Cinema.4D.3D...ber.2004

Volume 01 Issue 08 06 December 2004 | $2.99 October 2004 | $0.00

HIGHLIGHTS IN THIS ISSUE: Third Eye Interview

Read the interview with popular CINEMA 4D artist Alberto “ThirdEye” Blasi on Page 9.

Ocean Waves

Make Ocean Waves! Try your hand at making waves with the new Clothilde tutorial by Thomas Pasieka on Page 7.

Best of Gallery

Read the interview with “Pupi” on Page 3!

Take a look at some of the best CINEMA 4D work throughout the world. You will find it in our Best of CINEMA Gallery on Page 42. © Picture by Peter Fendrik “Pupi”

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3D ATTACK QUICK INDEX PAGE 3-6

Interview with “Pupi” Peter Fendrik by Tavy Ann

PAGE 7-8

Clothilde Tutorial “Ocean Waves” by Thomas Pasieka

PAGE 9-13

Interview with Alberto “ThirdEye Blasi” by Tavy Ann

PAGE 14-15

Total Textures Collection Review by Thomas Pasieka

PAGE 16-18

PoseMixer Facial Animation Tutorial by Tuan Nguyen

PAGE 19

“The Prize Fight” by Tavy Ann

PAGE 20

DOSCH HDR Skies Review by Thomas Pasieka

PAGE 21-22

HDRI - Getting it Right! by Lennart Oberscheidt

PAGE 23-25

“Shadow Only” Light by Rui Batista

PAGE 26-27

Motorcycle Chain Tutorial by Antonin

PAGE 28-31

Storm Tracer Goes Nature! by Pascal

PAGE 32-34

Modeling a Tree by Xander

PAGE 35-36

Making Gears Mesh with XPresso by Crew

PAGE 37-41

Necklace in Motion by Georg Niedermeier

PAGE 42-46

Best in CINEMA 4D Gallery

PAGE 47

Editors Notes

Interview with “Pupi” Peter Fendrik

By Tavy Ann

Graphic designer from the Hungarian University College of Applied Art. Presently I work for an advertising agency as an art director.

“Pupi” 3D Artist

Interview

Tavy: Peter, first let me express how grateful all of at 3D Attack are at this opportunity to interview you.

You are one of the most highly respected CINEMA 4D artists in the world, and thank you for taking this time out for us. Would you please tell our readers a little about you?

Where did you grow up, now live, do you have a family, etc?

Peter: Hi everyone. I feel honored by having the opportunity to be interviewed. I was born and I live in Hungary. I am 34 and married with 2 children: my daughter is 2 and my son is 4. I have my degree as a

Tavy: Can you share with us a little about your background in the CG industry? What first grabbed your interest in 3D? How long have you been doing 3D? Do you work professionally in the industry?

Peter: Concerning 2D I have been working on the computer for 10 years. I started being interested in 3D when the pictures that had been created by the first well-developed rendering programs (Arnold, Mental Ray) appeared on the Internet.

I was absolutely astonished by how natural looking pictures can be created by them. I have been creating pictures for about 3 or 4 years. I had found a CINEMA 4D demo and started trying that out. I also with Maya, but it seemed that I

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would never be able to learn it on my own and therefore I returned to CINEMA. (As I have a Macintosh computer, I did not have much choice, actually.) Since then, I have been working with this program, but only at home as my hobby, not professionally.

Tavy: What are some of the inspirations behind your work? Who are some your favorite artists, both traditional 2D and 3D? Peter: I have always liked drawing and making illustrations, but there is no market demand for that at all.

Besides your every day work you can not start doing really serious things, especially if you have to complete them by a deadline.

I would have been happy to do painted illustrations, but I did not manage to learn painting, so I started my journey into 3D by which - I was hoping - I could replace paint-

Interview with “Pupi” Peter Fendrik

By Tavy Ann

ing. I have always been inspired by nature, animals and plants. And my favorite artists? Well, at this very moment I can think of Escher, the old Belgic and Dutch painters and, concerning 3D, Ice Age. Tavy: I'd like to talk a bit about your image "Flea Circus". When the viewer looks at this image, all they can say is "WOW". On average, how much time do you spend on an image like "Flea Circus"?

Interview

Peter: On average, I usually work on my pictures for a month or around 6weeks. It seems to be a long period of time, but I have time for making pictures only after work, from about 10 o'clock in the evening or on weekends.

Sometimes I even have to leave weeks out. Anyway, after a while I get bored of the work and just leave it regardless if it’s completed or not.

Tavy: Could you give us a description of your work flow for a project like "Flea Circus"?

Peter: My working process usually starts with drafting. Then I look for reference pictures on the Internet (characteristics of super-close photos, photos about fleas, toothed wheels, posters about circus). I am rather inordinate concerning this process: I do modeling, texturing, and lighting parallel.

I do too much rendering, so I waste a lot of time. To create almost all the pieces separately and I fit them in the final file each after another. The next step of the process is determined by the available time: when I have only half an hour, I start doing things that can be finished within that period because it can happen

that I will not be able to return to the work for another two weeks.

Otherwise it could easily happen that I do not remember the original ideas. I always render the final picture as a whole and with minimum post-work.

Tavy: When looking at your works "Earl Bird" and "Lady Bird", one not only sees great modeling, but absolutely incredible texturing. Can you tell us a bit about the texturing

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process for those two very unique characters?

Peter: I do sketches on sheets as long as I am pleased with the character. I make a reference drawing which is based on the sketch and I do modeling after that in 3D. I do the modeling of the head, the eyes and then I put on some simple materials. Then I set the camera, the lighting and I do a render.

Interview with “Pupi” Peter Fendrik

By Tavy Ann

I quickly do the make up for this floating bald head in Photoshop in order to get a rough final feature. It helps to decide if the modeling is OK or not. This work takes about a half hour and at the end you can get a rough final result that can be used also as further reference.

I do modeling together with texturing so I don’t get bored. I do rendering on the final pieces and adopt them to the head in Photoshop.

Interview

Finally, I paint the texture of the head in BodyPaint on the bases of the made up picture. Usually I do bump maps first and develop the color and specular maps out of them.

Tavy: Can you share with us a little about the modeling technique you used for "Earl Bird" and "Lady Bird"?

Peter: I do not have a general modeling technique. Lady Bird was created by box modeling, while Earl was poly by poly. In both programs there are advantages and disadvantages. One thing is for sure: I always draw the two main features (front and profile) of the character and I use them as references.

