 | And when they moved, the adjoining
polygons, they changed and moved as well, so
| | 05:48 | their points are all connected to one another.
| | 05:51 | Next up, I would like to talk about a
very important rule, and that's that a
| | 05:54 | single polygon can not be bent.
| | 05:56 | And the reason for that relates to how
the render engine works. And I'll talk
| | 06:00 | about in one of the other movies.
But what I really want to stress here is that
| | 06:03 | the way the computer thinks of these
surfaces that are made up by the polygons
| | 06:06 | is that they are a contiguous shape.
| | 06:08 | And if you try and deform a
contiguous shape, the computer doesn't know what
| | 06:12 | it was that you intended to do, and it
will do something unpredictable, and let's
| | 06:16 | see what that means.
| | 06:17 | Let's start over with a very fresh cube.
I am going to delete cube and then add
| | 06:20 | a new cube to the scene, and I am going
to click the Make Object Editable button
| | 06:24 | over here on the left-hand side.
| | 06:25 | When I click that, the
cube becomes a polygon shape.
| | 06:29 | If I select this point and move it up
on its Y axis, you will see that my cube
| | 06:34 | is now distorted on the top. And it
would appear that my polygon here is broken
| | 06:39 | across the axis right here.
| | 06:41 | But if I render that cube from an
angle, I can see that from this angle, it
| | 06:45 | looks pretty much how I expected
it to, with a hard line right there.
| | 06:48 | But as I rotate around, I see
something very different. And if I orbit and
| | 06:52 | rotate this and render this cube from
different angles, it starts to not look
| | 06:56 | the way I intended it to.
| | 06:57 | That's because the 3D software is
trying to interpret the shape, and the render
| | 07:04 | engine doesn't know exactly what you
want to do with this polygon. And so, from
| | 07:07 | one angle, it may look like a straight
line. From another angle, it may look
| | 07:10 | like perfectly flat.
| | 07:12 | And so, really when you're modeling,
what you're doing is you're telling the
| | 07:15 | computer exactly what it is that
you like that surface to look like.
| | 07:18 | And so there's a bunch of tools that we
are going to cover in later movies that
| | 07:21 | will allow you to manipulate the
service in a much more specific way, so the
| | 07:24 | computer does not make those mistakes.
| | 07:26 | Now that you understand what the basic
building blocks are, in the next movies
| | 07:29 | we will look at some of the tools that
can be used to create amazingly-complex,
| | 07:32 | organic, and mechanical shapes.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Modeling with the Knife tool| 00:00 | Cinema 4D has a very extensive modeling
toolkit. It can be a bit overwhelming
| | 00:04 | to look at the entire list, but
there is hope. It was the goal of the
| | 00:07 | programmers to give you tools for every
conceivable situation, but you can model
| | 00:11 | some very complex shapes
using just four basic tools.
| | 00:14 | We'll start off with the
most important, the Knife tool.
| | 00:16 | The Knife tool is used to create slices in
your objects, and let's see what that means.
| | 00:21 | I'm going to add a cube to the scene,
and this cube is a parametric object. It's
| | 00:25 | called a primitive, and it means we can
change the parameters of it over here in
| | 00:28 | the Attribute Manager.
| | 00:29 | I'm going to convert this into a polygon
object by using the Make Object Editable
| | 00:33 | button. When I click that--I can also
hit letter C on the keyboard--and my cube
| | 00:37 | now changes into a polygon object.
That means I can overhear the modes icons on
| | 00:41 | the left-hand side of the interface
and click through these modes, so I get
| | 00:44 | Point mode, Edge mode and Polygon mode.
| | 00:47 | Now, I normally like to use the Knife
tool in Point mode, so I'm going to click
| | 00:50 | on Point mode and then access the Knife tool.
| | 00:53 | Though Knife tool can be
accessed a couple of ways.
| | 00:56 | I'm going to switch layouts here to
something called the Modeling layout. It's
| | 00:59 | still the same Cinema 4D application,
it's just going to be a rearrangement of
| | 01:02 | the icons and palettes on-screen.
| | 01:04 | So I'll go over here to the Layout
button and click and hold, and go to the
| | 01:08 | Modeling layout. And when I let go that,
you can see a very quick flash of the
| | 01:12 | screen, and it's reconfigured all the palettes.
| | 01:15 | I still have the Object Manager over
here on the right and the Attribute
| | 01:18 | Manager, but the Coordinate Manager
shifted, and now I've a whole host of tools
| | 01:22 | across the bottom here.
| | 01:23 | Now some of them are grayed out, but
the grayed-out icons will change depending
| | 01:25 | on which mode you're in.
| | 01:27 | As I switch from Point, Edge, and
Polygon mode, you'll see the icons shift and
| | 01:31 | change based on where those tools can be used.
| | 01:34 | Now the Knife tool can be used in any
of the three modeling modes: Point, Edge, or
| | 01:38 | Polygon. I prefer to use it in Point mode, just
because it allows me a little bit more control.
| | 01:43 | So let's access the Knife tool.
| | 01:44 | The Knife Tool icon looks like this,
and you can see, as I hover over it, it says
| | 01:48 | Knife. The shortcut is MK, or just
the letter K by itself, so I'm going to
| | 01:53 | select the Knife tool.
| | 01:54 | When I do, I see the
attributes for the Knife tool.
| | 01:56 | The Knife tool has several modes to it.
The basic is Line mode, and let's take a
| | 02:00 | look at what that means.
| | 02:01 | The way the Knife tool works, it
is the click and drag operation when
| | 02:04 | you're using Line mode.
| | 02:05 | If I click over here on the left-hand
side and drag a line across my object,
| | 02:08 | when I let go, it makes a slice through the object.
| | 02:12 | That knife slice went right diagonally
through my object based on the angle that
| | 02:17 | I was holding the Knife tool at. If I
make a slice this way through my object,
| | 02:21 | it makes a slice at that angle.
| | 02:23 | Polygons come in several flavors, and
when you using the Knife tool, really what
| | 02:27 | you're doing is you're
creating polygons on your object.
| | 02:29 | Each time I use that Knife tool, I'm
slicing through it, and the result is new
| | 02:33 | polygons on my object. And you can see
that I've made a polygon here, I've made
| | 02:37 | polygon here, I've made polygon
here, and the same on the other side.
| | 02:40 | When I use the Knife tool in this mode,
it's slicing my object, but it's not
| | 02:43 | slicing all the way through.
| | 02:45 | When I orbit around my cube, what I see
is the result of these knife cuts on the
| | 02:48 | back side of the cube.
| | 02:50 | These green lines
indicate the presence of N-gons.
| | 02:53 | Now the reason I'm seeing these green
lines in my interface is because I went
| | 02:56 | to the Filter menu and did All, and
that activates the N-gon indication.
| | 03:01 | Normally, if you had that N-gon
indication off, you would not see green line
| | 03:04 | here. But these green lines tell me
that when I use the Knife tool, I created
| | 03:07 | something called an N-gon.
| | 03:09 | And N-gon is a polygon with more than
four sides, and they're not usually a good
| | 03:14 | thing. And the reason they're not a
good thing is because they can be
| | 03:17 | misinterpreted by the computer and
give you really weird end results.
| | 03:20 | And so I like to make sure that I don't
create those N-gons when I'm using the
| | 03:23 | Knife tool. And so we're going to
switch modes with the Knife tool to make sure
| | 03:27 | that we don't get those N-
gons anywhere on the surface.
| | 03:30 | Just to repeat the process, delete this
cube, add a new cube in the scene, make
| | 03:34 | it editable, and then make
sure that I'm in Point mode.
| | 03:38 | I'm going to right-click in the
interface to get the Knife tool. Same as
| | 03:42 | going down to the icon below, I just
like to right-click a lot. So I get the
| | 03:45 | Knife tool here, and you see the
mode is still set to be Line mode.
| | 03:49 | Now I'm going to switch this mode to
Loop, and when I switch to Loop mode, the
| | 03:53 | Knife tool behaves in a different way.
| | 03:55 | Now what it is doing is it's going to
cut all the way around my cube, and this
| | 04:00 | is a much better way to make a cut,
because I know for a fact that it's going to
| | 04:03 | not create an N-gon when I do this,
because when I click the knife--boom--and
| | 04:08 | make a cut, it has made a cut
evenly all the way around my object.
| | 04:12 | Loop mode causes the Knife tool to
look for something called an edge Loop.
| | 04:16 | An edge loop is a selection of edges
that travel all the way around your object.
| | 04:21 | So in this case they're all the way around
the Y axis and back to the other side again.
| | 04:25 | If I use the Knife tool along this edge,
it's going to go all the way around the
| | 04:28 | Z axis and back again, so I can make a cut here.
| | 04:31 | You'll notice that each time I make
that cut, I'm introducing new polygons
| | 04:35 | in your object, and that's really
the whole point of the Knife tool is to
| | 04:38 | introduce new polygons in your object, so
that you can then manipulate them further.
| | 04:42 | Now the Knife tool has several other
modes, but I primarily use it either in
| | 04:46 | Line mode or Loop mode. And so let's
take a look at some of these check marks
| | 04:49 | here. The Restrict to Selection
button and Create N-gons buttons don't
| | 04:53 | really have an effect when you're using the
Knife tool in Point mode, using the Loop mode.
| | 04:58 | Now let's see how those do have an
effect when you're in Polygon mode.
| | 05:01 | I'm going to switch my mode over here
on the left-hand side interface, and they
| | 05:05 | go into Polygon mode, so
I'm now cutting polygons.
| | 05:08 | I'm going to switch to the Selection
tool and select just these two polygons
| | 05:11 | here. I'm going to grab my Knife tool
again, by right-clicking and going to the
| | 05:15 | Knife tool, and then I'm going to
make a cut along this edge right here.
| | 05:19 | When I make that cut, look what happened:
instead of cutting all the way around
| | 05:23 | my object, it only cut the selected
polygons, and that's what this button right
| | 05:27 | here does, Restrict to Selection.
| | 05:30 | Now the Create N-gons button was on
as well, so when it created that cut it
| | 05:34 | closed off that cut by creating an N-
gons to one side, and that's what the
| | 05:39 | Create N-gons button does.
| | 05:40 | Now, I don't normally like to use the
Knife tool in this mode just for this
| | 05:43 | reason. But if you do need to cut the
polygons for some reason, you want to
| | 05:47 | make sure and turn off Restrict to
Selection and turn off Creating N-gons,
| | 05:50 | That way when you make a cut--I'll
undo to get rid of that cut: Command+Z or
| | 05:54 | Ctrl+Z to undo that--
| | 05:56 | when I make a cut now, even though I
have the polygons selected, it still
| | 06:00 | behaves the same way as it
did when I was in Point mode.
| | 06:02 | So you've got to be really careful
about how you select those buttons over
| | 06:05 | there and which mode that you're in,
to make sure that the Knife tool
| | 06:07 | behaves in a predictable way.
| | 06:09 | The Knife tool is a great way to
add detail that can be used to create
| | 06:12 | complex objects.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Modeling with the Extrude tool| 00:00 | The process of modeling is basically
just cutting, pushing, and pulling on
| | 00:03 | polygons, points, and edges.
| | 00:05 | We've already seen how the Knife
tool is used for cutting polygons.
| | 00:08 | Next, we'll see the Extrude tool,
which is for pushing and pulling.
| | 00:11 | So the Extrude tool works best in
Polygon mode, and so what I'm going to do is
| | 00:15 | add a cube to the scene.
| | 00:16 | Actually, you know, let's start off with
the sphere--vary things up a little bit.
| | 00:20 | I'm going to switch to the Modeling
layout by going to the Layout button and
| | 00:23 | switching over to Modeling. Still the
same application, just a rearrangement of
| | 00:26 | the icons on-screen. And I'm going
to switch over to Polygon mode.
| | 00:31 | Now, my sphere is still a parametric, or
primitive, object, and what I need to do
| | 00:35 | is convert it into polygon object, so
I'm going to click the Make Object Editable
| | 00:39 | button. So I click on that guy--I could
have hit also the letter C on the keyboard.
| | 00:43 | Now it's a polygon object, and I have
access to the polygons that make up the
| | 00:47 | surface of that sphere. So I'm going
to use my Selection tool and grab just a
| | 00:51 | few polygons on the surface of that sphere.
| | 00:53 | Now the Extrude tool looks like this.
| | 00:56 | I can hover over it, and it shows me the
name Extrude Selected. And I click on that
| | 01:01 | and over here on the Attributes now, I
have the options for the Extrude tool.
| | 01:05 | What I'm going to do next is
to click and drag to the right.
| | 01:09 | Now the direction that
you drag is very important.
| | 01:11 | If I click and drag to the right, it
extrudes outward. And you will notice I'm
| | 01:15 | not just pulling the polygons. I want
to be very specific about that. I just
| | 01:19 | did a Command+Z to get
back to the original sphere.
| | 01:22 | If I zoom in on this little bit, if I
just grab the handle for the polygons, you
| | 01:27 | notice I still have the Extrude tool active.
| | 01:29 | If I grab the handle and move it around,
I'm just stretching the surface of the
| | 01:33 | sphere, I'm not actually creating new
polygons. And that's really what the Extrude
| | 01:36 | tool does is it creates new polygons.
| | 01:39 | So let's undo that for a second:
Command+Z or Ctrl+Z. And now I'm going to
| | 01:42 | click away from the handles.
| | 01:44 | I'm not clicking on the handles. I'm
going to click and drag to the right, and
| | 01:46 | it's going to extrude and create a new set
of polygons out of the side of that sphere.
| | 01:51 | Each time I click and drag to the
right, it creates a new extrusion, and you
| | 01:55 | want to be very careful when you are
extruding. If I just click one time, it
| | 01:59 | will either deselect, or if I'm not
really precise, and I click and drag just a
| | 02:03 | little tiny bit, it just made an
extrusion, and I want to be really careful about
| | 02:07 | that. If I zoom way on that, you
can see that I actually made a second
| | 02:11 | extrusion there where I didn't intend
to, and so I want to be really careful
| | 02:15 | about how I click with that.
| | 02:17 | Let's undo a few times to
get back to the basic sphere.
| | 02:20 | If I click and drag to the left, it's
going to extrude inside the sphere, so the
| | 02:25 | reason for this behavior is
something called the normal axis.
| | 02:28 | A normal axis is the axis of the
individual polygon, and normal is an axis
| | 02:34 | that's perpendicular to the surface of
a polygon, and every polygon has a normal
| | 02:38 | axis. And so when you use the Extrude
tool, it extrudes either outward or inward
| | 02:42 | based on the normal axis.
| | 02:44 | So let's take a look at some of the
modes and how the Extrude tool works.
| | 02:49 | As I use the Extrude tool, I've
got a maximum angle and an offset.
| | 02:53 | The offset controls how far you
are doing the extrusion, and then the
| | 02:56 | subdivision determines how many
extrusions you're going to do when you
| | 02:59 | hit the Apply button.
| | 03:00 | So let me undo that, and I'll grab some new polygons.
| | 03:02 | I just use the Spacebar to
get back to the Selection tool.
| | 03:05 | So I'll click on some different
polygons over here on this side of this sphere,
| | 03:09 | and I will just make a really
random selection of polygons.
| | 03:13 | Now when I switch back to the Extrude tool--I
just right-click to get to the Extrude tool--
| | 03:18 | when I select the Extrude tool, I have
these options again. And I can select how
| | 03:23 | far I want to extrude it numerically
and I can also select how many extrusions
| | 03:27 | I would like to do. And when I hit Apply,
it's going to create those extrusions
| | 03:31 | based on these numeric values.
| | 03:32 | Now, I don't normally use the Extrude
tool in that way, just because it's a
| | 03:36 | little bit less intuitive than simply
clicking and dragging. And most of time
| | 03:40 | when I'm modeling, it's a very sort of
touchy-feely process and not nearly as
| | 03:43 | mechanical as this, and so I
don't normally use the Apply button.
| | 03:46 | I'm going to undo to get rid of
that extrusion, to get me back again.
| | 03:50 | The Create Caps option is very
important because what it will do is to leave
| | 03:55 | the polygons behind. To see what that
means, let's add a plane to the scene. I'm
| | 03:59 | going to delete this sphere and add
just a regular plane object. And the plane
| | 04:02 | object, once again, is a parametric, so
we need to make it editable, so we can
| | 04:06 | access the polygons.
| | 04:07 | I'll click on the Make Object Editable
button and then go into Polygon mode
| | 04:10 | over here on the left.
| | 04:11 | Now, I will select a few polygons on
the plane. And when I used the Extrude
| | 04:16 | tool, I'm going to first extrude with
Create Caps off. When I Extrude, and I look
| | 04:23 | underneath, you can see that because
of my subdivisions, it's giving 10
| | 04:26 | extrusions, but it's left a hole on the
back side. Now I'm going to undo that, and
| | 04:31 | this time I'm going to turn Create Caps
on, and when I Extrude, you notice that
| | 04:35 | it didn't leave a hole, but it still did the
same extrusion. That's what Create Caps does.
| | 04:40 | It leaves polygons behind
when you that extrusion.
| | 04:42 | There is one other future I would like
to take a look at, and that's the Maximum
| | 04:46 | Angle. So to see what that means,
let's delete this plane and add a cube.
| | 04:52 | It's still a parametric object, so I
need to make it editable. Once again, make
| | 04:55 | an object editable. Then I'm going to
switch to Polygon mode, and on the cube, I'm
| | 05:00 | going to use the Selection
tool to grab two polygons.
| | 05:07 | As I go back to the Extrude tool,
the Extrude tool has something called a
| | 05:11 | Maximum Angle, and it also has
something called Preserve Groups.
| | 05:14 | When I use my Extrusion tool right now,
it extrudes outward. It creates a new
| | 05:19 | set of extrusions based on those two selections.
| | 05:23 | But what happens if I want to
extrude both sides of these so that they
| | 05:26 | still stay connected?
| | 05:27 | Well, that's where the Maximum
Angle and Preserve Groups come in.
| | 05:30 | I'm going to change my
subdivision back to 1 again,
| | 05:32 | so it just makes one extrusion.
| | 05:33 | I'm going to undo that extrusion
to get back to where I was before.
| | 05:38 | Now, I'm going to change the Maximum Angle.
| | 05:41 | What the Maximum Angle does, it
looks at the angle between the polygons
| | 05:45 | and it decides how to control the extrusion
based on the angle that these two polygons are at.
| | 05:50 | So if I change my maximum angle to
greater than 90 degrees and do the extrusion,
| | 05:55 | when it extrudes outward, it's going to
extrude those polygons and leave them connected.
| | 06:00 | That's because I've Preserve Groups
turned on. If I undo that and turn Preserve
| | 06:06 | Groups off, even though I've adjusted
the maximum angle, it's still going to
| | 06:11 | extrude outward in both directions, even
though my Maximum Angle--you can see
| | 06:15 | that Maximum Angle you can see that
Maximum Angle in fact has become grayed out
| | 06:17 | when I turn Preserve Groups off.
| | 06:19 | The Extrude tool is how you push and
pull on polygons and make detailed changes
| | 06:23 | at the same time.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Modeling with the Extrude Inner tool| 00:00 | Now we are going to look
at the Extrude Inner tool.
| | 00:02 | At first glance, the title of
this tool is bit misleading.
| | 00:05 | How can this be any different from Extrude tool?
| | 00:07 | Well, it really is. The Extrude Inner
tool allows you to create an inset on the
| | 00:11 | surface of your model.
| | 00:12 | It looks at the edges of your polygon
selection and then duplicates the edge
| | 00:16 | while moving it inward.
| | 00:17 | Let's see what that means.
| | 00:18 | I'm going to add a cube to the scene.
That cube is still a parametric object,
| | 00:23 | it's a primitive object, so I want to
make it editable by clicking on the Make
| | 00:25 | Object Editable button over
here on the left-hand side.
| | 00:28 | And when I do that, it turns
the cube into a polygon object.
| | 00:31 | Now I can go into Point edge or
Polygon mode to use the Extrude Inner tool.
| | 00:35 | Now the Extrude Inner tool
prefers to work in Polygon mode.
| | 00:38 | So I'm going to switch to
Polygon mode and then change my layout.
| | 00:40 | I'm right now in the Standard
layout, and I could in Polygon mode, just
| | 00:43 | right-click to grab the Extrude Inner
tool, which is right here, but I'm going to
| | 00:47 | switch to Modeling layout, so you
can see what that looks like as well.
| | 00:50 | So when I switch to Modeling layout,
it's still the same application; it just
| | 00:53 | rearranged the icons and made the icons
visible for me across the bottom here.
| | 00:57 | And the Extrude Inner tool,
the icon looks just like this.
| | 00:59 | So when I click on that, it gives me the
Extrude Inner Tool options over here in
| | 01:03 | the Attribute Manager.
| | 01:04 | Some of the options look very similar
to the Extrude tool, but the tool itself
| | 01:07 | behaves very differently.
| | 01:09 | So what I'm going to do is select the
polygon using the Selection tool and then
| | 01:13 | get my Extrude Inner tool back.
| | 01:15 | Notice I'm not clicking on one of the
arrows. I'm going to click away from the
| | 01:19 | object and click and drag over here.
| | 01:21 | When I click and drag to the right, it
extrudes outward, and I don't want to do that.
| | 01:26 | With this tool, I want to
click and drag to the left.
| | 01:30 | When I click and drag to
the left, it extrudes inward.
| | 01:33 | And what it does is it looks around
at all the edges of the existing polygon
| | 01:37 | and then duplicates those edges and
creates a connection, so that the extruded
| | 01:42 | edges are all connected in the same object.
| | 01:44 | You can see it creates this inset of the face.
| | 01:46 | And the thing that it allows you to do
is to create these insets that can then
| | 01:50 | be extruded or manipulated further.
| | 01:52 | And so it's a great way to start the
process of putting a hole in your object.
| | 01:55 | So, for example, I might want to combine
these Extrude Inner within an extrusion.
| | 01:59 | So just to the Extrude Inner, if I
switch to the Extrude tool, I can now extrude
| | 02:04 | inward on my object.
| | 02:07 | And that's a little bit different than
what you would get if you just use the
| | 02:09 | Extrude tool by itself.
| | 02:11 | If I just use the Extrude tool on a
single polygon--let's undo that to get
| | 02:14 | back again, Command+Z or Ctrl+Z. If I
just use the Extrude tool, and I will
| | 02:20 | use the Extrude tool, and then I'll
just click and drag to the left, you can
| | 02:23 | see it extrudes into the cube, but it does it
exactly in the same location as that polygon.
| | 02:28 | Now I've got, on these sides, I've got
two polygons in exactly the same location.
| | 02:32 | That's not really good.
| | 02:33 | You don't normally want to do that.
| | 02:35 | And so I'm going to undo--
Command+Z or Ctrl+Z--and get back to the
| | 02:39 | Extrude Inner tool.
| | 02:40 | And then I'll click and drag to
extrude inward and then use the Extrude tool,
| | 02:45 | and drag in to the left to create that inset.
| | 02:50 | Or I could've dragged to the
right to create an outset of the cube.
| | 02:57 | So next up, let's take a look
at the Maximum Angle option.
| | 02:59 | So to see what that does, I'm going to
need to select more than one polygon.
| | 03:03 | So the polygons are all connected
on this cube at specific angles.
| | 03:07 | In this case, the angle is 90 degrees because
they're all right angles from the top to the side.
| | 03:11 | So I'm going to go to the Extrude Inner
tool and select that tool and then hit
| | 03:17 | the Spacebar, or select the Selection
tool to get back to the Selection tool.
| | 03:21 | I'll grab these two polygons and
then use the Spacebar to get back to
| | 03:24 | the Extrude Inner tool.
| | 03:25 | And now what I have the Extrude Inner tool,
| | 03:27 | I can see I have a maximum
angle here, and it's set to be 89.
| | 03:30 | If I click and drag to the left, it's
going to extrude inward, but it is extruding
| | 03:34 | them both separately.
| | 03:35 | So let's undo: Command+Z or Ctrl+Z.
| | 03:38 | If I change this maximum angle to be
greater than 90 degrees--let's change it to be 91--
| | 03:42 | and now when I click and drag with
the Extrude Inner tool to the left, it's
| | 03:46 | going to extrude inner across both
sides of the object, and that's a much better
| | 03:50 | situation if I wanted to keep
these cube's sides connected.
| | 03:54 | Now when I use the Extrude tool,
and extrude to the right they
| | 03:59 | extrude outward, it's going to
extrude both of those size, but it keeps
| | 04:03 | everything really nice and neat.
| | 04:05 | I've got quadrangles going all there
around the sides of my object now, and
| | 04:08 | that's a very good situation for modeling.
| | 04:10 | The Extrude Inner tool is really
meant to team up with other tools.
| | 04:13 | It allows you to set up your geometry
to create some very detailed surfaces.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Closing and connecting geometry with the Create Polygon and Bridge tools| 00:00 | Up until now, we've been looking at one
tool at a time, but in this movie we're
| | 00:03 | going to take a look at two
tools that are very closely related.
| | 00:06 | The Create Polygon tool allows you to
construct a polygon out of three or more
| | 00:09 | points, while the Bridge tool allows
you to create a polygon to span the gap
| | 00:12 | between other polygons.
| | 00:14 | So what I've got open here on-
screen is the beginnings of a bicycle.
| | 00:17 | Now this is the front triangle
of a bicycle, the start of it.
| | 00:20 | Down here is where the pedals would go,
this is going to be the seat tube, and
| | 00:23 | this is the head tube where the
handlebars would actually connect to the frame.
| | 00:27 | And the forks would go down here,
and the rear wheel would be back here, and the
| | 00:30 | front wheel would be down here.
| | 00:31 | So what I need to do is I need to
create something called the top tube, which
| | 00:35 | is the tube that connects the head tube
to the seat tube and keeps the triangle
| | 00:38 | from falling apart.
| | 00:39 | So if I select this object, you can see
that I've got some extrusions going on
| | 00:43 | here that have been then redirected to
create the different angles of the bike.
| | 00:47 | What I want to do is be able to create
a polygon, one tube that goes from this
| | 00:51 | polygon here to this
polygon here on the head tube.
| | 00:55 | And so what I need to do is to span this gap.
| | 00:58 | So let's take a look at two
different ways to do that.
| | 01:00 | I'm going to go from Model mode into
Polygon mode, so I can access the polygons
| | 01:04 | that make up this object.
| | 01:07 | Now what I need to do is to
create an opening on this model.
| | 01:12 | So I've got a polygon right here,
and I'll use the Selection tool just to make
| | 01:15 | sure I got exactly the right polygon.
| | 01:17 | And I've got this polygon right here.
| | 01:19 | These are the two polygons that
I want to create the gap between.
| | 01:22 | So I need to get them out of the way.
| | 01:23 | I don't want to create a gap across
and have those polygons still be there.
| | 01:27 | That would make the
geometry very strange inside.
| | 01:29 | So, I need to open that up. So I'm just going to
hit the Delete key to delete that polygon.
| | 01:33 | And then I'll do the same
thing on this side over here.
| | 01:35 | So, I'll select that polygon and hit Delete.
| | 01:38 | Now, I've created an opening.
| | 01:39 | You can see, if I zoom in on that area,
I've got an opening on the inside here,
| | 01:43 | and I've got an opening in here.
| | 01:45 | What I want to do next is to span this
gap with polygons, so that it will create
| | 01:49 | my tube for the top tube.
| | 01:51 | So I'm going to start off in Point mode.
| | 01:52 | I like to use the Create
Polygon tool when I'm in Point mode.
| | 01:55 | It works in all of the modes, but I
preferred to use it in Point mode.
| | 01:59 | I'm just going to switch to Modeling layout.
| | 02:00 | It's going to give me a little bit more
room to work, and also allow me to see
| | 02:03 | the icons for the other tools.
| | 02:04 | Let's switch the layout to Modeling.
| | 02:07 | Still the same application,
just a rearrangement of the icons.
| | 02:10 | Now what I'd like to do is to use the
Create Polygon tool, so I'm going to
| | 02:14 | right-click and go to Create
Polygon, and its icon looks like this.
| | 02:18 | You can see I've got it selected
down here as well: Create Polygon.
| | 02:22 | The way this tool works is a little bit
tricky, and so I have a little sort of
| | 02:27 | the musical setup that I like
to do when I'm using the tool.
| | 02:30 | The way it works is you have
to click on individual points.
| | 02:33 | And you can create polygons with three points,
or you can create polygons with four points.
| | 02:37 | Normally you always wanted to
create polygons with four points.
| | 02:40 | And so the way the tool works is I
want to click once and drag across.
| | 02:43 | Now I'm not holding down the mouse button.
| | 02:46 | I need to click again though,
when I get to this point over here.
| | 02:48 | You see how it highlights that point.
| | 02:50 | So it creates a little stretchy band that
I need to connect to this point over here.
| | 02:54 | So I click on that guy, and then I
am left with a new stretchy band.
| | 02:58 | And now I can click on this third point.
| | 03:01 | Now it thinks, "Do you want to
close that polygon off?" but I don't.
| | 03:05 | I want to create four-sided polygon.
| | 03:06 | So when I go to the last point here, when I
hover over that, I'm going to click twice.
| | 03:11 | Boom, boom. When I do that, it closes off the polygon.
| | 03:15 | It creates the four-sided polygon for me.
| | 03:17 | And so let's repeat that
process around the model.
| | 03:20 | So I'm going to go one, two, three. Boom, boom.
| | 03:25 | And I say that out loud,
even when I'm working by myself.
| | 03:28 | I go one, two, three. Boom, boom.
| | 03:30 | That way I know for sure that I've
created a four-sided polygon, because
| | 03:34 | that last time I clicked--boom, boom
--that closes it off and creates a
| | 03:38 | four-sided polygon for me.
| | 03:40 | So that's the sort of manual
way to crate a span between gaps.
| | 03:43 | And I still need to do
it on this side over here.
| | 03:45 | But let's take a look at one
other tool, the Bridge tool.
| | 03:48 | It will allow us to span this
gap in a much more automatic way.
| | 03:52 | The Bridge tool, if I right-click and
go to the Bridge tool at the very top of
| | 03:56 | the menu here, it works
in all three of the modes.
| | 03:59 | In this case though, I think it's going to
work a little bit faster for us in Edge mode.
| | 04:02 | So I'm going to undo the
creation of those polygons.
| | 04:05 | I want to use the Bridge tool next, so let's
use it in Edge mode and see how that works.
| | 04:09 | So if I click into Edge mode now, I
can hover over and select the edges now.
| | 04:15 | And the way the Bridge tool works is
it wants you to select two edges to
| | 04:18 | bridge the gap between.
| | 04:20 | So if I click on this edge right here
and drag across to the other side, you'll
| | 04:24 | see it's trying to snap and find an edge.
| | 04:26 | I want to be very careful
about which edge I let go of.
| | 04:28 | If I let go of this edge over here,
it's going to be the wrong place.
| | 04:31 | I want to bridge to this edge right
here, and when I do that, and let go,
| | 04:36 | boom, it automatically creates a polygon
for me, and that's a really fast way to do it.
| | 04:40 | Let's back out just a bit, and let's
repeat that process to close up this tube.
| | 04:44 | So if I bridge this gap, I want to be careful.
| | 04:47 | See, how it's trying to snap around a
little bit, and so you've got to be extra
| | 04:50 | careful that you go just
to that edge right there.
| | 04:52 | I will just repeat that process
again on the inside over here.
| | 04:58 | Let's go from here to here,
and then we will go from here to here.
| | 05:04 | And you can see I've really quickly, in
just four simple steps, closed up that
| | 05:09 | object and created the
front triangle for my bicycle.
| | 05:12 | So the Bridge tool is a way to quickly
do what we were doing with the Create
| | 05:15 | Polygon tool in a very manual way.
| | 05:16 | So you know, it's sort of a personal
preference thing about which way you do it.
| | 05:20 | There's no right or wrong answer.
| | 05:21 | It's just that one tool happens to
work quite a bit faster in this situation
| | 05:24 | than the other tool does.
| | 05:26 | This might be leaving you with the idea,
what's the difference between the two tools?
| | 05:30 | Why would I ever want to
use the Create Polygon tool?
| | 05:32 | Well the Create Polygon tool is really
used for closing up single holes, and the
| | 05:36 | Bridge tool is used for primarily for
spanning gaps between other polygons, so
| | 05:40 | let's take a look at what that means.
| | 05:42 | I'm going to go back to Polygon mode
and use the selection tool and select all
| | 05:46 | the polygons of my top
tube and then delete them.
| | 05:49 | So I'll click and hold down the Shift
key to add to the selection, to grab all
| | 05:53 | the polygons of the top tube there.
| | 05:55 | When I hit the Delete key, boom.
| | 05:57 | It's going to leave me
back with those two openings.
| | 05:59 | So, let's say I didn't want the Top tube there.
| | 06:01 | I was going to make a super-advanced
composite bike frame and I didn't need a top tube.
| | 06:04 | So I can close that back up now by
using the Create Polygon tool to close
| | 06:09 | up that single hole.
| | 06:11 | So I can go back to the Create Polygon
tool, and I can go one, two, three, boom,
| | 06:17 | boom, four, and that closes up the polygon.
| | 06:20 | One, two, three, boom-boom,
and then it closes it up just fine.
| | 06:25 | So that's really the primary
difference between those two tools.
| | 06:28 | The ability to create polygons
where they wasn't any before is really
| | 06:31 | fundamental to creating advanced,
organic, and mechanical shapes.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Organic modeling: Creating a HyperNURBS object| 00:00 | For all the tools we have been using to
this point, I have been showing you them
| | 00:03 | on objects with lots of
flat surfaces and right angles.
| | 00:06 | But all these cool modeling tools have
led us to an important question, how can
| | 00:09 | we make complex objects with
smoothly flowing curves or rounded edges?
| | 00:13 | That's where the HyperNURB object comes in.
| | 00:15 | The HyperNURB object is a generator that
smoothes the edges of objects that are its children.
| | 00:19 | So the HyperNURB object is a
generator, and its icon looks like this.
| | 00:24 | If you click and hold on these guys--
these are all the other NURB objects: Lathe
| | 00:27 | NURB, Sweep NURB, the Loft, Extrude, and Bezier.
| | 00:30 | Now, the HyperNURB is a
little bit different in that
| | 00:33 | it needs a polygon object as its child.
| | 00:35 | The Lathe, Sweep, Extrude, and
Loft NURBS are all use splines.
| | 00:39 | But the HyperNURB uses only polygon objects.
| | 00:42 | So if I let go of this object in the
scene, I get this little HyperNURB icon
| | 00:45 | here, but there's nothing else in my
scene. That's because it needs to have a
| | 00:49 | child in order to actually
produce some sort of result.
| | 00:51 | So let's add a cube to the
scene to see what it's going to do.
| | 00:55 | Now, the HyperNURB object is a generator,
| | 00:56 | so it needs to have this cube as a child.
| | 00:58 | If I select the cube and make that
cube a child of the HyperNURB, just like
| | 01:03 | that, when I do that you can see that I get
something that looks kind of like a sphere.
| | 01:07 | Let's render the scene to
see what that looks like.
| | 01:09 | I am going to click on the Render
Inactive View button, and that's going
| | 01:12 | to render the scene.
| | 01:13 | You can see that I get something
looks little bit like a lumpy sphere.
| | 01:16 | And so let's explain what
the HyperNURB is actually doing.
| | 01:19 | In order to do that, I'll hit the
letter A on the keyboard to get back to the
| | 01:23 | shaded view. And I am going to switch
to the actual four-way split screen.
| | 01:27 | Now I want to able to see a shaded
view and each of these four-way split.
| | 01:30 | So to do that, I'm going to go to the
Display menu and change each of the views
| | 01:35 | to be Gouraud Shading.
| | 01:36 | So I'll change that one, and I'll go to
Display in the Front view, and then I'll
| | 01:42 | go to Display in the Right-hand view.
| | 01:44 | So now that I have changed the shading
modes, you can see that I see a shaded
| | 01:48 | sphere, or something that's almost a
sphere, in each of the views, and that makes
| | 01:51 | it lot easier to understand
what the HyperNURB is doing.
| | 01:53 | So in the Top view now, I want to
frame this view up on the actual object.
| | 01:57 | So I will select the Top view, by right-
clicking in this gray bar here, and hit
| | 02:01 | the letter H on the keyboard.
| | 02:02 | And I'll do the same process for the
Front view: click and then hit the letter
| | 02:06 | H, click and hit the letter H and then
in the Perspective view, I will click here
| | 02:10 | and hit the letter H one more time.
| | 02:12 | So to explain what the HyperNURB does, we
have to think about the edges of our object.
| | 02:16 | Now a cube has six sides to it, and each of
those sides are at right angles to one another.
| | 02:21 | And what the HyperNURB does is it
looks at the midpoints on an object and
| | 02:25 | creates an arc between those midpoints.
| | 02:27 | So if I look at the Top view of my
object here, or any of the other views, I can
| | 02:32 | look from the midpoint of this edge to
the midpoint of this edge and draw an
| | 02:36 | arc. And then I can go from the
midpoint of this edge to the midpoint of this
| | 02:40 | edge and draw another arc. And so the
HyperNURB repeats that process all the way
| | 02:43 | around your object, for every single edge.
| | 02:46 | And then that gives you a smooth rounded object.
| | 02:50 | Now, that's not necessarily to say it's
a sphere, because these edges--four edges
| | 02:54 | together don't necessarily
equal a sphere under the HyperNURB.
| | 02:57 | It really depends on the
arrangement of the edges.
| | 03:00 | Generally speaking, with a HyperNURB
object, if you want to get something
| | 03:02 | spherical, you need to
have more than four sides.
| | 03:05 | Six sides are really optimal. That
gives you a really true spherical shape.
| | 03:09 | But once again, what it's doing
| | 03:10 | is it's going from the midpoints, from
midpoint to midpoint, and smoothing that out.
| | 03:15 | So all of the tools that we've used
have really been sort of leading up to the
| | 03:18 | idea that you can manipulate the
midpoints to create more complex shapes.
| | 03:22 | So let's see what that means.
| | 03:23 | The cube itself is still a parametric
object, so I am going to make it editable.
| | 03:27 | Now notice I do not have the HyperNURB
selected, just the cube. So, I select the
| | 03:32 | cube, and I hit the make object editable button.
| | 03:34 | When I do that, it turns to a polygon object.
| | 03:37 | Now let's switch over to
Point mode and use the Knife tool.
| | 03:40 | There's a very important
thing I want to turn off.
| | 03:42 | And you'll notice that on my sphere now,
or this HyperNURB object, I have these
| | 03:48 | lines, and these lines, are
called Isoline editing lines.
| | 03:51 | This is a mode that was introduced a
couple of versions back in Cinema 4D to
| | 03:55 | sort of make the transition for
Maya users a little bit easier.
| | 03:57 | Because Maya, when you model with NURBS,
gives you these Isolines on the surface
| | 04:00 | of your model. And so I
actually prefer to work without them,
| | 04:03 | so I am going to turn those off right now.
| | 04:05 | So under the Tools menu is the
Isoline editing buttons, So, right here, Use
| | 04:10 | Isoline Editing, I'm going to turn that
off. And when I do that, those lines go
| | 04:15 | away, and now I just see the low polygon
mesh that surrounds my HyperNURB object.
| | 04:19 | That's the way I prefer to work.
| | 04:21 | Now, let's use the Knife tool.
| | 04:23 | I am going to switch to the Perspective view
now and then right-click to grab my Knife tool.
| | 04:27 | Here in Point mode, the Knife tool
can work in a lot of ways, but I'm going
| | 04:33 | to switch it to Loop mode. That way I
know I am cutting all the way around my
| | 04:37 | object. And I am going to highlight one
of the edges and click with the Knife tool.
| | 04:41 | When I do that click, you will see
that the midpoint is changing. You notice
| | 04:44 | I'm clicking about in the middle here, so
I am cutting these midpoints in half.
| | 04:48 | So when I click that, you can see that now
my cube has become a little more elongated.
| | 04:53 | Let's click back into the four-way
split to see what's happening here.
| | 04:57 | Now my midpoints have changed.
| | 04:58 | You can see that the midpoint along
this side is now cut to here, and you can
| | 05:02 | see from here to here, it's drawn an arc.
But along this long side where the cut
| | 05:07 | is, the midpoints are actually
very flat, so I get a flat surface.
| | 05:11 | If I use the Knife tool again and make
a cut, each time I make a cut, the object
| | 05:15 | will get flatter along its Y axis.
| | 05:16 | So I'm changing those midpoints.
