September2007 by Hiba Dweib

Table Of Contents September 2007

Page 3

Editors Notes

Page 5-13

Interview with Artist “Fredi Voss” by Tavy Pasieka

Page 14-18

Depth of Field - How to - The Cheap Way by Rui Batista

Page 20-25

Ocean Shader Tutorial by Thomas Pasieka

Page 27-33

How to Abstract with Cinema 4D by Brian Harrison

Page 34-37

Proximal Shader Tutorial by Thomas Pasieka

Page 38

CINEMA 4D - Frequently Asked Questions

Page 39

CINEMA 4D News

Page 40-43

Getting The Job Done Report by Kathie Berry

Page 44-48

Best of CINEMA 4D Gallery

Page 49

Last Page and Contact Information

Editor Notes September 2007

Hey there Attackers!

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Featured Artist “Fredi Voss” By Tavy Pasieka

is Fredi Voss, some may know me as Rollmops. I'm 41 and currently working and living in Germany as a fine artist and 3D Freelancer.

Fredi Voss

Tavy: When did you start using CINEMA 4D? Have, or do you use other 3D applications as well? Fredi: I made my first 3D attempts with applications like Bryce and Terragen. Terragen is an application that I still use from time to time. Later I came in contact with Vue 4. Around that time someone told me about CINEMA 4D and I became very curious. I've been using CINEMA for about 7 years as my main tool. It fits perfectly to my workflow. Tavy: When looking at your work the textures and lighting jump right out at the viewer. They are as close to perfect as any 3D artist would like to get. Can you tell us a bit about your workflow regarding textures and lighting? Fredi: Having an education in the photography business, during my early years ,has benefited me a lot with 3D issues. It's enabled me to have a quite clear idea of what kind of "sphere" my image should have. I try to get as close to it as I can. Sometimes it works, but other times I work at it till I improve my first idea.

Fredi Voss, hailing from Germany, is a well known and respected artist throughout the 3D/CG communities and industry. He is most beloved for his exceptional texturing, lighting and modeling skills. Having the opportunity to recently interview Fredi was a real treat for me. For the past few years I have been following his work and, I must say, it's some of the best I've seen coming from a professional using CINEMA 4D. Enjoy the interview and stop by Fredi's website at www.fredivoss.de

Texturing, lighting and even modeling are very closely related when trying to achieve good results. You cannot really separate them as every aspect affects the other. Even if some of my works have a quite photorealistic look, pure photo-realism is not my main target. From time to time you have to leave the "path of reality" in order to achieve a more artistic approach . Texture and light can do much to affect scene and therefore, a lot of time is spent on this part of "production".

Tavy: FREDI VOSS! Now that's a very familiar name within the CINEMA 4D Community. The opportunity to interview you is an honor for me as I am a big fan of your work. Fredi, please share with our readers a little about you, where you're from and what you do.

I like hotspots, areas where light is burning onto surfaces and focused spots. When I choose a certain subject, I see what kind of texturing could work best. I then try to work out the best way of letting the light work on the surfaces. Sometimes I change some details of the modeling in order to

Fredi: Thank you very much . I'm very pleased to answer your questions. Well, about me...my name 5

Featured Artist “Fredi Voss” By Tavy Pasieka

get better result in aspect of the illumination or the texturing. Sometimes it is the other way round. The mood of an image is very important for me. I try to create images, not pure and simple pictures. In German you have terms like "Bild" and "Abbildung" to determine the difference, but I don't know the exact equivalents in English for this. To get the texturing I have in my mind I often use phtotextures I have previously made, overworked in Photoshop or painted in BodyPaint onto the models. Most of my images are not combined with things like GI or HDRI, but sometimes i use them to get the effect I´m searching for. In earlier years some of my light-setups mutated to illumination-monsters with lots of single light sources. In recent years I've manage to reduce this to 2 or three main lights and a very few effects-lights. The rest is done by texturing and luminance in combination with AO. Tavy: Let's look at your piece "At Work". I'm in love with the lighting. What was your lighting and illumination set-up for this image?

Fredi: This scene is illuminated by an HDRI-dome and one spot for the shadows. 3 other spots were used on some objects exclusively to get some highlights where necessary. I added ambient occlusion as well to get more depth into the shadows. It takes some time to get the best balance of all parameters. I paid a lot of attention to reflections on certain materials. Therefore, an HDRI-map gave me the best result in this case. The best thing is that is possible to use a simplified version of this scene for an animation with render times of 2 to 3 minutes per frame in pal-resolution. The background is a photograph of a location just a few meters away from my studio. I tried to get a good combination of the light the background needs to blend with the 3D-parts in front. It is a mixture of diffused light on one hand, and some strong illuminated details on the other. It was a bit tricky to get this effect. Tavy: How long, from start to finish, does an image like "At Work" take you to produce?

