This look was created using Cinema 4D with Greyscale Gorilla’s Texture Kit Pro, HDRI Light Kit Pro, HDRI Pro Studios and After Effects with plug-ins from Borisfx, GenArts, Video Copilot and Red Giant Software. Check out the breakdown below:
The Oscar model is included as part of a free Oscars Pack available from eyedesyn.com. Follow EJ (@eyedesyn) for Cinema 4D related tweets.
The gold material was sourced from Greyscale Gorilla’s Texture Kit Pro. I removed the dents from the base material by switching off the Bump channel and tweaked the colours in the Color and Reflection channel to reduce the yellow.
The Oscar model in Cinema 4D with default lighting is dark and unimpressive.
Greyscale Gorilla’s HDRI Studio Pack with a single light HDRI from the Pro Studios pack adds a punchy reflection, but is still too dark.
An Overhead Softbox from Greyscale Gorilla’s HDRI Light Kit Pro adds soft, overhead fill lighting.
Greyscale Gorilla’s HDRI Studio Pack includes a seamless background. I used a mid grey to black gradient.
An Area light was used to cast a shadow, helping to ground the Oscar onto the seamless background. The Area light also helps to soften the blown out reflections.
A visible, volumetric spot light was placed directly above the Oscar. I used this to lock the Oscar into place and add some straight lines to the scene for variation.
Microfloaties was used to add some subtle floating dust to the scene. Microfloaties is free from Joelotron.com and handy for adding floating dust to your Cinema 4D scene. This could have been done with a particle generator in After Effects but it’s only a small render hit in Cinema and looks great. If you use it be sure to make a small donation!
The Global Illumination render helped fill the dark shadows on the Oscar and brighten the microfloaties.
The light and camera setup with Microfloaties also visible. The shadow casting Area light is high up on the right of the scene with only the falloff visible in this image.
After Effects’ Curves effect reintroduced contrast and added a rich golden hue.
The font used for the Oscar Month text is Gotham Light. The text was keyframed to have the words gently drift towards each other.
GenArts Sapphire Glow was used to create a subtle glow on the text that helps integrate it into the scene.
Video Copilot’s Optical Flares was set to track a Cinema 4D exported light – positioned on Oscar’s chest.
Flares don’t always need to be huge, a little can go a long way.
After Effects Shape Layers were used as the base for the bokeh-style lens effect. Here I duplicated one Shape Layer containing 6 ellipses and stretched them to create the thick and thin strokes. These shapes were keyframed to have them drift gently in various directions. Using Shape Layers rather than a particle generator gave me greater control.
After Effects’ Camera Lens Blur effect was used to give the shape layers a bokeh-style lens blur.
Boris FX BCC Film Glow on an Adjustment Layer adds a beautiful, filmic glow.
Another Adjustment Layer with Red Giant Software’s Magic Bullet Mojo and the Curves effect was used for the final grade. Use the code “motionworks10” for a 10% discount on Red Giant Software purchases, including upgrades.
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40 Responses to this post
February 7, 2013 at 9:24 pm |
Great work! Really a beautiful result!
Thank you very much John!
February 9, 2013 at 9:08 am |
Thanks very much Alexander.
February 7, 2013 at 10:58 pm |
Very nice work John. It’s great to see how much work goes into a seemingly simple short clip.
There seems to be a colour shift halfway through the final version.
February 9, 2013 at 9:09 am |
Thanks Steve, I’ve looked a few times and don’t notice any colour shift…
February 9, 2013 at 9:15 am |
Hi John,
It happens at the three second mark. Everything turns brighter.
Cheers
Steve
February 9, 2013 at 9:17 am |
Weird, I see absolutely no change on this mac or the one at work…
February 9, 2013 at 9:22 am |
That is odd. I took screen grabs and they show it. Must be something to do with my dinosaur of a machine.
Still a great piece and excellent breakdown.
February 8, 2013 at 1:12 am |
Fantastic Breakdown!
February 9, 2013 at 9:10 am |
Thanks Matthew.
February 8, 2013 at 2:41 am |
Nice work John! Thanks for the breakdown.
February 9, 2013 at 9:10 am |
You’re welcome Travis.
February 8, 2013 at 2:58 am |
Great work, John! One question: In After Effects, did you composite in 32bit linear?
February 9, 2013 at 9:11 am |
Thanks John, I composited in 16bit for this one.
February 13, 2013 at 10:42 pm |
That means, that you disabled linear workflow option in project settings? Otherwise you get color shift in AE, right?
February 8, 2013 at 7:46 pm |
Nice breakdown John. End result looks great. I might check out the micro floaties. They look kinda cool!
February 9, 2013 at 9:12 am |
Thanks Mark, I had known of Microfloaties for some time but this was the first time to use it.