And the same thing will happen if I make a cut
| | 05:22 | along this axis here. When I cut it,
you see that it flattens things out.
| | 05:26 | So it makes those edges really flat
based on those new midpoints, each time
| | 05:31 | I use the Knife tool.
| | 05:32 | The same thing will happen
when I use the Extrude tool.
| | 05:34 | Let's switch to polygon
mode and see what that means.
| | 05:37 | If I go into polygon mode and right-
click to get the Extrude tool, when I click
| | 05:43 | on this polygon, for example, and
use the Extrude, look what it does.
| | 05:47 | It actually extrudes all the polygons
at once. That's because I didn't have an
| | 05:51 | actual selection of polygons, so it
thought I wanted to extrude everything.
| | 05:54 | So let's undo, Command+Z or Ctrl+Z on
the PC, and select this polygon first.
| | 05:59 | I want to use the Spacebar to get
back to the Selection tool, click on this
| | 06:03 | polygon, and then use the Spacebar
again to get back to my Extrude tool.
| | 06:07 | And when I click and drag--now notice
I'm not going to click on the handles, I
| | 06:11 | am going to click and drag to the
right to extrude--and when I do that, it
| | 06:15 | extrudes outward from that polygon,
and it's created a new set of midpoints.
| | 06:20 | Remember, it creates an arc between those
midpoints. Let's switch back to the Front view.
| | 06:24 | So you can see now I have an arc going
from this midpoint to this midpoint, and
| | 06:29 | then an arc going from this midpoint to
this midpoint, which creates this line
| | 06:34 | here, and then back around at this midpoint.
| | 06:37 | So that's really all the HyperNURB object
does is it create arcs between midpoints.
| | 06:42 | There's one other setting I want to
talk about on the HyperNURB, and that's the
| | 06:44 | subdivision setting.
| | 06:46 | The HyperNURB object has two subdivision levels.
| | 06:48 | Let's take a look at that
in the Perspective view.
| | 06:50 | Now what a subdivision is
| | 06:51 | is the amount of
polygons that make up an object.
| | 06:54 | So when you first add a cube to the
HyperNURB, it has a subdivision here in the
| | 06:57 | editor window of two. That means, on my
original cube, I would get two polygons
| | 07:02 | for every one polygon that
I had in my original Cube.
| | 07:05 | In order to speed things up, there's
something called the Subdivision Renderer,
| | 07:08 | and that is set at a higher level. That's
so you have more performance when you're
| | 07:12 | working in the Editor window. But when
you render the object, you get a much
| | 07:16 | smoother surface than you'd
see here in the Editor window.
| | 07:18 | So to do that, to see what that means,
I'm going to first click here in the
| | 07:23 | Editor window, the Render in Active View
button. You can see I can still see quite
| | 07:26 | a bit of fastening on that object.
| | 07:28 | Now I am going to click the Render
in Picture View button, which is this
| | 07:31 | clapboard right here.
| | 07:32 | When I click that, that renders the
object to the Picture viewer, and now I see
| | 07:37 | what that HyperNURB will
actually look like when I render.
| | 07:39 | You can see it's quite a bit
smoother here. That's because it has a
| | 07:42 | higher subdivision level.
| | 07:43 | I am going to close up the Picture viewer.
| | 07:46 | The Subdivision in Editor level is
always lower than the Subdivision
| | 07:49 | in Rendering level.
| | 07:50 | You never want to have this
higher than the renderer level.
| | 07:53 | You can change this down. If I hit the
letter A on the keyboard to redraw the
| | 07:56 | screen, if I change this down to 1, I
get a much lower polygon object. The
| | 08:01 | Subdivision in Renderer level is still
the same value at 3, so when I render,
| | 08:05 | even though this is very crunchy and
low-polygon here, when I click the Render
| | 08:08 | In Picture viewer button,
it still renders smoothly.
| | 08:11 | Now that we know how to create,
manipulate, and smooth polygons using the
| | 08:14 | HyperNURB object, you can create
just about anything you could imagine.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Organic modeling: Setting up a scene and reference images| 00:00 | Now that I've shown you all these
cool tools, what can we do with them?
| | 00:03 | Eventually, you will be able to create
entire worlds, but for now we are going
| | 00:06 | to keep it simple and create a basic smartphone.
| | 00:09 | One of the coolest things about the
new generation of phones is that they are
| | 00:12 | really simple on the outside compared to
phones just even a couple of years ago.
| | 00:15 | That makes them much easier to create.
| | 00:17 | So what I have done is I have created my own
smartphone, and I have done that in Illustrator.
| | 00:22 | Let's open up the Illustrator file
for this template. And I have just made a
| | 00:25 | basic phone shape here.
| | 00:26 | It's really just a big
screen with a button on it.
| | 00:29 | That's the cool thing is that most phones
today, that's really all there are, just a big
| | 00:32 | screen with maybe one or
two buttons on the front.
| | 00:35 | So I've exported these simple sketches
from Illustrator into Photoshop files.
| | 00:39 | Let's hide Illustrator now and
go back out here to the Finder.
| | 00:43 | These phone front in phone side PSD files
are just the phone front and the phone side.
| | 00:49 | These are going to become the
guides for us in our modeling process.
| | 00:52 | What we want be able to do is have these
as references inside the Cinema 4D file,
| | 00:57 | so that we can look at them and
use them as a guide for our modeling.
| | 01:00 | So in order to do that, we are going
to be using them as textures inside the
| | 01:03 | Cinema 4D, but Cinema 4D looks
for files in very specific places.
| | 01:06 | So when it uses textures, it prefers to
find files in something called a tex folder.
| | 01:11 | That tex stands for textures.
| | 01:14 | So in this folder, in Chapter 7 folder, I am
going to create a new folder and call it "tex."
| | 01:21 | So this text folder now is going to
contain this phone front and phone side object.
| | 01:26 | So I will take the phone front and the
phone side and put them into the tex folder.
| | 01:31 | Now when I go back to Cinema 4D, the
very first step in my process is going to
| | 01:35 | be to save out this file in the
same location as that tex folder.
| | 01:40 | So let's go to the File menu and do a
Save As and navigate to our Exercise Files
| | 01:47 | into the Ch 04 folder. And in the ch04-
07 folder, we are going to save it, not in
| | 01:53 | the tex folder, just in the
same location as the tex folder.
| | 01:56 | I'm going to name this file
"ch04_07_start," and I will hit Save.
| | 02:05 | Now, we have got the ch04-
07 start file saved out.
| | 02:08 | So now when I place these images into a
material, Cinema 4D is not going to ask
| | 02:13 | me, "Hey, where did these images come from?"
| | 02:14 | It's going to know automatically.
| | 02:16 | The next step in our
process is to create a material.
| | 02:19 | So down here in the Material Manager, I'm
going to go to the File menu and do New Material.
| | 02:24 | A material is an element that can be
used to change the color and texture of
| | 02:27 | objects in the application.
| | 02:28 | In this case, we are going to creating
material that will just be a simply a
| | 02:31 | guide for our smartphone.
| | 02:33 | So in the material, I'm going to, in
the Color channel--which is already
| | 02:37 | selected for me here--
| | 02:38 | I'm going to load up an image. And if I
click the Load Image icon, which is this
| | 02:42 | little button right here, I'm
presented with a Finder window.
| | 02:45 | So if I navigate to the Desktop and
go to the Exercise Files, to Ch 04, and
| | 02:53 | ch04-07, and to the tex folder, I can
grab the phone front PSD file and hit Open.
| | 02:58 | Now what happens is it loads in that
phone front PSD file here in the texture
| | 03:04 | window, and it also tells me how big
that image is: 536 pixels by 1,000 pixels.
| | 03:09 | That number is going to be
important in just a minute.
| | 03:12 | Let's rename this material by clicking
on the Basic properties and going in the
| | 03:15 | Material field, in the Name
field, and typing in "Phone Front".
| | 03:21 | We need to have an object to put
this phone front material onto.
| | 03:24 | So what I want to do is go into the
primitive objects and grab a plane.
| | 03:29 | What I need to do is to reposition
this plane and also change its size.
| | 03:33 | I want to change the Orientation to be
-Z, and what that's going to do is make
| | 03:37 | the phone image show up exactly like
it would in Photoshop on the plane.
| | 03:42 | So I change the Orientation under the
object properties for the plane to be -Z.
| | 03:47 | Now, I want to make the Width and
Height of the plane be exactly the same
| | 03:51 | aspect ratio as my Photoshop file, and I need
the dimensions of that file to make that happen.
| | 03:55 | So if I go to the Phone Material,
| | 03:57 | I click on that into the Material
Manager and go to the Color channel and look
| | 04:00 | at the image Resolution down here, 536 x 1000,
| | 04:05 | if I select my plane and make it 536, hit the
Tab key, and go over to 100 there, 1,000 units,
| | 04:16 | now my plane is the same size as my
Photoshop file. And that's very important
| | 04:23 | because we don't want the
file to be stretched at all;
| | 04:25 | we want it to show up just like it would.
| | 04:27 | Now, we don't need al these
polygons on the plane itself,
| | 04:30 | So we can just change the
segments from to one by one.
| | 04:33 | Now, we just have one large polygon.
| | 04:35 | Now, all I need to do is take the
Phone Front material and drag it from the
| | 04:39 | Material Manager up onto the
plane object in the Object Manager.
| | 04:43 | You can see now our phone front
shows up right there on the object.
| | 04:48 | Next, we want to create the material that
will be the reference for our side of our phone.
| | 04:52 | So I am going to change the name of
this plane and call it "Front" and then hold
| | 04:57 | down the Ctrl key and drag a copy of that.
| | 05:00 | That's the Ctrl key on the PC as well.
| | 05:02 | So I will hold down the Ctrl key and
drag a copy of that and call that "side."
| | 05:07 | The side material, I need to create.
| | 05:10 | So I'm going to just simply create a
copy of this material down here in the
| | 05:13 | Material Manager by once again holding down
the Control key and dragging to the right.
| | 05:17 | Then I'll double-click on the words
here underneath the sphere to change that
| | 05:22 | name and call this one "phone side."
| | 05:27 | Now I need to load in that side material,
| | 05:29 | so I go to the Color channel of that
material, click the Load Image button, and
| | 05:33 | go to phone side, and hit Open.
| | 05:36 | Now I've got the phone side in that material.
| | 05:39 | What I need to do next is to apply
that material to the phone side object.
| | 05:43 | So what I do is go drag the material
right from the Material Manager, and what I
| | 05:47 | am going to do is
replace the existing material.
| | 05:49 | So as I drag it onto the side, if I
drag it right onto that icon and let go, it
| | 05:54 | replaces that material with the new
material that I just dragged up there.
| | 05:58 | Right now, I have got two
polygons in exactly the same location,
| | 06:01 | so it's only showing me one.
| | 06:02 | So what I need to is rotate the side
object, so that will be visible in the side
| | 06:06 | view of the Editor window.
| | 06:07 | So let's take the side object. Under the
Coordinate properties, change its heading.
| | 06:12 | So if I scrub the heading value, I
can see which one I want to change.
| | 06:15 | There is the button there on the front, and
there's my button here on the Front view.
| | 06:19 | So if I rotate this positive 90 degrees,
my side is going to now be on the right
| | 06:25 | orientation compared to the front.
| | 06:27 | The next thing I want to do is to move
this plane so that the front face here
| | 06:31 | lines up with the font face there.
| | 06:34 | To do that, I'm going to grab the X
handle for this plane and just drag
| | 06:39 | back until it's flush--
| | 06:41 | there we go--with the object.
| | 06:44 | Now, I can see that I have a button
that lines up there, the planes are lined
| | 06:47 | up, and I can see exactly
how deep my phone needs to be.
| | 06:50 | That's really the whole point of this
exercise is to get these guides in here, so
| | 06:54 | you know exactly how to make
the proportions of your object.
| | 06:57 | Next thing we need to do is to arrange
these front and side profiles so they are
| | 07:01 | out of our modeling area.
| | 07:02 | We are going to be modeling right here
at the center of the world, and we don't
| | 07:05 | want these planes to be in our way.
| | 07:07 | So I am going to take the side view
and move it over here on the X axis.
| | 07:10 | It doesn't really matter how far,
| | 07:12 | just out of the way.
| | 07:13 | Then I'll take the Front view and move
it on its Z axis out of the way as well.
| | 07:19 | That leaves me a nice open
space here to create our model.
| | 07:21 | Now what I need to do is to group these
two planes underneath a null object so
| | 07:25 | that I can keep track of
them with just one click.
| | 07:27 | So I am going to go to the primitive
objects, add a null to the scene, and call
| | 07:31 | this null "Ref Planes."
| | 07:37 | Then I'll take both the side and front
objects and parent them to the Ref Planes.
| | 07:41 | Now, I can move those guys around
or hide them using the status buttons
| | 07:45 | with just one click.
| | 07:46 | So that makes it a lot easier to keep track of.
| | 07:48 | I will twirl that closed.
| | 07:50 | Now I need to create a basic
HyperNURB setup that will allow us to begin
| | 07:54 | the modeling process.
| | 07:55 | Let's say add a HyperNURB to the scene
and then a cube to the scene and make
| | 08:00 | that cube a child of the HyperNURB.
| | 08:02 | Then I want to make the cube the same
size as the starting point for our models.
| | 08:07 | I know that under the phone, if I click
on the phone front material and look at
| | 08:12 | the resolution there, it's 536 x 1,000.
| | 08:14 | So, if I change my cube under the Object
properties to be on the X axis, 536, and
| | 08:20 | the Y axis to be 1,000,
| | 08:23 | then I will have a good
starting point for my phone.
| | 08:25 | That's pretty much it for the file prep.
| | 08:27 | Now, we can have some fun creating the phone.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Organic modeling: Creating a simple model| 00:00 | The shapes we have for the phone are our
guideline for how to approach the modeling.
| | 00:04 | The curves of the corners and the
surface detail tell us where we will need
| | 00:06 | to make our strategic cuts that will give us
the control we need to create the right shape.
| | 00:10 | So here in our file, we've got our
cube and HyperNURB in the Reference plane
| | 00:13 | set up, and what we want to do is to
create something called a modeling history for
| | 00:18 | our object. So the first step in that
process--Cinema 4D does not have built in
| | 00:21 | modeling history, so I sort of created
a technique that gives me my own sort of
| | 00:25 | version of a modeling history.
| | 00:26 | And what I do is I create a null object,
and let's go to the Primitive objects
| | 00:31 | here and add a null to the scene.
And I am going to call the null object HIDER.
| | 00:36 | And the HIDER object, I like put at the
bottom of the scene, and I am going to
| | 00:40 | make both its status dots red.
| | 00:42 | That means that anything that I put under
that HIDER object will be hidden from view.
| | 00:46 | And so anytime I am about to make a
drastic change in my model, I will take a
| | 00:50 | copy of that object and put it into
the HIDER, saving it for later, in case I
| | 00:54 | need to go back a step.
| | 00:55 | So in this cube, we are about to make a
drastic change in it by making it editable.
| | 00:59 | So I am going to select the cube and
hold down the Ctrl key, and then Ctrl+Drag
| | 01:04 | a copy of it into the HIDER and call it 001.
| | 01:08 | Now that I've got that 001 object in
there, I am sort of protected if I had to
| | 01:11 | get back to the original of starting cube.
| | 01:13 | Let's select that cube now, the
remaining one, underneath the HyperNURB, and make
| | 01:17 | it editable by clicking on
the Make Object Editable button.
| | 01:20 | Now we can go into Point mode and start to
make our strategic cuts with the Knife tool.
| | 01:24 | Let's start off by switching
the layout back to Modeling.
| | 01:27 | That gives us just a
little bit more room to work.
| | 01:30 | You can model perfectly
well on the Standard view;
| | 01:33 | this gives me a little
more room in the Editor view.
| | 01:36 | So I'm going to be making some cuts in
this object, and I want to be able to see
| | 01:40 | what the effect of those
cuts is in all four views.
| | 01:43 | Let's switch to the four-way view, and
I want to see the actual shape of the
| | 01:46 | object in each of these views,
| | 01:48 | so I need to change the Display mode to
Gouraud Shading, which is one of the shaded modes.
| | 01:53 | I will select that in each of the views.
And then I have got that shading view
| | 02:01 | selected in each of the views.
Now, I can easily see what's going on.
| | 02:04 | I'd really like to be able to see the
actual phone reference image behind the
| | 02:08 | geometry in each of these views.
| | 02:10 | And so there is a really cool feature
called X-Ray mode for the HyperNURB object
| | 02:13 | that allows us to see that.
| | 02:15 | So if we click on the HyperNURB and go
to the Basic properties and select X-Ray,
| | 02:20 | that will give me an x-ray view of the
HyperNURB, and allows me to see the actual
| | 02:24 | phone reference image behind it.
| | 02:25 | Now, we are going to turn that X-Ray
mode off and on throughout the modeling
| | 02:28 | process, so it's just good to know where it is.
| | 02:31 | Let's switch back to the cube object.
Now, I am going to use the Knife tool to
| | 02:35 | make some strategic cuts.
| | 02:37 | So I will right-click and grab the Knife
tool and making sure that I am in Point
| | 02:42 | mode, I am going to set the
mode for the Knife tool to loop.
| | 02:45 | That means that I will be cutting all
the way around my object. So, I am going
| | 02:49 | to make some strategic cuts vertically and
then a couple of cuts horizontally as well.
| | 02:53 | So these vertical cuts I am going to
make are going to be about right here for
| | 02:56 | the top. And each time I do that, it
reshapes the HyperNURB object, and that's
| | 02:59 | where the whole point of the
modeling process is you're making cuts and
| | 03:02 | pushing and pulling on polygons to shape the
object to meet the needs of the reference image.
| | 03:07 | Now I am going to make a couple more
cuts vertically. One. And then look down
| | 03:12 | here at the base. We are going
to make a cut right about here.
| | 03:15 | Now the next set of cuts I want to
make are going to be in the region of the
| | 03:20 | screen base. I want to have a cut
that goes right here at the base of the screen.
| | 03:24 | So let's make a cut right there, and
then we will make another cut right about
| | 03:28 | there, and make one last
cut right at the bottom.
| | 03:31 | And you'll notice that as I make
these cuts, the gray shape that represents
| | 03:35 | the HyperNURB becomes reshaped so that we can
get closer and closer to our reference image.
| | 03:42 | Now that I got those horizontal cuts
made, I can make the vertical cuts around
| | 03:45 | my object to get the sides
of the object in position.
| | 03:49 | So, I'm going to go back to the
Perspective view and just make two cuts:
| | 03:52 | one about here and one about here.
And what I would really ought to have
| | 03:57 | is both of these cuts lined up exactly the
same distance from the edges of the phone.
| | 04:02 | There is a really cool numerical
technique that we can use, using the Coordinate
| | 04:05 | Manager, that will allow us to do just that.
| | 04:08 | So what I need to do is let's bring the
Coordinate Manager up, so we can see it
| | 04:11 | a little bit better, and I
need to switch my Selection tool.
| | 04:15 | When I am working in Point mode, I
prefer to work with the rectangular selection,
| | 04:18 | and it's very important to turn
off Only Select Visible Elements.
| | 04:21 | That way when I select points, I know
that I am going to be selecting points on
| | 04:24 | both sides of a model.
| | 04:25 | So, for example, if I grab those points,
you can see that even though these points
| | 04:29 | are on the back side of my
model, it grabbed them just as well.
| | 04:33 | Let's switch to the Front view and
reposition the views, so we can see the whole phone.
| | 04:39 | I'm going to draw a rectangle around all the
points that make up those two vertical cuts.
| | 04:43 | I want to get them exactly centered up
on the X axis, so that they are lined up
| | 04:48 | on either side of the Y axis in this Front view.
| | 04:51 | So what I need to do is, in the
Coordinate Manager, if I change this value for
| | 04:56 | position to be zero, that's going to line up
the midpoint of all these points on the Y axis.
| | 05:01 | So I'd go here and change that X value
to be zero, and now they slide along the
| | 05:07 | X axis until they are
exactly centered on the Y axis.
| | 05:11 | Now that I have got those cuts lined
up, I want to change the size of them
| | 05:15 | just a little bit. And I can use the
Scale tool to do this, and just sort of
| | 05:18 | eyeball it into position.
| | 05:20 | I am going to go to the Scale tool and
then click on just the red handle, and
| | 05:26 | adjust the size about here.
| | 05:31 | I want to go to--that's pretty good.
| | 05:33 | I don't want to go all the way to the
edge, because I want my phone to have a
| | 05:37 | little bit of rounding at the top.
So, we are going to back out from the edge,
| | 05:40 | about maybe there, and the size that you want
to go for is somewhere in the 430 unit range.
| | 05:47 | If you look at the Size property in the
Coordinate Manager, you can see that it
| | 05:50 | shows the size of the
selected point is about 430 units.
| | 05:54 | Now I'm ready to start making some edits that
will make up the actual screen of the phone.
| | 05:59 | So let's switch back to the
Perspective view, and we are going to be making
| | 06:02 | these changes in Polygon mode,
using the Extrude Inner tool.
| | 06:06 | So let's switch to Polygon mode, and
then I am also going to switch my Select
| | 06:10 | tool to the Live Selection tool.
| | 06:12 | I like to use the Live Selection tool
when I am working with Polygons because
| | 06:15 | it allows me to select
the polygons right directly.
| | 06:18 | So I am going to select all the polygons
that are on the front of the phone, all
| | 06:23 | the way down to the actual screen.
| | 06:26 | And if I accidentally select one polygon
too many--I don't need that one there,
| | 06:30 | I can hold down the Ctrl key and deselect it.
| | 06:33 | If I look at all four views, you can
see I have all the polygons now that line
| | 06:37 | up exactly with the screen.
| | 06:38 | If you in the Front view, I have stopped
my selection right at the base of the scene.
| | 06:43 | Now, what we need to do is
we need to create an inset.
| | 06:46 | You can see that the screen extends almost
all the way to the outer edge of the phone.
| | 06:50 | So we need to create an inset from our
outer edge to account for that distance
| | 06:54 | from the screen to the edge of the phone.
| | 06:56 | So let's go back to the
Perspective view and zoom in on the corner.
| | 06:59 | Now, this is going to be a lot easier
to see without the x-ray turned on,
| | 07:03 | so let's turn X-Ray mode off.
| | 07:04 | I am going to select the HyperNURB and
go to the Basic properties--and let's
| | 07:10 | enlarge that window, so we can see X-Ray
mode--and I am going to uncheck X-Ray mode.
| | 07:14 | And let's select the cube again, so we
can see our selected polygons. And I am
| | 07:19 | going to zoom in just on the edge here
| | 07:21 | and right-click to get the Extrude Inner tool.
| | 07:25 | Now we are going to extrude inward by
dragging to the left, about that far.
| | 07:33 | I don't want to ever see
these guys overlap like that.
| | 07:36 | That's a bad situation. So I want to
only drag in about half the distance, maybe
| | 07:41 | a third of the distance from the
edge to the inner cut. There we go.
| | 07:46 | Now that's going to be--this group of
polygons right here is going to be the
| | 07:49 | outer edge of our phone bevel. That's
going to--in this inner set of polygons,
| | 07:53 | is going to become the screen.
| | 07:55 | Now what we want to do is create a
little scene that will represent the edge
| | 07:59 | of the screen itself.
| | 08:00 | Now this is a multistep process.
| | 08:02 | We are going to be switching back
and forth between the Extrude tool and
| | 08:04 | the Extrude Inner tool.
| | 08:06 | So what I want to do next is grab the
Extrude tool and do two extrusions inward
| | 08:11 | into the phone. So, I am going to
extrude to the left once. And you can see,
| | 08:18 | let's zoom in on that area and turn the
HyperNURB off, so you can see what happened there.
| | 08:23 | You can see I did an extrusion, and
I have a little inset right there.
| | 08:26 | Let's extrude one more time down
into it, so you can see I have two
| | 08:30 | extrusions right there.
| | 08:32 | Now we are going to extrude inward.
Basically, what we are creating is a
| | 08:34 | little trough, and that trough will
become the seam between the screen and
| | 08:38 | the outer edge of the phone.
| | 08:40 | Let's right-click and get to the
Extrude Inner tool, and then we are going to
| | 08:44 | extrude inward just a bit. And let's zoom in there,
so you can see exactly what I did there.
| | 08:52 | Now, you can see I have got an actual
little gap of polygons there between my
| | 08:57 | selected polygons and the
wall that I created earlier.
| | 08:59 | Now, we are going to come back out
towards the front of the phone, and let's use
| | 09:03 | the Extrude tool to do that. And once
again, we are going to do two extrusions:
| | 09:06 | one long one to get us back about to
this edge here, and one short one to get us
| | 09:12 | back to the face of the phone.
| | 09:19 | Let's turn the HyperNURB back on.
| | 09:21 | You can see now we have a
screen set in our phone.
| | 09:25 | Let's render in active view here,
so we can actually see what happened.
| | 09:29 | You can see now we have a
really nice edge around our phone.
| | 09:32 | Let's back out, so you can see the
whole thing, and I will render right there.
| | 09:37 | That's pretty much of it
for the body of the phone.
| | 09:38 | We've still got some finishing
touches to do, but the bulk of the modeling
| | 09:42 | is done.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Organic modeling: Adding the finishing touches| 00:00 | Next up are some of the little details that
will make the phone look much more realistic.
| | 00:04 | The key to realism is your model's surface detail.
| | 00:07 | The more you can add,
the more real it will look.
| | 00:09 | Of course you need to budget for time
spent modeling these details versus how
| | 00:12 | close the object will be to the camera,
versus how long will it take you to
| | 00:15 | create the details, and how
long will take to render.
| | 00:18 | For the purpose of this exercise, we're
just going to focus on the front button
| | 00:21 | scroll wheel and the sides of the phone.
| | 00:23 | Here is where we left off in the
previous movie. And the phone looks really good.
| | 00:27 | Let me do a little quick rendering of it.
| | 00:29 | Command+R on the keyboard or Ctrl+R to
do that. That was the same thing as clicking
| | 00:33 | the white clapboard up here.
| | 00:35 | There are some issues
with the sides of the phone.
| | 00:37 | You can see, first of all, I have got
little dip right here that actually
| | 00:40 | shouldn't be on the phone, and also if I
rotate around to the sides this way and
| | 00:44 | do another Command+R, or Ctrl+R, my phone
is boxy on the back side and really it
| | 00:48 | should actually be nice
and rounded on the back here.
| | 00:51 | So what I need to do is make a couple
of cuts along the sides of the phone, in
| | 00:56 | order to create some detail,
so I can manage that shape.
| | 00:59 | So let's select the cube here. I am
about to make another drastic change in it,
| | 01:03 | so let's hold down the Ctrl key and
make a copy of that cube and call it 002,
| | 01:09 | go back to the cube that's
remaining, and switch over to Point mode.
| | 01:13 | Now I like to use the Knife tool in
Point mode. It makes things a little bit
| | 01:16 | easier for me to control the points.
| | 01:19 | So I am going to right-click and grab the
Knife tool, and make sure your Knife tool is
| | 01:23 | set to be in Loop mode.
| | 01:25 | Now, it's in Loop mode now because I had
had this file opened from recording the
| | 01:29 | previous movie. But when you first
open a file, it may not be in Loop mode,
| | 01:33 | so it's very important to check that
make sure that's you're in Loop mode when
| | 01:36 | you use the Knife tool.
| | 01:37 | So now that I have got that Knife tool
selected, I am in Loop mode, I
| | 01:40 | can go and make a couple of cuts along the
length of the model towards the back of the phone.
| | 01:46 | So, I am going to make the first cut
right really close to the edge, and what's
| | 01:50 | that going to do is flatten
out the face of my phone. Boom.
| | 01:53 | Now when I have made that cut, if we
do a little quick rendering--Command+R or
| | 01:56 | Ctrl+R--you can see I had got rid of
that dip that I had in the phone before.
| | 02:00 | That little dip on either
side of the phone is gone.
| | 02:04 | So, I hit the letter A on the
keyboard to redraw the screen.
| | 02:06 | Now we are going to make another cut
about midway back here, and that's going to
| | 02:09 | become sort of the middle point of the
phone that will allow us to make some curves
| | 02:14 | in the side of the phone.
| | 02:15 | These next steps we are going to
require is to be able to see the reference
| | 02:19 | image behind, so I'm going to go to
the HyperNURB and turn on X-Ray mode.
| | 02:23 | Let's switch to the right-hand view, in
order to actually see that actually see
| | 02:27 | the shape of the model.
| | 02:29 | Now, let's select the cube, and what I
want to be able to do is to take all the
| | 02:33 | points that are on this front group and
move them back so they are flush with
| | 02:36 | the front face of the phone in this view.
| | 02:38 | So let's switch our Selection tool to
be the Rectangle Selection tool, and then
| | 02:42 | make double sure that Only
Select Visible Elements is turned off.
| | 02:46 | That way when we grab a rectangle of
all of these points, I know for sure that
| | 02:50 | it's dragging and collecting all
the points on both sides of my model.
| | 02:54 | Now, I am free to move in here and
drag these guys on their Z axis.
| | 03:01 | I want to be very careful.
| | 03:02 | I don't want these guys to overlap this way,
| | 03:04 | so I am going to stop about there and
then hold down the Ctrl key and deselect
| | 03:09 | all of those points and then drag the
face points so they are flush with
| | 03:14 | the face of the phone.
| | 03:15 | You can see my phone got a
lot closer to the drawing.
| | 03:20 | Now what I can do is just
shape the tops of the phone.
| | 03:23 | So in order to do that, I want to take
this point here and drag them down just
| | 03:29 | a bit, and this point here and drag it
forward just a bit, and these points at
| | 03:34 | the top of the phone can come down just a hair,
and that guy right there can come in this way.
| | 03:42 | What that does for me is that
creates a nice, rounded shape on the phone.
| | 03:46 | Let's repeat that process down at the bottom.
| | 03:48 | I am going to start off by grabbing
these points here and dragging them up just
| | 03:55 | a hair and then same thing for that
bottom corner point--just drag it up in
| | 04:03 | the position like that. And you can see, when we
go back to Perspective view, let's do a
| | 04:07 | little quick rendering. Command or Ctrl+R.
Let's angle that a little bit better.
| | 04:14 | We have a nice, rounded
shape on the back of our phone.
| | 04:17 | That's pretty much it
for the geometry the phone.
| | 04:18 | Now we can add the little button on the front
that becomes the Home button for our smart phone.
| | 04:23 | So let's zoom around here.
| | 04:24 | We can see from our front reference
image that it's basically just a little dome on
| | 04:28 | the front of the phone.
A good way to start that
| | 04:31 | is going to be with a sphere object.
| | 04:32 | So let's add a sphere to the scene, and
the sphere is going to be in position on
| | 04:39 | the front of our smart phone.
| | 04:40 | The way that HyperNURB works is it's
going to smooth the first thing that it sees.
| | 04:44 | So if I were to put the sphere in the
HyperNURB, now it's trying to smooth the
| | 04:48 | sphere, and you notice that the rest of
our object has gotten hard edges again.
| | 04:52 | So, what I need to do is to place null
object underneath HyperNURB, and then put
| | 04:57 | both of my elements underneath it.
| | 04:58 | So let's take this sphere out of here.
| | 05:00 | Create a new null object and them call
this one "phone," and I am going to put the
| | 05:06 | phone object underneath the HyperNURB,
and then take the sphere and put it under
| | 05:10 | the HyperNURB, and that cube that was
originally the body, I am going to rename that
| | 05:14 | "body" and put that under the phone. Null as well.
| | 05:18 | We can see both of these guys are now
peers of one another as children of the phone
| | 05:21 | null, which is a child of the HyperNURB.
| | 05:23 | Now, the sphere I have under
here is being doubly smoothed.
| | 05:27 | It was already smooth to begin with
because it's a sphere, and it has a
| | 05:32 | parametric function that
makes it smooth all the time,
| | 05:34 | but I don't need that many polygons.
| | 05:36 | I am going to go to the sphere, and
under the Object Properties, change the
| | 05:39 | Segment count from 24 to just 6.
| | 05:41 | It looks like a diamond now, but
that shape will render perfectly when we
| | 05:47 | actually hit the Render button, and
we don't need that many polygons to
| | 05:50 | define that sphere.
| | 05:52 | So in order to see what this
looks like, let's turn off X-Ray.
| | 05:55 | I am going to go to the HyperNURB
object and go to the Basic properties and
| | 05:59 | turn off X-Ray. And you can see that
when I deselect everything, that sphere
| | 06:02 | object is still in there.
| | 06:04 | It doesn't look quite spherical. We
are going to fix that in just a second.
| | 06:07 | But this is a really good example
of how the HyperNURB treats polygons.
| | 06:11 | So if we select the sphere itself, you
can see that it's looking at the points
| | 06:15 | on this guy and actually smoothing
them out. What we are going to do is we are
| | 06:17 | going to rotate this sphere and get it
into position, so that it actually looks
| | 06:22 | at these pointed polygons on the top
and bottom of the sphere, and that's going
| | 06:26 | to give us the rounded edge we need.
| | 06:27 | So let's start off by going to the
sphere itself and going to the Coordinate
| | 06:31 | properties and changing the
pitch rotation to be 90 degrees.
| | 06:36 | Now, what we see is a nice, round button.
| | 06:40 | So, let's get this into position on our phone.
| | 06:42 | In order to see exactly where it needs
to go, we are going to turn X-Ray back on.
| | 06:46 | So I am going to go HyperNURB, go to the
Basic properties turn on X-Ray, and then
| | 06:50 | in the Front view, I am going to zoom in
a little bit, select my sphere and then
| | 06:55 | move it in the position, so that it's
centered up on that location. There we go.
| | 07:01 | Now I can just go to the sphere Object
properties and change the Radius until it
| | 07:05 | matches up with the drawing.
There we go. Perfect. Great!
| | 07:12 | Let's do a quick render
and see what we've got here.
| | 07:14 | Our button is sticking out a little bit
far, but also it's missing a little bit of
| | 07:17 | detail on the front.
| | 07:18 | There is a little bezel that should
be sort of the transition between the
| | 07:22 | button itself and the phone body, and so we
are going to create that using a torus object.
| | 07:26 | A torus is a fancy way of saying a
donut. And so there is a great parametric
| | 07:31 | object, or primitive object, for that.
If I click and hold on the Cube icon, I can
| | 07:35 | grab a torus object here,
and add it to the scene.
| | 07:39 | Now I want that torus object to be
in the same location as my sphere,
| | 07:43 | so I am going to make it a child of the
sphere, and then I am going to position
| | 07:48 | it using the Coordinate properties.
| | 07:49 | Now, these values are relative to the parent,
| | 07:51 | so if I 0 this position and rotation
out, it's going to rotate into the exact
| | 07:57 | same position and orientation as the sphere.
| | 08:00 | I was using the Tab key to
get between those fields.
| | 08:04 | Let's turn off the X-Ray mode one more time
though, so we can see what we are positioning.
| | 08:08 | Let's switch to the HyperNURB object and
go to the Basic properties and turn off
| | 08:12 | X-Ray and then zoom in here on our object.
| | 08:16 | So first thing is our torus is way
too big, so let's go to the Object
| | 08:20 | properties for the torus.
| | 08:21 | The torus has a couple of Radius fields.
| | 08:24 | The first radius is the Ring Radius.
That's basically the inner radius of the
| | 08:29 | phone. And we want to change that inward,
so that it tightens up around our sphere
| | 08:35 | and then we change the Pipe Radius.
| | 08:39 | We are going to have to do this a couple of times
in order to get that in towards the phone. There we go.
| | 08:44 | Here we go. And so I am going to use
to eyeball that into position, and so by
| | 08:51 | adjusting the Pipe Segments, about
right there. And what I end up with this, a
| | 08:56 | little sort of collar around my button.
| | 08:58 | Now, the button itself is sticking out a
little bit too far, so let's select this
| | 09:01 | sphere and then drag it inward.
| | 09:07 | My torus goes away for a second, and
that feels pretty good right there.
| | 09:11 | Now I can grab the torus itself and
bring it back out, so that it's just
| | 09:16 | sticking out of the surface of the phone.
| | 09:19 | That's too many polygons in the torus, as well.
| | 09:21 | We can change the
Segments from 36 to just 6 again.
| | 09:25 | Actually, that's too few.
| | 09:28 | Let's crank that up a bit.
| | 09:29 | 1, 2, 3. There we go.
| | 09:33 | That's going to give us a nice, round bezel.
| | 09:35 | So let's back out and take a look at our
phone and see how it looks from a distance.
| | 09:41 | Command or Ctrl+R. Our phone
geometry is looking pretty good.
| | 09:44 | Normally, I would add a lot more details,
like volume buttons and headphone jacks.
| | 09:48 | But hopefully you'll get the idea from
this that creating a simple shape like
| | 09:51 | this phone is a really achievable task.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
5. Using Deformers to Modify ObjectsWorking with deformers| 00:00 | In the movie on the object categories,
we talked about passive and active
| | 00:04 | objects, and within the active
category, there's an important class of object
| | 00:08 | called operators. And deformers are operators.
| | 00:11 | Just to refresh your memory, an
operator works on its parent or its peer.
| | 00:14 | Let's see what that
means with the bend deformer.
| | 00:16 | So here in an empty scene I'm going
to add a bend deformer to the scene.
| | 00:20 | And if I click and hold on the Bend
Deformer icon, you can see there is a whole
| | 00:24 | bunch of other deformers under here
that all do a wide variety of purposes.
| | 00:29 | The key to remember about the deformers
is they work essentially the same way:
| | 00:33 | they work on their parent or their peer.
| | 00:35 | So let's see what that means
with the bend deformer.
| | 00:36 | Oops! I accidentally added an
explosion object to the scene.
| | 00:40 | I don't want to do that.
| | 00:40 | I am going to delete that from the scene.
| | 00:42 | Now with the bend deformer active, I can
go its Object properties and adjust the
| | 00:47 | Strength to get a bendy effect.
But this bendy effect doesn't actually render;
| | 00:52 | it actually needs to work on an object.
| | 00:53 | If I were to click the Render in
Active View button, nothing happens.
| | 00:56 | So what I want to do is have an object
in the scene that is actually being bent.
| | 01:00 | Let's hit A on the keyboard
to get back to the Shaded view.
| | 01:03 | So I am going to add, instead of a cube
this time, let's add a cylinder to the scene.
| | 01:07 | Now, the bend deformer works
on its parent or its peer.
| | 01:10 | So I can take the bend deformer and
parent it to the cylinder object, and now
| | 01:15 | when I use the bend deformer Strength
option on the bend deformer, it will
| | 01:18 | affect the cylinder.
| | 01:20 | The problem with this effect is that
you could see the cylinder is not actually
| | 01:24 | bending, and there is a very
important reason for this, and that's, a single
| | 01:27 | polygon cannot be bent.
| | 01:29 | And if you look at the cylinder, if I
select it, you can see that along its
| | 01:32 | length it is made up of just a
bunch of single long polygons.
| | 01:35 | So they can't bend along this axis.
| | 01:38 | So what I need to do is go to the
cylinder object and take the Height Segments and
| | 01:42 | change them from one to say 10.
| | 01:44 | As soon as I do that, my bend
deformer now has a dramatic impact on
| | 01:49 | that cylinder object.
| | 01:51 | Now, a really important rule for the
deformer objects that rely on a specific
| | 01:55 | field to work--and the
bend deformer is one of those.
| | 01:58 | You'll notice that there is a
purple box that surrounds our object.
| | 02:00 | Let's go back to the bend deformer
and adjust the Strength back to zero.
| | 02:05 | So at zero, you can see there is a
purple cage that surrounds my cylinder object.
| | 02:09 | This cage is the field of
influence of the bend deformer.
| | 02:12 | And the deformer will work better if
this field is as close as possible to the
| | 02:17 | size of the object that it's going to deform.
| | 02:19 | So let's take the bend deformer, and
under the Size option, I'm going to change
| | 02:24 | the size of the bend deformer to
match the cylinder a little more closely.
| | 02:28 | Let's switch to the four-way
view, so we can see what's happening.
| | 02:30 | Now anytime you see three fields like
this, it is always X, Y, and Z. So on the
| | 02:36 | X field, I am going to adjust the size,
and I am looking in the Top view right
| | 02:40 | here to see how it lines up in the top
view. And then on the Y size, I am going
| | 02:46 | to look in the Front view. And then in
the Z size, I am going to look in the
| | 02:50 | Right-hand view. There we go. I'm going to get
the Y size just a little bit tighter.
| | 02:55 | And so the goal is to get the object,
the bend deformer, as close to the size of
| | 02:59 | the cylinder without going
over or into the cylinder itself.
| | 03:03 | So I am going to adjust the X size
just a little bit more. There we go.
| | 03:08 | Now, what happens is I get a much
more predictable behavior on my deformer.
| | 03:12 | And you can use the deformer at its
original size, but this just works a lot
| | 03:17 | better. Because it's exactly the same
size as the bend deformer, it makes it for
| | 03:21 | much more predictable result.
| | 03:22 | Now there is a very important
button here called Keep Y-Axis Length.
| | 03:26 | You'll notice that as I adjust the
Strength that the cylinder appears to get a
| | 03:30 | little bit longer as it bends over.
| | 03:32 | If I click on Keep Y-Axis Length, it
will keep the same size as it is bending
| | 03:39 | and not actually stretch as it is bending.
| | 03:41 | So that's really important button.
| | 03:44 | Next up is the Angle option, and the
Angle option allows me to control the
| | 03:48 | direction that it's bending.
| | 03:49 | So the Strength controls whether or
not it bends, the Angle controls the
| | 03:52 | direction that it's bent. And you can
actually animate both of these properties
| | 03:56 | to have a really a fun, animated effect
for your object and create little noodles
| | 04:00 | dancing around the scene.
| | 04:02 | So the bend deformer is an operator
object, and it works on its parent or its peer.
| | 04:06 | So let's see how it works in Peer mode.
| | 04:08 | One of the advantages to working on it
in Peer mode is it gives you a little bit
| | 04:11 | more freedom for how you
can move your object around.
| | 04:13 | So what I am going to do is I am going
to leave this cylinder active, and I am
| | 04:17 | going to Ctrl+Drag a copy of that
object down in the Object Manager. And let's
| | 04:22 | take this and move it over on the positive X
axis and back out just a bit, so we can see.
| | 04:28 | Now the one that's remaining at the center of
the world--let's unparent the bend deformer.
| | 04:33 | That's going to make the cylinder go
straight again, and then let's add a new
| | 04:37 | null object to the scene.
| | 04:39 | And this null object will now become the
parent of the cylinder and then the bend deformer.
| | 04:43 | Let's make them children of that null.
| | 04:45 | You can see now it behaves exactly
the same way as it did before, but the
| | 04:49 | advantage here is that I can now
reposition these two objects relative to
| | 04:53 | one another which is--it was a little bit
more difficult in the original arrangement.
| | 04:57 | So, for example, if I want to take
this bend deformer, I can move the bend
| | 05:02 | deformer and have it change
how it works with the cylinder.
| | 05:06 | I can also move the Y position on it
and have it pass through the bend deformer,
| | 05:10 | and have it do all kinds
of weird effects like that.
| | 05:12 | And those movements weren't really possible
with the bend deformer as a child of the cylinder.
| | 05:17 | This just gives me a lot more freedom.
| | 05:19 | I can also animate the cylinder independently.
| | 05:21 | So if I click on the cylinder object
and drag on the Y axis, you'll see that it
| | 05:25 | actually passes through the bend
deformer on its way out the other side.
| | 05:29 | So that's a really cool animated effect:
you can have something wrap around a
| | 05:33 | corner as it moves on its
path using the bend deformer.
| | 05:37 | The cool thing about deformers is that
once you know the rules, they all work
| | 05:40 | pretty much the same way.
| | 05:42 | They have different attributes, of course
and they provide different results, but
| | 05:45 | how they are used is essentially the same.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Deforming objects: The Wind Deformer| 00:00 | The wind deformer is a great way
to make objects wave as if they were
| | 00:03 | blowing in the wind.
| | 00:05 | What it does is animate a
sine wave along its X axis.
| | 00:08 | If you remember your math in high
school, a sine wave is a smooth curve with
| | 00:11 | regular peaks and valleys.
| | 00:13 | So the wind deformer, if I click and
hold on the operator objects here, looks
| | 00:17 | like a flag. And if you add it to the
scene, you don't really see anything;
| | 00:22 | it's just an access point.
| | 00:23 | But it's an operator object, and I know
that it works with its parent or its peer.
| | 00:27 | So in this case, let's add a plane to
the scene, and I am going to set this up
| | 00:32 | in Peer mode, because it's going to
give me a little more flexibility.
| | 00:35 | So let's add a null object and call
this "flag," and the flag null object will
| | 00:41 | become the parent of the
plane and wind deformer.
| | 00:43 | So let's select both Plane and the wind
deformer and make them children of the
| | 00:47 | flag. And as soon as we do that, the wind
deformer will now have an effect on the plane itself.
| | 00:52 | I am going to hit Play here, and as you
can see, what it's doing, it's animating
| | 00:55 | a sine wave function through that plane.
| | 00:57 | Now, one thing you may notice is that
as I orbit around this plane, the sine
| | 01:02 | wave function is traveling
through the Z axis of the object.
| | 01:07 | What you need to do is to take the wind
deformer and rotate it so that the sine
| | 01:11 | wave function is actually traveling
along this way, and we get the peaks and
| | 01:15 | valleys along the X axis this way.
| | 01:17 | So let's rotate the wind deformer.
| | 01:18 | I am going to go to the Coordinate
properties and adjust the pitch rotation,
| | 01:22 | and when I do that you will see, as I bring it
to 90 degrees--I will just type in 90 right there.
| | 01:29 | As I bring that to 90 degrees, now my wind
deformer is having a much more interesting
| | 01:34 | impact on that plane.
| | 01:36 | If I hit play one more time, you can see
that it animates that object really nicely.
| | 01:43 | Now it's not exactly doing a flag yet,
and that's because the wind deformer is
| | 01:47 | animating the sine wave function from
one end of the object to the other, evenly,
| | 01:51 | all the way through it.
| | 01:52 | What I would rather have it do is
animate from just one side of the object, so
| | 01:55 | it behaves more like a flag.
| | 01:57 | So in order to do that what I am going
to do is to take the plane object and
| | 02:01 | move it on its X axis so that it
is exactly flush with the Z right there.
| | 02:09 | Now when I look at that, you can see
it's going to keep this edge locked down.
| | 02:15 | Let's hit play one more time.
| | 02:16 | There we go. So, you can see that it
actually animates now just like a flag would.
| | 02:26 | Now it's moving kind of slow, as if the
flag were under water, or something like that.
| | 02:30 | So let's pick up the speed, and so there
are some functions on the wind deformer
| | 02:34 | that will allow us to change that.
| | 02:36 | So if we go to the Object properties
for the wind deformer--let's get the flag
| | 02:40 | into a more appropriate position
here, so we can see what happens--
| | 02:43 | the Amplitude, Size, and
Frequency are the most important ones.
| | 02:47 | The amplitude controls how big that
sine wave is, so the larger that is, the
| | 02:53 | bigger our flag's movement will be.
| | 02:54 | We are going to bring that down
just a bit, say to about 15 or so.
| | 02:58 | The size of it controls how long the
sine wave function is along this X axis.
| | 03:04 | So you can see as I straighten it out,
I can have a flag that is really, really
| | 03:09 | tight waves--of course, that's way too
tight obviously--or I can have a flag
| | 03:13 | that's barely moving at all, in the wind.
| | 03:15 | Now the frequency controls how fast the
sine wave is animating through the object.
| | 03:20 | So let's hit play, and I'll
just turn up the Frequency.
| | 03:24 | So you can see there, Frequency has a really
nice impact on how fast the flag is moving.
| | 03:35 | The Turbulence function will allow you
to make the flag wave a little bit more
| | 03:39 | randomly, so if I hit play here, you
can see that instead of being a regular
| | 03:47 | flowing wind across the surface,
it is actually traveling in a less
| | 03:50 | predictable fashion.
| | 03:53 | That's not really what I want to do here,
| | 03:55 | so I am going to bring that back down to 50.
| | 03:57 | Now that's really a great way to build
a flag, so let's just finish this model
| | 04:01 | off by adding a flagpole with a
cylinder object, and I'll make it really thin,
| | 04:08 | and I will make it really tall. And then
I am going to take the flag object, and
| | 04:14 | I want it to be in position on the flagpole.
| | 04:17 | I'm going to rotate that flag, holding
on the Shift key to constraint it to even
| | 04:22 | increments, and then move it up
towards the top of the flagpole.
| | 04:25 | There we go. And then I would like to
have a null object to control the entire
| | 04:32 | flag, so I'll add a new null object to the
scene, and call it "flag group," and then
| | 04:39 | parent both the cylinder and flag null
object to the flag group, and now when I
| | 04:43 | rotate my flag, it will rotate
the entire group all together.
| | 04:48 | Now you might want to have your flag
rotating from the very base, so I can go
| | 04:51 | into Axis mode over here and grab my
flag group null, switch to the Selection
| | 04:56 | tool, and drag it down on its Y axis,
until it's at the base of the object,
| | 05:02 | then switch back out of Axis mode and
use the Rotate tool, and I can rotate it
| | 05:06 | right from the base.
| | 05:07 | And the cool thing about this is when you
hit play, it will really look like a flag.
| | 05:14 | That's a really quick way to
create a great-looking flag animation.
| | 05:17 | Now you can have some fun and experiment
with putting different objects into the hierarchy.
| | 05:20 | You can wave anything with the wind.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Deforming objects: The Wrap Deformer| 00:00 | The Wrap deformer is used to deform
objects to look as if they are stretched onto
| | 00:03 | the surface of a sphere or cylinder.
| | 00:05 | I have created quite a few type effects
with this object over the years, and it's
| | 00:08 | a lot of fun to use.
| | 00:09 | Let's add a Wrap deformer to the scene.
| | 00:10 | I am going to click and hold on the Bend
deformer icon here, to reveal all of the
| | 00:14 | other deformer objects underneath it.
