February2005

Volume 02 Issue 02 February 2005 | $3.99

HIGHLIGHTS IN THIS ISSUE: WIN GREAT PRIZES!

Win IK Tools by Cactus Dan pg. 16, or the new Final Touch plugin by Paul Everett pg. 31.

BAT WING TUTORIAL

Set up your own Bat or Dragon wing with the new Bat/Dragon Wing Tutorial

by Cactus Dan on Page 18.

CHARACTER MODELING

Take a trip through Mark Gmehling’s new Character Modeling tutorial for CINEMA 4D. Page 9

“Interview with Ray O’Doul” Read the interview on Page 6

© Ray O’Doul

3D ATTACK QUICK INDEX PAGE 3-4

Displacement Maps with ZBrush and C4D by poserpro

PAGE 6-8

Interview with Ray O’Doul by Tavy Ann

PAGE 9-15

Character Modeling Part 1 by Mark Gmehling

PAGE 16

C4D Quiz - Win Cactus Dan’s IK Tools!

PAGE 17

Sniper Pro Review by Thomas Pasieka

PAGE 18-25

Setting Up A Bat/Dragon Wing by Cactus Dan

PAGE 26-30

Basic Modeling - Lookout Tower P1 by Bram van Gerwen

PAGE 31

Win Paul Everett’s Final Touch Plugin!

PAGE 32-36

Attack of the Horrific Blob! Part 1 by Antoine Aurety

PAGE 37-39

Environment Maps by Rui Batista

PAGE 40-41

Range Mapper Animation by Base80

PAGE 42-46

Best of CINEMA 4D Gallery

PAGE 47

Editors Note

PAGE 48

The 3D Attack Team

Displacement Maps with ZBRUSH and C4D By poserpro

Pixologic's ZBRUSH earns its fame for being a great modeling and painting tool, combining 2D, 2.5D and 3D toolsets.

doing twice. This is a more precise way for making symmetrical sculpting. Then hit DROP NOW. ZB told you to create a texture, so hit to proceed [Pop05].

In ZB 2, it further supports makings of Normal Map and Displacement Map, which make it a perfect tool in creating displacement map for using in Cinema 4D R9, which finally features Sub-Polygon Displacement.

Picture 2

Tutorial

Here is the basic workflow for how to make displacement map in ZB2 and use it in R9. In case you don't own ZB2, I’ve also included a sample map for your test.

Picture 5

First, use the Default human figure Meg for this purpose, delete all the body and limbs polygons and leave her head only. Adjust the Axis to let it fit inside Meg's head [Pic01].

Picture 3

From Tool> Geometry, hit Divide 6 times to subdivide it (SDiv is 6). We have a smoother head model ready to paint or sculpt.[Pic04]

After completed, hit Projection Master and press PICKUP NOW. Now you can rotate the head to examine the displaced face [Pic06].

Shift+Rotate the head to see the

Picture 1

Switch to BP3D mode, and use the Setup Wizard to recalculate the UV Mesh. Optimize the head in Point mode, then export as head.obj [Pic02] Launch ZB2. I made my default canvas size 800*800, but it is up to you to set up the document size.

From Tool>Import, load the head object, and drag into the canvas, hit T key to turn it into a 3D element.

You can press the Frame button to view the mesh form if you like.

[Pic03]

The head can't be moved or rotated as it is deemed a canvas mode for painting. Now with your brush ready to paint and sculpt, choose any Alpha image you like. Here are the basic parameters to set up: Draw Size - Define the brush Size before you paint. Use S for short key. RGB Intensity - Set to 0, as we don't need to paint colour.Z Intensity- Set to proper value for depth paint; the fewer, the lesser strength painted on the canvas.

Picture 4

Use Shift and rotate outside the head to let its left side facing us.

Next hit Projection Master. In the PM panel, be sure to check Deformation (the Normalized will be checked at the same time) and Double Sided, this way we can paint the other side of the head without

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Picture 6

Displacement Maps with ZBRUSH and C4D By poserpro

front side of the head. Hit Projection Master again. This time be sure not to check Double Sided, and paint on the face [Pic07].

DispMap. In Alpha panel, check the newly generated Alpha image. This is the displacement map we just made. Export it as a displacement map in PSD/BMZ/TIFF format (head.bmp). We are done in ZBRUSH 2 [Pic09].

Picture 10

Tweak the other channel, for Luminance. Color to reach the final result. Render to see how the displacement map works [Pic11].

Picture 7

I completed the head deformation as pic shown [Pic08].

Picture 9

Tutorial

Back in C4D we were in BP3D mode, so remain unchanged, double-click the mat, and in the Displacement channel load the displacement map head.bmp. Check Sub-Polygon Displacement, Round Geometry‌ The Height is 5m in default, but I reduce it to 2m for proper displaced result.

Picture 8

In Tool>Geometry, hit Lower Res to SDIV=1, and press Cage. Next in Displacement tab, hit Create

In Menu> UV Edit, hit Mirror V to flip the mat vertically. Now the map aligns with the UV Map. [Pic10]

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Picture 11

Have fun pop

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Dosch 3D: Humans V2

3D-Design, Animation, Visualization Besides complete 3D-models and scenes >Dosch 3D, Dosch Design products contain surface materials >Dosch Textures, High Dynamic Range Images >Dosch HDRI, as well as 2-dimensional objects for architectural visualizations >Dosch VizImages.

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Interview with “Ray O’Doul”

By Tavy Ann

Ray O’Doul aka “3d_explorer”

Interview

About a year ago I stumbled upon the work of Ray O'Doul. Ray, as I've recently had the opportunity to get to know him on more of a personal and professional level, is both a wonderful human being and a great influence in the CINEMA 4D community. I hope you will enjoy the conversation I had with Ray as much as I did.

Tavy: Ray thanks so much for taking time to share with us. Your work is unique and wonderfully created.

You're an inspiration to many and we are honored to have the opportunity to interview you. Well let's get the typical first interview question out of the way......Why don't you tell our readers a little about you?

Where were you born, now live, are you married, kids, how old are you, etc?

Ray: I've recently upgraded to Release 9 for CINEMA 4D. It was a fairly substantial upgrade for me so I'm still working my way thru it. I am also working with the CE versions of both Photoshop and Illustrator. They both figure pretty prominently into my workflow and are worth mentioning.

Tavy: As a CINEMA 4D hobbyist have you ever considered going the pro route? Have ever done any professional 3D work?

now so I've done a lot professionally including a little 3D work, but most of my time is spent developing advertising for my clients. I have recently been working with a local author of children's books developing a story for a couple of my characters. The book has been picked up by a publisher so all we have to do now is finish the illustration work (yikes!).

In addition to that, I'm also working with a greeting card company to produce some illustrations. All of this is still a ways away from being out there for the public to see, so don't hold your breath.

Ray: I've been working in the Advertising field for almost 20 years

Tavy: What version of CINEMA and other apps are you currently using?

Ray: That is probably my favorite too. I have several versions of that

Ray: Hi Tavy, this whole interview took me a bit by surprise, but the honor is all mine. Well, let's see, I just celebrated my 39th birthday on Christmas Eve. I have 2 children, ages 2 and 6 and am married for almost 10 years. We live in Illinois, USA in a town called Washington.

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Tavy: Of all your images I would have to say "Worm Yanker" is my personal favorite. There is just that special "something" that makes me smile when I see that image. Of all your models, what is your favorite and why?

Interview with “Ray O’Doul”

Interview

By Tavy Ann

character, one of which is decked out in full Viking gear. It makes me laugh when I see. I don't know why it's my favorite. I guess it appeals to me on a childish level. I'm really just a little kid stuck in the body of a middle-aged man. I spent a lot of time rigging and animating that character too so I think it will always be one of my favorites.

Tavy: Who are some of your favorite CINEMA 4D artists? What makes their work stand out from the rest?

Ray: That's a tricky question. I respect the work of so many that it is difficult to pinpoint a select few. I find that I have more respect for someone who takes their time modeling. It's easy to spot a render that was rushed. Attention to detail is very important (although most of my models are notably lacking in detail) Also, I find myself more attracted to renders that don't depict absolute reality. I admire the technical merit but it's really not my style. I prefer to see some sense of artistic interpretation of real life, like cartoon characters or over the top lighting. On

that note, a couple of my favorite C4D artists are Mike Robinson, Anders Kjellberg, John Shakespeare, Adam Benton, Pupi (sorry, don't know your real name, but everyone knows who you are) and anyone who works at Pixar.

Tavy: You definitely have a very unique style with both your modeling and texturing. Would you mind walking us through your typical work flow when developing your characters?

Where do you start and end?

Ray: Thanks Tavy, do I have a "style"? That makes me giggle for some reason.

My renders almost always start as a wacky idea that pops into my head and evolve from there. I ALWAYS start with a sketch of what I want the character to look like. From there I model the character.

This is the most time consuming aspect of the development because the design inevitably changes several times. I'm always conscious of what I want the textures to look like but don't start texturing until after the

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Interview with “Ray O’Doul”

By Tavy Ann

Ray: Right now, I'm devoting most of my C4D time to animation. It is so rewarding to see your stuff move for some reason. Currently my favorite resource is C4D Cafe. The video tutorials there have opened my mind to a world of possibilities. Second, the forums. The C4D community is full of knowledgeable, helpful people who browse and participate in the forums. My 2 personal favorites are CGTalk and Renderosity, but I'm also a regular lurker at C4DPortal.

Third, if all else fails, there's always the manual ... lol

Interview

Tavy: Forums! There are a ton out there dedicated to C4D. Without naming any specifically, what do you love and absolutely hate about forums?

model is finished. This can take a while too because I'm always coming up with different ideas as I progress. It would probably not be too far from the truth for me to say that I don't consider any of my models "finished". There is always room for improvement.

Tavy: With all of the available resources for CINEMA name a few your personally use and would recommend.

Ray: The forums are a fantastic resource as mentioned. Most of the time, people are helpful and friendly.

I've made what I consider to be many great friendships thru the forums. That's what I love about them. I'm not fond of anyone who takes a greater than thou attitude.

We're all here trying to learn. RTFM is an insulting response to any question. I have the manuals, have read them, but still come across questions continually that defy the manual. Take it easy on the noob, they are people too.

Tavy: When you're not busy working or creating in CINEMA, what do you do for personal relaxation and entertainment?

Ray: I don't have a lot of "down time", so sleep figures prominently in there. Also, music and outdoor activities like skiing, hiking and jet skiing when time permits.

Tavy: Thanks again for taking time for 3D Attack and our readers. It's been a pleasure getting to know you a little better. Do you have any last words for our readers?

Ray: Seems like a good time for me to thank the community for taking an interest in my work. Your kind words and encouragement have been a great inspiration to me. Also, as I write this the world is reeling from the news about the tsunami victims.

Everyone should do what they can.