Featured Artist “Fredi Voss” By Tavy Pasieka

before the next jobs come along. Tavy: If you could pick the brain of one artist, alive or dead, who would it be and why? What would you ask him/her? Fredi: Hmm...there are a lot of interesting artists out there. Some I've personally met, like Richard Serra (some years ago) and even Joseph Beuys (when i was i kid). Every artist has his/her personal approach, vision and style. Not only in fine arts:) I don´t know if there is one certain question you can ask. I experienced that it is best to get into a normal conversation in order to get an impression about the concepts and ideas behind the works of the artists. Even in the cg-artist community coming together and making conversation tells much more about the person behind the nickname than one single question could cover. Tavy: What are your personal goals as an artist? Fredi: To get better. To find something in a new work that I did not achieve before. To get into a process of permanent development. Thinking that you have achieved your goal means the end of all art.

Fredi: "At Work" wasn`t that long in "production". It took me about 2 weeks to get it right. Other images were finished in some months period of time...From the beginning I had a clear idea of how the main appearance of this picture should be. It took a longer period of time to figure out which objects should be placed and to modeling/ texturing them. Then a series of proof renders are made to check the best position of a certain image, the illumination and how the shadows work on it.

Tavy: All artists go through "dry spells". When you find yourself in a so called "dry spell" where do you look for inspiration? Fredi: As i find myself in that period of creative depression I try to relax, have a pint and get some cool stuff on ebay...;)) No, seriously: those kind of dry spells are normal in the artists life. You have to learn to handle them.

Tavy: Are you currently working on any professional projects you tell us a little about?

Most of my inspiration comes out of the daily life. Looking around in my studio gives me inspiration for several new images, but the main work is to get a clear idea of how to ban this raw intuitions into a visual form. That takes some time and people not involved in this process might think of me as an unproductive guy, celebrating his laziness ;) Hehe:)

Fredi: I finished several animations and modeling projects recently. I had to design and fabricate some animation-sets for dvd-menu templates. A partner of mine (www.core-filmdesign.com) made the final renderings and animations. We also did a job for a big company in the tft-display industry for some tv-advertisings of a new upcoming gpsnavigator. Right at this moment I`m relaxing a bit 7

Featured Artist “Fredi Voss” By Tavy Pasieka

Tavy: If you could give a few words of wisdom or advice to the thousands of aspiring 3D Artists out there, what would they be? Fredi: Well, I'm not sure if I'm the one to speak words of wisdom ;) but one thing I can say is... try

to get new perspectives and new ideas. Look around and think about what you want to say with your images. Learn what makes an image your personal point of view. I think that´s the best method to develop an individual style, something recognizable.

Featured Artist “Fredi Voss” By Tavy Pasieka

Tavy: When you are looking at someone else's 3D/CG work, do you look at the image as a whole, or do you look at the lighting, texturing etc. separately? Fredi: For me the idea, the complete appearance of an image, stands first. All other aspects have to support the concept of a visualization. A good light or texture does not make a perfect image while the rest goes into a wrong direction. As I mentioned before, everything is related to the other, but that also indicates how important a certain amount of technical perfection is for the concept. No concept, no image. No adequate technique, no concept. Sometimes you see images with a huge amount of technical brilliance, but the author was more driven by the features of his application than by the question "What story do I want to tell?". Tavy: When you're not busy working, what do you do for relaxation and entertainment? Fredi: Riding around on my scooter, visiting friends, going out, just me and my camera ;) Something like that. But honestly, most of my time is spent working . I need to. Being away from my studio for several days makes me nervous. My work is relaxation as well for me. Tavy: Thanks again Fredi. This was a real treat. We will be eagerly waiting for your next great image! Any last words? Fredi: I´m very pleased to be participating in this interview. Have fun in what you do. Explore your possibilities and first of all: Keep on rendering ! ;)

Featured Artist “Fredi Voss” By Tavy Pasieka

Depth Of Field - How to...the Cheap Way By Rui Batista

Depth of Field - or DOF, as I will start calling it from here on for the sake of my typing fingers, has several possible definitions. One of the simplest explanations is; the apparent sharpness of an image considering the distance between the nearest and farthest elements. This means that some elements of an image are in sharp focus and the elements that are nearer and further away become blurred. There are several ways to achieve this in CINEMA 4D. One is to render a depth map - a grayscale channel whose pixels are lighter for areas that are nearer the camera and are darker for areas that are further away from the camera - and use that depth map in an image editing application (like Photoshop, for example) to selectively blur the image.

The best option is to use zBlur by Chris Montesano, 3D Attack’s virtuoso programmer. It DOES work with transparency and reflections and it looks so much better than the native Depth of Field Render Effect. Also, it has lots more options. (Image 03)

That is the best method because it has several advantages (a future tutorial about this is officially promised), but it has a couple of great shortcomings: it doesn’t work with transparencies or reflections.

But, if you don’t have zBlur (not a free plug-in), and you also don’t have the Advanced Render module, there is an option and that it what I will teach in this tutorial. It will not look as good as the zBlur option, but will do just fine in most cases. (Image 04).

