MayIssue2005

Volume 02 Issue 05 May 2005 | $3.99

Follow Bram van Gerwen and create a beautiful Celtic Harp on Page 11.

Character Modeling Part 3 with Mark Gmehling on Page 33.

Jamie Hamel - Smith teaches us how to implement 3D Sound...Page 29.

Interview with Dylan Cole

By Tavy Ann

Dylan Cole - http://www.dylancolestudio.com/

Interview

Tavy: Hello Dylan. Thanks for taking time from your busy schedule to share a bit about you and your work with 3D Attack. Why don't we start with you telling our readers a little about yourself and what you do?

Dylan: Thanks for having me. Well let's see, I am currently an entertainment artist specializing in matte painting, concept design, and art direction. I graduated from UCLA in 2001 with a degree in fine art. I was a traditional painter all through high school and college and only picked up digital in my last year at UCLA. I got an internship at ILM. With barely any digital knowledge, I just showed that I could paint convincing landscapes and cityscapes traditionally. I learned a lot about Photoshop while I was up there. I constantly pestered the artists there for tips and tricks. They were very tolerant of me. I then just locked myself in my room and painted until my work was up to snuff.

Tavy: Dylan, your work is breathtaking! What initially gave you the idea to start matte painting? What attracted you to it?

Dylan: Thanks! I was first drawn to matte painting after seeing the Art of Star Wars books with all of the

Copyright Dylan Cole

amazing paintings by Michael Pangrazio, Chris Evans, Harrison Ellenshaw, and all of the other guys working at ILM on those films.

I was in high school and at the time I thought I might eventually be a book cover illustrator, but once I saw those paintings it was all over. I was always more interested in environments than any thing else and I always wanted to paint them as realistically as I could.

Once I saw that people were doing paintings of alien environments that were convincing millions of people worldwide, I had to do it! Of course this was around 96 or 97, and I soon found out that all of this work was being done digitally. I was crushed.

Up until that point I had been a traditional painting snob and wanted nothing to do with the computer.

The joke was on me! I gave in and began to reluctantly learn Photoshop.

The thing I love about matte painting is that it is so pure. It is just your painting on the screen, fooling everyone (hopefully). Most of the other vfx disciplines involve many

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people working on one shot, but with matte painting you can really be a one man VFX facility.

Tavy: Your resume is not only extensive, but very impressive.

Lord of the Rings - Return of the King, I Robot, Sky Captain, DareDevil, The Chronicles of Riddick, to name a few, display your wonderful matte paintings. When did you first start working in the film industry? What was your first project?

Dylan: My very first project was working for Illusion Arts on Time Machine. Syd Dutton hired me to do concept work on a big matte shot they were working on. I will be forever grateful to Syd for giving me my first chance. Unfortunately, I had a short stint at Illusion Arts and shortly after I left September 11 happened. I didn't work again for 6 months.

I picked up a couple random little jobs for commercials and music videos. My big break came when I went to Prague for 12 weeks to do concept work on a film called A Sound of Thunder. Tim McGovern

Interview with Dylan Cole

By Tavy Ann

took a chance on me with my limited experience and I had an absolute blast. After that things really snowballed.

Interview

Tavy: Of all your film work, what are you the most proud of and why?

Dylan: I am probably most proud of the work I did on Return of the King.

I am not sure if it is my best painting, but I think I am proud because I contributed a lot to the film. I was fortunate enough to be able to create some pretty iconic shots. Alan Lee and Jeremy Bennett had a lot of faith in me and trusted me with some challenges. It was also the longest I have been involved with a project. I learned a lot while working on that film, it was fun to contrast the first paintings I did for it with the last ones. There was a definite improvement.

Copyright New Line Cinema , 2004

Copyright New Line Cinema , 2004

Tavy: What is the most challenging aspect you have found in painting for a film in contrast to still painting?

Dylan: I think the hardest thing is to let go and realize you are just creating one shot in a big film and that it has to fit. When painting for film you really have to think about context and continuity. You need to know what is going on in the scene, and what cuts surround your shot.

When you are doing a painting for yourself, you can do whatever you want and take whatever license you need to.

When you are doing painting for film, often times your painting is meant to just enhance the live action and not be the star. The audience is looking at the actor doing his or her thing, not your beautifully painted mountains in the background. Obviously not all matte

Copyright New Line Cinema , 2004

paintings are like this. There are the fun occasions when you get to create the big hero shot.

Tavy: What kind of concepts, emotions, etc. do you try and convey in each painting?

Dylan: Well this really depends on the shot. I try and get as much information as possible about what is going on the scene. For example if it is supposed to be a celebration

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scene, then I probably won't paint a dark, stormy sky. I just try and do what I can to enhance the mood of the scene. I naturally tend toward the high drama shots, probably because of my love for the Hudson River School artists such as Bierstadt and Church.

Tavy: Let's got back to "Return Of The King" for a moment. When working on this film what was your schedule like? How much time did

Interview with Dylan Cole

By Tavy Ann

Interview

you usually have to complete a matte painting?

Dylan: Well the schedule was completely different at the end than it was at the beginning! Max Dennison, the head of our department was good about giving us ample amount of time to complete paintings. Towards the beginning we would typically have a week or two to do a painting, towards the end it was more like a day or two! It also really depended on the shot.

Some paintings naturally take longer than others. One of my Mordor paintings was poked and prodded for 8 months! It just went through endless revisions, but it was very satisfying because it was the first painting that really defined the look of Mordor and became the style guide.

Tavy: Do you like to work under a tight schedule, or do you prefer a wider time frame to complete a professional project?

Dylan: Maybe I am a glutton for punishment, but I think I like short schedules. Note that I say short schedules, not impossible schedules! I think I like the short timeframe because there is less time to mess around and usually your first instinct is right. It also means that the client has less time to change their minds and make you run around in circles. I would much rather be busy painting than sitting around waiting for the next shot to come in.

It is nice to be working on multiple shots at once because you don't get burnt out on one shot. You are usually doing the main build of one shot while doing revisions on 2 or 3 others. I had a great time on Daredevil and it was a pretty tight schedule. I did 21 matte paintings in 12 weeks for that show.

Tavy: What tools and software applications are you currently using for your matte work?

Dylan: I work on a mac G5 with a couple of cinema displays. I use a Wacom 6x8 tablet for all of my painting. I use Photoshop for most of my work, and I do compositing and animation in After Effects. I am also really getting in to CINEMA 4D. Tavy: What advice would you give to the novice matte painter?

Dylan: The main thing is to just work harder than the next guy.

Work on the fundamentals, too many people can model an amazing building, but they will put it in the shot with the wrong perspective and it will be poorly integrated.

Learn perspective and understand photography. It is one thing to be a photo monkey and make something believable, but it is some entirely different to create a beautiful shot from scratch that can invoke a feeling.

That is where studying composition and color comes it.

Copyright 20th Century Fox , 2003

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Interview with Dylan Cole

By Tavy Ann

ideas in pen or pencil if I need to design a specific piece of architecture or something.

Tavy: Of all your personal work, what are you the most proud of and why?

Interview

Copyright Dylan Cole

Copyright Dylan Cole

I have to bring up the Hudson River School artists again, because they were the masters of it.

Tavy: As well as your matte work, your sketches are highly impressive.

Are all of your sketches and drawings done digitally?

Dylan: Thanks; yes they are all done digitally. I love getting ideas down very quickly in Photoshop. I can block out color studies so much faster digitally versus traditional painting. The only thing that is difficult is line drawing. I will still break out the sketchbook and rough out

Copyright Dylan Cole

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Dylan: That's a tough one.

Normally I like the painting I just finished the most, but I really like the last two cityscapes I did, the Plateau City and Lava City. I love painting cities. I like dealing with macro design and big shapes more than little nit picky details. I try to get the overall mood and impression. Both of those paintings started as color sketches where I was just exploring color, composition, and shape. I then decided to finish them for the D'Artiste Matte Painting book that I am working on.

Tavy: Ah…. "Lava City", one of the buildings in this image was modeled in CINEMA 4D. Although you are rather new to modeling in CINEMA, the building is modeled with great detail. Do you plan on developing your modeling skills? Do you see 3D in your future?

Dylan: 3D has to be in my future or I am going to be out of a job! Yes, I definitely plan on getting more into modeling as well as lighting and rendering. I love camera projection and the ability to make a painting move.

I also enjoy modeling an object once and being able to see it from any angle versus painting it over and over again. This recently served me very well for a client who wanted a series of bridges in an environment. They weren't sure about the placement, so I was able to model the buildings and show them many different angles quickly.

Interview with Dylan Cole

Interview

By Tavy Ann

“Tropical City” by Dylan Cole - painting demo for GNOMON matte painting DVD (Release date June 22, 2005)

Copyright Dylan Cole

Tavy: Is CINEMA 4D your first experience with a 3D application?

How do you like it so far?

Dylan: My first foray into 3D was with formZ and Electric Image back when I was starting out. It then fell to the wayside because all of my

professional work was 2D. I have recently begun to get back into 3D and have played with EI again as well as Lightwave. I must say that I like CINEMA 4D the most. It is very easy to use and intuitive. There is still so much that I don't know but I am excited to learn!

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Copyright Dylan Cole

Tavy: Thanks again Dylan for sharing with 3D Attack and our readers.

We will definitely be looking forward to seeing more of your work in the future.

Interview with Dylan Cole

Interview

By Tavy Ann

Copyright Dylan Cole

Dylan: Thank you it was my pleasure. * All images in this interview are copyright protected and may not be reproduced in any form without written permission from the copyright holders (Dylan Cole, New Line Cinema, 20th Century Fox) All violators will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

For more of Dylan's artwork please visit www.dylancolestudio.com

Copyright Dylan Cole

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Celtic Harp Tutorial

By Bram van Gerwen Modeling - Celtic Harp This tutorial is not geared for basic modeling. I'm going to assume you know at least how to find your way in the menus and around most of the basic modeling tools as I don't want to explain every step to the letter, I probably will, but anyway let's begin.

Tutorial

First we will create the main body of the Harp and then move on to the arm, strings and feet.

and once at the top like in picture 1B. The next cut is going to be along the middle length of the object so we can round off the back of the harp body later. Leave the knife in Plane Mode and simply set it the Plane to Y-Z, set the Cuts back to 1 and enable slice. Switch to the main viewport (F1). The slice option will lock the cut exactly in the middle of the object so no matter where you click the cut will be made along the exact middle like in picture 2A, so click once to make the cut.

Create a Cube, set it to X 200, Y 600, Z 100 and make it editable. Go into polygon mode, select the top polygon and set its Z position to 270 in the coordinates manager. Then select the Normal Scale tool, set it to 20 and Apply, result in picture 1A.

Rename the cube to 'Harp Body'. To smooth off the body we need a HyperNURBS object, create one and drop the Harp Body in there.

