First of all, I created a basic shape in illustrator, using the shape tools. Once I created a shape I was satisfied with I saved the file in a format that is compatible with Cinema 4D, Illustrator8. Now I could open up a Cinema 4D file and merge the illustrator file to work with.
In Cinema 4D, I added extrude paths to the shape layers of my hashtag and enhanced its movement to 50cm for each to make a strong, solid 3D shape. After this I added colour to the shape. To do this I double clicked the bottom create box and created a colour path. With this path I can create any colour I want and change its appearance, from diffusion, glow, illumination and more. Once I created a colour I dragged it onto the layer I wanted, changing its colour.
Viewing the shape at this stage in a rendered view it looks like a clean 3D design, however the edges do not look rounded or real as an object would look away from the computer. To solve this problem, I clicked on the extrude tool and clicked the caps option in the toolbar. This now opened up a cap editing space to round the edges of the shape. To create the real effect, I changed the start and end of the shapes to fillet caps and edited the steps to 3cm and the radius to 0.5cm.
After, I added a floor and background to the virtual space to bring everything together. This was easy enough, I basically dragged the floor and background paths to my editing space. Once situated, I could add colour to these paths the same way I added colour to my shape. Now to add a new dimension to the design I added light paths. One positioned at x-150, y1000 and z-500 (over left shoulder light). With the other light at x500, y300 and z-500 to lift the 3d aspect of the design.
Next, I added text. I typed the word 'me' in the font Helvetica, to place beside my hashtag as a simple design to learnt with in this tutorial. Similar to before, I added extrude paths and dragged the text layer into this path, enhancing the movement of the text to 50cm to match the hashtag shape. Also, I added colour and fillet cap effects to create a more real outlook to the design.
Moving forward, I added a camera tool with the intent to move around the shape and create a short 3D video. This is where the programme started to get a bit tricky. I used the key-frame tools, in a similar fashion to after effects to move the camera along a time line and around a shape. It was just a different layout of edditiong the camera to do so, but I got the hang of it in the end. However, I feel the use of the camera could have been a bit better. I will practice this in further development. I really want to get to grips with this programme, it has an endless capacity to create anything.
Finally, I learnt how to save files in cinema 4D in, JPEG, Quicktime and AVI format. First, I altered the render settings for a JPEG format. altering the effect to ambient occlusion, anti-aliasing to best and changing the output to JPEG. Then clicking the render to picture viewer icon in the toolbar to complete the render process for the JPEG. For the video output, I altered the render settings to Quicktime movie, changed the compression type to -H1264 and the frame rate to all frames. Hitting the render video icon in the toolbar to complete the process.
All in all, I have learnt a great deal of information about Cinema 4D today and I will definitely stick to the task to learn more and more of this programme. It excites me what I could do with this programme and I will now put my the skills I have learnt in this tutorial to practice.
Extra Exploration
MY LOGO
MY ICONS
MY SKILLS
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