And the Wrap deformer looks like a sphere
| | 00:18 | with the W on it. And if I let go that
object, you will see that I have got half
| | 00:22 | of the cylinder here with
a rectangle in front of it.
| | 00:25 | So let's see what that
looks like one a piece of type.
| | 00:27 | I am going to go to the Spline
objects and add a text spline to the scene.
| | 00:31 | And I am going to change it to the word "WRAP."
| | 00:33 | Now that text spline, because it
is spline object, it won't render.
| | 00:36 | So we need to add it to an Extrude NURB.
| | 00:38 | So I am going to go to the NURB objects
and add an Extrude NURB to the scene and
| | 00:41 | make that Text Object a child of the
Extrude NURB. And now my text object is
| | 00:45 | visible in the scene.
| | 00:46 | If I hit the Render in Active View
button, you can see that the type
| | 00:49 | does in fact render.
| | 00:50 | So let's hit A on the keyboard to get back
to the shaded view and back out just a bit.
| | 00:55 | Now the Wrap deformer, because it's
a deformer object, it's an operator.
| | 00:58 | That means it works on its parent
or its peer. But it's best to use this
| | 01:01 | object in Peer mode.
| | 01:03 | So what I am going to do is add a
null object to the scene and call this
| | 01:07 | "wrap group," and the wrap group null
will become the parent for the Wrap
| | 01:12 | object and the Extrude NURB.
| | 01:12 | As soon as we do that, you can see the
type is now wrapped around the cylinder,
| | 01:17 | and there is some really strange
effects going on with the type itself.
| | 01:21 | If you disable the Wrap object for a
second, and look at the type, at certain
| | 01:26 | points on our type, there seem to be more
polygons than they are at other points in our object.
| | 01:30 | And if we turn the Wrap deformer back on,
you will notice that the stretching of
| | 01:34 | the type is happening at different
intensities, based on how many polygons are on
| | 01:38 | here, and that's because the
single polygon can't be bent.
| | 01:41 | What happens with the Extrude NURB,
if we disable the Wrap object for a
| | 01:44 | second and twirl open the Extrude
NURB but then disable it so we can select
| | 01:48 | the Text object, when CINEMA 4D draws this
text, it looks at this text as a spline object.
| | 01:53 | And it can create a whole bunch of
virtual points on the spline, but it really
| | 01:57 | only creates as many as it
absolutely has to, to draw the letter shapes.
| | 02:00 | Now what's happening is we only have one
real point between here and here on the
| | 02:05 | R, for example, which means that this
long, flat stretch becomes a single polygon
| | 02:09 | when we activate the Extrude NURB.
| | 02:10 | You can click on that, and you see
there in fact is one long polygon.
| | 02:14 | That long polygon, when we activate the Wrap
object, you can see that it is not getting bent.
| | 02:19 | So what we need to do is go to the
text spline object and actually change how
| | 02:24 | the text spline is being drawn.
| | 02:25 | So we are going to go into the Object
properties and change the Intermediate
| | 02:29 | Points from Adaptive to Uniform.
And when we do that, suddenly now we have a
| | 02:34 | much more even distribution
of points along that spline.
| | 02:37 | If we click on the Extrude NURB, we
can see now instead of being one long
| | 02:40 | polygon, it's a whole bunch of smaller polygons.
| | 02:43 | Now that we have got that fixed,
we can focus on the behavior of the
| | 02:46 | Wrap deformer itself.
| | 02:48 | So the Wrap deformer will work best
when the Wrap object is closer to the same
| | 02:53 | size as the thing it's wrapping.
| | 02:55 | So let's go back and disable the Wrap
object for a second, and then select the
| | 02:59 | Wrap object and go to the Width and
Height, and we are going to adjust that Width
| | 03:03 | and Height until it's
encompassing the entire word WRAP.
| | 03:06 | So we need to bring that down,
and let's switch to the four-way view, and drag
| | 03:11 | that up so that it is positioned
around the Wrap object. There we go.
| | 03:15 | And then a little bit more
on the X axis. There we go.
| | 03:18 | So now that rectangle is encompassing
the entire WRAP type object, and when I
| | 03:24 | activate the Wrap object again, you can
see that it wraps much more accurately.
| | 03:29 | And you can see, where before the P was
extending all the way around the back side
| | 03:33 | here, now the P, because it's
contained with in this purple rectangle, goes
| | 03:38 | right to the edge of this purple rectangle.
| | 03:39 | So you can see that this rectangle here
corresponds exactly to the surface that
| | 03:43 | it's being wrapped to.
| | 03:45 | Now, we can start to play with
the properties of the Wrap object.
| | 03:47 | So the Radius will control how big the
cylinder that it is getting wrapped on.
| | 03:52 | Then the Wrap mode is Cylindrical by default,
but we can also change that to be Spherical.
| | 03:58 | If we change that to Spherical, now
suddenly it's being wrapped onto a giant sphere.
| | 04:03 | We can control the radius of the
entire sphere and have it be a very small sphere
| | 04:07 | or a very large sphere.
| | 04:08 | We can also control how far
around the sphere is being wrapped.
| | 04:12 | So we have a Longitude which controls
the long ways, and we have Latitude which
| | 04:17 | controls the vertical.
| | 04:18 | So we can wrap it into an entire sphere
by bringing that to 90 and positive 90.
| | 04:24 | Now we have an entire sphere of
this type that we can then move around.
| | 04:28 | The Tension will control
how it's being stretched.
| | 04:31 | It's a little bit strange the Tension,
because for some strange reason, when you
| | 04:35 | do the Tension, it adjusts it back out
this way instead of back to the front.
| | 04:40 | So you need to keep that in the mind if
you are going to planning on animating
| | 04:42 | that Tension option.
| | 04:44 | You probably are asking yourself, well
wouldn't it be great if we could take
| | 04:47 | this Wrap object and align the type so
it looked like it was sitting on the
| | 04:49 | surface of a sphere?
| | 04:50 | And that's really the best thing to do
with the Wrap object is to do just that.
| | 04:54 | So let's go ahead and make that happen.
| | 04:56 | I am going to add a sphere to the
scene, and the sphere object comes in at the
| | 04:59 | center of the world, and it has a Radius.
| | 05:01 | This Radius here will correspond
nicely to the Radius that we are going to
| | 05:05 | use in our Wrap object.
| | 05:07 | So the default Radius for
the sphere is 100 units.
| | 05:10 | Let's make it a little bit bigger, like
500 units, and then take our Wrap deformer
| | 05:15 | and change its radius to 500 units as well.
| | 05:17 | And now we end up with the sphere of
type that's roughly the same size as
| | 05:21 | our original sphere.
| | 05:23 | So what I need to do is take the
entire Wrap group and move it so that it is
| | 05:26 | positioned around the original sphere object.
| | 05:29 | So if we take this and move it on its Z
axis--and I will switch the Coordinate
| | 05:33 | properties so you can see
how far I am moving this.
| | 05:36 | If we move it -500 units on the Z--and I
will just do that in numerically: -500--
| | 05:42 | now our type starts to line up with that.
| | 05:44 | You have to adjust it vertically just a
bit. And you can see that our type lines
| | 05:50 | up on the surface of the sphere. And if
we take the sphere object now and make
| | 05:55 | its Radius just a hair smaller--1, 2, 3,
4--you can see our type starts to come
| | 06:00 | right out of the surface of that sphere.
| | 06:02 | So now we can take the Wrap deformer
and adjust the properties of it, so that we
| | 06:06 | can actually read our type.
| | 06:07 | So I am going to leave it in
Spherical mode, but I am going to adjust the
| | 06:10 | Latitude back down a bit, the Latitude
End back up a bit, and then I will do the
| | 06:16 | Longitude back a little bit more.
| | 06:20 | And so now we have got type that is
wrapped right onto our sphere, and you can
| | 06:24 | see that it lines up really nice
with the surface of the sphere.
| | 06:27 | And if we wanted to extend into the
sphere, all we do is go back to the Extrude
| | 06:30 | NURB and adjust the Movement on the Z axis.
| | 06:33 | Let's make this say 50.
| | 06:34 | That will have the type go right into
the sphere itself. And when we render that,
| | 06:38 | you can see it looks as if the type
is right on the surface of the sphere.
| | 06:41 | As you can see, the most important step
is to correctly arrange the hierarchy.
| | 06:44 | Once you have done that, the rest is easy.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Deforming objects: The Spline Wrap | 00:00 | The Spline Wrap deformer is head and
shoulders my favorite deformer object.
| | 00:04 | The effects you can create with it were
literally impossible before it came along.
| | 00:08 | It allows you to deform
an object along a spline.
| | 00:10 | Now, let's see what that means.
| | 00:12 | Underneath the Deformer
objects is the Spline Wrap object.
| | 00:15 | Now, originally the Spline Wrap object, when
it was first introduced, was part of MoGraph.
| | 00:18 | But now for Version 12, they've actually
added it to the regular deformer object.
| | 00:22 | So even if you don't have the MoGraph
module specifically, you'll still have
| | 00:25 | access to the Spline Wrap object,
which is a really cool thing.
| | 00:28 | Let's add the Spline Wrap object to the scene.
| | 00:30 | Now, what it does is it takes an
object and deforms it along a spline.
| | 00:33 | So we're going to need two more elements here.
| | 00:35 | We are going to need an object to
deform, and we're going to need a spline.
| | 00:38 | So let's create the object
that we're going to deform.
| | 00:40 | I am going to create some type that
we're going to end up deforming along
| | 00:43 | this spline object.
| | 00:44 | So let's select the Spline Objects and
go to the Text spline, and let's just
| | 00:49 | type out some numbers:
| | 00:50 | 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.
| | 00:53 | And then I will just click off of that.
| | 00:55 | And so now, we've got
these eight characters here.
| | 00:57 | We need to extrude these characters.
| | 00:59 | So let's add an Extrude object to the
scene, and add the text to the Extrude NURB.
| | 01:03 | So the Extrude NURB object now is
extruding the text, and you can see that when
| | 01:06 | we render--Command+R or Ctrl+R--we
can actually see all these numbers.
| | 01:09 | What we want to be able to do is wrap
these numbers along a spline, and have
| | 01:13 | them flow smoothly along that spline.
| | 01:15 | The next step in the process is to
create the spline that we're going to
| | 01:18 | actually animate these guys along.
| | 01:20 | So let's hit A on the
keyboard to redraw the frame.
| | 01:23 | Now, I'm going to draw a spline here,
using the B-Spline tool, and I always like
| | 01:26 | to draw my splines in one
of the orthographic views.
| | 01:28 | In this case, we're going
to draw it in the Top view.
| | 01:31 | So I am going to go to the Top view and
back out just a bit, and I'm going to go
| | 01:36 | to the Spline Objects and grab B-Spline tool.
| | 01:39 | The b-spline is a really cool object
in that it allows you to create very
| | 01:43 | smooth, flowing, organic shapes.
| | 01:44 | The way it works is the first
time I click, I get a single point.
| | 01:47 | The second time I click, I get a straight line.
| | 01:50 | The third time I click, I get an arc
based on the position of these three
| | 01:55 | points, and it sort of averages them
and creates a smooth arc based on them.
| | 01:59 | Now the next time I click, it'll look at the
previous three points and create a new arc.
| | 02:03 | So I can create a very smooth
flowing shape quickly with very few points.
| | 02:07 | So let's switch back to the Perspective
view now and take a look at our spline.
| | 02:10 | What we want to do is to have
this type stretch along the spline.
| | 02:14 | So we're going to use the
Spline Wrap object to do that.
| | 02:17 | Now, the Spline Wrap object, because it's a
deformer, it works in Parent or Peer mode.
| | 02:22 | I always, always use the
Spline Wrap in Peer mode.
| | 02:25 | So let's add a new null object to the scene.
| | 02:27 | Let's change the name of
this null to be "snake."
| | 02:31 | Now, I call it snake because whatever
I wrap with the Spline Wrap object is
| | 02:34 | going to behave very much like a snake.
| | 02:36 | So I always like to call the thing that
I have spline wrapping a snake object,
| | 02:41 | even though it's not really a snake.
| | 02:42 | So I am going to take the Extrude NURB
now and make it a child of the snake.
| | 02:46 | I always put whatever I am going to
spline-wrap underneath the null, because
| | 02:48 | that allows me the ability to go and
switch that object out at any time.
| | 02:51 | The next thing we need to do is we
need to add one more null object that is
| | 02:55 | going to encompass both the
snake and the Spline Wrap.
| | 02:58 | So if we add a new null object to the
scene, and we'll call this one "Wrap
| | 03:01 | group," and we'll take the snake object
and the Spline Wrap object and put them
| | 03:07 | underneath the Wrap group,
now initially, nothing happens.
| | 03:10 | The Spline Wrap Object is here.
| | 03:11 | They're both peers to one another.
| | 03:12 | It should be affecting the object.
| | 03:14 | Well, that's because there is
one important step we've left out.
| | 03:16 | Under the Spline Wrap Object properties
is this field right here, and the Spline
| | 03:20 | field is waiting to be
filled up with the spline.
| | 03:23 | So we take this spline object and drag it
into that field, just by clicking and dragging.
| | 03:28 | When I let go, suddenly my numbers are
stretched along the length of the spline,
| | 03:33 | and that's because of this mode down here.
| | 03:35 | The mode in the Spline Wrap object
defaults to Fit Spline, and if I click and
| | 03:39 | hold on that, I can switch it to Keep Length.
| | 03:41 | That will allow the text to be the
same length that it was originally.
| | 03:44 | So now we're free to animate it
along the length of the spline.
| | 03:47 | Now our text is upside down, so what we
need to do is to rotate it around a bit.
| | 03:52 | And if I twirl open the Rotation field,
there is a bunch of controls under
| | 03:55 | here that we're going to be able to use,
and I'll talk about more of these in just a minute.
| | 03:59 | But first thing I want to change is the Banking.
| | 04:00 | So if I change the Banking from 0
degrees to 180, that's going to flip our type
| | 04:05 | over, and now our type is animating
backwards along the spline, and that's
| | 04:09 | because of the spline direction.
| | 04:11 | Now, I'm in Point mode over here on
the left-hand side of the interface.
| | 04:14 | If I click on my spline, I can now see
the colors associated with that spline.
| | 04:18 | These colors indicate the direction.
| | 04:20 | The Spline Wrap Object always starts at
the beginning of the spline and finishes
| | 04:24 | at the end of the spline.
| | 04:25 | And because I drew my spline from here
all the way over to here, this point is
| | 04:29 | the beginning of the spline object.
| | 04:30 | So what I want to do is reverse that, so
that my type will be going the other direction.
| | 04:34 | So I am going to right-click in the
interface and tell it to reverse sequence.
| | 04:39 | Now the beginning of my spline is over
here on the left-hand side, and the end
| | 04:43 | of my spline is over
here on the right-hand side.
| | 04:44 | So now if I go back to my Spline
Wrap object, I can adjust the Offset and
| | 04:48 | have it move around.
| | 04:50 | Now, I am going to have to
adjust the Banking one more time.
| | 04:52 | Let's bring the Banking
back to 0 to flip my type over.
| | 04:56 | Now, my Offset is looking pretty good, and I
can have these numbers flow along the spline.
| | 05:02 | You can see I am
scrubbing the Offset value here.
| | 05:04 | This is the value that you want to
keyframe when it came time to animate this object.
| | 05:08 | I am going to resize the window here
a little bit, just move the Attribute
| | 05:11 | Manager up, so we can see the attributes
of the spline object a little bit more.
| | 05:15 | And let's close up the Rotation field.
| | 05:17 | Now, let's take a look at a couple of
other properties up here in the top of the
| | 05:20 | Spline Wrap Object properties.
| | 05:21 | The From and the To option will
animate the object along the spline in a
| | 05:26 | different way than the Offset does.
| | 05:28 | The To field will allow you to
stretch the object, and you can actually go
| | 05:32 | beyond 100% and have it stretch
along the entire length of the spline.
| | 05:35 | Generally speaking, you'd only want to
leave that on 100%, and then the From
| | 05:39 | function does just the opposite;
| | 05:41 | you can squish it on that side of the spline.
| | 05:43 | There is also something called the
Extend mode, and the Extend mode will
| | 05:48 | either clamp or extend the spline as the
object passes beyond it, using the Offset function.
| | 05:52 | If we adjust the offset, we can
actually go beyond 0% and beyond 100%.
| | 05:58 | And when it's set to Extend, the object
will pass beyond the end of the spline.
| | 06:02 | When it's set to Clamp, it will hit
the end of the spline and get choked off.
| | 06:06 | So you can see that it actually physically
disappears when it hits the end of the spline.
| | 06:10 | So I am going to set that back to be 100%
here and then change the End mode back to Extend.
| | 06:17 | Actually, let's bring the Offset back to 0%.
| | 06:19 | So now the next function I want
to talk about is in the Size area.
| | 06:23 | So if we twirl open the word
Size, we've got two graphs here.
| | 06:27 | Anytime we see these graphs, the left-
hand side of the graph relates to the
| | 06:31 | beginning of the spline, the right-
hand side of the graph is the end of the
| | 06:33 | spline, and these points can be used to
control how the object behaves along the spline.
| | 06:39 | Now there is two Size graphs here:
| | 06:41 | Size and Spline Size.
| | 06:43 | The best way to think of them is the Size
graph controls how big the actual object is.
| | 06:48 | The Spline Size graph controls how big
the object is as it moves along the spline.
| | 06:53 | So let's see what that means.
| | 06:55 | As I change the Size graph, if I
bring it down, you can see that my numbers
| | 07:00 | on one side gets smaller, and as I
pinch this other side down, they'll
| | 07:04 | disappear entirely.
| | 07:05 | I can then create a point in the middle
and create a height for my object so I
| | 07:10 | have a very thin point and a very thin end.
| | 07:14 | Now that's just the size of the object.
| | 07:16 | As I move the object along the
spline, it stays exactly the same size.
| | 07:20 | Let's bring the Offset back to 0
and then let's reset this Size graph.
| | 07:24 | I am going to right-click here and go to
Reset, and that resets the position here.
| | 07:28 | I don't have any points here, but I can
always click and add them again to get
| | 07:32 | points at the top-left
and top-right of this graph.
| | 07:35 | Now the Spline Size graph controls how big
the object is as it travels along the spline.
| | 07:40 | In order to see what that means, let's
take this Spline Size and move it down.
| | 07:43 | You'll see that if we zoom in on our
object here, it's nothing at this end of
| | 07:47 | the spline, but it gets slowly larger.
| | 07:49 | You'll see as I scrub the Offset value, it
will grow as it travels to the end of the spline.
| | 07:55 | So that's what I mean by saying
it's along the length of the spline.
| | 07:59 | As the object moves along the
length of the spline, it will get larger.
| | 08:02 | As it travels back to the
other side, it will get smaller.
| | 08:05 | So you can have something
appear to grow along the spline.
| | 08:08 | This is really fun to use
for vines and things like that.
| | 08:11 | Next up is the Rotation field.
| | 08:13 | Let's twirl close the Size field
and twirl open the Rotation field.
| | 08:17 | Now, the Rotation field has the same two
graphs as the Size field except to this
| | 08:21 | control the rotation of the object
along its length and the rotation of the
| | 08:24 | object along the spline.
| | 08:26 | Actually, you know what I am going to
do is I am going to go back to the Size
| | 08:28 | field and reset the Spline Size graph
so that my object will remain a constant
| | 08:33 | size over the length of the spline.
| | 08:34 | Let's twirl close the Size and
then leave the Rotation open.
| | 08:37 | So now we can adjust the Rotation value.
| | 08:39 | And of course this is 0 Rotation down here.
| | 08:42 | If I bring this up, it's going to twist,
and that's the object twisting on itself.
| | 08:47 | As we adjust the Offset value, you
can see it remains twisted the entire
| | 08:51 | way along the spline.
| | 08:54 | So let's just drag this point off to get
it back to straight again, and take out
| | 08:58 | the Spline Rotation, and this is
a little bit more useful I think.
| | 09:01 | If we adjust the Spline Rotation, you can see
it will rotate as it passes along the spline.
| | 09:06 | So as we adjust the Offset function, it
will start out straight and then twist
| | 09:11 | as it goes all the way through the object.
| | 09:13 | That's a really fun way to
create a dramatic type animation.
| | 09:16 | Hopefully, it's obvious now
why this is my favorite deformer.
| | 09:19 | You can see how powerful it is.
| | 09:20 | In fact, my entire lynda.com course, "CINEMA 4D:
| | 09:23 | Designing a Promo," was
based around this very deformer.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
6. Materials and TexturingUnderstanding material channels| 00:00 | When computer programmers created the
very first 3D rendering engines they
| | 00:03 | quickly realized that it was impossible for
computers to accurately duplicate what our eyes see every day.
| | 00:08 | So to simplify the calculations, they
divided the colors and textures we see into
| | 00:11 | categories that could be turned off
and on depending on what you need.
| | 00:15 | So over here in the interface at the
bottom right is the Material Manager.
| | 00:18 | The Material Manager is where you
create and manage all of the materials in
| | 00:22 | your scene, and a material is an
element that you can add to an object to give
| | 00:25 | it color or texture.
| | 00:27 | So let's create a new material.
| | 00:28 | I'll click on File in the Material
Manager and go to New Material at the very
| | 00:32 | top, and that's creates a material
element here in the Material Manager.
| | 00:35 | Now when I select that object, I get the
attributes over here in the Attribute Manager.
| | 00:40 | In order to see what happens when I
change the material, I am going to need an
| | 00:42 | object in the Editor
window in order to see that.
| | 00:45 | So let's go ahead and add a cube to the scene.
| | 00:47 | I am going to apply this material to
the cube by dragging it from the Material
| | 00:51 | Manager onto the cube object.
| | 00:53 | As soon as I let go of the material on
the cube object, I can now see a Texture
| | 00:57 | tag that has been applied to the cube,
and that's this little square with the
| | 01:01 | sphere in it. That's called the Texture tag.
When I select it, I can see the tag properties.
| | 01:06 | This Texture tag controls how the material is
being applied to the cube. More on that later.
| | 01:10 | Let's talk about the material itself.
| | 01:12 | If you select the Basic properties
for the material, you can see that there
| | 01:15 | is bunch of check boxes here: some of them
were checked and some of them were unchecked.
| | 01:19 | These are all called material channels
and the material channels represent the
| | 01:23 | different categories that the visual
elements of our world can be divided into.
| | 01:28 | So there is Color. There's Luminance,
Reflection. Some of these are little bit
| | 01:31 | self-explanatory and others need explanation.
| | 01:33 | Now we're going to be covering these
categories in a little more detail later,
| | 01:37 | but what I want to do right now is just
explain the logic behind what the names
| | 01:41 | are. The world around you can be
divide it into color and texture. And if you are
| | 01:46 | think about some objects in front of you,
I am looking at a desk right now and
| | 01:48 | the desk has a wood texture on it.
| | 01:50 | Now that wood texture has a color. It's
kind of brown, with a little bit of grain
| | 01:54 | to it, and that grain has a
slightly darker brown color.
| | 01:57 | That color that I'm seeing would
normally be placed in the Color channel.
| | 02:00 | When I run my hand across the desk, I
can feel a very slight bump pattern to it.
| | 02:05 | That bump would normally go in the Bump channel.
| | 02:08 | Now the desk is not reflective, so I
wouldn't be seeing a Reflection channel on
| | 02:12 | it. But the bottle that is on the table,
that does have reflection in it, and I
| | 02:16 | would need to turn it on if I were
creating materials for that glass bottle.
| | 02:19 | So what I am trying to get at here is
that when you create materials what you
| | 02:22 | should be doing is looking at the kind
of object you'd like to create and saying,
| | 02:27 | "What are the characteristics of
the surface of that object?
| | 02:30 | Is it shiny, is it bumpy, is it reflective?"
| | 02:33 | And based on your answers to that
question you'll be able to know which material
| | 02:37 | channels you want to turn on.
| | 02:38 | Let's take a look at the
Color channel in more detail.
| | 02:41 | As you turn each one of these material
channels off and on, the list of channels
| | 02:45 | up here will grow or shrink.
| | 02:46 | For example, if I turn on Bump
channel, you will see that the word Bump now
| | 02:50 | appears here. If I turn
Bump off, the Bump goes away.
| | 02:53 | So let's click on the Color
channel and take a look at them.
| | 02:55 | Most of the channels have exactly the
same options here. You have a color swatch
| | 02:59 | that allows you to pick and choose
what colors you want to select. And if you
| | 03:03 | click on that one time, you can actually
bring up the Cinema 4D color picker, and
| | 03:06 | you can slide around and pick a different color.
| | 03:08 | Let's go ahead and pick a nice shade of
green here. And I want to drag it down to
| | 03:13 | adjust the value of it, and hit OK.
And you can see that my cube is now turned
| | 03:17 | green, and so I can adjust these color
sliders. I can put in specific RGB values.
| | 03:21 | I can also click and hold on this.
| | 03:23 | If I don't want to use RGB, if I want
to use Hue, Saturation, and Value,
| | 03:27 | I can use that as well. Or I can put in web
color table values. There is lot of choices here.
| | 03:33 | The Brightness slider
controls the intensity of the color.
| | 03:35 | So right now, it's at 100%. If I
drag that down to be 0%, you can see my
| | 03:40 | cube goes to black.
| | 03:42 | As I increase that value, a little bit more
green gets added to it as it gets brighter.
| | 03:47 | The Texture field is where you
add texture to your material.
| | 03:50 | You can have flat color in the Color
channel, but I can also have an image in the
| | 03:54 | Color channel, or a pattern in the Color channel.
| | 03:55 | For example, I can click on this
pulldown, and I have a whole of the choices here.
| | 03:59 | I can load in a pattern, like Noise, and
Noise is something called a procedural
| | 04:04 | shader. And when I add that noise
pattern, you can see my material changes
| | 04:08 | dramatically, and now I have this speckled
pattern in here that's overriding the color.
| | 04:12 | This should give you a really good
introduction to what the basic controls
| | 04:15 | of the materials are.
| | 04:16 | In later movies we are going to be
discussing the broad categories of materials,
| | 04:21 | like reflection and transparency.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Applying materials: Projection methods| 00:00 | A projection method is how the software
applies a two-dimensional texture onto a
| | 00:04 | three-dimensional object.
| | 00:05 | There are quite a few ways of doing
this, and all of the techniques depend on
| | 00:08 | the type of object you are working with--as well
as what kind of effect you are trying to achieve.
| | 00:11 | CINEMA 4D, when it uses a texture that
is an external bitmap image like a JPEG
| | 00:17 | or a PSD file, it needs to know
where that file is coming from.
| | 00:21 | So I am going to go out here in the
Finder, to the Exercise Files folders, and in
| | 00:24 | the 06-02 folder is this textureGrid_1k.
| | 00:27 | Now, CINEMA 4D, when it pulls in
this JPEG, it prefers to look for it in
| | 00:31 | something called a Text folder.
| | 00:32 | So I am going to right-click here
and make a new folder and create a new
| | 00:36 | subfolder called "tex," and the textureGrid_
1k file needs to go into that tex folder,
| | 00:41 | so I am going to drag it in there.
| | 00:43 | Now, when we go back to CINEMA 4D,
I need to save this file in the same
| | 00:47 | location as that tex folder.
| | 00:49 | So let's go to the File menu and
do a Save As, and navigate to our
| | 00:53 | Exercise Files folder.
| | 00:55 | And in the Chapter 06 subfolder, we're
going to go to Chapter 06-02. And in the
| | 01:00 | same location as a text file, not inside
the tex folder, just in the same folder
| | 01:04 | at the tex folder is in,
| | 01:05 | I am going to my call this "ch06-02-start."
| | 01:12 | So now that we have that file saved
in the same location of the tex folder,
| | 01:16 | when we import that JPEG as a texture
on our object, we won't get an error
| | 01:20 | message saying, "Hey! I can't find the texture."
| | 01:22 | So let's go to the Material Manager
now and create a new material, and in the
| | 01:27 | Basic properties, we've got just what
we need here: Color and Specular channel.
| | 01:31 | So let's go to the Color channel and
load in that JPEG that I mentioned earlier.
| | 01:34 | So I am going to click on the Load
Image button and navigate to the Exercise
| | 01:40 | Files and go to the Chapter 06>06-02
and then the tex folder there, and grab
| | 01:46 | the textureGrid_1k.jpg.
| | 01:47 | Now, what this is is a simple
JPEG image that I created using Adobe
| | 01:52 | Illustrator, and I made a
grid of letters and numbers.
| | 01:54 | What this grid allows me to do is to
see precisely how an image is being
| | 01:58 | applied to a given object.
| | 02:00 | And so I will use this grid a lot when I
am modeling to figure out just how that
| | 02:04 | a texture is being applied, and it
allows me to make better decisions on how to
| | 02:07 | apply the textures to my objects.
| | 02:09 | So let's see what that does.
| | 02:10 | I am going to hit Open here,
and you can see our Material preview here.
| | 02:14 | This preview shows us what would happen
if the material were applied to a sphere.
| | 02:18 | So let's go ahead and add a sphere to the scene.
| | 02:20 | So I will add a sphere to the scene
and drag the material from the Material
| | 02:23 | Manager onto the Sphere
object in the Object Manager.
| | 02:26 | And now that I've done that,
let's zoom in on that sphere.
| | 02:28 | You can see that the material has been
applied to the sphere in a spherical fashion.
| | 02:33 | Now, how did it know that?
| | 02:34 | It knew that because CINEMA 4D uses
something called a default projection method,
| | 02:38 | and that default projection
method is something called UVW mapping.
| | 02:42 | Now, you'll hear the letters UVW a
lot when it comes to texture mapping.
| | 02:45 | And UVW simply means X, Y, and Z, and how
it relates to the surface of your model.
| | 02:50 | When the programmers were creating the
code for the texture mapping algorithms,
| | 02:55 | they needed to be able to distinguish
between the world space and the surface
| | 02:58 | of the model, and so they chose the letters UVW.
| | 03:00 | So anytime you hear UVW, still think XYZ,
but just know that it means texture mapping.
| | 03:05 | So UVW mapping takes a one-to-one
representation of the object and maps it to a
| | 03:10 | one-to-one representation of the image.
| | 03:12 | Now, depending on how the object was made,
that UV map could be good, or it could be bad.
| | 03:16 | In the case of all the parametric
objects, like spheres and cubes and cones and
| | 03:19 | things like that, the UV maps are
generated ahead of time by the software
| | 03:23 | so it knows exactly how to apply that
JPEG to the sphere in order to make it
| | 03:28 | appear correctly on the surface of the sphere.
| | 03:30 | If we were to model our object from
scratch, the UV map would not be correctly
| | 03:33 | generated, and it wouldn't know what to do.
| | 03:36 | So let's take a look at some
of the other projection methods.
| | 03:38 | On our sphere, the default projection
method is contained in the Texture tag.
| | 03:43 | On the Texture tag, you'll see the
Projection is set to UVW Mapping.
| | 03:46 | If we click and hold on this, there's
a whole bunch of other choices here.
| | 03:50 | Let's start off with Spherical.
| | 03:51 | Spherical will not look any different.
| | 03:53 | Now, there's a really great tool
in CINEMA 4D that allows to see a
| | 03:56 | representation of what this mapping method
is happening, and that's the Texture tool.
| | 04:00 | If I click and hold on this little
grid right here and now get a yellow grid
| | 04:05 | surrounding my object, and this grid is
going to change based on the projection
| | 04:08 | method that I'm using.
| | 04:09 | So as I select my Texture tag and
change the Projection method from Spherical
| | 04:13 | say to Cylindrical, this
Projection changes to a Cylinder.
| | 04:17 | Now, a very good rule of thumb is that
you should never trust what you see in
| | 04:21 | the Editor window here.
| | 04:22 | It's an okay representation of how the
material is being applied to the object,
| | 04:25 | but you should always render to see
exactly what the editor is seeing.
| | 04:28 | So I am going to click on the Render in
Active View button, and you can see it
| | 04:32 | looks pretty much the same as it did
when it was wrapping spherically, except
| | 04:35 | there is a little bit of a hole at the top.
| | 04:37 | Let's change this back to
Spherical, so you can see what I mean.
| | 04:40 | Now, I will do another
Command+R or Ctrl+R render.
| | 04:42 | So you can see that it's getting pinched
at the polls, and it's wider at the equator.
| | 04:46 | But for the projection method for
Cylindrical, it left a little bit of an opening here.
| | 04:51 | That's because the cylinder
isn't quite lined up with the sphere.
| | 04:54 | Let's take a look at the next
projection method, which is Flat.
| | 04:56 | When I select Flat, the material is now
projected straight through the object,
| | 05:01 | and you can see that the texture is
appearing as a flat grid that is being shot
| | 05:04 | straight through my
object and out the other side.
| | 05:06 | And in fact, if I look at this side of
the object, I can see my letters. And if
| | 05:09 | I flip it around to the other side,
the letters are all backwards as well.
| | 05:12 | Once again, don't trust what you see
in the Editor window. Always render.
| | 05:16 | You can see that along the length
of the sphere where it's projecting
| | 05:20 | through, it's getting smeared and stretched
right through. That's the Flat projection method.
| | 05:24 | Now, we're not going to cover every
single one of these. I just want to give you
| | 05:27 | a gist of what they do.
| | 05:29 | So the Cubic method will
apply the material in a cube.
| | 05:32 | For something like a sphere, this may
not be appropriate, but for a type object,
| | 05:36 | this works very well.
| | 05:37 | Let's render that, and you can
see that it almost looks like a
| | 05:39 | volleyball pattern on there.
| | 05:40 | You can see the different letters where
the seams of the material come together.
| | 05:44 | And that's really the power of this
grid is it allows me to see where the
| | 05:48 | seams are on the object.
| | 05:49 | Let's see what this looks like
on a different type of object.
| | 05:51 | I am going to disable the Sphere
for a second and just deselect it.
| | 05:55 | Let's create some type real quick.
| | 05:56 | I am going to go to the Text Spline
and add a text spline to the scene, and
| | 05:59 | add an Extrude NURB, and take that Text
Spline and go the Extrude NURB and extrude it.
| | 06:04 | You can see I now have the
word Text here in the scene.
| | 06:07 | Let's take this material from the Material
Manager and apply it right to the Extrude NURB.
| | 06:11 | Now, by default, the Texture tag is set
to UVW Mapping, and the yellow grid that
| | 06:17 | I have here represents UVW Mapping.
| | 06:20 | And you can see on the object itself,
if we render, the material is limited to
| | 06:25 | the sides of the text,
and we get nothing in the front.
| | 06:27 | That's because the software didn't
really know what the extruder was going to
| | 06:31 | look like, so we couldn't
generate the UVW map ahead of time.
| | 06:34 | So we have to choose a
different projection method.
| | 06:36 | So let's go from UVW Mapping and choose Cubic.
| | 06:39 | And Cubic mapping, when I render that,
gives us a much more useful projection
| | 06:43 | onto the surface of the model.
| | 06:44 | The last thing I want to talk about
is the idea that you can have multiple
| | 06:47 | materials on the surface of your object.
| | 06:49 | So let's go under the Material
Manager, and create a brand-new material.
| | 06:53 | So I'll go to File menu and choose New Material.
| | 06:55 | And this material, I will
just make the color green.
| | 06:59 | I like green. Green is a beautiful color.
| | 07:01 | So I am going to make that green, I
just drag it down, make it a little bit
| | 07:04 | darker, a little bit richer shade
of green, or saturation. There we go.
| | 07:08 | Now that I've got that shade of green, if I
apply this green material to my type object,
| | 07:14 | I now have two materials here on the object.
| | 07:17 | And if I render, you'll see that
the green material is overriding the
| | 07:22 | checkerboard pattern underneath.
| | 07:24 | That's because when CINEMA 4D looks at
these tags, it evaluates these tags from
| | 07:28 | the right side to the left side,
| | 07:30 | so the material that's on the
right is on top of the other materials.
| | 07:33 | So what I need to do is to tell this
green material to mix into this grid
| | 07:37 | pattern. And so on the Texture tag,
there is a Mix Textures button.
| | 07:42 | When I click on that Mix Textures
button, suddenly the texture will mix in.
| | 07:46 | Now, I won't see that mixing here in
the Editor window. I'll have to render
| | 07:49 | to see that. But you can see now, the
texture is mixing in, and it's an additive mix.
| | 07:54 | That means that the white values will stay white,
but the darker values will get shaded green.
| | 08:00 | Applying materials to an object can
be as simple as a drag and drop, or it can
| | 08:03 | require entire program like
BodyPaint, which is also part of CINEMA 4D.
| | 08:08 | Until you get a feel for which
technique is best, experiment on your objects
| | 08:11 | using the texture grid and different
projection methods to understand how best
| | 08:14 | to apply your material.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating materials: Reflective surfaces / shiny surfaces| 00:00 | Reflections can be both beautiful and deadly.
| | 00:03 | What I mean by that is reflections
can look amazing, but they can have a
| | 00:06 | dramatic effect on your render time.
| | 00:08 | Let's take a look at the reflection
channel in a little bit more depth.
| | 00:10 | I have a scene I've prepared ahead of time.
| | 00:13 | I am going to open that up from the
exercise files. And all this is is a
| | 00:18 | Extrude NURB, the Type object, the word
reflection on a Floor object, which is
| | 00:22 | one of the scene objects that's in the floor
that extends off to infinity in all directions.
| | 00:27 | Then there is a light in the scene as well,
| | 00:29 | a target light that is illuminating
the object from a particular direction.
| | 00:33 | The Sphere object is just a regular
old sphere, and then the Sky object is
| | 00:37 | another scene object that is really a
virtual dome that surrounds my entire scene.
| | 00:41 | So what I am going to do is create a
couple of materials and apply them to
| | 00:44 | various objects in the scene, and show
how they behave with reflection off and on.
| | 00:49 | So let's start off by creating
material for the floor itself.
| | 00:52 | I am going to add a new material to
the scene by going to the File menu > New
| | 00:56 | Material, and let's call this
material floor, F-L-O-O-R.
| | 01:00 | Now the floor material, we are going to go to
the Basic properties and turn on Reflection.
| | 01:06 | When we turn on Reflection, we get a
perfect mirror ball as our preview. That's
| | 01:11 | because by default the Reflection
property is set at a Brightness of 100%.
| | 01:15 | So let's apply this material to
the floor and see what happens.
| | 01:18 | When I add that to the floor and hit
Command+R, or Ctrl+R, on the keyboard, it's
| | 01:22 | going to render the scene.
| | 01:24 | Now what's happening here is that the
reflective floor, which is a perfect mirror,
| | 01:29 | is reflecting the Sky dome that
surrounds our entire scene, as well as the
| | 01:33 | objects that are sitting in
close proximity to the floor.
| | 01:36 | So we can see that the "reflection" word
is reflected in the floor, but it's a
| | 01:39 | little bit brighter.
| | 01:40 | That's because the reflections are additive.
| | 01:42 | The brightness of the Sky sphere is
brightening up the reflections of the word "reflection."
| | 01:47 | Let's adjust that brightness down just
a little bit on the Reflection channel.
| | 01:51 | So if we go back to the floor material,
and go to the Reflection property and
| | 01:55 | drag that reflection down--
let's go to about say 25%--
| | 01:59 | now when we render our scene--
Command+R or Ctrl+R--you can see we just barely
| | 02:03 | get a little bit of reflection there.
| | 02:05 | Let's dial that back up again.
| | 02:06 | Let's change this from 25% to say 50%,
and then Command+R or Ctrl+R. There we go.
| | 02:12 | Now we can start to see a more
pleasing reflection in there.
| | 02:15 | It's not distracting to the word "reflection,"
and we can also see our ball there as well.
| | 02:20 | Now wouldn't it be great if there
are ways we can have the Editor window
| | 02:24 | automatically render an
update every time we made a change?
| | 02:26 | There is a great feature for that,
and it's called the Interactive Render region.
| | 02:30 | I am going to go to the clapboards here
at the top-middle of the interface and
| | 02:33 | click and hold on this middle clapboard,
and go to Interactive Render Region.
| | 02:37 | When I let go of that Interactive
Render region, it's going to create a
| | 02:41 | rectangle around my scene. And I can
enlarge this rectangle just a little bit
| | 02:46 | here, so it's encompassing the entire scene.
| | 02:48 | And this rectangle will update
every time I make a change to the scene.
| | 02:51 | For example, if I click on the floor,
and adjust the Reflection property back to
| | 02:56 | 100%, my scene will then re-update
here in the Interactive Render region.
| | 03:00 | Now the Render region has a quality slider.
| | 03:03 | I can adjust that quality slider by
moving this little triangle up to the top,
| | 03:07 | and I am going to move that up
to the top. That's 100% quality.
| | 03:09 | That's essentially close to the same
as what you would see if the interactive
| | 03:12 | region weren't there, and you hit
Command+R or Ctrl+R. So let's go back to the
| | 03:16 | Reflection channel of the floor
material and bring that back to 50%.
| | 03:18 | You'll see our Interactive
Render region update automatically.
| | 03:22 | I'm going to deselect the Sky object so
I don't see the rotation bands for that,
| | 03:27 | and just click anywhere in the
Object Manager in order to deselect that.
| | 03:30 | Now let's take a look at some of the
properties of the Reflection channel.
| | 03:34 | First up is the Brightness slider, which you saw.
| | 03:37 | You can also change the color of the reflection.
| | 03:39 | If I say, for example, change the color
of my reflection to yellow, you'll see
| | 03:44 | that the object itself, the floor object
didn't turn yellow, but the reflections did.
| | 03:49 | So you can see that the word "reflection" that
is reflected in the floor is now tinted yellow.
| | 03:53 | I am going to change that back,
since it doesn't look very good.
| | 03:55 | I am going to bring this back to white, 255--
and now it's back to what it was before.
| | 04:00 | Let's create a material for the type
object and see how reflections behave on
| | 04:04 | an object like that.
| | 04:05 | So I am going to make a new material
in the Material Manager by going to
| | 04:07 | File > New Material, and then I am going to
change the name of the material to be "type."
| | 04:13 | Let's change the color. Make that a
nice shade of blue. So I am going to
| | 04:19 | bring the slider up.
| | 04:20 | Now my sliders are set to HSV:
| | 04:23 | Hue, Saturation, and Value.
| | 04:24 | By default, they are normally on RGB
sliders, so you can always change that at
| | 04:28 | any time, and I'll leave that on HSV for now.
| | 04:32 | Let's make it a nice shade of blue, a
little bit more rich, a little bit more
| | 04:35 | saturation there, and I am going to take
that blue material and apply it to the type.
| | 04:39 | Now I can't see my type over here, so
you notice as I drag towards the bottom of
| | 04:43 | the Object Manager, it automatically
scrolled the Object Manager so I can let go
| | 04:47 | on the Extrude NURB.
| | 04:48 | Now you can see that the word
"reflection" has changed to blue, and also its
| | 04:53 | reflection has changed to blue as well,
but the sphere isn't affected by that.
| | 04:56 | Now let's add some
reflections to the type material.
| | 04:59 | So I will click on the type
material in the Material Manager to get its
| | 05:01 | properties back, and then in the Basic
Properties, turn on Reflection, and I get a
| | 05:05 | perfect mirror ball.
| | 05:06 | Now you can see my reflection now, the
word "reflection" is a perfect mirror ball.
| | 05:10 | It's reflecting, I can see the sphere
over here, and I can see bits of the sky in
| | 05:14 | there, and it's a little bit
distracting. It almost it's like Chrome.
| | 05:16 | So let's take this material now and dial
down the Reflection property, so it's a
| | 05:21 | little bit less intense. There we go.
