blog / QuickTip Tutorial: Create a surreal image in Maxon Cinema 4D and Adobe Photoshop – Part 1
Check out the video version here!
Step 1.
We need the object to use it as base for our experiments – and in my case I’ve used text object – if you want to do the same you can do it in two ways. MoGraph way to go (quicker, but almost the same as the non-MoGraph one) is to use MoText (MoGraph->MoText) and this way is quicker as MoText will create the extrusion (make it to an object) for you (below).
Go ahead and select the MoText and in the Object tab type some text in the Text box – now you can see that on my screenshot I got two tabs open (magic) at the same time – well it’s easier like this and you can have it too just Shift+Click or DraggClick on selected tabs and all (more than two if you like all of them) will stay open. I have Object and Caps open as we’re going to use these two. Most of the settings here don’t really impact our experiments and are more about personal taste – I’ve picked Tahoma font (simple, got some decent thickens) so that you guys can use it too (as most os’es have it).
In the Caps tab pick Quadrangles, select Regular Grid and pick some Width (I got 16cm in some examples – some other I got 17cm) – the With depends on your text (word) and font – so go and play with it. Now if you wonder (as I assume some of you guys have more experience with 3D than other) why I ‘ve broken the text with above settings – well – we need extra geometry and the less symmetrical is is the more interesting the effect will be. If you don’t have the MoGrah and can’t use MoText – you can get the same result by using the Text object (Objects->Spline Primitive->Text) and you’ll get the same text window – but you’ll need to add Extrude NURBS (Objects->NURBS->Extrude NURBS) where you find Caps. The names and settings work the same way – but I thought I let you know about two ways of doing it. The screenshots show few variations of the settings using both MoText and regular Text Object.
Step2.
Once you’re happy with your object/text – make sure to save it. I always recommend to put a number at the end of the name for your file and save it twice (with different number) – life taught me this – there are never to many copies of your projects to be safe. You’ll see me sometimes having the object few times in the scene – visible only once – that’s because I like to have a quick copy so I don’t need to open any other scenes to revert etc. You can copy’n'paste your object the same way you would copy’n'paste anything in your Os (Ctrl+C to copy and Ctrl+V to paste). Once you have your copy of the object you can Alt (Option) click on the small circles (next to the bigger one and the tick box) next to the name and you’ll hide it from both the editor and render view. MaxonCinema 4D lets you pick with these small circles what’s visible and where with the top circle for the editor visibility and bottom one for the render window. You can have three states: no colour (default on), green circle and red circle. Red means invisible and Green – always visible.
Now going back to our text – once you like what you got – select the object (or Extrude object) and hit letter C (keyboard) – you also right click and pick Make Editable. The reason I’ve said about the backup copy is that this step can’t be reverted. (apart from Ctrl+Z at first).
Now – go to the Objects window (the one on the right hand side) open (small plus box next to the name) container and start dragging out all the object from the inside so that they are no longer children of the top parents and just sit in the Objects window at the same level (depth).
This is actually easier with the standard Text Object as there’s less object to clean. Once you’re all done and only the text remains and all empty objects (all empty parents) are removed we can select all the elements and right click -> Connect+Delete. This will create one single object from all the fronts, backs and sides and delete the old unconnected ones. Save copies.
Step3.
Now this step will be again about playing and just getting something you like so feel free to “rewind†Step3 few times as these operations depend on the type of the font (or object in general), the with of the grid (Step1) so your text might (and will) look different when it comes to the polygons (cuts). Select your text either with one of the selection tools (Selection menu) or my selecting the object in Objects manager and hit Ctrl+A. If you can’t do it – make sure you have the Polygon Tool selected – on the left hand side of the screen there are few icons. Once you hover over the icon MC4D will put a hint on the bottom stripe with the name – select the Polygon Tool one (you can also go via menu with Tools->Polygons). Make sure to click and get to know the other icons as well – The Edge Tool and Point Tool. These let you edit the basic building blocks of 3D objects. All 3D objects have points – these points connected create edges – once you connect the edges you get polygons. You need at least three edges to create a polygon (in this case triangular). HINT: If you control click on one of the icons you can convert the selection to the new type – so you can get all the points quickly or edges etc. This is very handy when you work on extrusions as they will give different result when applied onto the edges, points or polygons.
Once you have your object selected go and right click and chose Triangulate (also: Functions->Triangulate) – this will create extra breaks and cuts in the polygons hence add more details and that’s what we want. The more detail you get (not too much though) the more unique and weird your text will become. You can keep it the way it is or you can pick the same menu and chose Untriangulate and in the box uncheck “Create N-gons” (otherwise your polygons will get “fix” and look clean without any cuts).
