Cinema 4D : Introduction

Two Day Course

Overview

This Maxon authorised two day training course is designed to provide a comprehensive introduction, showing you how to use Cinema 4D, the industry standard 3D application, to create still images and animations for both TV and film.

During the course, you will learn to set up a project, understand Cinema 4D's interface, work within a 3D environment, model and render objects adding texture and lighting effects to them and create some basic animation sequences.

By the end of the course, the delegate will have the tools to create full 3D scenes and create finished output.

This course is designed for anyone who is new to Cinema 4D and wants to learn to create 3D stills and animations.

No previous experience of Cinema 4D or any modelling program is required.

Public Course Dates & Pricing

Course Outline

• 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 and object tags
  
  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 ‐ using falloff
  
  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
  • Extruding and inner extruding
  • Beveling polygons and edges
  • Joining and breaking polygons
  • Smoothing and Phong tags
  • Face normals
  • 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
  • Creating a texture within Adobe Photoshop
  • Applying materials ‐ material tags
  • UVW mapping ‐ how to align textures with objects
  
  Creating environments for objects
  • 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 and volumetric lights
  • Adding Skylights
  • Creating and using a camera
  • Setting lens settings and parameters
  • Camera switching and editing
  
  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
  • 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