CINEMA 4D R15 Fundamentals: For Teachers and Students

By Anson Call

Need to learn the fundamentals for MAXON's latest release for CINEMA 4D? This ebook will get you up and running in short order on one of the very best 3D programs on the market today! Contains links to over 7 hours of online video to help put you on your way to becoming a power user!

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jun 30, 2014
• ISBN: 9781483531168

Book preview

CINEMA 4DR15 Fundamentals For Teachers and Students

Chapter 1 – Introduction to CINEMA 4D

Why This Book?

I have been using CINEMA 4D since release 6. As of this writing, CINEMA 4D is on release 15. I used it for my graduate thesis. I have used it professionally as well as academically for many years for a wide variety of projects. I have already written a book on it (The CINEMA 4D Handbook), and I teach it almost exclusively in my classes (Art, Architecture, and Graphic Design). CINEMA 4D is one of the very best applications I have ever used.

That being said, I do not know everything about CINEMA 4D (hereafter referred to as C4D), nor is there any single person alive that does. It is a vast application that is used in many different fields of expertise. There is a lot of learning material in the form of books, magazines, online video tutorials, websites, and blogs that teach C4D very effectively. C4D also comes with its own tutorials that are very good. You should use these resources. So why this book and for whom is it intended?

While there is a lot of material out there, for an instructor wanting to teach it, it can be a bit maddening figuring out which resources to use. MAXON, the makers of C4D, has a very good product called Cineversity (cineversity.com) that is constantly updated with video tutorials, but it’s $295 to start with a $95 annual renewal fee—anything but inexpensive (but, depending on your commitment, this is probably the best product to learn C4D). The problem with this, and many other products, is that they usually just add new sections or videos to cover the new features of the new releases. They don’t always retread old ground and update on how to do the fundamentals with the new software that has renamed menus, moved items around, or outright removed things that will be referred to in the old instruction. For example, in R15, the previously named HyperNURBS is now called Subdivision Surface, which brings it more in line with industry jargon, but also makes every video, tutorial and blog about how to use HyperNURBS potentially confusing to new users.

The goal of this book is to provide an up-to-date learning experience for the new releases. It will cover the fundamentals of modeling, texturing, lighting, animation, and rendering. If anything changes in the menus, technique, or features that impact these basic fundamentals, then the instruction will get updated as well. This book assumes you know nothing about C4D or have little experience with it. It may also have some useful information for those who have used the software before, but want to learn other aspects, such as sculpting. This will make it great for teachers and students, but it is also useful to anyone who just wants to get started.

Resources You Will Need (Must Read!)

In order to complete the tutorials in this book you will need to download tutorial files. These can be found here, but don’t enter it in a web browser just yet.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2HF8EYdyMTVX1JMRncxZW8yVlU/edit?usp=sharing

This is a pretty long address to manually enter into a web browser. So instead of doing that, send an email to [e-mail] and you will get an automatic reply with an easy-to-click-on link. Download these files to your computer where you can easily find them. This email is very important, as it will contain any updated information such as links to the project files, passwords, and links to the video files that are referenced later in the book. If any of this information changes, it will be updated in the automatic reply for this email.

The latter half of the book is done entirely with videos. These links can be found at the beginning of the chapters that have videos in them. You will need a password for the videos, which will be listed next to the link in the chapters.

This book assumes you have the latest CINEMA 4D R15 Studio version (other versions may work, but not guaranteed) and access to a computer that will run it. Minimum system requirements are reasonable to run the software, but I recommend more than the minimum. Any computer (laptops and desktops, not netbooks) built in the last five years will probably be okay. The big thing is having enough RAM to do sculpting and I recommend at least 8 gigabytes. A good, dedicated video card is also highly recommended. A 3-button mouse (that can include a 2 button mouse that has the scroll wheel that acts as the middle, third button) is required. So, if you are on a laptop and are using the track pad exclusively you will need to get an appropriate mouse to follow the instruction. I do not recommend Apple’s standard mouse unless it is one that can be configured to perform a left click, middle click, and a right click. C4D runs great on both Windows and Macintosh. This book assumes no preference for which platform you use; each has its strengths and weaknesses. Historically, viewport performance is usually better on Windows, while render times are slightly better on OS X (given the same hardware). None of this should stop you from using your preferred platform.

If you are a student/teacher you can petition MAXON (www.maxon.net) to get a free student license. Otherwise, you can download the demo from MAXON’s website (www.maxon.net). You can activate it and get 43 days of normal use, save and all.

How to Proceed

It can be fun to just start up C4D, dive right in, and try new things. This has its place. It might also be tempting to deviate from the tutorials and try something new. However, doing so will increase the likelihood that something will go wrong and you’ll be lost as to why the instruction failed. The best way to finish the tutorials is to only perform the tasks given and to not deviate. It is also best to start from the default settings and not customized ones. Once you have completed the tutorials you should definitely try and explore to find out new things. Be patient until then.

The CINEMA 4D Interface Overview

Figure 1.1—the CINEMA 4D Interface.

This section will introduce you to the fundamental components of the CINEMA 4D interface. It is not meant to be an exhaustive resource on every feature. Instead it will provide an overview that will get you prepared for the upcoming projects.

Viewport, Menus, Icons, and Managers

Like any 3D software, C4D has a learning curve, which is best overcome by learning its interface. Look at Figure 1.1 and you’ll notice a row of icons on the top and left side (If the image is too small in your reader, just open up C4D and look at its default interface without making changes). These are shortcuts to the most often used functions. Four windows called viewports are in the center. This is where you will see your creations and manipulate them.

The other parts are called managers. The top right contains the Object Manager. This is where your items in the scene such as objects and lights are listed. To the very right of the Object Manager lies a vertical column of tabs labeled, from top to bottom: Objects, Content Browser, and Structure. Just below that, in the lower right, is the Attribute Manager. This is where a selected object or tool’s parameters are listed and edited. There are tabs for Attributes and Layers. Clicking on the tabs will bring up their respective manager.

In the bottom left of the interface is the location of the Material Manager. The Material Manager is where you create new materials for objects in your scene. Just to the right of that, in the bottom middle, sits the Coordinate Manager. This lets you know the global (also called World in the C4D parlance) and/or relative (local) position, scale, and rotation of your objects. Just above the Material and Coordinate Manager is the Power Slider that contains controls for animation.

The difficulty in talking about menus is that there are so many. The main menu sits at the very top window (on OSX, the main menu is contained within the program’s window and should not be confused with the menu bar that contains the apple). This is where most functions can be found. It is not associated with any manager. The icons just below that are just conveniently placed copies of items found in the main menu. The Object, Attribute, and Material Managers all have their own menus. To clarify future instruction, this book will call out any menus by their associated Manager.