Tavy: As I mentioned before, you are hailed as one of the GREAT CINEMA 4D artists of today. With all of the other 3D applications available, why have you chosen to work with CINEMA 4D? Peter: I think the first part of your sentence is a strong exaggeration, but the answer to the second part of it is simple. I mentioned before that I also used some other programs when I started and that there had not been many programs for the platform which I used. But the real

point is simple usage, stability, and a very user-friendly surface that makes the program usable even for those who haven't got experience in 3D. Integrated BodyPaint is just extra luxury.

Tavy: Is there anything in particular that frustrates you with CINEMA 4D?

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Peter: I am really looking forward to the further render development and I really miss a real node base shader tree.

It is a shame that on Apple computers OpenGl is very slow, but I think it is not the program's fault.

Tavy: Are you currently working on any projects you can tell us about?

Interview with “Pupi” Peter Fendrik

Interview

By Tavy Ann

Peter: I am afraid I do not have much to tell you about. I had started to continue the Earl Saga and to create two other pictures, but I did not have time to deal with them.

Later, when I had some free time, I started new things again, but they also remained unfinished.

Hungarian team asked me to do that work, and in spite of my scolding words about myself, they did not give up persuasion. Later they regretted it, perhaps because I had been working on it for about 6 weeks. Anyway, I hope they did not actually regret it.

There is only one thing that has become completed during the past 6 months: the painting of the texture of an orc's face and body in BodyPaint for the animation of a computer game. A really talented

It was very useful for me to work with them. I suggest that you should visit their webpage which is digicpictures.com. You can not find my picture on it at the moment, but I hope it will be on it soon.

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Tavy: Peter thank you so much for taking this time to share with 3D Attack and our readers. Do you have any last words for the thousands of aspiring 3D artists throughout the world?

Peter: You’re welcome. On the other hand, a picture is worth more than a hundred words and I hope I will have the opportunity to finish one of my pictures soon.

Best regards, Pupi.

Ocean Waves with Clothilde

By Thomas Pasieka

Are you using R9 already? If not, then it’s about time you get your copy of it. Even if you don’t use it I am sure that you have heard about “Clothilde” and it’s purpose for doing cloth simulations etc. Since Clothilde is pretty fast and not that hard to use I thought it would be a nice thing to use Clothilde for something other than cloth.

Tutorial

We are going to use “Clothilde” for an ocean wave effect. You think it’s complicated? Well not really, but you will have to tweak the force settings quiet a bit to get a proper result. The settings I use are not perfect, but are surely not a bad result.

Let’s start creating our scene. What we need first is a simple plane object. Have a look at the screenshot below to see it’s settings (zoom into the picture).

Remember that those settings are just a guide and you can of course change the size if you like. Don’t forget to make the plane editable (press the “C”) or click on the left panel. We need to make this object editable because Clothilde only works with objects that are converted into a editable object. Now let’s go on with the next step. Go to the plugins selection and choose “Clothilde” -> “ClothNurb”. Make sure you make the plane a child of the “ClothNurb”. Just follow the steps in the next picture to see what

I am talking about. The steps are marked with red dots which make it easy to follow my explanations.

Let’s attach a ClothNurb tag to the plane. Right click your mouse button and select the Tag from the list like shown below. Change the subdivision settings for the plane by selecting the ClothNurb. See picture.

Alright, let’s move on with some more work. Change your viewport to “Top View”. This is necessary since we have to select points on the plane object. Also make sure that you have your plane object activated and that you are in point mode (to be able to select point). Use the selection tool to select the outer points (all around) your plane object.

Once you have selected all the points, you will need to fix them.

Now what does that mean “fix them”? Let me explain this a little further. You don’t want your plane object to fly around in the scene right? Well that’s why we have to fix the plane. It’s like putting nails to the

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side of the plane that way it doesn't get carried away by the wind. Once selected, click on the Cloth tag (dot 2). Click on the “dresser” settings of your Cloth Nurb (dot 3) and fix your selected points by clicking “Set” (dot 4). See picture below.

Ok, it’s time to adjust some cloth settings. Click on the Cloth Tag (Dot 1) and hit the “Tag” settings (Dot 2).

Enter the settings as seen below.

Well we will have to change some more settings for the cloth to behave the right way. Click on the “Forces” rider and change it like you see in the next picture. You can of course change the settings later.

Ocean Waves with Clothilde

By Thomas Pasieka

low the tutorial and change some things. Don’t forget to change your projects settings from 90 frames to around 600 frames. You will find these settings in “Edit” - “Project settings” (CTRL-D).

Well that’s pretty much it for the cloth settings. Let’s create a decent looking water shader in our next step and apply it to the plane object.

I made screen shots for every setting of the shader. We start with the Transparency channel.

Tutorial

Alright, now you will have to add some lights and some additional objects like a landscape to your scene. It’s up to you to create a scene of your choice. You can do a daytime or a nighttime scene just like I did. Lighting plays an important part in this scene.

You will have to fiddle around a little bit to get some proper looking results/reflections on the water surface. I added the scene file within the goodies folder but it needs some tweaking here and there. Or just fol-

All you will have to do now is press the play button and that’s it. You can see the wave right in your viewport.

Change settings if you don’t like the result.

It would be great to see your result.

Let’s see what you can do with Cloth. Post your WIP’s or finals on our forum at http://www.3dattack.net Happy Rendering and see you on the forum! Feel free to ask questions or just mail us: 3dattack@3dattack.net Thomas Pasieka

Image by Thomas Pasieka

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Interview with Alberto "ThirdEye" Blasi

By Tavy Ann

years ago and I now live in Rome where I’m finishing the university studies I started some years ago in Venice.

Tavy: What first captured your interest in 3D art and design?

Alberto Blasi 3D Artist http://thirdeye.cgcommunity.com/

Interview

Tavy: Alberto thanks for taking time for our readers. We are excited to share with them more about you and your work. Could you please share with us a little about you?

Where were you born? Currently live, how old are you, etc.?