Thank you again.

8

Character Modeling - Part 1

Tutorial

By Mark Gmehling aka Macling Hey there Attackers! This will be the first part of my character modeling tutorial series.Within the next issues I’ll explain the modeling of a character from top to bottom.

ing. But there are some things you should pay attention to when you model a human head. However, the global proportions are- Look at the picture below.

After that I'll explain the Texturing of the finished character, and then we'll model some facial expressions.

Traditionally (I tried to make it) understandable even for newbies of C4D and users of other 3d applications. I'm using Release 9, but you'll be able to master all steps in earlier versions because I use the "oldschool" modeling methods .

In this issue I focus on the modeling of a characters head. First I do some sketches to define the global shape of the character by experimenting with different proportions.

This can be done in a few minutes using a pencil. Scribble all possibilities before you turn on your computer.

And think about the highlighted lines when you tweak your characters heads. This pic of course is not a must if you're modeling cartoony characters, but some things make even cartoony characters look weird because correct physical proportions we have in our deep subconsciousness are mistreated. It's a psychological thing people are not aware of, but it decides whether a character looks cute or not in th clients or audiences opinion.

Take care on the sketching part…it is important that you believe in the character you're going to model.

When your sketch makes you and other people SMILE you got it…your work seems worthy to become 3D. So don't see my shaping as a must.

I won't give you reference pics here -in this series I show you how to shape a quite cartoony character, so follow my steps as freely as possible to shape your own creation- follow the lines of your own reference pic only the level of abstraction should be quite similar, because this is not a photorealistic modeling tutorial.

I think the most important thing is to lose some respect of handling points and surfaces. That's the reason I like to introduce the poly-by-poly modeling technic to those who are not so familiar with organic model-

I recommend loading your own sketched references in the viewports. Just go to Edit- Configure and load your references in the orthogonal views by clicking on the "…"button. In other Releases of C4D the image might appear with wrong proportions. No problem! Type the x-ypixel-sizes in the Horizontal and Vertical size fields.

OK- One more thing- Before I start modeling I create three objects to setup a comfortable workflow: A HyperNURBS- to see the smoothed result of the work directly; A Symetry Object- to only have to do half the work;) and a Null Object- which acts as a container I drop all the meshfragments in. Now I drag the Null onto the Symetry to make it a child of the symetry and then drag the symetry onto the HyperNURBS to

9

make this a child of the HyperNURBS. After that I name the Null "Headmesh" by doubleclicking it in the objects manager. Picture 01

Picture 01

BLOCKING OUT THE EYE-AREA OK-let's begin: I usually start with creating the eyes by placing a sphere(eyeball)(Objects-primitive sphere) in front(F4) and side view(F3) lining up with the reference pic by scaling(T) and moving (E) it in the right place. Let's call it "eyeball". Drop it into the "Headmesh" Null object. Furthermore, I use to rotate(r 90° to use the polar lines as iris reference. Then I create a polygon object (Objects-Polygon object) that I name "eyelids".

In FrontView I ctrl-click-insert the first two rows of points with the create new points Tool(in point modewith the eyelid object Polygon object selected!). I use to define the eyelids with a pointloop counting 8 points.

I connect the two created pointloops with the bridge tool, and in top view (F2), I adjust their z-position roughly with the rectangle selection (select only visible disabled in the attributes editor)to define a slightly bended shape. Then I tweak the points to line up quite close with the sphere surface in perspective view(F1)by moving(E)the points in z-direction (I only drag the handles to be sure I affect only x,y or z position)-look at my result in...

Character Modeling - Part 1

By Mark Gmehling aka Macling Picture 02. For further modeling steps I recommend downloading the Easy Clone Plugin. Its free and very useful for the next steps. Its available at http://www.c4dplugs.com and

Tutorial

Picture 02

is freeware. It will copy selected points and keeps the copies selected for moving them. This is more comfortable than doing this via the structure tab when you place the EasyClone Button In your palette.

(Right - or command click on the palette where you want to place the Easy Clone button and and go to Edit palettes- the command list appears- browse the Easy Clone button and drag it into the paletteThat's it- Picture 03)

from its default 180°to 0°.The next step is cloning the outer point loop by selecting it with the live selection in front-view(F4) and clicking the easy-clone button. Then scale(T) the new points a little bit bigger and move(E) them forward in z-direction.

The same procedure with the first inner point-loop.

Clone the points- this time scale(T) them smaller and move(E) them back in z-direction. Now I do the same with at the outer edge. Once again select the point loop- click easy clone and scale(T) the pointloop bigger and move it a bit forward in z-direction. Now the points have to be tweaked to shape the eyelid area out nicely -look at Picture 04. I move the points on

Picture 05

Picture 06

Polygon object and go to C4d TagsPhong Tag- in other C4D Versions New Tag- Phong Tag)- Now the eyelid appears smooth as it should.

BLOCKING OUT THE MOUTH AREA: Picture 04

the right side back which makes sense when you imagine the anatomical top profile in this area.

The left sided points have to be moved(E) forward in z because they have to line up with the nose latertake a look at Picture 05.

Picture 03

If you own C4Drel.9 you can use the Clone Command found in the Functions Menu, but make sure you set the Clones to 1 and the rotation

You'll probably recognize an edgy look although all is placed in a hypernurbs. That's because the Polygon object doesn't come along with a phong tag already attached.

We have to add a phong tag to our Eyelid Polygon object - Picture 06 (Right click or command-click the

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The thing I usually create after this is the mouth. It’s quite the same procedure as I created the eye with.

For this I create a new Polygon object, call it "mouth", and place it in the Null (Headmesh) object which already contains our first eyeball sphere and the eyelid Polygon object (make sure you add a phong tag to the new mouth polygon object to get smooth results). In Front(F4) view I ctrl-click create two HALFloops of points with the create new points tool(in point mode!)which are connected to polys with the bridge tool and then tweaked in top

Character Modeling - Part 1

By Mark Gmehling aka Macling view(F2) roughly with the rectangle selection tool to build a bended shape and line up with the reference. Picture 07

Tutorial

Picture 07

(I only create half of the mouth because I have the symetry object.

Make sure you set the four points at the y-axis to x pos.:0 in the coordinates manager, which makes sure the symetry is able to do work smoothly. The half-point loop is consisting of nine points-look at the pic.

Now I do the same as I did with the eyelid area- I live select the inner point loop- clone it- scale it in(T) and move(E) it it back in z-direction.

You'll notice that the two points at the x-axis are affected by the scaling too.

Just set their x-pos back to x:0 and connect the new point row with the Bridge tool(B) to polys again.

(Switching the HyperNURBS on and off gives a clearer view in some cases) Now I tweak the points a little bit with the Move Tool(E) in perspective view(F1)- I pay attention to keep the corner of the mouth quite sharpso I bring these points closer together. Then I select the just created point loop again- clone it and scale(T) it bigger in y-direction/ move it back in z-direction to define the cavity of the mouth (Again pay attention to set the two points at the y-axis back to x:0!) Turn your

HyperNURBS off and maybe switch to Isoparm View to connect the points to polys with the Bridge Tool(B). By the way: If you recognize black lines at some poly edges, the polygon direction is wrong. This is because the polys are facing inward, because the bridge tool was used in the contraclockwise direction. Just go to Polygon modeFunctions- Align normals and all should be fine(in other releases the Align Normals Functions is placed in the Structure tab). To align all polys, no poly should be selected when you do that!

I think the creation of poly loops should be quite clear now. I create one more row of polys at the outer boundary of our mouth shape as explained above and leave this fragment for now Picture 08.

bridge tool-look at Picture 09.

Then I select the second row in perspective view(F1) and move(E) it

Picture 09

along the x-axis a little bit. I recognize the edgy look and add a phong tag. After that I clone the outer row two times- each time moving(E) it out slightly in x-direction and a little bit back in z to define a rounded nose tip. Now its time again to tweak the points by moving(E) them.

Look at Picture 10 and 11 to see what I came out with.

Picture 08

BLOCKING OUT THE NOSEAREA AND MORE: Time to switch to side view(F3) and define the nose direction by creating a new polygon object (ObjectsPolygon Object) called "nose"- drag it in the Headmesh Null object and ctrl-insert the first to rows of points with the insert new points tool- aligning to your reference pic (in point mode! With the nose object selected!). Insert two rows- each of eleven points and connect them with the

11

Picture 10

Now I add some polys to define the eyebrow area while paying attention to the eyelid poly-flow which means I try to create polys line up as lengthening of the eyelid polys. (In C4D Release9 you're able to select eyelid object and nose object at once to check the polyflow). In this case I live-select the two outer points of the upper nose shape in front view(F4) and clone them along

Character Modeling - Part 1

By Mark Gmehling aka Macling

direction to connect them to polys as seen in Picture 14. Now I switch to side view(F3) and define the main shape of the head by ctrl-click

Picture 11

Picture 16

Tutorial

the eyebrow flow of my reference Picture 12. After that I tweak the points in top view to get a slightly bended shape following the bend of

Picture 12

Picture 14

inserting a row of eight points with the insert new points tool according to your reference pic. In frontview I clone these points two times and move(E) them to the right lining up with the polyflow below this new area-Look at Picture 15 and 16.

The new pointrows are scaled(T) smaller each time a little bit to

the eyelid area. Then I clone-insert two more rows of points to define the crease at the bottom of the eyebrow area- connect them with the bridge tool(B) and tweak the points as seen in Picture 13.

Now I go further to add the side of the head by cloning the four outer

Picture 17

Picture 15

Picture 13

points of the eyebrow area two times and move them back in z-

head polys we added before to begin closing the heads sidePicture 17.

define a round shape. Then I connect them with the bridge tool(B) and tweak them to fit my reference nicely. I repeat these steps to add the head geometry above the eyebrows and tweak the points by moving(E) the outer points back in zdirection to round the head shape up- use your front reference pic as reference. Now I connect the side polys we added earlier with the top

12

As I have a clue now as to how many polys we have to line up with I clone the four eyebrow-side points lining up with the tophead polys we created before. Take a look at the pic. After that I tweak the points again to round up the shape. Mainly in top view I rounded up the head surface by moving(E) the points around- Look at Picture 18.

CONNECTING SURFACES: Before you connect the surfaces you have to be sure that you're satisfied with their position and size. At the moment you're still able to move and scale these objects easily to ensure all segments are in their right position and size. When its time to connect the nose-object with the

Character Modeling - Part 1

By Mark Gmehling aka Macling

Picture 22 Picture 18

Tutorial

eyelid area, just select the nose and eyelid surface in the object manager and go to FunctionsConnect- Picture 19 (in earlier versions the connect command is in the Structure menu). A copy with the connected mesh is created. Call this

Picture 20

click!) The points above the eye I payed attention to line up earlier and tweak the mesh. Take a look at Picture 21. Now I prepare the mouth to connect it with the new upperhead object as I did before: I

Picture 23

Null object. I switch the old UpperHead and Mouth object invisible in renderer and editor by switching the little dots to red in the objects manager- Picture 24.

