Cinema 4D R20 Essentials and the New Features Volumes and Fields

C4DR20 

Shortcuts to remember:

J+Drag anywhere on canvas = Scrub timeline 

E .... Selection tool (remember it as Election) 

T ..... Scale (remember it as TALLER) 

R ..... Rotate 

C ... Make object editable 

V .... The around-canVas menus 

N .... The in-canvas view menu 

U .... The Do menus (select, optimize, remove, fill...) 

M ....The Right-click menu (M+S bevel, M+T extrude) 

N+B ..... show Gouraud shading lines 

H ...frame geometry 

S ....frame selected element 

O .....frame selected object  

X,Y,Z .... block directions of the object's movement 

W .... toggle between world/object coordinates 

U+Y ... Extend selection 

Alt + R .... Interactive render object 

*Shift+F3 ..... Windows > Timeline (keyframes pane) 

Save selections of polygons? = Go select > set selection (you'll have a selection tag) 

Change selection from polygons to points? = after you select polygons > CMD + click on Points  

Tabs and Options:

°Basic= name, color, and visibility 

°Coordinates = flip, choose axes, move, rotate 

°Object = text, cube size, separate surfaces, segments 

°Caps = add remove and change caps 

°Parameter = animate position, scale, rotation, … 

°Falloff = use fields to adjust scale and move the effect 

*Composite Tag? = tags > C4D tags > composite Tag  

Use "composite tag" on the floor and check the "composite background" when you want the floor and sky in unison, in a seamless flow of one color (with no shadow at the horizon). You can add this tag to any object to make it or make its shadow or make any of its pass unseen by the camera or if you want to force antialiasing on it or even matte its colors. 

*Copy animation of one object to another? = ........Right click on object recorded coordinates > animation > copy track 

*Reverse spline direction? = right click on Spline > reverse spline direction 

*Extrude illustrator8 drawing in one go? = After we me Illustrator 8 design > extrude all group then go to properties and check: Hierarchical 

*Create a 3D Cup fast? = create 2 or more circle-splines on top of each other and a Loft as a parent... Then go to loft cap properties and remove cap from the upper circle 

*Animate Motexts? = Mograph > Motexts > add effectors to Lines, Word, or Letters. Adjust effector's parametric (position, scale, rotation) 

*Camera-swiveling-around-object technique? = create camera > create Null and parent the camera > rotate Null (usually in X axis) 

*Target Camera (object always screen center)? = add Target Camera > link object in its "Target tab" > move camera's "position coordinates" (up down left right) and not the rotation coordinates. 

*Camera Morph? = select 2 or more cameras and then add Morph Camera > morph between cameras in "Camera Morph" tab (in the "Object" tab = the "Projection:" is always on "perspective" to have the "Camera Morph" tab) 

*Align Camera on Spline? = create camera and spline > select camera > go Tags > C4D > align to spline > add the spline to the spine path in that tag > move the camera by changing the Position percentage value in that tag. You can even check Tangential to move the camera on that spline tangentially. 

*Camera handheld movements? = select camera > go Tags > C4D > vibrator > enable and adjust position and rotation and lower the frequency to a minimum 

VOLUMES AND FIELDS

*The new award-winning Volume builder and Volume Mesher? = create, assemble, and delete shapes from one another to create or edit a closed object with voxels (3D pixels). The smaller the voxels in size are the better the quality of the object is. After your volume building, you must add the volume Mesher to see the created object in the render. 

*We have 2 types of voxel volumes =  

sdf (sign distant fields for objects) and fogs (for fluid, fire, and smoke) 

Quote... "Lighting makes or breaks your 3D scene"* 

*In Render window:  

ambient occlusion? = makes shadows more appealing.  

Global illumination? = lets light bounce from objects filling the darker areas more naturally. 

*Materials: 

Bump channel? = bumps out the channel by adding noise matte channels 

Displacement channel? = deforms the channel (takes longer to render) 

  

*Fields: 

They are the new deformers. New objects that can manipulate data. Used with Mograph effectors like the plane or matrix. You can even now deChild them and use multiple of fields at the same time on other objects. 

*With polygons, you can select parts of a polygon by applying fields. To do that, select a polygon of the object or the plane and go Select > Set Selection (selection expression tag). In the selection tag, check Use Fields to start  

*Polygons and Fields: 

With polygons, you can select parts of a polygon by applying fields. To do that, select a polygon of the object or the plane and go Select > Set Selection (selection expression tag). Remember to always double click on the Polygon Selection Expression orange triangle icon to update whenever you add or change. In the selection tag, check Use Fields to start applying them. You can add Formula Field and in its Field tab write mod(id;2) to select one every other polygon and mod(id;2)=0 to select the inverse, write mod(id;3) to select every 2 polygons ...etc. Add a Spherical field to select a circle or sphere like selection and use Noise Remap as a modified fields layer to animate the selection. After you're done with The selection, use MoExtruder to extrude the selection. 

So with polygons, select the "set section" tag to use the fields to select parts of the object and then to extrude. 

*MoGraph Matrix and Fields: 

Create a Matrix. You can use a handwritten selection by going to Tags > MoGraph Tags > MoGraph Selection. In addition to checking Use Fields to use the fields for selection (as you know now fields can add or subtract a selection) the handwritten selection will be printed on the Freeze field layer. Now the motion of the new selections that u created with your hand and the fields added will come from the Effectors. Add effectors by going > MoGraph > Effector > ... Moreover, an Effector can have a field as well. You can add fields for the effectors that you can later on use them as separate deforming entities.  

So with Mograph, you can use fields to select parts of the matrix and with effectors add motion or effects to it. Moreover, the motion of these motions and effects can be manipulated with fields as well. 

*Fields In a Nutshell: 

Fields are used to form selections and to animate selections as a vertex later in materials and are used in effectors to manipulate the effects scale and movement of that same effector. 

*Create Vertex Map? = with the Paint tool = select first some polygons > go character > paint (make sure it's vertex map and not vertex color) and click apply selected (or you can even paint a selection by hand on the polygonal object)... now you can use the tag as Vertex Map in a modifier's "shading" tag (by going shader>vertexmap>drag and drop the tag onto layer), or u can use it in any modifier's "Falloff" option. 

*Multipass rendering (for more control in post)? = go check what you used to make up your 3D in materials (luminance and color (click ambient pass), reflectance (click reflection)...) Then go check the lighting (volumetric (click atmosphere pass)), if you add the ambient occlusion effect in your render, you add it as well in the multipass) you can add the special passes like Motion Vector and Depth) then check if you used any buffers using the composite tag and go add them as passes. If you used buffer 1 and buffer 2, you must add the Object Buffer pass two times and change the channel to 1 in the first one and to 2 in the second one...etc. 

Motion effect and depth passes need minimum a 16bit image 

You can add the RGBA image pass as well at the end without adding the regular save as image in the save tag. 

In the save tag, check the multipass image save. 

*C4D to After Effects? 

Download the "c4d importer" plugin and add it to c4d plugins to let you  import the 3D objects and cameras 

>In the save tag in render check Compositing Project File and check " include 3D data" only if you installed the c4dimporter plugin already 

>save project file 

>open it in after effects 

C4D Formulas

Find a detailed PDF in French and English for some formulas: here 
(https://drive.google.com/open?id=1u5UzhXHO3t3WvXdlVrO0db4nRXvcLP0M)