Alberto: First of all thanks for this opportunity and for the effort you put in 3D Attack. I was born and raised in northern Italy, not too far from Venice, exactly 26 years ago (turned 26 on Nov the 10th). I relocated 2

Alberto: The answer’s simple: Cinema 4D. I discovered it and 3D in general 5 years ago. Our geometry teacher at uni asked us to redraw with a CAD app an existing building from a list he gave us and then take the CAD data into a 3D app of our choice (at uni we had Lw 5.6, Max 2.5 and C4D 5.1) to complete the work with a camera animation. I tried all the 3D apps we had, and I have to say, I wouldn’t probably be into 3D now if C4D didn’t exist. Max appeared clunky to me, it had a slow and low quality renderer (the scanliner was the only option

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Maxers had 5 years ago, no Brazil r/s or Mental Ray), complicated material editor, slow scene management. The approach with Lightwave has been even worse, considering I was a total noob and I didn’t even know LW was (and still is) split in half, so try to imagine someone who just bought his first PC, in front of the Lightwave modeler, trying to find the render button. I then tried C4D 5.1.

I really had no more hopes, based upon my Max and LW frustrating experiences, but instantly a new world opened to my eyes: High quality output, stellar render speed, efficient scene management (the Object Manager was and still is my favorite C4D feature), and incredible ease of use. That program really made sense. I was able to make a 6600 frames camera animation in a

Interview with Alberto "ThirdEye" Blasi

By Tavy Ann

Tavy: Who are some of your favorite CINEMA 4D artists?

Alberto: I think there are a few, but one of them is definitely one step ahead of all the others: I’m talking about Peter Fendrik, aka Pupi.

His skills are strong, his surfacing is top notch, and his ideas are always the most original in our community.

Every single time I see one of his works I think “dammit, why didn’t I think about this before he did?!”

He’s a constant source of inspiration.

Interview

week and render it in 3 days with a PII 350. I was totally impressed.

Tavy: Have you had any formal education or training in graphics design?

Alberto: I’ve always been interested in drawing, but I never received any formal education, except the few things I learned at my university, which is focused on structures and composition rather than drawing.

Tavy: Are you currently working as a professional in the 3D Graphics Industry?

Alberto: I’ve recently started collaborating with a post production studio here in Rome (http://www.dreamlikenet.com).

It’s run by two friends of mine who asked me to join them after this summer and I accepted. I’m not working full time considering I’m still finishing my Architecture degree.

However, I do want to become a proper 3D artist as soon as possible. I want to give the industry a serious shot as soon as I have the time and the possibility to do it.

Tavy: Although CINEMA 4D is your application of choice have you used, or are you using other 3D applications? What makes CINEMA 4D the tool for you?

Alberto: My weapon of choice is and has always been Cinema 4D, but I’ve been spending some time learning Softimage|XSI, and now Maya. You know 3D apps, they’re like Pokemon, gotta learn ‘em all!

Seriously speaking, most of my time is spent on traditional art and photography at the moment.

I’ve been collecting some books I’m avidly studying...

After all, 3D is just a different way to make the same things man’s been doing for thousands of years.

The best thing of 3D is it’s made of many different disciplines: sculpture, painting, photography, animation…

There’s a bit of them all. There’s no possibility of getting bored ;-) Tavy: We all know MAXON has released the long awaited 9th generation of CINEMA 4D. R9 is definitely one of the most impressive upgrades in MAXON’s history, but is there anything specific you would

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like to see in future upgrades of CINEMA 4D? Alberto: I’ve been really happy with the development of R9. MAXON has shown 3D people what the company is capable of and it also seems “ze germans” realized the competition is tougher now. Some years ago the big boys were too expensive to be compared to Cinema 4D, Lightwave or even 3ds Max. Maya and XSI are now as expensive as any other app, so the traditional “target” idea is something everybody should forget in my opinion. People always thought that only the traditionally “hi end” companies are capable of a good R&D, MAXON is changing it all. BodyPaint 3D, Sketch & Toon, XPresso, and Clothilde…

These are just a few things the MAXON development team has been capable of, and I do believe there will be a ton of new surprises soon. The company’s too smart to think they’re done. My personal number 1 request is the possibility to get textures into XPresso.

Imagine mapping a light shadow with a shader node and texturing

Interview with Alberto "ThirdEye" Blasi

Interview

By Tavy Ann

Alberto: So many questions for such a simple project. Seriously speaking, that pic is the fastest one I’ve ever done. It took me just 3 days for everything, from start to the end.

your characters in a node based environment. Imagine having the possibility to link anything to anything. That would be just amazing in my opinion.

Tavy: Your image “Winnie the Pooh” is one of my personal favorites with its excellent modeling, lighting, and textures.

Could you tell us a little about your work flow on a project like this?

Where do you start and end? How long does the process take to complete?

It was quite a busy phase of my life: University, the commitment I’ve put into beta testing and forum moderation, traditional art, books, the studio… Let’s not even mention my deep interest for music and films. I can’t really say I’m bored, but I have less time to put into personal stuff at the moment.

I needed something that I could do in a few days and I found it while I was browsing Google Images: I saw the homepage of a Dutch toy shop which also had some nice Winnie the Pooh pics. I decided to give it a shot and voilà!

The workflow I put in all my pics, including Winnie, is quite simple: I collect the highest number of photo

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references I can (they’re never enough!), I put them into a new folder, fire up C4D, create a primitive (usually a poly ring or a square) and start grinding some polys.

Once I’m satisfied with the modeling, I start adding my lights and then drawing the textures I need.

I prefer to draw them by hand because usually photo textures already have some kind of shading into them and you spend more time trying to get rid of that than drawing a new one.

I have to admit I’m everything but a Photoshop or Bodypaint wizard.

Lots of things follow a trial&error approach. All I know is what I want to get, the way I get it isn’t always the same.

I always try to follow a “scientific” approach, I try to understand the way real world materials work and react to light and I try to simulate it in C4D.

Interview with Alberto "ThirdEye" Blasi

Interview

By Tavy Ann

Rendering is the part I enjoy most.

I can spend several weeks to get the look I want without getting discouraged or bored. Also, I’m slowly learning the wonders of post processing. 5 minutes in a 2D painting app, such as Photoshop, can change the look of your stuff dramatically.

Tavy: Considering you’re a moderator on the popular CINEMA 4D forum at www.cgtalk.com, let’s discuss a little about forums.

For you, what are the good points and not so good points on forums?

Do you think they are a quality resource for the beginner- pro alike?

Alberto: forums are something that really made me drown into the 3D world. My parents probably aren’t so happy about it since I spend a lot of hours browsing them instead of dedicating to university, ‘lo mom!

Seriously, the best point of forums is simple: communication.

The worst point of forums is even simpler: communication.

Communication lets you meet other people’s views, share your stuff, and discuss the right way to improve it.

