Cinema 4D - Mapping textures

Today's process and production session took place in Cinema 4D and was based around Mapping textures on a few different objects.

We started by downloading the files Jay had prepared for us from unilearn. We started by opening the can shape in Illustrator so that we could prep it for use in C4D. This was just resetting the zero point in the document so that the 0,0 was at the base of the can and in the middle of the page. This makes it easier to convert the shape into a 3D object. The paths had to be saved as a legacy version of illustrator - illustrator 8, otherwise C4D wouldn't be able to process them,

The next step was to put the file into C4D. Once the file was in place, we had to take the paths out of the group that they were in. We then created two lathes from the sub-divison surface menu, the two paths were then dragged into a lathe each. This creates a 3D object from the paths, maintaining the height of the path and rotating it around the long edge, as if it were being spun on a lathe. This resulted in us having the can shape - complete with top.

We then created the floor and background using the tools in C4D, before adding a compositing tag to the floor. This makes the floor and background join seemlessly - giving a much more professional appearance. We then added a material to the floor and background to give it some colour.

Next we began working on the materials for the bottle. We made a new material in the material tray at the bottom of the work space. Keeping the reflectance turned on, removing the default specular layer before adding a new reflection (legacy) layer. In the settings we also added a fresnel property, changing it to dielectric and changing the preset to PET (a plastic). We also reduced the global reflection brightness and the global specular brightness to 50%.

As part of the colour settings you can add a texture - we did this to import the artwork for the can. This new material was then dragged into the lathe to apply it to the objects within.

Once this was applied we had to tweak some of the settings so that it would be right. We had to select the material tag, and change the projection to cylindrical, and turn off tiling. The last setting was to right click on the material tag and select 'fit to object', we selected yes when asked to apply to all subcontents.

We then made another new material and followed much the same process. Removing the default specular, adding the reflection (legacy) layer. But we changed the layer type to GGX, changed the roughness to 20%, and also tweaking the colour value in HSV so that it was v = 36 % - roughly. We then changed the global specular and reflection brightness's to 50% each.

We then dragged this new material into the second lathe for the can top.

Next, we added some studio lighting. The key light was set up at X 500, Y 1000, Z -500. We then rotated the viewpoint so that this light was sitting in the top left quadrant - as if it were over out left shoulder.

We then added the settting by going into the mode menu, finding the view settings and selecting view, before scrolling down to the shadows, and adding them to give a more real world application.

We then copied the key light to make a fill light, and changing the co-ordinates to X 500, Y 1000, Z 500, and dropping the intensity in the general menu to 50%.

We then added a third light - this time an area light. This light was placed at X 500, Y 40, Z -400, with a rotation at heading 45.

We then rotated the can lathe using the rotate tool to get the best angle of the can for the render.

To increase the shadow sharpness, you can change the shadow resolution in the light settings by selecting the light, going to project, and the shadows menu, and changing the resolution to make it sharper or softer.

We also increased the smoothness of the circumference of the top and can to make it more hi res by changing the object subdivisions to a higher number, and this helps smooth out the circle by increasing the number parts that it used to make up the shape.

Once we were happy with all the aesthetics of the render, we altered the render settings.
The output was set to A5 Print (portrait), frame range was set to the current frame only, the format was set to a high quality JPEG (with a quality of at least 85% - I choose 100). The anti-aliasing was set to best, with ambient occlusion turned on with the max ray length set to 50cm and a dispersion of 50%.

The next part of the session was spent creating a bottle, which roughly followed the same process as the can.

We followed the same process, setting up the Illustrator file for use in C4D, importing the file, and setting up the 2 lathes, as well as creating the seamless floor and background.

The first real deviation in the process was where we went into the content browser (which is in a tab on the far right hand side of the screen). We went into the presets - broadcast materials - glass - glass stained to find the right material for the texture of a glass bottle. This placed the stained glass material into the material tray at the bottom of the screen.

We altered some of the settings in the material - taking off the bump settings, changing the transparency refraction to 1.2, changing the absorption colour to white, and changing the HSV colour so that the V was 80%.

We copied the material and changed the colour to a pale yellow for the liquid - supposed to be beer. The glass material was added to the bottle and the yellow was added to the liquid.

We then created another new material this time, and turned on the alpha channel. We followed this by creating a cylinder with a radius of 73.5 and a height of 240 - this was to be the label band.

