Maxon Computer Cinema 4D - 11.0 Quickstart Manual

Quickstart Manual

3D FOR THE REAL WORLD

CINEMA 4D

RELEASE 11

CINEMA 4D R11 Quickstart

CINEMA 4D Release 11

Quickstart Manual

Programming Christian Losch, Philip Losch, Richard Kurz, Tilo Kühn, Thomas Kunert, David O’Reilly,

Plugin programming Michael Breitzke, Kiril Dinev, Reinhard Hintzenstern, Eduardo Olivares, Nina Ivanova,

Product management Marco Tillmann, Bernd Lutz

Quickstart writers Glenn Frey, Sven Hauth, Dirk Beichert, Fabian Rosenkranz

Layout Oliver Becker, Oliver Krawczyk

Translation Scot Wardlaw, Luke Stac y

This manual and the accompanying software are copyright protected. No part of this document may be translated, reproduced,

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the express written permission of MAXON Computer.

Although every precaution has been taken in the preparation of the program and this manual, MAXON Computer assumes

no responsibility for errors or omissions. Neither is any liability assumed for damages resulting from the use of the program

or from the information contained in this manual.

This manual, as well as the software described in it, is furnished under license and may be used or copied only in accordance

with th e te rm s of suc h license. Th e co nt ent of thi s manual is fur ni shed for informati on al u se only, is s ubject to c ha nge wi tho ut

notice, and should not be construed as a commitment by MA XON Computer. MA XON Computer assumes no responsibility

or liability for any errors or inaccuracies that may appear in this book.

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are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies, and are hereby acknowledged.

Cathleen Bastian, Per-Anders Edwards, Paul Everett, Aleksander Stompel,Sven Behne, Wilfried Behne,

Markus Jakubietz, Hendrik Steffen, Jens Uhlig, Michael Welter, Thomas Zeier

CINEMA 4D R11 Quickstart

Contents

Welcome to CINEMA 4D ..................................................................... 2

1. Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 2

2. What’s new in CINEMA 4D R11 ........................................................................................ 3

3. General Information / Interface ........................................................................................ 9

4. Sample Images ............................................................................................................... 19

5. Quick Tutorial – Arranging Objects ................................................................................. 21

6. Quick Tutorial – Modeling ............................................................................................... 29

7. Quick Tutorial – Materials ............................................................................................... 36

8. Quick Tutorial – Lighting ................................................................................................. 46

9. Quick Tutorial – Animation ............................................................................................. 52

10. Quick Tutorial – Rendering ............................................................................................ 61

11. Quick Tutorial – Multi-Pass Rendering ........................................................................... 68

12. Quick Tutorial – XPresso .............................................................................................. 75

Welcome to BodyPaint 3D ................................................................ 82

1. Introduction ................................................................................................................... 82

2. General Information / Interface ...................................................................................... 83

3. Sample Images .............................................................................................................. 85

4. Quick Tutorial – The Paint Wizard ................................................................................... 86

5. Quick Tutorial – First Painting Lesson .............................................................................. 88

6. Tips & Tricks .................................................................................................................... 92

Welcome to Advanced Render (Optional module) ......................................................... 94

1. Introduction ................................................................................................................... 95

2. General Information / Interface ...................................................................................... 95

3. Sample Images ............................................................................................................... 98

4. Quick Tutorial – Global Illumination .............................................................................. 100

5. Quick Tutorial – Caustics ............................................................................................... 104

6. Quick Tutorial – Depth of Field ..................................................................................... 106

7. Tips & Tricks .................................................................................................................. 108

Welcome to PyroCluster ................................................................. 110

1. Introduction ................................................................................................................. 110

2. General Information / Interface .................................................................................... 111

3. Sample Image ............................................................................................................... 112

4. Quick Tutorial – 10 Steps To Glory ................................................................................ 113

5. Quick Tutorial – Optimize and Animate ........................................................................ 116

6. Tips & Tricks .................................................................................................................. 119