| | 05:25 | Now you can see our type
actually looks a lot nicer.
| | 05:28 | Let's turn the Reflection
channel off and on, so you can see the
| | 05:30 | difference between those two.
| | 05:32 | I'll turn the Reflection channel
off and then turn it back on again.
| | 05:35 | Now our type lightens up a little bit,
but we get some really nice lines
| | 05:38 | across the surface.
| | 05:39 | When you think of objects that are in
the real world that are shining, like a
| | 05:42 | mirror or a car,
there're two components to that.
| | 05:45 | There is the reflections that show up
in the surface of the object, but there is
| | 05:48 | also something called the specular highlight.
| | 05:50 | In the real world, you can't have a
shiny object that doesn't have a specular.
| | 05:54 | But that's really the nice thing
about 3D is you can totally separate those
| | 05:57 | elements out, and have an object that
is shiny without a specular highlight or
| | 06:00 | with a specular highlight.
| | 06:01 | So let's take a look what
that means on the sphere.
| | 06:03 | I'm going to go to the Material
Manager and make a new material and call this
| | 06:07 | material "sphere," and let's go to the
Color options and change the color of that.
| | 06:11 | Let's just make it blue again as
well, keep everything monochromatic.
| | 06:14 | I am going to bring that Saturation up a
little bit and then apply this material
| | 06:19 | to the sphere itself.
| | 06:20 | So I'll scrub up there to the sphere
object and add the material to it, and you
| | 06:24 | see my Editor window automatically updates.
| | 06:26 | Now this white highlight here
is called the specular highlight.
| | 06:30 | It always shows up at a location on the
object that's directly opposite the light source.
| | 06:34 | Now in the Material properties--let
me click on the sphere--under the Basic
| | 06:38 | options is the Specular highlight button.
| | 06:40 | If I turn that off, the
specular highlight goes away.
| | 06:43 | Now the cool thing is I can have an
object that's reflective and has no specular.
| | 06:47 | Let's see what that looks like.
| | 06:48 | I am going to turn the Specular back
on, but I'm also going to turn on the
| | 06:51 | Reflection property, and when I turn
on the Reflection at 100% mirror ball,
| | 06:55 | you can see I get perfect reflection of the
horizon, and the word "reflection" on the sphere.
| | 06:59 | Let's take the Reflection down
just a bit, to about 30% or so.
| | 07:04 | So now we can see the horizon, the
word "reflection." We can still see that
| | 07:08 | specular highlight there.
| | 07:09 | So let's go back to the Basic
properties and turn the Specular off.
| | 07:12 | And you see that we get now a
reflective ball, but we don't have that
| | 07:16 | distracting highlight on there.
| | 07:17 | So it really depends on what you would prefer.
| | 07:19 | You can have an object that
is reflective and not shiny.
| | 07:23 | The last thing I want to talk about
here is a setting in the Reflection
| | 07:26 | properties called Blurring.
| | 07:28 | I am going to go to my floor material
and go to the Reflection channel and
| | 07:32 | adjust the Blurriness.
| | 07:33 | Now in the real world, objects are
not perfectly smooth. Even the finest
| | 07:37 | mirror has a little bit of grain
pattern to the glass. But most objects aren't
| | 07:41 | even that smooth, and the Blurriness
function adds a lot of realism to your
| | 07:45 | reflections by blurring the reflections out,
but it dramatically effects the render time.
| | 07:49 | I am going to adjust the Blurriness
setting in my floor material up to say 10%,
| | 07:54 | and what's going to happen you'll
notice that the word "reflection" is going to
| | 07:56 | blur out in intensity.
| | 07:58 | Now this really looks a lot more
realistic, but you can see that my render took
| | 08:02 | just a little bit longer to update.
| | 08:03 | The higher I crank this Blurriness value,
the longer it's going to take the render.
| | 08:07 | If I bring this up to say 50%, the
reflection is going to blur out a lot.
| | 08:11 | And let's crank the value up, so we can
see the effect dramatically. 75%. There we go.
| | 08:14 | So you can see there's a lot of blur
on the reflection, but it right next to
| | 08:19 | the object where it makes contact
with the floor, it's a very tight,
| | 08:22 | well-defined reflection.
| | 08:24 | As that reflection travels outward
from the source, it becomes more and more
| | 08:28 | blurry. But you can see that it added
a lot of a render time to our scene.
| | 08:31 | Reflections really add a lot of
realism to your images, but you've got to be
| | 08:35 | careful with the settings.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating materials: Rough surfaces / bumpy surfaces| 00:00 | In the real world, very
few objects are truly smooth.
| | 00:04 | Mirrors, fine glass, or highly
polished metals come to mind.
| | 00:07 | Nearly everything else though has a
texture that you can feel if you were to run
| | 00:10 | your fingertips across its surface,
and that texture really affects how light
| | 00:14 | falls across the object.
| | 00:15 | In our Material options in Cinema 4D,
the Bump channel is where you control how
| | 00:19 | rough or smooth your object appears.
| | 00:22 | There's also a second
component to Bump called Displacement.
| | 00:24 | I am going to take a look
at both of those right now.
| | 00:26 | In the Material Manager, I am going to
create a new material and look at the
| | 00:29 | Basic properties here, and I'm also
going to add a cube to the scene, and I'm
| | 00:33 | going to move that cube over on the
negative X axis, and then now I am going to
| | 00:36 | add a sphere to the scene.
| | 00:38 | And I'll leave those both right there,
close to the center of the world.
| | 00:40 | Let's zoom in on them.
| | 00:41 | Now I am going to apply the same
material to both the sphere and to the cube.
| | 00:47 | Now, this default material is white.
| | 00:49 | Let's go back to the Material
properties, and we'll leave it White, but we're
| | 00:52 | going to add in the Bump channel.
| | 00:54 | And the Bump channel,
when I add it, has no effect.
| | 00:57 | If I click on the word "Bump" in the
Material Attributes, I now have a Texture
| | 01:02 | pulldown and a grayed-out slider.
| | 01:03 | What the Bump channel does is it
looks at the grayscale values of anything
| | 01:08 | you put in there--it could be a shader,
could be a bitmap image--and it uses
| | 01:12 | those grayscale values to give the
illusion that your surface is higher or
| | 01:17 | lower in certain spots.
| | 01:18 | White values go up, black values go down,
and 50% gray values don't really change.
| | 01:24 | So you can use that behavior to create the
illusion that your object is bumpy or smooth.
| | 01:29 | So let's, in the Texture pulldown,
add in something called a shader.
| | 01:32 | If I click on the Texture
pulldown, I have a lot of choices here.
| | 01:36 | We're going to add just the Noise
shader, and when I add noise to the object,
| | 01:40 | suddenly my sphere becomes very lumpy looking.
| | 01:43 | Now, let's see what that
looks like when we render.
| | 01:45 | I'm going to turn on the
Interactive Render region.
| | 01:48 | If I click on the middle clapboard
and add Interactive Render region, then
| | 01:52 | I'll get a rectangle surrounding
part of my scene that I can enlarge to
| | 01:55 | encompass both objects.
| | 01:56 | I am going to adjust the Quality
slider over here on the right-hand side
| | 01:59 | and turn that up all the way, and that's
going to give me a much better representation.
| | 02:03 | And this representation will
update each time I make a change.
| | 02:06 | So now you can see that both
objects appear to be lumpy.
| | 02:09 | Now that's a really
important word, "appear" to be lumpy.
| | 02:12 | The Bump channel actually simulates bumps.
| | 02:15 | It doesn't actually create bumps on the
surface of your object, and you can tell
| | 02:18 | that by looking at the edges of our objects.
| | 02:21 | If I zoom in on that cube right there,
let's zoom in on just the edge of the
| | 02:25 | cube, when I render and let the
Interactive Render Region update--I can also hit
| | 02:30 | Command+R to get the full frame to
render-- you can see that the edges of my
| | 02:34 | cube are still perfectly straight.
| | 02:36 | Then every place else on the surface of
the cube where I have grayscale values
| | 02:39 | from that noise shader, that noise
shader is creating the illusion of bumps.
| | 02:44 | Same thing goes for the sphere itself.
| | 02:46 | We can move over to the sphere and
look at just the edges of the sphere.
| | 02:49 | Let's back out just a bit.
| | 02:50 | That's a little too close.
| | 02:51 | You can see the sphere is still perfectly round.
| | 02:54 | So the Bump channel simulates the
appearance of bumps on the surface of your
| | 02:57 | object, and I can control the
strength of that simulation by adjusting the
| | 03:01 | strength of the Bump channel. If I crank
it up really high, you can see that it
| | 03:05 | gets a little bit sort of
fake looking the higher it gets.
| | 03:08 | Now typically, I wouldn't normally use a
Bump channel with this high a value in it.
| | 03:13 | So what I want to do is adjust the
properties on the Shader and the Strength.
| | 03:16 | So let's bring the Strength
back down to the 20% range.
| | 03:19 | And then let's go into the Shader properties.
| | 03:22 | If I click on this swatch here, that
takes me into the properties of the Noise
| | 03:25 | shader, and I can change a lot
of properties about this noise.
| | 03:29 | I can change the type of noise it is by
clicking on this word and grabbing one
| | 03:32 | of these different noise patterns.
| | 03:34 | I can also look to see
what the noise patterns are.
| | 03:36 | I am going to enlarge the window here
just a little bit, so I can see the little
| | 03:40 | triangle here on the right-hand side.
| | 03:42 | Because the words don't really mean
anything to most folks, they gave us a
| | 03:44 | picture representation to make it a lot
easier to select the noise pattern you would like.
| | 03:48 | Go ahead and pick the Blistered Turbulence.
| | 03:51 | The Blistered Turbulence gives us sort
of a plaster, or almost paper-like look
| | 03:55 | to the surface of our object.
| | 03:56 | Now what I can do is I can change the
size of this shader to control how big
| | 04:01 | the pattern is, and I can go to the Global
Scale of the shader and adjust it downward.
| | 04:06 | Let's bring it down to say 20%.
| | 04:07 | And when I do that, it tightens things
up and makes it look a lot more like say
| | 04:12 | concrete or plaster than the
paper material that it was before.
| | 04:15 | So just by adjusting that one setting, I've
really changed the character of the material.
| | 04:19 | Let's go back up by clicking the up
arrow in the Attribute Manager, back to the
| | 04:22 | Bump channel, and just dial
it down just a hair, to say 10%.
| | 04:26 | There we go, and now it's not quite
as dramatic, but it still adds a lot of
| | 04:29 | character to the surface of our object.
| | 04:30 | Let's back out a bit.
| | 04:32 | So that's the Bump channel.
| | 04:33 | The Bump channel simulates surface
indentations, but what happens when you
| | 04:36 | really want to indent your object?
| | 04:38 | That's where the Displacement channel comes in.
| | 04:39 | So let's go back to our material now
and select, under the Basic properties,
| | 04:45 | activate Displacement.
| | 04:46 | And when I turn on Displacement,
nothing happens to the material.
| | 04:49 | That's because, just like the Bump
channel, it's waiting for some input.
| | 04:52 | So if we go to the Displacement field,
it's looking for something to actually
| | 04:57 | use as a displacement map.
| | 04:58 | And it's always going to use the
grayscale values. And just like the Bump channel,
| | 05:02 | white values will go up, black
values go down, 50% gray channels stay
| | 05:06 | right where they are.
| | 05:07 | You can really control how your
object behaves by using those values.
| | 05:10 | So I am going to go to the Texture
pulldown and click and add another noise
| | 05:14 | shader, just like I did before.
| | 05:15 | Now, when I do that, the Texture
preview changes dramatically here, but you
| | 05:19 | look, nothing really happened in my
Editor window, and that's because of a
| | 05:23 | very important fact.
| | 05:24 | The displacement effect is resolution-dependent.
| | 05:28 | It's dependent on the resolution
of the shader that you're using.
| | 05:31 | It's also dependent on the
resolution of the object.
| | 05:34 | So the number of polygons on the surface
of your object has a dramatic impact on
| | 05:38 | the Displacement channel.
| | 05:39 | So if we go to the cube object for
example, our cube is one giant polygon.
| | 05:44 | And if you remember from the modeling
exercises, a single polygon cannot be
| | 05:48 | bent, so that means the displacement
won't have an effect on a simple polygon.
| | 05:52 | But if I turn up the segments on this
cube, let's make this say 10 x 10 x 10,
| | 05:58 | when I do that, look what happens.
| | 06:00 | I now start to see this cube move.
| | 06:03 | And unlike the Bump channel, the
Displacement actually moved the surface.
| | 06:07 | You can see the edges of the
cube are now being physically moved.
| | 06:10 | There is a very important reason why
the sphere did not get affected by the
| | 06:14 | Displacement channel.
| | 06:15 | If we click on the sphere, under the
Object properties is a Render Perfect button.
| | 06:19 | That Render Perfect button is there
so you can have a very low-resolution
| | 06:22 | sphere, and still have it render smooth.
| | 06:24 | If I uncheck that Render Perfect button,
now suddenly the Displacement channel
| | 06:28 | will have an effect on the sphere.
| | 06:30 | And the higher my segments become,
the more accurately it will render the
| | 06:34 | displacement effect.
| | 06:35 | So if I go to the Segment property and
change that to say 128, so I have a very
| | 06:39 | dense cube, I have a lot more resolution,
and it much more accurately represents
| | 06:44 | the displacement of the object itself.
| | 06:47 | So what I want to do next is talk
about something called Sub-Polygon
| | 06:50 | displacement, the feature of
displacement that allows you to create a virtual
| | 06:53 | displacement, so you don't have to have so
many polygons in the surface of your object.
| | 06:57 | So I am going to take my sphere and
change the Segments back down to say 10, and
| | 07:02 | I get a very low-resolution sphere.
| | 07:04 | If I go back to the Material channel
and under the Displacement options, if I
| | 07:08 | activate Sub-Polygon Displacement, I
now get a much more highly displaced
| | 07:13 | object, even though I have fewer polygons.
| | 07:15 | What's happening is the subdivision
level is giving me four polygons for every
| | 07:19 | one polygon that I had before.
| | 07:21 | So I get a much more dense
sphere with fewer polygons.
| | 07:24 | Now, sometimes Sub-Polygon displacement can
render faster, and sometimes it can render slower.
| | 07:28 | It really depends on how many polygons
you had to start with in your object.
| | 07:32 | Now that you see how it can be done in
the computer, take a look around your
| | 07:35 | home or office and try to
recreate some of the surfaces you see.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating materials: Transparent surfaces| 00:00 | Transparency can be a bit tricky because
it involves the software having to look
| | 00:03 | through objects and predict what would
happen to the rays as they pass through;
| | 00:06 | do they bounce around and come out at
a different angle like crystal? Or do
| | 00:09 | they pass right through like window
glass? Or do they get distorted like the
| | 00:12 | lenses on reading glasses.
| | 00:14 | So to test this out and to understand
transparency a little bit better, I have
| | 00:17 | prepared a wine glass, and this is a
really good example of the kind of thing
| | 00:20 | that you might have to do on a regular basis.
| | 00:23 | The model that we've got here is a
wine glass with some wine inside of it, and
| | 00:27 | its just two Lathe NURBS.
| | 00:28 | I am going to turn off the wine itself.
| | 00:30 | If you orbit around inside here,
you can see that there's actual wine.
| | 00:33 | I don't want to confuse the issue right now.
| | 00:35 | I just want to focus on the wine glass.
| | 00:37 | So I am going to turn that off.
| | 00:38 | The rest of the scene, I have got a
Floor object, which is a scene element that
| | 00:41 | goes off to infinity, and a Sky object,
which is basically a big virtual dome
| | 00:45 | surrounding my scene.
| | 00:47 | Now I'm going to make a new material
here in the Material Manager, File > New
| | 00:50 | Material. We'll call this material "GLASS."
| | 00:52 | And the GLASS material is going to
have some basic properties of Color,
| | 00:58 | Specular, and Reflection, and Transparency.
| | 01:01 | So let's start off with just the
transparency for now though, because that's what
| | 01:04 | we want to talk about.
| | 01:05 | Eventually we are going to add
some reflection to it as well.
| | 01:07 | So as I add the Transparent channel,
you see that the glass preview material
| | 01:12 | goes away, and basically all we
have left are the specular highlights.
| | 01:15 | Let's go ahead and add this
material to the wine glass object.
| | 01:20 | So as I add it, it becomes a little bit
translucent here in the Editor window,
| | 01:23 | but you should never trust this view.
| | 01:25 | What you should always do is either
Command+R or Ctrl+R to render the scene. Or
| | 01:29 | you can add the Interactive
Render region like I'm going to do.
| | 01:31 | So I am going to turn on Interactive
Render region, and the great thing about
| | 01:34 | this is that it will automatically update
every time I make a change to the wine glass.
| | 01:38 | So I am going to enlarge the region,
and then I'm going to turn the quality up
| | 01:43 | all the way to the top, so I'll get a pretty
close-to-accurate render of my wine glass.
| | 01:47 | The material that we've got here is
transparent, and it's passing all the rays
| | 01:51 | through, except for where the
Specular highlight hits. And the Specular
| | 01:54 | highlight is this right point source of
light that is hitting the glass surface
| | 01:58 | from the autolight.
| | 01:59 | Glass normally always has a specular
highlight, but it's usually not this wide.
| | 02:03 | So the first thing I want to do is go to
the GLASS material, and under the Specular
| | 02:06 | channel, we are going to
change the Width of this.
| | 02:09 | The Width is going to control how
tightly that specular highlight appears.
| | 02:12 | So we are going to bring it
down nice and tight. There we go.
| | 02:15 | Now the kind of glass you'd have a
wine glass is transparent, but it doesn't
| | 02:18 | actually pass all the rays.
| | 02:20 | Some of them get bounced around a
little bit. That's because of the curvature.
| | 02:23 | So we're going to do two
things in the Transparency channel.
| | 02:25 | First thing we are going to do is dial
down the Brightness just a bit, so at 100%
| | 02:30 | brightness, the glass is fully
transparent and all the rays pass.
| | 02:33 | But we are going to go to about 95% or so.
| | 02:35 | You can see that gives us a little
bit of our shape back for the glass.
| | 02:38 | The next thing we want to do is to
turn on something called Refraction.
| | 02:42 | Now a flat piece of glass passes
rays straight through it, and that's why
| | 02:45 | windows look so nice in the outside
world because the glass is flat, and the
| | 02:49 | image that you see through the
glass does not get distorted.
| | 02:51 | But lenses and curved glasses,
like this wine glass, do bend light.
| | 02:56 | So the bending of that
light is called refraction.
| | 02:58 | In the Transparency channel, a
Refraction index of 1 is straight through.
| | 03:02 | So we are going to turn this
up just a little bit to 1.2.
| | 03:05 | 1.2 is going to give us a pretty nice
refraction. And you can see, instantly our
| | 03:10 | glass looks a whole lot better.
| | 03:12 | You can see the light bending as it
passes through the glass, and we get to see
| | 03:17 | the curvature of the glass itself--
| | 03:19 | very much like a real wine glass--
and this is looking a lot nicer.
| | 03:22 | Now a transparent object like glass
is always reflective in the real world.
| | 03:25 | You can't have a piece of glass that's
not reflective, unless of course you were
| | 03:28 | to blast it with sand or something
like that to change the surface property.
| | 03:32 | In 3D, however, we can turn off the
reflection and turn on the reflection at will.
| | 03:36 | Now this one glass looks really good,
but I think it would look a lot nicer if
| | 03:39 | we added some reflection to the mix.
| | 03:41 | I am going to go to the Basic
properties and turn on the Reflection channel.
| | 03:44 | So when I turn on the Reflection channel,
suddenly my glass brightens up a bit.
| | 03:48 | That's because now it's
reflecting the world around it.
| | 03:51 | The sky object that we see in the
scene, which is basically just a big virtual
| | 03:55 | dome that's colored white by default, is
now being reflected in our glass, and I
| | 03:59 | think it looks a whole lot nicer.
| | 04:01 | So our wine glass is looking fantastic,
but what's a wine glass if it's empty?
| | 04:05 | A wine glass should be full of wine, and
so let's go ahead and add some wine to it.
| | 04:09 | I am going to turn on the wine object,
and as I turn that on, you see that
| | 04:14 | suddenly the wine glass is full of
wine, but its white-colored wine right.
| | 04:18 | Now we could make a chardonnay or
something like that, but red wine I think will
| | 04:22 | look a lot better,
and actually I prefer red wine,
| | 04:24 | so we are going to make some red wine right now.
| | 04:26 | In the Materials, I'm going to go the
File menu and make a new material, and
| | 04:29 | we'll call this material "WINE."
| | 04:31 | Now when I make a new material, I always ask
myself, what are the properties of that material?
| | 04:36 | What are the properties of
the thing I'm trying to make?
| | 04:38 | First off, red wine is red, and next
up, wine is a little bit transparent.
| | 04:43 | It's also reflective.
| | 04:45 | It's a little bit shiny, as well.
| | 04:46 | So that tells me I need to turn on the
Color channel, which is already on by default.
| | 04:51 | I know I am going to need Reflection,
and I know I am going to need Specular,
| | 04:54 | and I know I am going to need Transparency,
| | 04:55 | so I am going to turn all those guys on.
| | 04:57 | As soon as I do that, the wine becomes
perfectly transparent. We don't want that.
| | 05:01 | So let's go to the Transparency
channel and bring this down to about maybe,
| | 05:05 | let's try 40% or so.
| | 05:06 | You can see now we have a nice-
looking sort of mirrored bubble here, and
| | 05:10 | we're going to apply this wine to the
wine object. And that's going to change
| | 05:15 | how things look here.
| | 05:16 | And we could see a little bit of
our glass through the wine now.
| | 05:19 | Next thing I want to do is go back to
the WINE material and change the color.
| | 05:22 | So let's pick a nice dark red.
| | 05:24 | Now, I am going to go to the color
picker here by clicking on the swatch.
| | 05:27 | It make a little bit
easier sometimes to visualize.
| | 05:29 | I am going to grab a nice rich, dark red here.
| | 05:33 | The color of the glass is affected by
the Transparency and the Reflection,
| | 05:38 | so what I am going to do is go to
Reflection now, and make them the same color
| | 05:41 | and here's a great little trick.
| | 05:43 | If I hold down the Shift key and
select the Reflection channel, I can see the
| | 05:47 | Reflection channel and the
Color channel at the same time.
| | 05:50 | If I want to get this exact same color
into the reflections, all I have to do
| | 05:53 | is to drag this chip down onto this chip,
and suddenly now my wine looks a lot more appetizing.
| | 06:00 | Next up is the Specular highlight.
| | 06:01 | Wine has a very tight
specular highlight, just like glass.
| | 06:04 | So if we go to the Specular channel, I
am going to dial the Width down a little
| | 06:08 | bit and then turn up the Height because
the specular highlight should be quite a
| | 06:11 | brighter than that, to
give it more of a wet look.
| | 06:13 | So I am going to dial that up. That's going
to give us a much nicer-looking wine surface.
| | 06:18 | Normally, you would want to orbit
around this glass to take a look at it
| | 06:20 | from some other angles.
| | 06:21 | So I am going to do that.
| | 06:22 | Let's just orbit around.
| | 06:23 | You'll see that the Interactive
Rendering region, as soon as I let go the mouse,
| | 06:26 | will go ahead and re-update.
And pretty much the wine glass, because it's a
| | 06:30 | cylindrically-based object,
| | 06:31 | is going to look the same as I orbit
around just on this plane. But let's look
| | 06:35 | at it from up above as well, just to get a feel.
| | 06:38 | You can see how the transparency
changes as I orbit around it, and that's based
| | 06:42 | on primarily what you're
seeing through the glass.
| | 06:45 | Remember, glass material, be it an
actual glass or plastic water bottle or
| | 06:49 | anything that you can actually see
through, is a combination of what you see
| | 06:53 | through the glass as well
as what's reflected in it.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using alpha channels to create a label| 00:00 | In this movie, we're going to be
talking about the alpha channel, which is
| | 00:03 | another component of transparency,
but it's a little bit different than the
| | 00:06 | Transparency channel itself.
| | 00:08 | So what I've got here is a wine
bottle that's sitting on a floor, and let me
| | 00:13 | change the window size here
so we can see our objects.
| | 00:15 | And the wine bottle itself is a null
object with two Lathe NURBS under it:
| | 00:19 | a Lathe NURB for the lid and a Lathe
NURB for the bottle. And I've pre-applied
| | 00:22 | materials to them to give them their color,
| | 00:24 | so the wine bottle is nice rich red,
and the lid is black. And if I'd Command+R
| | 00:28 | or Ctrl+R on the keyboard, you
see I just have a basic scene here.
| | 00:31 | A wine bottle normally has a label
applied to it, and that label is cut out on
| | 00:35 | the surface of the bottle.
| | 00:36 | And the technique I want to use for that
in Cinema 4D is called an alpha channel.
| | 00:39 | So the first step of that
process is to create a new material.
| | 00:42 | So I'm going to go to the Material
Manager and go to New Material, and I'm going
| | 00:46 | to call this "label," l-a-b-e-l.
| | 00:49 | Now the properties of my label:
whenever I make a new material I always like to
| | 00:53 | say out loud, the kinds of
properties that it's going to have.
| | 00:55 | The label has color, which will be the
actual words and letters that are on the
| | 00:58 | label, and it needs to be cut out on
the surface of the object, and that is
| | 01:02 | called an alpha channel.
| | 01:03 | So I know, in the Basic properties, I'm
going to need Specular as well because my
| | 01:06 | label will be a little bit
shiny, and I'm going to need alpha.
| | 01:08 | So if I activate the Alpha, nothing
happens to my material preview here. That's
| | 01:12 | because the alpha channel needs an
image, or some other bitmap or grayscale
| | 01:17 | information in order to
actually cut out the material.
| | 01:20 | So we're going to do that, and the file
that we're going to use in the Chapter 6
| | 01:23 | Project Files folder, there's a
tex folder here, and it's called
| | 01:27 | bottle_label.psd. And it's a
Photoshop file that I've created that has a
| | 01:32 | transparency outside this red border.
| | 01:34 | So it's basically a rounded rectangle that
will stick onto the surface of the bottle.
| | 01:38 | Let's go back to Cinema 4D.
| | 01:39 | So I need to load that Photoshop file
into the Color channel, and so let's go
| | 01:43 | to the Color channel, click on the Load Image
button, and then navigate to that tex folder.
| | 01:48 | You can see I'm in the tex folder, in
Chapter 6 Project Files folder. And I'm
| | 01:52 | going to go to the
bottle_label.psd and hit Open.
| | 01:55 | And that's now load it into the Color channel.
| | 01:57 | Now I need to go to the alpha
channel and put the same image in.
| | 02:00 | Now I could click on the Load Image
button and navigate to that same location, or
| | 02:04 | I could go to the Texture pulldown here,
go to the Bitmaps menu--and the Bitmaps
| | 02:08 | menu will contain any bitmap images:
| | 02:11 | JPEGs, Photoshop files, TIFF files, you
name it, that are already used in the project.
| | 02:15 | And so, since the only thing I've used
in this product is the bottle_label.psd,
| | 02:19 | it shows up right there in the menu.
| | 02:21 | So I'm going to go to the
bottle_label.psd and let go, and now I've got this
| | 02:24 | alpha channel in here, and you can see
it actually reads the transparency of
| | 02:27 | the Photoshop file.
| | 02:28 | Now that we've got our label
created, we need to apply it to the bottle.
| | 02:31 | So I'm going to move my window down
here just a bit, so I've little bit more
| | 02:34 | working room, and I'm going to take
the label material and drag it from the
| | 02:37 | Material Manager onto the bottle.
| | 02:39 | Now CINEMA 4D allows you to have an
infinite number of materials on your object.
| | 02:43 | The order here that they
appear in is very important.
| | 02:45 | Our material on the right-hand side
overwrites the material on the left-hand side.
| | 02:48 | So it reads the materials from right to left.
| | 02:51 | So as you can see, my label is actually
on top of the glass, which is just the way
| | 02:54 | I want it. But if I render, if I hit
Command+R or Ctrl+R on the keyboard, you can
| | 02:58 | see that it's actually wrapped the
label all the way around the bottle, and
| | 03:02 | that's because of the default projection method.
| | 03:04 | If I click the Texture tag that's
applied to the bottle and go to the Tag
| | 03:08 | properties, and I look at the Projection
method, it defaults to UVW Mapping. And
| | 03:13 | the UV Map for a Lathe NURB
object basically is a cylindrical wrap.
| | 03:17 | Now that's kind of what we want, but we
don't want it to wrap on the whole bottle.
| | 03:21 | So what we need to do next is
to change the Projection method.
| | 03:24 | So I'm going to go to the UV Mapping
pulldown here and select Cylindrical,
| | 03:27 | because our label needs to be
wrapped cylindrically around the bottle.
| | 03:31 | So if I let go on the Cylindrical
Projection method, you can see now it wraps
| | 03:36 | cylindrically around the bottle, just
like it was before, except now it repeats
| | 03:39 | over and over again.
| | 03:40 | So I don't want it to repeat--I only
want to have one label on my bottle--
| | 03:43 | so I need to turn off the Tile option.
| | 03:45 | The Tile option causes the material
to repeat over and over again on the
| | 03:48 | surface of the object.
| | 03:49 | So if I uncheck that, I now have one label.
| | 03:52 | Now, that label is in the wrong position,
so what I need to do now is use the
| | 03:55 | Texture tool to move that label around.
| | 03:58 | So if I go to the Texture tool, as long
as I have the bottle selected, and I have
| | 04:01 | the material selected, then I'll see this
representation of the projection method
| | 04:05 | on the bottle itself.
| | 04:07 | If I didn't have the bottle
selected, I wouldn't see that yellow grid
| | 04:11 | surrounding the bottle.
| | 04:12 | So make sure that you have your actual
bottle selected, and then click on the
| | 04:16 | material, and then you'll see the
actual projection method for that material.
| | 04:19 | So now that I have the Texture tool
selected, I can move this texture around.
| | 04:23 | So the first thing I want to do is
raise it up so it's about on the middle of
| | 04:26 | the bottle itself, and we can orbit.
And let's zoom in on that, so we can see it
| | 04:29 | a little bit better.
| | 04:30 | It's about positioned, height-wise,
where I want it on bottle, but it's
| | 04:34 | wrapping too far around.
| | 04:35 | So if I go to the Tag properties for
the texture that I have that represents
| | 04:39 | the label, I can adjust the Length U
and Length V. The Length V will control
| | 04:44 | the height of the label, and I don't
really want to change that. I think its
| | 04:47 | fine the way it is.
| | 04:48 | The Length U will adjust the width of
the label. And as I scrub that down, I need
| | 04:54 | to orbit around so I can see the label
itself as it changes shape. And I'm down
| | 04:59 | to about 46%. And I'm going to change
the height just a bit and squish it down
| | 05:05 | just a bit, so it feels a little bit
more proportionally correct. And I think
| | 05:09 | that's looking pretty good.
| | 05:10 | Now if I go back to the Perspective
View Edit menu and choose Frame Default,
| | 05:14 | that's going to snap me back
to a 45-degree angle of orientation.
| | 05:18 | Now my bottle is a lot
larger than this default framing,
| | 05:21 | so I'm going to back out from here,
and you can see that based on this angle of
| | 05:25 | view the label is on the back side of
the bottle. And I'd like the front of my
| | 05:28 | bottle to be over here,
| | 05:29 | so what I'm going to do is go to the
Coordinate properties for this same
| | 05:32 | Texture tag and adjust the Heading rotation to
be 180, and that's going to flop the label around.
| | 05:38 | It basically rotates it 180 degrees around its
Y axis, so it's on the front of the bottle.
| | 05:44 | Let's take a look at what our
label looks like when it's rendered.
| | 05:46 | I'm going to fill up the frame with the bottle
and then hit Command+R or Ctrl+R on the
| | 05:49 | keyboard, and there it is.
| | 05:52 | That's really all the basic steps
for putting the label on the bottle.
| | 05:54 | The important thing to remember about
the difference between transparency and
| | 05:57 | alpha channel is that transparency
cuts all the way through the object, while
| | 06:01 | the alpha channel allows you to reveal a
material that is underneath the second material.
| | 06:05 | So have some fun with this and
experiment and make your own wine label and then
| | 06:09 | stick it on the bottle and see how it looks.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using selection tags to apply materials to part of an object| 00:00 | When you're applying textures to objects,
there is a lot of times where you need
| | 00:03 | to be able to limit where that texture
shows up, and there is a very special tag
| | 00:07 | to do that in Cinema 4D.
| | 00:08 | I am going to add a sphere to the scene,
and that sphere is a regular spherical object.
| | 00:13 | It has polygons, but it's still parametric.
| | 00:15 | And what I want to do is be able to
create a material that only shows up on the
| | 00:18 | equator of this sphere.
| | 00:19 | So in order to do that, I need
to make this sphere editable.
| | 00:22 | So I am going to go to the Make
Object Editable button and click on that.
| | 00:24 | Now my sphere is a polygon object,
and I can go into Polygon mode and actually
| | 00:28 | select individual polygons
on the surface of this sphere.
| | 00:31 | So I am going to use the Selection tool
now and paint the selection all the way
| | 00:35 | around the equator of this
sphere, and I'll orbit around.
| | 00:37 | Now any polygons that I get that I
don't want, like that one right there, I'll
| | 00:40 | hold down the Ctrl key and deselect
them. And I am going to paint around and
| | 00:46 | then paint around and paint around--there we go--
and then hold on the Ctrl key to deselect that.
| | 00:52 | So you can see I have a
selection all the way around the equator.
| | 00:54 | Now what I want to have is just the
material that shows up on the equator only.
| | 00:58 | And so, under the Selection menu,
at the very bottom, is Set Selection.
| | 01:03 | Now when I execute this command, I am going
to get a red triangle on my sphere object.
| | 01:06 | I'll let go of Set Selection,
You can see a red triangle here.
| | 01:09 | And this Selection tag is very, very
useful for modeling as well as texturing.
| | 01:13 | So, let's say, for example, I deselect my
polygons and select my sphere again.
| | 01:19 | At some point I want to be
able to reselect those polygons.
| | 01:21 | If you click on the Selection Tag, I
can go back to Select Polygons, and the
| | 01:25 | selection of those
polygons is stored in this tag.
| | 01:28 | I can also deselect the polygons.
| | 01:29 | I can hide those polygons and make
them invisible, which is really useful when
| | 01:33 | you're modeling and you want to see
part of your model that's being blocked
| | 01:36 | by some other polygons. You can hide
those from view using the Selection tag.
| | 01:39 | When it comes to texturing though,
the really useful bit for this tag is to
| | 01:43 | limit how materials show up on objects.
| | 01:46 | So I am going to unhide these
polygons to get back to our sphere, and I'll
| | 01:49 | create a new material.
| | 01:50 | In this material, I'll just change the
colors. Let's make it a nice shade of
| | 01:54 | blue, and apply it to our sphere.
| | 01:57 | And now I want to have another
material that is just around the equator.
| | 02:01 | So I'm going to go to the Material
Manager > File menu and make a new material and
| | 02:05 | this material, I'll just leave it
white and drag it onto this sphere.
| | 02:08 | Now Cinema 4D evaluates these
materials from right to left.
| | 02:11 | So the white material is overriding the blue.
| | 02:13 | What I want to do next is limit the
white material to only show up on the
| | 02:16 | equator, and the way I do that is by
going to the Tag properties and in the
| | 02:19 | Selection field, I drag this
rectangle right into that field.
| | 02:25 | When I let go, now you can see the white
material is only showing up on the equator.
| | 02:29 | When I deselect, I can see a stripe on my ball.
| | 02:32 | So when I render that, you can see
there is the material, limited to only
| | 02:35 | the equator polygons.
| | 02:36 | That's a really important technique
for texture mapping. As easy as it is to
| | 02:40 | apply materials to objects,
| | 02:41 | not every material needs a solid color,
and so this is a great way to add extra
| | 02:46 | materials to your objects and
control them in a very specific way.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Texturing type using multiple materials| 00:00 | CINEMA 4D is used a lot in the
television industry for creating
| | 00:03 | three-dimensional type,
and flying it around on-screen.
| | 00:06 | Three-dimensional type by itself
sometimes needs a lot of help in order to be
| | 00:09 | really legible onscreen, and so there
is a great technique in CINEMA 4D for
| | 00:13 | creating your type and making
it a lot more readable on-screen.
| | 00:16 | So let's see what this means.
| | 00:18 | I'm going to render this scene. Command+R.
You can see I've got this Extrude logo.
| | 00:22 | This is the same Extrude logo that
we created in a previous chapter.
| | 00:26 | It renders out great.
| | 00:27 | Now, I've got an orange material here.
| | 00:28 | I'm going to apply that material to the
border, and I'll apply it to the type as well.
| | 00:33 | Now that orange material, it looks
okay, but I really want to be able to
| | 00:36 | read the word "Extrude."
| | 00:37 | I want it to pop out of the logo itself,
and so what I really want to be able to
| | 00:41 | do is to control the faces of the logo
separate from the Extrudes of the logo.
| | 00:46 | There is a great technique for that.
| | 00:48 | It involves a Selection tag.
| | 00:49 | Now in a previous movie, I talked
about the Selection Tag command.
| | 00:52 | While the Extrude NURB has some built-
in selection tags that you don't have to
| | 00:56 | actually have the red triangle on for.
| | 00:58 | You just have to know the code for them.
| | 01:00 | So, I'm going to go to the Materials.
| | 01:03 | The first thing I'm going to need
to do is make a darker material.
| | 01:05 | I would like to have a darker material
on the sides of my type than on the faces.
| | 01:10 | That's going to make the faces pop out.
| | 01:11 | So if I go to the Materials,
I can take this logo face,
| | 01:14 | hold down the Ctrl key, and drag a copy of it.
| | 01:17 | Now I'll rename it, and call it "logo sides."
| | 01:21 | In the logo sides material, I'll go to
the Color option, and just darken it down.
| | 01:26 | Bring it down about maybe 55% or so.
| | 01:28 | So if I apply this to the border,
and I'll apply it to the type, now when I
| | 01:35 | render--Command+R or Ctrl+R--this
material is on the right-hand side.
| | 01:38 | It's overriding that bright orange material.
| | 01:40 | So I then need to move
this material to the left.
| | 01:43 | So I'm going to drag it over on each element.
| | 01:46 | Now when I render, you can see my logo is
back to the bright orange that it was before.
| | 01:52 | So what I want to do now is to limit
this bright orange material to only
| | 01:55 | showing up on the faces:
| | 01:56 | the face of the border,
and the face of the type as well.
| | 01:59 | In order to do that, what I
have to do is select the material.
| | 02:02 | I'll start with the type.
| | 02:03 | And on the Texture tag,
there is a Selection field.
| | 02:06 | If I type in these letters, capital C,
and the number 1--and the case is
| | 02:11 | very important here--
| | 02:12 | capital C and the number 1, and hit Return,
you'll see that the texture now shows up
| | 02:17 | only on the face of the object.
| | 02:18 | Now when I render--Command+R--
my type is a lot more legible.
| | 02:22 | So let's do that same process for the border.
| | 02:24 | I'll go to click the border material, the
actual face of the tag that's on the Object.
| | 02:30 | I'll go the Selection field,
and type in capital C and the number 1.
| | 02:35 | When I do that, now my border
also shows up with a brighter face.
| | 02:40 | The next thing I'd like to do is to
have the edges really pop off of there.
| | 02:44 | That's going to make it a lot more
interesting to look at when it flies around.
| | 02:47 | So in order to do that, I'm
going to make a third material.
| | 02:50 | So, I'll start with that logo face again,
| | 02:51 | hold down the Ctrl key,
and drag it to the right.
| | 02:54 | I'll call this one "logo EDGE."
| | 02:57 | And that logo Edge material I want to
show up only on the bevels that I've got
| | 03:02 | on this type, and on the border.
| | 03:05 | So let's start off by adding it to the type.
| | 03:08 | When I render now, it's
overriding those other materials.
| | 03:11 | So let's start by changing this
color to make it a lot brighter.
| | 03:15 | I'll go to the Basic properties.
| | 03:16 | I'm going to add in a little bit of luminance.
| | 03:18 | Luminance is going to initially
change the ball to be completely white.
| | 03:23 | You can see it changed my type to
be completely white now, because it's
| | 03:25 | overriding those materials.
| | 03:27 | So I want to go down to the Luminance
channel and dial it down just a bit and
| | 03:30 | then change the color.
| | 03:31 | I'd like to have the same color in my
Luminance channel that I have in the Color channel.
| | 03:35 | So if I hold down the Shift key
and grab the Color channel, I can just drag
| | 03:39 | this swatch from the Color
channel to the Luminance channel and
| | 03:41 | then just select the Luminance
channel and brighten it up a bit.
| | 03:44 | So you can see, compared to the
faces, the edges are quite a brighter.
| | 03:50 | I think I'll turn up the Reflection
a bit on the edges as well. That'll
| | 03:53 | make them pop even more.
| | 03:55 | Now, this material is
still overriding the others.
| | 03:58 | So what I'll need to do is go to the
Selection field, and this time, I'll type in R1.
| | 04:02 | Remember, the case is very important.
| | 04:06 | When I hit Return, now it's only on the edges.
| | 04:09 | When I render, you can see my
edges are really pop off of that type.
| | 04:12 | Let's repeat that process for the border.
| | 04:14 | Actually, all I really need to do is
just hold down the Ctrl key and drag this
| | 04:19 | Texture tag up onto the border.
| | 04:21 | Because I've already got the Selection
Tag in there, when I render, my border
| | 04:25 | edges will pop off nicely as well.
| | 04:27 | So, the selection tags are
built into the Extrude NURB object.
| | 04:31 | The numbers that you need to remember are C1
for the cap one--that's the cap on the face--
| | 04:36 | R1 for the rounding on the face.
| | 04:39 | Then for the back side, it's C2 and R2.
| | 04:42 | So the number 1 indicates the front,
the 2 indicates the back side of the type.
| | 04:46 | The cap is the face,
and the rounding is the bevel.
| | 04:50 | This technique is really useful for
making your type pop and making your
| | 04:54 | logos a lot more legible.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
7. LightsUnderstanding how lights work in the 3D world| 00:00 | In the real world, light comes from
a source and bounces all around the
| | 00:03 | environment it's in, until
it finally lands on your eye.
| | 00:06 | Your brain then
interprets that light into images.
| | 00:08 | All of that light bouncing around us
all the time is physically impossible for
| | 00:11 | even the most powerful
computers to accurately calculate.
| | 00:14 | When the programmers were working on the
lighting engine for C4D, they needed to
| | 00:18 | make some decisions.
| | 00:19 | Foremost was this: if the render
engine is not able to accurately calculate
| | 00:23 | light bounce, what are the absolute
basic characteristics of the behavior of
| | 00:26 | lights that an artist could use to
simulate different lightening scenarios?
| | 00:30 | The answer to that question can be
found in the types of lights that you see in
| | 00:33 | the Cinema 4D application.
| | 00:34 | So I have a basic file here open in Cinema 4D.
| | 00:37 | It's just this floor and a sphere.
| | 00:39 | That floor object goes off to infinity.
| | 00:41 | Now normally if I hit Command+R here,
you can see that my scene is lit.
| | 00:45 | The sphere has a specular highlight on
it, and that specular highlight is being
| | 00:47 | caused by something called the Auto Light.
| | 00:50 | The Auto light is on by default so that
you can actually see what's happening in
| | 00:53 | your scene when you hit the Render button.
| | 00:55 | Now as soon as you start to add
physical lights in your scene, the Auto light
| | 00:58 | turns off automatically.
| | 00:59 | When I add a light to the scene right
now--I am going to click and hold on the
| | 01:03 | scene objects, so you can see
there are some other light types here.
| | 01:06 | I am going to add just a
basic Omni light to the scene.
| | 01:09 | When I add that light to
the scene, my scene goes dark.
| | 01:12 | Now an Omni light is a light
that shines in every direction
| | 01:15 | omni-directionally, and that's
why they call it an Omni light.
| | 01:18 | This Omni light right now is exactly in
the center of the world, but that also
| | 01:21 | happens to be in the center of our
floor and just underneath our sphere.
| | 01:24 | So let's move this light up on the Y axis.
| | 01:27 | So I will move it up on the Y axis
about maybe 300 units or so, and then I am
| | 01:31 | going to back up just a bit, so
you can see the light object itself.
| | 01:34 | If I Command+R or Ctrl+R right now, you
can see now my scene is lit from above.
| | 01:39 | There is a transition, or a falloff,
on the surface of my sphere that goes
| | 01:43 | from bright to dark.
| | 01:45 | Now that word "falloff" is very important.