Communication can also make you use the forums in a totally wrong way: flames, wars, pointless discussions, it’s like the real world, nothing more, nothing less. This subject is quite touchy, one of the two moderators of our XSI forum, Raffaele “ThE_JacO” Fragapane, wrote a post about this subject, which fastly became a sticky in almost every forum of Cgtalk.com. His words were all about using our brain and putting our own strong efforts into

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learning rather than transforming the forums into a Technical Support area. I’m slightly biased since he’s a personal friend of mine, but I do believe his words are totally right.

It’s all about the way you use them.

Forums are just tools. They can be very useful or totally useless. It’s up to you.

Tavy: Are you currently working on any projects you would like to tell us about?

Alberto: I lost 50% of my 3D data some months ago in a HDD crash, including a car model I was working

Interview with Alberto "ThirdEye" Blasi

By Tavy Ann

Alberto: Never feel too happy about your work and never feel too discouraged about it. Balance, details and studying are the main keys.

All the greatest artists of the past had strong instincts and passions, but they also had a very rational and constant way of following them.

Interview

Always have a clear target. It could be a short time one or a longer time one, just set your targets and keep focusing on them until you get what you want.

on. As of late, I was able to recover it all. I’ve been quite lucky, I have to say. Maybe I will keep working on that car, who knows? I’m open to suggestions.

Thanks again for the opportunity to get to know you better.

It’s a nice and productive way to keep you busy. Thanks again for the interview. *lights off*

Do you have any last words for our readers and the many aspiring 3D artists across the globe?

Tavy: This was truly a pleasure.

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Total Textures Collection by 3DTotal.com

By Thomas Pasieka

Review

Well, what does every 3D Artist need? Textures! Lot’s of em! Some people surf the web for texture sites and some go out with their digi cam ready to shoot some good textures.

Yet others do their own textures by combining the free textures they have found on the world wide web, and some others just don’t know how to create good looking textures for themselves.

Everybody knows how important it is to have a good texture collection.

We all try to generate our own texture collection in one way, but sometimes it can get frustrating. What if you don’t live near a big city, but you need graffiti sprayed textures? What If I need textures that are related to nature, but I can’t get there that easily? What if I need furniture or tiles, but can’t find a store owner who allows me to take some pictures of his products without getting yelled at?

Well there are easier ways to get textures nowadays. 3D Totals texture collection is surely THE source for a great variety of textures. 3D Total offers a big collection (9 CD’s all together). Each CD has a different topic/theme with lots of tilable and not tilable textures on it.

Let’s have a look at what 3D Total has to offer. “Total Textures V1” is called “General”. General because it offers a little bit of everything. You will find Brick textures, Cloth, Ground, Metals, Misc., Photos, Skies, Slate&Tiles, Stone, Woods, Shadow maps, and also dirt and noise maps on this texture CD. Additionally you will find a “Gallery” link on the CD which will show you some great pictures done by several artist using the “3D Total” textures.

Clicking on one of the pictures will

lead you to an online site. There you will find the same picture with a step by step tutorial. The software that is used mostly is 3DS, but you can easily follow the steps and do just the same in CINEMA 4D. So you don’t only get the textures, but you also get some great tutorials coming along with your CD. What else do you need? That should satisfy every 3d artist instantly. You will find Tutorials on each CD to help you enhance your texturing skills.

“Total Textures V2” has the title “Aged and stressed”. Well it doesn't mean that the creators of Total Textures are aged and stressed.

They worked hard on Volume 2 and you will find the expected materials like Metal, misc, paint, plaster, stone, wood, skies, a huge reference collection (Photos), Shadow maps and dirt maps. This CD also contains a gallery and tutorials as mentioned before.

You will also find texturing tips which are done with 3DS, but you can easily convert those tips to any other software on the market.

Altogether, just another great texture CD made by 3D Total. I don’t want to get in details with every CD here, but let me say this; Every CD contains around 100-180 seamless textures with handmade bump maps.

3D Total offers two kind of resolution for their textures which is either high res 1200x900 and med res 600x450. Some skies (panoramic skies) even have a resolution of 4000x1000 pixel. The interface is webrowser oriented. Which means, as soon as you put the CD into your drive, a web browser will open for you to see each texture. This makes it very comfortable to pick textures you need without packing your harddrive. You can of course just copy

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the entire content of the CD onto your computer. This allows for faster browsing through the huge collection. Let’s have a look at the topics and content of each CD. Textures V1: General The original collection of hi-res seamless textures covering a wide variety of subjects including many bonus features.

Textures V2: Aged and stressed The 2nd collection meets the demand for stressed, aged, damaged and dirty textures. Again covering many subjects; hi-res, seamless and having many bonus features.

Textures V3: Bases and Layers The 3rd collection of textures are base textures that are suitable for building up layers or applying straight to surfaces such as stone, plaster, concrete etc. This CD has many bonus features.

Total Textures Collection by 3DTotal.com

By Thomas Pasieka

Review

Textures V4: Humans & Creatures The 4th collection of textures are suitable for texturing humans and creatures. The textures range from natural, realistic eye, skin and hair textures to bizarre creature skins and eyes.

Textures V5: Dirt & Graffiti The 5th collection of textures are Dirt masks and maps. These have many uses, the main ones being a mask to mix two textures together or being placed as a layer over an existing texture to add in detail and 'dirty it up'.

Textures V6: Clean Textures The 6th collection of textures are 'clean' textures that have little or no 'aged/stressed' elements.

range from Exterior Spaceship textures to decals and Damage maps Textures V8: Vehicles The 8th collection of textures are for texturing vehicles. The textures range from Tire bump maps to cool flame decals. For The first time on a Total Texture CD they have included .dxf meshes of some of the more 'common' car objects. These include Alloy Wheels, brake calipers, dials etc.

Textures V9: Ancient Tribes & Civilizations The 9th collection of textures are called Ancient Tribes and Civilization.

The textures range from Aztec, Japanese, Medieval, Greek & Roman, Celtic & Viking, Egyptian, Neanderthal, Indian & Islamic, and African.

Textures V7: Sci-Fi The 7th collection of textures are 'Robots & Spaceships’. The textures

As you can clearly see there is something for just everyone. Each CD contains a pack of great textures

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which you surely won’t find just anywhere. Every Texture CD is worth the money. Now let’s have a look at the price tag. US$49 / UK£27 / €39 for one CD is surely a fair price tag considering what you get for your money. If you want to buy the entire collection you will be charged US $331 (normally $441). You save 25% if you buy the entire collection at once. That’s a pretty good price.