February 17, 2013 at 10:20 am |
Fantastic all round as usual. Microfloaties really is an absolute “must have” isn’t it. I’m sure you could have used a particles plate but it wouldn’t match the depth of the Microfloaties rig. Really nice.
February 17, 2013 at 11:57 am |
Thanks Jonathan and I agree it’s great to have the floaties integrated into the scene in z.
best, John.
February 17, 2013 at 11:32 am |
great breakdown. The site of http://eyedesyn.com/ is awesome as well.
However your link does not work
February 17, 2013 at 11:55 am |
Thanks for letting me know tielman
Best, John.
February 20, 2013 at 11:44 am |
where can i download this??/
February 24, 2013 at 6:23 am |
Hi John! Amazing work as always. You wrote, that you composited in 16 bit. Does that mean that you disabled linear workflow in Cinema, as it’d would produce color shift in AE, or this was color shift you could leave with?
Thanks
February 24, 2013 at 7:49 am |
Thanks Andre, yes I disabled Linear workflow for this one. I don’t recall having any issues in 16bit with linear workflow active though… is this something you’ve noticed?
Best, John.
February 24, 2013 at 8:37 am |
Hi John! Not at all! I did not notice any issues. It’s just I find this quite old (since R12, if I’m not mistaken) feature quite confusing, because I can either disable linear workflow and work with whatever bit depth per channel I want, or I can enable linear workflow and get amazing color range, but then to get the same colors in compositing I have to change colorspace and linearize working space, which causes some of the colors to look different or even weird. I’m trying to educate myself on colorspace definitions through sites like prolost and others, though I still feel there’s quite a long way to really understand what’s going on. What’s your opinion on the subject?
Thanks.
February 28, 2013 at 9:17 am |
Hi Andre, Tim Clapham has an in depth post on linear workflow over on Helloluxx. I use it when I get confused! http://www.helloluxx.com/cinema4d-rendering/linear-workflow-in-cinema4d-and-after-effects/
February 26, 2013 at 4:10 pm |
hai john good morning
this is riyaz how to create this Oscar Month gold meterial in c4d ….
February 28, 2013 at 9:18 am |
Hi Riyaz, I modified a material from Greyscale Gorilla’s Texture Kit Pro.
Best wishes, John.
February 28, 2013 at 7:41 pm |
Beautiful and subtle, lovely lighting! Ahhh makes me want to learn more C4D!!!
Thanks for the breakdown! Also thanks for the Microfloaties link.
March 4, 2013 at 8:11 am |
Thanks Nick, you’re welcome.
March 1, 2013 at 12:29 am |
love this tutorial. i am Beginner for C4D…just fallowed this tutorial.
can up with this result.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCBQAFVudEA
March 4, 2013 at 8:10 am |
Great effort Praveen, keep up the good work.
March 1, 2013 at 4:00 am |
Great piece. Love how you used the shape layers to create the bokeh effect! Would you mind sharing Global Illumination settings? Thanks!
March 1, 2013 at 9:01 am |
Gosh I haven’t been to this site in forever. Love the breakdowns! *leaves to scroll through old posts*
March 4, 2013 at 8:09 am |
Welcome back Todd, we missed you
March 2, 2013 at 5:20 am |
Nice work! Nice use of Microfloaties – I’ve played with it, but haven’t used it in a piece yet. (I noticed the same brightness “pop” that Steve Caldwell mentioned. Around the 3 second mark. Looks almost like an adjustment layer or something pops on at that moment.)
March 4, 2013 at 8:12 am |
Thanks Steve, either I must be blind or it’s some kind of playback issue!
March 5, 2013 at 5:28 am |
How to use expensive filters, stock and not model something (which is what makes this special by the way).
What would the cost of this be without said resources? What happened to learning how to do something by hand before relying on someone else.
March 5, 2013 at 6:56 am |
Hi Ian, this is a breakdown of an actual project for a client and not designed purely to teach techniques. I love to model and could have modelled the Oscar but would have missed my deadline as this was a tight turnaround project. I use plug-ins because I have access to them and like the results they give me, but you could definitely use built-in Ae effects. Completing a project successfully is more than raw techniques, it’s knowing when to borrow/buy resources and what tools to use to get the job done on time and approved. Best wishes, John.
March 5, 2013 at 7:18 am |
I’ve always thought, if you have the time, go to town with creating something from scratch. It teaches you and you have the pride of knowing it’s YOURS. I always shuddered at the thought of using AE templates…until I started working on my own (not for somebody else) and had limited time and tight deadlines.
John is right. Know when to be purely creative and know when to use resources.
“The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.”
March 21, 2013 at 9:41 am |
This corner of your website is my favourite John, thanks for sharing.
All the best
Allan
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