1. Set Up Work folders
2. Create Modifiers for design purposes
3. Create Materials and Environments
4. Create Particle Systems
5. Create Dynamics Systems
6. Render Artwork from experiments
These workshops will eventually allow us to produce:
1. Rendered Sample Artwork from Cinema 4D
2. Experiments exploring Dynamics in Cinema 4D
3. Prototyping in Cinema 4D.
Inspiration
http://www.gmunk.com/
http://www.tomato.co.uk/
http://helloluxx.com/
We firstly looked at the artist Bridget Riley and the company known as G Monk, which is heavily introduced into the likes of film and cinema.
We firstly made the new folder that we would put or assets into. Within the industry we will be expected to have great organisation and creating folders will help this. We then opened cinema 4D and left it is the standard settings.
We need to then create a square object using the square option tool at the top of the programme screen, after we had done this we then had to add an extrude option to the square, so that it would become a 3D shape. However, we wanted to make the 3D square slightly longer to do this I had to change the value of the Z axis to 5000cm. As this was a solid object, I wanted to make the object into a long but hollow tube which you would be able to see through. To do this I had to select the caps option and select the none option so that you would be able to see the object as a tube. We then moved onto look at the twist tool which is in the bend menu, I found that this part would be very interesting as it something new, that I have learnt before. This is because I only know the basics about Cinema 4D, we then had to change the angle to 20 degree so that the tube had slight bend added to it. After this we then wanted to see this as a polygon, however to do this I had to follow the process of Display > Gouard with Lines. I then had to select the extrude option in the right-hand menu at the top and select the object option > and the subdivision to 500. I then had to look at the coordinates for the twist tool. Where I had to change the R. Pitch from 90 degrees to 0. I then had to go back to the object menu and change the angle to 10 degrees and change the mode from limited to unlimited.
We then moved onto create a material but to do this I had to double click in the bottom left hand menu which then created a material. I then selected the material which expanded open the materials option, within the basics menu I had to untick the colour option and tick the luminance and untick the reflectance. I then moved onto the Luminance menu where I wanted to create a texture for the material, I did this by Texture > Surface > Checkboard. We then looked at the U and V frequency which is how many boxes there are displayed on the tube. I decided to keep the U frequency the same at 0, however I decided to change the V from 0 to 10, once I had done this I was then able to drag the material onto the extrude option. Although I wasn’t happy with how the design looked so I chose the material and the checks again and change the V frequency to 40. I felt that after I had done this it allowed the design to look a lot better and stand out more.
I then opened the render settings and chose the Anti-Aliasing option to make sure that the Geometry setting was changed to Best. I then selected the rectangle > Object > Intermediate point from Adaptive to subdivided.
We then moved on to create a sphere, however I needed to then change the object radius to 50cm. I then looked at the coordinates of the sphere and change the P:Z to 500cm, R:P to 30 degrees and the R:B to 40 degrees. I then need to select the sphere to change the material colour that I had duplicated, I decided to change the colour of the checkboard colour to a red and orange. I was then able to add this material to the sphere, however U had to once again change the U and V frequency, the V frequency from 10 to 40. I was then able to add a function to the sphere using a reflection, to do this I had to go to the basics option > reflectance > add > reflection legacy. Once I had done this I was then able to add a Fresnel to the sphere by following the process of Layers colour > texture > Fresnel.
After we had done this we then created a camera to lock the design in place when rendering out the document. Once we had created the camera, I then again had to look at the coordinates option and make sure that all the values were at 0 for every value. To switch on the camera, I had select the black dot at the side of the camera modifier in the top right hand menu. I then went back to the render settings and looked at the window option where I had to save my design. To do this I went file > Lesson 2 Tunnel, I had to make sure that the format was set to jpeg. I then moved onto look at the effect option and the Ambient Occlusion and render out the design again under a different file name. I then went back into render settings to un tick the Ambient Occlusion. I then dragged out the rectangle to add a star under the pen tool, we then had to place the star under the extrude which change the tube into a star shape that still had a twist. To change the amount of points in the star I had to select the object option and change the points from 5 to 7, after I had done this I then went back into the render settings to switch the Ambient Occlusion back on and render out the file under a different name.