We changed the bottle lathe settings so that the number of subdivisions matched that of the cylinder which was higher - 36 - ergo making it higher res and smoother.

Back to the cylinder and we changed the caps so that they were off - creating a hollow tube.
Next we added the artwork for the label. In the cylinder settings, in the alpha channel you can add texture and we added a png mask of a beer label to create the effect of the label being in two parts - which higher quality brands use - rather than the single wrap around label which cheaper brands like Budweiser use. We had to use the invert option in C4D as Jay had masked off the wrong areas in his prepared file.

Even though the artwork seemed to fit, we had to alter the settings, to make it suitable if we had to change any of the sizes of the other objects. So we went into the material tag, and changed the projection to cylindrical, unticked the tile option, and fitted it to the object via the right click menu.

To make it look like the sticker was only printed on one side, we had to duplicate the material in the material tray, clear the texture in the colour menu, and reorder the material on the cylinder so that the new blank layer was underneath the artwork - giving the appearance that the back of the label is white.

To give it a more realistic appearance under the lights we removed the default specular, added the reflection (legacy), changed the layer fresnel to dielectric, and reduce the global specular and reflection brightness to 25%.

To make the bottle cap we had to make it from scratch in C4D. We started off by making a new document and creating a new shape. Using the pen tool menu to select the star shape. We altered the shape settings - object plane x2, with an inner radius 33, outer radius 37, with 20 points.

We then created series of 4 circles using the circle pen tool, the first with an inner radius of 33, the second with an inner radius of 29, the third had an inner radius of 17, and the last one had a inner radius of 0.

All these new shapes were then placed into a new loft within subdivision surface. The last 3 circles where then dragged up a little bit in the Y axis so to create the depth of the bottle cap. We then turned the caps off within the loft. Next we changed some of the object settings - changing the mesh subdivision U to 40, the mesh to 4 and the isoperm to 3, and switching the organic form on.

This was followed by creating a new cloth surface - this is achieved by going through the simulate menu to cloth and cloth surface. In the object settings we changed the subdivisions to 2, the thickness to 1 cm and we also switched the limit on.

We add the material as we had done previously. We added a bottle cap artwork/texture that Jay had prepared. We changed the projection tag to flat, and changed the artwork to fit the object, agreeing to apply it to all sub-contents. We again unticked the tile option.

We then used the texture mode from the left hand side of the screen. Using this in combination with the rotate tool we rotated the artwork so that the logo sat in the middle and top of the cap. This was made easier by holding the shift key as this moves the rotation in ten degree increments. We again fitted the artwork to the object.

We then collapsed the layer/object stack in the top right window and copied the object, pasting it in the bottle project. We then had to drag the bottle cap up in the Y axis so that it sat in place on top of the bottle.

The final stage was to export and render the images. This was the same process as the can, with anti-aliasing turned to Best, the ambient occlusion of ray length 50 cm and the dispersion to 50.

After the session finished, I spent some time changing the artworks and background to match some of the work I did earlier this year, expanding on Zombones range, branching into beer with Zombooze in the bottle and Zombjuice in the can. I also altered the slogans to match.

Cinema 4D, session #2

We started the second session in C4D much like we did the first, by creating the all the necessary folders on the desktop, ready for all the content as and when it was needed, as well as establishing good working practices. Creating an umbrella/root folder which had three folders inside it, one each for the Artwork, Maps/Images, and output.

The next step was to start creating stuff inside C4D.

PART I

We started off the first part of the session just by creating a rectangle that sat within the XY plane. We then extruded this rectangle, changing the z-axis extrusion to 5,000 cm, whilst adjusting the subdivisions to 50 to add more polygons. To view these polygons we changed one of the display settings to gouraud shading (lines). 

We then adjusted the caps of the edges of the extruded shape to none on both the start and end caps.

The next step was to add a twist to the extruded shape, this is done by adding a twist, and then dragging it into the extrude. When this had happened we changed the settings of the twist, changing the angle to 10 degrees and the mode to unlimited. Using the co-ord values we also changed the rotation to 90 degrees.

Next, we created a new material, this is done by double clicking in the bottom tray. We ticked off the colour and relfectance settings and ticked on the luminescence settings. You can add a texture, and here we added a checkerboard pattern. To adjust the properties of this checkerboard, you double click the swatch. we changed the U tiles to 0 and the V tiles to 50.