The cube is transformed into a squashed elongated sphere, so we'll need to use the knife tool to give it nice rounded edges. Select the knife tool, set it to Plane Mode, disable 'restrict to selection', set the Plane to X-Z, set cuts to 2 and the spacing to 6. Now switch to Right view and when you move your cursor over the harp body you will see it will make 2 cuts on the horizontal plane with a space of 6 in between them. Cut once near the bottom of the object

It’s getting even cooler, we want to make a dual cut along the tilted edges like we did above, but the loop mode doesn't have the cuts & spacing option, and if we simply use the loop mode and click twice the cuts would be way too close to each other near the top of the harp body, creating a far too sharp edge.

Therefore, we will make this cut using the plane option set to camera coordinates while looking through a rotated camera. So switch back to the Model tool, create a camera object and rename it to 'Tilted Cam', set your main viewport to look through this camera (Cameras -> Scene Cameras -> Tilted Cam). Set the Projection of the tilted cam to Parallel in its properties, then in the coordinates manager set its rotation values to H 90, P 0, B 27.3, apply and use the move arrows of the viewport to centre the harp body

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(don't move the object itself!

Depending on which viewport was active when you created the camera the harp body might be out of shot, so zoom out to see where it is and then move to it).

Now we are ready to make the cut.

Switch to Polygon mode, select the harp body, then select the Knife tool (still in Plane Mode), set the Cords to Camera, set the Plane to Y-Z if not already, disable Slice, set the Cuts to 2 and the Spacing to 5.

When you move the cursor over the harp body now you will notice it will cut along the Axis Coordinates of the camera instead of the World Axis and will enable us to make perfect spaced cuts along the tilted edge. Make the cut like in picture 2B (disable HyperNURBS temporarily if you want to see better where you are cutting). Switch back to the Editor Camera (Cameras -> Editor Camera).

Hide the Tilted Cam by clicking the upper dot behind it red so its lines won't bother you while modeling.

We're done cutting the harp body and will now do some small point tweaks to round off the back of the body. Switch to Point mode and rotate the view so you can see the rounded back of the harp body. With the Live Selection Tool select the 3 lower points on the back of the harp body and set their combined Z value to 110 in the coordinates manager.

Then select the 3 upper points on the back of the harp body and set their combined Z value to 292, see picture 3A for reference. Result in picture 3B. The Harp Body is complete, the next step is to create an extra wooden board on the tilted surface, the bottom and on the top.

Celtic Harp Tutorial

By Bram van Gerwen

Tutorial

Rotate the view so that the underside of the harp body is visible and temporarily disable the HyperNURBS by clicking on the green check behind it. Switch to Edge mode, select the Loop selection tool and select the edge loop on the bottom like in picture 4A (never mind my fancy mouse cursor, yours will look different). With the loop

selected extract a spline from it with the Edge to spline tool (Structure -> Edit Spline -> Edge to Spline). The spline will be created as a child object of the harp body in the object manager. Create an Extrude NURBS object, click open the harp body and drag the spline to the newly created Extrude NURBS object. The Type of the spline should be set to B-Spline and the Intermediate Points to Natural in its properties. In the Extrude NURBS options set the middle Movement field to -6 and change the 20 value on the right to 0. This will Extrude the spline down instead of a flat erroneous extrusion. Also, in the

Caps tab set both Start and End caps to Fillet Cap and set both to 3 Steps and 1 Radius. While you are doing this you might witness an anomaly namely that the caps only fill halfway and don't close entirely.

This is due to the sequence of the spline, the beginning and end point.

This can be fixed by shifting the sequence (Functions -> Move up sequence), do this until the caps are correctly closed. If you don't witness any anomaly just ignore the sequence step. Result in picture 4B. We will now add an extra rounding to the front of the spline. Switch to top view and Point mode and temporarily disable the Extrude NURBS so that you can clearly see the spline. Select the Add Points tool and add 2 points as indicated in picture 5A. Move the 2 added points to a Z value of -55 and the middle point to a Z value of -95, also indicated in picture 5A (tweak the points

individually to give them the exact given coordinates if you want). After tweaking select the front section of

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points as indicated in picture 5B and change its Z coordinates to -80. This will create some extra room to fit the tilted board which we will add next.

You can enable both NURBS objects again if you wish.

Just as with the lower board we will extract a spline from the front of the tilted surface. Select the edge loop as in picture 6A and use the Edge to Spline tool again. Create an Extrude NURBS object and drop the newly

created spline into it. This spline should also be set to Type B-spline and Intermediate Points Natural.

This board must be extruded along the Z axis so change the 20 in the Movement field to -6, you can use the cap settings from the previous board we created. That’s it for the frontal board, result in picture 6B. For clarity in the object manager rename the first Extrude NURBS object you created to 'Lower Board' and the second to 'Frontal Board'.

As you might have guessed we will now create a small board on top of the harp body. The process should be pretty clear by now. Select the edge loop on top of the harp body like in picture 7A and Edge to Spline it. Instead of creating a new Extrude NURBS object and copying the values you can just copy/paste the Lower Board object, rename the duplicate to 'Upper Board', delete the spline inside it and drag the

Celtic Harp Tutorial

By Bram van Gerwen

Tutorial

move on to the legs of the harp and after that the arm.

newly created spline into it. Now all that rests is to remove the minus from the -6 Movement value in the Upper Board object to extrude it upward, set the movement field right of the 6 to 3 to tilt the extrusion, also set the new spline to Type B-spline and Intermediate Points Natural.

Now in top view select the 5 frontmost points like in picture 7B (disable the Extrude NURBS to see them) and set their combined Z value to 256 to move them forward aligning the tilt with the frontal board.

If you switch the NURBS object on again and look in editor view you can see both boards intersecting slightly, we don't want that to happen so select the spline inside the Frontal board, select its upper 5 points like in picture 7C, switch to the Tilted Cam in your main viewport and zoom in on the top, picture 7D. Select the Move tool, set its modeling axis to camera and you'll be able to drag the points down over the Yaxis without distorting the extrusion.

Drag them only a little so that it connects snugly like the end-result also in picture 7D. Switch back to the Editor Camera to get a better view of the result.

Before we add smaller details to the harp we want the main forms to be complete and in place. So next we

Create a new document and create a cube in it, set its sizes to X 28, Y 2, Z 38 and make it Editable. Switch to polygon mode, select the Knife tool, set the Mode to Plane, set the Plane to YZ, disable 'Restrict to selection', enable Slice and set the Cuts to 2 and click once on the geometry. Then disable Slice in the the knife tool and set the Spacing to 8.5 (leave Cuts set on 2), set Offset to -4.25. The offset is exactly half of the spacing, enabling you to place the mouse cursor exactly in the middle of the object in top view so the cuts will be equally spaced from the middle.

If you don't set the offset the first cut line will be exactly under your mouse cursor, which won't enable you to make an accurate cut. So make the cut of which I just told you in top view like in picture 8A, then set the spacing to 11.5 and the Offset to -5,75 (again half of the

7.2. After these spaced cuts you should have a result like in picture 8B. Now, simply set the Knife tool to Loop mode and make 4 cuts like in picture 8C. These cuts are simply so the HyperNURBS we will add later will round the edges off nicely. They don't need to be that accurate, just try to make them at reasonably equal distances from the edges.

Next we'll make two dents in the front and back of the object. Go into Point mode, select any selection tool you're most comfortable with, disable 'Only select visible items' and select the front and back points in between the two middles of the spaced cuts you made like in picture 9. Set their combined Z Size value to 35.5 in the coordinates manager.

This downscale should not scale the

points past the loop cuts you just made. If it does, undo and make the loop cuts further from the edges.

Now we're ready to begin extruding the leg and finish it off on no-time. spacing) and make a cut with the cursor in the middle of the object.

The meaning of these cuts will become apparent in a few seconds, we only have to make 2 more like these, so I'm just going to give you the values for those. So make two more cuts with the values for the first Spacing 13.5, Offset -6,75 and the second Spacing 14.4, Offset -

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Select the polygons on top with the Live selection tool, then select the Extrude Tool, disable 'realtime update', set it to Offset 2 and apply.

With the top polygons still selected set their Z Position value to 0.5 in the coordinates manager. We will finish off the leg easily with four additional extrusions. I will sum up the settings for them as this part will basically speak for itself. Set the

Celtic Harp Tutorial

By Bram van Gerwen

Tutorial

Offset of the Extrude tool to 16 and hit New Transform, then set the Z Position value to to 3. New Transform with an Offset of 20, set Z Pos value to 13. New Transform with an Offset of 28, set Z Pos value to 38. Additional to this step set the Z Size value to 44. Now New Transform with an Offset of 10, set Z Pos value to 41. Now create a HyperNURBS object and drop the geometry into it. There, the back leg is done. Result in picture 10.

Rename the HyperNURBS object to 'Back Leg' and copy/paste it back into the Harp scene.

So we're back in the harp scene, create a Symmetry object and drop the Back Leg into it. The Mirror Plane of the symmetry object should have a standard setting of ZY which is correct for mirroring the leg to the other side of the harp. Switch to the Model tool, select the back leg object and set its position to X 94, Y -384, Z 66, set its H rotation value to 140 and apply. The back leg will snap nicely to the correct position at the back of the Harp, mirroring another leg to the other side due to the symmetry object. Next we'll create the front leg by means of duplication.

its position to X 93, Z -78.5 (Y remains the same of course) and set its H rotation back to 0 and apply. Now we can make some small adjustment in Right view while in Point mode. So switch to point mode and select the geometry inside the Front Leg object. Select the Rectangle selection tool, disable 'Only select visible elements' if not already and select the top row of points on the object. Look at picture 11 and enter the values given there and work your way down editing the

select the new point rows in turn and enter the values for them that are also given in that picture. The extra detail is now finished. Switch to the Model tool, select the Front Leg object and set its H rotation to 18 and apply.

rest of the point rows with the given values. It's important to remember when I give you point values for specific selections you have to enter them all at once into the coordinates manager and apply, don't apply every time you enter one number or the change might turn out differently.

Let's move on to the arm. Create a Cube and set its Sizes to X 15, Y 3, Z 44 and its Position to Y -297.5, Z 74, apply and make it editable.

Switch to Polygon mode, select the Knife tool, set it to Loop and make 4 cuts in Top view like in picture 13A, so we'll get nice rounded edges

Next we need to mirror the front leg along with the back leg. If you just drop the front leg into the symmetry object only the top object will be mirrored, so we need to group both legs. Select the Front Leg and while holding shift select the Back Leg inside the symmetry object. It will appear to select the symmetry as well but it hasn't. Now group the selected objects (Alt-G), it will create a Null object outside the symmetry containing both legs, just drop this Null object into the symmetry and rename the symmetry object to 'legs'.

For the last detail we need to make an extra cut below and above the middle row of points. Select the Knife tool, set it to loop mode and make 2 cuts like in picture 12, then

when we drop it in a HyperNURBS object. Use the Live selection tool to select the polygons on top of the cube. Now switch to Right view, select the Extrude tool, set it to 200 Offset, 5 Subdivisions and apply. To

Copy/paste the Back Leg object.

There, the front leg is finished (almost). We'll change it a little in appearance of course, rename the duplicate to Front Leg for clarity. Set

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Celtic Harp Tutorial

By Bram van Gerwen

Tutorial

shape the rounding of the arm you'll have to go into point mode and select the points I indicated in picture 13B and enter the values given in the picture. When done you should have a result like in picture 14A.