You can see that the positions of these cuts has change – play with going back and forth as this is where you cant to have fun to get something you like. You can also go and subdivide the object if you want to get more objects – this is all up to your personal choice. What I find is interesting is when you create few selections in random places – with Live Selection Tool (Selection->Live Selection) – let’s say on the bottom as we want to get the impression that the type/pebbles like is falling apart – so we want to get some nice smaller stones (objects) on the bottom. This is great as all that will give you some sweet detail once we’re in the rendering/post-production phase. You can also apply Subdivide to the polygons to get more detail, but make sure to uncheck “HyperNURBS Subdivide” and I wouldn’t go higher than one (two for bigger polygons) as you can end up with too many cuts and the nice pebbles like look won’t work.
If you go to the Structure menu there’s a Knife tool as well (Structure->Knife) and you can use it to make more random cuts – have fun with it!
Step4.
Great – we got one weird looking object now. So let’s start with next steep which is creating the small egg like shapes – and this is done in just few clicks. Select all your polygons (Ctrl+A) and right click Disconnect (Functions->Disconnect).
Now it looks the same as before, but it’s different :) Now all your polygons are separate and you can see it more when you click-select single polygon and move it (you need to have the polygon tool selected). So we got the our organic looking pebbles done! Just grab your object and place it in the HuperNURB – select your object and go to Objects->NURBS->HyperHURBS if you hold Alt (option) while clicking your object will automatically become the child of the HyperNURBS. Nice?
Step5.
This looks interesting the way it is and if you like – maybe – for your design you can go with more of a flat look like this ? This looks almost like leaves or tinny meadow flowers – go ahead and play with this and see how you can use it.
For this design we want to have a kind of pebbles pebbles like shapes, but they are missing one thing – the thickness. Now are few ways to add thickness to an object – from medium/hard ones like drawing the polygons by hand (Structure->Create Polygon) or extracting the edges of the polygon with Edge to Spline tool (Structure->Edit Spline->Edge to Spline) and use Extrude to add thickness. Now these methods are great – they give you great control, but they will also give you a massive headache as they are very time consuming.Luckily there are two very simple ways of getting thickness – once includes the Cloth NURBS – the other Explosion FX deformer, but both of them offer slightly different result (more of a personal preference).
The ClothNURBS offers extra setting over subdivision the general structure is a bit more tight for the outer elements and it looks almost like there’s an extra stroke around made from different pebbles. To use ClothNURBS simply drag your object to ClothNURBS object (Simulation->Cloth->ClothNURBS) and in the Object tab select thickness (I’ve used 10cm) and set Subdivision to 0 as you already have the HyperNURBS object in which the ClothNURBS is placed. (screenshot below). Play with the settings in the Object tab and see what you get.
The second way as mentioned is using Explosion FX – simply pick the Explosion FX (Object->Deformer->Explosion FX) and place it as child of your object (screenshot below) – then in the Object tab set the Time to 0% (this will “rewind” the explosion) and in the Cluster tab set the Thickness to 10cm – that’s it. Your object should have thickness now and as you can see the result is a bit different than the one with HyperNURBS – and in my case – that’s what I’ve used.
The screenshot below shows the compression of these two methods and it’s all up to you which one you like.
Step6.
For our last tip today – we’ll get this a bit random look. Now there’s a few ways to do it – I always recommend using a bit of all as it will give you the best result. So in my case I’ve used the mograph dynamic (in R11 – you right click on the object and select: MoGraph Tags -> Rigid Body, in R12 it’s Dynamic Tags -> Dynamics Body). I would recommend you Nick’s webiste as he’s all about dynamics in his tutorials. There’s an easy trick to create objects from your pebbles (as right now the dynamic won’t work on the single pebbles as they are part of one single object) – but you can put the object in Fracture object (MoGraph->Fracture) and then hit C (make it editable) and you’ll get objects made from your single object. Now the dynamics will affect all the pebbles. Have fun with it.
There’s a easy way if you don’t have a mograph module or you just don’t want to use dynamics – you can simply select the polygons with the selection tool and polygon tool selected and move/rotate them where you like – this way you can fake the falling effect and still control every element to make sure that It all looks the way you want. And this is what I did, move few, delete few more – maybe scale few etc. once your happy you should get something like the screenshot below.
All right, so I went a bit to far, but you get the point, let’s go back and do a quick test render.
Conclusion.
Looks good! I’ve used the background object and some gradient for the test render, but we can chat about this next time. For next week (more less around Thursday/Friday) we’ll chat about using the IvyGenerator to get the foliage/ivy – we’ll setup the materials in Cinema4D for both the text/ivy and the background to get some nice looks. We’ll chat about lighting and though I’ve used HDRI Light Kit by GreyscalesGorilla I will give some general tips how to get nice look for the final render. We’ll play with some other elements as well so stay tuned for next week!
Also – if you like the site and what to be part of it – spread the word, as the essential part of any site is the traffic and users. Take care guys and send me anything you create with this technique – also don’t hesitate to ask me any questions (in the comments so that other can use it also) if you don’t understand or I jumped to quickly over certain portion. I’m using Maxon Cinema 4D since version V4 all the way back on Amiga system so I can take some things for granted – just let me know if I did, so that I’ll try to fix it for next issue.