Select the rectangle and go into the object menu and select the intermediate points option, changing it from adaptive to subdivided, adjusting the angle setting to 5 degrees and the max length to 5 cm.

This was followed by creating a sphere with a radius of 40 cm, at 0,0,0, with a pitch of 30 degrees and a bearing of 40. To this we added a new material, again with the colour and reflectance turned off, but with the luminance turned on. Again we added a checkerboard texture, but we changed one of the colours - I changed mine to orange. We also adjusted the frequency of the checkerboard pattern, this basically adjusted how small and frequent the lines were on this new material. The U frequency was set at 0, and the V frequency was set at 5.

We then turned on the reflectance, adding a reflection (legacy), then selecting the layer colour option, going to texture and selecting Fresnel.

The next step was adding a camera, at 0,0,0, with the heading, rotation and bearing all also set at 0.

The final step of this part was to just render it. 

We opened the render settings, and changed the output to A4 Landscape, with a resolution of 300 DPI, the frame range was set to the current frame.

In the save options, we changed the format to JPEG, and altered the quality to 80% in the options. We also changed the anti-aliasing properties to best to sharpen and smooth some of the pixelated lines.

There was the option of adding Ambient Occlusion in the effects menu in the render settings, this added some realistic shading to the composition, most notable here in the joins between the faces of the rectangle.









Before the next part we altered the rectangle shape and changed it to a star shape. This is done by creating a star shape, roughly the same size as the rectangle, we used a 5 point with a inner radius of 75. Once created the star was dragged into the extrude layer and placed above the rectangle in the hierachy. Here is a rendering of this except I have adjusted the ambient occlusion to give a more pronounced shadow effect.

PART II

We saved the previous part and then saved as, to create a new file from the previous work, that would be overwritten without losing it.

In this new file, the first thing we added was a particle emitter which is done by going into the simulate menu, going to particle and then selecting the emitter. The emitter is automatically placed at 0,0,0, so we needed to shift it in the z-axis to sit inside the extruded tunnel shape. We set it to the value of 70 in z-space.

Some of the other settings we changed for the emitter was the particle - stop emission 200 frames, speed 200 cm, rotation 360 degrees , and we also ticked on show objects and render instances.

We then dragged the sphere shape into the emitter layer to make the emitter emit sphere's. We then changed the sphere settings as it was a bit big to have more than one of the sphere's in the tunnel at once, so we made the spheres smaller.

We then changed the emitter settings - adjusting the angle horizontal and verticle both to 60 degrees

The next stage was to add tags to the objects to stop them slipping through each other.

The extruded shape needs a different tag to the sphere. Select the extrude, then go to tags, simulation tags,and collider body.

The sphere needs to have a rigid body tag from the same menu and sub-menu.

Then we selected the extrude and went in the tag menu, but this time from the collision menu, the shape needs to be changed to static mesh.

In the mode window we changed the gravity settings to be a bit dynamic, going into the mode window, the project subsets, go to dynamics, then general and change the gravity setting to 0 cm.

You can alter the number of shapes that are produced by the emitter by adjusting the birthrate editor and render to suit the number of particles you want.

PART III

Part III was a completely new project within the context of todays session.

We started off with adding a floor to a new composition, and then a new background. We added a tag to the floor by selecting it, going to tags, then Cinema 4D and selecting the composting tag. We then had to tick on "compositing background", this would add a seemless join between the floor and the background, removing the line where the floor meets the wall/background.

The next step was to add some text, we did this by going to the MoGraph menu and adding MoText.

We started off by changing the font to one with a big serif such as Superclarendon, we changed the depth to between 50 and 60 - I chose 60, the caps were changed (both the end and start) we changed to fillet caps with 3 stepped corners/edges with radius' of 0.5 cm. We also had the option of changing the text - I changed mine to my initial M.

This was followed by creating a new material. This followed the same pattern as the other materials created today in that the colour was ticked off, but the luminance and reflection were turned on. 

The reflection was changed to add a reflection (legacy) layer. The layer colour was changed to a Fresnel texture layer.

Duplicate this material to make a new one, and with this new material double click to open the properites. In the luminance tab go to the texture option and select gradient. Double click this gradient swatch in order to open up the gradient properties. Next to the gradient bar there is a small arrow, which you need to click to open out. The interpolation needs changing to none, and the white flag needs moving in from the right to 80%.