Now we'll model the corner in the arm. Switch back to polygon mode, if correct the top polygons should still be selected. Extrude twice with an Offset of 6 (subdivisions 0, disable 'realtime update'). Then with an Offset of 55 and again with an Offset of 6, result in picture 14B. To shape the top corner of the arm you'll have to go into point mode again and select the points I indicated in picture 14B and enter the values that are also in that picture.

Point selection and entering values should be second nature by now and the picture should speak for itself, end-result in the inset of picture 14B. Switch to Polygon mode and make the selection like in picture 15A. Select the Extrude tool, set the Offset to 40, the subdivisions to 3 and apply. Go into Point mode, switch to Right view, and again we'll select and move points by the values given in picture 15B. Create a cube, set its sizes to X 40, Y 54, Z 40, set its position to Y 334, Z 276 in the coordinates manager and make it editable. Switch to

apply. A marginal tweak but will align the sides nicely with the upper board. Select the elongated middle polygon on the flat side of the object like in picture 17B. Select the Knife tool, set it to Plane, enable 'restrict

Polygon mode, select the top polygon and set its Z position to 21.

Select the knife tool, set it to Loop and make 3 cuts like in picture 16A. When this is done create a HyperNURBS object and drop the cube into it, make sure the cube geometry is selected when you continue. Then set the Knife to Plane, enable slice, set Cords to local, set Plane to YZ, set cuts to 2 and click on the geometry (in Top or Perspective view).

When this is done we will move some point selections again, look at picture 16B to see the selections and where to move them.

After moving the point we'll do a little polygon tweak, switch to Polygon mode, also switch to Right view and use the Live selection tool (disable 'only select visible elements') to select the indicated selection in the inset of picture 16B. The polygons on both sides will be selected this way, set their X size to 42 and

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to selection', set Plane to YZ, disable create N-gons, disable slice, set Offset to -5, set Spacing to 10 and cuts to 2. In Top view move the cursor to the exact middle of polygon and click, resulting in an accurate cut on both sides of the polygon without cutting around the entire object, which is not what we want.

There will however appear some triangles on the sides of the polygons (at least if you've disabled create Ngons) but don't worry about those, they won't disrupt our HyperNURBS in this case. Next set the Plane of the knife tool to XZ, set Offset to 18.5, set Spacing to 37 and Cuts to 2. Switch to front view. If correct, you can see the Normal direction indicator on the polygons as a yellow dot-stripe. Simply move your cursor to the middle one and click, see picture 17B for the final result.

We need these cuts on that polygon because we are going to bridge it to the arm in the next section.

Make sure you have the cube geometry selected of this rounded top we just created, and while holding shift select the cube geometry of the arm and use the Connect function (Functions -> Connect). A new

Celtic Harp Tutorial

Tutorial

By Bram van Gerwen

object will be created in the object manager, you can now delete the separate arm and rounded top geometry and drop that newly created object into the HyperNURBS. Set the subdivisions setting of the HyperNURBS object to 3 and select the geometry inside it again. Still in polygon mode you should see it has taken with it the selections of the previous objects, which is precisely what we want to bridge. If you have deselected the polygons earlier select them again. Select the Bridge tool and click on a corner of one of the selections and drag to the opposing corner of the other selection to bridge. The bridged polygons will be automatically selected.

Switch to Right view, select the knife tool, set it to Plane Mode, set Offset back to 0, disable slice, set Cuts to 3, set Spacing to 6, set Plane to XY and make the cut like in picture 18A.

Then Switch to Point mode, make the point selections indicated in picture 18B and move them to the given values. When done rename the HyperNURBS object to 'Harp Arm'.

We're done modeling the big stuff.

We'll move on to the strings, tuning handles and other small details.

Open a new document and create a Cube, set its sizes to X 15, Y 244, Z 164, and its X segments to 3 and make it editable. Then set its posi-

tion to X -22.5, Y 123. Create a HyperNURBS object and drop the cube geometry into it. Select the Knife tool and make a cut near the bottom of the cube and near the top.

Don't put the top one too close to the edge as we want nice round corners there, see picture 19A. Then

select the long lower polygon on the world axis side and Extrude it 74m, see picture 19B. Next make 5 Loop cuts like in picture 19C. And lastly select the two middle polygons on the lying part (on the top and the bottom) and bridge them, see picture 19D. If correct the polygons in the opening are automatically selected, simply weight this selection 80 percent with the 'Weight HyperNURBS' tool (under Structure). Rename the HyperNURBS object to 'Handle Holder'. Before we move on adding stuff, we'll create 3 Positions where we can snap objects to while modeling.

Switch to the Model tool and create 3 Null Objects (Objects -> Null Object). Rename them to Place A, Place B and Place C. Set the Position of Place A to Y 199.5, Z 40.

Set the position of Place B to Y 203, Z -22.5. Set the position of Place C to Y 69, Z -23.5.

Now create another Cube, set its sizes to X 18, Y 114, Z 333, and make it editable. Set its position to X

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3.5, Y 199.5, Z -5. Then select the knife tool and make 5 knife cuts like in picture 20A. After that go into point mode and make the point

adjustments with the given values in picture 20B. When done select the polygon as in the inset of picture 20B and extrude it with an Offset of 14 and again with an Offset of 4.

The Handle is ready, create a new HyperNURBS object. Use the Transfer function to snap the HyperNURBS object to Place A (simply drop Place A into the Transfer To field when you called the function and apply). Drop the cube geometry into the HyperNURBS object, select the HyperNURBS and rename it to 'Handle', then switch back to the Model tool and set the P rotation of the Handle object to -45 and apply.

To finish off this entire object we'll add a couple of primitives. Create a cylinder and set its sizes to Radius 28, Height 9, Height Segments 2, Rotation Segments 24, Orientation +X and for the Caps set the Segments to 1, and the Fillet Segments to 3 and its Radius to 1.

Use the Transfer function to snap the object to the position of Place C and then change its X position to 28.5 and apply, the cylinder will appear on the back of the handle holder object. Copy/Paste the cylinder and set the the new ones Radius to 19. Then make it snap to

Celtic Harp Tutorial

By Bram van Gerwen

Tutorial

Place B and set its X position back to -28.5. Simply call the Paste function again and you will receive another duplicate in the object manager. Set its radius to 25 and make it snap to Place A, then set its X position back to -28.5. To keep things tidy in the object manager drop the cylinders into their respective Place objects (the ones to which they were snapped). Result so far in Picture 21A.

Copy/Paste the cylinder inside the Place A null and set its Radius to 10, its Height to 49 and its X position to 13.5 and drop it into the Place A null. Use the Paste function to create a flat cylinder again and set its Radius to 30 and its X position to 17.5, then drop it into the Place A null (the dropping into the right places should be obvious by now so I won't tell you about it again with the next objects).

Paste again for a new cylinder, set its Radius to 38, Height to 8, in the Caps set the Segments to 3 and the Fillet Radius to 3.2, the set its X position to -10. Now create a Tube object, set its Inner Radius to 10, its Outer Radius to 20, its Rotation Segments to 6, its height to 19 and its Orientation to +X. Also enable the Fillet and set its Segments to 1 and its Radius to 1. Snap this object to Place A and set its X position to 31.

You'll notice we want this object to be a Bolt Nut, to sharpen the look of

it select the Phong Tag behind the Tube object and set the percentage to 20. This will make sure the shading won't make our edges look rounded. The objects for Place A are done, only 2 more for the remaining places. Result so far in picture 21B.

ing position, X 26, Y 88, Z 250 and make it editable. Switch to Polygon Mode, select the knife tool and make 8 loop cuts like in picture 22A. Then make the point selections like in picture 22B and apply the given

Copy/Paste the cylinder inside Place B and set its Radius to 10, its height to 49 and set its X position to -2.

Now Copy/Paste the cylinder inside Place C and set its Radius to 11, its Height to 66 and its X position 5.6.

See Picture 21C for result.

For the last screw we don't have a designated place so we'll just duplicate a couple of objects we already created and move them to the given positions. Select the flat cylinder inside Place B and Copy/Paste it, move this duplicate to the following positions, X 23.5, Y 25, Z 27.5, then set its Orientation to +Y and its Radius to 24. Copy/Paste this new cylinder and set its Radius to 12 and its Height to 43. Now Copy/Paste the Tube inside Place A and set its X position to 23.5, its Y position to 39 and its Z position to 27.5, then set its Orientation to +Y. Depending on how low or high you made the lower cut on the Handle Holder object you might need to make a point selection in a side view and move the selection up or down so it touches nicely with the objects we just put there. See picture 21D for result. Select All objects we've created so far and group them. Name the group 'Tuning Handle'.

In the next section we'll create a string and two small rods to attach it to. So create a cylinder, set its Radius to 22, its Height to 175, in the Caps enable the Fillet and set its Segments to 3 and its Radius to 4.

Then set the cylinder to the follow-

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values. For the second rod create another cylinder, set its Radius to 19, its Height to 175, its Height Segments to 4, in the Caps enable the Fillet, set its Segments to 3 and its Radius to 6 and make it editable.

Set its position to X 90, Y 88 and Z 367. Then make 3 Loop cuts like in picture 22C. Select the polygon loop like in the inset of picture 22C. Extrude it with a value of 2.8, then select the bevel tool end bevel it with a value of 1.3 for both the extrusion and the inner offset value.

The rods are done.

Now the String. Create a Helix Spline, set its Start Radius to 23, its End Radius to 23, its End Angle to 1070, its Height to 47, its Plane to XZ. Then snap its position to the last rod we created and change its Y position to 38.5 and set its H rotation to 158 and apply. Make the spline editable and switch to Point mode. Zoom in on the helix and select the last point on top of the spline. Switch to top view and while holding control create 2 extra points to the sides of the second rod and a third past the Tuning Handle like in picture 23. When you create the point you can hold the mouse button

Celtic Harp Tutorial

Tutorial

By Bram Van Gerwen

and drag the tangents out so you get nice roundings instead of linear points, make sure you do this. When done create a Sweep NURBS object and a circle spline, set the circle spline to a Radius of 7. First drop the helix into the Sweep object and then the circle, the circle will be swept across the spline. As the final touch select the Sweep NURBS object and in the Caps tab set the Start to Fillet Cap and its Steps to 4, then enable 'Constrain'. Leave the End as it is as we won't see that anyway. Look at picture 23 for some reference on these last steps.

Before we continue let's add some materials, If we do this now we don't have to do it later for a lot of objects.

Create a new material in the material manager, name it Gold. Enable the Color, Luminance, Reflection and Specular. Set the color to a dark yellows (R 194, G 155, B 34) and set its brightness to 100. In the luminance load a Fresnel into the texture field. Set its Mix mode to Subtract and the Mix Strength to 77.

Set the Reflection to 22. Set the Specular to Width 50 and Height 20.

Drop this Material onto the Main String object group. Now Copy/Paste the Gold material and rename the duplicate to Silver.

