Day one

Cinema 4D Basics
• Welcome to the cinema 4d interface
• Using layouts and 'workspaces'
• Setting up a project
• Frame rate and unit sizes
• Understanding the various windows, toolbars and viewports
• Navigating around a 3d space and using hotkey navigation
• Managing project settings correctly

Creating Objects in Cinema 4D
• Understanding basic object types and parameters
• Understanding the various types and forms, their settings and parameters
• Creating basic objects ‐ primitives
• Manipulating objects, moving scaling and rotating
• Using the attributes manager
• Understanding object properties

Understanding the objects hierarchy
• How the object hierarchy or objects list works as an organizational tool
• Cinema 4D's parent and child structure ‐ understanding parent and child relationships
• Using the list to hide and display objects
• Using null objects to control the hierarchy

Using Modifiers and Deformers to modify, distort and manipulate objects
• Creating deformers and using them correctly within the object list
• Types of deformers ‐ uses for animation and modelling
• Deformer limits

Making spline or outline objects to edit and create objects
• Creating basic outlines with the bezier pen
• Making shapes and paths
• Bezier types, interpolation and curve interpolation
• Smoothing beziers
• Text splines
• Using illustrator paths

Creating more complex models using different constructor objects
• Extrusion objects
• Lofting ‐ making surfaces from profiles
• Lathing ‐ spinning objects in a virtual lathe
• Arrays ‐ multiple objects from a single source
• Booleans ‐ combination objects
• The combine object ‐ turning separate elements into one
• Using subdivision surfaces for making smoother models

Using editable objects, points edges and polygons to create any shape or surface
• Points, edges and polygons ‐ the different editing modes
• Understanding detail level ‐ how many polygons?
• Using the tool setting in the attributes manager
• Using the selection tools
• Understanding objects tags
• Face normal
• Alignment functions
• Avoiding common polygon problems

Day two

Creating and working with materials to change the colour, texture and properties of objects
• Making new materials and shaders
• Enabling material properties
• Colour, texture, reflectance and transparency
• Bump maps to enhance surfaces
• Using bitmaps and procedural textures
• Applying materials ‐ material tags
• UVW mapping ‐ how to align textures with objects

Creating environments for objects and cameras
• An infinite ground plane ‐ the floor object
• Making skies, skylight objects and physical skies
• Creating "props" to assist with reflections
• Hiding environments for reflections

Adding lights and Cinema 4D cameras to give viewpoints
• Understanding the range of light types and light techniques
• Working with different light ranges and falloff
• Shadow types and their parameters
• Adding visible lights
• Create light setups (daylight, interior light and studio light)
• Adding skylights
• Creating and using a camera
• Setting lens settings and parameters

Creating simple animations using animation and Keyframing
• Basic animation techniques
• Understanding the animation workspace
• Getting things to move with keyframes
• Using the timeline to animate an element or function
• Using keys and curves
• Animating and object on a path
• Previewing an animation

Rendering and output to create still or animation sequences
• The cinema 4d renderers
• Rendering set up ‐ size and frame rate
• File types ‐ exporting frames and animations
• Adding global illumination for more realistic rendering
• Adding more effects to the renderer
• The cinema 4d picture viewer
• Rendering for print and video

Questions and answers