7. In Closing .....................................................................................................................119

Welcome to Sketch and Toon (Optional module) .......................................................... 121

1. Introduction ................................................................................................................. 121

2. General Information / Interface .................................................................................... 121

3. Sample Images ............................................................................................................. 124

CINEMA 4D R11 Quickstart

4. Quick Tutorial – Outlines ............................................................................................... 126

5. Quick Tutorial – Shaders and Tags ................................................................................. 130

6. Tips & Tricks .................................................................................................................. 134

Welcome To NET Render (Optional module) ...................................................................... 135

1. Introduction ................................................................................................................. 136

2. General Information / Interface .................................................................................... 136

3. Sample Images ............................................................................................................. 136

4. Quick Tutorial – Installation / Interface ......................................................................... 137

5. Quick Tutorial – Jobs and Administration ..................................................................... 139

Welcome to Dynamics (Optional module) .......................................................................... 142

1. Introduction ................................................................................................................. 142

2. General Information / Interface .................................................................................... 142

3. Sample Images ............................................................................................................. 143

4. Quick Tutorial – Rigid Bodies ........................................................................................ 144

5. Quick Tutorial – Soft Bodies .......................................................................................... 147

6. Tips & Tricks .................................................................................................................. 148

Welcome To Thinking Particles (Optional module) ....................................................... 150

1. Introduction ................................................................................................................. 150

2. General Information / Interface .................................................................................... 151

3. Quick Tutorial – Particle Snow ....................................................................................... 154

4. Quick Tutorial – Objects as Particles .............................................................................. 157

5. Tips & Tricks .................................................................................................................. 163

6. In Closing .....................................................................................................................163

Welcome To MOCCA (Optional module) ............................................................................... 165

1. Introduction ................................................................................................................. 165

2. General Information/Interface (Joints and Rigging) ...................................................... 166

3. Quick Tutorial – Forward Kinematics / Inverse Kinematics (FK/IK) .................................. 171

4. Quick Tutorial – Visual Selector ..................................................................................... 174

5. Quick Tutorial – PoseMixer ............................................................................................ 177

6. Quick Tutorial – Morph Tool .......................................................................................... 181

7. Quick Tutorial – Muscles ............................................................................................... 183

8. Quick Tutorial – VAMP .................................................................................................. 186

9. Quick Tutorial – Dressing .............................................................................................. 191

10. Quick Tutorial – FBX Import / Export ........................................................................... 195

Welcome to HAIR (Optional module) ............................................. 199

1. Introduction ................................................................................................................. 199

2. General Information / Interface .................................................................................... 200

3. Sample Images ............................................................................................................. 201

4. Quick Tutorial – Fur ....................................................................................................... 202

5. Tips & Tricks .................................................................................................................. 213

III

CINEMA 4D R11 Quickstart

Welcome To MoGraph (Optional module) ........................................................................... 214

1. Introduction ................................................................................................................. 215

2. General Information / Interface .................................................................................... 215

3. Sample Images ............................................................................................................. 218

4. Quickstart Tutorial ........................................................................................................ 218

5. Tips & Tricks .................................................................................................................. 223

Welcome To 3D Ghosting ............................................................... 225

1. Introduction ................................................................................................................. 225

Welcome to Projection Man ........................................................... 228

1. Introduction ................................................................................................................. 228

Welcome to Non-Linear Animation in the Timeline ....................... 233

1. Motion Layer ............................................................................................................... 234

2. Animation Layer ........................................................................................................... 238

Note:

As a result of continued product development, differences between the current and printed documentation with regard to referenced ﬁles can occur. The most current versions can be found on the product DVD included in your order, or can be downloaded from the MA XON website or via the Online Updater.

CINEMA 4D R11 Quickstart

Welcome to CINEMA 4D

After you have worked through this tutorial you will have a good basic user knowledge which you can apply to future projects.