Change the color to light grey (194 for all three RGB values) and set its brightness to 73. In the luminance change the Mix Strength to 69.

Change the Reflection to 63. Enable the Bump channel and load Noise into the Texture field. Click on the noise and in the properties change the Noise to Poxo. Drop the silver material on the first rod we created.

Ctrl-drag the silver mat tag to Place A, B, C and the three objects that comprise the lower screw. Lastly create a new Nukei shader, File -> Shader -> Nukei. In its Diffuse A tab set the color to a light grey. Enable the Anisotrophy channel in its Basic Tab and then in the Anisotrophy tab set it to Radial Planar. Drop the Nukei shader onto the string sweep object.

Create a Null Object and drop all objects into it. Don't just select the objects and group them because then the axis of the null object won't be at the world axis. Name this final group 'String object'. Switch to the Model tool and set the Size drop menu in the coordinates manager to Scale, then enter 0.065 into the scale fields and hit apply. We modeled this String object on roughly the size of the harp itself, so this scaling is necessary to fit it onto the harp arm. Now set the string object to the following positions X 8, Y 403, Z 181.5, Also set these Rotations to P 104, B 90 and hit Apply. Now Copy the string object and paste it back into the harp scene. You'll notice the scale and positioning we just made fits it nicely on the top left corner of the arm.

Before we duplicate this object 34 times we need to elongate the string itself. So open the string object group and find the helix spline and select it, go into Point mode and if correct the last point you created should still be selected, if not select this point (the one past the handle object). You might notice the axis of

18

this point is kind of tilted so we cant just slide along that to make it reach the other side of the harp. Select the Move tool and set the Modeling Axis to Root and the Orientation next to it to Axis. Now you can slide the point along the Z axis of the 'String object' null axis, which is exactly aligned with the direction of the string. So grab the Z axis and move it down until it enters the frontal board of the harp. Now zoom in on the Handle Holder object and add a point like in picture 24A using the Add Point tool,

the knife tool in Line mode is also an option. The string object is ready for duplication now.

Select the Draw Bezier spline tool and draw a spline like in picture 24B. Then select the String Object and use the Duplicate function. Set the Copies to 34 and disable generate instances, then in its options set the Mode to Along Spline and drop the spline you just drew into the field, disable the X above the spline field and hit Apply.

This will create a group of 33 copies under the String Object, the original String object is interpreted as number 34 by the duplicate function. If you are not satisfied with the way your objects are duplicated along the spline simply undo and adjust the spline and call the duplicate function again until you like the result.

Celtic Harp Tutorial

By Bram van Gerwen

Now if you look at the right viewport you'll notice the strings of the duplicates pass through the harp. Instead of adjusting every end point of every string individually we'll just select all string splines, knife them and delete the endpoints in one go. So select the String Object_copies object and use the Select Children option under the Objects menu in the object manager. Then select the Knife tool, set it to Line and drag a cut along the strings like in picture 25A. Select the

the Modeling Axis to Selected and move the entire selection along its X axis until the strings line inside the gutter. The next step is not necessary, but will make the harp look cooler. In every Tuning Handle object is of course the Handle object. You can set some of them to a rotation of -120 instead of the -45 they all have now. If you do this it will look kinda like in picture 26.

Hide the string objects if you find that your viewport slows down.

Tutorial

That's it for modeling, next we'll add some simple texturing to finish this tutorial. You'll find the textures in the project folder I provided.

points indicated in picture 25B and delete them. The strings are done (almost).

The last detail we'll add is a gutter on the frontal board for the strings to enter. Create a Rectangle spline, set its width to 10, its Height to 600, then set its Position to Y 21, Z 106 and its P rotation to -27,3 and apply.

Create a Sweep NURBS object and another Rectangle spline. Set the new rectangle spline to Width 6 and Height 6 and enable a Rounding of 2. Drop both rectangles into the sweep Nurbs in the correct order so the small one sweeps the large one.

Rename the Sweep NURBS object to 'Gutter'. You'll notice now that the strings don't line with the gutter correctly. Drop the String Object into the String Object Copies group, then select the copies group again and call the Select Children option again. Now select the row of points that line with the frontal board. Set

Create a new material, enable its color, reflection and specular. Load the woodboard.jpg into the color channel, set the reflection to 15%, set the specular Width to 23 and the Height to 100. Now drop this texture on HyperNURBS of the Harp Body, Select the texture tag that appears behind it and set the Projection to Cylindrical and enable seamless.

Switch to the Texture Axis Tool and you'll see a representation of the texture projection. Set the P rotation to -27.3 and apply. Set the Tiles X in the texture tag to 2, you'll notice that the texture is now tiled 2 times around the cylinder projection. We want this as we only see the rounded back of the harp body. Grab the Move tool and move the texture so it lines nicely with the harp body. Then grab the Scale tool and scale it larger a bit by dragging in the viewport.

Copy/Paste this material in the Material Manager and simply replace the texture in the color channel with wood.jpg. Drag this material to the frontal board, and set its projection to Cubic and enable seamless. Ctrl-drag this tag to the lower board, upper board and the

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Legs object. Now drag the woodboard material to the texture tag of the Legs object. This will replace the texture, but keep intact the projection and its settings. Ctrl-Drag this tag to the gutter and arm.

The Harp is now completely finished. If you have any questions please post them on the 3D Attack forum.

What Is Matte Painting?

An article by Lennart Oberscheidt Photograph

Lennart Oberscheidt Lead Modelling, TheSign DPE

Article

Picture by Thomas Pasieka

Film is a visual medium per definition. However, more often than not, a directors vision is far above what can be filmed in real life or what is possible to be built on set or location. Filmmakers have always tried overcoming those limitations by tricking the human eye with what is now known as visual effects in the film industry.

One integral part of visual effects and used much longer then most people think, is so called "matte painting". As the name suggests, it has to do with both matting and painting, and has been a rather complex process, which only nowadays, is associated with greenscreening and similar techniques.

Traditionally matte paintings were of course done with real paint, as something like a computer didn't exist back then.

A set was filmed with a masked camera so that the parts of the film that were supposed to be painted later remained unexposed. A frame of the film was used as reference for a painter, who traced the outlines and then painted his image on glass.

After some work

The matte painting was then combined with the original footage, exposed on those parts of the film that had been left unexposed due to the matting. Camera moves were close to impossible, however, with clever compositing and film usage things like zooms became an option.

Still, nothing could overcome the limitations of being 2D. The usage of large paintings on the set has actually nothing to do with the traditional art of matte painting, while a lot of those on set or in-camera techniques are also associated with it. Today, digital matte painting techniques have completely revolutionized the way of film making and the creation of fictional environments.

The computer offers a broad variety

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of options to combine live action footage with completely digital sets, set extensions and environments.

Almost all kinds of creating virtual environments are called matte painting, however, the process of creating the paintings has become even more complex due to the new possibilities.

The classical two-dimensional painting is still used for quite a lot of things like establishing shots where the camera doesn't move or at least doesn't have noticeable perspective changes. Matte Paintings usually consist of a variety of different elements, such as parts of photos, hand-drawn parts or rendered 3D models combined with programs

What Is Matte Painting?

An article by Lennart Oberscheidt

Article

Final Result

such as Adobe Photoshop. It basically depends on the artist, what he prefers to use or what he is required to use (such as photographs of existing sets, models, prerendered elements).

As this of course still does not allow for larger camera movements, the next "quality" of matte paintings would be a painting drawn with curved perspective, allowing for camera tilts or pans. Those paintings can then either be moved according to real live or 3d footage in the compositing package, or mapped to 3D cards in the 3D or compositing program.

So called 2.5D paintings are used more and more, as they allow for even more perspective freedom.

2.5D basically means projecting a 2D image onto rough 3D geometry and moving the virtual camera.

2.5D paintings can either consist of a photo or different photographic

elements or a painting mapped to 3d geometry built according to the image, or of an image created according to the 3D geometry. This 3D geometry can either be fully fictional or an extension of a real set.

The workflow for the latter usually is the most complex of all.

Real life footage is filmed and the matchmove department extracts the camera information to accurately duplicate the camera move on the computer. The 3D elements, such as buildings, are built and placed in 3D space.

A frame of the untextured, or only roughly textured objects, is then rendered and usually brought to life by the matte painter, as he or she is responsible for creating the visual detail, shadows, weathering and whatever is needed for the shot.

More then often those scenes are not lit anymore as all lighting information is already contained in the

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painting, which is then projected back to the 3D geometry using camera mapping.

Matte painting and other elements required for the shot are then combined in the compositing, where people or set elements filmed in front of green or bluescreen, plates extracted and cleaned by the rotoscopers, or additional effects such as particles for fire and smoke could then be inserted.

Lennart Oberscheidt

Interview with Paul Everett

By Thomas Pasieka

Thomas: Hi Paul! Thanks for taking time for 3D Attack today. What do you do for a living? Is plugin programming your "main job"?

Example of StormTracer

Interview

Paul: Yes, it has now become my main work and source of income.

Thomas: Why and when did you begin your career in programming and plugin development?

Paul: I guess you could say I got lucky. I was in the right place at the right time and was in a good enough position to take advantage of events and opportunity. I began my CINEMA explorations with COFFEE , which although quite flexible, soon becomes very restrictive.

After a while it became quite clear that I would have to invest in a c++ compiler and get my teeth into CINEMA's SDK. This was quite a daunting task at first, as the SDK is very weird to anyone but the guys that wrote it. After an awful lot of experimentation, I managed to see the light and figure how to make the beast do my will.

Thomas: Why have you chosen to develop plugins for CINEMA 4D? Paul: CINEMA has a great community and this creates an environ-

ment, which is pleasurable to work in and around. Beside this, the CINEMA SDK is the best in the world and it's often (if not always) very satisfying to work with.

ders to work with someone else.

You tend to keep each other motivated and on the ball, which increases the chances of completing a sellable product greatly.

Thomas: Where do you find your inspiration for new plugins?

Thomas: Of the plugins you have developed, what are your favorites?

Paul: I mainly do things for myself with no regard for what other people want or need. So when I start a project, it's usually just a small idea, which may be interesting to try out.

First I attempt create a solution to a problem. If this is possible, I might even create a dialog for it. If it gets this far it has a 5% chance of getting completed. If it gets completed it has a 10% chance that it might even get released & could be sold as a product.

Paul: Now this is tricky. If I look deep into my heart the tools I most use on a daily basis are not the ones that many would have heard of, so I would split this into 2 sections.

This means that for every product that I released there where probably 20 others that never made it. I don't consider this a waste of time or ideas though as I can often reuse my code at a later point in time for some other idea. I also spent a lot of time working with Mesh Surgery and Storm tracer with Per. It works won-

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A: the most useful everyday gadgets ranked in order of usage…

Drop a Null Showit.

Quick hide.

Flush materials.

Material exchange.

Sniper Pro. These are simple one click easy to use solutions to every day problems. They are not complicated, but they do exactly what they should without fuss or messing around. I use each of them almost every day and they are great for workflow.

Interview with Paul Everett

By Thomas Pasieka

B: most accomplished.

Storm Tracer: A mammoth super sprite project together with PerAnders.