Another possibility is to use the Depth of Field Render Effect. But that is only possible for people with the Advanced Render module and it has three big disadvantages: it doesn’t work with transparencies. It doesn’t work with reflections. It looks like crap! (Image 02)

Depth Of Field - How to...the Cheap Way By Rui Batista

To create a sinuous “random” closed spline, use the following steps: - Create a Sphere and set it to Type of Icosahedron with just 10 segments. - Set the radius of the sphere to 1 and press “o” (letter “O”) to make it fit the editor display. - Make it editable. - Go to the Structure Manager (Shift+F9) - Select all the points and their coordinates (Edit>Select All, Edit->Copy) - Create a new spline object (Objects->Spline Object) and set its Type to Linear. - Go to the Structure Manager (Shift+F9) and choose Edit->Paste. - Double click the Y field of point #0 and set its value to 0 (zero). - Double click the Z field of point #0 and set its value to 0 (zero). - Back in the Object Manager, delete the Sphere object. - Select the Spline object and make it a closed spline of Type B-Spline. - Just to make the spline more “round”, in the Structure Manager, set the coordinates of the last point (point #41, if all was done right) to x=.75, y=0 and z=0.

I must warn you of few restrictions with this method, it is slow. I do mean, slooooow. Well, depending on the settings, it can be slowish, slow, very slow or extremely slow. Also, it will not work well with animations, at least not at extreme settings. Not everything is bad news. The good news is that you can turn off anti-aliasing for your renders (reclaiming a bit of the speed back, on each render) and that this method does work with reflections and transparency.

You should end up with something like this:

OK, on to the explanation: Create a new Target Camera. Rename the Camera Target null to something simpler, like Target. Group the camera and the target null inside a null and name it DOF Camera.

Now, we need a way to make the camera shake a little around its central point while still looking at the target. We could use a Vibrate tag, but since I want to make the camera start and end in a central position, the best way is to use a “random” spline and an Align to Spline tag.

Drag this spline (you can name it to whatever you want or simply leave it as “Spline”) inside the DOF Camera null.

Depth Of Field - How to...the Cheap Way By Rui Batista

Now, select the Spline object and the Camera object and group them both inside a Null. Name this new Null to Camera. Copy the Target tag from the Camera object to the null named Camera. Set the position coordinates of the Camera object and the Spline object to 0,0,0 (they will now be centered at the same position as their parent, the null called Camera).

Now, lets make all this thing work. Add an Align to Spline tag to the Camera object. Drag the Spline object into the Spline Path field of the Align to Spline tag. Make sure you are in frame number zero. Set a key frame for the Position parameter of the Align to Spline tag, with the value of 0%. Advance to frame number one and set a key frame for the Position parameter of the Align to Spline tag, with the value of 100%.

Also, set the rotation coordinates of the Spline object to 0,0,0. To make your display cleaner, turn off the editor display of the Spline object. Add a Target tag to the Target null and make it point to the null named Camera.

Now let us add some control over the whole setup. It would be nice to have a way to define the amount of blur that the DOF effect will produce. Also, since you only have a null that serves to set the target of the camera and, at the same time the focal point, sometimes you may end up with a scene that has the correct location in focus but has a lousy composition.

You should end up with a hierarchy similar to this:

So, you can use the Target null to set the focal point and the rough framing of your scene. We will now add a way to re-frame your scene without disturbing the focal point. So, to the null named Camera (or to the null named DOF Camera, if you prefer) add two User Data parameters of type Float. Keep their default values, only changing their names to “Blur X” and “Blur Y”, respectively.

You may notice that there is an XPresso tag added to the null named Camera, and an Align to Spline tag added to the Camera object. These are the ones that do most of the “magic”, but more about those soon.

Also, add another User Data parameter of type Vector with an interface of 2D Vector Field. Change its name to “Displace” or “Re-Frame” and the minimum value to -50% and the maximum value to 50% (Image 07)

First I want to make sure you guys understand how to use this hierarchy. When you need to move your camera, move the null named Camera.

In the User Data tab you should have something similar to this: (Image 08) Now, add an XPresso tag to the same object that you added the User Data parameters. Into the XPresso window, drag the parent object of the XPresso tag. In the output port list, add all the User Data parameters.Drag the Camera object into the XPresso windows and to the input port list; add the Film Offset X and Film Offset Y parameters.

When you need to move the point where the camera is looking at (this will be the point that is in focus), move the null named Target. You should never move/scale/rotate the Spline object, or the Camera object, by them selves. You can adjust the whole setup (camera and focal point) by moving or rotating the null named DOF Camera. 16

Depth Of Field - How to...the Cheap Way By Rui Batista

rameters. Set their names to x and y. Now turn on the Use Portnames parameters and input the following formula: (x+y)/16 Drag the Spline object to the Xpresso windows and add it the Scale.X, Scale.Y and Scale.Z input ports. Link the Output port of the first Range Mapper node to the Scale.X port and to the x input port of the Formula node. Link the Output port of the second Range Mapper node to the Scale.Y port and to the y input port of the Formula node. Finally, link the Output port of the Formula node to the Scale.Z port of the Spline node.