Another great way to get the complete collection would be to drop a hint to Santa for Christmas. I can guarantee that you won’t be disappointed with this collection! For other price bundles please check www.3dtotal.com Let’s summarize all the information.

What we have here is a great texture collection for every 3D Artist using whatever software. The variety of textures are well chosen and the price is fair. I can highly recommend every CD or the entire collection! This collection is worth a look or two! Please check out 3D Totals website for more information and on how to order. You will also find some free textures there. www.3dtotal.com Happy rendering!

Rating: 5 out of 5

Facial Animation using PoseMixer

By Tuan Nguyen

In this tutorial, we will show how to do facial animation using the new PoseMixer tag that is available with MOCCA for C4D R9. If you are interested in a more in depth exploration of facial animation, I suggest you get Jason Osipa's book STOP STARING. This book goes into detail about facial modeling and animation.

(Pic03)

(Pic06)

To begin this tutorial, I will demonstrate the basics of using bones and how to use the Claude Bonet tool to weight these bones. First, add a Cube Primitive to your scene. Set the Segments for X, Y, and Z to 2 (pic01). Then make it editable.

(Pic04)

Tutorial

(Pic01)

bone (pic05). We could have used the Bone Tool's Split Bone command, but there would be other issues that we would have to address later. For this tutorial, we will stick with the regular Bone Deformer. Give each bone a differNow, add a Bone Deformer to your scene (pic02). In the Top View, move the end of the bone so that

(Pic02)

the bone spans the entire length of the Cube (pic03). Make the Bone a child of the Cube. In the Object Properties of the Bone Object, change the length to100m (pic04).

Holding down the Ctrl key, grab the tip of the bone and drag out another

start to deform the whole cube.

This is because the geometry has not been weight to the bones yet.

In other words, how each bone influences the geometry has not been set.

Make sure you are in the Top View.

Select your parent bone and activate the Claude Bonet Tool.

Uncheck Only Modify Visible Elements but check Paint Absolute.

Set the Strength to 100% and paint the bottom half of the Cube. Once you are done, the bottom half of the Cube will be painted/weighted green (pic07). What we are doing is telling (Pic07)

(Pic05)

ent name to distinguish them from each other. Choose the parent bone and active Fix Bones (pic06).

You will be asked to include subobject. Click Yes to include any child bone. Select the parent bone and rotate it. Since it is the parent bone, it will rotate the whole cube.

Undo the rotation and rotate the child bone. You will notice that it will

16

part of the Cube geometry that it will be 100% influenced by the parent bone. Now select the child bone and choose the Claude Bonet Tool once again. This time paint only the top row of points with 100% Strength (pic08). Now choose the parent bone and rotate it. It will still rotate the whole cube since it controls most of the geometry. Undo the rotation and rotate the child

Facial Animation using PoseMixer

By Tuan Nguyen

One thing to note is that the Neck Bone's Function was set to 1/r^8 (pic10). This gives the bone influence for this mesh a more organic

(Pic08)

Tutorial

bone. You will notice that it only rotates a small portion of the cube.

Undo the rotation and go back to the Top View. Make sure the child bone is still selected. Using the Claude Bonet tool, paint the middle row of points with only 50% Strength (pic09). Notice how the painted points are not as bright green in

(Pic09)

color as the points on the same bones that are painted 100%.

Rotate each bone and see how each bone now influences the geometry. We have shown you the basics of painting weights to the bone. Now open up the Face Rig Tutorial Start file. We have included two face models for you to look at.

The second one is the mesh where it is still a Symmetry Object. This was included to demonstrate how it was modeled. Look at the first mesh and you will see that the Neck and Head Bones have already been weighed for you. Where the two bones meet the weight has been set to 50% Strength on each bone. All other points are at 100% strength.

a better understanding of how to correctly paint the bones to your mesh. Once you are done with weighing all the bones, we can precede to the next step. Make a copy of the Mesh and rename it Mesh Default. Place the copy in a Null Object. Name it Poses. Make two copies of the Mesh Default and rename them Mesh Mouth Open and Mesh L Eye Closed. Make sure they are also children of the Poses null and hide the Poses null (pic12).

(Pic10)

deformation. Since the Neck Bone is the parent bone, this function also applies to all the child bone under it.

Play around with the Function setting and rotate the bones to see what effects it has on the mesh.

In the scene file, the Lower Lip and Upper Lip Bone have not been weighed. When painting these bones start with 100% Strength and slowly lower the Strength settings as you move away from the bone.

Where the two bones meet, you may want to set the Strength to 50%. Look at the Face Rig Tutorial Finished file as an example of how to paint each bone (pic11). Rotate the bone to see how the mesh deforms. Undo the rotation and change the weight on the bone if necessary. Rotate the bone and repeat until you are satisfied with the result. It is a process of trial and error, but with practice, you will get

(Pic12)

Select the original Mesh and add a PoseMixer tag to it (pic13). Drag the Mesh Default into the Default Pose field. Drag the Mesh Mouth

(Pic13)

Open into the empty field below that. Click the Add Pose button to add another empty pose field. Drag Mesh L Eye Closed into this new filed (pic14). One of the nice features of the new PoseMixer tag is that the poses do not need to be at the same location as the original mesh. Moved the Poses null to one side of the Mesh so that you can view the effects of the poses on the

(Pic11)

17

Facial Animation using PoseMixer

By Tuan Nguyen

Tutorial

(Pic14)

Mesh. Unhide Mesh Mouth Open and set the Mesh Mouth Open pose setting to 100%. By setting it to 100%, we can see how the poses will affect the Mesh. Rotate the Upper and Lower Lip Bones until you are happy with the open mouth pose (pic15). Set the pose setting back to 0% and once again hide the Mesh Mouth Open. With the PoseMixer tag, you can also deform your mesh by moving points. This is

(Pic15)

what we will do to make the left eyelid close. Unhide the Mesh L Eye Closed and set its pose setting to 100%. Make sure you are using the Point Tool. Begin by pulling the points of the left upper eyelid down.

You may need to hide the Eye Symmetry to get to the points you need to move. Move the points down and away from the mesh.

Unhide the Eye Symmetry to see if the points of the upper left eyelid are covering the eye correctly. Once you are satisfied start manipulating the point of the lower left eyelid.

Move them up and away. Hide and

unhide the Eye Symmetry as before until the eyelids are properly closed (pic16). Once you are happy with the look, return the pose to 0%.