Mesh surgery: Huge and original with some palatable solutions to everyday modeling problems.

Surface Painter: Because it was pretty much my first c++ plugin and was a nightmare to create.

Interview

Thomas: Can CINEMA 4D Release 9 users expect an update for Mesh Surgery? Maybe a Mesh Surgery 2?

Paul: That's hard to say. We haven't forgotten MS, its still under reconstruction. The problems with MS in R9 are not of our own making and some issues have still not been fully resolved. However, I can say that this work continues and we do have a stable version of MS for R9, but there are still limitations we have to overcome to make it worth releasing. When we do release the R9 version, we will be charging a small fee for new serials. I hope people can understand this and don't get to upset about the idea of paying for an update of this magnitude.

Thomas: What does your usual workday look like?

Paul: You mean night? I'm often awake half the night. For me this is the best time to concentrate. Trying to balance this with my family is a job in itself. To do this kind of thing you have to be in the right state of mind. If you're in a bad mood or not feeling so good, you wont be able to do much. I spend a lot of time just trying to do non-computerized things to clear my head and relax. In between the relaxing parts, I have mad programming sessions. A good session can easily last 10 or 15

hours almost nonstop. It's quite mad, but great to see what can be done in the right frame of mind.

Thomas: How much time is involved in developing a plugin?

like to see MAXON implement in the future?

Paul: I'd like to see more eye candy in the editor view and I would like them to try to get more out of Hardware gfx cards. Also I'd be very

Paul: A lot. First there is the build up to an idea. Then the experimental stage, then the push to take it beyond experiment, and then the final push to finish the thing, and then the super ultra push to make as bug free as possible and a product that you can sell.

Mesh surgery took me and Per 6 months and 6 to 12 hours a day for half a year. Storm tracer was also a 6-month project. It takes a lot of energy to complete something like this and without the teamwork it's hardly possible.

Thomas: When thinking about CINEMA 4D, what would you personally

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happy if they would spend more time improving existing features rather than adding more new gadg-

Interview with Paul Everett

By Thomas Pasieka

ets to an already large gadget palette.

Thomas: Lately you have released a few free plugins like "CityGen and Z Painter" The feedback you received from the CINEMA 4D community was both generous and amazing. How does that make you feel, and can we expect anything new in the near future?

Interview

Paul: I will only release things in this way when I am 100% sure that I won't attempt to do anything new with the plugin. For me this was kind of flushing process. I flushed them out so I don't have to think about them any more.

Thomas: Thanks again for taking time to do this interview. Do you have any last words or maybe some advice for those who would like to take the leap into plugin programming?

Paul: If you want to start writing plugins, be very careful. Once the bug bites, it wont let go and you will need to be 100% sure you can deal with that.

Visit Paul at: http://www.tools4d.com/

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Vreel Translucent Pro 1.2 Plugin Review by Georg Niedermeier

have only a slight Subsurface Scattering effect. Translucent Pro 1.2 also consists of a second shader which controls transparency of an object dependent on its thickness.

Vreel Translucent Pro 1.2 supports three different modes: Skin: for materials that don't have much transparency such as skin, plastic and so on. This is the fastest mode.

Volume: for materials that allows light to penetrate the object which it is attached to, some more, dependent on the settings that you apply.

The result will be more precise because the thickness of the object

Plugin Review

Translucent Pro 1.2 is a powerful Subsurface Scattering plug-in which unlike the Subsurface Scattering shader of CINEMA 4D’s Advanced Render, Translucent Pro 1.2 is optimized for a rather easy usage and quicker rendering. This doesn't mean that the Subsurface Scattering shader of Advanced Render is not useful, in fact, the SSS solution found in Advanced Render calculates this effect physically more correct than Translucent Pro 1.2, which is the reason for longer rendering times of the Advanced Render solution. Having to experiment with the

settings in order to create satisfying results is another side effect of the Advanced Render Subsurface Scattering.

Translucent Pro 1.2 is aimed at objects that should have the effect of light shining through the surface of an object. The thinner the object gets, the more this effect will be visible, and the closer the ray of light in relation to the object´s surface is, the more it will be visible. This results in very low calculation times because Translucent Pro 1.2 is quickest when used on objects that

in charge will be measured via rays.

You can drag and drop an unlimited number of light sources into the light group so that all these light sources will be considered.

This is actually not advisable because rendering times would increase dramatically. Of course it makes sense to use as less light sources as possible in the light group; between one and three light sources will do, most of the time.

Transparency: for materials where only the thickness needs to be considered. Light sources will not be

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considered in this mode because color and brightness will be created dependent on the object´s thickness only. Translucent Pro 1.2 allows you to even exclude hollow parts of objects or to control the shading using a spline curve, but that's not all!

Translucent Pro 1.2 comes with a special Transparent shader. It is a shader that can be used in any texture channel, but you will use it in the transparency or the alpha channel most of the time. It also is not light based because it calculates the objects thickness only. It calculates the color that you have specified by the thick->thin gradient. This plug-in is a revelation! It produces clean and very fast results that can be controlled easily.

It is a great addition to our favorite modeling tool and everybody who is interested in producing realistic shaders, that do not render forever, should not hesitate to buy it. It is a worthy investment. My assessment is a five out of five ATTACK points.

For more info just visit: http://www.vreel-3d.de/ Here you will find a lot of free presets, user manuals and example pictures.

Liquid Logo animation

By Rui Batista

I was asked to write a tutorial about how to create the effect of a liquid puddle on a surface changing into a specific shape - a logo, a silhouette, a word, etc.

Tutorial

At the start I thought about using Thinking Particles, but it was like using a flame-thrower to kill a mosquito ;-) I soon realized there was an easier way: using a Morph track.

So, the first thing I did was to create the final stage of the transformation.

In this case, I decided to create a generic logo. I made it in FreeHand and exported it as an Illustrator 3.x file. Then, I opened it in CINEMA 4D and, using the imported splines, created an ExtrudeNURBS [Pic01].

Picture 01

The most important thing in the ExtrudeNURBS is to turn the Regular Grid option on. [Pic02] You can choose whatever value you prefer. A larger number will give you

Picture 02

less points to work with, speeding the whole process - preparation and render - but the amount of detail will

drop. A smaller number will give you lots of detail, but the amount of work to prepare the file and the render time will increase. So, be wise choosing this number. After converting it to an editable polygonal object, I deleted everything except one of the Caps (choose whatever you like best, they are similar) [Pic03].

Picture 04

Picture 03

Now that I have my final stage as a polygonal object, I decided to work only with points. So, I selected all polygons and deleted them. This is perfectly optional but has two advantages: requires less memory and you don't have to worry about it appearing on the render. This is just an auxiliary object, after all.

So, if you prefer to work with polygons (points become invisible if you don't have your object selected and you are not in Point mode), feel free to keep it like it was generated.

Since we are going to create a Morph, we need to duplicate it twice since we are going to need three versions: a morphing object and a start and finish shape.

Name them accordingly. Something like: Logo, Start and End, respectively.

Now, hide the Logo and End objects. Lets start editing the Start object so that it looks like a puddle.

Selecting sets of points and using the Magnet tool (or the Brush tool of release 9), start moving points so that they all fill the inner spaces between shapes of the logo [Pic04].

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I like to turn on the Nearest Point option of the Magnet tool since it makes it so much easier to drag points, but you can use whatever methods you prefer. This is the most time consuming part of the tutorial, so the number of points generated by the Regular Grid option of the ExtrudeNURBS is very important.

The objective is to end up with something similar to this: [Pic05]

Picture 05

Now we have "continuous" surface, but it is still not very similar to a puddle. You could still shape it to a puddle using the Magnet tool, but there is an easier way: a FreeFormDeformer. Create a new FFD, place it as a child of the Start object, set its subdivisions to a number you think is reasonable and edit away.

After you are happy with the shape of the puddle (something like this) [Pic06], select the Start object and choose Current State to Object from the Functions menu. You can now delete your original Start object, the one with the FDD as a child.

Liquid Logo animation

By Rui Batista

Picture 06

Tutorial

Ok, now we have everything we need: a morphing object named Logo (make it visible), a Start shape (make it invisible) and an End shape (keep it invisible).

Select the Logo object and, in the Timeline, add it a Morph track. Set a start keyframe and assign it the Start object. Set an end keyframe and assign it the End object. [Pic07] If you want to test the morph, change to Point mode, select the Logo object and scrub the Timeline.

Picture 08

Proximal shader to open its properties. Drag your Logo object into the Objects field. Turn the Use Vertices option, on. Set the Function to Smooth. [Pic09] Now we could leave it like this, but after some experimentation I realized that the End Distance option needed to be

dimensions of a table top. Place it or scale it so that the Plane stays a little above its top face. Why all this worry about the placement of the objects? Well, lets examine each one. You have the surface object, where the puddle will be on. Right beneath it you have the Plane object with the liquid material assigned.

The Displacement will make it rise above the surface.

So, only the places that are made white by the Proximal shader will rise, everything else will remain bellow the surface object. Now, right below the Plane object we have the Logo object that will create the Proximal map on the Plane object. It is placed a little below it because, this way, the Proximal effect will be even smoother. Check out this schematic: [Pic10]

Picture 10 Picture 07

We could simply place the Logo object inside a Metaballs object now and try to adjust its parameters until we have a convincing liquid blob.

That is what I foolishly did at the beginning. Soon, I realized that even on my 2x2.5Ghz G5, this was taking forever. Metaballs calculations are just too complex and the final result isn't worth it in this case.

So, after some individual brainstorming, I decided to use a completely different method. Now that I have all the points doing the movement I want, I can use them to displace a surface using a Proximal shader. So, create a new material.

In the Displacement channel, place a Proximal shader [Pic08]. Click the

Picture 09

adjusted over the animation so that the final value is small enough to give us a crisp result but feel free to adjust it the way you prefer.

Set the rest of the channels to create a nice looking liquid.

Create a Plane object that is at least the maximum dimensions of the Start object. Place it a little above the Logo object (I'll explain why in a moment). Set its subdivisions really high or, if you are a lucky owner of Release 9, adjust the Sub Polygon Displacement options of the Displacement channel of the liquid material. Now, assign the liquid material to this plane. Finally, create a surface where the puddle will be on. I used a Cube, scaled to the

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In this example, the Proximal effect is showed in orange, but in reality, it will be white over a black background, creating the displacement effect.

Of course, the Displacement value of the liquid material must be set accordingly, so that the liquid will appear through the surface. So, experimentation is advised. The Proximal shader is not the fastest shader around, but this method is way faster than the Metaballs method and it will give you much more control too.

To finish, a few suggestions: Instead of a nice whole puddle, use some of the outer points to create

Liquid Logo animation

By Rui Batista

some individual surrounding drops of liquid.

Adjust the timing of the morph so that the transformation becomes more interesting.

If the final resolution is not enough, you can fade out the final morph using a Display tag and animating the Visibility from 100% to 0% while fading in, using a Display tag also, a more perfect version of the final stage.

Tutorial

Lighting is very important. Since we are dealing with almost transparent objects, the shapes are defined by the highlights. So, take time to adjust the lights well.