Want a picture of all this complex text? Here it is:

Link the Displace.X (or Re-Frame.X) port to the Film Offset X port. Link the Displace.Y (or Re-Frame.Y) port to the Film Offset Y port. Create a Range Mapper node and set its Output Lower parameter to a very low value, something like 0.001. Set its Output Upper parameter to 100. It should be more than enough, but feel free to set it higher or lower. This is the maximum radius that you can set to the Spline. Usually, values of less than 25 are enough so 100 is already a very high upper value. All is ready to go. The last thing that needs to be done - and this is the final piece to make the whole magic happen - is to go to the Render Settings.

Duplicate the Range Mapper node and link the Blur X and Blur Y ports to the input ports of each Range Mapper node. We already have the X and Y scale factor for the spline, but we should also provide a Z value. So, create a Formula node and add it two input pa17

Depth Of Field - How to...the Cheap Way By Rui Batista

Go to the Effects tab and add a Scene Motion Blur post effect. This post effect renders subframes in-between frames and blends them together. You can choose if you want to render 5, 9, 16 or 25 sub-frames. Since each sub-frame is rendered as a whole frame, you now understand why it can be so slow to render the whole picture. Especially if you choose the option of 25 subframes!

you can completely turn off the Antialiasing option in the Render Settings (this will speed up things a bit). And that’s it! Just point your camera (using the null object named Camera) and adjust your focal point (the Target null). If the framing of your scene is not exactly what you want, adjust the 2D Vector User Data (the square with the cross inside). You can also adjust the amount of blur independently, in the horizontal and vertical axis. Depending on your scene, smaller or larger values may be required. Finally, if you want to use this on an animation, go to the Timeline, select the Align to Spline tag and, in the Attribute Manager, set the After parameter to Repeat. To wrap things up, don’t forget that this is a hack. I truly hope that you guys (and girls) out there that need DOF and don’t have the resources to do so can finally have a go at this “realismenhancement” effect. As usual, if you have any doubts, feel free to contact me at rui_mac@ruimac.com

Anyway, if you want a low quality, kind-of-fast render, choose the option of 5 sub-frames. If you want a higher quality, much-slower render, choose the option of 25 sub-frames or any of the options in between, whatever suits your needs. Luckily,

Until next month and keep on attacking. Rui Batista

Ocean Shader Setup By Thomas Pasieka

Well, as you can take from the title, this tutorial will show you how to set up a somewhat realistic “Ocean” scene/shader.

Setting up the shader is one thing. Creating realistic lighting is another story, which I won’t go into detail here. That is up to you in this case. My scene has a dark stormy touch to it so I went for darker colors and I made use of the Sky Module in order to get this moody dark sky. If you don’t own the sky module you can simply use an HDRI as background.

Be warned though, it takes quite a bit of render power so the faster your computer is the better. If you own a dual core, quad core or even octo core the better! This is render and time intensive, so patience is your friend. It won’t hurt having a little bit of Ram either (2GB at least).

Remember, everyone has a different taste and different goals in mind when creating an ocean. Some like a calm ocean with a sunset in the back, while others prefer a stormy sea and so on. Let’s get started on setting things up.

You don’t need any plugins or modules other than the core and maybe Advanced Renderer (if you want to use Global Illumination for example).

Ocean Shader Setup By Thomas Pasieka

Let’s have a look at my setup in the big image above. You see several objects in the “Objects Manager”. First off, you see that I am using the Sky module to create the moody storm atmosphere/sky.

You can see a HyperNurb object which contains a Plane and a Displace Deformer. Let me explain a little bit here before we go into shader details. The HyperNurb is deactivated right now since it would slow down the viewport dramatically. The Ocean plane I created is subdivided quite a few times (Plane settings: 2000x2000 units and 60x60 height and width segments - the more segments the better the result).

You will also notice a simple plane that has the same dimension as the ocean plane itself with a very dark blue (almost black) color assigned to it. I placed this below the actual sea Plane in order to darken the sea.

If you are a lucky owner of the “Mograph” module you could place the “Displace Deformer” as child of the Ocean Plane, as you can see above, which will give you a visual reference on how the shader

I am using one light in this scene. Yep that’s it. Like I said earlier it depends on what you are going for. Now on to the actual Ocean/Sea objects.

