Jay Tutorial 2: Cinema 4D
In this tutorial we were shown how to begin to develop our ideas for the Estings poster by starting to learn how to create things in Cinema 4D. Everything that we were expected to do was written on Unilearn as I have written below:
‘This session will focus on asset generation using Adobe Illustrator and Cinema4d. You will create vector art in Illustrator and import it into Cinema4d to be converted into a 3d asset. You will set up a formatted template and create a 3d environment with the relevant file structure. The outcome from this workshop will be a 3d scene with assets, formatted for output.
In this lesson you will be expected to:
1. Create a project folder with proper hierarchy
2. Set up Cinema4d for rendered output
3. Convert a 2d logo ready for import into Cinema4d
4. Generate a 3d environment for your assets
5. Add assets to your scene from Illustrator
6. Generate typography from your strap line for your scene
7. Add colour to your assets and scene
The finished design must eventually include:
2. A pithy heading capturing the irreverent spirit of E4
3. A lit 3d set created in Cinema4d
5. The E4 colour (and sound for animation – supplied)
6. Considered composition’
We then saved the E4 logo that had been given to us as an Illustrator 8 file as this is the last version of Illustrator that was compatible with Cinema 4D.
We were also told to work at 300 dpi because this is the quality needed for print. I already knew this after being taught to do this since college but it's still a valid point to be made especially when creating something for print.
We needed to create a good hierarchy for our files to be saved in. Inside our main folder we created three more folders; one for things related to Photoshop or Illustrator, one for Cinema 4D related files and one for outputs.
After doing this we opened Cinema 4D to set the format. We changed the render settings and the dimensions were set to 297x420 mm.
After doing this we set up the scene. We added a floor and background. To the floor we added a compositing tag and then clicked "Comp Background" from this tag.
After this we imported the logo from the Illustrator file that we saved earlier in two separate layers (the purple and white background). After experimenting with the edges of the logo we then created two materials to add colour to them. The E4 purple that we used was RGB (R110/G30/B125).
After this Jay showed us how to add text. We went to MoGraph/MoText object and typed our text in. We then played around with the depth and thickness and added the Bend Tool to distort the text.
Finally we added a camera and a light to light the scene and see it.
I felt that this was a challenging tutorial as there were a lot of steps but Jay said that this was to create a scene for our next tutorial in which we would create the posters, so I think that's really useful to have it created already. I also enjoyed this tutorial because it made me practice my skills in Cinema 4D as I am not very confident in using this software.