You can drag this material onto the letter.

In the tag window you can change the tile settings, the U setting needs to be between 30 and 50.

Make another new material, this tie making it blue, and drag this onto the floor and background.

In the render settings, edit the anti-aliasing to the best option.

In each of the shapes you can edit the reflectance/how reflective the material is, by adjusting the Global reflection brightness to a lower value such as 50%, lighter tones will be more reflective.

Then we used the MoText tool, and the material tag to alter the projection option to preference, I chose the Spiral wrapping option. Next we added more text to the piece. Using the MoText tool, add a word that is a bit longer than the width of the initial letter, otherwise the effect isnt very good, and adjust the settings so that the word is smaller than the letter, by using a smaller height/point size. Using the cloner tool, clone this new word using a grid array. We altered this so that the settings were 1, 2, and 2, with a size of 700, 70, and 70.

Next, using the cloner tool, set this new grid array of text that it sat centrally above the first letter in the Y-axis, and using a change in the viewpoint make sure that the two ranks of words are sat directly above the initial letter.

Following this, you need to add the appropriate tags to each of the elements.

The floor, and the big, initial letter need collider tags (found in the simulation sub-menu within the tag menu), whereas the cloned text needs a rigid body tag.

In this rigid body tag there are options that need to be altered, there inherit tag needs to be changed to apply tag to children, and the individual elements option needs changing to all.

After the techinal side of this was all set up and working correctly, I went back and tweaked some of the settings, for example I changed the font to Raleway and the colours, to match up to my personal branding which is mainly orange, with white, and grey.

PART IV

Part IV required another blank file.

This started with the creation of 3 different polygons, 1 was 200 x 2, a second was 70 x 70, and the third was 3 x 200.

To accompany these 3 polygons, we were asked to create 8 new materials - all had colour and reflection off, with only luminance turned on. One had to be white, another had to be black, and the other 6 could have been any colour we chose.

This part of the session required the use of the particle emitter, so we added that in again from the simulate menu, but we had to change the rotational position of it to -90 degrees so that it was facing upwards.

The next step was to duplicate the square polygon 6 times, so that with the original included it totaled 7.

We then went back to the particle emitter and adjusted the horizontal and verticle angles so that they were both 60 degrees. We also changed the birthrate so that it was 20 and 20. The stop emission was changed to 200 and the lifetime to 500. The speed was set to 10 and the end scale was set to 1, both each set with a 20% variation.

This was so that the polygons would grow and move at different speeds with a certain degree of randomness. We then dragged all the polygons into the emitter layer. The show objects options had to be ticked on in the emitter options.

The final step of this part was add some text, for this we again used the MoText tool. The depth was changed to 0. The co-ordinates were changed to x=0, y=600, and the z=0, the rotational was set to -90 degrees. The text alignment, copy, and Y-positioning may need some fiddling with depending on what the copy is and personal preference.

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When saving the files for animation the render settings need to be changed.

To save as an animation the output needs to be changed to "HDV/TV 720 25"

The frame range needs to be changed from current frame to all frames.

The format needs to be changed to QuickTime Movie, in the options menu, the compression needs to be changed from Animation to H.264 (and you can untick the keyframe option(s))

The resolution needs to be at 72 DPI to avoid massively long render times

Having the Ambient Occlusion can also slow down render times.

Cinema 4D #1

Today's process and production session was the first session in Cinema 4D, in which we spent the session just getting the hang of working in the software.

Firstly we had to have some artwork, which we made in Illustrator. I used a vector form of my personal branding. It features an M with two concentric circles, with the outer circle being broken into 3 arcs. For this to be compatible with Cinema 4D we had to convert any text to paths by creating outlines. It was recommended that any longer bits of text should be avoided as text can be added in C4D. Mine was fine because it was just an initial.

This was placed on a document that had been altered to work using C4D's 3D space. The default setting for Illustrator is to have the origins set to the top left hand corner, because Illustrator is used to create flat vectors it only needs to have two axis' (X and Y), but given that C4D uses 3, where the origins all meet in the middle. We needed to move the origin points from the corner to the middle of the page, we did this by turning on the rulers, and then moving from the top left corner of the document window and dragging this to the center point of the document, and this reset the origins to 0,0 in the middle of the page.

We then set the artwork to sit centered around this center point. When saving the work, we had to save it as a legacy version as the last compatible version of Illustrator was Illustrator 8.