I then wanted to make the sphere smaller, but to do this I had to change the radius from 50cm to 20cm. Furthermore, into this I wanted to add an emitter to the design, to do this I had to follow the process simulate > particle > emitter and change the particle emitters coordinates from P:Z to 70cm. However, I had to make sure that the particle stop emission was changed from 150F to 200F, I also had to make sure that the timeline frames were changed from 90F to 200F, the speed was 200cm and the rotation was 360 degrees, and show object > instances. I had to make sure that the emitter angles were 60 degrees and the sphere was then added to emitter in the modifier menu in the top right hand side menu in the Cinema 4D programme. I was then able to press play on the timeline.
However, I then noticed that the ball sphere kept going through the tunnel so we needed to add dynamics to this to stop this from happening. We then looked at the extrude tags > simulation tags > collider body, where I had to make sure that the sphere tags > sim > was then set to a rigid body. I had to set the dynamics tag to collision and shape to a static mesh.
To expand on this I had to follow the process of mode > project > dynamics and change the gravity values from 1000 to 10. I needed to make sure that in the render settings the key frame every option was turned off and the output selected all frames. However, I was also told not to render out the animation with the Ambient Occlusion on because it takes the animation a long time to render out, I was then able to save this a close the option but if I wanted to render this design out again I would have to change the file name so it wouldn’t render on top of any previous work.
We then moved onto create a new animation in the programme where I had to select and hold down the cube option, so that I would be able to change this to plane. I wanted to change the size of this so I made sure that the W was 1000cm and the WS was 50 cm. The height was also 1000cm and the HS was 50cm. I then selected the bend option and the displacer, I then dragged this option over the top of the plane and selected the displacers shading to add a shader to the design to do this I selected the Noise option. I then moved onto the object menu to change the height to 50cm, once I had done this I then went back to the shading menu. Once I had opened the shading menu I had to make sure that the Global scale was 400%, the contrast was 75% and the Animation speed was at 1. I then had to make a new material as I did before using the checkboard options however I need to make sure that the V frequency was set to 20 and that the texture fills the whole page on the screen. I then selected the subdivision and placed the plane into this.
I then opened the render settings and made sure that the Anti-Aliasing was turned on. We were then told to select the subdivision surface editor and change the value to 4 because anymore and the programme would crash. We then followed the process Displacer > Object > changed the height from 50cm to 20cm but as this didn’t look right I changed it back to 50cm. I then selected the texture tag on the material and change the projection option to spatial which made a nice pattern to the design. I then copied this material, before I created a new one as this material would be used as gradient by the using the texture option. After I had done this I then clicked on the gradient swatch to change the Interpolation to None from the Smooth Knot. I also had to make sure that the type was changed from 2D-U to 2D-V.
For the final part in the process and production lesson with Jay, I then created a new animation once again using the Emitter and MoText tool. I firstly had to again create a plane object by selecting and hovering over the cube option, I then had to command drag the plane modifier in the top right hand menu to create two new layer. This then allowed us to have three to work with, I then selected the object option and changed the width value to 200cm and changed the height to 2cm. For another one of the plane objects I had to change the values of the width to 70cm and the height to 70cm, for the final plane object I had to change the width to 4cm and the height to 200cm.
I then had to create a material as the same as I had before in the previous two animations and duplicate them so that I would create 8 x luminance materials that I would be able to apply to each plane object that I had to duplicate to get 8 x plane objects. I then selected the emitter and followed the process of simulate > particles > emitter, I was then able to change the R:P to 90 and the emitter angle to 60 degrees. I also had to make sure that the particle birth rate editor was set to 20 and the render was also set to 20.
To find out whether the animation work I had to go to show objects > spits out objects and select all the planes and choose the object option and set the WS and HS to 1. I was then able to add moText to the design by writing Post Modernism.
I found that this process and production lesson was fun and very interesting, as I got to learn lots of new things. I think that in my spare time whilst at University I may try to develop these skills further to help me expand on my knowledge of Cinema 4D.
