Cinema 4D

The Artist's Project Sourcebook

Kent McQuilkin, Anne Powers

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9781138452961
• eBook ISBN: 9781136061332
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Film & Video

Make the creative leap to 3D. Realize your artistic vision with this treasure chest of instructional, practical projects. Get the essential concepts and techniques without drowning in the technical complexities.

All downloadable resources are available at http://www.taylorandfrancis.com/cw/mcquilkin-9780240814506/

1

The Power of Primitives

Like most 3D programs, CINEMA 4D has a set of primitive building blocks that are parametric. Basic parameters of a primitive, or critical dimensions such as, height and radius, are defined mathematically. Because the program only has to remember a few bits of information, parametric primitives are efficient. The parametric values for an object may be manipulated live in the Editor Window using the orange parametric handles, but the object’s surface has no points, polygons or edges that may be pushed and pulled into more complex forms. In the parametric state, the surface and axes of an object are not editable. Notice that every time you choose a primitive, it appears at the same place in the center of the 3D world. This is called the origin and sits at (coordinates 0,0,0), and it has a set of red (X), green (Y), and blue (Z) object axes that show how the object is oriented.

Ornament Project

Step 1

Our first project will be a simple use of basic geometric shapes combined with some advanced shaders that will give a high level look to our scene. Begin by adding a Sphere primitive from the Polygonal Primitive drop down. Figure Ornament_01

Figure Ornament_01

Step 2

Secondly, add a Cylinder and move it up into position by setting its P.Y = 97.5 in the Attribute Manager. Adjust the Cylinder’s shape by setting the Radius to 35, the Height to 10 and raise the Rotation Segments to 72. Lastly, we’ll round the edges of the shape by enabling Fillet Caps in the Caps tab of the Attribute Manager. Match my example by lowering the Segments to 3 and the Radius to 1. Figure Ornament_02

Figure Ornament_02

Step 3

Add a Torus to our scene by choosing it from the Primitives drop down. Figure Ornament_03

Figure Ornament_03

Step 4

Move this object up so that its P.Y=107, set the Ring Radius = 10, Pipe Radius = 2, and change the Orientation to +Z. Figure Ornament_04

Figure Ornament_04

Step 5

With modeling completed, we’ll move onto the materials for these shapes. We will use some powerful shaders that are built in to CINEMA 4D to bring realism to this scene. In the Material Manager, choose File>Shader>Danel. Figure Ornament_05

Figure Ornament_05

Step 6

Double click on the Danel thumbnail in the Material Manager to bring up a floating window. In the Diffuse Channel, double click on the white color thumbnail to open the ColorPicker and set the color to a Red. Figure Ornament_06 Navigate down to the Anistropy Channel and click on its checkbox to enable it. Click on the red x at the top left of this floating panel to close it. Drag the Danel thumbnail and drop it on the Sphere object in the Object Manager or right inside the Viewport. Press Cmd/Cntrl (PC) + R to render a quick preview in the Viewport.

Figure Ornament_06

Step 7

Create our second material by again going to Material Manager and navigating to File>Shader>Danel. Double click on the new thumbnail and, in the resulting floating panel, rename the material Metal. ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Introduction
• 1 The Power of Primitives
• 2 Under the Hood
• 3 NURBS Modeling Tools
• 4 Deformers and Other Modeling Helpers
• 5 Materials in Depth
• 6 Better under Lights
• 7 Animation Basics
• 8 Head Shots
• 9 Rigging a Character
• 10 Cameras in Control
• 11 The Art of Rendering
• 12 A Jolt of Xpresso
• 13 BodyPaint: The Artist’s Connection
• 14 Tips on Type
• 15 More out of MoGraph
• 16 After Effects Integration
• 17 Dynamics and Special Effects
• 18 Stereoscopic Content Creation in Cinema 4D
• 19 Cinema 4D and Friends
• Index