| | 01:46 | We are going to be using it a lot
in the lighting chapter, as well as
| | 01:49 | the materials chapter.
| | 01:51 | Falloff simply means a
transition from one state to another.
| | 01:53 | In this case, the falloff is from light to dark.
| | 01:56 | Now one thing you don't see is shadows.
| | 01:58 | The programmers, when they created lights,
they said, okay, we are going to allow
| | 02:02 | artists to create light, but we
want to keep the shadows separate.
| | 02:05 | That way if they don't need to have
shadows on all the time, they can light
| | 02:09 | without shadow and save a lot render time.
| | 02:11 | In the real world, you can't have light
without shadow, but in 3D they give you
| | 02:14 | that option, and it's very
handy in a lot of situations.
| | 02:17 | Now that we have a light in our scene,
let's take a look at some of the light options.
| | 02:20 | So I am going to click on the light to
give me the Light Attributes, and under
| | 02:24 | the Basic properties you've got the name
and the layer and Visible in Editor and
| | 02:27 | Visible in Renderer.
| | 02:28 | But now you have a whole
host of other options here.
| | 02:32 | And if I go to the General properties,
| | 02:34 | the General properties are where you
control the color and intensity of the
| | 02:38 | light, as well as the kind of light you
have, and whether or not it's casting shadows.
| | 02:41 | So right now our light Type is set to
Omni, and you can actually change your
| | 02:45 | light to any other type
of light at any given time.
| | 02:47 | For now I am going to leave
this on Omni, and remember,
| | 02:49 | now Omni light shines omni-directionally,
and the Intensity slider will control
| | 02:53 | the brightness of the light.
| | 02:54 | So as I slide the Intensity slider to
the left, you can see my scene gets darker.
| | 02:58 | Now one thing you should be very
careful of is never trusting what you see
| | 03:01 | in the Editor window.
| | 03:03 | So what I am going to do is I'm going to
activate the Interactive Render region.
| | 03:07 | In order to do that I am going to
click and hold on the middle clapboard here,
| | 03:11 | and as I scroll down to Interactive
Render Region, when I let go of that, I am
| | 03:15 | going to get a rectangle on my scene.
| | 03:16 | I am going to enlarge that
rectangle and just make it big enough to
| | 03:20 | encompass the sphere itself.
| | 03:22 | There is a Quality slider here on the
right-hand side. I am going to slide that
| | 03:24 | up to the very top, so I get a much
more accurate representation of my scene.
| | 03:29 | Now that I have the Interactive
Render region turned on, anytime I make a
| | 03:32 | change, I can immediately see the
results of the change in the Render window.
| | 03:36 | I am going to adjust the Intensity
slider here down a bit, so you see that the
| | 03:41 | scene gets darker as
ingest the intensity downward.
| | 03:43 | I will bring it back up to 100%.
| | 03:45 | Now lights can actually
go beyond 100% intensity.
| | 03:48 | So the slider here peeks out at 100%,
but you can always scrub it using the
| | 03:52 | scrubber here, by clicking on
this guy and dragging upward.
| | 03:55 | You can continue changing the
brightness on up to infinity, basically.
| | 04:00 | You will notice that as the light gets
brighter, a very important thing happens.
| | 04:03 | The contrast of the image changes
dramatically, and that's a really cool thing.
| | 04:07 | In the real world, when you work with
lights you have a very little bit of
| | 04:11 | control over how that light behaves.
| | 04:13 | In 3D you can change the behavior of
the light dramatically, and it provides for
| | 04:16 | a lot of flexibility in the lighting engine.
| | 04:18 | There is one other thing I want to talk
about in regards to 3D lighting versus
| | 04:22 | real world lighting, and that's the
idea of how light interacts with objects.
| | 04:26 | In the real world, when you shine a light
on something, if that object is opaque--
| | 04:30 | meaning it doesn't pass light--
| | 04:31 | you get a shadow on the other side.
| | 04:33 | That's how shadows are
created in the real world.
| | 04:34 | Light does not pass through an object,
and it occludes the light and blocks
| | 04:38 | the light from passing through, and it
creates a shadow on the other side of that object.
| | 04:41 | Well, in 3D, the light
behaves quite a bit differently.
| | 04:44 | Let's see what that means.
| | 04:45 | I'm going to delete this light and add
another light in the scene, just to make
| | 04:48 | sure I get all my
settings back to where they were.
| | 04:50 | So I'll add another Omni light.
| | 04:53 | You see it shows up in the center of floor.
| | 04:54 | Now I can just drag it up on the Y axis,
and so it's illuminating the scene again.
| | 04:59 | Now in order to show this next
phenomenon, I need a second object in the scene.
| | 05:03 | I am going to add a cube to the scene.
| | 05:04 | The cube shows up in the center of the floor.
| | 05:06 | Let's move it up 100 units on the Y axis.
| | 05:09 | I will go the Coordinate properties
and go to the Y position and change
| | 05:11 | that value to be 100.
| | 05:13 | Now I am going to slide
this object on the Z axis.
| | 05:15 | I'm going to move my light, and I'm going
to move my light to this location, just
| | 05:20 | in front of the sphere.
| | 05:21 | Now in the real world, you'd expect the
light to be blocked by the sphere and
| | 05:25 | that dark zone to appear
on the surface of the cube.
| | 05:27 | But that's not going to happen.
| | 05:28 | So let's see what that means.
| | 05:30 | When I grab the light itself, I am
going to move it on Z axis, and then down on
| | 05:34 | the Y axis, and as I move it down in
front of the sphere, you will see that the
| | 05:38 | light actually passes right through
the sphere and hits the side of the cube,
| | 05:42 | just as if this sphere wasn't there.
| | 05:45 | So this behavior is really quite a bit
different than what you would expect in the real world.
| | 05:49 | In order to get a behavior more
consistent with the real world, what you need to
| | 05:52 | do is to turn on Shadows.
| | 05:54 | So, if I go to the General properties
of my Light Object and go to the Shadow
| | 05:58 | pulldown, and select the
default Shadow Maps (Soft).
| | 06:02 | When I do that, suddenly the light
behaves more like it would in the real world,
| | 06:06 | and it's casting a shadow.
| | 06:07 | So, the important thing to remember
about the differences between light
| | 06:11 | in Cinema 4D and light in the real world,
is that, number one, light does not bounce.
| | 06:15 | Number two, light passes through
objects until you turn on shadows.
| | 06:20 | As long as you keep those two
things in mind, you will have a much more
| | 06:22 | consistent experience when
you're doing your lighting.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Adjusting falloff to limit how light affects objects| 00:00 | Another very important component of
light in Cinema 4D is something called
| | 00:04 | falloff, and falloff is the idea that light
diminishes in intensity from its source point.
| | 00:10 | In the real world that happens naturally,
but in 3D light does not fall off with
| | 00:15 | intensity by default.
| | 00:16 | Now I have a basic scene open here
with a floor object and a sphere, and the
| | 00:20 | auto light is lighting the scene.
| | 00:21 | If I click Command+R, you see that
there is the general illumination.
| | 00:24 | I am going to add a light source to the
scene, and the light I'm going to add is
| | 00:27 | the Omni light, just the
very first light type up here.
| | 00:30 | And the light when it comes in is at 0,
0, 0, and it's in the center of the
| | 00:34 | world, underneath the sphere,
and basically in the floor.
| | 00:36 | So, I need to move that, and I
am going to move that light up.
| | 00:39 | Now this light, it's only a few units
from the sphere right now, but if I were
| | 00:44 | to take that light--I am going to
back up in the Perspective view here and
| | 00:47 | I'll go to the Top view, and I'm going
to move that light on the Z axis until
| | 00:53 | it's a long ways away.
| | 00:54 | And you'll see the light
is still the same intensity.
| | 00:57 | Now it's not illuminating the floor
right here, but it's hitting the sphere with
| | 01:00 | the exact same intensity that it did
when it was right next to it, and that's a
| | 01:04 | behavior that's on by default.
| | 01:06 | And so if you want to have something
that's a little more realistic, you have
| | 01:08 | to turn on Falloff.
| | 01:10 | So I am going to undo my movement of
the light and get it right back to the
| | 01:13 | sphere and go to the
Detail section of the Lights.
| | 01:16 | So if I click on my Light and go to the
Details properties, that's where I can
| | 01:19 | turn the Falloff off and on.
| | 01:21 | Now the word falloff simply means a
transition from one state to another, and
| | 01:25 | in this case, the falloff is a transition from
intensity, from 100% intensity to 0% intensity.
| | 01:32 | Now there are several different types
of falloff, and we are going to use the
| | 01:34 | Inverse Square, which is you can see
by the description in the interface is
| | 01:37 | physically accurate.
| | 01:39 | But there's actually several other
types of falloff, and there's a really handy
| | 01:43 | image that is in the Help system that
allows you to see what the different
| | 01:46 | Falloff types look like.
| | 01:47 | So I am going to right-click on the
word Falloff and go to Show Help at the
| | 01:51 | bottom of that contextual menu.
| | 01:53 | And when I let go, it's going to jump
in the Help system right to the word
| | 01:56 | Falloff and show me that
image that I was talking about.
| | 02:00 | And if we click on this image,
it will get a lot larger.
| | 02:02 | And I'll enlarge my screen here, so
we can see the different Falloff types.
| | 02:06 | And you can see the default Falloff is
None, and the light is the same intensity
| | 02:11 | all the way through this
room that they've set up.
| | 02:13 | And then Linear is this behavior,
and you can see the light gets less intense.
| | 02:17 | And as we scroll down here, Inverse Square is
what we are going to be using for our scene.
| | 02:22 | That's a little bit more physically accurate.
| | 02:23 | So you have a very bright source of
light close to the light, and then it falls
| | 02:27 | off in intensity as you
get away from that light.
| | 02:29 | And so you can experiment with these
other types to see which you prefer, but we
| | 02:33 | are going to use Inverse Square for this.
| | 02:34 | I am going to close the Help window up
and go back to the Falloff pulldown and
| | 02:38 | select Inverse Square.
| | 02:40 | And when I do that, I get a preview
ring on my light--and I'll switch back
| | 02:44 | to the Perspective view here--and this
preview ring tells me where the falloff ends.
| | 02:49 | And so if I render, Command+R, you can
see that I have a very bright source of
| | 02:53 | light right here next to my sphere,
but farther away from the sphere, the
| | 02:57 | light gets less intense.
| | 02:58 | I'll hit A on the keyboard to redraw the screen.
| | 03:01 | You will see as I drag that light
farther away from the sphere, the light
| | 03:04 | intensity will begin to diminish.
| | 03:06 | I am going to back out just a bit and then
drag it way off to the left here and render.
| | 03:11 | You can see now it's behaving in a
much more physically accurate way.
| | 03:14 | So the whole idea of falloff really is
to provide you with a way to control the
| | 03:17 | intensity of your light as
it relates to other objects.
| | 03:20 | It's not on by default, but you can turn
it on at anytime and also you can turn
| | 03:23 | it off at anytime as well.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Understanding light types| 00:00 | To understand the four primary light
types, we'll need to once again think
| | 00:03 | about the real world.
| | 00:04 | The four light types are Omni, Spot,
Infinite, and Area, and each of these is
| | 00:08 | designed to simulate a different
type of situation in the real world.
| | 00:11 | Let's see what that means.
| | 00:12 | I am going to add a light to the scene.
| | 00:14 | I've got a basic scene open here with
just a floor object and a sphere. And
| | 00:18 | I'm going to go to the Scene Objects
pulldown, and each of the four light
| | 00:21 | types are listed here in the Scene
Objects pulldown, but I am just going to
| | 00:24 | add a light to the scene.
| | 00:26 | We can change our light type to any one
of the other light types at any moment,
| | 00:29 | and that's one of the really nice things.
| | 00:31 | You're not stuck with a given light type,
and you can change it to suit your needs.
| | 00:34 | So as I add this light to the scene,
it shows up in the center of the world
| | 00:37 | and my scene gets dark, and that's
because the light is in the floor and
| | 00:40 | underneath the sphere.
| | 00:41 | So I am going to raise that up,
and move it over on the X axis, so it's just to
| | 00:46 | the left of my sphere.
| | 00:47 | Now the light type is Omni light and an
Omni light shines equally in all directions.
| | 00:52 | So if I add a second object to the
scene, like this pyramid--and I'll move the
| | 00:56 | pyramid up on the Y axis, so it's
flushed with the floor, and then move it over
| | 01:00 | here on the left and orbit around just a
bit-- you can see that the cone actually
| | 01:04 | is being illuminated the same way as the sphere.
| | 01:07 | So the light shines in all directions.
| | 01:09 | If I were to put something up above
it, it would be illuminated as well.
| | 01:12 | So we've got light coming from
360 degrees all the way around it.
| | 01:15 | The next type of Light we're going to
look at is something called an Area light.
| | 01:18 | And an Area light is basically a
rectangle of light, and a great example of
| | 01:22 | that is a monitor. The computer monitor that I
am sitting in front of is really a light source.
| | 01:26 | A window in a room is a
rectangle that emits light.
| | 01:29 | Now, an Area light can be any shape
you want. It defaults to a rectangle.
| | 01:33 | So what I am going to do is select my
Light object and go to the General tab
| | 01:37 | and change the light type from Omni to Area.
| | 01:41 | And the Area Light now, you can see it
defaults to a rectangle and if I render--
| | 01:45 | Command+R or Ctrl+R on the PC--it is
basically a rectangle that emits light, and
| | 01:49 | immediately underneath that
rectangle, you get a zone of darkness.
| | 01:52 | That's because no light comes out of
the edges of that rectangle, and there is
| | 01:56 | also a set of virtual barn doors on that
rectangle to control how far the light spreads.
| | 02:01 | If I go to the Details tab, I can
adjust the falloff angle for the light by
| | 02:04 | changing this value right here.
| | 02:06 | As I decrease that falloff angle, I can
control how much light comes out of the
| | 02:10 | front of that rectangle.
| | 02:11 | It defaults to 180 degrees, which is fully open.
| | 02:15 | You can see that the light spreads out
evenly all the way around the object.
| | 02:19 | Now, the cool thing about an Area
light is that you're not limited to just
| | 02:22 | the rectangular shape.
| | 02:23 | In the Details properties of an Area
light, is the Area Shape pulldown, and I
| | 02:28 | can change this to any one of these shapes.
| | 02:30 | You can have a disc, a rectangle, a line,
a sphere. You can also have an object
| | 02:36 | as well, and when you let go on the
Object, it presents you with an Object
| | 02:39 | field, and I can add a cube to the scene, for
example, and I can have that cube emit light.
| | 02:45 | If I go to Light object in the Detail
section in the Object field, I add the
| | 02:49 | cube into that field, look: it won't go.
And that's because this object needs to
| | 02:54 | be a polygonal object, and my cube
is a parametric, or a primitive object.
| | 02:58 | And so if I take the cube and make it
editable, then go back to my light and in
| | 03:03 | the Object field, I'll be able to
add the cube to the Object field.
| | 03:06 | Now suddenly, the cube is
emitting the light, not the light itself.
| | 03:10 | If I move the light around, you see
nothing happens. But if I move the cube
| | 03:14 | around, I can move that cube, and
now the cube is emitting light.
| | 03:20 | Let's back up just a bit here, so you
can see the effect that the cube is having
| | 03:24 | on the scene. I'll render that.
| | 03:26 | This is a really great technique if
you're creating a room scene, for example, and
| | 03:29 | you have a light bulb in that scene,
and you want the light to come exactly from
| | 03:31 | the location of light bulb, you can have
that light bulb in the Object field for
| | 03:35 | that light and then not have to
physically place the light in the same location
| | 03:39 | as light bulb, because the light bulb
itself will be creating the light source.
| | 03:43 | So the next type of light I want to
talk about is something called an Infinite
| | 03:46 | light, and the Infinite light is
designed to simulate the behavior of the sun.
| | 03:51 | The earth itself is 93
million miles away from the sun.
| | 03:55 | The sun is a gigantic Omni light, basically.
| | 03:57 | It shines in all directions, and we
know that because we can see light
| | 04:00 | hitting planets on the other sides of their
orbits. But we only ever see the sun from one side.
| | 04:04 | The sun is so large compared to the
earth, and we're still so relatively close
| | 04:08 | to it that the light traveling from
the sun is effectively a giant wall of
| | 04:12 | parallel light rays.
| | 04:13 | They haven't really spread out that
far. And so to simulate that lighting
| | 04:16 | effect, they gave us the infinite light,
and the infinite light is basically
| | 04:20 | just a big wall of light
that travels in one direction.
| | 04:22 | I will just delete this cube;
I don't need it anymore.
| | 04:24 | And I will go to the Light object and
change, under the General properties, the
| | 04:28 | Type from Area to Infinite.
| | 04:30 | When I change it from Area to Infinite,
now when I render, you'll see that only
| | 04:34 | the sphere is being
illuminated, not the pyramid.
| | 04:37 | If I hit A on the keyboard to redraw it,
the way the Area light works is that it
| | 04:40 | shines on the Z axis.
| | 04:42 | You can have objects on either
side of that wall, but they'll only be
| | 04:45 | illuminated from one direction.
| | 04:47 | So, for example, what I mean by that is
if I take this sphere and move it down on
| | 04:51 | its local X axis way down away from the light,
you can see that it's still being illuminated.
| | 04:56 | If I move it on its Z axis, from this
angle we don't see the illumination, but
| | 05:00 | if I orbit around, you will see, when I
render, that I get an illumination on just
| | 05:05 | this side of the objects,
regardless of where the light is.
| | 05:08 | Even if I take the light and move it
this way or move it on this X axis, it
| | 05:12 | illuminates only that side.
| | 05:13 | If I rotate the light, wherever that Z
axis is pointing is the direction that
| | 05:17 | the light will be coming from.
| | 05:19 | So if I rotate the light around this
way, you can see that it changes the
| | 05:22 | direction of the illumination.
| | 05:24 | So the Infinite light is a great starting
point if you're creating an outdoor scene.
| | 05:27 | The last light type I want to
talk about is the Spot light.
| | 05:31 | In order to just to get back to a
basic scene here, I am going to delete my
| | 05:34 | light originally, and take my
sphere and zero out its X and Z position.
| | 05:39 | So I will zero that and then zero that.
| | 05:41 | I'll leave it on Y 100, so it
will still be above the floor.
| | 05:44 | Now, I am going to add a new light to
the scene, and this time, I will just add
| | 05:47 | the Spot light. You can add
these and change them at any time, so I'll
| | 05:50 | just add a pre-made spot.
| | 05:51 | Now, the Spot light is basically a
conical field of light, like a track light or
| | 05:55 | a spotlight that you'd see in a theater,
and anything falling outside the cone
| | 05:59 | doesn't get illuminated.
| | 06:00 | So if I move the light up on the Y axis,
you can see that even though the light
| | 06:06 | is above the scene, the pyramid and
the sphere are outside of the cone, and so
| | 06:11 | they are not being illuminated.
| | 06:12 | If I render, my scene is black.
| | 06:14 | As I rotate the cone downward, you can
see it starts to hit the floor, and now
| | 06:19 | it's hitting the top of the sphere.
| | 06:21 | And if I raise that cone
up, the cone will expand.
| | 06:26 | Now, the cone that you see here is
really just a representation of the outer
| | 06:30 | limits of the light, not the
distance that the light will travel.
| | 06:33 | So I can change the size of the
cone by clicking and dragging on these
| | 06:37 | orange handles, and that changes how large
the cone is, but not how far the light extends.
| | 06:42 | You can drag the center to change the
representation's length, and that's really
| | 06:46 | useful just so you can see
what the light is hitting.
| | 06:48 | But once again, it does not affect
how far the light extends. You'd have to
| | 06:51 | adjust the Falloff in order to do that,
and the Falloff is covered in a previous movie.
| | 06:55 | These four basic light types can get
you through nearly any kind of lighting
| | 06:58 | situation you can imagine.
| | 07:00 | Take a look around your home or office
and see what kinds of light types you
| | 07:02 | can identify.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating and manipulating shadows| 00:00 | In the real world, you can't have
lights without shadows, but the early
| | 00:03 | programmers discovered it was
much better for the render engine to
| | 00:06 | separate lights and shadows.
| | 00:07 | This allows an artist to save
render time whenever possible.
| | 00:10 | It also allows you to fine-tune your
renderings in a way that it's impossible
| | 00:13 | using a real camera and real lights.
| | 00:15 | So I've got a basic scene open here,
and it's just a floor object that extends
| | 00:18 | off to infinity in all directions
and an Extrude NURB with a text spline
| | 00:22 | underneath, and the Extrude NURB
is just sitting on the floor here.
| | 00:24 | So I'm going to
illuminate this with a Spot light.
| | 00:27 | Now, if I click and hold on the Light
types here, there is a special type of
| | 00:31 | Spot light I'm going to use,
and that's called a Target light.
| | 00:33 | And a Target light is simply a
Spot light with a special tag on it that tells it
| | 00:38 | to always look at this LightTarget object.
| | 00:41 | And the LightTarget is simply a null
object that I can move around, and wherever
| | 00:45 | I move the null object, the
light has to point at it.
| | 00:48 | So if I back up a bit, you see that
the null object is at the center of the
| | 00:53 | world, and wherever I move that
null, the light has to follow.
| | 00:57 | It's really handy for setting up a very
basic light setup like this, because it
| | 01:01 | immediately comes in pointing at the
center of the world, and if you put your
| | 01:03 | object to the center of the world, there it is.
| | 01:05 | So now what I want to do next is I'll
need to take this Light and make it a
| | 01:10 | little bit farther out from the object.
And then I'm going to expand the cone by
| | 01:14 | clicking on one of these orange dots
and dragging in outward a little bit.
| | 01:18 | Now I know my cone is hitting the object.
| | 01:20 | We don't need to see the light
anymore, so let's zoom in our scene.
| | 01:22 | I'm going to go in here and do a render:
Command+R or Ctrl+R. You can see there
| | 01:27 | is an important element from the
scene missing, and that's shadows.
| | 01:30 | Shadows are not on by default,
and there is really great reason for that.
| | 01:33 | Shadows can take up a lot of render time,
and so the programmers felt it would
| | 01:36 | be better to be able to choose whether
or not they wanted to have shadows on.
| | 01:39 | And so this time we do want to have shadows,
so we need to activate shadows for that light.
| | 01:43 | So if I click on the Light
object and under the General options--
| | 01:47 | or I can go to the Shadow options,
but either place; they have the same pulldown--
| | 01:51 | so under the General options,
you'll see there is a Shadow pulldown.
| | 01:53 | Under the Shadow options, there is
a Shadow pulldown there as well.
| | 01:56 | So I'll just go in the Shadow
pulldown and change the Shadow type from None
| | 02:00 | to Shadow Maps (Soft).
| | 02:01 | Now the Shadow Maps (Soft), the way
that works is it takes a rectangle from the
| | 02:05 | point of view of the light source and
projects that rectangle on your scene.
| | 02:09 | Wherever the rectangle falls on a piece
of geometry, a shadow is made, and that
| | 02:14 | shadow is then projected along the
length of the light onto any other objects
| | 02:18 | that fall behind it to
create the shape of the shadow.
| | 02:21 | Now that shadow map is resolution dependent.
| | 02:23 | When I let go on the Shadow Maps (Soft)
type, you'll see that I get a Shadow Map
| | 02:27 | Resolution X and Y field.
| | 02:29 | Now there is also a pulldown here,
and I can set some default values. I can
| | 02:33 | also set custom values here as well.
| | 02:34 | Now that I've turned on shadow maps--so
let's render and see what it looks like:
| | 02:37 | Command+R or Ctrl+R--and you can see
that now I have shadows. My image looks a
| | 02:41 | lot more interesting.
| | 02:42 | There are some fundamental
problems with shadow maps though, in that
| | 02:45 | they're not very accurate.
| | 02:46 | If you look down at the base of my
letters, you can see there is a little bit of
| | 02:49 | bleed on the shadow where the
letters come in contact with the floor.
| | 02:53 | Also, you notice that the shadow
doesn't feather off. It's soft all the way
| | 02:56 | around. And that's really sort of the
compromise with shadow maps is that they
| | 03:00 | render a lot faster than some other types of
shadows, but they really don't look that good.
| | 03:04 | And so there is always a
compromise with shadow maps.
| | 03:06 | Now there are a lot of situations where
the shadow map will provide you with perfectly
| | 03:09 | adequate results, and you don't need to
mess with the other shallow types. But
| | 03:13 | for this purpose, it
doesn't really look that good.
| | 03:14 | Now we're going to take a look at the
next shadow type, which is Raytraced (Hard).
| | 03:18 | And Raytraced (Hard) shadows are the
easiest shadows for the computer to draw.
| | 03:22 | If I Command+R or Ctrl+R on the keyboard,
you'll see that the shadow itself has a hard edge.
| | 03:28 | Now the crunchiness that you see on the
edges of the shadow is controlled in the
| | 03:32 | Anti-aliasing settings and the Render settings.
| | 03:34 | We'll cover that in a different chapter.
| | 03:35 | Now the cool thing about Raytraced
(Hard) shadows is that they render very fast,
| | 03:39 | and you can control the density of the
shadows by adjusting the Density value.
| | 03:43 | A 100% is the full density of the
shadow, and I'll go to say 50%, and you
| | 03:48 | see that when I render--Command+R or
Ctrl+R--the shadows are still there; they're
| | 03:52 | just a little bit lighter than they were before.
| | 03:54 | You can also change the colors of the
shadows, which can be really handy when
| | 03:57 | you're working on a specific design.
| | 03:59 | The last type of shadow I want to
talk about is called an Area shadow.
| | 04:02 | If I click and hold on the Shadow type
and go to the last type of Shadow > Area,
| | 04:07 | now when I render, the first thing
you'll notice is that the render took a
| | 04:09 | little bit longer, but the other thing you'll
notice is that the shadows look a lot nicer.
| | 04:14 | Now, I have my Density set at 50%. It
remembers that from the previous render.
| | 04:18 | So I'm going to go to the Density and
turn that back up to 100%, and then I'm
| | 04:22 | going to render again.
| | 04:23 | So now, the beautiful thing about
area shadows is that they actually
| | 04:27 | interact with the geometry.
| | 04:29 | And you can see that at the base of
the letters the shadow is very hard
| | 04:33 | where it comes in contact with the
floor and then feathers off as it moves
| | 04:36 | out from the objects.
| | 04:38 | And that's just the way shadows behave
in the real world. And so it's a much
| | 04:42 | more accurate shadow type, but it
does take a lot longer to render.
| | 04:45 | Now the Accuracy, Minimum, and Maximum
Samples area control the accuracy and
| | 04:49 | quality of the shadow itself.
| | 04:51 | Now, if you increase the sample rate,
your shadows will take longer to render,
| | 04:55 | but they will look better.
| | 04:56 | So if we go to the Maximum Samples
here and change this from 100 to say 200,
| | 05:01 | when I render, you'll see that as I
increase the samples, the shadows will get
| | 05:06 | much less grainy, but the renders
will take fractionally longer each time I
| | 05:09 | increase that value.
| | 05:10 | So you have to be really careful with that setting.
| | 05:11 | The default values will usually work
in most situations, and you can always
| | 05:15 | adjust them later if
they're not working correctly.
| | 05:17 | In a perfect world with unlimited
render time, I would always use area shadows.
| | 05:21 | They really do look great,
but unfortunately, they come at a high price.
| | 05:24 | So when I'm working, I experiment with
shadow settings to see what I can get away with.
| | 05:27 | Sometimes I have the sacrifice shadow
quality just to get the job out the door.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating light rays with visible light| 00:00 | The air around us is filled with particles:
| | 00:01 | water, dust, pollen, et cetera--and these
particles have a dramatic effect on light.
| | 00:06 | The particles reflect and refract and
obstruct the light rays, making them visible.
| | 00:10 | Really what you're seeing is not the
ray itself, but the effect of the rays
| | 00:13 | striking the particles.
| | 00:15 | In nature, this is on all of the time.
| | 00:16 | But once again, the programmers
decided to separate that effect out.
| | 00:20 | They went one step further and
gave us two types of visible light:
| | 00:23 | Standard Visible and Volumetric.
| | 00:25 | So I have got our basic scene open
here, and it's just a text object that says
| | 00:29 | "visible light," and it's an Extrude NURB
with the text lying underneath it. And
| | 00:32 | when I render--Command+R or Ctrl+R on
the keyboard--there it is, illuminated
| | 00:35 | with the Auto light.
| | 00:37 | So what I am going to do is add a
new light to the scene, and I'll use an
| | 00:40 | Omni light for this exercise and the
Omni light shows up at the center of the
| | 00:43 | world, right in my light. And what I am
going to do is move it back behind the elements.
| | 00:48 | When I render, you can see I just
see the back side edges of this light.
| | 00:52 | Now, what I'm going to do is go to the
Light, and under the General properties. I
| | 00:55 | am going to go to the Visible Light
pull down and turn on Visible Light.
| | 01:00 | Now there're three types of visible
light here, and I know in my intro I
| | 01:03 | said there were two types of visible
light, but there was exactly volumetric and
| | 01:06 | inverse volumetric. They're just
the reverse of each other.
| | 01:08 | So I'd really think of them as only being two.
| | 01:10 | So I am going to go to Visible Light,
and Visible Light is the most basic kind.
| | 01:14 | And when I add that light to the
scene, you see now I have a sphere
| | 01:17 | surrounding my light source.
| | 01:18 | That sphere indicates the extent to which
the visible light extends into the scene.
| | 01:22 | Let's render our scene right now:
Command+R or Ctrl+R. You can see, now our scene
| | 01:26 | looks very different.
| | 01:27 | The light itself is visible, and is
visible as a sort of cloud that's
| | 01:31 | brighter in the center and less intense out
towards the edges, and that's called a falloff.
| | 01:36 | So anytime you hear the word falloff,
it means change in intensity from
| | 01:39 | one state to another.
| | 01:40 | It's the intensity in the
brightness or the visibility of the light.
| | 01:43 | So it's more visible in the center
and less visible out towards the edges.
| | 01:46 | Now underneath the Visibility tab,
which becomes available when you activate
| | 01:50 | visible light, you've got some options here.
| | 01:53 | You have an Inner and Outer Distance
and the Inner and Outer Distance controls
| | 01:57 | where that falloff occurs.
| | 01:59 | So if I increased the Inner Distance
and bring that out towards the Outer
| | 02:03 | Distance, you'll notice that when I render
now, this zone of brightness becomes larger,
| | 02:10 | the transition zone become smaller.
| | 02:12 | So if I bring this all the way out to
just below 500, and render, I now have a
| | 02:19 | much harder visible light area.
| | 02:21 | You can also change the shape of the
visible light by adjusting a Relative Scale.
| | 02:24 | Now the downside to visible light, the
basic type of visible light, is that it
| | 02:27 | does not interact with the object.
| | 02:30 | Before I do anything else though, I am
going to turn the Inner Distance back
| | 02:32 | down to 0 so I'll have my Light
source back to its original state.
| | 02:36 | Under the General properties, I'm going
to change the Visible type from Visible
| | 02:41 | to Volumetric. And when I activate
Volumetric and render, you are going to
| | 02:46 | notice that now the light is actually
interacting with the geometry, and that's
| | 02:51 | the difference between
Visible Light and Volumetric Light.
| | 02:54 | Volumetric Light can still be seen,
but it also interacts with the geometry.
| | 02:58 | Let's move this light closer to our
object, in order to get a better feel for how
| | 03:03 | this works, and I will render this now.
| | 03:05 | So you can see as the light rays
pass the object, they create a visible
| | 03:08 | obstruction to the light source.
| | 03:10 | And those light rays actually
extend out from the edges of the object.
| | 03:14 | Now let's take a look at the
last type of Visible Light:
| | 03:16 | Inverse Volumetric.
| | 03:18 | So if I click on the Visible Light
type, I can go to Inverse Volumetric. And
| | 03:21 | you'll see that Inverse Volumetric
still interacts with the geometry, but
| | 03:24 | instead of coming from the outer edges,
it actually comes from the shape of the
| | 03:29 | objects themselves. And honestly, I've
never used this on a production, but you
| | 03:34 | never know when you might
need have to use for it.
| | 03:36 | Volumetric lights can be a really
beautiful addition to a rendering. Just be
| | 03:39 | careful because they can have
a dramatic impact on your render time.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating a simple three-point light setup| 00:00 | In the photography studio, a 3-point
light setup is the starting point for many,
| | 00:04 | many shots, and so it is in 3D.
| | 00:06 | A 3-point light setup consists of three lights:
| | 00:08 | a key, a fill, and a back.
| | 00:10 | The key light is the primary source
of illumination for the subject, the
| | 00:13 | fill light fills in the details on the
opposite side of the subject from the
| | 00:17 | key light, and the back light provides a
visible edge to the back side of your object.
| | 00:22 | Let's see what that means with a simple logo.
| | 00:24 | So what I have got here is just a basic
logo that was created in a previous chapter.
| | 00:28 | When I render this, it looks okay,
but I think a 3-point light setup is really
| | 00:31 | going to make it pop.
| | 00:33 | The first step to adding a 3-point
light setup is going to be to add a light.
| | 00:37 | Now, the type of light I am going to
use in this situation, If I click and hold on
| | 00:40 | the Scene Objects here, I am
going to go to a Target light.
| | 00:43 | Now, a target light is simply a
spotlight that has a special tag on it that
| | 00:47 | tells it to always look at this object
called Light Target, and the Light Target
| | 00:51 | is just a null that's at
the center of the world.
| | 00:54 | So if I back out, you can see there is
my spotlight, there's my light target, and
| | 00:57 | as I move this light target around,
the spotlight always has to look at it.
| | 01:01 | So a Target Light is really a great
place to start for a 3-point light setup
| | 01:04 | because I know my light is going to be
pointing right at the center of the world,
| | 01:07 | exactly where my logo is.
| | 01:09 | Now, the light cone for the spotlight is
a little bit too small, and now my light
| | 01:13 | is also too close to my object.
| | 01:14 | So I am going to take the light and drag it on
its Z axis and bring it way out from the logo.
| | 01:21 | Next thing I want to do is to take
this cone and extend it downward.
| | 01:24 | Now, the cone indicates where light
falls, and anything falling outside the cone
| | 01:29 | will not get illuminated.
| | 01:30 | So I want to make sure that my
cone encompasses the entire logo.
| | 01:34 | So the best way to do that is
to take the cone and extend it.
| | 01:37 | As I click on this middle orange dot
here, I am extending the cone outward, and
| | 01:42 | that's a great way to see
exactly what your light is hitting.
| | 01:45 | It has no effect on how far your
light travels. This cone is simply a
| | 01:48 | representation of the spotlight
and where the spotlight is falling, and it
| | 01:52 | doesn't really have an impact on how
far the light extends. Really, all it's
| | 01:55 | useful for is for seeing just
where your light is falling.
| | 01:58 | I am going to zoom in on this logo,
take a little render test here, and I think
| | 02:02 | my light is a little bit high.
| | 02:04 | I am going to bring it down just a bit,
and so I will switch to the 4-way view
| | 02:08 | and drag that down just a hair,
and then go in here and render:
| | 02:12 | Command+R. That key
position I think is pretty good.
| | 02:14 | It's coming right across the face of
our logo, giving us a little bit of
| | 02:18 | illumination on the edges as well.
| | 02:20 | Now, what I'd like to do next is
to fill in the back side detail.
| | 02:23 | So in the 4-way view, what I am going to
do is in the Top view move my lights.
| | 02:28 | And this light that I have here at
the top of the scene is going to be
| | 02:31 | called the key light.
| | 02:32 | So let's change the name right now.
| | 02:33 | We'll call it "Key light."
| | 02:36 | That key light is now the primary
source of illumination for our subject.
| | 02:40 | Now, I want to create the fill, and the fill
light is going to be based on the key light.
| | 02:43 | So the next thing I want to do is
just hold down the Ctrl key and drag a
| | 02:47 | copy of the key light.
| | 02:48 | Now, this copy of the key light
points at the exact same light target.
| | 02:52 | That's going to really help us out later.
| | 02:53 | So I will change name of this
light and call it "fill light."
| | 02:57 | Now the fill light should be coming
from the opposite direction as the key.
| | 03:01 | So what I need to do is change
where this fill light is coming from.
| | 03:04 | So in the Top view, I am going to
drag, I have the fill light selected, I
| | 03:08 | have the Move tool active, and I am going
to click anywhere in the gray area and drag.
| | 03:13 | You notice I'm not clicking on the handles.
| | 03:14 | That's really important.
| | 03:16 | As I drag, the light is forced to
always point at the center of the world where
| | 03:21 | that light target is, because that
makes it a lot easier to position the light.
| | 03:24 | Now, I want to be able to, in the
Front view, drag that light down, so it's
| | 03:28 | coming kind of opposite.
| | 03:29 | You can see that it's opposing the key
light this way, and it's opposing the
| | 03:32 | key light this way.
| | 03:34 | Let's go back to this view
here and render our scene.
| | 03:38 | Now, our logo is too flat now, but now I can
see the edges on the side, where I couldn't before.
| | 03:43 | The fill light is a little bit too hot,
| | 03:44 | so I am going to go back to the
Intensity and bring it down to about, just
| | 03:47 | make it 25% or 30%. There we go.
| | 03:50 | You can see now, I see a little bit
of information on these edges here, and
| | 03:55 | that's just what I want.
| | 03:56 | Next up is the back light.
| | 03:58 | The back light provides a visible edge
to our subject, and really the position of
| | 04:02 | the back light is dependent
entirely on where your camera is.
| | 04:06 | Normally, when I light a scene like this,
I wouldn't light it without actually
| | 04:09 | looking through the camera. But because
we haven't really covered cameras yet, I
| | 04:12 | want to focus on just the lighting at this time.
| | 04:15 | So in order to add that back light, I am going
to work with the fill light as a starting point.
| | 04:19 | So I will hold down the Ctrl key,
drag a copy of the fill light, and change
| | 04:23 | the name to "back light."
| | 04:24 | Now, this back light uses the
same light target as before.
| | 04:27 | So if I switch to the 4-way view, I can
take this back light and drag it right
| | 04:32 | to the back side of the logo,
and then I am going to drag it up as well.
| | 04:36 | The reason I dragged it up is that from
this angle, the edge that I want to hit
| | 04:40 | is this back side right here and the
top edges of the logo on the back here.
| | 04:44 | So if I render now, you can see now
I've got a nice illumination on the top of
| | 04:48 | the logo, and on the tops
of the letters themselves.
| | 04:51 | The last step I want to do is to
organize my scene a little bit.
| | 04:54 | I have got these three lights in
the scene and then my light target.
| | 04:58 | What I am going to do is
parent them to a null object.
| | 05:00 | The reason I am parenting them to a
null object is that I want to be able to
| | 05:03 | sometimes move this light rig around, and
a parent that's centered up on the light
| | 05:07 | rig will make it a lot easier to do so.
| | 05:08 | So I am going to go to Primitive
Objects and add a null to the scene.
| | 05:11 | I will call that null "light rig,"
and I'll take the key light, the back light,
| | 05:17 | and the fill light, plus the Light
Target and hold down the Shift key and grab
| | 05:21 | all those guys, and drag them,
and make them children of the light rig.
| | 05:24 | So now that they're all children of the
light rig, I can twirl it closed, and I can
| | 05:27 | also move that light rig around,
and I can rotate that light rig.
| | 05:31 | So if I don't like the
position of it, I can just adjust it.
| | 05:34 | It's a really easy way to control your lights.
| | 05:36 | For simple product stills and many logo
animations, this simple setup will be all you need.
| | 05:40 | A great animation technique I use is
to animate the heading rotation of the
| | 05:44 | parent null to get the lights to
travel across the surface of your subject.
| | 05:47 | It really adds a lot of
life to your logo, or product.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
8. Keyframes and AnimationUnderstanding keyframe animation| 00:00 | I'm here in After Effects to
illustrate the concept of animation keyframes.
| | 00:05 | The term keyframe
originated in traditional animation.
| | 00:08 | It refers to the important or
key drawing in an animation cycle.
| | 00:12 | The animation was measured in frames of
film, which runs at 24 frames per second.
| | 00:16 | Lead animators would draw important
moments of a character, jumping for joy for
| | 00:19 | example, and then someone called an in-
between artist would come in and fill in
| | 00:23 | all the drawings that would get the
character from keyframe to keyframe.
| | 00:27 | I'm here in After Effects and I've got a
little character jumping for joy that
| | 00:30 | I've drawn out by hand and
scanned the frames in, in the computer.
| | 00:34 | In one composition here, I have just
the keyframes of the animation movement,
| | 00:38 | and you can see the keyframes are his
arms in the air preparing to jump,
| | 00:43 | the initial squat as he prepares to leap
into the air, the bottom of the squat,
| | 00:49 | the initial jump, the top of the jump,
and then his leg coming down preparing to land again.
| | 00:58 | If I do a RAM preview, I am going
to hit 0 on the numeric keypad to RAM
| | 01:01 | preview this and he's jumping.