Now I bridge(B) the gap between nose and mouth(in point mode with

Picture 19

new object "upperHead"-drag it in the Headmesh Nullobject and make the root eyelid and nose object invisible in renderer and editor by switching the two dots to red.

I use to keep these root objects-as seen in Picture 20 - maybe you want to make major changes and maybe need them later. Now I weld (I select the two points I want to snap together and go to StructureWeld. In C4Drel.9 you have the choice to select the position where you want the snapped point by dragging it and enter with a second

Picture 21

check the polyflow and insert polys where they're needed to line up by cutting the mouth shape with the knife tool(K) in front view(F4).

In my case two vertical cuts are needed below the nose- look at Picture 22 and 23. So I shift drag the two cuts with the knife tool(in Point mode). Then I select mouth and Upperhead object and connect them (Functions- Connect)as before. I name the new object "head" and drop it in the Headmesh

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Picture 24

the new UpperHead object select-

Character Modeling - Part 1

By Mark Gmehling aka Macling ed!)- Picture 25. I select the seven points on the side of the nose and clone them paying attention to align these cloned rows to align with the

Picture 28

Tutorial

Picture 25

vertical polyflow in order to fill the last holes in the face area - Picture 26 and 27. Now I select the five points seen in the Picture 28 and clone them- move them and connect them via bridge tool(B). Then two more cuts are needed to line up with

Picture 30

the eye area, so I use the knife tool(K) and cut the upper mouth in front view(F4) as seen in the pic.

Now, again I clone the points I inserted before and move(E)scale(T) them two times to line up with the polyflow and connect the points to polys- Picture 29.

Then I pay some time to tweak the points to come up like this in the Picture 31

give a nice result at the corner of the mouth when I look at the face from front- Picture 32.

The last thing we do in this first part of the tutorial is building the nose

Picture 29 Picture 26

Picture 27

Picture 30. I pay attention to tweak a surface flow seen from the side like this: Picture 31.

My next task is closing the mouth cavity: In side view(F3) I ctrl-add five points with the create new points tool as you already saw in PIC31 and clone these 5 points as often as I got vertical loops in the mouth surface: In my case 5 times.

Then I bridge(B) these points to close the mouth cavity. Again I pay some time to shape the cavity to

14

Picture 32

wings. I switch to polygonmode and select the nine polys seen in Picture 33 and set their x-size to 0 in the coordinates manager to get easier to handle extrusions, then I extrude(D) them three times- first

Character Modeling - Part 1

By Mark Gmehling aka Macling

Picture 33

Picture 36

Tutorial

and third time only a little bit and after each extrusion scale them a little bit smaller to get a rounded shape- Picture 34. Then I tweak the points to shape a nice round nose

Picture 37

Picture 34

wing shape-Picture 35. To build the nose holes I extrude(D) the polys

OK I hope these steps were understandable, you were able to follow my explanations, and they were a help for character heads you might create in the future.

If you have any questions/crits or even tips feel free to send me a private message on the 3dattack forum. In the next issue we focus on adding an ear, neck and teeth to the head and close the rest of the heads surface.

See you on board at www.3dattack.net ‌ KEEP ATTACKING

Picture 35

Mark Gmehling aka Macling

seen in Picture 36 two times- the first time only a bit the second time more, but scale them smallerPicture 37.

15

CD IK Tools is a plugin suite of tools and expressions for character rigging and animation. It works with or without the Mocca module. For those who need to rig and animate a character in Cinema 4D's core package, but find it difficult to build a stable rig with the basic IK Expression, this plugin will be indispensable. The specialized expressions in CD IK Tools will allow you to quickly build a stable, predictable character rig. The 1.1 update had the addition of the Setup tool which helped speed up some of the rigging tasks. Now, the 1.2 update has the addition of the CD Spinal and CD Hand expressions.

Now that’s great news! Cactus Dan and 3D Attack would like to give our readers the opportunity to win this “hot” plugin.

Answer the simple question below and send it back to us with IK QUIZ in the subject line by February 28, 2004. We will announce the winner on our forum on March 1, 2004.

QUESTION: "What is the most important part of the body to position correctly when animating"?

Send your answer to: 3dattack@3dattack.net * All correct answers will be placed in a pool and the winner will be picked by a random drawing.

16

SniperPro

Plugin Review by Thomas Pasieka (Tank) SniperPro! Almost sounds like a shooter game, but let me assure you, this plugin is not about shooting and killing. Well it does kill one thing: TIME!

Plugin Review

This plugin will save you lots of render time. How? Let’s have a look at what SniperPro is all about. Once installed (you will just have to drag the plugin into your plugin folder).

When you open CINEMA 4D you will see a new icon within your plugin menu (Sniper Pro 1.01 - see big screen shot on the right). After selecting this plugin, a new window will appear. You can either have it floating or integrate it in your existing layout.

What exactly does SniperPro do for me? Let’s say you created a scene and you are trying hard to adjust the radiosity settings within this scene.

This can be a very time consuming process considering you will have to render it a couple times, or render part of it over and over again.

SniperPro fills the gap and will save you time. Once you activate SniperPro you will have a little preview window with 3 sliders. There, you will be able to adjust the pixel size, level of detail, and the size of your SniperPro preview window.

You want to save render time? You want to see fast previews of your scene? Don’t have time and your client wants fast results? Well, what are you waiting for - SniperPro is waiting for you.

vents you from getting into a bad mood due to bad render results, which could have been avoided by using SniperPro. SniperPro depends on a fast CPU. The faster your CPU the quicker you will see a preview of your current scene.

After using SniperPro for a couple of days I have to say that I WILL NOT be without this plugin any longer. It saves a lot of render time and pre-

Speed also depends on your SniperPro settings. The more accurate your settings, the slower SniperPro will be. It’s still much faster compared to a full preview rendering within CINEMA 4D.

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With all being said, SniperPro is fast, easy, and just a brilliant plugin.

It’s one of those plugins you should call your own! Check out Paul Everett's home page and order SniperPro today. You will find lots of great plugins on his site!

Price: 79 Euro URL: http://www.c4dtools.com Version: 1.01 Platform: Windows and Macintosh Rating: 5 out of 5

Setting Up a Bat/Dragon Wing

By Cactus Dan - Dan Libisch Setting Up A Bat/Dragon Wing with Mocca's Clothhilde and CD IK Tools This tutorial will guide you through the steps I used in setting up a bat or dragon wing. To follow along with this tutorial, you'll need Cinema 4D R9 with the Mocca module and CD IK Tools. If you don't have either one, you can download the R9 Demo at http://www.maxoncomputer.com/ and download CD IK Tools at: http://www.cactus3d.com/Plugins.html You'll also need the BatwingSetup.c4d file which you can download at:

Tutorial

http://www.cactus3d.com/BatwingSetup.zip To keep the tutorial as simple as possible, I will be making the assumption that you are familiar with the various Cinema 4D tools when I mention them and that you will know where to find them in the menus and tool palettes. For CD IK Tools, the null setting tools are located under the Plugins menu as shown in Figure 1 and the expression tags are located under the

Figure 1

Object Manager's File menu as shown in Figure 2. To make things easy, the BatwingSetup.c4d file has the arm mesh with the bones already in place the the Claude Bonet maps already painted. That

Figure 2

way we can concentrate on setting up the rig and the Clothhilde wing membrane. I'll start with setting up the rig then later cover setting up the Clothilde.

The most complicated part of the rig will be the wing fingers. They will be using a time delay Xpresso set up similar to Bjรถrn's "Trailing" example on Maxon's web. This time delay setup will make the wing appear to flex as it is animated. There are three wing fingers that will be set up the same way, so I'll only describe the setup for the first one. You can then repeat the steps to set up the other two.

First, we have to create a hierarchy of Null objects and apply the CD Finger expression to them. This will be the control for the Xpresso time delay. If you haven't started Cinema 4D R9 and loaded the BatwingSetup.c4d file, do so now.

When the file loads up, you'll notice in the Object Manger that the first wing finger bone chain hierarchy is unfolded and the names of the bones have an "a" at the end. The other two wing fingers are named with a "b" and "c". You'll want keep this naming convention in mind for organization when naming added objects. To set up the rig, we'll be working mostly in the Object Manager. OK, let's start by selecting the Finger.1a bone and using CD

18

Add Root Null. This will add a Null object at the same position as the Finger.1a bone. The added Null object will be named "Finger.1a.Root.Null" and will appear just below the Lower Arm bone.

Next, select the Finger.1a bone again and use the CD Add Root Null to add another Null in the same position. Rename this additional Null object "Finger.1a.TD Control" and make the Finger.1a.Root.Null a child of this new object. Next, select the Finger.2a bone and use CD Add Root Null to add another null object named "Finger.2a.Root.Null". Make this a child of the Finger.1a.Root.Null.

At this point, we need to zero out the Finger.2a.Root.Null's local rotation, so open up the Coordinates Manager and set all rotations to zero. This is just to plan ahead so that our CD Finger tag's sliders will be at zero in the home position.

Next, select the Finger.3a bone and use CD Add Root Null to add another null object named "Finger.3a.Root.Null". Make this a child of the Finger.2a.Root.Null.

Here again we want to zero out the Finger.3a.Root.Null's local rotation in the Coordinates Manager. Now, reselect the Finger.3a bone again and this time, use CD Add Tip Null to add a null object at the tip of the Finger.3a bone. This new Null object will appear outside of the hierarchy above the Symmetry object and will be named "Finger.3a.Tip.Null". Make this new Null object a child of the Finger.3a.Root.Null. And finally, select the Finger.1a bone again and use CD Add Root Null again to add another null object. Rename this new Null object "Finger.1a.Solver".

Click on the Y axis handle of the Finger.1a.Solver in the editor view and drag it slightly out along the positive Y axis. Your hierarchy of

Setting Up a Bat/Dragon Wing

By Cactus Dan - Dan Libisch Null objects should now look like the one in Figure 3. Next we'll add the CD Finger expression to this hierar-

Tutorial

Figure 3

chy. This will have to be done manually because the CD IK Setup tool only works with bones. Select the Finger.1a.TD Control and add a CD Finger expression tag to it. Select the CD Finger tag and open the Attributes Manager. Notice the Solver Axis is set to the default +Y Axis, which is exactly what we need for this set up. Now click on the IK Solver and Controller tabs in the Attributes Manager to show the link boxes. Drag the Finger.1a.Solver object into the Solver Object link and the Finger.1a.Root.Null into the Root Bone link. That takes care of the time delay controller hierarchy of Nulls for the first wing finger.