Ocean Shader Setup By Thomas Pasieka

Color Channel

affects your ocean plane. Ok, that it’s for the set up. Onto the shader... Have a look at the shader set up shot above. I am making use of Color, Transparency, Reflection, Bump, Specular and very important Displacement. Let’s take a closer look at each channel. The Color Channel: In order to get a somewhat mixed color and brighter peak colors on top of the waves I went for a “Layer” type. I went for a “Noise” with dark blue colors and a “Falloff” for the caps set to around 40% in “Dodge” mode on top of the “Noise” layer. The Transparency Channel:

Transparency Channel

Pretty simple Transparency setup. Brightness is set to 80% with a Refraction of 1.5 and a Fresnel Reflectivity of 85%. No Texture is used and no Dispersion (since we don’t want to blur the Transparency.

Ocean Shader Setup By Thomas Pasieka

Reflection Channel Bump Channel

The Reflection Channel: Not much Brightness/Reflection used here. Only set to about 3%. No Texture or anything else.

Bump Channel Detail

The Bump Channel: This one needs a little more attention. Strength of the Bump Channel is set to 110%, in my case. This can be changed to your taste. I went for a noise type called “Wavy Turbulence” but any type of noise will do. It really depends on your taste. Every kind of noise will produce a little different bump of course. Experiment with the settings a little bit. Have a look at the “Bump Channel Detail” Image on the right for my settings.

Ocean Shader Setup By Thomas Pasieka

The Specular Channel: Nothing fancy in here. Width set to 35% and Height to 85%. Inner Width is 10%. Play around with these settings depending on light setup. Most important will be the Displacement Channel which we will cover in the next step. This will be your most important settings and the most CPU hungry one during rendering, so be prepared for long extensive render times.

Specular Channel

The Displacement Channel: Alright, the displacement channel will determine how your wave/ocean will look. It will also determine how it “moves”. Have a closer look at the “Displacement Channel” image on the right. I am using a “Noise” type again. You can pick whatever noise type you want for different wave effects. Strength is set to 100% with a height of 80 units. Again, you will have to see what works best for you. Have a closer look at the details shot of the Displacement Channel on the next Page. One important factor is the “Octaves” Setting. The lower the number the less detail. You will have to test that and with different values in order to see it’s effect on the ocean plane to understand what I am talking about. Displacement Channel

Animation Speed is going to be important as well. As you can see I have a very low number there (0.2). The higher the number the faster the movement, so be careful or your ocean will look very fake.

If you followed the settings according to my set up then you should have something very similar looking to mine. You will find my final animation in the goodies folder or on the web at:

Global Scale is set to 350. This is another point you have to play around with. Higher values will make for a more realistic look in my opinion since lower values will show too many little details I don’t want. The waves are bigger with higher values. Simple like that. Experiment with these settings.

http://www.3dattack.net/posts/OceanUSO_Web.mov

Ocean Shader Setup By Thomas Pasieka

Remember: All settings in this tutorial are according to my setup. For different effects simply play with all the settings. Different sky’s and lighting make for a different look and feel to the ocean. Experimenting is the key! If you have any questions or problems feel free to ask me on the forum :) Keep on swimming folks.... Thomas Pasieka

CINEMA 4D - Abstract Art Tutorial By Brian Harrison

Hi everybody this is my second tutorial for 3D Attack Magazine. In this tutorial I will cover the modelling / texturing / Lighting of a relatively simple abstract image. Ok, to start we need to create a primitive sphere and in the attributes manager change the amount of segments to (10) and the type to (Hexahedron). Now press C to make it editable. You should end up with this. (Image 01).

To give it spikes select all the faces, right click and select (Extrude inner) from the tool menu. Now, in the attributes manager on the bottom right of the view port, uncheck (preserve groups). Enter an offset of (7) and the subdivisions need to be (2), click apply. (Image 02 and 03). Now switch to the extrude tool, and in the attributes manager, enter (500) into the offset and click apply. You now should have large square spikes protruding from the sphere, but we want sharp spikes. To achieve this right click in the view port and select the (Normal scale) Tool from the tool menu and scale the selected polygons down by left clicking in the view port and holding the left mouse button down and moving the mouse left until they look sharp. (Image 04).

The middle is finished but there is one last thing before the next step. Hopefully you still have the tip of every spike selected. With these polys se27

CINEMA 4D - Abstract Art Tutorial By Brian Harrison

lected go to (selection) at the top of the view port and (set selection). You should now have an orange triangle next to your sphere object in the object manager. This is going to be used later with Mograph. (Image 05).

Go back into perspective view and select the spline you have just created. Now, holding down the (Alt) key and go to Mograph. Above the view port select (Cloner Object). You now should have a Mograph cloner object with your spline as a child of the cloner object. With the cloner object selected in the object manager, go to the attributes manager and change the settings to the ones shown in the image (Image 07). You should have something similar to this (Image 08). We now have the middle complete and the splines cloned to were we want them. It is time to add a (Sweep nurbus) to add some thickness to those splines. First we need to select the spline in the object manager that is in the cloner object and make sure that it is set to (0) on all the position axis to make sure it is at dead center of the view port.

