Cineversity

Modeling Industrial Holes, release date (Mar 18th) – is a ‘bonus’ series demonstrating how the powerful modeling tools in CINEMA 4D provide options to produce specific structures, i.e., metal mesh filters and vents.

Modeling is like playing chess, you need to have three base elements: [1] Knowing the rules, [2] being experienced and [3] observing the play-ground. All these three let a computer play chess, but any experience is replaced with math. What comes above this base? It is [your] creativity! Which is by itself a longer theme. I have addressed it a while ago in a Siggraph’10 presentation at the MAXON booth. However, creativity is not replaceable, and is certainly not possible in an empty space. Creativity sits between procedurals and pure art. It touches both, but it isn’t any of these. (But back the computer-“game”: I have even integrated some XPresso solutions—to create holes, please check these out, thanks. :o)

This series builds a little bit up on the other “Speed Modeling Series”. But rest assured, it is not a prerequisite to watch the other one, even if I recommend this of course. The idea of this series is not only based on the idea to provide you with a wide variety of procedurals and ideas, it is more to show you in detail how far you can go with the native options already. This leads to know the [1] rules better , [2] creates experience (if done at least one time by yourself) and yes, it can’t replace the observation of your own game, but it gives you the options to [3] watch my few variations of that specific game. Filled with (hopefully) new impressions, the “library” of options and procedurals might grow and the creativity can connect more options to new results.

My training is strongly targeting practical use, as this series was developed for a master class (which covered just another hour during the day back then, as the addressed artists were absorbing things very fast). However, I ‘m happy to share this now here with the members of Cineversity. Yes, it is a specialized theme, and you might find plug-ins or other options to do some parts quicker perhaps. What I share here is one step further to be independent from extra tools; Which lets you work more freely.

On the end, you have to take care to expand your creativity constantly, but I like to feed the library that any creativity needs, and perhaps might inspire the one or the other. Thanks for your time.

What’s next?

This concludes the first torrent of specialized tutorials, mainly around JET as well Film-making and what I thought is important to know.
The next part is all about Photography, and focused around your scene creation. Photography connects the world with your scene. It establishes as well a better knowledge about images. These series will be broader in their targets, but certainly represents a representation of my passion for film and strong interest in Motion Graphics, but not limited to this. Over the years I got many question, e.g., “how to improve the quality of renderings”. I think that the old saying “low quality in—low quality out” applies to anything that you capture from the real world to use it in CINEMA 4D. If the photographic quality is not where it could be, it is really hard to improve the results once those images are used in C4D.

The next 200+ tutorials I’m working on will cover “HDRI”, “Panorama”, “Texture”, “Camera-Projection”, “Miniature photography for Camera-Projection”. In the center of these you will find a very specialized short series about white-balance, with a closer look to the needs for a 3D artist. Last but not least, a series about “Lighting in 3D like a photographer”. As these series build up on each other, I need to finish them all together. The content is an equivalent of a larger book (perhaps many books), but visualized. It is not a simple translation, as “reality” and “material/rendering/light/camera” behaves a little bit differently, which needs to be addressed carefully.

These upcoming series are based on my awarded work with cameras, and my filmic education e.g., at the “University of the Arts, Berlin”, as well decades of professional use. So, I go deep here, each time, and the “Camera Projection” series is based around a complete project, filmed on RED and already nominated for an award.

I hope on the end of my explorations to deliver some answers as well as for the “ACES” work-flow (Academy Color Encoding System) and what it means for anyone working in the Industry. Finally, “Color Science” in a nutshell, but I hope it will be presented in the best way, and not as a formula/diagram session only. Speaking of which, I don’t want to promise anything, but I make already notes for a “Color-Correction/Grading” series for 3D/VFX artists.
We will see if there is interest for a series like this. It would certainly complete a little bit more my efforts to bring the filmic thinking to CINEMA 4D. Besides that I will have of course some tiny bonus series as usual, like “C4D to NUKE”, and back to pure C4D tutorials, etc. So, lots to do.

Thanks for coming along so far. Enjoy.

Sassi

P.S.: ...the file is a little teaser.

http://www.cineversity.com/vidplaytut/industrial_modeling_-_holes_part_01

Playlist

http://www.cineversity.com//vidplaylist/industrial_holes

Wow fantastic Dr S.

Almost missed this though.  Any ideas why your new tutorials don’t appear in the new tutorials section of the site?

Hi Rich,

I used the forum to advertise them a little bit, more or less in a “blog” form. I hope that is OK.

THANK YOU SO MUCH. I spend quite some time on all of that, so it feels good to get some feedback.

Have a good one

Sassi

Ah that makes sense, would be great to have a link somewhere on that tutorials page to your new set you’ve done.  I think its a really valuable resource and should be a tutorial section all to itself!

By the way i was just watching part 2 of this and the info on the structure manager is gold!  Didn’t realise you could rearrange the polygons that way.  Which lead me to realise something i been wondering about for ages:

When you use a step effector that is being used by a mograph cloner, and the cloner is set to object mode to clone onto polygon faces, the order of the step effector is set by the polygon order.  But with this you can change that order and in effect, change the order in which the step effector effects the clones.

This is the best tip i’ve found in ages, and it wasn’t even part of the main tip!

Many thanks, learn so much from your tutorials, if only i had more time to watch em!

Thanks for pointing that out. Yes, that is an option, and a great example that the basics have quite some power.

I have attached a scene to make that point more clear, perhaps it is easier for some readers to check the files. :o)

Also that structure manager is good example of how cinema4d handles geometry.  Didn’t realise that polygons corners were defined by the vertices that make them up (I assumed that the corners would have been defined in object space).  Am trying to get into some python coding and i think makes it easier to understand the relationships between polys and points.

Yes, the most important part in c4d is the point. You might need a while to find something that is not related to the points. Deformer move points around for example.
I use points to store information from XPresso (Point Node/Iteration) a great way and quite simple.

I certainly think that your work with Python will benefit from it. Python is a wide and powerful option inside of C4D. I wish I had more time to dive deeper into it.

Enjoy :o)

Agreed, i’m actually interested in looking into python to select polygons like you have in your part 3 tutorial - don’t think it would be too hard to set up something that selects every other (or every 3rd or 4th polygon in an object).  I’ll look into it when i get the chance

I wouldn’t wonder if someone has written already something like that. Hehe, such as: http://nitro4d.com/blog/freebie/magic-select/

I like to stay as long as possible native, which means independent. Of course once selected and stored, the plug in is not needed any longer and you’re back to native, which is cool.

The idea of tutorials is of course (as well) to go deep into the “nuts and bolts” of c4d, as you mentioned your findings with the structure manager for example. To run to 3rd party stuff whenever things become problematic is a way to go, but has its shadow sides. Solved problem carry sometimes new problems into the scene.

Anyway, nothing that I need to sell you, as you like to dive into Python already (yeah, the more the better!), which might set you free from a lot of 3rd party stuff and allows even to work on a new level of freedom.

Ah i’ve seen that but hadn’t tried it, thanks!  Yeah i agree i prefer not to use plugins as they alway need updating between versions or i forget where i downloaded them from.  I do like the idea of python scripts though to automate repetative tasks1 : )

Yes, repetitive tasks or anything that follows expressions—shouldn’t be done manually. ;o)

I’m not against plug ins, but I categorize them. My preferred group is the one that does the job is then not needed for this part anymore. Which keeps things finally (here I repeat myself, sorry) native. Any other options need an evaluations, and yes, there are fantastic ideas so far developed, some even breathtaking, and certainly fun to work with.

:o)