You can see all the movement of the jump.
| | 01:05 | It's not very smooth though.
| | 01:07 | All you're seeing is the
key moments of the jump cycle.
| | 01:09 | So, an in-between artist, in this case,
me, went back and filled in all of
| | 01:14 | that in between detail.
| | 01:15 | So, I'll go over to this other frame.
| | 01:17 | This timeline has all of
the in-between keyframes.
| | 01:19 | You can see them in lavender here.
| | 01:21 | If I do a ramp preview on this,
the jump is a lot more smooth.
| | 01:26 | It has all of those in-between keyframes in it.
| | 01:29 | Now, it's not very well drawn,
but it is very smooth animation.
| | 01:32 | I am going to move over to C4D.
| | 01:35 | In the computer, a keyframes
simply means a recorded parameter in a
| | 01:38 | specific moment in time.
| | 01:39 | That parameter could be a position or
scale or rotation or color, just about
| | 01:43 | anything in the scene.
| | 01:44 | The great part about keyframes in the
computer is that the software will do all
| | 01:47 | the work of filling in the in-between frames.
| | 01:49 | I am going to add a sphere to the
scene, and I am going to animate that sphere
| | 01:53 | traveling from the negative X
axis to the positive X axis.
| | 01:56 | Now, there's lots of ways to
make keyframes in CINEMA 4D.
| | 01:58 | I am just going to show you a couple right here.
| | 02:01 | So if I take this sphere and use the
red handle to drag it to the negative X axis,
| | 02:06 | this region down here is the
time bar and this time bar has a slider,
| | 02:12 | this green rectangle, and it
has a preview range adjustment.
| | 02:18 | It also has time controls that allow me
to play forward or play backward, and
| | 02:22 | it has some recording buttons for
recording keyframes and you can also decide
| | 02:26 | which parameters you are
going to record keyframes for.
| | 02:28 | Now, the easiest way to record position
keyframes for this sphere is to use the Record button.
| | 02:34 | Now, I don't normally use the Record
button and I'll explain why in just a
| | 02:37 | minute, but for now I am
going to show you how to do it.
| | 02:40 | So, I have taken my sphere and
put it on the negative x axis.
| | 02:43 | Now, at Time 0, and my time slider is
at Time 0. I can tell by moving that guy
| | 02:47 | and seeing the 0 right there.
| | 02:49 | My time slider is at Time 0.
| | 02:51 | If I take this sphere now and click
the red button with a key on it, I've now
| | 02:57 | added a keyframe for that.
| | 02:58 | So, let's see what that physically means.
| | 03:00 | Under the Quarter properties for the
sphere, you can now see these red dots on
| | 03:05 | Position, Scale, and Rotation.
| | 03:06 | I will undo just so you can
see what it looked like before.
| | 03:09 | Now, any place in the
interface you see a black circle,
| | 03:13 | that means that that particular
parameter can be recorded as a
| | 03:16 | keyframe information.
| | 03:17 | So, when I hit the Record button, it's
going to record the position, scale, and
| | 03:21 | rotation for that sphere.
| | 03:23 | At the moment in time I hit the Record button.
| | 03:26 | So, at Time 0, I hit the Record
button and all of these guys turned red.
| | 03:30 | That means I'm parked on a keyframe.
| | 03:33 | Now, let's move the time
slider forward to Frame 90.
| | 03:35 | You'll notice that the dots
have changed to red circles.
| | 03:38 | That means that each of these tracks has
animation on it, but were not parked on a keyframe.
| | 03:43 | So now to get the sphere to move across
the screen, I am going to drag the red
| | 03:48 | handle and you'll notice that now the X
axis is changed. That's because I moved my
| | 03:54 | sphere only on the x axis.
| | 03:56 | Changed values are shown in yellow.
| | 03:58 | So now I can hit the Record button one
more time and it sets keyframes for that.
| | 04:03 | Now, I want to hit the Play button, which
is this little green triangle right here.
| | 04:08 | My sphere is moving from one
side of the screen to the other.
| | 04:12 | So animating really is that
simple at its most fundamental level.
| | 04:16 | The course is a lot more to it
but that's really the basic of it.
| | 04:20 | As I said before, that's not the
way I usually like to make keyframes.
| | 04:23 | So let's try this again with a different object.
| | 04:25 | I am going to close this scene with
Command+W. Don't bother saving, and I'll add
| | 04:29 | a cube to this seamless time.
| | 04:31 | This time I'll take the cube and
move it on the negative x axis and I am
| | 04:34 | already at Time 0, and I'm going to
set keyframes for this cube manually and
| | 04:39 | this is the way I like to set keyframes.
| | 04:41 | I don't like to use Record button
because it sets too many keyframes.
| | 04:43 | For example, when I animated that sphere,
I've only changed the X position, but
| | 04:48 | the red button added keyframes
for Position, Scale, and Rotation.
| | 04:52 | Now, you can disable some functions on
the red button to make it so that it only
| | 04:56 | records Position, but I
prefer to do things manually.
| | 04:58 | That way I know exactly what keyframes I
am getting and exactly when I set them.
| | 05:02 | So now what I am going to do is at Time 0
I have the cube selected and in the
| | 05:06 | Coordinates properties for that cube,
I am going to click on the P column.
| | 05:10 | You'll notice when I click on the P column,
it highlights all of the letter Ps for Position.
| | 05:14 | If I hold down the Ctrl key and then
click on the circle, the circle changes
| | 05:19 | to a dot, and now you see that I also have
a rectangle one down below my time slider.
| | 05:25 | That indicates there is a
keyframe parked on this frame.
| | 05:27 | So if I take my time slider down and
move it to the end of the preview range,
| | 05:33 | if I look at the Quarter properties, you can
see that the red dot is changed into a red circle.
| | 05:36 | That means that there's animation on
this track, on this parameter, but just not
| | 05:40 | at the moment in time that we are
currently on in the time slider.
| | 05:43 | So, what I want to do next is to
drag it across the screen again.
| | 05:47 | Then I'll hold down the
Ctrl key to make a keyframe.
| | 05:50 | Now you'll notice that there is
now a path that starts at our cube
| | 05:55 | starting point and ends where our
cube is currently parked, and that's
| | 05:57 | called the animation path.
| | 05:59 | That animation path becomes visible as soon
as you add Position keyframes onto an object.
| | 06:03 | Let's add some Rotation
keyframes under this cube as well.
| | 06:07 | I'm going to go back to Time 0 and what I
want to do is just rotate the cube randomly.
| | 06:12 | I am going to just rotate it like that.
| | 06:15 | I'll select the cube again
and then click on the R column.
| | 06:19 | With the R column selected, when I
hold down the Ctrl key, it's going to make
| | 06:22 | Rotation keyframes for all three axes.
| | 06:25 | Now, when I move forward in time back to
frame 90, I want to click inside of the
| | 06:29 | yellow circle but not on one of the bands.
| | 06:31 | I'll just rotate this randomly again and
add a keyframe by holding down the Ctrl key.
| | 06:37 | Now, my cube will rotate as it
travels across its animation.
| | 06:40 | Now, one last thing I want to talk
about and that's the Make Preview option.
| | 06:46 | As a general rule, I never ever
trust what I see in the Editor window.
| | 06:51 | In a simple scene like this with
just one cube, we are seeing real-time
| | 06:54 | playback, but as your scenes get
more complex you will not see real-time
| | 06:57 | playback in the Editor window and so
you should never rely on that for judging
| | 07:01 | the speed of your animation.
| | 07:03 | What you should do
instead is make a preview movie.
| | 07:06 | Underneath the middle clapboard at
the very bottom of the menu is the Make
| | 07:09 | Preview option, and when I add the Make
Preview, I get a secondary window that pops up.
| | 07:13 | Now, for some bizarre reason, the Make
Preview option defaults to Full Render,
| | 07:18 | which of course defeats the
purpose of making a preview.
| | 07:20 | So, we're going to change this option
from Full Render to Software Preview.
| | 07:25 | This is going to give us a movie
that looks exactly like what we see in
| | 07:28 | the Editor window here.
| | 07:29 | So, All Frames is fine for now.
| | 07:32 | We are going to render every frame in
the preview range that's on our time slider,
| | 07:36 | and then our image size
is set for 320, currently 320x240.
| | 07:40 | What you see here is the horizontal resolution.
| | 07:44 | The vertical resolution is controlled
by what you set in the Render Settings,
| | 07:46 | and we will talk more about that later.
| | 07:48 | The Image Size, we will change this to
640 and just tab over to Frame Rate.
| | 07:52 | Now, I'm going to be working at 30
frames per second most of the times, so
| | 07:55 | I'll leave this on 30.
| | 07:57 | When I hit OK, I get a blue bar for
progress down at the bottom left of
| | 08:01 | the interface and once that blue progress
bar is done, the Picture Viewer pops open.
| | 08:06 | The Picture Viewer is CINEMA 4D's way of
showing you renders and you can render
| | 08:11 | still images. You can render movies
and sequences here and you can actually
| | 08:14 | watch them and play them back here
without ever having to leave the application.
| | 08:17 | It's a very powerful tool.
| | 08:19 | So, if I hit Play on the keyboard,
which is the Spacebar in the Picture Viewer,
| | 08:24 | or I can hit the green
triangle here, my animation will play.
| | 08:28 | Now, the first time it plays
through it's caching the frames.
| | 08:32 | When it gets done caching the frames,
it's giving me real-time playback and
| | 08:38 | this playback you can actually trust.
| | 08:40 | Understanding keyframes is the most
important part of animating with C4D.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Animating in the Timeline| 00:00 | A keyframe is a recorded
parameter at a particular moment in time.
| | 00:04 | The Timeline is the physical
representation of those keyframes and where you
| | 00:07 | manipulate and control your animation.
| | 00:09 | Now I've got a basic scene file open
here with a cube animating from the +X
| | 00:14 | axis to the -X axis.
| | 00:16 | I'll hit Play on here so you can
see what the animation looks like.
| | 00:18 | So the cube is simply animating across
the screen, a very simple animation with a
| | 00:22 | little bit of rotation on it as well.
| | 00:25 | So here in the time slider when I
select the cube, I can actually see these
| | 00:30 | little rectangles and these little
rectangles represent the keyframes for what
| | 00:34 | I have set on the cube.
| | 00:36 | Now, I don't normally
manipulate my keyframes that way.
| | 00:39 | The reason is is that these are
really small and when you have a lot of
| | 00:42 | keyframes in your object they can
become very confusing about which keyframes
| | 00:46 | you're manipulating.
| | 00:47 | So there is actually a much better
way to manipulate the keyframes and
| | 00:50 | that's using the Timeline.
| | 00:51 | Over here on the Layout button I'm
going to switch to the Animation layout.
| | 00:55 | With the Animation layout active, I
can now see the Timeline at the bottom of
| | 01:00 | the screen and the Timeline is the
physical representation of the keyframes that
| | 01:03 | I've set on this cube.
| | 01:04 | If you look over here in the bottom of
the window, I've got the Cube there below
| | 01:09 | this white line and I've got
keyframes at the start and end of my animation.
| | 01:13 | And if I grab this time slider here,
I can scrub it left and right and actually
| | 01:16 | see my animation playing.
| | 01:19 | Now, this rectangle represents the
keyframe information, so at Time 0 I know
| | 01:24 | that there is a keyframe on my cube.
| | 01:26 | At Time 90, there is also a keyframe on my cube.
| | 01:29 | I can actually select these
keyframes and move them around.
| | 01:32 | So if I drag that to the left, I can make my
animation faster than the 90 frames it was.
| | 01:38 | Now my object will travel from 0
to 50, so it goes quite a bit faster.
| | 01:43 | I can also drag this keyframe to the
right and now my animation will hold for a
| | 01:49 | moment and then start to playback and
finish, and then hold for a moment more
| | 01:54 | before it looks around again.
| | 01:55 | If I hit Play on the keyboard, you'll
see that the Timeline updates along with
| | 02:01 | the Preview Range, along with the Editor window.
| | 02:06 | Now, the animation that you
see is created by keyframes.
| | 02:11 | Keyframes really are just numbers,
and the numbers that are contained in the
| | 02:14 | keyframes vary depending on the
type of keyframe that you're looking at.
| | 02:17 | Now, in the case of my cube here,
I've got Position and Rotation keyframes,
| | 02:21 | and if I twirl open the cube, I can now see
the Position track and the Rotation track.
| | 02:27 | I can also see a bunch of other stuff
in the Timeline here that I don't really
| | 02:30 | want to know about and there is a
really great way to clean up this view.
| | 02:33 | Now in a simple scene like this, there
is not that many elements, but you may be
| | 02:37 | working on scenes that have hundreds
of objects in it and you don't want to
| | 02:40 | have to scroll through all of them
in order to manipulate your keyframes.
| | 02:43 | You really only care about the items
that have keyframes on them already.
| | 02:46 | And so what I'm going to do is
go to the View menu and go to
| | 02:49 | Show > Show Animated.
| | 02:51 | That's going to clean up this
left-hand side of the Timeline.
| | 02:54 | So now I don't have to worry about
all of things there that I don't see.
| | 02:57 | They haven't been deleted from the
scene. They're just been removed from the
| | 02:59 | Timeline, because they
don't have keyframes on them.
| | 03:01 | So now I can click on the word
Position and I can manipulate the entire
| | 03:06 | Position track by moving it
around, grabbing this Yellow bar.
| | 03:12 | If I take the left side of the Yellow
bar and drag it to the right, now I'm
| | 03:17 | compressing those keyframes.
| | 03:20 | So I can also click on the summary line
and that will select all the keyframes
| | 03:25 | for all my objects in the scene
and I can drag those keyframes around.
| | 03:31 | So not only can you move keyframes
in the Timeline, but you can also
| | 03:34 | copy keyframes as well.
| | 03:36 | So what I want to do is I'd like to
have my cube animate across a screen, but I
| | 03:40 | want it to pause in the middle of the animation.
| | 03:43 | First, I'm going to slow my animation
back down again. So I will drag these
| | 03:46 | keyframes back to the left, drag
these keyframes back to the right.
| | 03:49 | Now, navigating in the Timeline, if I
hold the number 1 key as I drag left and right,
| | 03:54 | that allows me to pan in the Timeline.
| | 03:56 | If I hold the number 2 key as I drag left and
right, that allows me to scale the Timeline.
| | 04:02 | So I can zoom in really close or comeback out
really wide to get a good view of my keyframes.
| | 04:07 | So the Timeline allows you to
manipulate your keyframes and control what
| | 04:10 | objects are doing at specific moments in time.
| | 04:13 | And now you've got the basics of
adding keyframes and manipulating them there,
| | 04:16 | but there is still a lot more
left to do with it and in the rest of
| | 04:19 | this chapter, we'll devote ourselves
to understanding how to do this in a lot more detail.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Controlling what happens in between keyframes using the F-Curve Manager| 00:00 | Keyframes allow you to control where
your object will be and what it will
| | 00:03 | look like on a particular frame,
but in order to really gain control over
| | 00:06 | your animation, you need to be able to
manipulate what happens in-between the keyframes.
| | 00:10 | Does an object move smoothly
into position or does it clunk?
| | 00:13 | Does it bounce like a super-ball
or does it thud like a bowling ball?
| | 00:16 | These are the questions you can
answer with the F-Curve Manager.
| | 00:19 | So what I have open here is a file
that has a sphere animating in it and
| | 00:24 | I've got some other copies of that sphere
and we will talk about those in just a second.
| | 00:27 | This sphere is animating with two
keyframes that are having it moved from left
| | 00:31 | to right and I'm looking at it in the top view.
| | 00:33 | So when I hit Play, you will see that
the object will move from left to right.
| | 00:39 | These are just using the default keyframes.
| | 00:41 | In CINEMA 4D when it makes a
keyframes, it uses something called soft
| | 00:44 | interpolation to try and
make a smooth animation for you.
| | 00:47 | So by default, this object is
traveling from left to right, but it's doing a
| | 00:51 | very smooth start and a very smooth stop.
| | 00:54 | Let's see what that looks
like in the F-Curve Manager.
| | 00:56 | So to access the F-Curve Manager,
it's part of the Timeline, and I have the
| | 01:00 | F-Curve Manager visible now, but I got there
by going from the Timeline and back and forth.
| | 01:04 | So if I click on this keyframe button
right here, I'm back in the Timeline.
| | 01:08 | I am going to hit the letter H on the
keyboard which is the same thing as doing
| | 01:11 | the Frame All command.
| | 01:13 | If I go to the Frame menu and select
Frame All, you can see that the keyboard
| | 01:16 | shortcut for this is the letter H.
| | 01:19 | So, here in the Timeline, I
can see the keyframes themselves.
| | 01:22 | The F-Curve Manager allows them to see
what happens in between the keyframes.
| | 01:25 | So I can get there by clicking on
this little EKG looking icon right here.
| | 01:30 | So it takes me to the F-Curve,
but there is a better way to do that.
| | 01:32 | With my mouse over the F-Curve Manager, I
can hit the Spacebar to go back and forth.
| | 01:36 | So now in the F-Curve Manager, I want
to be able to see the curves for this
| | 01:40 | first sphere, default.
| | 01:42 | So, if I click on that default, I now
see some colored lines over here and
| | 01:46 | these colored lines represent the curves.
| | 01:49 | Now I am only seeing part of the lines.
So I want to be able to see them all.
| | 01:52 | So I am going to use that Frame All command.
| | 01:53 | So, if I go to the Frame menu again
and use Frame All, I'll also hit the
| | 01:57 | letter H on the keyboard,
| | 01:58 | now I am seeing the entire curves.
| | 02:01 | The curves are color-coordinated to go
along with the axes that they represent.
| | 02:05 | X, Y, Z, R, G, B. The X axis is always red.
| | 02:09 | So by looking at the curve, I can
see exactly what my object is doing.
| | 02:12 | It's moving in time from one position
to another and it's moving starting off
| | 02:16 | slow and it's coming to a slow stop.
| | 02:19 | The reason I know this is because
of the numbers that are showing here.
| | 02:22 | The numbers across the top of the F-
Curve Manager represent the time value.
| | 02:25 | The numbers across the left-hand
side represent the keyframe value.
| | 02:29 | These keyframes values will change depending
on the type of keyframes you're looking at.
| | 02:33 | In this case, we are looking at
Position frames, so we are seeing
| | 02:36 | Position values here.
| | 02:37 | So, the default interpolation
method soft has created these nice smooth
| | 02:41 | animations for me and what I want to
be able to do now is to change these
| | 02:45 | animations and make the
ball behave in a different way.
| | 02:48 | So what I've done is I have copied
this ball and just moved it down one.
| | 02:51 | I am going to activate the next ball by
holding down the Option key and clicking
| | 02:55 | on these two red dots, and that
turns them both gray at the same time.
| | 02:59 | So now if I hit Play, you will see I
have two spheres moving exactly the same way.
| | 03:07 | Now if I stop playback there, what I
would like to do now is have the second
| | 03:10 | ball move in a linear fashion.
| | 03:12 | A linear move does not slow and does
not speed up and slow down again when it
| | 03:17 | comes into the keyframe.
| | 03:18 | It moves in a constant rate
from one keyframe to another.
| | 03:21 | So, in order to do that, I need to first
find the F-Curves for that linear object.
| | 03:26 | So in order to see those F-Curves,
I need to click on the linear object.
| | 03:29 | Now I am seeing the
curves for that linear object.
| | 03:32 | I want to select all these keyframes,
so I can drag a rectangle around a couple
| | 03:37 | of them and then hit Command+A or
Ctrl+A to grab all of the keyframes.
| | 03:41 | Now I can right-click in the interface
to get a contextual menu and at the very
| | 03:44 | top is a Linear command.
| | 03:46 | If I execute that, it removes the
tangent handles off of the keyframes and makes
| | 03:51 | them into a linear curve.
| | 03:53 | So now when I hit Play, you'll see
the balls behave very differently.
| | 04:03 | What's happening here is both balls
are starting and stopping at the same time,
| | 04:07 | but they're traveling between those
Start and Stop points at very different rates.
| | 04:11 | The bottom ball is moving at a constant
speed. The top ball is starting off with
| | 04:17 | a very slow move and then speeding up
and then slowing down again as it hits its mark,
| | 04:20 | but they both hit
their mark at the same time.
| | 04:22 | So next up is something called an ease in.
| | 04:25 | In order to understand what an ease
in is, you have to think about what
| | 04:28 | keyframes really mean.
| | 04:29 | To the computer, keyframes are really
just a spreadsheet and there is data
| | 04:33 | flowing into and out of that spreadsheet.
| | 04:35 | So when you hear the term ease in and
ease out, you're really talking about data
| | 04:39 | flowing into and out of a keyframe.
| | 04:41 | So, data travels through the
Timeline from left to right.
| | 04:44 | So an ease in is what's coming into a
keyframe from the left-hand side and ease
| | 04:49 | out is what's happening out of the
keyframe from the right-hand side.
| | 04:52 | So let's make an ease in.
| | 04:53 | I am going to activate the ease in ball.
| | 04:56 | The ease in ball, when I select the
curves, they've been made linear and I
| | 05:00 | made them linear using the exact same technique
that I did on that linear ball just a moment ago.
| | 05:05 | So now what I want to do
is I am creating an ease in.
| | 05:08 | If I draw a rectangle around
those guys, I can create an ease in by
| | 05:12 | right-clicking and going to the
Spline Types and doing Ease In.
| | 05:16 | You can see what happens is now I have a
linear move here and a very smooth stop.
| | 05:21 | So let's see what that
looks like when we hit Play.
| | 05:27 | So, the ball starts off at the same
rate as the linear ball, but then it has to
| | 05:33 | slow down as it makes its mark.
| | 05:35 | If I select the ease in ball, you can
see, if I hit Play again, it will make
| | 05:40 | it easier to identify.
| | 05:41 | They all hit their mark at the exact same time.
| | 05:45 | So let's take a look
at the next one, Ease Out.
| | 05:47 | I am going to activate it by holding on
the Option key and clicking on both dots
| | 05:51 | and then I'm going to select the curves
for that, and these are linearized just
| | 05:54 | like the previous one.
| | 05:55 | So I want to grab these keyframes and
right-click and do Spline Types > Ease Out.
| | 06:01 | The Ease Out function now
creates an ease out of the keyframes.
| | 06:05 | So you can see that we have got handles
now and an easing out of the keyframe.
| | 06:09 | So it starts off with a very smooth stop
and then created a smooth stop over here.
| | 06:13 | So if I want to go back here, I can
fix this by right-clicking and going to
| | 06:18 | Spline Types > Zero Angle/Length.
| | 06:20 | That will create a linear stop for me.
| | 06:22 | So I have a smooth start and a
linear stop, the way I intended.
| | 06:25 | So let's click Play.
| | 06:27 | I'll click on the ease out ball.
| | 06:29 | So you can see they still hit their
mark at the same time, but the ease out is
| | 06:38 | taking off with a very smooth
start and coming in hard on its mark.
| | 06:43 | Next up is the easy ease and if you're
an After Effects user, you will remember
| | 06:47 | that easy ease is a phrase from After Effects.
| | 06:50 | It allows you to create a very smooth
animation in After Effects and it works great.
| | 06:54 | So Cinema 4D programmers created a move that's
very similar to that here in the application.
| | 06:58 | So I am going to go to the easy ease object.
| | 07:00 | Let's make it visible first
and then I will select it here.
| | 07:03 | So we can see it's playing back.
| | 07:05 | Here in the F-Curve Manager if I click
on easy ease, it's got linear keyframes
| | 07:09 | on it just like the other ones.
| | 07:10 | I'm going to select all the keyframes,
Command+A or Ctrl+A, and then I'm going
| | 07:17 | to go to Spline Types > Easy Ease.
| | 07:19 | When I let go of that, I get keyframe
that looks pretty much like the default.
| | 07:24 | So when I hit play, you will see that
the default object and the easy ease
| | 07:29 | object are moving in exactly the same way.
| | 07:35 | Next up is something called a hold keyframe.
| | 07:37 | A hold keyframe is really more
like a switch than a keyframe.
| | 07:41 | The object is going to hold this
position until the next keyframe and then it's
| | 07:44 | going to pop just like that
and snap to the next keyframe.
| | 07:48 | So let's make that visible
and see what it looks like.
| | 07:50 | I will make the hold object
visible and then I will select it.
| | 07:53 | So we can see it a little easier.
| | 07:55 | Now down in the F-Curve Manager, I am
going to click on the hold object and
| | 07:58 | linearize keyframe just like before.
| | 08:00 | I am going to select these outgoing
keyframes and right-click and go to Step and
| | 08:06 | Step is what in After Effects
lingo would be called a hold keyframe.
| | 08:10 | So if we hit Play, you will see that
the object now will snap into position.
| | 08:17 | It holds its mark and snap. Boom!
| | 08:24 | So all of the objects are still
hitting their mark at the same time.
| | 08:27 | It's just that this one waits and waits and
waits, and boom, jumps right into position.
| | 08:30 | The last step is the clamp.
| | 08:31 | I am going to hold down the Option key
and make the clamp visible, select it
| | 08:36 | here so we can watch it a little bit better.
| | 08:37 | Then I'll click on the clamp object down
here in the F-Curve Manager to see its curves.
| | 08:41 | Now when I made this, I actually created
separate keyframes for a pause here and
| | 08:46 | this object should be hitting its mark.
| | 08:48 | Let's see what it's doing by default.
| | 08:49 | These are the default keyframes that
I got when I first made the animation
| | 08:52 | for the clamp object.
| | 08:53 | So when I hit Play, you can see that
instead of pausing, it's doing this yo-yo effect.
| | 09:03 | So the yo-yo effect is
not desirable in this case.
| | 09:05 | I want to have it actually paused.
| | 09:07 | So there is a great
function for that called clamp.
| | 09:09 | So if I right-click in the interface
and select the Clamp option, the Clamp
| | 09:17 | option flattens out the curves
and makes the yo-yo effect go away.
| | 09:20 | So now when I hit Play, as you can see,
when I hit Play now, the clamp ball
| | 09:26 | hits its mark, pauses, and then continues on
and catches up with the rest of its buddies.
| | 09:30 | Last up is custom tangents and I will
make the custom tangents ball visible,
| | 09:34 | select it here, and click on
the custom tangents F-Curves.
| | 09:38 | Right now I have them on by default
and really the custom tangents are just
| | 09:41 | taking the handles and
moving them any which way you want.
| | 09:44 | One of the great things about the
F-Curve Manager is that if I move these curves,
| | 09:47 | I have a direct impact on what
the animation does and how it behaves.
| | 09:51 | So if I twirl-open the F-Curve for the
custom tangents, I am going to twirl open
| | 09:55 | position, and I am just going to focus
on position X. So if I click position X,
| | 09:59 | now I have isolated that F-Curve and I
can take these tangent handles, and I am
| | 10:03 | going to select just this one on the
left side and I can move that curve up.
| | 10:09 | I can create effects very similar to
the commands up above, but I am doing them
| | 10:12 | in a manual way, and I'm doing them in
a way that gives me a much more extreme
| | 10:16 | effect than it did before.
| | 10:17 | So I will move this into something
that looks a lot like the ease in.
| | 10:20 | So if I move this up to ease in, I want to
be careful not to go above that red line.
| | 10:25 | Now when I hit play, watch
the custom tangents ball.
| | 10:28 | It's going to come into a much
slower stop than it did before.
| | 10:35 | So let me stop playback again.
| | 10:36 | I can also take this tangent and do it
way down here and my object will actually
| | 10:41 | go backwards and then come back
and catch up with its buddies.
| | 10:53 | So we have been looking at this
animation in a little top view up in the
| | 10:56 | upper left-hand corner.
| | 10:57 | I am going to switch my layout back to
Standard just so we can get a bigger view of it.
| | 11:01 | Now I will switch to Standard
layout here and I have still got the Top
| | 11:04 | view fullscreen here.
| | 11:06 | I'll deselect the custom tangents ball
and we will watch them all playback in
| | 11:09 | the real-time here when I hit Play.
| | 11:11 | So as you can see, all of these balls
are animated with the same two basic
| | 11:17 | keyframes except for the clamp ball.
| | 11:19 | But they're moving in very different
ways and that's all thanks to the power of
| | 11:23 | the F-Curve Manager.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Copying keyframes to create an animated pause| 00:00 | Many times in an animation project you
are going to want to be able to create a
| | 00:03 | pause in animation, and CINEMA 4D's
default interpolation method of Soft tries
| | 00:08 | to create a smooth animation between
keyframes that isn't conducive to making a pause.
| | 00:13 | So what we're going to do here is in a
little exercise where we create a pause
| | 00:16 | in an animation and then go back and
fix it manually using the F-Curve Manager.
| | 00:21 | So I have here a simple cube animating from
the negative x axis to the positive x axis.
| | 00:28 | So when I play the animation, you can
see that it moves from the negative x to
| | 00:32 | the positive x, and it's doing a standard
default interpolation on the keyframes.
| | 00:37 | Let's switch over to the Animation
layout, so we can see the Timeline
| | 00:40 | and F-curve Manager.
| | 00:41 | I will click on the Layout
button and switch to Animation layout.
| | 00:45 | Still the same application, and we've just
rearranged the palettes so we can see things better.
| | 00:48 | You can see down in the Timeline here,
I'm looking at the cube and everything else.
| | 00:53 | Now I don't necessarily want to see all
this other stuff, so I am going to go to
| | 00:55 | the View menu and go Show > Animated.
| | 00:59 | Now, it gets rid of all the
extra stuff in the Timeline here.
| | 01:02 | So now that I have the Timeline, I can
see that my cube is moving from left to
| | 01:05 | right as I scrub through the scene here.
| | 01:07 | What I want to do is create a pause
at exactly the middle of the animation.
| | 01:10 | So at the middle of the animation in
Frame 45, my cube is at this point in space.
| | 01:16 | So what I need to do is create a
keyframe at this point in time, because this is
| | 01:19 | where I want it to pause and so the way
to do that is to hold down the Ctrl key
| | 01:22 | and click right at that point in time.
| | 01:25 | Now that I've created the keyframe, I can
say where do I want that pause to start?
| | 01:29 | And I want it to start probably around frame 30.
| | 01:31 | So my pause is going to start here.
| | 01:33 | That means, my object has to get to
this point faster and that's what happens
| | 01:36 | when I move the keyframe to the left.
| | 01:38 | Now what I need to do is
to Ctrl+Drag a copy of this.
| | 01:41 | So if I hold down the Ctrl key and
drag a copy of that keyframe over to frame 50,
| | 01:44 | now I have the exact same
keyframe values at frame 30 and frame 50.
| | 01:48 | You can see, as I click through
those keyframe values, nothing changes.
| | 01:52 | Now when I hit Play, you would expect
that this cube would hit those two marks
| | 01:57 | and pause in its animation, but it doesn't.
| | 01:59 | CINEMA 4D's default interpolation is
going to create something called an
| | 02:02 | Overshoot and an Undershoot
which creates a yo-yo like effect.
| | 02:05 | So when I hit Play, you can see that there is
a yo-yo move in the middle of the animation.
| | 02:13 | It does not pause.
| | 02:14 | So I will stop playback here.
| | 02:18 | Let's take a look at what the F-
Curves look like for this animation.
| | 02:21 | With my mouse over the Timeline, if I
hit the Spacebar, that will take me to
| | 02:24 | the F-Curve Manager.
| | 02:25 | Now, I can't see the curves yet
until I select the cube over here in
| | 02:29 | the left-hand side.
| | 02:30 | I am going to hit the letter H on
the keyboard to frame up the curves.
| | 02:34 | You can see that the object
is moving only on the x axis.
| | 02:38 | So, I really only need to
focus on the X-Curve right now.
| | 02:40 | So if I twirl open the cube,
and select position X, I can see just the
| | 02:45 | Position X F-Curve.
| | 02:47 | Now, I am going to hit the letter H
one more time to make sure that I've got
| | 02:49 | everything framed up, and I do.
| | 02:51 | So it may not be easy to see on the web
interface at home, but there is actually
| | 02:56 | something called an
Overshoot and an Undershoot here.
| | 02:58 | That's caused by the
default interpolation method.
| | 03:00 | If I select this keyframe, you can see
that the handles for it actually continue
| | 03:05 | on up past the keyframe value and the
handles for the second keyframe, they are
| | 03:10 | down below and lead up into it.
| | 03:12 | So this little hump right here that's
created, and I'll zoom in on it, holding
| | 03:15 | down the 2 key on the keyboard and
dragging up, and then using the 1 key to pan up.
| | 03:20 | This curve right here is an Overshoot.
| | 03:22 | It's gone past the value.
| | 03:24 | This curve right here is an Undershoot.
| | 03:26 | It's coming up into the value.
| | 03:28 | So that Overshoot and
Undershoot is what's causing the yo-yo.
| | 03:31 | So we need to be able to flatten that out.
| | 03:33 | So there's a couple of ways to do that.
| | 03:35 | We could use the Clamp function,
but I'd like to do it manually.
| | 03:38 | I normally prefer to do things
manually in CINEMA 4D because I like to know
| | 03:41 | exactly what it is that I've done.
I tend not to like functions and things
| | 03:44 | that do things just like that with a snap.
| | 03:47 | So in order to do this, let's click on the
Position track to get all the curves together.
| | 03:51 | I am going to hit H on the keyboard to frame
everything up and so I'm going to draw rectangle.
| | 03:56 | Oops! Undo.
| | 03:58 | I accidentally clicked on that red
line again and that red line allows me to
| | 04:03 | change the scale over the keyframes all at once.
| | 04:05 | So when you click on that, you can
drag it and raise it up and down.
| | 04:08 | I am going to undo.
| | 04:10 | So now I am going to click any place
other than that red line and drag a
| | 04:13 | rectangle around those guys and
select the keyframes in the middle.
| | 04:17 | Now, over here when I select
keyframes in the Attribute Manager, I can now
| | 04:21 | see the attributes for the selected
keyframes, and there is a little button
| | 04:25 | here, Auto Tangents.
| | 04:26 | Auto Tangents is normally on for all
keyframes, and that's what creates that
| | 04:31 | actual rebounding effect that you see here.
| | 04:34 | So if I turn this off, suddenly now I
have access to put input manual values.
| | 04:39 | This left time and left value,
right time and right value,
| | 04:42 | these numbers tell me
where my tangent handles are.
| | 04:46 | So the time is left and right;
the value is up and down.
| | 04:50 | So if I put a 0 in the Left Value field,
I'll just type in 0 right here and hit
| | 04:56 | Enter, it zeroes out both
the left value and right value.
| | 05:01 | Look what happened to my curves
down here. They got perfectly flat.
| | 05:04 | Now, this is the same effect that
you get if you ran the Clamp function.
| | 05:07 | It's just that I did it manually,
and I knew exactly what I did when I did it
| | 05:11 | and that's very important to me.
| | 05:12 | Now, when we hit Play on the animation,
you can see that the cube is now pausing
| | 05:18 | right in the middle of its animation,
and taking off smoothly, and then
| | 05:21 | animating into a stop smoothly.
| | 05:23 | Pauses like this are a really common
thing in animation and the F-Curve Manager
| | 05:27 | makes it really easy to create them.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| F-curve exercise: Bouncing a ball down stairs| 00:01 | Here is a little Zen-like exercise
that will show you in really simple terms
| | 00:04 | what the awesome power of the
F-Curve Manager really means.
| | 00:07 | We are going to animate a ball
bouncing down the stairs and then control the
| | 00:10 | weight of the ball using the F-Curve Manager.
| | 00:12 | So what I have here is a
very simple project file.
| | 00:14 | It's just an Extrude NURB for the
stairs and a sphere for the ball and I want
| | 00:19 | to be able to animate this
ball bouncing down these stairs.
| | 00:22 | We are going to be using the
Timeline in the F-Curve Manager a lot.
| | 00:25 | So I am going to switch over to the
Animation layout and I will navigate over
| | 00:28 | here to the Layout button and
I will click on the Animation layout.
| | 00:32 | Animation layout shows me the Timeline,
and I can switch back and forth between
| | 00:36 | the Timeline in the F-Curve Manager really easy.
| | 00:38 | Now in animation process, there is a
lot of ways to approach everyone, and
| | 00:42 | in this one, I think the best way to
approach it is just by thinking about
| | 00:45 | it in two dimensions.
| | 00:46 | So we don't really need to look
at it here in the Perspective view.
| | 00:49 | We want to look at it in the side profile,
which in this case is the right-hand view.
| | 00:55 | So I will zoom out here just a bit so
we can see the stairs and the ball and as
| | 01:03 | I zoom out now, I am getting a
clearer picture of where my objects are in
| | 01:06 | relationship to one another.
| | 01:08 | So the very first step in the animation
process in any animation process should be
| | 01:11 | to say out loud what did you want to do.
| | 01:13 | I would like to bounce
this ball down the stairs.
| | 01:16 | That statement tells me a lot of information.
| | 01:18 | It tells me what I want to do, but it
also allows me to think about what kind of
| | 01:22 | steps I will need to go through in
order to make that vision come to life.
| | 01:26 | So in this case, the very first step we have
to have is we have to have a ball and stairs.
| | 01:29 | Well, we got that.
| | 01:30 | So the next step is where do I
want that ball to animate from when it
| | 01:35 | bounces down the stairs.
| | 01:36 | So what I am going to do is select this
sphere and take this sphere and find a
| | 01:40 | starting point for it to come down.
| | 01:41 | Now I am going to use the Move tool and
click and drag any place in the Editor
| | 01:45 | window here and as I drag up, I am
going to put it right about here.
| | 01:51 | I think that's a pretty good
starting point for my sphere.
| | 01:54 | I need to start setting some keyframes
and in this case we are not going to
| | 01:57 | worry about making this sphere roll.
| | 01:58 | We are going to focus on
position keyframes at this time.
| | 02:01 | So I am going to start off by setting
position keyframes for the sphere at Time 0.
| | 02:06 | So, if I click on this sphere and go
to Coordinate properties and click on
| | 02:09 | the P column and I will hold down the
Ctrl key, and boom, make some keyframes
| | 02:13 | for a position at Time 0.
| | 02:15 | You can see now we have a summary keyframe
and we have a position track in my Timeline.
| | 02:19 | A really good tactic that you should
use when you approach any animation,
| | 02:22 | no matter how difficult or simple
it is, is to animate in stages.
| | 02:25 | You don't want to try and do all
of your animation in the first pass.
| | 02:28 | So what I'd like to do in a situation like
this is I like to put keyframes on the keyframes,
| | 02:33 | one of the most important parts of
the animation, and then I keyframe those
| | 02:37 | important parts and then I
fill in the details later.
| | 02:39 | Well, in this case, the important
parts of the animation are where the ball
| | 02:43 | comes in contact with the stairs.
| | 02:45 | So if select my sphere and I need to
move my time slider forward so I can
| | 02:50 | have it in advance, and I am going to
initially just set these keyframes up every
| | 02:54 | ten frames and I will be able to go back and
change the speed of the animation anytime I want.
| | 02:58 | So I am just going to use every ten
frames as sort of a guide right now.
| | 03:01 | If I move my time slider forward to
frame ten and then take my sphere and move
| | 03:05 | it down so that it's in contact with
the top stair, that is the first important
| | 03:10 | moment of the animation.
| | 03:11 | So now what I need to do
is add a keyframe for that.
| | 03:14 | Now CINEMA 4D has automatic
keyframing, but it's not on by default.
| | 03:17 | I don't normally like to use it.
| | 03:18 | So I am going to make keyframe
manually and you can see over here in the
| | 03:22 | Coordinate properties, this yellow
value indicates that the Position track has
| | 03:27 | changed for Y and Z. X has
not changed. It's still red.
| | 03:31 | So I want to set a keyframe
now at this point in time.
| | 03:33 | I will hold down the Ctrl
key and click on that circle.
| | 03:35 | So now I need to repeat that
process for each of the stairs.
| | 03:38 | So I am going to go ahead and do that.
| | 03:40 | Move your time slider forward ten
and then move the ball down the stairs.
| | 03:44 | Ctrl+click to add a keyframe.
| | 03:48 | Move your time slider 10, move the ball
down the stairs, and Ctrl+click to add a keyframe,
| | 03:54 | and I will repeat that process.
| | 03:58 | When you accidentally forget to move
the time slider like I just did and move
| | 04:02 | your sphere, when you move the time
slider, it's going to jump back to the
| | 04:04 | position of the last keyframe automatically.
| | 04:07 | So I will now move the ball down the
stairs one more time and then I will
| | 04:10 | Ctrl+click to add a keyframe.
| | 04:13 | I am going to do this one more time.
| | 04:15 | I will move the time slider into
position and then move my ball to the very
| | 04:21 | base of the stairs.
| | 04:22 | Let's don't forget to just add a
keyframe. Ctrl+click on those circles.
| | 04:26 | So now as I scrub through this image,
you can see that my object is really just
| | 04:31 | sliding through the stairs
and I don't want it to do that.
| | 04:33 | So this is where the F-Curve Manager comes in.
| | 04:36 | I am going to switch over to the F-
Curve Manager now by using the Spacebar.
| | 04:39 | In fact, if I have my mouse over the
Timeline and hit the Spacebar, it sends me
| | 04:42 | to the F-Curve Manager.
| | 04:44 | Now the F-Curve Manager doesn't initially show
me anything until I click on the word Position.
| | 04:48 | Once I do that, I start to see some
lines here and if you can't see any lines at
| | 04:52 | all, you need to hit the
letter H on the keyboard.
| | 04:54 | H will frame up all of the curves
that are visible for the selected object.
| | 04:59 | So now I have to ask another question.
| | 05:02 | What makes an object look like
it's bouncing down the stairs?
| | 05:05 | What axis does it need to
move on while it's bouncing?
| | 05:08 | Well, it needs to move forward, in this
case on the Z, and it also needs to move
| | 05:13 | up and down to indicate the bouncing,
and in that the case it's on the Y.
| | 05:17 | So what I need to do is to twirl open
my track and I need to start playing
| | 05:21 | with the Y position.
| | 05:23 | So if I click on Y, I can now see
the curve just for the Y position.
| | 05:27 | So now I can control just how that
ball is going to bounce down the stairs, by
| | 05:32 | grabbing a single keyframe and then
fiddling with the Bezier curves that allow
| | 05:38 | me to adjust the tension
in and out of the keyframe.
| | 05:41 | Now if I drag this handle up and down,
I can create a curve in my animation.
| | 05:46 | Let me back out here a little bit,
and you can see my ball starts to arch up, but
| | 05:49 | it also arches down on this
side and I don't want that.
| | 05:52 | So what I need to be able to
do is to break this handle.
| | 05:56 | In order to break that handle, I am
going to hold down the Shift key and click
| | 06:00 | on that and as I break that handle,
I can raise it up and that allows me to
| | 06:05 | create an arch in my animation.
| | 06:06 | Let me give myself a little bit more
room to work in the F-Curve Manager here,
| | 06:09 | and that's really all there is to it.
| | 06:11 | I need to repeat this process for each of
the keyframe, but it's the same process.
| | 06:15 | Let me adjust that down a little bit
and I will select the next keyframe, hold
| | 06:19 | down the Shift key, and then I
will move that curve into position.
| | 06:24 | Grab this next keyframe, hold down
the Shift key, and move the curve.
| | 06:31 | Grab this next keyframe, hold down the
Shift key, and move the curve, and same
| | 06:37 | thing for the very last one. There we go.
| | 06:42 | Now you can see that the curve is telling
me exactly what the ball is going to do.
| | 06:46 | Let's hit Play and see what that looks like.
| | 06:48 | I am going to deselect this sphere before
I do that though and then just hit Play.
| | 06:51 | So as you can see,
the ball bounces down the stairs.
| | 06:56 | Now it starts off with the little
bit too high an arch at first.
| | 06:59 | So I can change that really easy.
| | 07:01 | If I just go over here to the F-Curve
Manager and grab the second keyframe,
| | 07:05 | I can take this handle and just move
it down just a bit and then hit Play.
| | 07:14 | Now the beautiful thing about the F-Curve
Manager-- let me stop the playback for a second.
| | 07:17 | The beautiful thing about the F-Curve
Manager is that it allows you a lot of flexibility.
| | 07:21 | And you saw how fast it was to animate
that sphere, but it's also really fast to
| | 07:25 | adjust the weight of it, and that's
really the amazing power of the F-Curve
| | 07:29 | Manager is how you can control the weight.
| | 07:30 | Right now, this ball feels very bouncy.
| | 07:32 | What if I wanted to make it into a bowling ball?
| | 07:35 | Well, a bowling ball doesn't bounce very much.
| | 07:38 | So I need to adjust the size of these curves.
| | 07:40 | So if I go into the F-Curve Manager on
the Y axis again and just bring the size
| | 07:46 | of these curves way down, and I am going to
select my sphere so I can see what's going on.
| | 07:49 | I am going to bring these curves way, way down.
| | 07:52 | So if I grab this one, bring it down
here and then this one, and bring it down here,
| | 07:58 | and just work my way down the curve, here we go.
| | 08:07 | So again, I am trying to
get them a little more even.
| | 08:09 | I missed one there. Here we go.
| | 08:11 | So now when I hit Play,
I get a very different result.
| | 08:15 | Boom, boom, boom, boom.
| | 08:18 | Oh! I have missed that last curve.
| | 08:20 | Let's go ahead and fix that.
| | 08:21 | I don't even have to stop playback.
| | 08:22 | I can grab this last keyframe,
and just drag it down and make it small too.
| | 08:35 | Up until this point, we have been
looking at this just in the right-hand view.
| | 08:39 | Let's go back to the Perspective view, and you
have heard me say it before in other movies,
| | 08:43 | you should probably never trust what
you see in the Perspective view and you should
| | 08:46 | always do a Make Preview movie.
| | 08:47 | So I am going to deselect this sphere,
and go to the middle clapboard here
| | 08:52 | and do a Make Preview.
| | 08:53 | Now the Make Preview defaults to
full render, but this scene is going to
| | 08:56 | render really fast.
| | 08:57 | So I will go ahead and hit OK
and give me a full frame render.
| | 09:01 | I will change the size.
| | 09:02 | Let's bring that up to 640 and tab
through the Frame Rate at 30 frames per
| | 09:07 | second is just fine.
| | 09:08 | So I will hit OK and now it gives
me a Preview bar down here and that
| | 09:12 | calculating Preview bar tells me how
far along the render is going and when it
| | 09:15 | gets to the end, the Picture
Viewer will pop-open. Here we go.
| | 09:22 | So with the Picture Viewer open,
I can hit Play here and the first time
| | 09:25 | through it's going to cache the
frames and once it's got the frames cached,
| | 09:29 | then we will see real time playback.
| | 09:30 | So I will hit Play here.
| | 09:31 | Let me stop playback for a second.
| | 09:34 | I have got a little bit of bad bounce
here, but that's a really easy tweak with
| | 09:37 | the F-Curve Manager.
| | 09:38 | That's really the great thing about
it is it makes it super-easy to go back
| | 09:41 | through and make changes to your animation.
| | 09:44 | Hopefully, now you can see just how
powerful the F-Curve Manager can be.
| | 09:48 | If you look in the exercise files,
I have got two different examples,
| | 09:51 | one with a bouncy ball
and one with a heavy ball.
| | 09:53 | Take a look at those and have some fun.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
9. Camera Movement and ControlUnderstanding the differences between the Editor Camera and a camera object| 00:00 | In previous movies, we've been
looking at our scenes through something
| | 00:03 | called the Editor Camera.
| | 00:04 | It's a virtual camera that is created
by the software to allow you to see what
| | 00:07 | is happening in your scene.
| | 00:09 | It's fine for modeling
and demonstration purposes.
| | 00:11 | But when it's time to actually animate, you
need to be looking through a Camera object.
| | 00:15 | The Camera object actually
exists in your Object Manager.
| | 00:18 | It can be manipulated, and more
importantly, it can be keyframed.
| | 00:20 | The Editor Camera cannot.
| | 00:22 | So I've got a new scene here.
| | 00:24 | I'm going to add a Cube to it.
| | 00:25 | When I orbit around this,
I'm using the Editor Camera.
| | 00:29 | Once again, the Editor Camera really is just
for modeling and just general use purposes.
| | 00:34 | If we want to be able to actually
control our camera, so we need to add a
| | 00:36 | physical Camera object to the scene.
| | 00:38 | Underneath the Scene Objects is the Camera.
| | 00:41 | There is also a Target Camera,
we're not going to be using that.
| | 00:43 | We're going to use a regular Camera object.
