Wait Loss For Cinema 4D

As a motion graphics artist, you need to be on top of your game, both creatively and technically. It doesn’t matter how much faster our systems become, creative demands are getting a lot tougher too. Wait Loss for Cinema 4D is not about teaching you the latest trendy technique or fancy feature, this is about working fast and efficiently. Knowing which button to push to get the job done right and on time. We touch on virtually every aspect of Cinema 4D from setting up the program to suit your needs on every project, through to managing larger jobs with multiple shots and assets. Working fast is essential and Tim will show you how to optimise your scenes and objects to get the maximum playback speed whilst working. Your toolkit of skills will be bursting with tricks to achieve your goals faster and spend less time on the technical and more time on creativity. So what are you waiting for?

Setup – 01 New.c4d

Creating a new.c4d file will ensure that your most commonly used project settings become the default with each new Cinema 4D scene file you create.  Covers project settings, customising tools, setting up and using parent / child relationships by creating render settings which are relevant to you. Total Duration: 23 minutes

Setup – 02 Preferences

Configuring the preferences to suit your workflow, OpenGL settings, managing memory and using texture paths to help with project and file management. Total Duration: 24 minutes

Setup – 03 Layout

Customising your layout and tool palettes for maximum efficiency.  Using full screen mode with multiple managers.  Creating tabbed managers and group windows.  Configuring an attribute manager for working exclusively with tools by limiting the modes available.   Easily building custom palettes using existing menus and the Customise Commands dialogue.  Transfering layouts to other installations of Cinema 4D. Total Duration: 25 minutes

Setup – 04 Shortcuts

Using the customise commands dialogue to find commands and define custom keyboard shortcuts.  Transfer your custom shortcuts to other installations of Cinema 4D. Total Duration: 6 minutes

Attribute Manager

The attribute manager is the key to manipulating all of your objects parameters.  This section explores this manager and the powerful options available to you.  Covers the modes available and working with multiple attribute managers.  Create default settings for any of the objects you use and change regularly.  Manipulating multiple parameters simultaneously and using formulas to facilitate easy changes whilst maintaining relative values.   Navigating the attribute manager and finding specific parameters with ease. Total Duration: 19 minutes

Attribute Manager – Mesh Checking

A quick look at the Mesh Checking options available with the attribute manager modelling mode.  Some tips for finding problems with your models and cleaning them up quickly and efficiently. Total duration: 3 minutes

Axis Centre

Axis Centre is an essential tool for manipulating objects and axis position and orientation with relation to the points, edges or polygons on a mesh, as well as the spatial relationship between parent and children object hierarchies. Total duration: 3 minutes

Contraints

A collection of tips for working with constraint tags and how these can speed up and automate tasks that would otherwise be tedious and complex.  Covers the Clamp, PSR, Aim and Mirror constraints. Total duration: 20 minutes

Layers

Using layers for scene management and efficiency with large complex scenes.  We explore the various methods of adding elements to layers and working with layer hierarchies.  Speeding up your scenes by disabling slow features or isolating layers to focus on an uncluttered project. Total duration: 20 minutes

Materials – 01 Overview

This tutorial covers some generic techniques for working with materials, finding and replacing missing textures using the texture manager and setting up texture paths. Total duration: 5 minutes

Materials – 02 Manager

Working with the material manager to display and organise your materials.  Replacing multiple materials with ease.  Using layers for tabbed organisation and cleaning up any duplicate or unused materials. Total duration: 10 minutes

Materials – 04 Layered PSD

This quick tip shows you how you can keep all your textures within one Photoshop file and still access the individual layers or layer groups in your material channels. Total duration: 5 minutes

Materials – 05 Bevel Deformer

This quick tip shows you a method for texturing the parametric bevel created when using the Bevel deformer. Total duration: 3 minutes

Materials – 06 Parametric Objects

This quick tip demonstrates a technique which allows you to create polygon selections for isolating materials to specific parts of parametric objects. Total duration: 3 minutes

Materials – 07 Gradients

Exploring the powerful Gradient shader.  Creating stripes using UV tiling and cycling the gradient shader.  Various methods of animating the gradients. Total duration: 22 minutes

Materials – 08 Texture Tags

Using object hierarchies with texture tags and how we can assign materials to multiple objects with a few simple tricks to automate the offset of the texture for perfect alignment.  Sticking the texture to multiple objects when working with deformation. Total duration: 9 minutes

Object Manager

In this tutorial we explore the various techniques you can use to find and select objects, add new objects, manipulate your objects and work with parenting / unparenting animated objects. Total duration: 20 minutes

Objects – Extrude Hierarchy

In this quick tip we look at a method of extruding multiple splines imported from Illustrator whilst automatically naming all the objects created and orienting the object axis based on the spline. Total duration: 3 minutes

Takes – 01 MultiCamera Shot

Using takes will greatly improve your day to day workflow.  This first tutorial covers a multi-camera shoot and how using takes can make this process streamlined and efficient. Total duration: 15 minutes

Takes – 02 Look Development

In this second tutorial on working with the Take system, we explore look development and how takes can help make this simpler and more flexible for creating variations of your scenes and reviewing your work. Total duration: 4 minutes

Timeline

This tutorial explores many aspects of working with the timeline, keyframes, curves and animation.  We look at speedy navigation and selection tips, so you can focus on your animation, rather than trying to find it.  The various methods of creating, duplicating and recording keyframes, including copying, pasting, dragging, auto-keyframing and using keyframe selections.  We also explore using the region tool, bookmarks, snapshots and many more essential techniques. Total duration: 35 minutes

Timeline – Powerslider

A collection of quick tips to compliment the timeline tutorial and show additional features or alternative ways to manipulate your animation using the powerslider. Total duration: 3 minutes

Viewport – 01 Optimising

Speeding up the Cinema 4D viewport will allow you to focus on the creative, in this tutorial looks at how we can increase the efficiency of our scenes and how fast they playback in the editor viewport.  First we declutter the viewport, removing unused elements and deactivating view options.  We then explore ways to optimise your models for the best performance. Total duration: 20 minutes

Viewport – 02 Caching

This tutorial looks at some of the caching options available when working with animated and deformed objects, we work with the caching options in the jiggle deformer, the point cache tag and the bake function in the timeline. Total duration: 9 minutes

Viewport – 03 Speed Comparison

In this chapter, we look at the speed benefits we can achieve by using some of the tips we looked at in previous chapters. Total duration: 7 minutes

Viewport – 04 Proxies with Instances

This tutorial covers a technique for creating proxy objects by using the instance object with a switch for changing the linked object which is built with xpresso. Total duration: 8 minutes

Xpresso

This is a brief introduction to working with Cinema 4D’s node based expression language, Xpresso.  We cover some simple examples of Xpresso, including linking parameters together, automatically naming objects and iterating through groups of objects. Total duration: 26 minutes