1. Introduction

No mat ter if you’re just checking CINEMA 4D out or if you already own your own copy of CINEMA 4D or one of its complete XL or Studio Bundle packages, you already know about the incredible things CINEMA 4D can do. We have been working very closely with our customers for several years now in order to satisfy their needs and wishes. This has lead to the creation and introduction of new functionality, according to their needs. These ideas and concepts are then creatively implemented to satisfy the needs of our customers and those of the 3D markets. No matter if you work in the ﬁeld of print, advertising, design, visualization or ﬁlm, CINEMA 4D gives you all the tools you need to make your ideas reality. The intuitive interface and the ease with which CINEMA 4D can be learned makes entering the versatile world for 3D a snap. Whether you need character animation (MOCC A module) or a cartoony look of your renderings (Sketch and Toon module) – CINEMA 4D’s modular setup lets you customize it to suit your needs. CINEMA 4D places a link between your job or hobby, and your creativity in the palm of your hand. You can create what your fantasy demands. CINEMA 4D will be your dependable partner.

CINEMA 4D R 11 Quickstart – What’s new in R11

2. What’s new in CINEMA 4D R11

Before we get started with the Quickstart Manual we would like to give you a brief overview of what’s new in CINEMA 4D Release 11.

Once again, CINEMA 4D is brimming with new and innovative functionality and innumerable improvements to make yo ur 3D life easier and improve work ﬂow. R11 now of fers inst ant answer s to almost any question regarding CINEMA 4D functionality with its integrated help system. If you are not already familiar with this system simply right-click on any function in CINEMA 4D and select the Show Help command from the menu that appears. The integrated help system is also extremely helpful when working through the Quickstart Manual. CINEMA 4D offered numerous additions in its R10.0 to R10.5 update, including Squash & Stretch (indispensable for character animators), the Secondary Motion Deformer (for jiggly effects), multi-processor support for HAIR, Generators (HyperNURBS) as collisions objects for Clothilde, the ability to drag images (regardless from where) into the 2D Viewport to be used as modeling templates, and the new automatic save function. And that’s just to name a few.

Note: Make absolutely sure you do not modify any ﬁle or directory names within the installation folder. Also, do not add any ﬁles to this folder. Doing so will lead to malfunctions within CINEMA 4D! All user-speciﬁc information will be saved to the user directory, including Content Browser libraries and similar items (with the exception of plugins).

Some of the most important additions to R11 are the following:

Non-Linear Animation

This new way of mixing animations is a true blessing for all animators. Motion Capture data or manually created motion data can be layered, mixed and transitioned. This system contains two methods for mixing layers: Motion Layer System and Animation Layer System.

Motion Layer System

Motion Layers are mixed in the Timeline. So-called Motion Sources are created using animation data that can then be mixed in the Timeline using Motion Clips. It is important that the Motion Clips themselves contain no animation data. The Motion Clips reference the already created animation data. This makes it possible for multiple Motion Clips to reference a single source (non-destructive animation) and deleting a Clip will not result in the source (original) animation being deleted. The Motion Layer System takes the place of the Motion Mixer functionality, familiar to many users from Release 9. This new and more powerful system lets you save Motion Sources that you have created as presets, which can be used to create your own preset library.

Animation Layer System

This system works roughly similar to Posemixer or the Morph tag. Individual animations are displayed in the Attribute Manager and are organized there as superimposed layers. For example: You assign the character you want to animate a Motion System tag (can be assigned to the top object in the hierarchy. All keyframes of all Child objects will be taken into account by the Motion System tag when the animation is recorded) and add an animation layer. Now record the ﬁrst keyframes for your character’s motion and add a new layer at any time during the process. The currently active layer will contain any keyframes created while it is active. If a new layer is created, all subsequently created keyframes will lie on this layer.

Your character’s walk cycle has been completed and it can walk from point A to point B. After viewing the animation you decide the character’s head should move more dynamically. So you create a new layer and record the key frames for this more dynamic head movement. After you have ﬁnished you can play all layers simultaneoulsy or turn individual layers off (and on again).