Now we'll move on to setting up the first wing finger's bone chain with a CD Spline IK. This part will be a little easier because you can now use the CD IK Setup tool since you'll be working with bones. Select the Finger.1a bone and open the CD IK Setup dialog. In the dialog under Expression Type, choose Spline IK. Here again the Solver Axis will be at the +Y Axis default, which is what we want. Set the Number of Spline IK Targets to 3 and set the No. Bones in Chain also to 3 and click the Setup IK Chain button. You'll

notice the Spline IK sets up with its Use IK switch off and the spline object is drawn as a straight line between the root and the tip of the bone chain. This is so the spline object's shape can be adjusted to fit the bone chain by moving the spline targets.

Leave the spline object shaped as it is, for now. You'll make the adjustment to the spline at the end of the the wing finger setup. Notice that a new Null object named "Finger.1a.Spline.Solver" was created and placed in the hierarchy as a child of Lower Arm. This is the Spline IK's solver object. This object needs to be a child of the Finger.1a.Root.Null object so that it will move with the Finger.1a.Root.Null, BUT, and this is very important, IT MUST BE THE SECOND CHILD of the Finger.1a.Root.Null as shown in Figure 4. This is so the Finger.1a.Spline.Solver object will not interrupt the calculation of the CD Finger expression, but it will still move with the Finger.1a.Root.Null.

Figure 4

It is a good practice to always keep this in mind when adding objects to an existing IK chain no matter what system or application you use. Now, in the object manager scroll up to the top where you'll see the Spline IK's spline object and target objects, located outside of the hierarchy

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above the Symmetry object. For purposes of organization select these objects and group them by using the Object Manager menu: Objects/Group Objects. This creates a new Null object which you can rename as "Spline IK.a.Controls".

Your Spline IK Control group hierarchy should now look like Figure 5.

Figure 5

Now it's time to set up the Xpresso time delay. Here again, I will be making the assumption that you are familiar with Xpresso to some extent (ie: Blue corner for adding input ports and Red corner for adding ouput ports). Select the Finger.1a.Spline.Tip.Goal and add an Xpresso tag. In the Xpresso editor window, click on the blue corner of the XGroup window and add an Integer port.

Now drag the Finger.3a.Tip.Null object into the XGroup window. Add a History level input port to the Finger.3a.Tip.Null node and connect this to the XGroups Integer port.

Now, add a Previous global matrix output port to the Finger.3a.Tip.Null node. Next, add a Matrix2Vectors adapter node by right clicking in the XGroup window and choosing New Node/Xpresso/Adapter/Matrix2Vecto rs. Connect the Previous Global Matrix output port of the Finger.3a.Tip.Null node to the Matrix input port of the Matrix2Vectors

Setting Up a Bat/Dragon Wing

By Cactus Dan - Dan Libisch node. Now, drag the Finger.1a.Spline.Tip.Goal into the XGroup window and add a Global Position input port to it. Connect the Offset output port of the Matrix2Vectors node to the Global Position input port of the Finger.1a.Spline.Tip.Goal node. The final node connections should look like Figure 6. You can copy this

so you can only see the bones, the nulls and the spline as shown in Figure 7. Select the

Figure 7

Tutorial

Figure 6

Xpresso tag to the other Spline targets to save some time, but first you'll want to set the Finger.1a.Spline.Tip.Goal node's Reference Mode in the Attributes Manager to Relative Reference.

Copy the Xpresso tag by controldragging it to the Finger.1a.Spline.Mid.Goal. Double click on this new Xpresso tag to open its Xpresso editor window.

Select the Finger.3a.Tip.Null node and in the Attributes Manager, drag the Finger.3a.Root.Null object to the Reference Link.

Now, copy the original Xpresso tag again, this time by control-dragging it to the Finger.1a.Spline.Mid.Goal.1.

Double click on this new Xpresso tag to open its Xpresso editor window. Select the Finger.3a.Tip.Null node and this time in the Attributes Manager, drag the Finger.2a.Root.Null object to the Reference Link. That takes care of the time delay Xpresso tags for the first wing finger.

Now you're ready to adjust the spline to fit the bone chain. You'll do this by adjusting the positions of the time delay control nulls. First switch the display mode to Lines and turn off the display of the polygon mesh

Finger.2a.Root.Null and move its position by alternately dragging its Y and Z axis handles until the spline meets the tip of the Finger.1a bone.

You don't want to drag the X axis handle because that is the rotation axis of the setup and it will pull the null object off of the Rotation Plane.

Next, select the Finger.3a.Root.Null and position it using its Y and Z axis handles until the spline meets the tip of the Finger.2a bone.

And finally, select the Finger.3a.Tip.Null and position it using its Y and Z axis handles until the spline meets the tip of the Finger.3a bone. Once you've got the spline positioned correctly, you're ready to select the CD Spline IK tag and activate the Use IK switch. If everything went well the bone chain will still be in the correct position to Fix the bones to the mesh.

Whew! Now all you have to do is repeat that same process 2 more times for the remaining wing fingers.

After that you might want to take a break.

OK, it's now time to finish off the rig by setting up the wing arm. First, select the Lower Arm bone and add a tip effector by using CD Add Tip Effector. Next, you're going to setup

20

the arm bones with a CD Limb IK expression using the CD IK Setup tool. Select the Upper Arm bone and open the CD IK Setup tool dialog. In the dialog under Expression Type, make sure Limb IK is selected.

Notice again that the Solver Axis default setting of +Y Axis is what we want.

At this point you can choose whether you want the line from the solver object drawn to the root (shoulder) or the tip (elbow) of the bone. Click the Setup IK Chain button to set up the Limb IK on the arm bones. Two new Null objects will then appear in the Object Manager.

One of these new objects is placed outside of the hierarchy at the top of the object list and is named "Lower Arm.Tip.Goal". This object will be the main controller for the whole wing so rename it "Wing Controller".

Before we go any further, now is the time we want to Fix the bones.

Select the Shoulder bone and use Fix Bones and click Yes in the "Do you want sub-objects to be included?" alert dialog.

The last part of the wing rig will be setting up the User Data on the Wing Controller so that the entire wing can be controlled by the Wing Controller alone. Select the Wing Controller object and in the Attributes Manager use the menu: User Date/Add User Data. In the Add User Data dialog, change the name to "Use IK", set the Data Type to Boolean and click OK. This will be used for IK/FK switching so you can animate the wing with FK if you'd prefer. Add another User Data and in the dialog change the name to "Auto Bend", set the Data Type to Boolean and click OK. This switch will allow you to toggle Auto Bending on and off. Now, add another User

Setting Up a Bat/Dragon Wing

Tutorial

By Cactus Dan - Dan Libisch Data and in the dialog change the name to "Bend". Leave the Data Type as Float but change the Interface to Float Slider. Set the Unit to Degree and set the Min to 0 and Max to 100. Leave the Step set to 1 and click OK. And finally, add another User Data and in the dialog change the name to "Curl". Leave the Data Type as Float but change the Interface to Float Slider. Set the Unit to Degree and set the Min to -5 and Max to 25. Leave the Step set to 1 and click OK. That creates all of the User Data we'll need. Now we'll create three Xpresso expressions for the Wing Controller, one to transfer the Bend and Curl slider data to the CD Finger tag, one to create an automated bend control for the CD Fingers' Bend sliders and one to toggle the automated bend control Xpresso on and off.

OK, make sure the Wing Controller is selected and add an Xpresso tag.

In the new Xpresso tag's Attributes Manager rename the tag to "Sliders". With the Xpresso editor window open, drag the Wing Controller into the XGroup window and add a Bend output port by using the pop up menu: User Data/Bend.

Now, also add a Curl output port.

Before you drag the CD Finger tags into the XGroup window, you need to change the names so that you'll be able to distinguish which CD Finger tag controls which wing finger bone chain. To keep things organized, add the same letter extension to the names of the corresponding CD Finger tags (CD Finger.a, CD Finger.b and CD Finger.c). The names can be edited in the CD Finger tag's Attributes Manager.

After changing the names, drag all three CD Finger tags into the XGroup window. You'll want to now add a Bend input port and a Curl

input port to each of the three CD Finger nodes. You can now connect the Wing Controller's Curl output port to all three CD Fingers' Curl input port. With the Bend ports we need to add a calculation between the connections of two of the CD Finger nodes, so for now only connect the Wing Controller's Bend output port to the CD Finger.a node's Bend input port. For the Bend connection to the CD Finger.b node, you'll add a Mat:Multiply node.

care of the first Xpresso. The final node connections should look like Figure 8. The next Xpresso tag for

Figure 8

Right click in the XGroup window and select New Node/Xpresso/Calculate/Math. With this new node selected, in the Attributes Manager under the Node tab, leave the Data Type set to Real and set the Function to Multiply.

Connect the Wing Controller node's Bend output port to one of the Math:Multiply node's Input ports.

Now, in the Math:Multiply node's Attributes Manager set the remaining Input field to 0.8.

Connect the Math:Multiply node's Ouput port to the CD Finger.b node's Bend input port. This makes the second wing finger chain only bend 80% as much as the first wing finger. Again, right click in the XGroup window and select New Node/Xpresso/Calculate/Math.

With this new node selected, in the Attributes Manager leave the Data Type set to Real and set the Function to Multiply. Connect the Wing Controller node's Bend output port to one of the Math:Multiply node's Input ports. The third wing finger only needs to bend 50% as much as the first wing finger, so set the remaining Input field to 0.5. Now connect the Math:Multiply node's Ouput port to the CD Finger.c node's Bend input port. That takes

21

the Wing Controller will be the auto bend set up. This will use the distance between the shoulder and wrist to automatically determine the Bend slider value. Start by selecting the Wing Controller and add another Xpresso tag. In the new Xpresso tag's Attributes Manager, rename the tag to "Auto Bend". With the Xpresso editor window open, drag the Lower Arm.Tip.Effector, the Upper Arm bone and the Lower Arm bone into the XGroup window.

On the Lower Arm.Tip.Effector node, add a Global Position output port .

Next, add a Global Position output port to the Upper Arm node and then also add a Length output port from the pop up menu: Object Properties/Length. Also, add a Length output port to the Lower Arm node. Next, right click in the XGroup window and choose New Node/Xpresso/Calculate/Distance to add a Distance node.

Connect the Global Position output port of the Lower Arm.Tip.Effector node to the Input 1 port of the Distance node and connect the Global Position output port of the Upper Arm node to the Input 2 port of the Distance node. Next, right click again in the XGroup window

Setting Up a Bat/Dragon Wing

By Cactus Dan - Dan Libisch

Tutorial

and choose New Node/Xpresso/Calculate/Math to add a Math node. Leave this set to the default of Math:Add and connect the Length output port of the Upper Arm node to one of the Input ports of the Math:Add node and connect the Length output port of the Lower Arm node to the other Input port of the Math:Add node.