| | 00:45 | When I let go over the Camera object, I get
this green line that is now framing my object.
| | 00:50 | This green line represents the camera.
| | 00:52 | I'm not actually looking
through my Camera object.
| | 00:55 | When I back up, I'm going to use the
navigation tools to back up and look at my camera.
| | 00:59 | I can see that Camera object, and it
came in at the same point of view that I
| | 01:03 | was looking at the world through.
| | 01:05 | That's a very important thing.
| | 01:06 | It's a really good rule of thumb,
| | 01:08 | never add a camera unless you
are in the Perspective view.
| | 01:11 | The reason for that is that if I'm in
the Top View, and I add a camera, I'm going
| | 01:15 | to get a top camera.
| | 01:16 | That's not necessarily what I
want for rendering purposes.
| | 01:19 | So it's always better to make sure you are in
the Perspective view and then add your camera.
| | 01:23 | Now that I have the camera in the scene,
I want to be able to look through it.
| | 01:27 | There is two ways to do that.
| | 01:28 | I can go to the Cameras menu, and go to
Scene Cameras, and look through the Camera.
| | 01:33 | When I do, you'll see my view snap
back to the camera's point of view.
| | 01:35 | Now I'm physically looking through this camera.
| | 01:38 | The other way to do that is
with the Active Camera icon.
| | 01:41 | That's this little guy right here.
| | 01:42 | You can have many, many cameras in your scene.
| | 01:45 | There is no physical limit on how
many cameras you can have in your scene.
| | 01:48 | But how do you know which one you're looking at?
| | 01:50 | This icon will tell you.
| | 01:51 | You can uncheck it or check it to snap
back and forth between the Editor Camera
| | 01:56 | and the camera that you are looking through.
| | 01:58 | Now that I'm actually looking
through this camera, I can manipulate the
| | 02:00 | actual Camera object.
| | 02:02 | If I switch to the 4-way view,
I'm going to back out in the Top,
| | 02:06 | I can use the Move and Rotate tools
to actually move this camera around.
| | 02:10 | You can see as I move the Camera object in
the Top view, my Perspective view changes.
| | 02:15 | That's because I'm moving the Camera object.
| | 02:17 | I can also move the Camera object by
navigating in the Perspective view.
| | 02:21 | This is something you need to be really
careful about when you're setting up a scene.
| | 02:24 | Only do this when you're looking though
the camera when you know exactly what
| | 02:27 | it is that you're going to do.
| | 02:28 | If I just use the regular navigation
controls, just like before the one, two,
| | 02:32 | and three keys, I can orbit
around. I can dolly back and forth.
| | 02:37 | You see that the position of the
camera changes each time I do that.
| | 02:40 | I can also pan left and right.
| | 02:44 | But each time I move, unlike with the Editor
Camera, I'm physically moving the Camera object.
| | 02:49 | It's a good idea to get into a
habit of naming your cameras when you're
| | 02:52 | working on a project.
| | 02:53 | Like I said earlier, there'll be many
times when you'll have a lot of cameras in
| | 02:56 | your scene, and you want to
be able to tell them apart.
| | 02:58 | So they're not all just named Camera.
| | 03:00 | So you can change the name of
your camera and call it cube cam.
| | 03:03 | You'll just notice that in the Camera menu,
under Scene Cameras, it changes here as well.
| | 03:08 | So I can uncheck it here and look
through it, look through the Scene
| | 03:11 | Camera, or I can uncheck it here and
look through the Editor Camera as well
| | 03:14 | using the Camera menu.
| | 03:15 | But the important thing is that the name
of the camera is shows up here on this list.
| | 03:19 | So I'll look back through it.
| | 03:20 | The biggest advantage to using a
physical Camera object is that it can actually
| | 03:24 | be animated; the Editor Camera cannot.
| | 03:26 | This makes it perfect for animations.
| | 03:28 | So let's see what that looks like in motion.
| | 03:29 | I'm going to set keyframes on the
position for my cube cam and have it
| | 03:33 | animate pass this cube.
| | 03:35 | So if I go to the cube cam, now I'll
click on the P column, and hold down the
| | 03:39 | Ctrl key, and set keyframes for it
| | 03:41 | at time 0. My slider is at time 0.
| | 03:44 | Actually, before I set those keyframes,
let's reposition the camera a little bit.
| | 03:47 | So I'm going to bring the camera so the cube
is over here on the left-hand side of the frame.
| | 03:51 | I'll hold down the Ctrl key, set a
keyframes, and then I'll move my Time slider
| | 03:55 | forward in time to frame 90.
| | 03:56 | Now I'm going to move my
camera to the other side.
| | 04:01 | Move my cube to the other side of
frame by dragging the camera on its X axis.
| | 04:05 | Now I'll set another keyframe.
| | 04:06 | It's really important to realize
what these gray values here in the
| | 04:09 | Perspective view mean.
| | 04:11 | The Perspective view shows you these
gray areas to indicate what will be inside
| | 04:16 | the camera's field of view.
| | 04:17 | Anything showing up in this dark zone
will be outside of the camera's field of view
| | 04:20 | and will not render.
| | 04:21 | So you want to be really careful about
when you're moving your camera around
| | 04:24 | to keep your object within the frame at
all times, unless of course you want it
| | 04:28 | to go off camera. Then you let it slide
into that gray area, and you'll be good to go.
| | 04:37 | When I hit Play, only the Top view is
active, and that's because CINEMA 4D by
| | 04:41 | default only animates the active view.
| | 04:43 | I can tell this is the active view
because of this white border around it.
| | 04:47 | So if I click on a Perspective view
that will switch the playback to the
| | 04:51 | Perspective view, and I'll be able to
actually see that animating and the other
| | 04:54 | views will stop their animation.
| | 04:55 | So I'll just stop this playback here.
| | 04:57 | The most important element here
is that the Camera object gives us
| | 05:00 | something tangible that we can
precisely control in our animation and
| | 05:03 | that's a really good thing.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Exploring field of view and aspect ratio| 00:00 | In a real camera, the focal length of
the lens determines how much a lens will
| | 00:03 | magnify distant objects.
| | 00:05 | It also affects how much of the world
the lens sees, known as the field of view.
| | 00:09 | The longer the focal length, the more
the scene is magnified and the less you
| | 00:12 | see of the greater world.
| | 00:13 | Let's see what that means in Cinema 4D.
| | 00:16 | So we've got a very simple file open
here with just three objects and these
| | 00:19 | three objects are at the center of the world.
| | 00:21 | And I want to illustrate the idea of
field of view and focal length for a camera.
| | 00:24 | So I need to add a physical
Camera object to the scene.
| | 00:27 | A great rule of thumb when you're
going to add a Camera Object is to always
| | 00:30 | make sure you're in the Perspective View.
| | 00:31 | So I am going to bring the
Perspective View to fullscreen.
| | 00:34 | I am going to click and hold on the
Scene Objects and go to the Camera object
| | 00:37 | and when I add that to the scene, I get
this green line around here that tells
| | 00:40 | me that there's a Camera object right in
the same location as the Editor Camera.
| | 00:43 | So as I backup, you can see
there is my Camera object.
| | 00:46 | Now I want to get this Camera
object to the center of the world.
| | 00:49 | So I am going to zero out
its position and rotation.
| | 00:51 | So if I go to the Coordinate properties
| | 00:52 | for the camera, I can go 0, tab, 0, tab,
0 ,and then never change the scale on a
| | 00:58 | camera, and I am going to go to
Rotation and zero it out as well, using the Tab
| | 01:02 | key to move through the fields.
| | 01:04 | So now my camera is at the exact center
of the world and I need to look through it.
| | 01:08 | So when I select the Camera Active icon
that puts me looking through the camera.
| | 01:13 | And my camera is actually inside the
cube now, looking at the walls of the cube.
| | 01:17 | So I am going to switch to the four-
way view and drag my camera on its Z axis
| | 01:21 | back until I can see all three objects.
| | 01:26 | I can see all three objects now,
but these objects, the sphere and the pyramid,
| | 01:31 | are actually being clipped off.
| | 01:32 | Anything in this dark gray area is not
going to be seen by the camera when it
| | 01:36 | renders and this represents the field of view.
| | 01:39 | So I'll make sure that when I drag
this camera back that all three of these
| | 01:41 | objects are within the
field of view of the camera.
| | 01:45 | So if I go back to the Top view, I am
going to dolly out just a bit and keep
| | 01:49 | dragging this guy back until all
three objects are in the field of view.
| | 01:52 | In the Top view, you can see this
green line here. This represents the field
| | 01:56 | of view of the camera and once the
objects pass this green line, I know the
| | 02:00 | camera is seeing them.
| | 02:02 | Typically, when I am working on
animation, I'll pay very close attention to
| | 02:05 | where that green line is in
relationship to my objects.
| | 02:07 | What I have done here is I have
adjusted the position of the camera to get the
| | 02:11 | objects in the view, but Cinema 4D,
just like a real camera, has the ability to
| | 02:15 | change its focal length and so if I go
to the Object properties for the camera,
| | 02:20 | I can adjust the Focal
Length or the Field of View.
| | 02:23 | I am going to scrub these values
and you can see how they are linked
| | 02:25 | together because Focal Length,
Aperture Width and Field of View are all
| | 02:27 | related to one another.
| | 02:29 | So as I adjust the Focal Length, I am
going to scrub this value, you can see
| | 02:32 | that the Field of View changes.
| | 02:34 | When I have a very low value here, I
have a very wide angle lens, and as I scrub
| | 02:39 | this value to a high number, it is going
to become a very telephoto lens, and as
| | 02:43 | the lens gets more telephoto,
my Field of View closes down.
| | 02:46 | Normally, in a real camera the
aperture width will control how much light
| | 02:50 | falls into the lens.
| | 02:51 | In Cinema 4D the Aperture Width
directly affects the Field of View and so as I
| | 02:56 | increase the Aperture Width,
I'm also changing my Field of View.
| | 02:59 | The two are directly related.
| | 03:00 | Understanding focal length can help you
stylize your renders by breaking out of
| | 03:04 | the standard view of your scene.
| | 03:05 | It can also help you in the special
effects shot where you need to match your
| | 03:08 | camera or an image or movie
that was shot with a real camera.
| | 03:11 | There are a lot of great photography
resources out there and here on lynda.com
| | 03:14 | that can help you master this concept.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Explaining parallax in camera movement| 00:00 | The term parallax refers to the apparent
difference in speed of movement between
| | 00:03 | objects that are closed to the
camera and objects that are farther away.
| | 00:07 | Objects that are farther away appear
to move more slowly than objects that are
| | 00:09 | closed to the camera, even if they
are directly in line with one another.
| | 00:13 | So here in C4D I have got a file open
and this is just a simple camera animation.
| | 00:18 | If I select my Camera, you can see
it's got the keyframes on it that are
| | 00:20 | animating it from one side of the X
axis to the other and if I scrub through
| | 00:24 | the animation, you can see it's going
to move and as it moves, my elements are
| | 00:29 | passing the camera.
| | 00:31 | Now all of the elements, if you look at
them in the Top view, I'll select them,
| | 00:34 | they are all directly in line with one another.
| | 00:36 | I'm going to switch to the
Perspective view and bring a fullscreen.
| | 00:38 | When I hit Play, you're going to see
that the red pillar is going to fly pass
| | 00:41 | the camera, whereas the other objects
that are farther away from the camera
| | 00:43 | are going to appear to move much more slowly.
| | 00:55 | All of us have seen this
effect when we're riding in a car.
| | 00:57 | If you look at a cornfield for
example as you're driving past it and you
| | 01:00 | happened to be driving along the rows,
you'll see this effect, and the rows will
| | 01:03 | appear to snap into line with one
another, and then the rows that are very close
| | 01:07 | to you will fly by, and the rows that
are farther away will go much more slowly.
| | 01:10 | And I have an example of that as well,
if we go to the Window menu and switch
| | 01:14 | over to the ch09-03-grid file. I have
the same grid laid up and the same objects
| | 01:19 | that are just laid out in a grid now
and if I switch to the four-way view,
| | 01:21 | you can see it's just a grid of objects here.
| | 01:24 | I'll click on it to make them more visible.
| | 01:27 | Bring the Perspective view
back to fullscreen and hit Play.
| | 01:30 | You can see that the objects that are
closed to the camera are whipping past,
| | 01:37 | whereas the objects that are farther
away are going by much more slowly.
| | 01:42 | So parallax can have a dramatic
effect on how you animate your objects.
| | 01:46 | And you want to be very careful about
when you're moving the camera pass the scene,
| | 01:48 | because if your objects are
intended to stay in camera for the entire
| | 01:51 | animation then you want to be very
careful about the distance that they are from
| | 01:55 | one another, because that will have a
dramatic impact on how you frame your
| | 01:57 | camera and how you also animate it.
| | 02:00 | Parallax is the single greatest
factor in creating depth in your scene.
| | 02:03 | You can use it to dramatic effect to
make objects more or less important and
| | 02:06 | help the viewer focus on
what is important in your scene.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating a dynamic camera movement| 00:00 | In this short exercise, we're going to
create a camera move that orbits in a
| | 00:03 | smooth arc around our logo from its left to
its right then zooms through one of the letters.
| | 00:08 | That opening sentence is the
first step to becoming an animator.
| | 00:10 | I always tell my students to say out loud
what it is they're trying to accomplish.
| | 00:14 | If you can't say it in words,
then it probably can't be done.
| | 00:17 | Now that we said what it is we
want to do, let's make it happen.
| | 00:20 | What we have opened here is the
EXTRUDE logo that we created in the previous
| | 00:23 | movie, and it's just the logo under a
Null object, the Border object and the
| | 00:28 | Type along with a three point light rig
that's underneath its own Null object.
| | 00:32 | Now, we're going to be animating and
working in this file, but I don't want to
| | 00:35 | see the light rig anymore. I only want
it to show up when it's time to render.
| | 00:39 | So I am going to make the
top dot on the Light rig red.
| | 00:42 | This status dot indicates visible in
Editor and when I click it twice, it turns
| | 00:47 | red and the light rig is gone.
| | 00:49 | It will still show up when it
renders because the bottom dot is gray.
| | 00:52 | You just don't have to look at it anymore.
| | 00:54 | Now we can just focus on the logo.
| | 00:56 | Up until this point, we've always been
looking through the Editor Camera, and now
| | 01:00 | that we're going to actually animate
our scene. We want to look through a
| | 01:03 | physical camera object.
| | 01:04 | So underneath the Scene objects, when
I click and hold, is the Camera object.
| | 01:08 | We're not going to be using a Target
Camera, just the regular Camera object.
| | 01:11 | And as a general rule, I always make
sure that I'm in the Perspective view
| | 01:14 | when I add the camera.
| | 01:15 | When I do add the camera, I get this
green box around the scene and that
| | 01:19 | indicates that there is a Camera object present.
| | 01:21 | What happened was CINEMA 4D added
that camera at the same location as the
| | 01:25 | current Editor view.
| | 01:26 | So If I back up a little bit,
and I can now see my camera.
| | 01:29 | Now, we're going to be using
something called a camera rig in order to
| | 01:32 | complete this animation.
| | 01:33 | Now, that may sound like a fancy word
but really all it means is two objects
| | 01:37 | that have a relationship to one another.
| | 01:39 | In this case, we're going to be
using a Camera and a Null object.
| | 01:42 | When I create that rig, I want to have
the camera in the center of the world.
| | 01:45 | So let's zero out its position.
| | 01:47 | Now I'll go to the Coordinate
properties for the Camera and in the Position field,
| | 01:49 | I will hit 0, Tab, 0, Tab, 0,
and then Tab over to the Rotation field and
| | 01:54 | then go 0, Tab, 0, Tab, 0.
| | 01:57 | Now, I know my camera is in exactly the
center of the world, and I can add a Null
| | 02:00 | object that I am going to use as its parent.
| | 02:02 | So let's go to the Primitives and
add a Null and I am going to call this Null,
| | 02:06 | CAMERA PARENT.
| | 02:11 | Now, let's parent the
camera to the CAMERA PARENT.
| | 02:14 | Now, anytime I move the camera, I want to be
very careful about which object I am selecting.
| | 02:19 | If I have the CAMERA PARENT selected
like I do right now, anytime I move the
| | 02:22 | CAMERA PARENT, the camera has to
follow, but the camera can still have its
| | 02:26 | own position or rotation. It's just always
going to be relative to the CAMERA PARENT.
| | 02:29 | So let's undo a couple of times to get back
to our position at the center of the world.
| | 02:35 | Now what I want to do is
look through the camera.
| | 02:37 | So I am going to click the Camera Look
Through button and my camera is inside
| | 02:40 | my logo right now at the center of the world.
| | 02:41 | So let's switch to the 4-way view and
back the camera up so that we can see.
| | 02:46 | Pay careful attention. I am
grabbing the Camera, not the CAMERA PARENT.
| | 02:49 | I am going to leave the CAMERA
PARENT at the center of the world.
| | 02:51 | So if I select the Camera and drag
it back on the Z axis, and I'm watching the
| | 02:56 | Perspective view, and I am looking at
either side of the Perspective view for
| | 03:00 | this light gray versus dark gray zone.
| | 03:02 | The dark gray zone indicates the
field of view of the camera and anything
| | 03:05 | falling into that dark
gray zone will now render.
| | 03:07 | So if I back my camera up until the
word EXTRUDE and the border around it are
| | 03:13 | safely inside of that light gray zone.
I am going to back up in my Top view a
| | 03:19 | little bit more and back up just about there.
| | 03:23 | So I am about 1600 units on the -Z, and I think
that's a pretty comfortable spot for the logo.
| | 03:29 | So this is going to be our hero position,
and I call it a hero position because
| | 03:32 | it's the position that the logo will
hit at the most important point in the
| | 03:35 | animation when the
viewer has to actually see it.
| | 03:38 | When I animate for logos
especially, I always animate from the hero
| | 03:42 | position backwards.
| | 03:43 | That way I know exactly where my
camera has to be and where my logo has to be
| | 03:48 | at the most important point in the animation.
| | 03:49 | Everything I do after that is easy.
| | 03:51 | So now that we've found our hero position,
let's go ahead and set some keyframes
| | 03:54 | for the CAMERA PARENT in the camera.
| | 03:55 | So I'll start off with the CAMERA
PARENT and now I click the CAMERA PARENT and
| | 03:59 | in the Position and Rotation
fields, I am going to set keyframes.
| | 04:02 | If I hold down the Ctrl key and click
on the P column and then click on the R
| | 04:05 | column, it allows me to select
both columns at the same time.
| | 04:09 | When I do that, I can now set
keyframes on both columns at the same time with
| | 04:13 | just a single click.
| | 04:14 | I'll hold down the Ctrl key and
click on the actual black circle.
| | 04:18 | That will set a keyframe
for both at the same time.
| | 04:20 | Now, let's repeat the process for the camera.
| | 04:23 | So if I select the Camera, it already
remembers the last selection that I had for P and R.
| | 04:27 | So I'll hold down the Ctrl key and
click on the black circle. Boom!
| | 04:31 | I just set those keyframes at times 0,
but that's not really where I want
| | 04:34 | my logo to animate to.
| | 04:36 | This is going to be about a 30 frame
move to reveal the logo and then a little
| | 04:40 | bit of a drift and then a zoom through.
| | 04:42 | So what I want to do is move these
keyframes that I just set to time 30.
| | 04:46 | In reality, what I should have done
was set at a time 30 to begin with, but I
| | 04:49 | made a little mistake and so we're
going to recover here by just simply
| | 04:51 | moving the keyframes.
| | 04:52 | So let's switch to the Animation
layout and go Layout button switch to
| | 04:56 | Animation layout and now I can see my keyframes.
| | 04:59 | So all I have to do is
just grab these keyframes.
| | 05:01 | Because I'm grabbing the keyframes for
the CAMERA PARENT, it's going to grab
| | 05:03 | the keyframes for the camera as well,
and I can just move those guys over to time 30.
| | 05:09 | So now, my camera will
animate to this point at time 30.
| | 05:12 | So let's back up to time 0 again and
find the starting point for our animation.
| | 05:16 | I'm going to enlarge the window just a
bit, so I have a little more room to work here,
| | 05:20 | and I'll grab the
CAMERA PARENT and rotate it.
| | 05:24 | Now, I am going to rotate it around
its heading, because remember from our
| | 05:27 | description, we want our camera to
start at the top-right of the logo.
| | 05:31 | So, if we go to heading and scrub it in
the positive direction, we can find the
| | 05:35 | starting point for that
value. And that's about right.
| | 05:39 | I don't want to go all the way round
behind and I don't want to be dead on.
| | 05:42 | I just want to start about there.
| | 05:44 | So it's about 84 degrees.
| | 05:47 | Now, if I adjust the pitch, I want to
adjust the pitch in the negative direction
| | 05:51 | to get that logo up.
| | 05:53 | So I am going to go to about 24 degrees.
| | 05:57 | That's a little bit farther than that.
| | 05:59 | What I'm looking for is the bottom of the logo.
| | 06:01 | I want the bottom of this logo to just
get close to the bottom of the frame.
| | 06:04 | That's not too bad, right around -32 degrees.
| | 06:05 | So let's set a keyframe for
position and rotation of the CAMERA PARENT.
| | 06:09 | I'll select both columns again, just
like I did before, hold down the Ctrl key
| | 06:14 | and click on the circle to set that value.
| | 06:18 | Now when I scrub through the animation,
the logo will reveal itself to us.
| | 06:23 | So we've created the first part of
the animation. We want to now create the
| | 06:26 | drifting part of the animation.
| | 06:28 | So the logo is going to hit its mark
at time 30 and then it should drift in
| | 06:31 | frame just a little bit. A little bit of
movement and rotation gives the logo life.
| | 06:35 | So let's advance forward to about 60
frames and then we're going to adjust the
| | 06:41 | CAMERA PARENT, and adjust the
Position and Rotation of the CAMERA PARENT.
| | 06:45 | So let's give it just a
little bit of Z position change.
| | 06:49 | So we're going to zoom
in on our logo just a bit.
| | 06:51 | I am scrubbing in the positive value
direction on the Z axis for the CAMERA PARENT.
| | 06:55 | That's pretty good, right about there,
something about 145 units on the Z axis,
| | 07:01 | and I will hold down the Ctrl
key and set a keyframe for that.
| | 07:04 | I want to adjust a little bit of Bank Rotation.
| | 07:06 | That Bank Rotation will help give
it a little bit of energy as well.
| | 07:10 | So I am going to adjust from the positive
direction for the Bank Rotation. That's good.
| | 07:14 | Right about there, about 13 degrees, and then I
will hold down the Ctrl key and set that keyframe.
| | 07:18 | Now, the last step for the first
part of our logo animation process is to
| | 07:21 | establish that zoom through the logo.
| | 07:23 | So that's going to happen over about
10 frames, maybe less, but let's start
| | 07:27 | off with 10 frames.
| | 07:28 | We can always move the keyframes
later if we don't like the timing.
| | 07:30 | So I am going to move the time slider
to 70 and then I am going to take the
| | 07:33 | CAMERA PARENT and just move it on the Z
axis right up to the logo and let's see
| | 07:39 | where we hit the logo at.
| | 07:40 | So, if I go to the Top view and move
that Z axis for the CAMERA PARENT, so you
| | 07:46 | can see when the camera hits the logo,
it hits right in the center of the R.
| | 07:49 | So what I want to do is in the
Perspective view, grab the CAMERA PARENT and just
| | 07:54 | move it over just a bit on the X axis
and up just a bit on Y, so that my logo
| | 07:59 | will pass right through the center of the R.
| | 08:01 | So now I can drag it again on the Z axis.
| | 08:03 | I will do that in the Top view and push
right on through the R, and once it's through,
| | 08:09 | the camera can
stop when we're good to go.
| | 08:12 | So now I'll set keyframes for the
CAMERA PARENT and the beginning steps for our
| | 08:15 | logo animation is done.
| | 08:17 | Let's make a preview render of this
movie and see what the camera move looks like.
| | 08:21 | I'm going to go to the middle
clapboard here and click and hold on that and
| | 08:24 | go to Make Preview.
| | 08:26 | Now, for some reason, the Make
Preview option defaults to Full Render.
| | 08:29 | We're going to change that to
Software Preview, and with Software Preview active,
| | 08:33 | we can now change the Image
Size to be 640, and it'll automatically
| | 08:38 | adjust the height for the image.
| | 08:41 | I'll hit OK and we get a progress bar
down in the bottom-left of the interface.
| | 08:44 | When that progress bar is done, Boom!
| | 08:46 | The Picture Viewer opens up.
| | 08:48 | Now, we can just hit Play here in the
Picture Viewer. The first time through
| | 08:51 | it's going to catch the frames,
and then once it's done playing it will play
| | 08:59 | the animation back in real-time.
| | 09:01 | As you watch the playback, you'll notice
that the camera move is not exactly smooth.
| | 09:06 | When it hits its mark at the hero
position, it has a little bit of a wiggle on it,
| | 09:10 | and that wiggle is caused by the F-Curves.
| | 09:12 | The default interpolation for CINEMA 4D
tries to make a smooth curve for us every time.
| | 09:17 | And in this case, we don't wanted a
smooth curve. We want a flat curve and so in
| | 09:21 | the next movie, what we'll do is
refine the F-Curves for this and really make
| | 09:24 | our logo animation look great.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Refining and previewing a camera movement| 00:00 | In the previous movie, we created a
really cool looking logo move using a camera
| | 00:03 | parent and logo, but that
logo move is far from finished.
| | 00:07 | In this movie, what we are going to
be doing is refining the move in order
| | 00:10 | to smooth things out.
| | 00:11 | So I have opened the same camera move
that we created before and as I scrub
| | 00:15 | through it, you can see that there is a
little bit of a wiggle at this point in time.
| | 00:22 | Our logo is really not looking very smooth.
| | 00:24 | What we want to have is a nice smooth
drift through this section that then slams
| | 00:29 | through the logo, so none of this wiggle.
| | 00:32 | So what we need to do is to fix the F-
Curves for this. That's a normal step in
| | 00:35 | the animation process.
| | 00:36 | Whenever you animate, you always start
off by roughing in the keyframes and then
| | 00:40 | go back and refine the curves,
and so that's what we'll do right now.
| | 00:44 | I am going to switch to the Animation
layout and in the Animation layout, I can
| | 00:49 | now see the keyframes for our CAMERA PARENT.
| | 00:51 | Now our camera really only has one
keyframe on it, just to establish its
| | 00:54 | position and rotation.
| | 00:55 | So we don't really need to
worry about it at this time.
| | 00:57 | We're just going to focus on the CAMERA PARENT
because that is doing all of the work here.
| | 01:00 | So in the Timeline, I can see that
I've got keyframes from about 0 to 70.
| | 01:06 | I want to be able to see the curves for those.
| | 01:08 | So I am going to either click on this
little icon right here, which will bring
| | 01:11 | me to the F-Curve Manager,
or I'll just hit the Spacebar.
| | 01:14 | By hitting the Spacebar that will
toggle open the F-Curve Manager.
| | 01:18 | In order to see the curves for the
CAMERA PARENT, what I need to do is to click
| | 01:22 | on the word Position, and when I do
that I start to see some colored lines.
| | 01:25 | Those colored lines are the F-Curves.
| | 01:27 | Now it shows me the F-Curves sort of at a
random scale and I can use the 1 and 2 keys.
| | 01:32 | 1 will allow me to pan left and right,
| | 01:35 | 2 allows me to scale up and down and
left and right, and I can zoom in to see
| | 01:39 | those F-curves, but what I really
want to do is to show them all at once.
| | 01:43 | So if I hit the letter H on the
keyboard that will frame up the curve.
| | 01:47 | One of the problems with working at the
scale is that I can't actually see all
| | 01:50 | of the curve itself.
| | 01:51 | So what I would like to do when I am
working is to isolate the individual curves.
| | 01:55 | The way I do that is by twirling open
the word Position and then clicking on
| | 01:59 | Position-X, for example.
| | 02:01 | Normally, what I do is I
work from top to bottom.
| | 02:03 | I'll start with Position-X and
then go back and refine the curves.
| | 02:06 | The reason I do that is because that
allows me to see exactly what my object is doing
| | 02:10 | and I can really refine it.
| | 02:12 | It's not necessarily a quick process,
but it gives me a very refined move in a
| | 02:16 | relatively shorter amount of time.
| | 02:17 | So now when I click the Position-X, I
can see just the Position-X curve and when
| | 02:22 | I hit the letter H on the keyboard, it
focuses on just that curve, and now I can
| | 02:25 | see where my problems are.
| | 02:27 | As you look at that movement, you can
see that there is the overshoot and
| | 02:31 | that's what's causing our wiggle.
| | 02:32 | That's part of the problem with our
wiggle is this Position-X movement.
| | 02:35 | So what I want to do is grab this
keyframe right here, and I'd like to bring the
| | 02:39 | handle to flat so that it's perfectly
flat lined up with these other points.
| | 02:42 | Now I could eyeball it,
but there's a better way.
| | 02:45 | I am going to do it numerically.
| | 02:46 | Up here in the Attributes for the
keyframe that I have selected, I can go to the
| | 02:49 | Tangents fields and
change the Left Value to be 0.
| | 02:52 | It'll automatically change the Right
Value for me and flatten out my curve.
| | 02:56 | I am going to repeat that process for
the Position Y and Z. So if I click on
| | 03:01 | Position-Y, there is that same undershoot.
| | 03:04 | Before on the X, it was an overshoot;
| | 03:05 | on the Y, it's an undershoot.
| | 03:07 | I'll grab this keyframe
right here and do the same thing.
| | 03:11 | Now in this case, I have to unclick
the Auto Tangents because I didn't move
| | 03:14 | the handles beforehand.
| | 03:15 | So, if I unclick Auto Tangents
and then set the Left value to be 0.
| | 03:19 | Now my curve is flattened out again.
| | 03:21 | So let's do the same thing for Z.
| | 03:23 | I need to hit H on the keyboard
and make sure I have got everything.
| | 03:27 | I don't want to flatten this out.
| | 03:28 | What I want to do instead
is adjust the Z position.
| | 03:31 | So if I go in on Frame 60 and just
bring that curve up, that's going to
| | 03:38 | smooth things out for me.
| | 03:40 | So I am going to bring that curve up
and that gives me a little bit of drift.
| | 03:44 | Then I can grab this curve and 0 that one out.
| | 03:47 | So if I select this one in uncheck
Auto Tangents and zero it out, now I can see
| | 03:53 | I've got a nice flat curve
here in a nice smooth start.
| | 03:56 | Let's double-check that and make sure that
we are not actually backing up a little bit.
| | 04:00 | If I grab these two keyframes and hit
the letter S on the keyboard, S as in Sam,
| | 04:05 | when I zoom in, I can now see just
that curve for those two keyframes.
| | 04:08 | If I enlarge the space a little bit and
zoom up, you can see that even though my
| | 04:13 | curve handle is still flat. I still
have an undershoot. That undershoot is
| | 04:16 | caused by this handle.
| | 04:17 | So what I need to do is select just
this handle and bring it up so that my
| | 04:22 | curve comes up above that blue line.
| | 04:25 | Now my Position won't go backwards.
It will drift nicely towards the next keyframe.
| | 04:30 | Now I can move on to the rotation.
| | 04:31 | If I click Rotation - H, hit H
on the keyboard to see everything,
| | 04:36 | do the same thing again,
| | 04:37 | I'll just select this keyframe and then
go to the Attributes, and let's enlarge
| | 04:42 | that window a little bit.
| | 04:43 | Uncheck the Auto Tangents and set that to be 0.
| | 04:47 | Same thing for the Rotation - P. I
need to select this keyframe, uncheck Auto
| | 04:53 | Tangents, set the Value to be 0. Rotation - B.
| | 04:57 | Now this one is going to be tricky, just
like the Position - Z. So if I hit H on
| | 05:02 | the keyboard, I can see I have got a
little bit of a drift left and right.
| | 05:06 | So if I grab this keyframe, if I zero
that out, let's go ahead and do that just
| | 05:10 | so we can see what happens.
| | 05:11 | Now it fixes it down here,
but up here we still got an overshoot.
| | 05:16 | I'd like this logo to continue
rotating as we pass through, so I am going to
| | 05:20 | take this keyframe and move it up.
| | 05:23 | As I do that, I am changing the
Rotation value for the CAMERA PARENT at
| | 05:26 | this point in time.
| | 05:27 | So by moving it up, I am moving it to
the point where it's roughly in line with
| | 05:31 | that previous keyframe.
| | 05:33 | So that's pretty much it for refining it.
| | 05:34 | We have got one last step to do though.
| | 05:36 | If I hit letter H on the keyboard, I am
going to click on the CAMERA PARENT and
| | 05:39 | then hit H one more time.
| | 05:41 | Now I want to grab all the keyframes
at the start and all the keyframes at
| | 05:44 | the end, and then I am going to right-click
and go to Spline Types > Zero Angle/Zero Length.
| | 05:50 | What that does for me is it gets rid of the
handles at the top and bottom of the animation.
| | 05:54 | It's always a good rule,
| | 05:55 | you want to start on motion
and cut on motion at the end.
| | 05:57 | You don't want your camera to speed
up at the beginning of the animation or
| | 06:00 | slow down at the beginning of the animation.
| | 06:02 | Let's preview this movie
and see what it looks like.
| | 06:03 | I am going to go to the Make Preview
option by clicking on the middle clapboard,
| | 06:08 | going down to the Make Preview option.
| | 06:10 | Now because I have the same project
file open from recording the last movie,
| | 06:15 | it still says Software Preview here.
| | 06:16 | So it remembered that. If you've quit
the application and come back, it will
| | 06:20 | say Full Render here.
| | 06:22 | So you want to make sure that
this is set to be Software Preview.
| | 06:25 | So I hit OK and I get the progress bar
down at the bottom and when it's done,
| | 06:32 | boom, here's the Picture
Viewer with our animation.
| | 06:35 | Now I am going to hit Play here,
and it's going to cache the frames the first time,
| | 06:37 | and then once it's on caching,
it will loop over and over again.
| | 06:40 | Now this little animation looks really good.
| | 06:50 | There's one thing I'd like to do though.
| | 06:51 | At the moment it hits the 0 position,
the logo kind of stops right here and
| | 06:56 | then starts its drift.
| | 06:57 | So what we are going to is we are going
to adjust the rotation curves in order
| | 07:02 | to make that logo animation just
a little bit smoother right there.
| | 07:06 | Close the Picture Viewer up and go back
to the CAMERA PARENT Rotation - B,
| | 07:11 | and I am going to hit H on
the keyboard to frame that up.
| | 07:14 | What I want to do is at this point in
time grab this keyframe and then push it
| | 07:20 | up just a bit, and when I push it up,
you'll see that curve starts to get
| | 07:25 | deformed, and I am going to adjust this
handle right here to get it back again.
| | 07:31 | And I want to try and
create a nice smooth animation.
| | 07:34 | What happens is now my logo hits
that mark and keeps on rotating.
| | 07:40 | Instead of coming to a flat rotation,
it hits its mark kind of at an angle and
| | 07:44 | then keeps on rotating
smoothly as we leave the frame.
| | 07:48 | That's going to give us a much
smoother animation than we did before.
| | 07:51 | So let's preview that real quick,
and I'll use the keyboard shortcut for Make
| | 07:55 | Preview, which is Option+B or Alt+B on
the PC, and that's the same thing is going
| | 07:59 | to the menu and click in Make Preview.
| | 08:01 | So I'll just hit Option+B or Alt+B on the PC
and then hit OK and preview the animation.
| | 08:06 | When I hit Play now, it's going to cache
the frames and a lot of that pause is gone.
| | 08:17 | There is still a little bit of a pause
in there, but I could tweak the other
| | 08:20 | curves, but I think you get the idea now.
| | 08:22 | So as you can see, animation is a
multi-step process and the way I always
| | 08:29 | preferred to work is by working in stages.
| | 08:31 | I'd start off by roughing in my animation.
| | 08:33 | I don't even think about what the F-
Curves are doing, and then once I've got the
| | 08:36 | basic points of the animation complete,
the keyframes of the animation, then I
| | 08:41 | go back and refine the F-Curves.
| | 08:43 | So if you use a multistage process,
you'll get better results every time.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
10. RenderingUnderstanding the render engine| 00:00 | The render engine is the component of
the software that takes the contents
| | 00:03 | of the viewport and creates a
bitmap image that can be saved out in a
| | 00:06 | variety of file formats.
| | 00:08 | The goal of the programmers was to
recreate in the computer what our eyes do
| | 00:11 | every second we have them open.
| | 00:13 | This turned out to be no small task.
| | 00:14 | Now what I've got here is a very simple scene.
| | 00:17 | I've a sphere, a camera, and a light
and this is a gross oversimplification of
| | 00:22 | what is actually happening in the
software, but I think it will help to
| | 00:24 | illustrate the point.
| | 00:26 | So our eyes work by using photons that
are bouncing around us all the time and
| | 00:31 | eventually land on our eye, and that
goes into our retina which gets converted
| | 00:35 | into ambiguous that our brain interprets for us.
| | 00:37 | Now the software engineers
couldn't have all those photons.
| | 00:40 | What they come up with was the idea of rays.
| | 00:42 | And rays will shootout from the point
of view of the camera and the point of
| | 00:46 | view of the light and then strike
objects in the scene and how they impact
| | 00:50 | those objects is then interpreted by
the software, and that's what creates the
| | 00:53 | pixels that we see.
| | 00:54 | So I have a really simple scene here
that I created using a little bit of
| | 00:57 | MoGraph and a particle emitter in.
| | 00:59 | When I hit the Play button here, you'll
see that these lines here represent the rays.
| | 01:03 | So they're shooting out from the point
of view of the camera. They're shooting
| | 01:05 | out from the point of the light
and they're striking our sphere.
| | 01:08 | And if I look through the camera, you
can see that some of the light rays are
| | 01:13 | striking the sphere and
some are going off to infinity.
| | 01:16 | Now the ones that go off to infinity
don't report back to the camera and they
| | 01:20 | don't actually produce any pixels.
| | 01:21 | So you get black in that area,
and the light rays that don't strike an object,
| | 01:25 | those will go off to infinity as
well and they don't have an impact on the scene.
| | 01:30 | So when I hit the Render button, I'll
just click on the Render Active View.
| | 01:34 | You can see that every place where a ray
did not strike the sphere. We get black.
| | 01:38 | That's really the basic way that the
render engine works and everything that you
| | 01:41 | do from a modeling and texturing
standpoint is all designed to produce the
| | 01:45 | correct result when you hit that Render button.
| | 01:48 | I never really had a full appreciation
of what the human eye was capable of
| | 01:51 | until I started to work with 3D applications.
| | 01:53 | It takes thousands and thousands of
lines of code to create the render engine
| | 01:57 | and a huge processor to run it on,
and it doesn't even come close to what our
| | 02:00 | eyes do every second of every day.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Exploring render settings| 00:00 | The still renders that we've been
doing in the viewport are fine for preview
| | 00:03 | purposes, but at some point we need to
get this image out of Cinema 4D and into
| | 00:07 | another application like
After Effects or Photoshop.
| | 00:09 | That's where the Render Settings come in.
| | 00:11 | They allow us to control all the
aspects of how our images will be rendered and
| | 00:14 | saved to the hard drive.
| | 00:15 | Now what I have opened here is the
same logo animation that we created in
| | 00:20 | the previous chapter.
| | 00:21 | If I scrub through you can see we start
high on the logo and then reveal it and
| | 00:25 | then fly through the
letter R out the other side.
| | 00:28 | I want to be able to get this render
out to After Effects for later compositing
| | 00:32 | and making it look even
prettier than it already is.
| | 00:35 | So what I want to be able to do is
change how Cinema 4D is actually going
| | 00:38 | to render this out.
| | 00:39 | So I need to go to the Render Settings.
| | 00:40 | The Render Settings are accessed by
either clicking on this white clapboard with
| | 00:44 | a little field behind it or by going
to the Render menu and activating the
| | 00:48 | Render Settings there.
| | 00:49 | I could also hit Command+B on the keyboard.
| | 00:51 | So I'll activate the Render Settings,
and the window is divided into two sections.
| | 00:56 | On the left-hand side we have a list of
setting categories and on the right-hand
| | 01:00 | side will show us what
category we are looking at.
| | 01:03 | So right now we are looking
at the General categories.
| | 01:05 | The General settings show us what type
of the render we are going to be doing.
| | 01:08 | Is it a Full Render or Software Preview?
| | 01:10 | Most of the time we will be using full
render, but there are times when you're
| | 01:13 | creating a vameramatic, for example, which
is just a shaded view of your animation
| | 01:17 | that you're going to be using in another
program like Final Cut or After Effects.
| | 01:20 | Yhen you can do a Software Preview render.
| | 01:22 | Hardware Preview will give you the same
view as a Software Preview render, which
| | 01:26 | is what you see in the Editor window,
plus any overlays like the Perspective or
| | 01:30 | the world axis down in the
bottom left of the window.
| | 01:35 | The CineMan is a third-party render system
that you don't have to worry about right now.
| | 01:39 | So for now just leave it on Full Render.
| | 01:42 | So next up is the Output option, and the
Output option is where you control how
| | 01:46 | big your frame is going to be, what
aspect ratio the frame is going to be, and
| | 01:49 | how many frames you're going to render.
| | 01:52 | The most common question that gets asked
is how big should I render my images out at?
| | 01:56 | And there is a lot of answers to that
question, but it all depends on what your
| | 01:59 | final formats is going to be.
| | 02:01 | For me, because I work in the
television industry, most of the time I'm
| | 02:05 | rendering things out in HD.
| | 02:06 | So 1920x1080 at 30 frames a second.
| | 02:10 | There are some presets here.
| | 02:11 | If I click and hold on this button right
here, I can select a wide variety of presets.
| | 02:16 | In the Film/Video presets if I
scroll down and go to the HDTV 1080 29.97,
| | 02:21 | that will give me the kind of
render that I need for working with After
| | 02:26 | Effects for television.
| | 02:28 | You can see why did that. It changed
the Width and Height, the Resolution, the
| | 02:32 | Film Aspect ratio and the Frame Rate.
| | 02:35 | Now the Frame Range, that controls
how many frames I am going to render.
| | 02:39 | That I need to set manually so that I
know exactly what frames I am going to get.
| | 02:43 | Now normally when I work I
don't usually use the presets.
| | 02:46 | I learn how to use Cinema 4D long
before the presets even existed.
| | 02:49 | So I have just gotten
used to setting them by hand.
| | 02:52 | So I can come back in at
anytime and set these values.
| | 02:54 | Let's say we are going to going to be
doing a print image. We can actually
| | 02:57 | change these values to be whatever we want.
| | 02:59 | If we are working on a print image for
Photoshop, we could say we want to render
| | 03:02 | it 8.5x11 inches and then we can
change the Resolution to 300 dpi.
| | 03:08 | That will give us an image
resolution of 2550x3300.
| | 03:13 | So there is a lot of flexibility in how
you can work with the Render Settings.
| | 03:16 | You can see it automatically
calculated the aspect ratio for me, and when I
| | 03:19 | changed those values it changed them
here in this Perspective view as well.
| | 03:23 | You can see that now my dark gray zone,
which indicates what falls outside the render,
| | 03:27 | that is now changed and if I
scrub through my animation, you can see that
| | 03:31 | my camera shape has changed and
my logo is a lot smaller in frame.
| | 03:35 | Now, normally I wouldn't render an
animation out like this, but if I wanted to
| | 03:38 | say render this logo out for an ad
that was going to be created based on this
| | 03:43 | animation, this would be a good way to do it.
| | 03:44 | So I'm going to go back to the Render
Settings here, and I am going to change this back.
| | 03:49 | Now for the purposes of this tutorial
series we are going to be rendering things
| | 03:52 | out at 640x360 which is
sort of a web 16x9 format.
| | 03:56 | So if go back to the pull down here
and change it to pixels, I'll change
| | 04:01 | the Width to 640, and then I have to hit
the Tab key twice to get down the next field.
| | 04:06 | I'll change the height to 360 and when
I do that, you're going to see the Film
| | 04:10 | Aspect Ratio change.
| | 04:12 | That changes to 1.778 which is an
HDTV 16x9 standard aspect ratio.
| | 04:19 | If I wanted to render it to some other
aspect ratio, I can pick one of these or I
| | 04:22 | can calculate my own.
| | 04:24 | The Pixel Aspect Ratio is a sort
of a holdover from the early days of
| | 04:29 | television before the HD formats came
in and you used to have to render things
| | 04:33 | out with non-square pixels.
| | 04:35 | Thankfully, we're getting away from
that and you normally don't need to
| | 04:38 | touch this anymore.
| | 04:39 | In fact, I always tell my students
even if they get into a situation where
| | 04:42 | someone asked for non-square pixels,
I tell them to always render things out
| | 04:45 | of Cinema 4D's square and then use After
Effects to correct for that Pixel Aspect Ratio.
| | 04:51 | So for now always leave
that Pixel Aspect Ratio at 1.
| | 04:55 | The Frame Rate, you can render it
29.97 or you can render it 30 frames per
| | 04:59 | second for television.
| | 05:01 | Generally speaking, you're
rendering very short shots out of Cinema 4D.
| | 05:04 | 30 frames, 45 frames, 90 frames,
and over those short kinds of time spans you
| | 05:11 | don't notice a difference
between 29.97 and 30 frames a second.
| | 05:14 | So you're free to change this however you feel.
| | 05:16 | When you render out of After Effects,
if you take this image in, this rendering
| | 05:19 | in to After Effects and you render it
out that way, you would remember they are
| | 05:22 | always going to render up 29.97
depending on the format, but you will render it
| | 05:26 | out to that frame rate out of
After Effects on the backside.
| | 05:30 | So the Frame Range controls how
many frames we are going to render.
| | 05:33 | If I scrub through my animation, you
can see that the logo was clear at frame-
| | 05:38 | just move the Render Settings out of
the way here, about frame 70. Boom!
| | 05:42 | So I only need to render from frame 0,
which is the very first frame, to 70 and
| | 05:51 | you see the frame step is 1.
| | 05:53 | That's how many frames you can render
one frame for every frame of the animation.
| | 05:58 | You can see it automatically
calculates the frames for me.
| | 06:01 | Never ever render fields out
of Cinema 4D. Fields is bad.
| | 06:06 | Fields are once again a
throwback to the old days of television.
| | 06:09 | Most folks don't ever render fields anymore.
| | 06:12 | If you do find yourself in a situation
where you need to render fields, then
| | 06:14 | you're going to want to double up the
Frame Rate and then use After Effects to
| | 06:17 | create that fielded look.
| | 06:19 | Last up is the Save option.
| | 06:22 | The Save option allows us to tell
these rendered frames where to go and what
| | 06:26 | format to be in when you get there.
| | 06:28 | There are a ton of file formats
that you can actually render to.
| | 06:32 | In practice, I usually only ever
render to Photoshop PSD sequences.
| | 06:36 | The reason for that is that let's say
you're rendering and your render took five
| | 06:39 | hours to render, which is not all at uncommon.
| | 06:41 | You've been rendering for four and a-
half hours and suddenly you lose power.
| | 06:46 | If you've been rendering to a
QuickTime movie and it doesn't get to write
| | 06:48 | the last frame of the QuickTime movie,
all of that for four and a-half hours
| | 06:51 | of rendering is toast. Throw it away.
| | 06:53 | It's done.