Not happy with the new head movement? No problem. Turn the corresponding layer off and create a new layer for animating the shoulder movement. So you decide the shoulder movement is a little “too much” and want your head movement back after all. Two clicks and it’s done – simply turn your shoulder layer off and the head layer back on. The Animation Layer System bears one invaluable advantage: You have your head animation back and you now want to see what it looks like if the head leans a little to the left and a little to the right. All you have to do is copy the layer containing the original head animation and experiment on the new layer. If you don’t like the result simply delete the new layer. The Animation Layer System offers innumerable possibilities for creating perfect animations and lets you quickly get the animation you want.

Onion Skinning: 3D Ghosting

Even though the 3D graphics world is full of technological advances with no end in sight, we can also use this technology to integrate very useful techniques that stem from the very traditional days of 2D animation, even dating back to the 1960s. One of these cornerstones of traditional animation is the so-called “onion skinning” method of animation, an essential tool for displaying the progression of movement of an animation. Onion skinning displays the frames of animation before and after the current frame as “ghost” (semi-transparent) images with increasing transparency the farther away they are from the current frame. Traditional 2D onion skinning basically consisted of images drawn on translucent paper that was placed over a light box or relied on dexterous animators who ﬂipped back and forth between pages containing sequential images they had drawn. As you can imagine, the CINEMA 4D R11 onion skinning (called 3D Ghosting) feature is much more versatile. You can, for example, deﬁne the number of frames before and after the current frame that should be displayed, their color and even the how they should be displayed (wireframe, Gouraud shading, etc.).

CINEMA 4D R11 Quickstart – What‘s new in R11

CINEMA 4D R 11 Quickstart – What’s new in R11

COLLADA Import / Export

The COLLADA ﬁle format is a 3D ﬁle format from the Khronos Group. Originally created by Sony Computer Entertainment for use with the Playstation 3 and portable Playstation formats, this increasingly popular format (in addition to the existing FBX format) is being supported by a growing number of applications and has also found its way into CINEMA 4D R11. The COLLADA Import/Export functionality lets you exchange data between the most important 3D applications.

Online Updater

You no longer have to worry about looking for CINEMA 4D updates. A simple click and CINEMA 4D will tell you if an update is available or components such as language ﬁles or new libraries are available. CINEMA 4D will then install the items you select so you can always stay up-to-date.

Doodle

The Doodle tool lets you doodle/scribble notes or instructions directly in the Viewport. Make notes for yourself or for others before sending them the scene.

Projection Man

This powerful tool is especially interesting for matte painters but also for everyone who would like to save loads of time texturing a large scene. Example: Your animation consists of your camera brieﬂy panning across a cityscape from left to right. Large cities generally have the irritating habit of consisting of hundreds to thousands of buildings. Why should a starving texture artist spend an unbelievable amount of time texturing each building individually? And why texture the backside of a building when it will never be seen in the animation? It would be much easier to paint the scene as a whole in a single step – and this is exactly where Projection Man comes in. Projection Man generates a geometry rendering of the scene and automatically opens the image in Photoshop where you can paint it just as you would a normal image. After saving the image in Photoshop you simply reload it in CINEMA 4D and the image will be projected onto the geometry in the scene. The animation can now be played and the texture you just painted will be displayed as a texture on the 3D geometry with the correct perspective for the camera ﬂight. If the camera ﬂight is long and the perspective shift is correspondingly larger you can create an additional camera from which to project and, following the same procedure as just described, use this projection create an even longer camera ﬂight.

Cineman

Cineman is a new connectivity feature that lets CINEMA 4D users communicate with 3Delight, Pixar’s RenderMan and AIR. RIB and SL ﬁles, among others, can be converted to CINEMA 4D materials and sent back to any of these three renderers.