Next, add another Math node. This can be done by selecting the previous Math node and copying and pasting it in the XGroup window. In the new Math node's Attributes Manager, change the Function to Divide. Now, connect the Output port from the Distance node to the top Input port of the Math:Divide node and connect the Output port of the Math:Add node to the lower Input port of the Math:Divide node.

Next, add a Ranger Mapper node by right clicking and choosing New Node/Xpresso/Calculate/Range Mapper.

In the Range Mapper's Attributes Manager change the Output Range to Degree and in the Parameter tab, set Input Lower to 0.1, set the Input Upper to 0.966, set the Output Lower to 100 and set the Output Upper to 0. Next, drag the Wing Controller into the XGroup window and add a Bend input port to it.

Now connect the Output port of the Math:Divide node to the Input port of the Range Mapper and connect the Output port of the Range Mapper to the Bend input port of the Wing Controller. The final node connections should look like Figure 9. Now when you move the Wing Controller around the wing will automatically fold and unfold. You'll also notice how the time delay is working if you hit play animation or if you have the Auto Redraw enabled. If you've

Figure 9

moved the Wing Controller around a lot to test it out, make sure you undo as many times as you need to get it back to its original position before we move on.

OK, the last Xpresso tag is just to set up the on/off switches for the auto bend and the IK/FK switching.

This one will be easy. Select the Wing Controller and add another Xpresso tag. In the new Xpresso tag's Attributes Manager rename the tag to "Switches".

With the Xpresso editor window open, drag the Wing Controller into the XGroup window and add an Auto Bend output port by selecting User Data/Auto Bend. Then also add a Use IK output port by selecting User Data/Use IK. Next, drag the Xpresso tag named "Auto Bend" into the XGroup window.

Add an Enable input port to the Auto Bend node by selecting Basic Properties/Enable. Connect the Auto Bend output port of the Wing Controller node to the Enable input port of the Auto Bend node. Now drag the CD Limb IK tag into the XGroup window and add a Use IK input port by selecting Tag Properties/Use IK. Connect the Use IK output port of the Wing Controller node to the Use IK input port of the CD Limb IK node.

The final node connections should look like Figure 10. Be sure to enable both of these switches if you plan on using IK and auto bend to animate the wing.

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Figure 10

Now the rig is finally complete! You may want to take another break before moving on to the Clothilde set up.

To set up the Clothilde wing membrane we'll start by creating a new polygon object from selected points on the arm mesh and using the Split tool. The points have already been selected and stored in a Point Selection tag for you, to make things a bit easier. Select the Arm Mesh object and activate the Use Point Tool. Click on the Selection tag and in the Attributes Manager and click on the Restore Selection button.

This will make the points in the Selection tag active.

Now use the Split tool to create a new object called Arm Mesh.1. This new object will appear just below the Arm Mesh. Rename this object to "Wing Membrane" and drag it up above the HyperNURBS object so that it is a child of the Wings object.

To make things easier to see while we're working on the Wing Membrane, turn the HyperNURBS object's visability off to hide everything else. Also switch to the Top View for a better view of the points.

Now we'll use the Bridge Tool to create polygons from the points. We'll start creating polygons by bridging the points of the wing fingers and the points of the arm. When using the Bridge tool, you can start a new set of bridged polygons that are not connected to the previous set, by

Setting Up a Bat/Dragon Wing

By Cactus Dan - Dan Libisch pressing the Escape key to reset the Bridge Tool. Now bridge the points of the wing fingers and bridge the points of the arm as shown in Figure 11. Next, bridge the points together in the hand as shown in

Figure 14

Figure 17

mode to split the polygons up as shown in Figure 18. Next, bridge the points at the two ends of these

Figure 11

Figure 12. Now bridge the points between the fingers as shown in

Tutorial

Figure 15

Figure 12

Figure 13. We'll be splitting these polygons up later. Now bridge the

slide the closest point to the elbow down a bit so that the polygon edges follow the contour of the arm.

Now, select the edges shown in Figure 16 and use the Knife tool in Loop mode to split the polygons so that the new polygon edges line up

polygons as shown in Figure 19. By now you should be an expert with

Figure 19

Figure 13

points as shown in Figure 14.

Before we bridge any more points, we need to split up these two new polygons up a bit so switch to the Use Edge Tool. As shown in Figure 15, use the Knife tool in Loop mode and cut the selected edges once toward the middle so that it lines up with where the elbow would be.

Then switch to the Use Point Tool and then select the Slide tool and

Figure 18

Figure 16

with the edges of the arm. Next, bridge the points across the gap between the new polygons and the arm as shown in Figure 17.

We'll now split these new polygons once lengthwise so we can connect the two extra points at either end.

Use the Knife tool again in Loop

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the Knife tool so go ahead and split up the polygons between the wing fingers to look like Figure 20.

Remember, to convert two neighboring triangle polygons into one quadrangle polygon, use the Dissolve Edge tool. Next, bridge the points on the other side of the arm as shown in Figure 21. Now, select the edges as shown in Figure 22 and cut them down the middle using the Knife tool in Line mode. Then select and split

Setting Up a Bat/Dragon Wing

By Cactus Dan - Dan Libisch

Figure 25

Figure 20

mode, use the Slide tool to move the points of the membrane around so that it has a nice curve between the bones like in Figure 26. Keeping in mind that you don't want to move the original points that were copied

Figure 27

Figure 21

Figure 26

Tutorial

Figure 22

the edges shown in Figure 23 also using the Knife tool in Line mode.

Now, to clean it up, we'll use the

Figure 23

Weld Tool to eliminate the extra points. Select the points as shown in Figure 24 then select the Weld tool and click on the indicated point of

Figure 24

the arm to weld the points together to the point on the arm. Next, do the same for the points to the left and right of this, so the end result looks like Figure 25. Finally, while in Point

from the Arm Mesh. The last thing to do, as far as modeling is concerned, is to make sure that all of the polygon's normals are aligned.

So, switch to the Use Polygon tool, select all of the Wing Membrane's polygons and use the Align Normals command. Now we're ready for Clothilde, but first, we want to deselect all of the points and use the Wing Membrane's Selection tag to restore the original point selection.

These points will be the ones used for the Belt function of the Clothilde.

After you've restored the point selection, add a Cloth tag to the Wing Membrane.

Select the Cloth tag and in its Attributes Manager select the Tag tab and set the parameters as shown in Figure 27. Next, select the Forces tab and set the parameters as shown in Figure 28. Next, select the Dresser tab and drag the Arm Mesh into the Belt on: link and click the Belt Points: Set button. And finally, select the Effects tab and set the Size parameter to 85%.

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Figure 28

These settings can be experimented with to get a result more to your liking but the most important setting is the Size. When this parameter is less than 100%, it seems to make the membrane act more like stretched skin than loose cloth.

The last thing to add is the Cloth NURBS object. This object is found in the menu Plugins/Clothilde/Cloth NURBS. After adding the Cloth NURBS, make it a child of the Wings object and then make the

Setting Up a Bat/Dragon Wing

By Cactus Dan - Dan Libisch Wing Membrane a child of the Cloth NURBS. In the Cloth NURBS's Attributes Manager under the Object tab, set the Thickness parameter to 1.

That's it! Congratulations. You have just set up a bat/dragon wing that is ready to animate (without the body that is). This file can easily be used as a pre-made "wing object" to add to existing models.

Tutorial

To get an idea of how a wing is animated, the book "Animals in Motion"

by Muybridge is an excellent resource. The last chapter in the book is devoted to birds.

When you look at the side view photo plates, you'll see that the wing motion is not only up and down but there is some back and forth motion, also. It almost looks similar to the "butterfly stroke" in swimming.

If you keep this in mind when setting up the wing's keyframes, your wing animation will look very real.

Anyway, I hope you've found this tutorial useful and I hope to see many flying bat and dragon animations.

Adios, Cactus Dan

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Basic Modeling - Lookout Tower Part 1

By Bram van Gerwen

Tutorial

This is the first part of a basic modeling tutorial in which we are going to model a medieval lookout tower from beginning to end. The tutorial is aimed at the true beginner and it is my intention to gradually cover all the basic modeling tools and explain what they do and how to use other functions to help with modeling. I assume that you begin with the standard 4-view layout of cinema, it's not necessary but might avoid confusion.

1 - Open the BasicModelingTower.c4d scene.

This is a simple light and floor setup in which we are going to model the tower, it is not necessary to use this file with this tutorial but it looks better from the start this way when rendering.

The scene also has a locked camera object that corresponds to some of the main views in this tutorial.

Note that the top left viewport is looking through the Tower Camera object and can't be moved or rotated because I gave it a protection tag, leave this for now as we will switch it later.

2 - Create a Tube object (Objects -> Primitive -> Tube) and name it 'Tower body' as this is going to be the main body of the tower. We want to make a nice looking door, some small windows and a couple of typical castle characteristics so we are going to need a lot of subdivisions.

Set the object properties of the tower body to: Inner Rad 180, Outer Rad 220 and Height 505.

These measurements should fit the tower nicely in the opened scene and create thick walls. Now for the subdivisions set the Rotation Segments to 64 and the Height seg-

ments to 24. This will give us a nice regular grid of squares as you can see in Picture 1.

3 - Now we are going to make a portion of the tower invisible for easier editing purposes, we won't be modeling there anyway. Make the tower body editable (Functions -> Make editable), this will convert our primitive into polygons and will allow us to select and edit them. Before doing anything else Optimize the object (Functions -> Optimize), I will explain this function later on as the effect now is not visible.

Switch to top view (F2) and select the polygon tool (Tools -> Polygons).

We can use the Rectangle Selection tool to select the back half of the tower, select it (Selection -> Rectangle Selection) and disable the 'Only select visible elements' field in the tool attributes, If this option was on we would only select the polygons on top of the tower.

Now drag a square across the back half of the tower and release, as you can see all the polygons on the back are selected, see Picture 2.

The selection can now be stored in a tag, which is useful for hiding or later edit purposes, this can be done with Set Selection (Selection -> Set Selection). You can see a new tag is created behind the Tower body object. Click it and rename it to

26

'tower rear' in its properties and click Deselect Polygons and Hide Polygons. The polygons are now hidden and we won't be able to accidentally select them when we are editing the front, see picture 2.

Switch back to 4 views (F5), create a HyperNURBS object (Objects -> Nurbs -> HyperNURBS) and drag the Tower body into it.

4 - Let's continue with making the door. Click the green check behind the hyperNURBS object, this will turn it off until you click it again.

Switch to front view (F4) and in the viewport display menu enable Backface Culling.

This will hide the polygons that appear behind other polygons, this is handy if you see two surfaces at the same time and can't make out which is which. We now only see the polygons on this side of the wall, with the Live Selection tool (Selection -> Live Selection) make the selection as shown in Picture 3 by dragging the mouse, you might want to set the radius of the live selection tool to 2 or 3 to avoid selecting unnecessary polygons, hold ctrl (or cmd on macs) to deselect.