You can't use it in After Effects.
| | 06:55 | You have to go back to square
one and start all over again.
| | 06:57 | But with an image sequence you
can pick up right where we left off.
| | 07:00 | You look in the folder, see what the
last frame rendered was, come back to the
| | 07:03 | Render Settings here, change your
frame count to that started that frame, and
| | 07:07 | then keep right on going,
and you haven't lost all that time.
| | 07:10 | Image sequence is good. QuickTime movie bad.
| | 07:13 | The File field allows us to tell the
image where to go when it gets saved.
| | 07:17 | So as I click on this and navigate to
my Desktop to my Exercise Files to my
| | 07:21 | Chapter 10 folder, I can make a subfolder in
here called renders, and I have one already.
| | 07:26 | So I can click in the Save As field
and call this rendering logo and when it
| | 07:31 | saves out, it's going to save into the
renders folder an entire image sequence
| | 07:35 | called logo001, logo002, logo003,
a single Photoshop file for each frame of
| | 07:40 | animation from frame 0 to frame 70.
| | 07:44 | The last step in the whole process
to make sure you turn on Alpha Channel,
| | 07:47 | depending on the animation that you are
doing, but right now this logo animation
| | 07:50 | is going to render over black and I
want to be able to change the background.
| | 07:54 | So I will need to render an Alpha
Channel, which is an embedded selection that
| | 07:57 | allows me to place another background
behind it, and I always render straight
| | 08:00 | alpha out of Cinema 4D.
| | 08:02 | This is a very basic summary of the
very basic Render Settings, and you'll need
| | 08:06 | to learn how to adjust these Render Settings
based on the type of rendering that you need.
| | 08:11 | Is it a print image or is it an animation?
| | 08:13 | What resolution does it
need to be? What file format?
| | 08:16 | What aspect ratio?
| | 08:17 | Those are the key questions you need to
ask yourself and your client before you
| | 08:20 | get started with the Cinema 4D process.
| | 08:22 | Once you have those
answers then you're good to go.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Rendering: Still images vs. animation| 00:00 | Rendering for stills or
animations is very similar.
| | 00:03 | For both, you will need to know the final
render size, aspect ratio, and file format.
| | 00:07 | The big difference is that for stills,
you will render one frame and for
| | 00:09 | animation, you will render many frames.
| | 00:12 | So what I have open here is the same
animation file we created in the previous
| | 00:15 | chapter, and we are going to set up some
Render Settings for this so that we can
| | 00:19 | render it out in two different ways.
| | 00:20 | One as a still render
and one as an animation.
| | 00:23 | So let's bring up the Render Settings by
clicking on this white clapboard on the
| | 00:26 | right-hand side here and when I bring
up the Render Settings, I have got the
| | 00:29 | left-hand side of the window shows me
the General categories of Render Settings
| | 00:32 | and the right-hand side
will show me those settings.
| | 00:35 | Click on the General category and
make sure that we are actually doing a
| | 00:37 | Full Render, and we are.
| | 00:39 | Then I will go to the Output.
| | 00:40 | So first up, we are going
to render a still image.
| | 00:42 | So we are going to set this up
to be a fairly large file size.
| | 00:45 | So I am going to change the Width and
Height to be a 2000 pixel square, and you
| | 00:50 | need to tab over twice to get to the
Height field, and then I will change the
| | 00:53 | height to be 2000, and then the
Resolution we will leave at 72 DPI.
| | 00:59 | The Image Resolution is the important thing.
| | 01:01 | It's 2000 pixel across, and we go back
out here to the Editor view and we can see
| | 01:05 | that our Extrude logo is
inside this large square area.
| | 01:09 | Now the frame that I would like to render is
going to be frame that's about 20, I think.
| | 01:14 | I think that's a really nice angle for the logo.
| | 01:17 | So over here, I park my time slider on frame 20.
| | 01:20 | Now in the Output options, it shows me
that I am going to render the Current Frame.
| | 01:23 | If I want to make sure that I always
render Frame 20, then what I need to do is
| | 01:27 | change this to be Manual and then I
set the frame range From 20, tab, to 20.
| | 01:34 | Now it will always render Frame 20
no matter what frame I am parked on.
| | 01:38 | The Film Aspect is going to be 1:1.
| | 01:40 | The Pixel Aspect should always be 1.
| | 01:42 | So everything else here is set.
| | 01:44 | Now we can go to the Save dialog and
tell it where to put the file and what
| | 01:48 | format to put the file in.
| | 01:49 | So let's go down to the Save option.
| | 01:51 | First step, I will click the File field
and I will click the Save File button
| | 01:55 | and that will tell me where
do I want to put this file.
| | 01:58 | So I am going to navigate to the Desktop,
to my Exercise Files, to Ch 10, to my
| | 02:02 | renders folder, and I am going
to put the file loose in here.
| | 02:05 | Now the animation we are going to
create a sub-folder for it, but I will
| | 02:08 | put this still render loose, and we will
call this one logo_still and then hit Save.
| | 02:15 | You can see it shows us exactly where
the file is going to go and what the file
| | 02:18 | name is going to be.
| | 02:19 | Now you can tell what format.
| | 02:20 | Generally speaking, I
always render a PSD sequences.
| | 02:23 | So if we click on the Format button,
I will render to Photoshop (PSD).
| | 02:27 | So that means it's going to render a
Photoshop file of my still image from Frame 20.
| | 02:32 | Now I can tell it to have an Alpha channel.
| | 02:34 | I would like to be able to swap the background.
| | 02:35 | It's going to render over black, but I
want to be able to change that background
| | 02:38 | now, and I want to create
a straight Alpha channel.
| | 02:41 | So a straight Alpha channel will bleed
the edges of the subject just a little
| | 02:44 | bit so that when the Alpha channel
cuts it out, it gets a very, very clean matte,
| | 02:48 | and it gives us much better edges than it
would be for where the default is pre-multiplied.
| | 02:53 | Now that we have got the
three important settings down.
| | 02:55 | We have told it how big to render
the image, we have told it what frame to
| | 02:58 | render, and we have told it where to put that
render, and we have also told it what file format.
| | 03:02 | I think we are ready to go
for the still image rendering.
| | 03:05 | Let's save this file first before we render.
| | 03:07 | It's always a good habit to get into to save
your file before you hit the Render button.
| | 03:11 | So I am going to go to
File menu and do a Save As.
| | 03:14 | Now I will call this one ch10-03-working.
| | 03:19 | Now that I have got the file saved,
I can hit the actual Render button, which
| | 03:22 | is this middle clapboard right here, but what
that button means is the Render to Picture Viewer.
| | 03:27 | So if we select Render to Picture Viewer,
the Picture Viewer will start up and
| | 03:30 | it will start to render our image.
| | 03:32 | So you can see that rendering went pretty quick.
| | 03:34 | Our logo was not a lot of geometry and 2000
pixels across isn't very big for a single object.
| | 03:40 | Our size right now is 24.5% and you
can see that it's crunching up the
| | 03:45 | image pretty good here.
| | 03:46 | So I will go to the View menu
and change the Zoom value to be 100% and you
| | 03:50 | can see it zooms in.
| | 03:51 | Now the image itself is a little bit
crunchy around the edges and that's the
| | 03:56 | straight Alpha channel working.
| | 03:58 | If I go to the layer option,
I can select and look at the Alpha.
| | 04:02 | So I click on Single-Pass and then
click on Alpha, and you can see that the
| | 04:05 | Alpha pass is very smooth indeed.
| | 04:07 | I can always click back on
Background to get back to the actual image.
| | 04:12 | So that's pretty much it for
rendering your still image.
| | 04:14 | It's a very simple process.
| | 04:15 | Now we are going to render an
animation, which is not a lot different.
| | 04:18 | So if we go to the Render Settings, I want
to start off with this basic Render Setting.
| | 04:22 | I am going to keep this setting and
add a new one, and you can have multiple
| | 04:26 | Render Settings in CINEMA 4D, so you can
render the same file out many different ways.
| | 04:30 | So I am going to hold down the Ctrl
key and then drag the word Render Setting down.
| | 04:34 | That's going to
give me a new Render Setting.
| | 04:36 | I am going to double-click on the words
Render Settings and change the name of
| | 04:39 | this to STill image.
| | 04:44 | Now on the Render Settings that is
leftover, I want to make sure that it is
| | 04:47 | highlighted yellow so I
know that I am working on it.
| | 04:49 | I am going to call this one Animation.
| | 04:52 | Now in the Animation render settings,
we need to go back to the Output field,
| | 04:55 | and change the Width and
Height from 2000 to be 640 by 360.
| | 05:03 | That's going to give us a 16:9 aspect
ratio and what's called a web standard format.
| | 05:08 | Now that we have the aspect ratio set,
we can tell it what frames to render.
| | 05:12 | I want to make sure I'm rendering-- I am
going to close up the Picture Viewer in the
| | 05:14 | background here. I want to make sure
I'm rendering all the frames in the animation.
| | 05:17 | So my logo is clear at Frame 70,
so I want to render From 0 To 70.
| | 05:25 | It's going to render 71 frames.
| | 05:29 | So we are rendering 640x360.
We are rendering 71 frames.
| | 05:33 | The last thing we want to double-check is
something called the Anti-Aliasing settings.
| | 05:36 | For still images, you can get away with
a different Anti-Aliasing setting than
| | 05:40 | you would for animation.
| | 05:41 | And what I want to do is change this
from Geometry to Best and then I am going
| | 05:46 | to change the Filter from
Still Image to Animation.
| | 05:49 | That's going to give me a finer edge on my
image and a softer feel to the image overall.
| | 05:54 | So I will much less likely to get crunchy
lines when I bring this into After Effects.
| | 06:00 | Last up is I need to change the Save option.
| | 06:02 | If I go to Save settings and go to the
File field, I am still going to render a
| | 06:06 | Photoshop file, but I am going to
render a sequence of Photoshop files and I
| | 06:09 | don't want to put them loose in that folder.
| | 06:11 | I want to give them their own sub-folder.
| | 06:13 | So if I click on the Save dialog,
I can see that I am in the correct renders folder.
| | 06:17 | I am going to make a new sub-
folder in here, and call it logo anim, as
| | 06:22 | short for animation, and then I will
change the file name to logo_anim and then
| | 06:28 | hit the Save button.
| | 06:29 | Now I can know that my logo_anim is
going to into that logo anim folder.
| | 06:32 | And I can verify that here.
| | 06:34 | So I am saving it to a Photoshop file.
| | 06:35 | I have got Alpha Channel
still on. I am ready to go.
| | 06:37 | So let's save this file and then hit
the Render in Picture Viewer button again
| | 06:41 | and when I do that, the render
will come up and start to render.
| | 06:45 | And let's enlarge the
Picture Viewer while it's going.
| | 06:48 | We can see our rendering go.
| | 06:49 | And if I navigate out to the Finder
and look in the renders folder, you can see
| | 06:53 | that the logo anim folder is
slowly filling up with Photoshop files.
| | 06:57 | We can back down here. You see there is
a single Photoshop file for each one of
| | 07:00 | the frames of the animation.
| | 07:06 | Now that the rendering is done, we can
go back to the Picture Viewer and we can
| | 07:08 | actually scrub through the animation.
| | 07:10 | We can also hit Play and let it play.
| | 07:17 | Don't be alarmed by these
crunchy edges that you see here.
| | 07:19 | That's the straight Alpha channel
doing its magic and when we bring that in
| | 07:22 | After Effects, it's going to look fantastic.
| | 07:25 | These basic render settings are really
easy for simple scenes like this one.
| | 07:29 | When you need more control over your
scene though, you'll need to start working
| | 07:32 | with multi-pass rendering and in
later movies we'll do just that.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Setting up multi-pass rendering for still images| 00:00 | Multi-pass rendering gives you the
total control over your rendered image
| | 00:03 | by allowing you to render out the
individual components that make up your
| | 00:06 | final rendered image.
| | 00:08 | Things like shadows and reflections can
be adjusted in a compositing application
| | 00:11 | like Photoshop without having to
go back to CINEMA 4D to re-render.
| | 00:15 | So I have open here a file that is
just a series of cubes that were created
| | 00:20 | for MoGraph, but I have made the
cloner object editable. You can see it's
| | 00:23 | still called cloner.
| | 00:24 | Underneath that objects are a series of
cubes and they are just a single master
| | 00:28 | cube with a bunch of instances,
and there's a sky object in here with some
| | 00:32 | lights and a floor object.
| | 00:34 | The floor object has a reflective
material on it, and if I render, I'll just
| | 00:38 | click the Render in Active View button so
you can see what this rendering looks like.
| | 00:43 | It's just a very basic scene.
| | 00:44 | So we have got a floor that goes off
to infinity and some shadows and some
| | 00:47 | reflections and also something called
Ambient Occlusion, which I'll show you in
| | 00:51 | the Render Settings.
| | 00:53 | Now what I want to be able to do is
to take this image into Photoshop and
| | 00:56 | then manipulate it.
| | 00:57 | I'd like to be able to
change the color of the cubes.
| | 01:00 | I'd like to be able to change how
intense the reflection is and how intense
| | 01:04 | the shadow is without having to
comeback to CINEMA 4D and that's where
| | 01:07 | multi-pass rendering comes in.
| | 01:09 | So let's take a look at the Render Settings.
| | 01:10 | I'll click on the Render Settings icon
up here and in the Render Settings is
| | 01:15 | this little button right here, Multi-Pass.
| | 01:17 | When I click on that, it looks like
nothing changed here, but under the Save
| | 01:21 | option now, I have a new field called
Multi-Pass Image and that Multi-Pass
| | 01:26 | Image field is where we
are going to save our file.
| | 01:29 | We don't need the File > Saved
dialog from up here anymore.
| | 01:32 | We only use the Multi-
Pass Image file save dialog.
| | 01:36 | Now the Render Settings are going
to be essentially the same for still
| | 01:39 | image like we did before.
| | 01:41 | So if I go to the General settings,
we are going to render Full Render.
| | 01:44 | We are going to go to the Output and
change the frame size to 1000x1000 square.
| | 01:49 | So 1000x1000, and we are going to
render just a single frame, and there is no
| | 01:55 | animation in this file so I'll
just leave it on Current Frame 0.
| | 01:59 | Now I can go to the Save dialog
and I can tell it where to put the file,
| | 02:02 | and also what format.
| | 02:03 | We are going to save it
to a Photoshop (PSD) file.
| | 02:06 | We are going to also save it to a layered
Photoshop file and this button is very important.
| | 02:10 | When you render an animation, we are
going to do that in another movie.
| | 02:13 | You always want to make sure for
animation that this button is absolutely off.
| | 02:17 | But for a still image, we're going to
render to a multilayered file that we can
| | 02:19 | then open up right inside of Photoshop.
| | 02:21 | Now that we've got the Multi-layer
File option, verify that it's on for this
| | 02:25 | particular render, we can go back to the
File dialog and tell it where to put the file.
| | 02:30 | So I am going to click on that and
navigate to my Chapter 10 renders folder, and I
| | 02:34 | will call this cubes.
| | 02:36 | Now I'll hit the Save and you can see it's
telling me exactly where the file is going to go.
| | 02:42 | I don't need to worry about an Alpha
channel because my scene goes off to infinity.
| | 02:45 | So there is no Alpha channel. There is
no empty image anywhere around my subject.
| | 02:50 | Now we can talk about the Multi-Pass options.
| | 02:52 | Just turning this Multi-
Pass option on isn't enough.
| | 02:55 | We have to tell it what aspects of
the multi-pass we'd like to render.
| | 02:58 | You do that with the Multi-Pass button here.
| | 03:00 | When I click and hold on that, I'd
get a whole bunch of choices here.
| | 03:05 | At the very top is Add Image
Layers and Add Material Layers.
| | 03:09 | Don't use the Material layers.
| | 03:10 | We only want to use Image layers.
| | 03:12 | The Material layers are for much more
advanced programming and compositing.
| | 03:16 | We don't need to worry about those.
| | 03:17 | We're going to go to Add Image Layers
and when I Add Image Layers, I now get
| | 03:21 | a list of all the possible layers
that I could render out for this file.
| | 03:26 | Now I am not going to need all of these.
| | 03:28 | Some of these are going to show up
black, but basically the way you choose which
| | 03:31 | renders you need is by understanding
what materials you have in your scene.
| | 03:35 | Does you material use the Illuminate channel?
| | 03:36 | if so, then you will need the Ambient channel.
| | 03:38 | Does you material use the Color channel?
| | 03:40 | If so, you'll need the Diffuse channel.
| | 03:42 | And you do that, and you'll analyze
that process and work your way through.
| | 03:45 | What I'll do is I am going to render
out all these channels and we'll go
| | 03:48 | through one at a time, so that you
can see which renders are on and which
| | 03:51 | renders have nothing in them.
| | 03:53 | Next up, I need to create
something called an object buffer.
| | 03:56 | As I said it earlier in the movie, I want to
be able to change the color of these cubes.
| | 04:01 | To do that in Photoshop, I am going to need
an Alpha channel selection for these cubes.
| | 04:06 | And an object buffer is a way of
getting a selection for an object that doesn't
| | 04:10 | have an Alpha channel naturally.
| | 04:11 | I am going to close the Render
Settings up for just a moment.
| | 04:14 | The way you add an object buffer to an
element in Cinema 4D is by right-clicking
| | 04:18 | on that object. In this
case, it's a Cloner group.
| | 04:20 | When I right-click on that, I go
to some Cinema 4D Tags > Compositing.
| | 04:24 | Now we are going to cover the
Compositing tag in a lot more detail in another movie,
| | 04:28 | but for now the only thing you need
to worry about is the Object Buffer option.
| | 04:31 | If you click on that, we are
going to enable Object Buffer 1.
| | 04:34 | That's the first step of
the Object Buffer process.
| | 04:36 | The second step is to activate the
Object Buffer in the Multi-Pass settings.
| | 04:40 | Let's go back to the Render Settings
and then click on the Multi-Pass and
| | 04:44 | select Object Buffer.
| | 04:45 | When we do that, we are going to get
the Object Buffer option here and you can
| | 04:48 | see that the Group ID is one.
| | 04:50 | It's very important that this
number 1 here match this number 1 here.
| | 04:53 | It has to be a number and it can
be any number in the world as long as
| | 04:57 | those two numbers match.
| | 04:58 | Last up, I want to double-
check my Anti-Aliasing setting.
| | 05:01 | So I'll click on the Anti-Aliasing
option and I am going to change it from
| | 05:04 | Geometry to Best, and make sure the
Filter is set for Still Image since we are
| | 05:09 | rendering a still image here.
| | 05:11 | So I've verified the save.
| | 05:13 | I know what size render I am setting
and I have turned on Multi-Pass and added
| | 05:17 | the Multi-Pass layers.
| | 05:18 | I think I am just about ready to render.
| | 05:19 | Before I do that though, I always save.
| | 05:21 | So let's do a File > Save As, and
we are going to change this file name to
| | 05:28 | working and hit Save.
| | 05:33 | Now that I've saved the
file, I am ready to render.
| | 05:34 | So let's move the Render Settings out
of the way, just close it up altogether,
| | 05:38 | and I can click on the Render to
Picture Viewer option and it's going to start
| | 05:41 | to render that image.
| | 05:44 | While it's rendering, I can talk
about the Picture Viewer and by default
| | 05:48 | it's set for Image.
| | 05:49 | If I want to preview the layers of
this Multi-Pass, now that it's done saving
| | 05:53 | the file, I can click on Single-Pass
and I can click through each of these
| | 05:57 | guys one at a time.
| | 05:59 | You can see that the
Atmosphere channel is blank.
| | 06:01 | It has nothing in it at all. That's
because we didn't use the Atmosphere effect.
| | 06:05 | Same thing for Multiply.
| | 06:06 | Refraction, we don't have any
transparency in our scene, so it's blank as well.
| | 06:10 | I can go through each of
these guys one at a time.
| | 06:12 | We did use Reflection.
| | 06:13 | Ambient Occlusion, we did use as well.
| | 06:16 | Global Illumination, no; Caustics, no.
| | 06:18 | Ambient, no.
| | 06:19 | The Shadow, yes, so there is our shadow pass.
| | 06:22 | The Specular, yes, and that's a little bit
of a specular on the floor you're seeing.
| | 06:26 | The Diffuse paths that's the basic
color, and then there's our Object Buffer,
| | 06:30 | the Alpha channel for the cubes.
| | 06:31 | Let's open this up in Photoshop and
just verify that all the layers are there.
| | 06:36 | Go to the File menu and do an Open and
navigate to my Desktop, to my Exercise Files,
| | 06:41 | Ch 10, to my renders folder,
and grab the cubes.psd file and hit Open, and
| | 06:48 | it's going to think about it for
just a moment and then open it up.
| | 06:51 | Now that's one of the amazing things
about CINEMA 4D is that it works really
| | 06:54 | well with Photoshop.
| | 06:55 | So now I have opened this Photoshop file
up, and I've got all my layers active to me.
| | 07:00 | So if I click on the Layers palette
and make it visible, you can see I have
| | 07:03 | got all my layers here.
| | 07:05 | Now if I want to be able to, for example,,
change the intensity of the shadows,
| | 07:09 | I can just go to the Shadow layer,
click on it and adjust the Opacity.
| | 07:13 | Let's say I decided I
don't want shadows at all.
| | 07:14 | I could just turn the Shadows off.
| | 07:16 | If I decide I want to have the shadows
darker, I can duplicate the Shadow layer.
| | 07:20 | I'll drag the Shadow layer down under
the New Layer icon and duplicate it and
| | 07:24 | you can see my shadow has got darker.
| | 07:25 | If I decided I want to have less
reflection, I can go to the Reflection layer
| | 07:31 | and then adjust the Opacity of
that layer from 100% down to say 20%.
| | 07:36 | You can see my
reflections got a lot less intense.
| | 07:40 | I'm doing all of this without having to
go back to CINEMA 4D and that's really
| | 07:44 | the power of multi-pass rendering.
| | 07:45 | It allows you to make drastic changes to
your image that you would normally have
| | 07:48 | to go back to CINEMA 4D to do.
| | 07:50 | For example, let's say we wanted
to change the color of these cubes.
| | 07:54 | Now if you didn't have a multi-pass
render with an object buffer in it, you'd
| | 07:57 | have to go all the way back to CINEMA 4D,
change the color of the material and
| | 08:01 | then re-render out the entire project.
| | 08:02 | Well, that's the beauty of multi-pass rendering.
| | 08:04 | We don't have to do that.
| | 08:05 | So I am going to go over to the
Channels palette and load the object buffer by
| | 08:09 | Command+clicking on the Object Buffer
channel icon right here, and when I go
| | 08:13 | back to the Layers palette, I can add
in an adjustment layer and because I
| | 08:17 | Command+click on the object buffer
when I add the adjustment layer, Hue and
| | 08:20 | Saturation, it's going to come
in with the mask on it already.
| | 08:24 | Any changes that I make, if I change
the Hue, I can adjust the color of these
| | 08:28 | cubes without affecting the background,
and that's really the best illustration
| | 08:32 | of the power of multi-pass rendering.
| | 08:34 | It frees you from having
to go back to CINEMA 4D.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Batch-rendering multiple files| 00:00 | There will be many times that you're
going to want to render multiple files.
| | 00:04 | For example, you may have several
versions of the same graphic, Tuesday, Friday,
| | 00:07 | Coming Up Next, that sort of thing.
| | 00:09 | C4D has a newly rewritten Batch
Render Queue that allows you to set up many
| | 00:13 | renders, hit the Go button, and walk away.
| | 00:15 | The New Render Queue is under the Render menu.
| | 00:17 | If I go to Render Queue and the
Render Queue window will pop open.
| | 00:20 | The top part of the Render Queue will
list the job names and the bottom part of
| | 00:24 | the Render Queue window shows
you the stats for those jobs.
| | 00:26 | And so, in order to get the jobs in,
it's really easy just to drag and drop.
| | 00:29 | I could open up them from the File menu
and do add a current scene or open files
| | 00:33 | form the desktop, but drag
and drop has much more fun.
| | 00:35 | So I want to navigate out here to
the Finder and I've got four files
| | 00:38 | prepared ahead of time.
| | 00:39 | And I am just going to drag them one
at a time into the Render Queue, one,
| | 00:42 | two, three, and four.
| | 00:47 | Coming back to C4D, in the Render Queue,
I can click through each one of these
| | 00:51 | jobs and look at the stats for them.
| | 00:54 | I am going to raise the window up
here so I can see things a little better.
| | 00:57 | One of the issues that I've got with
these files is that their render location
| | 01:01 | works just fine for me.
| | 01:03 | It's going to render correctly on my
machine, but on your machine at home,
| | 01:05 | you need to change where the image is
going because your local file directory
| | 01:09 | structure is different, and that's the
great thing about the Render Queue is we
| | 01:12 | can do that right here
without having to reopen the file.
| | 01:15 | So for file number 1, I am going to
select it, click on the Location button,
| | 01:19 | the Image Save button, and I click that.
| | 01:21 | It's saying where I want to save it.
| | 01:22 | I am going to navigate to my Exercise
Files, Ch 10 folder, to the renders folder,
| | 01:26 | and I'll just save it as number ONE. Click Save.
| | 01:29 | Now I can go back to
number 2, do the same thing.
| | 01:32 | I'll make sure it's going to the
same renders folder and hit Save.
| | 01:35 | Number 3, repeat the process. It's
going in the same renders folder,. Hit Save.
| | 01:41 | And number 4, the fourth file, I
actually set up two different render settings,
| | 01:45 | one to render the image as an animation,
and another one to render it as a still
| | 01:49 | image and so what I want to do is we
are going to need to make two versions of
| | 01:52 | this Render Queue file and we can
render it from two different render settings.
| | 01:56 | So for this one, I am going to specify
where I want it to go and in the Render
| | 01:59 | Settings pull down here, I can say I
want to use the Animation render setting.
| | 02:04 | And then I will tell it, render this
animation to the renders folder in my Ch 10
| | 02:08 | Exercise Files and hit Save.
| | 02:10 | Now I can hold down the Ctrl key,
make a copy of this, and then select this
| | 02:15 | number 5, and in that one I tell it to
use the Still image render setting and
| | 02:20 | then I'll tell it to put
it in the renders folder.
| | 02:22 | So, when I save it in the
renders folder, I'll hit Save.
| | 02:25 | Now I've got all my files ready to go.
| | 02:29 | Once we have all of our files ready to
go, we can click on the Jobs menu and
| | 02:33 | click Start Rendering.
| | 02:34 | And when we hit Start Rendering, away it goes.
| | 02:37 | Now the beautiful thing about the
Render Queue-- I'm going to move the Render
| | 02:39 | window out of the way-- is that
it's completely in the background.
| | 02:42 | I can continue working in Cinema 4D.
I can add a cube and move that cube around.
| | 02:47 | The Render Queue goes all by its own.
| | 02:50 | So now that the Render Queue is
finished, you can see all the circles have
| | 02:53 | turned to green, meaning the
render has finished successfully.
| | 02:56 | We can navigate back out to
the Finder and check our results.
| | 02:59 | Here in the renders folder, we've got
each of the renderings, ONE, TWO, THREE,
| | 03:04 | and then the animation and the still
image and they've all rendered successfully
| | 03:08 | to the right location.
| | 03:09 | One other thing I want to mention.
There is a log file that will get saved out
| | 03:13 | and that's controlled by
this setting right here.
| | 03:15 | You can see the log location and it's
saved out an XML file for each rendering.
| | 03:18 | So you can check the stats on the
rendering, how long did it take, where did it
| | 03:21 | to render to, that sort of thing.
| | 03:23 | The location of that log file is
wherever the project file is saved at.
| | 03:28 | Batch rendering really allows you
to be productive with your time.
| | 03:31 | It enables you to let your machine work
for you while you're off doing something
| | 03:34 | else and that's always a good thing.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
11. 3D Animation Workflow: Compositing in After EffectsUnderstanding the 3D animation workflow| 00:01 | When you render an image in C4D,
the end result can be amazing, but for all the
| | 00:05 | incredible things that any 3D program
can do they are good for manipulating the
| | 00:08 | images they produce.
| | 00:10 | For example, what if you wanted to change
the color of one of the objects in your scene?
| | 00:13 | If you couldn't use an application
like Photoshop or After Effects you would
| | 00:16 | have to go all the way back to Cinema 4D,
make your changes, and spend the time
| | 00:20 | re-rendering your image.
| | 00:21 | There is a much better way
though, and the secret is compositing.
| | 00:24 | So I have got a project file here in
Cinema 4D. It's just some cubes that are
| | 00:28 | sitting on top of floor object with the
sky. There is little bit of reflection
| | 00:31 | on the cubes and a little bit
reflection on the floor and when I render them
| | 00:34 | out it looks like this.
| | 00:35 | I am going to Photoshop to show the
rendering and what I've done is I've set up
| | 00:39 | something called multi-pass rendering.
| | 00:41 | Now these cubes may look familiar to
you, and we've used them in a previous
| | 00:44 | chapter, but I want to go over
this ground again because it's really
| | 00:47 | foundational for understanding how we are
going to be using After Effects in later movies.
| | 00:51 | So I've got the Multi-Pass layers
here and these were set up in the Render
| | 00:55 | Settings of the Cinema 4D file.
| | 00:56 | If I go back to Cinema 4D and bring up
the Render Settings, Command+B or Ctrl+B
| | 01:00 | on the keyboard, those Render Settings
have the multi-pass layers activated and
| | 01:05 | you can see that I've got
all of these layers turned on.
| | 01:08 | Some of them were turned off as well,
and those are the ones that I don't need
| | 01:10 | for this particular image.
| | 01:12 | The ones I have turned on will show up
in Photoshop as individual layers and all
| | 01:17 | of these layers have
different blending modes on them.
| | 01:19 | You can see this one is set for Multiply,
the Global Illumination layer is set
| | 01:22 | for Linear Dodge. Each one adds up to
make the image that you're seeing here.
| | 01:27 | Now the beautiful thing about these
layers is I can completely change this
| | 01:30 | image with just a few clicks by manipulating
it here and without going back to Cinema 4D.
| | 01:35 | So let's say, for example, I wanted to
change the color of these cubes. I could
| | 01:40 | now use something called an object
buffer to isolate the cubes and change the
| | 01:44 | color right here in Photoshop
without having to go back to Cinema 4D.
| | 01:48 | So let's go back to the Channels
palette and I've got my object buffer here and
| | 01:52 | once again, this was set up inside the
Render Settings inside of Cinema 4 D, and
| | 01:56 | this object buffer is an Alpha
channel, a mask for these layers.
| | 02:00 | When I load this selection, I'm going
to hold down the Command key and click on
| | 02:04 | Object Buffer 1, and when I turn that
layer off now I'll make that invisible.
| | 02:08 | I now have a marching ant
selection around my cubes.
| | 02:11 | And so if I go back to my layers I
can add an adjustment layer that will
| | 02:15 | only affect the cubes.
| | 02:17 | So I'll go to Adjustment Layers icon
and select Hue/Saturation and when I do
| | 02:21 | that the Hue/Saturation layer
adjustment window comes up, but in back to my
| | 02:25 | layers I already have a mask set
for my Hue and Saturation layer.
| | 02:29 | So now when I make this Hue and
Saturation adjustment it's only going to affect
| | 02:32 | the stuff inside that mask.
| | 02:34 | So going back to the adjustments I can just
shift these cubes right to blue. There we go.
| | 02:41 | Now this blue that I've done has
affected the cubes, but you can see that the
| | 02:45 | Reflections down below are still orange
and so that's not technically correct,
| | 02:49 | so I want to shift these
guys back to blue as well.
| | 02:52 | So if I go back to the Channels, I'm
going to load up the object buffer and I'll
| | 02:58 | bring object buffer up visible.
| | 03:00 | I am going to Command+Click on the
object buffer, and I'll go back to Layers and
| | 03:04 | I want to add another Hue and
Saturation adjustment layer.
| | 03:07 | So I'll go back to Reflection and
select the Adjustment Layer palette and then
| | 03:11 | go to Hue/Saturation.
| | 03:12 | Now when I've done that it's added a
mask to the Hue and Saturation there, but
| | 03:16 | that mask is the wrong shape.
| | 03:18 | It's actually inverted from what I need.
| | 03:19 | If I go back to the layers, you can
see it has exactly the same shape as the
| | 03:23 | previous Hue and Saturation.
| | 03:25 | If I make an adjustment to that it's
going to effect the cubes again, and I don't
| | 03:28 | want to do that. Command+Z or Ctrl+Z.
So what I need to do is go back to that layer,
| | 03:33 | select just the mask for that
and hit Command+I or Ctrl+I. You see it
| | 03:39 | inverted the mask and now I can adjust
these reflections with Hue and Saturation
| | 03:44 | and not affect my original cubes.
| | 03:47 | So I can go back to the Adjustments
and push my reflections back. You can see
| | 03:52 | the reflection is slowly
turning blue. There we go.
| | 03:56 | So the great thing about that is I
can change the reflection color and then
| | 03:59 | change the cube color independently
of one other, and that's really the
| | 04:03 | foundational concept here is how much
control you have over your image inside of
| | 04:07 | a compositing application like
Photoshop or After Effects.
| | 04:09 | Being able to manipulate your images
like this is the most important part of
| | 04:13 | truly mastering the art of 3D.
| | 04:15 | In later movies, we are going to examine
some of the tools that Cinema 4D has to
| | 04:18 | make this process much more easy.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using the Compositing tag| 00:00 | The Compositing tag is by far
are the most important tag in the
| | 00:03 | entire application.
| | 00:05 | Wouldn't it be great if there was a
way to control whether or not the render
| | 00:07 | engine sees an object in your scene,
or whether not that object affects other
| | 00:11 | objects in the scene?
| | 00:12 | Well, the Compositing tag can do just that.
| | 00:14 | So what I have got here is an
animation that I created ahead of time for this
| | 00:18 | exercise and it's a very simple thing.
| | 00:20 | We are going to pull back from the
letters 3D and then there's going to be 2D
| | 00:25 | letters that we are going to add later inside of
After Effects that are going to snap in, 3D vs 2.5D.
| | 00:31 | So the versus and 2.5D are just type
objects here in Cinema 4D that I am using as
| | 00:35 | place holders for my
letters inside of After Effects.
| | 00:38 | And so, eventually I am going to be
replacing in these elements with actual
| | 00:41 | layers inside of After Effects.
| | 00:42 | So what I want to be able to do--
there is some problems with this scene now.
| | 00:45 | When I hit the Render button, I am
on a Render in Active View right now.
| | 00:48 | When I do that, I've got some
elements here that are set up.
| | 00:51 | Now, this disc here is something I call
a Hilite disk, and it's used to create a
| | 00:56 | highlight on the surface of type elements,
and normally you don't want this disc
| | 01:00 | to be seen by the render engine.
| | 01:02 | And I don't want the disc to be seen
by the floor and I don't want it to be
| | 01:06 | seen by the camera either.
| | 01:07 | So I wanted to just show up on the
surface of the type. That's where the
| | 01:10 | Compositing tag comes in.
| | 01:12 | If I right-click on the Hilite disk
object, you can see it's underneath the
| | 01:16 | Type parent object.
| | 01:18 | If I right on that and go to Cinema
4D Tags and then do Compositing,
| | 01:23 | the Compositing tag has a lot of options.
| | 01:25 | Now, when this image goes back to the
shaded view, you'll notice the Hilite disc
| | 01:28 | goes away. That's because
this top red dot is set to off.
| | 01:33 | That means that the object will not
show up in the Editor window, but because
| | 01:36 | the bottom dot is gray. That
means it will show up in the render.
| | 01:39 | But what the Compositing tag does is
it take that's idea one step further.
| | 01:43 | It says not only will you show up in the
render, but you won't be seen by the camera.
| | 01:47 | And there's a very special button for that.
| | 01:49 | If you select the Compositing tag and
go onto the Tag Properties, there is a
| | 01:52 | Seen by Camera option and when I
uncheck that, now when I render, you will see
| | 01:58 | that the Hilite disc doesn't show up in
the camera, but unfortunately it's still
| | 02:03 | casting shadows, and it's still being
seeing by the floor. You can see actually
| | 02:06 | the reflection of the Hilite disc down here.
| | 02:08 | So there's some more buttons I
need to check in the Compositing tag.
| | 02:11 | First up, in the Compositing
tag are Cast and Receive Shadows.
| | 02:14 | I don't want that Hilite disc to Cast
or Receive Shadows in my scene, so I
| | 02:17 | uncheck those options. Let's render now.
| | 02:20 | Now you can see my type looks a lot
different. There's a really nice highlight
| | 02:23 | going across the surface of it,
but it's still being seen by the floor.
| | 02:26 | And what I need to be able to do is to
tell that Hilite disc not to show up in
| | 02:30 | the reflections of the floor.
| | 02:32 | There's a very special field in the
Compositing tag for doing this and it's
| | 02:35 | called the Exclusion field.
| | 02:36 | So if I select the Compositing tag and
go to the Exclusion option, there is a
| | 02:41 | Mode pull down here - Exclude or Include.
| | 02:43 | So if I drag my Floor object into this
field, so I click on the Floor and drag
| | 02:47 | it right into this field, this will tell the
Hilite disk not to affect the Floor object.
| | 02:53 | And so when I render again, I will
click on the render option. You can see now
| | 02:56 | the Hilite disk is gone from the floor,
so no longer is it casting shadows, no
| | 03:01 | longer is it receiving shadows. It's
only showing up in the surface of the type
| | 03:05 | and it's not showing up in
the surface of the floor.
| | 03:07 | So that right there shows
the amazing power of it.
| | 03:10 | Now, let's take this a little bit
further and clean up the rest of the scene.
| | 03:13 | The reflection sphere that I have
surrounded my scene is providing me with some
| | 03:16 | surface variations on my type, but I
don't want it to show up on the floor.
| | 03:20 | So, if I right-click on reflections
sphere, I can go to Cinema 4D Tags and do
| | 03:25 | Compositing, just like I did before,
and I want to tell this reflection sphere,
| | 03:29 | don't affect the floor.
| | 03:30 | So I go to the exclusion option on this
and I drag the Floor in here again and
| | 03:35 | now when I render, you are going to
see a very different looking floor.
| | 03:38 | See how much darker and richer the floor is?
| | 03:40 | That's because it has reflection on it,
but that reflection was picking up this
| | 03:44 | bright highlight from the reflection
sphere that's surrounding the scene.
| | 03:48 | Now the floor looks a lot richer and
bluer and I can see my type reflection
| | 03:51 | a lot more clearly.
| | 03:53 | One last thing I need to do with the
reflection sphere is I need to tell it not
| | 03:56 | to be seen by the camera.
| | 03:57 | So if I go to the Compositing tag and go
to the Tag Properties, I can tell it I
| | 04:01 | don't want to Cast or Receive Shadows.
I don't want to have it Seen by Camera.
| | 04:04 | So I turn off all three of those options
and now when I render, my scene looks a
| | 04:09 | lot more interesting.
| | 04:10 | That white backdrop that you were
seeing in the whole scene was in fact
| | 04:13 | the reflection sphere.
| | 04:14 | Now, I have got a nice black
backdrop on my scene and my type is featured
| | 04:17 | prominently in the frame
and it's a lot easier to see.
| | 04:21 | The last step in this process for the
Compositing tag is to add something called
| | 04:25 | an object buffer for the type.
| | 04:26 | Now I always do this for any objects
in my scene that I think I might have
| | 04:30 | to manipulate later.
| | 04:31 | In this case, I'm going to need to be
able to make some type appear to come from
| | 04:35 | behind my 3D type object.
| | 04:37 | And the object buffer is
going to allow me to do just.
| | 04:39 | So I will right-click on the Extrude NURBE
and go to Cinema 4D Tags and do Compositing.
| | 04:45 | And in the Compositing tag, I'm going
to activate the Object Buffer number 1.
| | 04:51 | Now this number here is important.
| | 04:53 | This number has to match the render settings
we are going to set in the Render Settings.
| | 04:56 | As long as the two numbers match
between the render settings and the set field
| | 05:00 | here in the Object Buffer settings here
in the Compositing tag, then we will get
| | 05:03 | the object buffer when we render.
| | 05:05 | The Compositing Tag can
dramatically change how our image looks.
| | 05:09 | I use it on every single
render I do for a project.
| | 05:12 | If we didn't have this powerful tool,
it would be impossible to create most of
| | 05:15 | the effects you see being done in Cinema 4D.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using the External Compositing tag| 00:00 | The External Compositing tag was added
to the application a couple of versions ago
| | 00:04 | and it answered a very important
question for working with After Effects.
| | 00:07 | The question was this.
| | 00:08 | How do I get the position and rotation of
an object in Cinema 4D into After Effects?
| | 00:13 | Prior to this tag being added to the
application, there was a cumbersome
| | 00:16 | workaround, but now that we have
the tag, it's really, really easy.
| | 00:20 | So what I've got here is the same 3D VS
2.5D animation that we are using in this
| | 00:25 | chapter and the VS and the 2.5D that
slide into frame, these are just 2D type
| | 00:32 | splines that have no geometry on them.
| | 00:34 | And I want to be able to place
these with After Effects type.
| | 00:37 | And so I need to have a way to get the
animation from these objects that I have
| | 00:42 | already done here in C4D into After Effects.
| | 00:44 | And that's where the
External Compositing tag comes in.
| | 00:46 | So if I right-click on the VS
POSITION and go to CINEMA 4D Tags and then do
| | 00:51 | External Compositing.
| | 00:52 | And that's different than the Compositing tag.
| | 00:54 | I want to do External Compositing.
| | 00:56 | Now that I've added that tag to the
object, I can go over to it in the select
| | 01:00 | the Tag Properties and you will
see there are some options here.
| | 01:04 | We are going to leave the Children
unchecked because we don't have any children
| | 01:07 | for our object and we'll leave the
Cache option on and everything else we'll
| | 01:10 | leave alone as the defaults.
| | 01:12 | For the most part, you don't
really need to touch those.
| | 01:14 | If you wanted to have a solid layer
for your object inside of |
|
|