Next we set up a more professional and organised workflow on the desktop, by creating a folder on the desktop for the project and then creating 3 new folders within this new folder. One each for the artwork, output, and Cinema 4D. This is because in industry where a project may be compartmentalized this is the most efficient way of working.

The next step was entering C4D. W started by editing the render settings. Firstly, changing the output to a print output with A4 Landscape settings, and changing the frame range to current range. We also editing the name that the file would be saved as, changed the file type to JPEG, with the quality at 95%, but we were advised anything above 80% would be fine.

We then saved these settings as a template, before saving an empty file with a proper name to begin the project. There is an option in C4D that allows the file to be saved incrementally to chart progress.

Next we changed some of the view settings, so that there was an darker tint to the edge of the work space window, as well as adding an action safe border at 95% of the full size of the window.

The following step was importing the artwork that we had made in illustrator. C4D does not label this as import or place like Adobe Creative suite instead it is 'merge'. When merging there is an options window and with a scale setting, In this case we just left it at 1.

C4D can read that the imported file is made up of paths, in the window we selected the paths that was under the shape layer and used a right click menu to connect objects and delete. The next step was to drag out all the paths from the shape and delete the null shape.

We then went about extruding the paths that made up our design. We again selected the paths and used the subdivision surface tool and selected extrude. Then we dragged the path into the extrude layer, before altering with the settings of the extrusion. We changed the caps to fillet caps, on both the start and end, as well as changing the bevelled edges to 3 stepped edges with 0.5cm radius'.

Once we were happy with this, we started to add the environment. We added a floor and a background. Because the floor is inserted at 0, 0, 0 we had to adjust the Y-position of our logo. The best way to move it is by using the arrows that appear when a layer/object is selected. The green arrow moves it in the Y, the red moves it in the X, and the blue moves it in the Z-axis. I shifted mine up enough that it looked as if the logo was hovering above the floor.

The next stage was to start sprucing up the work. This was started by adding a new material. This is achieved by creating a new material in the bottom tray by double clicking. You can duplicate this new material by selecting the original and dragging it to the right whilst holding the cmd button. I added three colors; orange and white, (these are the primary and secondary colors in my branding) and a dark grey, as I think this would offset the other colors nicely. The materials/colors can then be applied by dragging them onto the face of the shape, or onto the layer for it to be applied to all of the shape.

This was followed by us selecting the floor and the going to the tags menu. we selected the Cinema 4D tags sub-menu and compositing. We then turned on the compositing background, and compositing background for HDR Maps options.

We then added some text, by selecting MoText from the MoGraph menu. In the text options we changed the justification so that it was aligned center. I added the supporting copy, to sit next to my logo.

Once this was done, we added a camera by selecting add camera from the top tool bar. This is initially added to where the current viewpoint is, this can be seen by scrolling/zooming out immediately after adding the camera. Clicking on the crosshairs in the camera layer in the window in the top left allows you to see it the render from that particular angle.

Next, we added some lighting. We were advised again that when adding lighting you should follow the same principles as photography, using key, and fill lighting. The key lighting was placed over the left shoulder of the camera. We then enabled shadows, by simply going into the general menu in the light, going to shadow, and turning on soft shadow maps. Using a low shadow resolution (around 250 x 250) keeps the shading soft, whereas using a higher res can create a more defined edge. A second light can be added to fill in some of the shadows.

The position of the lights can be changed without leaving the camera view, by altering lights coord settings.

Another one of the settings can be altered to add colored tints. We added a slight yellow tint to the key, using a yellow with a 5% hue, and a blue tint to the fill.

The final step was to add a lighting effect that would add a bit more depth to the work. It was made by changing one of the visible light settings on the key light, turning the visible light on and making the radius bigger so that it extended beyond the artwork.

Overall I am quite pleased with how my first attempt at working in C4D went. I found the process to be quite simple, even if there was a few times where I got a little lost whilst working with some of the camera/viewpoint controls. This is certainly something I would like to do again, and perhaps refine the use of the lighting, to give a more desirable outcome, as I feel that I may have implemented the last step incorrectly as it doesn't really add anything to the composition. I am really happy with the rest of the styling however as it fits well into existing branding I have produced, however I would like to perhaps tweak the colours a little bit to be an exact match what already exists.

I look forward to using and progressing my skills in Cinema 4D.