Play around with the pose slider for both poses to see how the poses deform the original mesh. When you are ready to begin the animation of the face, set all the sliders back at 0% and make sure you are at frame 0. If you look at the left of the pose slider you will see a small circle. This is a keyframe dot that

(Pic16)

represents if a keyframe has been placed or not. Begin with the Mesh Mouth Open pose slider and set a keyframe by holding the Ctrl key and touching the dot. It will turn red indicating a keyframe has been set.

Move to frame 30 and slide the pose to 100%. Click the keyframe dot once again to set another keyframe as before. Return to frame 0 and play the animation. You should see the mouth open. Do the same for the Mesh L Eye Closed to see the animation of the left eyelid.

You are now ready to create facial animation for your own character.

Also, remember that this is by no means the only way to do facial animation. There are still several other features that we have not talked about like the use of Xpresso, using bump maps, or PLA for facial animation. We hope that you enjoyed this tutorial. Hopefully, you now have a better understanding of PoseMixer and CINEMA 4D.

18

“THE PRIZE FIGHT”

“THE PRIZE FIGHT” ROUND 1

By Tavy Ann

On October 1, 2004, 3D Attack and MAXON presented “THE PRIZE FIGHT”! The Prize Fight is a competition broke into 3 Rounds of battle, fighting for some AWESOME prizes provided by MAXON. The prizes are as follows: Round 1 (the drawing round) the top three drawings win CINEMA 4D Release 9.

Round 2 (the modeling round) the top two models win the CINEMA 4D XL Bundle. Round 3 (the rigging and animating round) the top animation wins the complete CINEMA 4D Studio Bundle. Upon completing each round, the entrants then move to the next round, and continue on in battle.

us as we watch our entrants battle it out in the modeling phase of our competition for the CINEMA 4D XL Bundle. Be sure to keep an eye on this thread http://3dattack.net/3dAttack/viewforum.php?f=45 and CONGRATULATIONS to all of our winners from Round 1 of “THE PRIZE FIGHT”!

KEEP ON ATTACKING!

During Round 1 the entrants had to hand draw an Olympic Character of their choice. This round was completed on October 31st, and with over 100 entrants and excellent drawings, it was a tough decision for 3D Attack and MAXON to pick only 3 winners. MAXON was so impressed with the results of the work in Round 1 that they awarded not 3 copies of CINEMA 4D Release 9, but 5!

Although all of our entrants did a fabulous job, Alexandr Remizov, Mark Gmehling, Janice Chapman, Sergio Garces, and Oli Wuensch were our Round 1 winners. Their work definitely deserves recognition and respect, and we are proud to bring to you their drawings. Yes, they had the winning drawings, but be sure to take a look at all of the wonderful work done by all of our entrants http://3dattack.net/3dAttack/viewtopic.php?t=2544

Don’t miss the second round! It will be interesting to see those great drawings come to “3D” life. For those who are interested in character modeling and the different techniques used, this will surely be interesting to watch. See you on the forum! www.3dattack.net

On November 17, 2004 “The Prize Fight” continues with Round 2. 3D Attack and MAXON invite you to join

19

DOSCH HDR Skies

By Thomas Pasieka

Review

Firstly, “What is HDR”? I am sure you’ve heard about HDR before, but what exactly is this, and what does it do?

HDRIs (High Dynamic Range Images) are a special image format which contain extreme brightnesses of very dark and very light areas of a scene. Because they accurately encode real-world brightness levels, HDRIs can be used to create accurate lighting effects, without the need of additional lights. Normal JPEG or TIFF images can only encode a limited brightness range of 0-255. Real-world scenes often have a brightness range that are many times larger than this.

HDRIs are normally created using digital cameras that can record these extremely large brightness ranges and are stored in special HDRI file formats.

(angular maps), spherical maps (latitude-longitude, as well as vertical and horizontal cross images. 56 HDR Images with different sunlight/clouds, will allow you to create realistic looking scenes. You can easily change the HDR image and achieve a bright sunny day or even a red glowy afternoon by just switching the HDRs in the scene without

The use of HDR Images in CINEMA 4D is relatively easy to achieve.

There are several ways to implement HDR into your scene. On Maxon’s homepage you will find a tutorial on using HDR with CINEMA 4D, so please check it out.

Additionally, you can check Dosch Designs tutorial scene for HDR use in CINEMA 4D. http://www.doschdesign.com/e_infobase/ http://www.maxon.net

Summary: There is actually nothing to complain about using Dosch HDR Skies. All together it’s a great collection of HDR Images for a fair price.

The ease of use and the superb quality of the HDR images make this product a “hit”! Dosch Design are preparing to release a new edition of Dosch HDR Skies in the near future.

This will be a DVD version containing the HDR Skies in a slightly modified form which makes it easier to use.

The DVD will also contain the EXR Format. OpenEXR is a high dynamicrange (HDR) image file format developed by Industrial Light & Magic for use in computer imaging applications.

Now we know what HDRs can do for us. Sounds interesting doesn't it?

Sounds also pretty useful right? So where can you get those HDR Images? Normally it is quiet complicated to create such HDRs and more times than not, they are also fairly expensive. That’s why we are going to have a look at Dosch Designs HDR Skies, a CD (actually 3 CD’s) with 56 HDR images. Why does it come as a 3 CD pack?

There is an easy answer for this: The CD’s contain light-probes changing the light or adding lights.

As you can clearly see in the images above, the mood of a picture can change dramatically.

I would suggest that you go and have a look at Dosch Designs website for further examples and information's about Dosch HDR Skies: http://www.doschdesign.com/products/hdri/Ski es.html

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Product: Dosch HDR Skies Prize: USD 119.00 - EUR 99.00 Homepage: www.doschdesign.com Rating: 5 out of 5

HDRI - Getting It Right

By Lennart Oberscheidt

After reviewing the DOSCH HDR Skies, we thought it would be necessary to get a little more into the definition of HDR. Lennart Oberscheidt wrote this article to help you get a better understanding of HDR. This article is not only interesting, but helpful for those who have probably heard of HDR, but never understood the usage of HDR. Here we go...

Article

Seeing more and more people getting interested in such techniques as image based lighting(IBL), we decided to give you a little overview of the common usage and purpose of high dynamic range images (HDRIs).

A lot of people tend to confuse the term "HDRI" with image based lighting and other lighting techniques involving global illumination simulations. Using a HDRI does not automatically mean using it to light your CG scene – it is an option, but not the one and only purpose of HDRIs. HDR image files can store more information then any normal picture, namely color values far above the normal range, the so called “dynamic range” of a scene. For example: a scene where you see the sun as well as dark shadows has a high dynamic range (difference between the darkest and brightest point).

