rasputin

Here's one you should watch also:

https://study.com/academy/lesson/what-are-the-principles-of-art-definition-examples.html

It sounds like you just need to jump in to making imagery with 3D...  Hopefully MAXON Cinema4D.       We like to say that artistic ability is an inborn gift,  but that's not altogether true:   there are many,  many artistic ideas that you can grasp just from reading and studying about them.

So I say:   go dive in to studying both art theory while you learn the technical aspects of doing 3D...  They go hand-in-hand.

There's that saying by L'ao-Tsu:   "The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."    I suggest that,  every day,   you make a 3D render,  however simple and humble it may be,   in which you try to learn one or more artistic principles.

You are lucky in that the Internet now provides you will loads and loads of instructional material,  in the form of free instructional videos.

Bear in mind that learning a software as deep and complex as Cinema4D will take some time.   As in:   years.

So the only task left is to jump into the swimming pool and get wet.

Whoa-- amazing!    It was only when camera dollied back that I perceived what you had achieved.    Amazing and very tricky to do.     Is that a phi  (golden ratio) spiral?

Yes,  but to actively work on that hair--   brush it,  etc.--    don't you have to select it active? 

Good god.  Absolutely amazing.   I saw the movie three times over the Thanksgiving holiday,   and not once did I twig on that there might be some digital trickery going on with their faces.   The illusion was seamless.  I'm guessing ILM possesses some extremely powerful computers;   anything less would make this process a nightmare. Wow.  And I guess ILM has enough money and power to completely commission a new dedicated proprietary  software expressly for their purposes from code programmers.

Somehow,  at the end of the day,  they had to construct a mesh for the actors' faces,  that they could then play with.   And that mesh is surprisingly low-poly,  yet flawlessly topologized and rigged with custom morphs.  Maybe the three-headed camera did a kind of photogrammetry?  Even still,  I'll bet they still couldn't fully automate this process;  ie.,  they still had to do a lot of frame-by-frame editing.

It also looks like they made meshes out of the surrounding walls and furniture... I guess they had to do that to keep perspective and focal length correct?

Kinda wild that DeNiro still remembered his monologue from GOODFELLAS,  25 years on;   do all movie actors do that?

Hvala na ovom videu, Igore!

Hey you Hair wizards,

Is there any way to turn off the visibility of my Hair guides...     while leaving visible my Preview Hair Polygons?     ie.,   in my Viewport,  not during final render.

See my screencap?     I want to temporarily turn off visibility of my blue guide lines,     while leaving visible only the hair preview  itself  (shown at 25% visibility).    This is because,  of course,   I have dialed in curly waves into my C4D Hair Material,   which appear quite differently than the straight guides do.     The blue guides are preventing me from seeing well the actual Hair preview.

Thanks,  ras

....and here's an even better starting attempt,  I think you'll agree.    I'm really beginning to see the beauty and logic of Sub-D modeling!  If you do it right,  your mesh is always pretty and logical,  and has not a single polygon too many.    Thank you for your help here,  Cerbera!

Cerbera,

Is THIS the idea?    I started with a cube primitive,  elongated it,   and applied a SUB-D SURFACE to it,    shown here subdivided 2X.     So it's a process of applying appropriate cuts--  avoiding triangulation--     then gradually moving your points closer to your ideal?

Thanks,  cerbera!   Would you believe I've never modeled in the Sub-D approach before?    This looks like a good time to learn it.

I had been trying to do this shoe first using the Loft-ing of splines...  pretty tricky.    Then i got the wild idea to place a sphere primitive around my (Poser) foot mesh,  then do a Cloth Sim 'til it hugs the foot tightly.     Both of these methods yield a ghastly topology which is tricky to then refine using the Mesh Brush tool.    I keep thinkin' there's GOT to be an easier way.

I so appreciate your help here!

Thanks,  ras

Hey guys,

I'm curious:  How would YOU go about modeling this shoe?    My Poser figure is supposed to wear them.   My results have been...  barely passable,  not that good at all.    I've been using the Poser figure's foot mesh  to serve  as a possible "shoe last",  ya might say...

The difficulty,  of course,  is that the shape is VERY organic...   hardly a straight line on the whole shoe.    And as you can imagine,  I end up with polys wildly angled everywhere,  and in very diverse sizes...  ie.,   lousy topology.

Don't worry about the heel,   the little bow or the decorative perforations--   I'm just concerned with modeling the basic shape of the "chassis".    Is there an especially "clean",  efficient  or elegant way to go about modeling this shoe?

Thanks,  ras

Excellent,  thanks.

Thanks so much,  cerbera!    Your erudition and counsel  here on the Cafe is a godsend.    Where can I obtain a Hexasphere,  just for visual comparison?

