Cinema 4D and general 3D modelling topic

[SymphonicX]

Thought I'd give this one a bash! I'm making the move from mostly After Effects based work to more 3D stuff using Cinema 4D. My first project was creating the new superman logo in Cinema 4D - a task I set myself as I want to design a pretty nice teaser for a Superman movie that's not been made...(titles for said movie appreciated! Superman Reborn, Superman Lives, already been used!). I realised pretty soon that this Esher type logo was NOT the first thing someone should try to design in a 3D modelling program...here's the logo - take a look... As you can see it's heavily bevelled but the Esher influence becomes apparent when your eyes follow the extrusion on the back of the S all the way down the the front of the S, it merges into the main part of the S - which means simply bringing it into C4D and extruding it does NOT work whatsoever. So after 2 weeks of playing, experimenting, and breaking away to do other things, I've finally nailed down the new Superman logo - and I'm quite proud. My first original 3D model of something that you can't just bring in via a preset or extrude from an Adobe Illustrator file (although they were used as a reference somewhat). Here's my logo as an attachment - it's completely unfinished and needs smoothing, lighting, texturing etc etc... Anyone else into C4D and got some work they want to share?

[tkane18]

Here's a few images I made with Cinema 4D. I've been playing around with dynamics quite a bit. I really want to get into character rigging and animation next.

[SymphonicX]

quality work - love all of those pics - especially of course the Tardis This is where I need to get to...at the moment I'm still fighting splines to connect them and get shapes looking smooth.... How do you smooth out nurbs based stuff? like if you've connected two splines and want to bevel the connected line in the middle to smooth it out...any ideas? Great work though

[tkane18]

I haven't done too much with curvy splines. After connecting, did you make the object editable? You should be able use the selection tool in edge mode, highlight the edge then right-click and choose bevel. Hold the left mouse button down and slide to the right to increase the offset. Also adjust your bevel subdivision setting. That's my best guess from playing around for about 5 minutes. I just thought of one more thing. Did you try to drop it into a hypernurbs object to smooth it out?

[SymphonicX]

yeah tried all those - it's just so finnicky - I can connect the points but then I get these indentations where the polygons are - so I use the brush tool in "smooth" mode and it usually works but eventually ends up separating the points right in the middle and putting me back to square one! is there a way of connecting points and making sure they never disconnect? Hypernurbs doesn't work either, it creates more problems unfortunately! I think its probably down to the way I've started with this, I need to go back to the original splines and start again! It seems that whenever I connect points up it throws something else out in the model, so that becomes ridgy and I have to sort that bit out, which creates another bit - eventually I end up deleting whole chunks of it and restretching the polygons but it never goes right! I've got a smooth deformer plugin too which helps with some of the curves but nothing else... this program is defeating me!!! Just for clarity here's kinda what I've done: loftnurbs on 3 sets of splines for the flat, top and bottom bevels (which stretch to the top and bottom of the S), I get it all pretty close to each other then I make all the objects editable, then I connect the 3 polygon objects - then I go into point mode and stretch the points physically joining the splines together - most of them come out seemless - but then there's two points within the image that just won't be smooth - that's the bottom middle part of the bevelled S and the bit where the bottom curve of the S merges into the shield shape (you can see the overlaps in my original image) thanks for your help mate, really really appreciate it

[CooperWasRight]

Andrew Kramer would be proud.

[tkane18]

Have you tried the weld tool? The Weld tool can weld several object points or spline points into a single point. Select the points that you want to weld together, choose the Weld tool and click on a point to choose where the welded point will be placed (you will see a yellow preview appear). If you click elsewhere instead of on one of these points, the welded point will be placed at the center of the selection (again, this is marked by a yellow preview).

[SymphonicX]

Have you tried the weld tool? The Weld tool can weld several object points or spline points into a single point. Select the points that you want to weld together, choose the Weld tool and click on a point to choose where the welded point will be placed (you will see a yellow preview appear). If you click elsewhere instead of on one of these points, the welded point will be placed at the center of the selection (again, this is marked by a yellow preview). Hey bud - the weld tool is a good idea but it's pretty brutal! I experimented around and found the "stitch and sew" tool and that has seemed to do it nicely! It blends the joins perfectly - but I found when using the extrude tool to extrude the outside edges then it sort of bevels itself around the lines of the polygons creating a bumpy look - so yesterday I spent the whole day with the stitch and sew tool, bringing all the polygons together so they are as few as possible..to avoid the bumpy bevels....so far so good.... This really is such a manual process now....now the next stage is to smoothen out the remaining glitches so when I use hypernurbs, it doesn't crease and stick to itself....then hypernurbs it, and sort out the extrusions all over....so much more work to do on it! I'll post an updated jpeg of how it's looking - thanks for your advice! Weld tool is definitely one to keep an eye on - but I found it wanted to stitch a whole bunch of points rather than just one...may be I was using it wrong...

[Trancelikestate]

I've done a little work in C4D but I usually use 3d max. I do environment modeling and character rigging and animation as well. If you want to talk to a veteran of C4D I can put you in touch with the lead modeler of the building for the back to the future hill valley mod. He's been using it for over 10 years and does some impressive stuff.

[SymphonicX]

Thanks dude I appreciate the offer! Fortunately with my line of work I also know a few geniuses with this prog - I was asking around last shift actually, and ended up in a lengthy discussion regarding the spline - it gave me a few ideas and here's what I've got to now... supes1.jpg This one's a hypernurbs! So kinda along the lines of tkane's suggestions - but just using the outline and the start of the S shape and filling in the rest myself - using the original as a guide - basically making as few points as possible and bending and shaping stuff - so I'm getting there. I'm so glad I taught myself modelling with this shape, it had me using all the tools in every mode to eventually get me here.

[SymphonicX]

a textured version