Standard 8 bit per channel (or low dynamic range, LDRI) pictures store colors as integer values between 0255, whereas a high dynamic range image file stores colors as floating point values, therefore being able to almost exactly capture the lighting (and it's intensity) on a picture in different file formats, such as the common Radiance format, floating point tiffs or ILM's OpenEXR(which of course, is able to store a lot more

Image provided by Dosch Design

then just that). The main purpose of any high dynamic range image is just that, storing information a normal picture cannot store – capturing HDRI's in real-life requires special techniques, or the creation of a HDRI using several LDRI pictures with different exposures. HDRIs are not tied to real world photography.

One of the reasons why high dynamic range image formats have been developed was that in high quality productions the standard 8 or 16 bit per channel color information simply were not enough to manipulate and control a picture on a very fine level. Needed luminance information's were clipped and could in no way be represented in standard pictures. Being able to change a pictures exposure in Post, being able to represent a very bright light as "bright" and not just "white", changed the way Post Production could adjust real world photography.

This fine-control is the reason why for example ILM developed the OpenEXR format, also storing for

21

example, rendered information as high dynamic range to be able to adjust every nuance in post production. Of course, the nature of HDRIs do not only make them interesting for image-processing, but also for raytraced reflections and image based lighting using GI techniques in CG scenes, the most known usage of HDRIs. For this, special forms of HDR images are used, so called, light probes. Most people will know the so called, mirrored ball images, which is a convenient way to capture the lighting on a real world location. Other ways to represent such light probes are cubic maps or latitude/longitude maps which can easily be mapped to cubes, or spheres respectively.

Since HDRIs are able to exactly capture the lighting on, for example, a real world film set, it becomes much easier to achieve same lighting conditions in a re-creation of this environment as CG element, however, at the expense of rendertime to compute the global illumination

HDRI - Getting It Right

By Lennart Oberscheidt

Unwrapped HDRI - Picture provided by Dosch Design

Article

Unwrapped HDRI - Picture provided by Dosch Design

needed for the HDRI to be used as source of light. Since any GI simulation is not only time consuming, but has to be tweaked, and especially for animations, close to artifact free, often HDRIs are just used as guides for the lighting artists using traditional lighting methods, or are baked into a GI or occlusion pass for the scene. Whenever a scene is rather static, it's much more efficient to bake maps then to have the renderer compute GI for every frame. With the recent advances in render speed, GI is more and more used in productions and image based lighting through HDRIs becomes a very common technique. However, it's always wise to consider whether a scene really needs true image based lighting, or if it might be easier to use traditional techniques.

Also, HDRIs are not only meant for presenting cars or other objects (which is where you see them rather often, unfortunately mostly totally out of place). In fact, they are way more versatile and can also be used in combination with traditional lights to obtain realistic renderings.

The other big field of application of high dynamic range images in computer graphics is the creation of

"true" environment reflections (optionally in combination with image based lighting). While any renderer works with high color precision internally, and other cg objects within a scene will be reflected correctly, a standard image used as an environment map or surrounding the scene will not. A very bright spot (such as the sun) will be reflected (depending on the reflection settings of the object) as a grey spot, instead of a bright highlight, as it would be in reality. Specular highlights are nothing but an abstraction of what happens in reality – what we consider a "specular highlights" is nonexistent in real life, in fact, they are reflections of very bright light sources. Using an HDRI as a reflection source will actually create a true reflection, since a bright lightsource in any image will not be just white.

With just a reflectivity of maybe 10% on your material, the reflection of the sun will possibly still be a bright spot, as it has to be. Using HDRIs to

22

recreate these reflections makes it a lot easier to duplicate a very complex lighting situation, such as the night-life streets of a big city in CG, without having to worry about rebuilding certain parts of the real world location to create realistic reflections. However, this is still done to some extent considering an HDRI, as any other picture, has restrictions of how much of the environment it can capture. For both of the described techniques, using HDRIs for image based lighting and for true reflections, really world photographs are usually used. However in some cases, artificial environments can be created and rendered as HDRIs to be used as environment maps, if raytraced reflections are too expensive in a production.

Outputting artificially created HDRI images of course requires the renderer to be able to render to files that are capable of capturing the full dynamic range of a scene.

“Shadow only” Light

Tutorial

By Rui Batista

Lighting a scene can develop antagonistic feelings of love and hate. To get a specific subject or area correctly lit, some other subjects or areas may become over or underexposed. Of course we can now deal with that using falloffs or simply excluding/including objects from a light. But a more complex problem may occur: the lighting is perfect but the shadow is pointing to a direction that ruins the whole composition. Being able to create a shadow that points at any arbitrary direction without affecting the lighting of the scene would be great. The good news is that it is possible. The not so good news is that it requires a bit of coding. But it's about time that we start demystifying this nonsensical fear of coding. So, I will explain everything that the code does. You will see that it's not so hard after all.

First, the theory. To create a light that only creates a shadow, we need a shadow casting light, obviously.

But, if we create a light, the scene will receive more illumination. So, we need to "contradict" that illumination and, to do so, we will use a similar light set to the negative equivalent of the brightness of the shadow casting light. Sounds complicated? It isn't. You have a light that casts light and shadow. Then you add another light that simply removes (negative brightness) the same amount of illumination the first light casted. You are only left with the shadow. To make everything work fine we need the second light - the one that "sucks" the light emitted by the first to have all parameters exactly the same as the first light, except for two: a negative brightness and NO shadow casting. How do we do that? First, we need two lights. The best way is to create a simple Target

Light and duplicate that light. Then, group all elements: the lights and the target. The order in which the lights are is very important. They must be in sequence, without any other object between them. The one on the top will be the main light and the one beneath it will be the "negative" light. You can name all elements any way you like, but give them coherent names, like this:

Now, the code part. Add a COFFEE expression tag to the light at the bottom. Double click the COFFEE tag and type the following code in the Expression window: Only 8 lines of

code. It looks like more because there is a blank line between each line and I added comments to all lines of code - the green sentences after the //. Anyway, I will explain what each line of code does.

The main(doc,op) part is required.

The "main" tells the COFFEE interpreter that this is the part of the code that has to be executed. The doc and op are variables. They are

23

like storage boxes that contain data.