And this is it. Do your own experiments based in this tutorial. And don't be afraid to go overboard :-) Keep on Attacking!!

Check the “Goodies” folder for a animation file (Quicktime) of this tutorial and make sure to check the C4D file to see how it works.

Have fun!

Rui Batista

28

3D Sound Tutorial

By Jamie Hamel - Smith

Welcome, this month I'll be walking you through creating a scene using those mysterious sound objects that live deep in the CINEMA 4D menus.

For this tutorial I'll be using the windows keyboard shortcuts, so if you are using an Apple, just exchange the "ctrl" modifier for the "cmd" modifier.

The 3D Sound Rendering part of CINEMA 4Dis actually quite powerful if used right. It basically consists of 2 different types of objects; A Microphone Object, and a Speaker Object. (image_01) Speaker Objects are used to "emit" sound

to Objects > Sound > Loudspeaker and create a Loudspeaker object.

We will need 3 Loudspeakers in all.

One for each thruster and one for the main engines. Position them as shown and name them appropriately. You may also want to disable the visibility of the speaker objects in the view port, just to prevent too much clutter. (image_02) (image_03)

Image04

Tutorial

Image02

Manager, right click the "Z Position" and choose Animation > Add Keyframe (image_05) now that we have a keyframe set for frame 0, we can move the time slider to 10 sec-

Image03

Image01

and the microphone objects are used to "pick up" the sounds. Both objects incorporate falloff, i.e. the distance that the sound travels outward from the speakers, and the distance that the microphone object starts picking up the sound.

Use the Space Ship model that I provided; Open the file called "Space Ship.c4d" now we are going to set up some speaker objects. Go

Now we are going to set up a Camera. Create a Target Camera (Objects > Scene > Target Camera).

In the view port Menu for your perspective view, go to Cameras > Scene Cameras > Camera. This will select our newly created camera as the active perspective camera.

Switch to the top view port (F2) and position the Camera and Camera Target as shown; (image_04) Switch back to the Perspective View Port (F1) and you should see the ship framed quite nicely in the view port. Now we are going to animate the ship flying past the camera.

Select the ship, and go to the "Coord" Page of the Attributes

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Image05

onds and enter 2000 in the "Z Position" and then right click it again and set another keyframe. (image_06) Now when you play the animation, the ship should slowly fly towards the camera. Return to Frame 0, and set a Keyframe for the "B Rotation" using the same method. Now move the time slider to 10 seconds and enter 110 into the "B Rotation" field, then set another keyframe. Now the ship sort of spins towards the camera… looks good to me! Now we add the rumble of the engines! Select the "Engines Loudspeaker" object, and in the

3D Sound Tutorial

By Jamie Hamel - Smith

camera object to make it a child of the camera.

Now we have everything we need to create 3D Sound in CINEMA 4D. For this tutorial, I want to add a couple of extra sound effects. We are going to animate the thrusters on the tips of the wings that control the banking of the spacecraft.

Image06

Tutorial

Attributes Manager, change the outer falloff to 3000 (image_07), now might be a good time to select the "Thruster Loudspeaker" objects and make their falloff 2500. Open

Image08

ter… but that's not where our ears are. We have to position the stereo microphone object at the camera's position. Select the Stereo Microphone object and go to the Functions Menu > Transfer. (image_09) drag the camera into the blank field, and check "Enable Rotation" and "Enable Move", then hit apply. You have just moved the

We will start with the thruster that points downward. Create a light object, Objects > Scene > Light. In the attributes manager, under the "General" Page, Set the Type of light to a "Spot (Round)" Set the Visible Light to "Visible", set Noise to "Visibility" and Check "No Light Radiation" (image_10) Switch to the Noise page and adjust the "Wind" and "Wind Velocity" settings as fol-

Image07

the Timeline (Shift-F3) and drag the Engines Loudspeaker object into the Timeline. Right click the Engines Loudspeaker object in the Timeline and Choose New Track > Sound.

Now we have created a blank sound sequence that the speaker will play.

Select the track in the Timeline and its properties should appear in the Attributes Manager. Select the "search button" next to the blank field and choose the provided .wav file called "Engines Sound.wav" (image_08).

Now that the engines are emitting sound, we need an object to pick up the sound. Go to the Objects Menu and Choose Sound > Stereo Microphone. A Stereo Microphone object is created at the world cen-

Image10

Image09

microphone(s) to the exact position of the camera. Normally, I would make the microphone(s) a child of the camera at this point, but since the camera is not going to move for this tutorial, it really isn't necessary, but let's do it anyway ;-) Go on and drag the microphone(s) into the

30

lows: Wind = 0,0,1 & Wind Velocity = 10. (image_11) Now switch to the top viewport (F2) and position the light where the thruster is then rotate it -90 on the (B) Axis. If we switch to the right viewport (F3) we can position it vertically so it lines up with the thruster. Now either through the Attributes Manager, or by interactively dragging the visibility falloff handle in the viewport, make the

3D Sound Tutorial

By Jamie Hamel - Smith

"Space Ship" and play the animation. They are now moving with the Space Ship object… Perfect!

Tutorial

Image11

falloff smaller. (A value of 250 is pretty good) (image_12) Now that the parameters of the light are set up, rename it "Thruster 1", duplicate it, and name the copy "Thruster 2",

Now we switch to the Timeline (Shift-F3) for a while. So far, you should have the Engines Loudspeaker and a sound track loaded for it. We need to drag the 2 Thruster Loudspeakers and the 2 lights into the Timeline also. Once the Thruster Loudspeakers are in the Timeline, we can create a Sound Track and Sequence just as we did for the Engines Loudspeaker earlier in this tutorial. Typically when Space Ships with gas powered corrective thrusters like these are shown in a motion picture, they fire in short bursts, almost like a gentle tap to keep a ball rolling in a straight line.

We will add sound to "Thruster 1 Loudspeaker" first.

Select the Sound sequence just as you did earlier in this tutorial, and load a sound into the thruster's sound sequence. Use any of the provided "psssshhh" sound effects in the Sound Clips folder of the project. Once one is loaded, drag the left sequence border of the sound so that it only frames the actual sound. (image_13) Now Right click the Sound Track (where it actually says "Sound") and choose "New

Image12

Go to the top viewport (F2) and position "Thruster 2" where the other thruster is. Since this second thruster points upwards, we will need to adjust the rotation of "Thruster 2". Rotate it so it points upwards, or enter 90 in the (B) rotation field. We will now make the 2 "Thruster Lights" children of the Space Ship Object. Drag them into

now we can add another "psssshhh" sound effect to this newly created sequence. Repeat those steps until you have 4 or 5 "psssshhh" noises in the first thruster's Sound Track.

Repeat the same steps for the second thruster, but don't let the first and second thruster's sound sequences overlap. Because the thrusters point in opposite directions, they probably won't fire at the same time ;-) By the Way, you can Ctrl-Drag the sequences you created for the first Thruster loudspeaker from its Sound Track to the second Thruster loudspeaker's Sound Track, but you must delete the existing sequence first! This is what I came up with. (image_14)

Image14

We want the thruster lights to thrust in time with the sound effects right?

Of course we do ;-) Select "Thruster 1" in the Object Manager, then in the Attributes manager choose the Visibility page, right click "Outer Distance" Choose Animation > Add Track. We now have a Parameter track in the Timeline to animate the distance of the visibility. Ctrl-Click the sequence to create key frames and using the values 250 and 0, animate the parameter so that it is in time with the "psssshhh" sounds.

Image13

Sequence" when the dialog pops up, enter 4-5 seconds as the length of the sequence (we can't create an additional sequence over a sequence that is already there) so

31

It will clean up things a bit if after animating the Parameter, we go into the F-Curve Manager (Shift-F4) and select all of the points on the curve, right click and choose Custom

3D Sound Tutorial

By Jamie Hamel - Smith

Tangents > Soft Interpolation, than Choose Custom Tangents > Flat Repeat this process for "Thruster 2" and we are all done! (image_15) The next step is to render the 3D Sound. Go to the Timeline, Under the File Menu; Choose "3D Sound Rendering" A dialog will pop up asking you where to save the rendered sound file. Choose a location and hit OK.

Tutorial

The global status bar should indicate that CINEMA 4D is processing the sound data and it shouldn't take more than 15 seconds.

If you have CINEMA 4D 8 or 9, you can import the rendered sound file and play it back in the viewport in real time. But if you have CINEMA 4D 6 or 7, you will need to render the Animation as a movie and add the sound in another program such as; QuickTime Pro, Adobe Premiere etc…

For CINEMA 4D 8 or 9, Choose "Save As" from the file menu and save the file with a new name denoting that it is a version of your file without 3D Sound (I used "Space Ship 2D Sound.c4d") Now delete the loudspeakers and microphone(s) from this file, and create a Null

Image15

Object. Drag the Null into the Timeline and create a new Sound Track for it.

use the "Add" command from under the edit menu to paste the audio over the rendered video.

Load the rendered sound into the Sound sequence, enable the sound playback button right next to the play controls in the CINEMA 4D interface, and play your 3D rendered sound Animation!

Happy rendering.....

Those of you using QuickTime Pro will have to open the rendered sound file in QuickTime Player and

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Jamiehs 3D ATTACK MODERATOR

Character Modeling - Part 3

By Mark Gmehling

NEWBIE CHARACTER MODELING PART 3:

Tutorial

Hey there Attackers! In this third part of my Newbie poly-by-poly Character Modeling tutorial- I'll focus on some major tweaks with the global head shape (the mouth especially). I'll add teeth and begin the modeling of the torso area.

As always, I try to make all steps easy to follow, even for newbies or users/switchers of/from other 3D applications. I'm using C4D Rel.9, but you'll be able to follow although you may use an earlier version.

If you just want to follow this part, and didn't follow the first two, notice that I'm using the free easy-clone plugin here and there- its available here: http://www.spot4d.co.uk/plugins_easyclone.html. Just download it and place it in your C4d plugin folder…A useful tool. Lets start with tuning the mouth to a more suitable shape. In order to easily select the needed points without affecting the backfaces, I switch to polymode (PolygonTool) in sideview(F3) and rectangle select the back of the head shape (notice that I disabled "select visible only"). Then I hide these polys by going to SelectionHide Selected- pic01/02.

Unhide all. Before I start adding teeth I hide the whole head shape by disabling the view in editor by clicking the upper little grey dot two times next to the hypernurbs in the object manager. (Changing its color to red makes the mesh invisible)pic06.

ADDING GUMS clicking the Q-key to dis/enable the hypernurbs for a clearer view on your selections speeds up your workflow).

I scale(T) my selected points smaller as shown in pic04.

Because I want to work with a symmetry object, I move the polygon shown to x:0 (coordinates manager) and delete it- pic07/08.

After that it’s time to tweak the points by moving them(in perspective view F1) to relax the mesh- take a look at pic05.(Another nice workflow speeder is using the space bar to toggle between the last two used tools) In Frontview I rectangle-select the points shown in pic03. (By the way: If you take a look in 3D Attacks Tips and Tricks section you may know

First of all I add gums to align the teeth on. I'll use a simple shape extruded out of a cube. So, I create a cube(Objects-Primitive-Cube) rename it "uppergums" size it to 25,25,25m and leave all other attributes default- then convert it (C).

