Overview of the 3D workflow

- Okay, here we are inside of CINEMA 4D, and I'm sure everybody is so excited, can't wait to jump in, and start making some cool stuff. But before we do that, I just wanted to take a few minutes and discuss with you the entire 3D workflow, or where 3D fits into the pipeline in a typical project. So I thought the best way to show you that would be an Oreo cookie. And the way I think about 3D or where I think it fits into the pipeline, is kind of wedged between a world of 2D, right, so 2D being the top cookie, 2D being the bottom, and 3D kind of being the double-stuffed center.

Right, so typically all projects will start in some sort of 2D world. It could be a design that could be sketched out on a napkin at a meeting. It could be illustrations. It could be a client-supplied logo, vector art. Often it'll even come from editorial or live-action where they need some sort of 3D built into, to fit into that world. But everything ultimately typically starts in a 2D place, right? And if you're new to CINEMA 4D or new to 3D, you're probably coming from a 2D AfterEffects world or a 2D Illustrator world.

And perhaps you're coming into 3D because you want to add some depth and some dimension to your design. So once we get out of that world, we move on into the 3D space. Whether it's a 3D application or you're trying to even fake 3D in a 2D world, with some shading or things like that. It will typically move from 2D to 3D. When you're inside a 3D application such as CINEMA 4D, that's when you'll start modeling. You'll start texturing, lighting, animating your scene, possibly working with some simulations, with some particle simulations, ultimately rendering that information.

Now when you render that information, you're taking the 3D data from screen and rendering it back into a 2D space, right? So you're rendering it back into either an image sequence or ultimately, a video. It'll then pass back into the bottom cookie, or the bottom layer, which is now you're back into a 2D world. And what are you going to do with that 2D information? Well, you can composite things together. So you can composite all your different layers and your different elements. You can put some color correction on things, which is essentially the overall sweetening, right? Think about it like a cake.

The top two layers are when you're baking the cake. But you're never really going to serve a cake directly out of the oven. You normally have to put the icing on it and the sprinkles and the birthday cake, all that kind of stuff before you serve it to your guests, right? So this is kind of the same thing. Before you serve it to the client, ultimately it's going to have to go through this sort of sweetening or finishing process. So I hope this graphic and this discussion kind of helps you visualize and think about where 3D should fit into your workflow. I would strongly advise you to not just jump right into 3D and think that you're going to solve your design challenges and your design problems inside of the 3D application.

Don't let the software dictate how you are creating and what you are creating. If you have an idea, if you have a clear vision of where you're going, you'll get there a heck of a lot faster. So with that said, let's jump in and start making some stuff.