New Render Settings

The Render Settings have been completely reorganized in order to give you a better overview of the numerous Render Settings. Render Settings can now be saved as presets that can be grouped, commented and renamed. This lets you better organize large projects and easily switch from one Render Setting preset to another. The Render Settings menu has been given a new look and offers a better overview of the available options.

CINEMA 4D R11 Quickstart – What‘s new in R11

New Global Illumination (GI)

The GI render engine has been completely reworked and operates entirely differently in R11 – for even more realistic rendering! The new GI boasts noise reduction and ﬂicker-free rendering. The interface has been redesigned to make it easy to use for both professional and novice users alike.

CINEMA 4D R 11 Quickstart – What’s new in R11

BodyPaint 3D R4.0

BodyPaint 3D has been given various new functionalities to make working with textures even easier and more versatile. Among these additions are the arrangement of Photoshop-adapted tools and the addition of the Blur, Sharpen and Colorize tools. The Brush, Clone, Dodge, Burn and Erase tools now have their own separate brush settings. Photoshop brushes can be impor ted directly into BodyPaint 3D and the Texture View now has its own complete ﬁle menu. The Save Brush function has been expanded and colors can now be saved with a brush.

Also adapted to Photoshop was the Airbrush function that now allows control over the Flow option. Wacom Art Pen rotation is now supported and much more. Listing all the new features would over whelm the Quickstart Manual. Check the integrated help ﬁles for a complete list of new features in CINEMA 4D R11 or visit us online at www.MAXON.net.

CINEMA 4D R11 Quickstart – What‘s new in R11

CINEMA 4D R 11 Quickstart – Interface

3. General Information / Interface

CINEMA 4D Release 11 offers many new functions that will again speed up and improve your workﬂow.

Let’s start with the most important step - starting CINEMA 4D. After starting CINEMA 4D you will see an image similar to the following screenshot:

CINEMA 4D is divided into different working areas as follows: (starting at the top left clockwise)

The Editor Window shows all objects contained in the scene, for example polygon objects, cameras, lights and bones and other deformers. You can render any view at any time to check your work.

A Group Icon contains several attributes for one group which can be accessed by clicking with the left mouse button on the main icon. The group icon differs from normal icons in that you will see a small arrow in the lower-right corner.

CINEMA 4D R11 Quickstart – Interface

A Tab indicates different windows or managers which are layered over each other. In each window or manager you will ﬁnd different settings or attributes.

CINEMA 4D R 11 Quickstart – Interface

The Object Manager contains all of the scene’s objects. You use the Object Manager to set up a hierarchy, assemble objects, set tags for objects (small icons to the right of the Object Manager let you assign an object certain attributes), or to name objects. Included are polygon objects, lights, cameras, bones, deformers, splines and null objects (objects without geometry).

The Attribute Manager manages the attributes of each object or tool. This is where you can change the strength of the HyperNURBS subdivision (more about that later) or an object’s visibility in the editor window. The object’s coordinates can be found here as well as the tool setting such as the radius of the live selection and the “Only Select Visible Elements“ option.

The Coordinates Manager lets you place, rotate or scale your objects. Enter the values in the given ﬁelds and conﬁrm your entry with the “apply“ button or simply press the return key.

The Material Manager is used to display and manage all of a scene’s materials and 3D shaders. Textures and parameters can be modiﬁed in the Attribute Manager or the Material Editor. Double-click the material to open the Material Editor to make changes to its individual material channels. Illumination strength, type of specular, strength of bump and more can be adjusted here as well. We’ll cover this in detail in a later chapter.

CINEMA 4D R11 Quickstart – Interface

By default, CINEMA 4D starts with four open Viewports. You can, however, add any number of Viewports to your layout. You can view your scene in different modes ranging from gouraud shading (includes any lights you have placed into the scene) to quick shading (displays your scene using only a default light, not lights you have placed into the scene), wire frame and more. This lets you adapt your editor window layout to your needs or your computer’s processor speed.

