C4D Mega Tutorial Thread || For Beginners and Advanced Users

First start by creating a plane


Set the object properties for the plane like the ones shown below


Select the plane and click Simulation>Dynamics>create Collider


Once youve done that, Create a new sphere (#1) and raise it above the plane by using the move tool (#2).
Once youve moved the sphere make the object editable (#3)


click the polygon select tool, then press "U" then "L" to enable loop selection.




once youve highlighted the parts that you want to be luminous Right click and use extrude inner
you only need to use it slightly to that there is a second edge to the selection.


then predd "D" on the keyboard to use the Extrude tool,
then Extrude the selection in slightly.


Create a new material, this will be the outside material.
then follow the pictures instructions.


Once you've dont that create a luminous colour by deselecting all the channels apart from luminance.
and set the brightness to around 150%








Use the Play button on the timeline to activate the physics, Click it again to freeze the balls.


Finally set the global illumination effect to on and render out your final image!

This user interface tutorial is for Cinema 4D R12,
but allot of the stuff covered translates fairly well in lower versions.

This is the first thing you will see when you open Cinema 4D,
I have labelled everything of use to a beginner and also explained what they do



Another thing thats really useful is this little thing,

You use it to move the editor camera

Here are all of the Shrotcut Keys for C4D,
They really help if you dont like Searching on menu's

Within the 3D world lighting is Very important,
as In reality everything is lit by more than one source,
unless the circumstances are very precise

A very good technique every beginner should know in lighting is Three point Lighting.
Three point lighting works by using 2 mood lights and one fill light, The mood lights
convey the mood of the scene, and the fill light fills the scene with a warm or cool light.

How to create a 3 Point lighting Scene

creating a new project file and create simple plane. The dimensions are 4000m by 6000m, after that, change the segment value

(both Width and Height) to 1.


Make sure the plane is selected, then press C on your keyboard to convert the plane into editable Object. After that, click

on the Edge selection tool (see picture below), then, click on the longest back edge.


Whith the edge selected, press D on your keyboard to get the Extrude tool. Enter a value of 2500 to the Offset setting and

also a 90 degree edge angle click apply


Click on New Transform and enter a value of 3500 to the offset also a 90 degree edge angle click apply.


Now right click and click on Bevel. Hold shift and select the two edges selected in the picture below. When they are

selected, click on apply and apply the same settings as those in the screenshot below.



Create a new plane. Set the width to 3400 m and the height to 2300 m, after that, change the Orientation to +Z. When you are

done, place the plane to the far right of the studio, like I did in the screenshot below.


Duplicate the plane (Edit > Copy, Edit > Paste) and place it to the far left of the studio like I did in the screenshot

below. For later reference, Ill refer to the left plane as Plane 1 and the second plane as Plane 2.


Now, some basic lighting theory before moving to the materials!
To create a great studio lighting, well use a Cold light (Blue-ish color) and a Hot light (a warm color, like orange).
Those 2 lights and a fill light are really simple to set up and provide great result (as seen in the screenshot below).

Enough Talking, lets move on to the materials!


For the materials, just apply the settings highlighted in the screenshot below, simple enough =D. Be sure to apply the

materials to the correct planes


Before we do a test render, we need to tweak some render settings. So go to Render > Render settings. Click on Effect and

choose Global illumination. Apply the settings high-lighted in the screenshot below.


When your render is done, youll notice a pretty big problem we need more light in front of the studio. We need a fill light!

So lets do that!


Start by creating a 1600m x 5600m plane. With the Rotate tool, hold Shift and rotate it 45 degrees. After that, place it at

approximately the same place as in the screenshot below


Create a new material, and apply the high-lighted settings like in the screenshot below, finally, add the material to the

plane we just created


Much better! Feel free to adjust the brightness of each of the planes to your liking.

Thrausi is a Plug-in for Cinema 4D, It disintegrates objects and be used to create great effects within Cinema 4D.

Heres an Example of what it can do



You can download Thruasi from Here
There is a tutorial on how to install the plug-in on the site at the bottom of the page.

How to Shatter Text
Heres a Short tutorial for those who dont know how to use it

First you want to create a plane (floor),
to do this click and hold the Cube at the top of the screen then click plane.


After that Scale up the plane by clicking the scale tool, and dragging within the veiwport.


Now that we have our plane, lets create some text!
To do this click MoGraph then MoText


Once you have selected your text you can edit it in a variety of ways in this panel,
There is an advanced text tutorial for all those wanting to know how to edit the text in a specific way.
But in this tutorial I'm only going to cover the basics of thruasi.


Create two materials, The first being the material you want on the outside
and the second you want on the inside of the object/text.


Then Drag the materials onto the text in the order you want them on the object,
Outside colour goes on last, and the inside colour goes on first.


Now we need to sort out the dynamics of the plane, as Without a dynamic tab on the plane
when we simulate the text shattering it will fall through the floor.
To do this we click the plane, so its selected then goto Simulation,Dynamics then click
"Create Collider"


Now we get down to the shattering!, Select the text and click
Plug-ins, Thrausi (version goes here), Thrausi


Once youve clicked that Thrausi should open up,
Change the value to anything between 0-50,
if you go over 50 there is a chance your computer may freeze!
Then click Break!


Once the image finishes calculating, Press play and your text should crumble!
Click play again to freeze frame.