Now we are going to model the things that will go on the end of every spike. Go into front view and select the (B-Spline) tool and draw a spline similar to this, or you can make up your own design, it doesn’t really matter. (Image 06)

Now create a (Sweep nurb) and drag the spline out of the cloner object and into the (sweep nurb). All the splines will disappear from the view port but don’t worry; we will get them back in just a minute. Now create a (N-side) spline and change the radius to about (1.5M). Drop this into the (sweep nurbus) above the other spline.

Once you have the design you like you will need to center the axis of the spline you have created. I used the center object axis plugin. This is a free plugin that is easily found by searching the web.

CINEMA 4D - Abstract Art Tutorial By Brian Harrison

Now drag the whole (Sweep nurb) in to the (Cloner object). You should now have something like this. (Image 09).

This is it for the modelling part. Time to set up the environment. First off let’s add a background by going to (Object) > (Scene) > (Background). We have a background, but we need a background color so create a new material and open it up with the material editor, click the Texture dropdown in the color

CINEMA 4D - Abstract Art Tutorial By Brian Harrison

parameter and select (Gradient) (Image 10). Now double click the gradient icon to enter the shader properties, change the Type to 2D-circular and change the colors to orange fading to black. This is the color combination I used, but you can play with different colors if you wish. (Image 11).

Now add this to the background in the object manager. For the main shaders I used two of the basic shaders that come with CINEMA, the electron3 and transparent sheen shaders. These can be found in the content browser that is to the upper left of the view port.

We need to change the colors of these shaders to fit in with our color scheme so double click the electron3 sheen shader and change its properties to match the ones shown in these images but, as I said before, you can play with your own colors as well. (Images 12 and 13)

When you have the shaders how you want them add the electron3 and sheen shader to the cloner object in the object manager, and add the transparency sheen shader to the sphere object in the object manager. Now we need to add two lights to the scene, one back light and one front light.

Now do the same for the transparent sheen shader changing the properties to match the ones shown in these images. (Images 14 and 15).

CINEMA 4D - Abstract Art Tutorial By Brian Harrison

Now we need to position the lights. Basically, when we view the image, we want the backlight at the back of the render so go into top view and position the lights as show in the illustration. (Image 16)

Once you have the lights in roughly the right position go back into perspective view and position your view so the orange backlight is directly behind the model as shown in the image. (Image 17).

We will start with the backlight. Create a new omni light and change its color to an orange color. Now, in the shadows parameter, select raytraced (hard) shadows, and in the visible light parameter, volumetric. 17

Now create a new omni light. Don’t change the color, but turn down the intensity to 50% and add a soft shadow in the shadow parameter.

CINEMA 4D - Abstract Art Tutorial By Brian Harrison

Now the whole scene is just about ready to render, we just need to change a few render settings to make it looks better. So open up the render settings, go to Effects, form the post effects drop down, select (highlights) and change the setting to match the ones in the illustration. (Image 18) Now go to the Ambient Occlusion settings and enable it. Change the gradient setting so that it starts off as a light grey instead of black (Image 19) The last thing to do before you render is to set up the resolution for the render. I used 1000 x 1000. This gives me a nice square, render. Ok, that is it! Fire up the render and see what you get. Thanks for reading Brian Harrison - HARRISON3D

CINEMA 4D - Abstract Art Tutorial By Brian Harrison

Proximal Shader Usage By Thomas Pasieka

Ever wondered what the Proximal shader is for? Yeah, you are not alone. Inside CINEMA 4D you won’t find much information about Proximal usage. However, the help file states this:

As you can see I have two planes in my scene and some additional things which I will explain a little later. I put those planes into a HyperNurb object to smoothen the effect. Which effect you ask?

Proximal is a shader that is based on distance dependencies. The shader outputs a luminance value based on how far away the surface being shaded is from a specified object (you can choose whether the object origin, points, edges or polygon center should be used). Proximal works best in the Luminance channel.

The effect we are going for is simple. I want the planes to deform (bulge) by using an object such as the “sphere” which you also see in the object manager. The sphere will magically deform the planes in a given radius. OK, let’s take it easy here. You created two planes. You’ve put them into a HyperNurb Object and now is the time to create your deformer object the “Sphere”. Do so by selecting the Sphere from the “Primitives” menu. Change it’s size if needed. Also, create a spline object (Circle) and adjust it’s size, if necessary, so that it almost reaches the edge of your planes.

Proximal also works with particles (with CINEMA 4D particles and with Thinking Particles). A luminance effect will be generated each time a particle hits the surface (see the example above). Well, who says we can only use it within the Luminance channel? Let’s try something different for a change. Proximal also works in other channels such as, the displacement channel, so why not give that a try? It could make for some very interesting effects. For this purpose I created a simple scene setup that you will find in the goodies folder of this months magazine. I created two simple objects (Planes) and placed them in the middle of my viewport and left a little bit of a gap between them. To help you see the upcoming effect a little better I simply textured the planes black/white by using “Checkerboard”. Let’s have a look at my set up so far.