The Icon Palettes stretch down the left side and across the top of the editor window. The horizontal palette contains the tools you will be using most often, depending on which module you are using at the moment. If you are using the Modeling Layouts, for example, tools needed to work with polygons, edges and points will be displayed. You can use one of the standard layouts or create your own Icon Palette. CINEMA 4D lets you choose which layout you want to work with.

CINEMA 4D R 11 Quickstart – Interface

Now we will concentrate more on CINEMA 4D’s icon palettes to get you a little more familiar with them. The following explanation will refer to the colored icons on the next screenshot.

The image shows the left icon palette. At the very top you can see the previously mentioned predeﬁned layouts. Below that we have the (green) “Make Object Editable” button. This function lets a primitive be transformed using points, polygon or edges. The editability of primitives is limited until they are transformed! You can determine size and number of segments but you cannot make any polygonal transformations. Next we have the “Use Model Tool” and “Use Object Axis Tool” (red icons). You can move, scale or rotate a selected object or rotate it around its own axis. The next three (blue) icons represent the “Use Point Tool”, “Use Edge Tool” and “Use Polygon Tool”. Use these tools to either move, scale or rotate an object’s points, edges or polygons or edit the object with CINEMA 4D’s integrated tools. The next (purple) icon lets you choose between point, edge or polygon selection.

You select your points, edges or polygons in “Default Mode” by simply activating the corresponding points, edges or polygons. In the “Auto Switch Mode“ CINEMA 4D recognizes whether your cursor is over a point, edge or polygon. A click of the left mouse button selects the correct mode automatically. The “Tweak Mode“ lets you do the same with an active move, scale or rotate tool. Now you know the icon palette’s most important functions.

Now we will turn our attention to the most-used icons on the top palette.

On the left you will ﬁnd the “Undo / Redo“ arrows (yellow). This lets you reverse or repeat each step. You can determine how many steps CINEMA 4D lets you undo by changing the presets in the main menu (edit / preferences / document).

Next to the Undo / Redo icons you will see the “Live Selection“ (pink) tool. This lets you select your points, edges or polygons for editing. The next three (turquoise) icons are pretty much self-explanatory. Use these to move, scale or rotate your object or your object’s selected points, edges or polygons. When rotating, please note that the center of the rotation will always be that of the active object (or camera). The next icon (dark blue) is the “Selection History” icon. Clicking and holding on this icon displays the last eight tools used. This makes switching to a recently used tool much easier.

The following three (red) icons let you lock & unlock the X, Y or Z axis. These settings let you determine the direction in which your object will be edited. If only one of these icons has been activated it will only be possible to move the object in that particular direction, unless you are using the object axis arrows, which are always independent of the locked or unlocked X, Y or Z directions.

The next function (purple) lets you switch between the “Us e Wo rl d / Object Coordinate System“. Let’s assume the object axis of your wonderfully modeled head is slanted (whereas the term “wonderfully modeled“ is open to interpretation in this case ;o). If you lock the X and Y axis, make the head active and move it, you will notice that your model moves in the X-direction of the object axis.

CINEMA 4D R11 Quickstart – Interface

Now select the world-coordinates instead and see how the object moves on the X axis parallel to the world coordinate system.

CINEMA 4D R 11 Quickstart – Interface

This function can be very useful in modeling or animating your scene.

Now to the next group of three, the (green) Render Icons. The ﬁrst function (Render Active View), with a clapboard as a symbol, renders the image in the editor view. The rendering will be made using the settings you have speciﬁed, with exception of image size and several post effects. Icon number 2 renders the image in the “picture viewer” using the settings you have speciﬁed in icon number 3’s “Render Settings”. You can also render animations in the picture viewer since the function “Render Active View” (as the name states) is only meant for checking the scene in the active view.

The next (blue) symbol is the group window “Add Cube Object“. It contains all of CINEMA 4D’s available predeﬁned parametric objects.

One click and the world’s most used object is created – the cube. Click and hold to see all available parametric objects. This is where you choose the initial shape you will need. And don’t forget! “Only parametric objects that have been converted to polygon objects can be edited at a polygon, point or edges level!“

The yellow icon represents spline objects.

