Understanding rotation

Rotation in Cinema 4D is measured in a slightly different way, to how it's measured in After Effects. In After Effects, it's measured using x, y and zed values. In Cinema 4D, if we have a look in the coordinates tab of the Attributes Manager, you can see it's measured using HPB values. HPB stands for Head and Pitch, and Bank. And these are terms taken from Aviation. And in order to show you exactly what these do.

I'm going to open up another file that I've got here called Plane C4D. And this is just a really rough little plane model that I've just created to. Explain the whole principle of HPD. So heading is the direction that the plane is following and you'll notice if I adjust the H or heading value that should turns the plane to follow a different direction. And if you look at the axis that it's rotating around, it's the green one.

If you imagine it's like an axle and it's rotating around the y axis so the h or heading value is the equivalent of the after effects y value. But there's a slight difference. In Cinema 4D, when you click and drag it to a positive direction, it moves in that direction. If we jump over to After Effects and I rotate this solid in the wire direction, using a positive value Notice it moves to face this direction.

In Cinema 4D, when we give it a positive value it moves in that direction. So, the Y and H values, although it said an equivalent axis, work in a different direction. So, I'm just going to put that back to zero. And pitch is just like rotating around the x axis in After Effects. So the final value is bank, and that determines how the plane tilts it's wings or tips it's wings. As it rolls around what would be the equivalent of the said axis in After Effects.

Now pitch and bank are measured in the same way as the. X and z axis is in After Effects. So exactly the same direction in terms of how they measure positive and negative values. But that's a little bit about heading, pitch, and bank, and how you can use those to animate objects in Cinema 4D.