Cinema 4D R16 Essential Training

Learn how to model, texture, light, and animate 3D objects in CINEMA 4D, and create amazing motion graphics, visual effects (VFX), and animations.

CINEMA 4D R16 (C4D) is a vital tool for motion graphics artists, visual effects (VFX) artists, and animators alike. Whether you're just starting out in one of these fields or migrating to C4D after many years in another program, your training should begin here. In this course, author Ian Robinson covers key C4D concepts, such as object hierarchies and relationships, and the essential skills for modeling with primitive objects, splines and generator objects, subdivision surfaces, and polygons. He also shows how to give your 3D models realistic-looking surfaces—the kind of surfaces that make objects seem bumpy, metallic, shiny, or even transparent—with materials and lighting. The final chapters of the course cover keyframe animation, camera movement, and C4D's popular MoGraph module. Dive in and learn what CINEMA 4D has in store for you.

Introduction

• Welcome
• Using the exercise files

1. Getting Started

• Understanding the CINEMA 4D workflow
• Clarifying 3D for working with CINEMA 4D
• Understanding how 3D software is designed to function
• Navigating the viewports
• Using a three-button mouse and keyboard shortcuts
• Touring the interface
• Exploring the Content Browser
• Configuring project and essential render settings
• Setting application preferences

2. Creating and Understanding Objects and Hierarchical Relationships

• Understanding the importance of object hierarchy
• Creating, selecting, and transforming objects
• Understanding object categories: Active and passive
• Comparing object types
• Modifying objects with the Object and Attribute Managers
• Creating a model using primitives: Part one
• Creating a model using primitives: Part one

3. Modeling with Splines and Generator Objects

• Creating and modifying splines
• Selecting and editing spline shapes
• Working with the Cogwheel spline object
• Modeling with splines: Extrude objects
• Modeling with splines: Lathe objects
• Modeling with splines: Text splines and Sweep objects
• Extruding and organizing paths from Adobe Illustrator

4. Understanding Polygonal Modeling

• Understanding 3D objects: Points, edges, and polygons
• Modeling with Extrude and Extrude Inner tools
• Closing and connecting geometry with the PolyPen and Bridge tools
• Refining models with the Knife tool
• Modeling with the Polygon Pen tool
• Modeling with subdivisions: Modeling with subdivision surfaces

5. Modeling with Content Browser Presets

• Understanding the modular modeling presets
• Creating custom folding boxes
• Creating architectural models

6. Modifying Objects with Deformers

• Understanding deformers
• Controlling deformer falloff
• Deforming objects: The Wind deformer
• Deforming objects: The Spline Wrap

7. Creating Materials and Textures

• Understanding materials and material channels
• Applying materials: Projection methods
• Creating materials: Rough, bumpy surfaces
• Creating materials: Shiny, reflective surfaces
• Creating materials: Transparent surfaces
• Applying materials with alpha channels
• Refined material application with selection tags
• Texturing type techniques

8. Lights and Lighting

• Understanding how light functions in CINEMA 4D
• Understanding light types
• Refining lights by adjusting falloff
• Creating and manipulating shadows
• Creating visible light rays
• Creating three-point lighting

9. Keyframes and Animation

• Exploring keyframe animation
• Animating in the Timeline and mini-timeline
• Controlling animation between keyframes with the F-Curve Manager
• Managing keyframes in Key mode
• Driving animation between multiple objects
• Animating with Explosion deformers

10. Camera Movement and Controls

• Understanding the editor camera vs. a camera object
• Exploring field of view and aspect ratio
• Explaining parallax in camera movement
• Creating dynamic camera movement
• Creating complex camera moves with Camera Morph

11. Rendering

• Understanding render engines
• Exploring render settings
• Setting up multipass rendering
• Previewing multipass rendering in the picture viewer
• Batch rendering with the Render Queue
• Exploring the essentials of using the Physical Renderer

12. 3D Animation Workflow: Compositing in After Effects

• Understanding the 3D animation workflow
• Using the Compositing tag
• Importing multipass renders into After Effects
• Manipulating multipass renders in After Effects
• Working with CINEWARE

13. Getting Familiar with MoGraph

• Explaining MoGraph
• Using a Cloner object
• Optimizing for Effectors
• Modifying cloners with Effector objects
• Setting MoText type for animation
• Animating type with MoText
• Creating animation with the Fracture object
• Creating rigid body collisions with MoDynamics

14. Sculpting

• Setting up for sculpting
• Intro to sculpting layers
• Introducing sculpting on polygons

15. 3D Tracker

• Understanding motion tracking
• Creating the initial track
• Defining the reconstruction

Conclusion

• Next steps