We are going to knife a form out of these polygons and we want the door to connect perfectly to the other side of the wall so first we

Basic Modeling - Lookout Tower Part 1

Tutorial

By Bram van Gerwen

need to make the exact same selection there. Still in the front viewport, go to Cameras -> Back. The inside of the wall is now visible with the front polygons being hidden, while holding shift make the same selection as you did on the front using live selection (if you don't hold shift you will lose your current selection), we should now have the same selection on either side of the wall.

Next we are going to use the knife tool to cut a path along these connected polygons.

Switch to the main viewport (F1) and enable the editor camera (Cameras -> Editor Camera), then zoom in on the door using the controls on the upper right side of the viewport. You can always switch back to the fixed tower camera through that same menu under Scene Cameras. Select the Knife tool (Structure -> Knife) and in its options set it to 'Path'. Now move your cursor over one of the horizontal lines of the polygons like in Picture 4 (left side) and click, try not to get too close to the sides.

Do the exact same thing with the selection on the other side of the wall. The inner polygons of the new cut-outs should be selected on both sides, as in Picture 4(right side).

Click the Tower object and set enable x-ray in its basic properties, x-ray will make the object transpar-

ent for editor purposes which is handy when bridging surfaces and you have to see the polygons you're going to bridge to. And that's what we are going to do to create the door.

Select the bridge tool (Structure -> Bridge) and rotate the view so that you can clearly make out 2 corresponding corners on both sides of the wall. Then click on one of the corners and drag the cursor to the corner on the opposing side, example in Picture 5 (left side).

When done right the result should be as in the picture 5(right side).

Select the knife tool again and set the mode to 'loop'. With this mode the knife can trace aligning polygons and make cuts along them.

Move the cursor along a line in the door frame and you can see the 'loop' is traced nicely along the polygons inside that frame. Make 2 cuts near the edges at the front and the rear like in Picture 6 (left side).

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The closer the cuts will be to the edge the less rounded the smoothing will be, of course you can check the smoothing now and then by turning on the hyperNURBS object.

Now that the edges are less rounded we need to make the loop roundings of the frame less round, for this we'll use the knife 'plane' mode.

Select the knife and set the mode to 'plane', this mode won't trace polygon loops but will simply cut along all polygons on the selected plane whether they are connected or not.

We want this mode because loop mode won't give a straight result on the tilted surfaces which is not what we want right now. Set the plane to X-Z and make 6 cuts as shown in picture 6(right side). When this is done you can see we now have some better defined corners instead of the previous wavy roundings. The Doorway is now ready, in the second part of this tutorial we will hang a door in there but first we are going to add some other details.

5 - For instance some steps under the door. Select the 8 polygon block beneath the door as in Picture 7 (part A), and select the extrude tool (Structure -> Extrude).

The extrude tool almost speaks for itself, it extrudes the selected surfaces introducing new polygons along the normal axis' of those polygons. Set the extrude tool to 22 m

Basic Modeling - Lookout Tower Part 1

By Bram van Gerwen

Tutorial

(Tools -> Polygons) and deselect all polygons. Select the knife tool and set it to loop. Make some loop cuts along the steps as indicated in picture 7(part C), so that's 2 cuts near the sides of the steps and then 2 cuts along the width of the upper step. With only a couple of loops we've defined the steps a lot better. offset and apply. Now select the lower row of polygons as indicated in Picture 7 (part B) and select the Smooth Shift tool (Structure -> Smooth Shift). The Smooth Shift comes into action when you want to extrude polygons that are connected but have too great angles to correctly extrude them with the normal extrude tool, the normal tool will simply extrude the surfaces separate from each other while the smooth shift will introduce extra polygons thus connecting the separate angled surfaces.

Set the offset of the smooth shift tool to 21 m offset and 4 subdivisions and apply, this about equals the first normal extrude but is already more subdivided so we don't have to make extra knife cuts later.

We've got some steps now but they are still too rounded, we are going to use the knife tool to make a couple of cuts and create harder lines.

But first we need to optimize the object, we made a couple of changes to the geometry already and need to remove inconsistencies.

Go into point mode (Tools -> Points) and deselect all just to be sure (Selection -> Deselect All) and Optimize (Functions -> Optimize), you will see the unnecessary points in the doorway disappear. This will clean your mesh, taking out unused points and welding overlapping points. Switch back to polygons

6 - Next we add three very simple windows using the bridge tool in the same way as we did when making the door. Switch to front view, set the camera to front if necessary and select the blocks of polygons as shown in Picture 8 (left side) using the live selection tool.

Then set the front view viewport to back view (Cameras -> Back) and select the same polygons on the back. Now bridge these 2 selections in the same fashion as you did the door, every window has to be bridged in turn as it won't do the three in one go.

After the bridge actions are complete you can see three selected window frames in the editor view.

You can see that the hyperNURBS makes the windows too smooth right now. Select the knife tool and set the mode to loop and as with the door introduce 2 loops inside every frame to make them more defined, see picture 8(right side). There, that's it for the three windows.

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7 - It's time we put a little roof on the tower with nice not too heavy battlements. Let's do the battlements first.

In your editor view zoom in on the top of the tower and rotate the camera so that you are looking onto the scene from above.

Click on the polygon selection tag behind the Tower body object and click Unhide Polygons in its properties, the entire mesh is visible again.

First order of business is to make a floor, so make a selection of the topmost inner circle of polygons.

This is easily done by using the Ring Selection tool (Selection -> Ring Selection), select it and move the cursor over the topmost row, you will see the entire row light up yellow to indicate what you are going to select. Click the row and it will be selected, as shown in Picture 9 (top).

Select the extrude tool and extrude this polygon ring with a value of 130 m offset and 1 subdivision and disable the 'realtime update' box. The subdivision field enables you to subdivide your extrusion, so you won't have to do separate steps to create the subdivisions. As you can see the ring has extruded towards the middle with 1 subdivision along the way.

Then make one more separate extrusion by entering these settings 6 m. offset with 0 subdivisions and clicking on new transform next to

Basic Modeling - Lookout Tower Part 1

By Bram van Gerwen

apply. We will plug the remaining hole with a cylinder to finish off the floor. Create a Cylinder (Objects -> Primitive -> Cylinder) and set its height to 520 m. Accidentally the cylinder already fits right in the hole closing it off as we want, we only have to enable the fillet in the 'caps' tab of the cylinder to round it off.

Tutorial

Set the radius to 3 m and the fillet will round the sharp edges. Make the cylinder invisible in the editor by clicking the upper dot behind its name in the object manager until it is red, you won't see it in the viewports anymore but it will be rendered.

Select the Tower body and the ring selection tool, now select the outer ring on top of the tower like in picture 9(bottom). We are going to extrude the main battlement in three separate steps. Select the extrude tool and make the first extrude 4 m, the second one 30 m using new transform (don't use enter) and the third one 4 m again also using new transform, all 3 steps with 0 subdivisions. With the ring selection tool select the outer polygons of the 3 steps we just extruded like in Picture 10 (top) and then select the scale tool.

the unselected row beneath it reach a tilt of about 45ยบ in a side view. To sharpen the bend we need to add another loop cut right under the tilted row. So deselect all, pick up the knife, and set it to loop and place a loop around the position indicated in picture 10(bottom).

Now we are going to create the merlons of the battlement. Switch to top view and enable backface culling or Gouraud Shading there to avoid confusion, then using the live selection tool and shift select groups of 6 polygons on the outer ring leaving spaces of 2 polygons in between them, like in Picture 11.

Extrude this selection 30 m and again for 4 m, both with 0 subdivisions and using the New Transform button for the last one. The main form of the merlons is complete, now we need to add a couple of cuts to sharpen them.

First let's make two loop cuts along the upper ring, so deselect all, then select the knife and in loop mode cut one of the merlons near the front and near the end, you can see that the loop cuts run along the entire battlement when you're making them, check Picture 12 (top) for reference.

Disable the Y-axis by clicking on the button and make sure the Z and Xaxis are enabled. Now drag and scale the polygons until you can see

When done you notice that the crenelle (spaces in between) are a bit too rounded near the bottom. We

29

don't want to make an individual loop cut at every merlon so we are going to use the 'plane' mode in the knife and do them all at once.

Select the knife and set the mode to 'plane' and set the plane field to 'XZ'. now move your cursor to the underside of a merlon and you will see that instead of one merlon being looped the entire geometry is cut along that plane, resulting in an exact loop around every merlon, make sure your cut is like in Picture 12 (bottom). The main battlement is now finished.

8 - The tower will need a staircase so we are going to create a hole in the roof where the spiral staircase can end. Select the live selection tool and disable the 'only select visible items' option. Switch to top view and disable backface culling or else we won't be able to select the hidden polygons, when done select the polygons of the inner roof ring as indicated in Picture 13 (top).

Basic Modeling - Lookout Tower Part 1

By Bram van Gerwen

Both the polygons on top and below the roof are now selected and can be bridged. Turn x-ray on temporarily, zoom in on the roof selection and use the bridge tool to make the hole like in Picture 13 (bottom), the bridge action should be familiar by now.

That's it for now! The result so far should look like the tower in Picture 14. You can also check the FinishedTower.c4d file for reference.

We will continue this tutorial in the next issue and add more detail to the lookout tower.

Tutorial

If you have any questions regarding this tutorial please feel free to ask on the 3Dattack forum.

Thanks, Bram

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30

WIN 1 of 3 of Paul Everett's latest plugin "Final Touch" by sending an e-mail to 3dattack@3dattack.net with "Final Touch" as your subject line by February 28, 2005. That's it! All entrants will then be placed in a pool and we will pick 3 random winners.

The winners will be announced on our forum, www.3dattack.net , on March 1, 2005 and will be notified by e-mail.

GOOD LUCK!

Attack of the Horrific Blob! (Part 1)

By Aurety

Animation Tutorial : Graphite Hero VS the Horrific BLOB Part 1

Tutorial

This little tutorial will come in 3 parts and is just for fun, but will cover many questions I have found on forums. Some of the questions covered: How do I draw a line on a paper with an animated pen? Is it possible to animate a spline?

Without PLA? How do I morph an object between two shapes? This is not the ULTIMATE how to do all tutorial, my only hope is that it will bring you fun and answer some of the questions above.

Let's begin Part 1 as I explain how to shape our characters. Next month (Part 2) we will learn how to prepare our hero with some Xpresso to pilot the body (with null objects combined with forward kinematic and adding some bones to the BLOB). In part 3 we will learn how to animate our project.