The term “spline“ has its origin in ship building. The wooden slats which were elastic enough to conform to the shape of the ship’s hull were called splines. In the 3D world splines can be deﬁned as “point-based curves“. A spline “follows” several previously deﬁned points while still retaining a curved form. This group window offers several tools for drawing splines, as well as predeﬁned shapes from which to choose. A spline can act as a path for a camera to move along. Just draw a spline and let the camera move along its path. Splines can also be used to model. To put it simply, splines are placed in a row as a wire frame over which a skin is stretched using “Loft NURBS“, for example.

The next (dark orange) group icon hosts probably the most important CINEMA 4D object, the “HyperNURBS object“.

If a polygon object is a sub-object of a HyperNURBS object it will be virtually subdivided to a higher degree. Visually it will be comprised of many more smaller polygons than before the subdivision (the object automatically looks softer / rounder). As you can see in the next screen shot: The outer mesh (light blue) shows the polygon cube’s actual subdivision.

The ﬁner inner mesh (black) shows the subdivision of the HyperNURBS object. Change the cubes’ display mode by selecting (deactivating) Tools / Isoline Editing in the main C4D menu and switching to Gouraud Shading (Lines) in the Editor’s Display menu. In the end it’s up to you how you want your objects displayed in the Editor. However, for this tutorial, this is the most effective way to show the effect HyperNURBS objects have on polygonal objects or primitives since it shows how the cubes are subdivided and the ﬁnal result is therefore also easier to visualize.

CINEMA 4D R11 Quickstart – Interface

The advantages, especially in modeling, are obvious. Since the object contains few points (edges / polygons) that can be edited it remains very manageable. You can drag just one point of the original wire frame and the HyperNURBS mesh, with its ﬁner subdivision, will follow the point being dragged (see next screenshot).

CINEMA 4D R 11 Quickstart – Interface

If the polygon object were made up of such ﬁne subdivision modeling, it would be much more complicated. You would pull one point and only one point would be moved. All other surrounding points would retain their position. You would have to move each one individually in order to achieve the desired shape. Haven’t quite understood? No problem, in part 2 of our Quick Tutorial you will try modeling like this yourself so you can learn the functions ﬁrst-hand. Of course this group window contains several NURBS objects, of which you have already gott en to kn ow the loft and Hyp erNURBS. Let ’s take a look at the objects behind the (green) “Function

Objects“.

Here you will ﬁnd, for example, the null object (object without geometry), the boolean object for boolean operations (parametric and polygon objects can cut / slice each other), as well as the symmetry object, which can be unbelievably helpful in character modeling. You simply model one half of the ﬁgure and use the Add Symmetry Object function to mirror it and create the other half of the ﬁgure. The second-to-last icon contains at least one object without which the best model would appear inconspicuous and ﬂat: the light (page 18, command palette - shown black & white for clarity).

The proper lighting of a scene is at least as important as the scene itself. You can make a better impression with simple models and great lighting than you can with a fantastic model lit by a default light. We’ll go more into detail about that later. Here you will ﬁnd camera objects, the sun object and the environment object, among others (adds a general color and / or fog to the scene). The “Deformers“ can be applied with the objects of the last icon (light blue).

Use these to bend, deform or squash objects for modeling or animation. There are several helpful tools in this group window. After you have worked your way through this tutorial you can try some of these yourself. You can deduce what most of them do by their names (which appear at the lower left of your monitor when you place the cursor over each icon).

CINEMA 4D R11 Quickstart – Interface

CINEMA 4D R 11 Quickstart – Interface

4. Sample Images

This is the “ooohs and ahhhs!” section. Take a look at these images and let them inspire you a little before we move on to the hands-on part of this tutorial.

CINEMA 4D R11 Quickstart – Arranging Objects

5. Quick Tutorial – Arranging Objects

In order to give you a feeling of how CINEMA 4D works we will begin with the simple creation of a couple of basic objects.