Ok- time to bring back the hidden polys. We switch to polymode (Use polygon tool) and go to selection-

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Then I create a symmetry object and make it parent of the gums mesh. Before I extrude the shape I place it in the mouth cavity using the orthogonal views to bring it in place

Character Modeling - Part 3

By Mark Gmehling

by switching to object modepic9/10/11. Toggle between quickshading and line shading to get a clear view. I edited two shortcuts for

To add the bottom gums I just copy the upper gum part (by ctrl-dragging it in the objects manager-renaming it bottom gums) and adjust the shape as written above. Notice that you'll have to make an additional null object child of the symmetry object and put the gum parts in it to get both gum parts affected by the symmetry object-pic15. Notice that the

Tutorial

lower gum part is moved a little inside along z-axis.

ADDING TEETH For adding teeth I create a cube (Objects- Primitive-Cube) rename it teeth and adjust its attributes as seen in pic16.

After converting it (Clicking C) I

this: the oe and ae keys on my german keyboard- just rightclick/command click on mac on a button menu and choose edit palette- this brings up the command list where you can setup/edit your own shortcuts).

OK- now I extrude(D) the upper gums- look at pic12-14 while in topview poly-mode(F2). I create the u-shape with least extrusions possible to detail the curve flow, after that adding subdivision with the knife tool(K).

So, first move the poly shown in pic12 along the x-axis and rotate it about 45 degrees (You can snap your moving/scaling or rotating by holding shift)- then extrude(D) along z and rotate it a little bit as seen in pic13. Check the alignment to the mouth shape in perspective view(F1) and move the points of the gum shape or the mouth to align it nicely. pic14.

Maybe you'll have to insert a loop depends on your mouth shape. Just use the knife tool(K) in loop mode to get more points to adjust it to your mouth shape.

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move it in the right place referencing to the orthogonal views- pic17/18.

Notice that I scaled the whole tooth in object mode, especially the zaxis.

Then I drag the teeth mesh into the null object containing the gums

Character Modeling - Part 3

Tutorial

By Mark Gmehling

meshes and move(E) it along the xaxis. And I get the first two teeth that have to be tweaked a little bitpic19. The other teeth are ctrl-drag

nect the teeth- depends on the detail level you want to get with texturing- just set selections for the teeth and the gums before connecting these meshes to the head mesh.

BLOCKING OUT THE TORSOAREA All right -lets start blocking out the neck and torso area: I select the head mesh and press the q-key to disable the hypernurbs smoothing to get a clearer view on the points.

copies of the first one aligned/moved(E) in object mode and tweaked in point mode using the rectangle selection- same procedure as the first one. Take a look at pic20.

The lower tooth row is created in the same way, just ctrl-copy a tooth that fits the shape move/rotate/scale and place it in object mode and tweak in point mode- pic21. Ok that's it for the teeth. When you prepare your character for rigging you may con-

I select the bottom points of the head mesh and easy-clone them by clicking the easy clone button and move(E) the new points down along y-axis- pic22/23.

Now I bridge(B) the new points to polys- pic24. The new points still selected, I go to the coordinates manager and adjust y-size to 0pic25.

that I want to model because it’s faster, in my opinion, to add detail by inserting loops than model step by step from top to bottom.

I move this bottom row down till it covers the whole upper body area

Before I start adding loops I adjust the shape of the neck by moving(E)

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Character Modeling - Part 3

By Mark Gmehling

Tutorial

the points- pic26/27/28. Then I insert to loops with the Knife Tool(K)

along the x-axis-pic33. After that I extrude(D) the still selected polys as seen in pic34 and set the x-size to 0 in the coordinates manager- pic35.

in loop mode- pic29. Now I adjust the area where I want to extrude the arms to get a rounded shapepic30.

pic40/41.

OK that's enough for this issue- next

I switch to poly mode and select the polys shown in pic32 and move the

Now it’s point moving time again.

Switched back to point mode, I adjust the points to roughly block out a believable torso shape pic36/37. In front view I add one more loop to the torso shape with the Knife Tool(K) in loop mode (Notice that you have to align the tool at the symmetry cut to be sure your mesh will be cut continuous.)pic38. I rectangle select the bottom point row and move it down- pic39 and tweak the newly inserted points by moving them in the right place-

36

time I'll detail the torso/ block out arms and hands. CU on the board/ Keep Attacking!

Instance Maker

By Base80

Well, it has been one year since the first mag so I've got a present for you.It is a node and a set of very practical uses of it. This is not just a stupid node, it is a great node actually.

get the settings. Drop some stuff in there and modify the two splines to modify rotation and scale variations.

These are the settings in the User-

I did not make it myself, I begged Majoul to make it for me (http://perso.wanadoo.fr/archizone/A ccueil.htm). He does C.O.F.F.E.E. programming and can make real nodes, and that makes me really jealous.

Tutorial

I have made a set of example files to show the strength of the node.

Now Run to the goodies folder and open the files included. There a four files actually.

Island-Painter Open "Island-Painter" first. It is just a sample file made for fun to show one of thousand possibilities of the node. There are 3 Engines in there; Pebble Rebel, Sand Dispenser and Weed Seeder. When you draw a spline they will place instances of an object along that spline and do that with variation in scale and rotation.

In the user-data of the XPresso-Tag you can modify the objects attributed.

Shape-Painter If you want to "paint" your own compositions open the Shape-Painter file. The enclosed engine is called Instance-Painter. Click on the tag to

Data. The container is usually a null object but be sure to try this with a Loft Nurb and a Spline as objects, it is hallucinating really.

of instances on a spline with same intervals.

The settings of instance on a spline by number. All of the above work on any kind of spline with any kind of

interpolation. However, they work best on splines in one segment ( no separate pieces).

Instance on polygon This is a simple one, it places objects on polygons. It counts the number of polygons and generates the cube then it places the cubes on your mesh.

All of the above XPresso's generate the instances automatically.

Things you can do with the instance maker

Instance on Spline There are three xpresso's in there.

These are going to make life a lot easier. They are advanced align-tospline expressions. And they are animated.

There are a lot of possibilities for instance maker. I am only starting to realize some of them. It could even be a kind of low-tech particle generator.

- Instance on Spline by Number: Creates a fixed number of instances on a spline and controls the interdistance.

- Instance on Spline by Distance: Creates instances on a spline with a fixed distance between them. Useful for a necklace, a garden fence, rail tracks,... The number of instances is calculated for you. The instances can be animated to create rollercoasters or whatever.

- Instance on Spline by Distribution: This one distributes a given number

I have made an XPresso that places cubes on every polygon of Otto. (don't try this at home it is heavy and slow). I have made a garden fence with poles every 2 meters or train tracks with sleepers...

Please help me find all the possibilities of the instance-maker node.

Post your creations in the XPresso part of the forum. Show me how you have used instance-painter or any other variation of instance maker. About the Instance Maker by Majoul........

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Instance Maker

By Base80

Tutorial

This node makes instances of an object on the fly with XPresso. As many as you like whenever you like.

This is the first XPresso node that actually creates objects. This is the node and explanation of its ports.

Ports Object port; connect the object to be reproduced, Container port; connect the object you want the instances in, can be a loft nurb oh a HN or a plain null. Number_of_instances port; well this is where you type the number of instances.

Open the files enclosed in the goodies to get an idea of how to put the node to practice. Some Hierarchy node stuff is required.

XPresso.

Do NOT distribute the expressions nor the node. It is a present with the magazine. The node expressions and the node are for personal use only.

Keep on Attacking!

Base80 3D ATTACK MODERATOR

(I have made an Xpool and dropped my favorite nodes in there, so I can use them when ever I need them without figuring out where I left them.) Have fun with the expressions and the node itself, if you like

38

How To Model Pavement

By Luis Tappa Model Pavement Here is a mini-tutorial on how to model a paved road I used in one of my works in progress (pic01).

Tutorial

Picture 01

In order to obtain a nice pavement visual, I decided to model them one by one. Crazy you will say? Not at all, you 'll see that starting from a set of a few basic stones it is possible to cover a lot of surface without noticing any repetition.

Well, let's go!

We will start from a cube that we will adjust to a more rectangular shape, say 150x150x300 (of whatever units you are using), which we will divide 5 times in all faces (in the X,Y and Z segments parameters of the attributes manager) (pic02)

But first, we will need to sharpen the edges a bit by moving all the rows close to the edges as shown in the picture.(pic03) For our pave stone to have an irregular aspect, we will apply a crumple deformation. We

paved stones using the same mesh, but that don't have the same shape since they all originate from different sides of the model (pic05).

You just have to rotate the ones that

Picture 03

Picture 05

will apply it lightly. Enough to have a random shape, not too much as to not being in the extremes and have a badly dented paved stone. The strength of the crumble should be applied depending on your object, so just do it by eye.

need it, so all the faces point upward. Add a plane object, subdivide it using its segments parameters (see how much is needed, depending on the size of your plane), make it editable (C shortcut) and use once again the crumple deformation ("set point value" function, on "crumple (Axial)" mode on the Y axis").

The crumple deformer can be found by right-clicking in the viewport, when in polygonal mode, select "Set Point Value" and adjust your crumple parameters on the Y axis using "axial" mode (make sure no polygon is selected to apply the deformation to the whole mesh) (pic04)

Do not crumple the plane too much, we want finesse here. With the plane done, you have to model the sand under the stones (pic06).

Picture 04

Ok, now we have our paved stone finished, but let's optimize the mesh a bit. Since we will only see the top part of it, erase all the polygons that won't be seen.

Picture 02

Dividing the surfaces allows for more control when we will put the cube in a Hypernurb and to have enough points to move around to give it a more irregular aspect.

We will do even better than that : we will make 3 copies of that object and erase the top part on one of the copy, the whole right part of the mesh of the second one, and the whole left part of the last one. This way we quickly created a set of 4

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Picture 06

Duplicate some stones, and create your basic set now. Add some textures too. Here I used a modified concrete texture from Noctua-graphics named "concrete_06". I unchecked the displacement channel here since I modeled in 3D the displacement (pic07).

For the sand, I used the texture "concrete_03" from the Noctua-

How to model a pavement

By Luis Tappa

graphics website too, but played with the filter shader to give it more warmth (pic08).

Tutorial

Picture 07

will be at the same level of the Polygon Reduction Object inside that Null will be polygon reduced by that deformer. Adjust the values as needed, as much as you can, but be careful not to lose too much crumple details (higher Reduction strength values will reduce more polygons).

On my scene here, one of my paved stones had 1040 polygons and have been reduced to 200. Here are two rows of stones, one high-res and the other low-res, we hardly see the difference, especially if you are not close (pic09).

Picture 08

Picture 09

Our pavement is starting to take shape.

Now we have a little problem : all this generates a lot of polygons, since our basic paved stone is subdivided and placed into a Hypernurb.