PART ONE: SHAPE THE CHARACTERS. 1_1 : The HORRIFIC BLOB It's really not too difficult to create our BLOB. I've added a null object and placed it inside a cylinder and a taper derformer object. For the cylinder (150,200,150) with 6 height segments and 8 segments for the rotation and the taper deformer placed at Y=33 with a strength of 95%. (Picture1)

Picture 2

In right view, use the rectangle selection tool (uncheck visible only), to set up the SIZE Y to 0 for all the points near the paper. (Picture 3).

The Story: In this animation we have a close up view of the camera on paper. A red ink pen has made a red ink splash.

Now, imagine we have a graphist who draws some lines with a graphite pencil, which brings us the birth of our little hero line by line.

When it's finished, the graphite pencil falls to the table and OH NO!!!!!!!

The red ink splash grows and becomes the HORRIFIC BLOB!!!!

ARGGHHHH...Who can stop this monster? Is there anyone? YES, there is! The fellow on the paper.

The flat guy without muscles can do it. All he needs to do is come up from the paper, take the pin in his hand, and kill the monster. He needs help...he doesn't want to stay in 2D...let's give him the 3D opportunities to fight the BLOB!

Select 4 polygons in the bottom and bevel ( Menu "Structure/Bevel") them in two times and scale up with the scale tool the polygons ( 4 selected ). (Picture 2)

Picture 1

Now select the null object and convert it to a ploygon object (menu Function/Current state to object). A new object is created. Remove the old object if you want.

Because my primitive object was a cylinder, I need to optimize the object to collapse the caps. Go to the Function menu and choose "Optimize". I've renamed the polygon object "The Blob" and the parent null object "The monster".

Now I want to add some tentacles.

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Picture 3

To shape the mouth, select 3 con-

Attack of the Horrific Blob! (Part 1)

By Aurety

secutive polygons and extrude inner (Menu Structure/, Extrude Inner Selected ) and extrude two times again to the back (ShortCut D Key).

(Picture 4). Add the eyes and teeth,

Picture 5 Picture 4

Tutorial

if you want, with the same process.

Finally, use the magnet tool to shape the blob for a non symmetrical and non perfect thing ( everybody knows how the Horrific BLOB can't be perfect ).

1_2 : THE HERO ....

Picture 8

Use a Hypernurbs object to smooth it and add a subdivision in loop mode near the floor to straighten the tentacles. I forgot the essential thing for the future morphing.

This way it will be easy to animate the growing of the beast with just a morphing track from the flat ink splash on the paper to the Blob with only one small parameter : The Y Scale. Smile Ok here's my Blob. It would be very cool to see yours on the forum at www.3dattack.net! <http://www.3dattack.net!> (Picture 5).

head spline. Ok, we're ready to draw our hero with the paper and pencil. (Picture 8)

Draw your character with splines inside CINEMA 4D, or use any vectorial application to create your own.

I used Illustrator (think to save in version 8). Here's my hero.

(Picture 6).

Add a material to it, or use mine in the in your goodies folder. I have also textured the eyes, and use selection of polygons to offer some contrasts with another material.

Look at the Blob file in goodies folder or create your own.

Use the axis tool to place the axis of the null object called "The monster" exactly at the bottom of the Blob object.

Picture 7

Picture 6

Import the .ai in a new scene and separate all the splines for each part. ( Picture 7 )....

Now select all the splines and use the shortkey alt+G to group them in a null object. Rename this null object : Splines_hero.

For the head, I remove the spline's point for the eyes to exchange them with two disc polygonal objects (8 segments for rotation, one for disc segment and approximately the size and position from the points I removed). Drag these discs in the Splines_Hero and place after the

33

Great ! So prepare your scene and place your hero's splines on the paper. Have an idea for the final result and place the splines on the paper. Select all the splines and connect them. Place a sweep nurbs object with a rectangular spline for profile with the size of the paper and pencil trace.

Now place the hero inside the paper with the position you wish for drawing it. Place the other objects for your story. Place your paper and pencil inside a null object, rename this null "Crayon_Head" with the Y paper position for reference ) and set to 0 the position and rotation for the paper and pencil inside. Be careful to place before the axis of the paper and pencil exactly at the point. Now you can rotate the pencil to create an angle with the paper.

No one draws with a perfect vertical angle. Now, to match the pencil

Attack of the Horrific Blob! (Part 1)

By Aurety

point for the start of the drawing, add to "Crayon_Head" the tag : Align to path, and choose the Head spline for reference in attribute manager. (Picture 9).

Tutorial

Picture 9

Finally add a camera in a close view. Here's some pictures of my scene. When you are good for the position of the actors, delete the connected splines (not the originals) but keep the sweep nurbs object and profile.

Before using the Align to path Tag to animate the pencil drawing the line, you must change the kind of spline from adaptative to uniform for the head spline and the others from the hero. This way, we'll prevent any difference for the timing between the growth property of the spline (who draws the line) and the displacement of the pencil (Picture 10).

tag. This way, the pencil seems to draw the line. We'll use the fantastic "set driver/driven" feature method.

We'll do that for each part and duplicate the pencil that takes place at the beginning of each spline. We'll use the visibility track to switch between them. That's it for the theory. Now, the practice...

Click on the sweep nurb object you called "Head spline". On his object properties, look at the fields "growth". Set to 0%, your line disappears. Now play with the up and down arrows to look at the spline/line growing. If the growing path is bad as in my case here ( the path goes from left to right, bottom to top, when I prefer the reverse ).

Reverse the sequence of the head spline (go to structure/edit spline/reverse sequence).

Ok, it's better now.

So, click on the Tag "Align to path" on the pencil. Be sure the position parameter is 0 and do a right-click on the "position" name to display the contextual menu and I chose animation/set driver. (Picture 11).

Picture 11

Picture 10

Ok ?? I hope I'm clear. So let's start....time to shape our hero. The principles : We combine the growth parameter of the spline to the position parameter of the align to path

This parameter will drive the growth parameter for the spline. Be sure the growth parameter is 0 on the field, and in the same way, rightclick on "growth", choose "animation/set driven ( relative)". That's all.

Now play with the position parameter to look at the pencil drawing the

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line. We'll repeat this operation for each spline. To simplify the work, we duplicate the pencil for each spline with a ctrl-drag on the "crayon_head" object (for my hero, I duplicate 8 times and rename the copies to find easily later ). I select all the "Crayons" objects and I fold them ( Alt+G ) in a null called "Crayons". Here's my hierarchy.

(Picture 12 ).

Picture 12

To avoid the "too many pencils" in the scene, I check the redpoint for editor and renderer, and pass to green in editor when I work with one of them.

I duplicate too, the "Head_spline" object to create all the needed parts and rename it as Mouth_Spline, Teeth_Splines, etc.... Now simply exchange the "Head" spline inside for the good one. At the end, all of the character is drawn, ( except the eyes of course ). We just need to reaffect the correct spline for path to "Align to Path" tag. To do this, click on the "Align to path Tag" and drag and drop the good spline on the field "Spline Path" and repeat for the other pencil. You can rename the "Align to Path" Tags for the next step. I did it for this tutorial and changed " Align to path " to "ATS Head" f.e. (Picture 13)

Attack of the Horrific Blob! (Part 1)

By Aurety

AlignToPath Tag, and place the pencil copies in right place with the impressive transfer function. Select the "Eye right Pencil" and go to Functions/transfer. Drag the "eye_Right" polygonal object and uncheck rotation. The pencil moves to the right place in the good axis.

Do the same with the left_eyes.

(Picture 15)

for each pencil ( redpoint in both cases ) except the "Master Pen".

Because the "Master Pen" is a copy from "Crayon_head" with a position to 0, it is placed exactly at the same place as "Crayon Head".

Great, we just have to key this position for the start of the drawing at the frame 10. For example, the beginning of the drawing process (select only position/rotation tracks and record them with the redpoint in the controller ). Now, return to frame 0, move the "Master Pen" outside the camera view ( in Y axis f.e ).

Record the position/rotation.

Tutorial

Here is a view about the movement for the "Master Pen" during the animation of the drawing. (Picture 16 ).

Picture 15 Picture 13

We must change the XPresso too for each sweep nurbs. For example, double-click the "Mouth Spline" XPresso. Because we duplicated the Head-Spline object, we retrieve the "ATS Head" position. Select this "ATS Head" Node, and in the node properties, drag the tag "ATS Mouth" for reference. Now the XPresso is correct. Correct all of them. (Picture 14).

Duplicate the "Crayon_head" one more time. We need this pencil to do the transition between all the steps of the drawing. Remove the AligntoPath Tag and rename it "Master Pen".

Picture 16

Great ! The hero is ready to be drawn.

Switch the layout for Animation Layout if it's not already done.

Before you draw the hero, please have a look to my little result placed inside the tutorial folder with the files to understand what you'll try to do and understand the timing for this.

The movie is called : Draw_the_hero.mov.

1_3 : THE ANIMATION

Picture 14

Now for the eyes. They're not splines objects so I remove the

Set to 0 all the ATS Positions ( Align to Path Tags ) to clean the paper.

Turn off, editor and viewer renderers

35

What you need to know before you animate: The timing : Try to draw the entire hero to get an idea about the time to develop in natural motion your animation. Just an idea.

The Clamp : Sometimes, you need to clamp the F-curves ( especially for the Y position ) when the point of the pencil goes inside the floor. To do this, in F_Curves Window, select the points you need to clamp and go to "Curves/Clamp". Here's the process for the beginning of the animation and the first two splines (lines for drawing). The workflow is

Attack of the Horrific Blob! (Part 1)

By Aurety

the same from beginning to end.

Refer to the file in your goodies folder to see how I did it..

Tutorial

In frame 10, I record the pos/rot for the "Master Pen" placed exactly in the same place then " Crayon_Head". I keyframed the visibility parameters to "off" 'cause at this frame, I wish my "Master Pen" be exchange for the " Crayon head".

In Basic Onglet, select the visibility parameters ( editor and viewer ), the names pass in grey. Right-Click, select "off" in the menu and choose : "Animation/Add a key".

Now, return to frame 0, move the "Master Pen" outside the camera view ( in Y axis f.e ). Record the position/rotation. And set the Visibility to "On". To resume, the "Master Pen" go down to the paper from frame 0 to 10, visibility on it is "on" during the frames 0 to 9, " Off" at the frame 10.

The Head : Select the "Crayon Head" in frame 9, set the visibility parameters to "off".Go to frame 10, set the visibility parameters to "on".

Now select the "ATS Tag Head" ( Align to path tag in "Crayon Head" Object ) and record the value of position ( 0% ). Right-Click on the name "Position" to open the contextual menu, and choose : Animation/Add a Key. A red point appears across the position parameter. Now go to frame 20, set the position parameter to 100%.

Record in the same way you did for the previous recording. Set the visibility parameters to "off" and record this too.

During the drawing, I move my invisible "Master Pen" from the previous position to this "Crayon Head" new

position in frame 20. To do this easily, just use the transfer function (menu Functions/Transfer ) and drag "Crayon Head" in the field for reference. Now the "Master Pen" is at the right place. Record the "Master Pen" Pos/Rot and set the visibility to "on". Record.