The Screenshot above shows how I’ve set the scene up. I added the mentioned elements and put a “Align to Spline” Tag onto the Sphere. I then added two keyframes for the sphere position. My animation is 180 keyframes long with a frame-rate of 30fps, so in the end I should get 6 seconds of animation. I also added an additional light which casts a soft shadow and a sky object with a gradient to illuminate the scene a little nicer. So far it’s really nothing too fancy or complicated. A fairly easy set-up. Let’s go ahead to the important things... 34

Proximal Shader Usage By Thomas Pasieka

Now that we have set up everything we are ready to use our Proximal Shader. Open your first material (the one you assigned to the top plane) and activate the “Displacement” Channel. Choose “Proximal” from the texture menu like you see in the next screenshot.

more things in order to get what we are after here. Remember that we wanted the planes to bulge wherever the sphere moves? OK, good. Have a look at the next screenshot. I dragged and dropped the “Sphere Object” into the “Objects” slot of the material manager. I also changed a few

In addition, change the “Height Value” to “300” in this case. “Strength” should be set to “100” (positive). Click on the square visual reference of the Proximal shader. You will have to change a few

of the values as you can see in the highlighted part of the screenshot. Now this will all sound like “Monkey do...” stuff to you, but the point is that you will have to figure out and experiment with the “Proximal” Shader for a while in order to understand and use it to your advantage. If you follow this tutorial you will get an idea of what “Proximal” does, but it’s usage can be tricky at times depending on what you want to achieve. If all my writing doesn’t make much sense to you then examine the file itself. Open it up and see how I set up the scene and the materials. Play around with them and have fun. Change settings and see how it affects the scene. However, let’s have a look at how things look at it s current stage. Have a good look at the next screenshot. Do you notice something different? Exactly! We have a nice bulge on our first plane object without the use of deformer or cloth! Isn’t that a cool thing? The proximal shader nicely deforms our object. The sphere that we placed into 35

Proximal Shader Usage By Thomas Pasieka

the “Object” slot of the material nicely bulges the plane wherever the sphere is located as you can see in the screenshot.

Check out the coming screenshot which clearly shows that we are heading in the right direction now. I am using “Cineview” which helps to speed up things when it comes to shader work. To get more information about “Cineview” visit: http://www.biomekk.com/index.php?page=1&cat= 107&itm=22 Alright. Looks like we have what we wanted. Both planes act properly now and we could actually do a test render. In the beginning we set the sphere onto a spline path and recorded two keyframes so, if you did things right, the sphere should move along the spline.

Open up the material for the bottom plane which should be just the same as the one for the upper plane. Simply duplicate the material onto the plane. You will notice that the bulge looks the same, but I would like to change the bulge into a negative direction.

In the screenshot above I played the animation for a few frames and did a test render. Everything looks fine on my end and the sphere is moving along the path. Time for the final render now! You will find the scene file (R10) and the final rendering within the “Goodies” folder. I also recorded the whole set-up for you so you can follow my steps if anything is unclear. Enjoy!

To change the bulges behavior we duplicate the material in the material editor and change the displacements “Strength” value to “-100” which should have a negative effect on the bulge.

Proximal Shader Usage By Thomas Pasieka

Final Rendering

Using the Proximal Shader can be very rewarding. Play around with it. Use it in different channels to see how it affects your scene. Proximal can be used for very cool special effects if done right. It’s all about experimenting... Have fun! Thomas Pasieka

Frequently Asked CINEMA 4D Questions September 2007

Q: I was just wondering, how do I make scenes go slower in CINEMA without adding more frames. I want to make a scene last 25 seconds with 90 frames. I don't know how to do this. Is it possible at all? I know that If I add like 600 frames the scene will last 25 second but, then again, the time to render takes like forever. Is it possible to just make the scene go slower with a movie program without damaging the quality.

A: 1. Apply a Cylindrical Texture Map (like a soda can label) & Select the polygons concerned (in this case it would be anywhere the label would be.) 2. With the polygons and the cylindrical Texture Tag selected, in the Object Manager, choose: Tags -> Assign UVW Coordinates. 3. Your Texture is now a UVW type Texture Tag, and the polygons that were selected have been cylindrically mapped. Now switch to the BP UV Edit Layout from the Window Menu. 4. Choose the Use UV Polygon Edit Tool from the lower section of the left tool pallete... You should see the polygons you selected, highlighted in the texture view. 5. Choose UV Manager... from the Tools Menu and on the Relax Page, uncheck all the options. Click the Apply button and then use the standard Move and Rotate tools to re-position the mesh if it moved too much.

A: This is a question of frame rate. High Definition runs at 60 fps (frames per second), Animation runs at 30 fps, NTSC Television runs at 29.97, PAL Broadcast runs at 25, and Film runs at 24. Frames per second basically means that for every second of video you will have x number of frames. Now, to do what you suggest, which is to run 25 seconds of animation with 90 frames is a frame rate of approximately 3.6 fps. In all honesty this will look more like a fast sideshow than an animation.However, you do not need to go into an NLE such as Final Cut to achieve this. In CINEMA, under your Render Settings -> Output, you can change the frame rate to any WHOLE number you want. You could not do 3.6 fps, but you could do 3 or 4 fps.

