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