Final step is adding Lights and turning on Global illumination.
Follow the lighting tutorial to learn how to create a scene
And follow the Global illumination Tutorial to learn how to make images look real!

A few rules to remember when Making Materials, Everything in Real life has reflection!
(Apart from the exception of black holes lol)
So when you make any material make sure you add reflection,
Even if the strength of it is 1% it really does make the image look realistic.

Right, now I've got that lecture out of the way,
I can show you how to make simple yet effective materials.

To start Ill explain the material panel and each of the effect that can be added.
Lets start by adding a material


After youve selected to create a new material, you should have all these settings before you


Lets start by adding some reflection as its very important
To add the effect Click the tick box next to the effect.
Lets add a 12% reflection by decreasing the strength


We then add some colour to the material, By simply clicking on colour and using the sliders


One more thing you should know is specular,
By changing the sliders you can effectively make a material that looks like metal/plastic or any other type of material

This plays a really big part in making realistic renders, as without it lighting and materials
will not render properly

Global illumination is a general name for a group of algorithms used in 3D computer graphics that are meant to add more realistic lighting to 3D scenes.
Such algorithms take into account not only the light which comes directly from a light source (direct illumination),
but also subsequent cases in which light rays from the same source are reflected by other surfaces in the scene, whether reflective or non (indirect illumination).

Images rendered using global illumination algorithms appear more photorealistic than images rendered using only direct illumination algorithms (default Render Settings).
However, the images are consequently much slower to generate.

The easiest way to show this is by showing two side by side renders
The left side shows without any rendering effects turned on, whilst the other side shows when Global illumination is on and

anti aliasing turned on best


To turn Global illumination open up the render settings box,
Click effect then Global Illumination


then open Global illumination and set the GI mode to IR + QMC (still image)


then set the diffuse depth to 2


Now Onto Anti Aliasing

Do the same as before if Anti Aliasing isn't on the list already
Then go into the settings for it and change the Anti Aliasing mode from geometry
to best.


Then test your render!, youll find that the quality has increased.

As said before in the Simple material tutorial, Everything has reflection in real life.
This tutorial will cover making reflections even more realistic,
and also creating good looking plastic and metal materials.

So well first start by opening up C4D and opening the material editor


Lets start on gradient colours, When you look at an object you'll notice that its never just One colour,
There's either a slight gradient or the colour has faded a bit.


We can recreate this effect in Cinema 4D by using a radial gradient.
To start goto the colour channel click the texture arrow and select gradient.


Once you have done that you'll see that at the moment the colour and position isn't correct.
Lets fix that by changing the type of gradient, Click the gradient fill to do this


Change the type of gradient from 2D-U to 2D-Circular


Then switch the sliders around so the darker colour is on the right


Then set the sliders colours, and you should have a nice gradient fill on your objects


Final render

This one is fairly simple, and when used in conjunction with Transparent a background
you can use the renders when making sigs and things.

Lets start by changing the view to front


Grab the spline tool and draw a scribble in the view port


again change the view port, but to right view and draw another scribble


Once again change the view port, but to perspective view and draw a final scribble


Then highlight everything in the object menu, and select Loft NURBS
Then drag all the splines onto the Loft NURBS


Now the final steps, Create a camera.


Select it by clicking Cameras, Scene Cameras then "Camera"


Finally change the focal length on the camera to something like 6 or 4 and angle the camera to a place it looks good,
all you have to do is add some colour and render!

This one is fairly simple, and can be done with relative ease.

When you've finished making your scene and are happy to render the final image,
goto the render settings GUI

Tick the save box, change the file type to PNG
tick the alpha channel select a place to save your render by clicking the three dots.



Then just render the image in picture viewer, Yep its that simple

Firstly I will explain the difference between Rendering transparency on film and on a static image.
Majorety of people alredy know this but thare are still people who dont notice,
Films are made up of pictures compressed into a specific codec,
Onlyt a Small ammount of codecs support something called an "alpha Channel"

heres an exaple of what happens when you use a Unsupporting codec and render with alpha enabled.


And when you use a supporting codec.


Its as simple as remembering to render as a certain file.

Anyway, Lets begin and show you how to render using the correct codec

First we start by Opening your ready made .C4D file, Then we check to make sure there arnt any
background objects that you want in the scene, as anything thats there Will be included in the final render.
As you can see from mine, There is a big issue.
I dont want the floor to apear in the final render!


To solve this issue I will apply something called a Compositing tag to the thing I dont want to appear.
I right click the layer in the browser window, and select CINEMA 4D tags>Compositing


Then set the setting like so if you dont want anything to appear (This includes Shadows).


If you want shadows in the final render, tick the receive shadows box.


Once you've made sure there arnt any conflicting objects you dont want rendered,
You will need to open the render settings, then click on save


From here you need to set the save place for your file by clicking on the 3 dots.


Then click format and set as Quicktime movie


Tick the alpha channel box, then Click options for the Quicktime format


Set the compression type to animation, Then set the depth to Millions of colors+
This is the compression type I was talking about earlier, It allows transparency! yay!.


Then render to picture viewer.


Once Everything is complete, You can do two things with the leftover file.
#1 Open the file in Photoshop and save it to web device, so you can use it as a Gif.
#2 Import the file in after effects and use its alpha channel to composite something.

Thats it anyhow, You can create some really nice stuff using this.