Hey guys,

I'm wondering:    Is there a proper 3D word for this thing,  this phenomenon,  on any 3D mesh?    That is,    where your polys converge on one point of a curved mesh?     (Usually,   UV-wise,   you don't  want to see your texturing converge at one of these points,   hence the workaround of the Triplanar UV distribution).



Thanks,  ras
 

UPDATE!!  I seemto have fixed it,  by manually switching (in the second view) from my Corona Camera to "default scene camera".  Still not entirely sure what I did,  but I'll pay closer attention next time.

Thank you so much for your help,  though.

Playing with SOLO  and UN-SOLO on those two windows  has no effect on this linking.   They remain linked.   I've never (consciously) used that Solo button view ever in my C4D history.

The only thing I've done in this particular project...     is to introduce a single instance of the Corona Camera and set the first window to that view.

Hey guys,

Here's a pesky problem I get myself into  now and then:    Two of my four basic camera window views get linked with each other,   and I don't know how to un-link them!     Whatever view I set my upper-left window to,     the upper-right one follows suit!      When what I want is to have the top leftmost window show PERSPECTIVE  view,   and the top right window to show TOP camera view.

Questions:
 

1. How can I unlink them,   and
2. What did I do to make this pesky thing start happening---   what did I do to inadvertently link them?   (so I don't do it again)?
    

Many thanks,    ras

Hey guys,

Here's a short animation I created which uses the Corona Skin  Material according to custom parameters I dialed in.   The Diffuse channel is a seamless photograph of real human skin.  The Corona Skin Material allows you two Reflection layers and three SSS layers.     How does it look?
 

Best,   ras

Thanks so much,  cerbera!

Hey guys,

I'm wondering if C4D's Sculpt will ever become voxel-based,   like the sculpting in the software 3D-COAT.     In which the sculpted object is always having voxels added to it/subtracted from it  as you work,   so the final resulting object  never shows stretched and/or widely varying  polys (in need of a Retopo).    Thoughts?

Thanks,  ras

 

Thanks so much,  cerbera!

Hey guys,

I notice that C4D's default is to give a spline type of Ease-In to a keyframed object in motion.    Where a movement will start out slowly and pick up speed along the animation spline.

I wonder why C4D inserts Ease-In  as its default.  Instead of a perfectly Linear spline movement,    which I invariably have to set up manually.   You'd think they'd let the User decide when to add a fancier spline type (for whatever animator's artistic effect)  as the need arose.

Is there a way for me to have Linear spline interp be my every animation default?   ie.,  from program startup?

Thanks,  ras

Thanks cerbera and Al !

I'm curious:   for years,  when modeling complex objects,  I've thought,  "Wouldn't it be cool if there were a C4D plugin that completely hollowed out my complex object...   leaving just a shell?"

Complex poly models very often have many poly faces that are inside and cannot be seen.    Especially if they are amalgams of different shapes and Boolean Adds.      Yet "emptying out" a model of its unseen polys is basically a task that has to be done manually.    And the result is often sketchy and hit-and-miss.

A case-in-point might be a 3D human head imported from Poser or Genesis...     that contains mouth,   tongue,    "sock",  gums and teeth polys that will not be needed for your project.

Why couldn't there a be a plugin that,   with one touch,   simply and thoroughly strips away every polygon (or Point)  that's not externally visible?

Thanks,  ras

Thanks,  fastbee and cerbera,  for taking the time to educate me like this!

I've used MD a lot over the past three years.   Yep,  you want to model there with a Particle Distance of about 12--20.     Sometimes even 30 can be helpful in speeding up the Cloth Sim,  especially if your "virtual fabric" is meant to flow only  in large ripples,  like denim,  plastic,  leather,  etc.   (Creating highly crinkled/wrinkled  fabric like silk is a whole 'nother look).       Choosing the right kind of "virtual fabric" is a really big deal in MD,  e.g.  silk,   cotton,  leather,   etc.      Lightweight fabrics like silk are always going to give you that very "busy",  bumpy look.

Note:  it is often a good working idea to model in MD's "Leather" setting...    even though your intended garment is not going to be (textured in C4D as) leather.    That's how you will get a very smooth look.

But just before you export your model (as an FBX or OBJ)  you want to bump the particle distance down to at least 8, or even lower,  to 5 or so,  if you (and your CPU)  are  prepared to deal with a really high-poly mesh.     I tend to think that MD's default Triangulation is the way to go;  I tend not to use their new Retopo/Quad feature... unless you have specific reasons why you need it to be in coarser quads.   If importing then into C4D,  you may need to dial in a new custom  set of UV mapping;   otherwise texturing in C4D can be tricky.

Also:   when exporting an MD garment (for use in another software),   you'll be given the choice of "thin" or "thick" fabric.    Sometimes,   "thin" can be the right choice,  if your garment is meant to be very lightweight,   such as silk,  linen or very lightweight cotton.