Create 13 cubes and one sphere using the main menu (objects / primitive / cube / sphere) or the group icon “Add Cube Object“. “13 cubes“ may give you the impression that we are preparing to create a mammoth project but don’t worry, we are going to arrange the cubes into a little ﬁgure. When you’ve created the cubes you can see their alignment in the Object Manager at the right.

For better reference, give each cube a unique name (double click the current object name in the Object Manager to open the data entry ﬁeld for renaming the object). You can simply refer to the next screenshot.

As you can see in the editor window, only one cube is visible. That’s because all cubes are located at the same coordinates and are the same size, with the sphere in the center. Of course we will want to change this state now, but ﬁrst a quick introduction to navigating the editor window. How do I rotate and move my point of view? Simple. Take a glance at the top right corner of the editor window. Here you will ﬁnd four small symbols with which you can change your point of view (of course we mean the point of view of the editor window, not your personal point of view. We can have little inﬂuence on the latter.)

CINEMA 4D R11 Quickstart – Arranging Objects

The ﬁrst symbol (click – hold – move mouse) moves the view. The second symbol (foreshortened double arrow) lets you zoom in and out and the third (curved arrows with a dot in the center) lets you rotate the scene. Selecting the little rectangle to the right will divide the entire editor into four views, giving you a better overall view of the scene. Each of the four views has its own little rectangle which, when clicked, enlarges the respective window. Zoom out a little and select the object “Head“ in the Object Manager. The head‘s axis will be visible in the editor window. Drag the head‘s green object axis to a point over the cubes.

CINEMA 4D R11 Quickstart – Arranging Objects

Each of the axis‘ arrows can be selected and dragged in its respective direction. This prevents the object from being dragged in the wrong direction in the editor view (as opposed to clicking on the object itself and dragging it). It is often impossible to see in which direction an object is being dragged in a 3D view. A similar method of moving an object in a single direction is the previously mentioned locking of a speciﬁc axis in the command palette. This prevents an object from being moved in the direction of an axis that has been locked unless you click and drag one of the object’s own axis arrows. These objects are not locked. Select the “Body” object and then click on the “Scale” function at top.

The ends of the axis‘ arrows have changed form arrows to boxes. Dragging these boxes will scale the object along that particular axis. Parametric objects (not conver ted polygon objects) will display lit tle orange handles.

They make it possible to stretch and squash the parametric object on the respective axis

Now we’ll get to the nitty-gritty part of this project. You now have enough basic knowledge to be able to arrange the objects according to the following screenshots.

If you prefer, you can switch to a four-editor mode (click the little rectangle at the top right of the editor window). If the objects are displayed as wire frame objects you can switch to “Quick Shading“ or “Gouraud Shading“ under “Display“ in the editor’s menu. Now let’s get to work. Here’s a screenshot of the ﬁgure from the front for reference.

CINEMA 4D R11 Quickstart – Arranging Objects

After you have arranged the cubes it still looks nothing like a “human character“. We have to rotate and stretch the ﬁgure a little. Click on “Body“ in the Object Manager and select the orange handle on the (green) Y axis. Drag this handle until the top edge of the cube lies even with the arms.

CINEMA 4D R11 Quickstart – Arranging Objects

Using the orange handles, select the cubes that make up the arms and adjust their size and position as shown in the next screenshots.

If you want to scale all cubes of the arms at once you can do this as follows: with the shift button pressed, select the objects “Lowerarm_L“, Upperarm_R“, Lowerarm_R“ and “Upperarm_R“ and press “C“ on your keyboard to convert the objects and scale them with the “Scale“ function along the Y and X axis. As you can see, the orange handles are not visible. Squash and move the ﬁgures arms and legs until it looks like the following image.

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Maxon Computer Cinema 4D - 11.0 Quickstart Manual

Specifications and Main Features

Frequently Asked Questions

User Manual