If you were to duplicate this by the thousand, the computer would choke quickly, so let's see if we can decrease the number of polygons (needed to have a nice crumple deformation) so we can actually use these shapes.

Here, we will use the "Polygon Reduction Object". Select "Objects>Deformations>Polygon Reduction" object and place it inside a Null Object.

Once satisfied with your polygon reduction, don't forget to make everything editable, otherwise the Polygon Reduction Object will slow down things a lot since it will try to re-calculate the reduction each time you change anything in the scene for this. Select the parent Null object, and make everything editable (C shortcut).

And that's it! Just make two or three different rows (as shown on image 8), and duplicate them using instances as needed.

Have fun. Luis Tappa.

Then place all your paved stones in that Null object, and everything that

40

CD Morph - Tutorial

By Sebastien Florand Hello fellow Attackers, This month I would like to introduce you quickly to the newly released CD Morph plugin from Cactus Dan. As usual, that's an incredible piece of software which will make our character setup much easier and much more convincing.

CD Morph only needs a reference object to work with, and stores point deformation in tags, so as a result, you won't have to deal with a bunch of copies of the mesh you want to deform, keep the filesize light and the display stays really fast.

customize you interface and dock CD Morph's palette somewhere convenient when you work with this plugin).

You can now see that the function does two things : it adds a Reference tag to you main mesh, and it duplicates your main mesh to use as a reference (the duplicated object won't be deformed - it is used to tell CD Morph what is the default state for this mesh). If you click on the Reference tag, you'll notice that the Reference object has been automatically placed in the proper object link [pic2]

palette you should have set up earlier, if you listened to me). This brings up a window where all the objects from the hierarchy are displayed.

Select the Object that you want to apply the tag to (here select the "Mouth Morphs" Null Object we just created), and click OK. [pic3] [pic4]

Tutorial

But enough talking, let's get down and dirty with that sweet baby.

1-Creating your reference object First thing, you'll need a model to work with. In this tutorial, I will be using that chick who, far from perfect, is good enough to demonstrate the plugin's possibilities [pic1]

Picture 03

Picture 02

Picture 01

Select your main mesh and select "CD Add Morph Reference" from the plugin menu (I would advise you to

2-Setting some points selections Next thing we will need to do is to record some points selection to be stored in a tag. Since CDMorph uses tags to store points, we will ant to arrange tags so we can find them easily later on - the neat thing is that the tags don't need to be on the mesh, and can be placed anywhere in the hierarchy (unless you want to have a bone driven deformation, but we will see that later on). The Null Objects are quite useful for this purpose, and can be renamed conveniently. Create a Null Object and rename it "mouth Morphs".

Then, select the points you want to deform and select "CD Set Morph Selection" from the plugin menu (or

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Picture 04

This applies a CD Morph tag to the Null object, which is linked to our main mesh.

3-Make a Morph Select the CD Morph tag and you'll

CD Morph - Tutorial

By Sebastien Florand

Tutorial

notice a bunch of options. They are used to either modify the selection recorded in the tag (if you need to edit them later on), and controls to record your morphings. Select your main mesh and move the points you selected earlier around. If you lost your previous selection, select the CD Morph tag and click on "Restore Selection".

I will setup a mouth closed for my character by moving points around and click on the "Set Offset" button to store that morph in the CD Morph tag. The pose jumps back to its default state. If you need to check a specific morph, and see what it looks like at this stage, or modify that morph, then click on the "Edit Offset" button from the Morph tag (reapply a "Set Offset" once satisfied with your tweaking) [pic5]

Null Object and select the tag "CDMorph tags>CD Morph Mixer tag". Select the tag and click on "Add Mix" - this creates to new parameters : one link to drop your Morph tag on, and a slider that will drive the morphing. Select your Morph tag and drop it in the link box. You will see that the slider and the link box will take the name after the name of the Morph tag, so it is a good idea to rename that Morph tag ("basic" tab of the Morph tag), so you can identify it easily. In my example, I renamed it "Mouth closed" [pic6]

Setting it up is really easy too, thanks to Dan's magic fingers.

Right-Click on the "Mouth Morphs" Null Object and select "CDMorph tags>CD Morph Slider" [pic7]

Picture 07

Picture 05

4-Create a slider Now that we have a morph state, we will need some kind of control to use it. CD Moprh offers two different ways of doing so, which is good, because life is all about choice.

The first method is to use the Mixer, to regroup all your morphs at the same place and for those who prefer the Posemixer type interface.

Right-click on the "Mouth Morphs"

Picture 06

Test the link and your morphing by using the slider. It moves, nice : The second method is to use the new Osipa slider. That slider is a slider constrained in a box that can be driven directly from the viewport and allows a more intuitive control.

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Select the new tag and you'll notice three tabs. The "tag" tab contains the setup for the constraining box (size, position, color). The "Output" tab contains the parameters which will decide how the morphs are handled and output by the slider and finally the "Morph Tags" tab allows you to apply a morph along a specific axis of the slider - the options available will depend on the size and output parameters you setup in the other tabs.

In my example, I want a simple vertical slider, that will work from bottom to top (starting with my mouth

CD Morph - Tutorial

By Sebastien Florand

Tutorial

opened and morphing it to a closed shape, hence making an upward movement). In the "Tag" tab, we will first position our Osipa box in the viewport so that it is in front of our mesh (here -55 on the Y axis and 120 on the Z axis), and resize the box so that only the vertical movements are allowed (0 on the X axis and 20 on the Y axis). You'll notice that, even though I input 0 on the X axis, the box is still quite big on its width - that is because it takes into account the size of the Null object display object - which is 10m by default). Let's display the Null Object axis and turn it into a 2 meters circle. Notice that the box resizes itself, neat [pic8]

at the top of the box, the output value should be 100% [pic9] And that's it, your morphs are ready to

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animate. Test the slider to check how it behaves and keep in ming that things can be modified anytime, which is a great feature. Use the same basic principles to create all the morphs you need, using Null Objects to hold tags neatly arranged, name Morph tags properly so they can easily be identified if your use the slider interface, and basically have fun.

Then Select some points to deform on the biceps and apply a Morph selection tag (as described earlierwill you listen or what?). This time around, though, we will apply the Morph tag to the lower arm bone, since it will be the one that will drive the morphing [pic11]

5-Bone driven morphs

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Next, we need to tell which morph tag this slider will control. Select the "morph Tag" tab. Since we told the box that its width should be 0 on the X axis, then the X controls disappeared from from that tab, great to avoid confusion.

I want an upward movement of the slider, so I will drop my Morph tag into the +Y control link. Since I want my morph to be used an the whole positive range of the slider (0% 100%), I will need to check the "1 Direction" checkbox from the "Output" tab, along the Y axis. This will tell the slider that at the bottom of the box, its output value will be 0% strength for the morph, and that

Here is another nice feature about CD Morph : it allows you to deform the mesh depending on the angle of a bone. One bone can easily drive several morphs, so if you have difficult areas to deform, like the shoulder of a character, so can easily do so using that feature. The bulging of a muscle is also within reach now, without hassle.Here is a quick muscle example using Otto from the Object library. First, create some bones for his arm and paint your bone weights as you would usually do when creating a character for animation. As you can see, when moving the lower arm bone, it does absolutely nothing to the muscle of the upper arm - that's where CDMorph will apply its magic [pic10] Select the Otto mesh and apply a Reference tag as described earlier.

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Select that Morph tag, move the points around to create a nice bulge and click on "Set Offset" to record the new deformation [pic12] Now you will need to tell the Morph tag that it should be controlled by the rotation of the bone. In the "Controller" tab of that tag, you will find all you need to set that up.

Check the "Morph using Bone

CD Morph - Tutorial

By Sebastien Florand

Tutorial

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Rotation" checkbox to activate the link between the morph and the bone. Min and Max values will define the range of motion of the bone, and how it will affect the morphing. Let's start with a -90 degrees angle as a minimum as for our example, since the bone rotation reaches negative values when I move it to fold the arm - here I move the bone on its heading, so the H parameter should be selected.

I check my deformation by moving the bone (make sur to record a rotation key for this, if you don't want to lose your default position) and notice that the deformation will increase as long as I keep rotating my bone. You can use the "clamp" checkbox for these or adjust the range of rotation for your bone (if the deformation is too strong, then it certainly means that your range of rotation is not wide enough).

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"Clamp" will clamp at their minimum and/or maximum values the morphings. If you keep rotation the bone and the deformation reaches its 100% or 0% value, then it won't go past these. This a a good way to avoid "inversed" morph when rotating the bone the other way. [pic13] You will find in the goodies folder the Otto file, with that simple setup, and make sure to check Cactus

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Dan's examples that can be found in the "Examples" folder of the plugin, some are jaw dropping ;) We are finished for now, we covered all the basics for CD Morph and it should help you get started early on.

Everything is up to you afterward, so make us dream with your best animations! Cheers, Fluffy

Artist Spotlight...

Bram van Gerwen

Spotlight

Name: Bram van Gerwen Age: 25 Occupation: 3D Designer/Animator Country: Netherlands Software: CINEMA 4D R9 Studio Bundle, Mojoworld3, Painter7 and Adobe Creative Suite Favorite places on the web: 3D Attack, 3D Commune

Artist Comments: I'll try to keep a long story short as I have the tendency to rant on about how I became entangled in the world of Cinema 4D when asked. The magic all began when as a small boy as I flipped through the amiga magazines my father bought, and gazed upon all sorts of wonderful images called 3D art. The images beamed into my mind a latent desire to once be able to create the same. It festered for years; I looked at images, read everything I could about it and when I finally got out of school and it was time to choose a study, I decided to go for Multimedia. It wasn't all 3D, but I made it worthwhile, teaching myself everything I could with the tools at hand and and basically surpassing my teachers after the second week of CINEMA 4D lessons. And lo, spell-

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bound by the glorious call of CINEMA I flushed the other clunky 3d applications they tried to teach me down the toilet and haven’t looked back since.

Some people, mainly my father, recognized my talents and after completing my study I was immediately enrolled into the graphics studio where I still work today. Aside from doing 3D I love to sketch and draw with ancient mundane tools like a pencil and brush. A couple of my favorite artist are Doug Chiang, Gouta Nanami, Philippe Druillet and a lot more, but I forgot their names.

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Picture 1 A fantasy lounge, created as a desktop picture for widescreen monitors. I got the inspired by a couple of eastern cultures.

Picture 2 A health logo, created initially for a health website but the project got abandoned. Still the close-up is pretty cool.

Picture 3 Ata-Zura, first of two power hungry gods of death. The second god is still

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Picture 3

Artist Spotlight...

Bram van Gerwen

in production. I created them both as mosaics first and then transformed them to 3D. Picture 4 I like to create some simple stuff now and then with just some primitives.

This scene was inspired by some glass art I spotted on the web, created it during a lunch break.

Spotlight

Picture 5 You might recognize this wind chime from the lounge scene. I popped it into this project while testing the Dpit2 demo. It worked pretty nice as you see.

Picture 6 What kind of 3D artist doesn't have numerous unfinished projects lying around his hard drive? Here is one of mine. Almost done though, it just needs a little bit more cluttered detail.

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