I replace now my "Master Pen" for the next step, the mouth. Go to frame 25, and use the transfer function to place exactly the "master pen" at the beginning of the mouth spline. Record the Pos/Rot. Set the visibility parameters to "off". Record.

The mouth : Select the "Crayon Mouth" in frame 24, set the visibility parameters to "off".Go to frame 25, set the visibility parameters to "on".

Now select the "ATS Tag Mouth" (Align to path tag in "Crayon mouth" Object) and record the value of position ( 0% ).

Right-Click on the name "Position" to open the contextual menu, and choose : Animation/Add a Key. A red point appears across the position parameter. Now go to the frame ...

As I said, the same process for each part.

For the eyes do the same, but of course I don't use the ATS parameters ( they don't have ) but use the visibility parameters and animate like the others.

Here is a time line and F_Curves views for the "Master Pen" (Picture 16) : Et voila... Part 1 is closed! The next time, we'll see how to add bones to our Blob Monsters and how to lift our hero from 2D to 3D ready to fight the Blob. We'll add targets objects with XPresso to pilot the

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Picture 16

body, arms and legs. And finally, in the third step, we'll try to animate all these things. I hope this tutorial will be useful for someone and maybe we could see a little but GREAT animation by using this technique in our forum.

Don't hesitate to ask me any questions you have. Bye and I hope to see some of you for Part 2.

Feel free to post your questions and your work regarding this tutorial on our forum at www.3dattack.net

Environment Maps

By Rui Batista

Environment maps are very useful.

Imagine you had to model all the surrounding objects and environment around your reflective model just to get nice reflections in it. It would be very time consuming and not very effective memory wise.

Tutorial

So, it is very nice to have an option to project a bitmap on your geometry that simulates a complex environment around it. But, since environment maps are always projected around a virtual sphere that surrounds the whole scene, using spherical mapping, sometimes the location of the reflected images are not on the places we would prefer.

One way to control the orientation of the environment map is to place the bitmap inside a Projector shader and, setting it to Spherical Mapping and adjust the Offset X, Offset Y and PSR values [Picture 01].

elements on the exact locations you want. First you need a bitmap to use as an environment map, of course. I got the one for this article from http://www.free-pictures-photos.com/ [Picture 02].

be our saviour. In Photoshop, create a new document with the following parameters: [Picture05]

Picture 05

Picture 02

You can use your own, if you prefer.The first thing to do the the image is to make it tileable (method explained on the January issue of 3D Attack magazine) [Picture03].

The size is very important. Never mind the resolution. A 256x256 pixels image will always have 256x256 pixels, no matter what resolution is set. The mode MUST be RGB, 8 bits. And, we must have color management turned off.

Now, select the gradient tool and set it to a black to white gradient. Make sure Dithering is turned off (as it would introduce noise in the gradient). Select only the Red channel and, in it, create an horizontal gradient from the extreme left to the

Picture 03

If you use it on the Environment channel of a texture, you would get this: [Picture04] But I want the sun reflection to appear nearer the front part of the teapot, on a very specific place. In this case, Photoshop will

Picture 06

extreme right. In the end the leftmost pixels must be completely black and the rightmost pixels must be completely white.

Picture 01

But what if you want a specific element of the environment map to show up in a specific place of your reflective object? Using the Projector method would be a "hit and miss" process. What I present here is a method to adjust your bitmap, in order to make it project its

Picture 04

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Select the Green channel and create a vertical gradient from bottom to top. In the end the bottom pixels must be completely black and the upper pixels must be completely white.

Environment Maps

By Rui Batista

Fill the Blue channel with black (not really necessary but, this way, you will end up with an image similar to mine).This is what you will get: [Picture07] [Picture08] Now save this image as a Tiff with a suitable name, like "RGB_Coordinates.tiff".

Now, open the image in Photoshop.

Make sure you have the Info floater visible and, using the Color Picker tool set to Point Sample take note of the Red and Green values on the point you want a specific element of the environment map to show (in our case, it will be the sun). So, for this image, the values are Red=236 and Green=197. [Picture12] Picture 09

Tutorial

Picture 07

Picture 12

Picture 10

Spherical because this is the projection mode of an environment map.

Picture 08

If you had save it as a Jpeg, noise would be introduced in the image and we want it as clean as possible.

Back in Cinema4D, create a new material. Turn off all channels except the Luminance, where you will load the "RGB_Coordinates.tiff" file. [Picture09] Now, apply this material to the object you want the environment map to be applied.

[Picture10] VERY IMPORTANT!!

Make sure the projection type is

Render your image and save the rendered file. To speedup render you can, temporarily, turn on the "Active Objects Only" [Picture11]

Now open your environment map image and your "RGB_Coordinates.tiff" file.

You must change the size of the "RGB_Coordinates.tiff" to the size of the environment map image.

That is very easy to do, as long as you have both images opened.

Make sure the active document is the "RGB_Coordinates.tiff" file.

Now, select "Image Size..." from the Image menu. While the "Image Size..." dialog is open, you can go to the "Window" menu and choose a file from the bottom [Picture13].

Picture 11

option in the Render Settings dialog and only select your reflective object before rendering.

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In this case, choose the environment map image file. Hit OK and your "RGB_Coordinates.tiff" image will scale to the same size of the environment map image.Pressing Shift, drag the

Environment Maps

By Rui Batista

Picture 15

Tutorial

Picture 13

"RGB_Coordinates.tiff" image to the top of the environment map image (Shift will center the newly created layer). While the "RGB_Coordinates.tiff" image is on top, using the Color Picker, find the place where the Red value is 236 and the Green value is 197. To make it easier, place guides intersecting at that point.

You can now delete the upper layer.

From the "Filter" menu, choose "Other->Offset" [Picture14]. Now, adjust the Horizontal and Vertical values until the relevant element (in

Picture 16

Environment channel of your texture. After rendering, the sun from the environment map will be located on the place you defined.

[Picture17]

Picture 17

Cool, isn't it? :-) Photoshop and Cinema4D are great buddies and, now, you can have more fun and control on your environment maps.

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my case, the sun) is centered at the guides. [Picture15] This is what you will end up with: [Picture16]

Keep on Attacking!

Rui Batista

Save this image (with a new name, preferably) and use it on the

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Range Mapper Animation

Tutorial

By Base80

What is a range mapper?

The range mapper is an XPresso node that translates from one range of values to another.

more Range-mappers and an object to act on.

Lets say we want a 1/4 of a pie or 15 minutes on a clock. The range mapper will translate that to useful values for Cinema to use; 0.5p (radians) in this case. Or we can translate percent to position... or degree to distance, height to brightness or whatever to anything else. [p1]

Opening a car door can be keyframed. However, when the movement has to be done several times XPresso becomes handy. Also keyframing can be a lot of work to get good results.

Linear and non-linear mapping (spline). A normal translation is done in a linear way, but in some cases a non-linear mapping comes in handy.

Non-linear translations of values can give a movement inertia or acceleration. They are made in spline mode. [p2]

But there is more to non linear than that. The non-linear spline can describe the exact movement of an element, like the bouncing of a ball. [p3]

Set-up.

The set-up is very straight forward.

One User-Data Slider in %, one or

Example 1 Car door.

In this case I wanted a car's trunk door to open in a particular way and the range-mapper spline can do just that. The subtle movement is drawn with a spline.

Example 2 Yes/No In this example I have a one userdata slider setup that makes a cube nod No and Yes. The No spline comes first and connects to the rotation P. The spline waves up and down until halfway where it stops. Another spline starts waving at the middle and connects to rotation H and makes the Yes movement.

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When moving the slider from 0 to 100% the cube will nod.

Example 3 Double movement of a sliding door This door has to move forward before it can slide sideways.

So there are two range-mappers in spline mode. The first does a movement X and the second the movement Z. The two splines describe the movement. The upper and lower output are the limits of the movement. I have made this door open upon detection of a person by com-

Range Mapper Animation

By Base80

Tutorial

bining it with a collision detection.

This way I'll never have to worry about a open or closed door in my animation. It takes care of itself.

With a little exercise one can make pretty complicated animations.

Like the foot of a crane, made with 4 range-mappers.

If you are afraid of xpresso this is a good starting point. It is fast simple and effective.

Just play around and enjoy Please check your â&#x20AC;&#x153;Goodiesâ&#x20AC;? folder for files and examples.

You could replace the user-data slider with a time-node for regularly repeating events. Or by a collisiondetection to interact with other objects or by whatever seems useful.

Happy rendering!

Base 80

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Best of CINEMA 4D

Some of the best artists around the world using CINEMA 4D

Image: Mercedes 540k Artist: Oliver Bierling Country: Germany Website: 3rd-Reality.com Date created: 2004 Software: CINEMA 4D R9

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Image: Blood Vessel Artist: Seger van Wijk Country: The Netherlands Website: http://www.cliffhanger.nl Date created: January 2005 Software: CINEMA 4D, Photoshop

Artist Comments: Illustration in a series of seven to accompany a short story. I'm going to print the story on the cardboard kind of paper they use for children's books, with rounded edges. But it's for grown-ups.

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Image: Saturday Morning Artist: Jamie Hamel-Smith Country: Trinidad and Tobago, West Indies Website: www.eyescreamanimation.com Date created: July 05 2004 Software: CINEMA 4D

Artist Comments: A personal Radiosity study that I did to test the possibility of using Radiosity for all of our images.

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Image: The Welder Artist: Fredi Voss aka Rollmops Country: Germany Website: http://www.fredivoss.de Date created: 11/2004 - 1/2005 Software: CINEMA 4D

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Image: Abbazia Artist: Massimo end Raffaello TOLFA Country: Italy Website: www.rtmstudio.it Date created: September 2004 Software: CINEMA 4D 8.5 and Photoshop

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Editor’s Notes Hello there Readers and Attackers!

February already! WOW, time sure passes by quickly. 3D Attack has made the first big change of the year with the launch of our newly designed forum. If you haven’t stopped in, check it out today at www.3dattack.net. 3D Attack would like to thank Gary Zullo for all of his hard work and dedication in helping us develop the new forum. We couldn’t have done it without you Gary. THANKS! 3D Attack would also like to welcome Jamie to our team. Jamie will be helping out with moderating our forum and will be a contributing writer for the magazine. WELCOME to 3D Attack Jamie!

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Due to illness, Georg Niedermeier was not able to finish up Part 2 of his Landscape Tutorial. Be looking for it in the March issue of 3D Attack - The CINEMA 4D Magazine.

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Check out their wide selection of innovative and easy to use computer graphics products.

Tutorials If you have questions concerning a specific tutorial or want to show us a tutorial you have completed, feel free to post your questions and work on our C4D discussion forums at www.3dattack.net.

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