You should now have a properly UV Mapped mesh that you can use to apply the texture, distortion free. Q: I just finished a tutorial on BodyPaint, and it seems like a very powerful program. I was just wondering if it would be easier, however, to just export the .tif out with the mesh outline and color it in photoshop. I'm comfortable with photoshop, that's why i'm tempted to doi this. I'm not sure how to export it with the mesh on it though. I tried and it only exported the background color.

Just remember, whether you do it in CINEMA or in post, the fewer frames per second you use, the 'choppier' your animation will be. If it is your desire to produce a slow-motion type of effect, and you want it to be smooth, you really need to render at a higher frame rate, or simply slow the action in your scene down.

A: I use Photoshop to do the painting on the exported TIF with UV Layout. This can be done quite easy. What you do is outline the UV's. Make sure your Brush settings are set to 1 or 2 pixel. Select all the UV's and then go to the top menu "Layer" and choose "Outline UV's" then just save the texture and open it in Photoshop.

Q: I'm working on modeling and texturing a margerine tub (it's for work not choice ) I've modeled the tub ok, but when it comes to applying the imagery I'm struggling.

Q: I have a hallway with a camera that follows a B-Spline. The hallways has many curves. At each one of the curves my camera slows done. I want the same speed. How can I fix this?

My question is, is there any way of applying an image without it distorting around corners? I simply want it to follow the contours of the tub while maintaining its proportions. I'm sure this is possible but, as I'm quite new to this, it's driving me up the wall.

A: What you need to do is change the splines interpolation mode to uniform.

CINEMA 4D NEWS By Tavy Pasieka

CINEVIEW Cineview is an advanced preview tool and assistant for CINEAM 4D developed by Christopher Montesano. To order this "must have" plug-in visit: http://www.biomekk.com/index.php?page=1&cat=107&itm=22

3D FLUFF TRAINING DVD Mash and Janine have released their latest and greatest training DVD for CINEMA 4D. 3D Fluff Volume 6 - Of Bees and Flowers - Animation in R10 is loaded with nearly 7 hours of training material for the CINEMA 4D user. Get your copy here today: http://dvd.3dfluff.com

SILVERBULLET 4D Remotion has released their new CINEMA 4D Plug-in "SilverBullet4D". SilverBullet4D is a new, fast and easier to use Rigid Body Dynamic System. Check it out here: http://www.remotion4d.net

CINEMA 4D SERVICE UPDATE On June 21 MAXON released a new service update for CINEMA 4D R10. If you haven't done your update be sure to visit MAXON's website and get it today. www.maxon.net.

MODELING WITH OD1 Stephen Meyer "OD1" has released a new training DVD for CINEMA 4D. Follow along with OD1 and model a low rider truck. For more information visit: http://www.embreostudio.com

Artist Name: Raymond O'Doul Image Name: Joyride Best of “Cinema 4D” Country: Gallery USA A monthly selection of inspiring Date images Created: July 27, 2007 Software: CINEMA 4D Website: www.3dexplorer.net

Image Name: Mushroom Artist Name: Rich_Art Country: The Netherlands Date Created: 08-11-07. Software Used: CINEMA 4D R10.111 Studio Bundle, PhotoShop. WebSite : www.c4dcafe.com

Image Name: Grandfather`s Dream Artist Name: Frank Interactive Country: Germany Date Created: August 2007 Software: CINEMA 4D 8.5 Website: www.frank-interactive.com

Image Name: Natural Habitat Artist Name: Chris Ryan Shepherd Country: United States Date Created: 8/1/07 Software: CINEMA 4D R10.111, Adobe Photoshop CS2

Image Name: Soda Artist Name: Matt Roussel Date Created: July 2007 Country: France Software Used: CINEMA 4D Website: mattroussel.com

Best of “Cinema 4D” Gallery A monthly selection of inspiring images

This

Name: Luiz paulo Bonci Country: Brazil Image: Outlaw LS Date created: 02/15/2007 Software: CINEMA 4D Website: www.bonci.multiply.com

Contact Information August 2007

The 3D ATTACK Team Need to contact us? Got questions?

3D Attack the CINEMA 4D Magazine and all material contained therein are copyright protected. You may not disassemble or distribute any part of this publication without prior written consent from 3D Attack directly. any attempts to do so will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law as it applies in Michigan, USA. This applies for both 3D Attack material as well as any named artists material contained in 3D Attack publications. Although we read through all the tutorials and proofread them for errors, we cannot guarantee that they are 100% error free and therefore cannot issue refunds based on those errors. Copyright by 3D ATTACK 2004-2007 “3D ATTACK” is a registered trademark.

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