That data can be anything: a number, a word, an object, a document, etc. Both doc and op have prestored values: doc stores the current document and op stores the "object" (primitive) that contains the COFFEE expression tag. This last one will be very useful to us :-) var light1 = op->GetPrev(); This line creates a new variable named light1. Variables can have any name, as long as it is not the same as the names of the commands (this would leave the COFFEE interpreter very confused.

Before explaining what the op>GetPrev(); code does I will give more detailed information about variables. Variables in COFFEE are treated as objects. Don't confuse these objects with Cinema 4D objects (cubes, spheres, splines, deformers, lights, etc). These I

would call "primitives". Objects are special types of storage boxes. They contain data but they can also contain (or have associated) one or more commands that deal with the data they contain. That is a great thing, because if an object contains, lets say a document, it also has associated with it all commands that know how to deal with documents. If it contained a primitive, it would have associated with it all com-

“Shadow only” Light

By Rui Batista

mands that know how to deal with primitives. Its like if you bought a bottle and it contains not only the data (the liquid) but also the bottle opener, a straw and a tissue to clean your mouth at the end.

So, remember what I said the op variable contained? The "object" (primitive) that contained the COFFEE tag, right? In this case, it is the "negative" light. Since this variable contains a primitive, it also contains all commands that deal with primitives.

mands does the opposite: it stores the Global Matrix in the primitive pointed by op. Since we are providing the SetMg(...) command with the value light->GetMg(), the "negative" light (op) will get the same Global Matrix as the main light (light1).

What does this does? The "negative" light will be placed on the same location as the main light, with the same scale and rotation. So, if we move the main light, the "negative" light will follow along.

Tutorial

var data = light1->GetContainer(); So, it contains one named GetPrev that simply returns the primitive that is before it (Get Previous). So, op>GetPrev() returns the primitive that is before the one pointed by op.

Since op points to the "negative" light, op->GetPrev() returns the main light. Now you see why their order is so important.

Oh, by the way the ( ) after the GetPrev means that GetPrev requires no parameters. If GetPrev needed more data to work, that data would go inside the ( ). The ; at the end is a requirement of the COFFEE language. ALL commands must end with ; So, now, the variable light1 is pointing to the main light. op->SetMg(light1->GetMg()); Mmmmmm, this one is more complex. But lets dissect it. Everything inside parenthesis, just like in average math's is calculated first, so... light1->GetMg() is executed first.

Since light1 is a primitive also, it also contains all commands associated with primitives. GetMg is a command that returns the Global Matrix of the primitive. This is where the position, scale and rotation are stored. The op->SetMg(...) com-

A new variable is created. This one is named data and will contain all the light parameters from the main light. Every primitive has a "container" that contains its parameters. For example, a Sphere has a container that contains the Radius, the Segments, the Type and the Render Perfect parameters. The command GetContainer() returns the parameters of any primitive. Since it is called from a the light1 variable, pointing to the main light) it returns its parameters. if (!data) return; Its always good to check if we have all the information that we need, before we continue. So we check if the variable data contains anything.

If it doesn't, we return to the code immediately. The ! is the NOT function. So, we may read the last line as, roughly, something like this: if no(t) data, then return. var bright=data>GetData(LIGHT_MAIN_BRIGHTNESS); We create a new variable called bright that will contain the brightness value of the main light. Where is

24

that value? It is stored somewhere inside the container of the light. But, luckily, we already have a variable pointing to that container, the data variable. So, using the GetData(...) command we can retrieve values from it.

What value are we searching for?

The brightness? Well, that value has a name that is already pre-coded inside Cinema4D: LIGHT_MAIN_BRIGHTNESS If we feed that parameter into GetData, we get the value of the brightness of the light.

Oh, GetData is a command that knows how to deal with containers because... YES! because it is associated with a variable that contains a container. Now you are starting to understand object-oriented-programming!! Not that hard, is it? :-) data>SetData(LIGHT_MAIN_STYPE,0); As you may have guessed, the SetData is the opposite of the GetData command. With SetData we must provide two parameters: what to set and the value to set. In this case, we want to set the shadow type to None (the "negative" light should NOT have any shadow). So, we feed SetData with LIGHT_MAIN_STYPE (STYPE stands for Shadow Type) and 0 (zero, as in None). data>SetData(LIGHT_MAIN_BRIGHTNESS,(-1.0*bright)); In the same way, we set the value of the brightness to its negative. We simply multiply the value of the bright variable by -1.0. Why -1.0 and not simply -1? Since we are dealing

“Shadow only” Light

By Rui Batista

with a value that can contain decimal numbers, we should keep all arithmetic operations in the same way. So, -1.0 assures that no rounding will occur. op->SetContainer(data);

Tutorial

Now that we modified the data container in the way we want - everything the same, except for a negative brightness and no shadow, we feed that information to the parameters of the "negative light" with op>SetContainer(data). And that’s it!

Now you only have to deal with your main light and its target. Everything you change in the main light parameters will automatically be adjusted and loaded to the "negative" light.

So, have fun casting shadows.

If you have questions or problems regarding this tutorial then please

feel free to either contact us directly or the better way: Ask your specific questions on our forum at: http://www.3dattack.net

ADVERTISEMENT

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Keep on attacking and have fun learning!

Rui Batista

Motorcycle Chain

By Antonin

How to create a motorcycle chain with the duplicate function. This tutorial will show you how easy it is to create a chain using the “duplicate” function. This tutorial requires that you load the scene file from the “goodies” folder.

3. Make the Spline editable ("C" key).

arrange everything correctly - just experiment with what fits you best.

4. We then duplicate our link: select the null which contains it and apply "menu>functions>duplicate"

Using Cinema4D R8 :

5. In the attribute panel select mode "along spline". Drag your spline (rectangle) in the appropriate field and activate the rotation. Hit "apply".

You can now adjust, in realtime, the number of copies if you don't switch tools (one of the neat new R9 features).

The first script align copies along a spline, the second one lets you know the length of the spline.

Using Cinema 4D R9 :

Tutorial

First of all you will need two excellent C.O.F.F.E.E scripts from Tengaal. Download Chainspline2 and Longspline from the submenus "astuces 3d" - "divers" from his site http://tengaal.art.chez.tiscali.fr/Menu. htm (go into the "Astuces3D>Divers" section - sorry, it's in french - if you are having trouble getting the expressions, just contact 3D Attack).

1. First load the chainlink.c4d file ( you can also use your own object. If it's in parts just group them under a null. You should use a lowpoly one, as it becomes rapidly heavy)

1. Repeat step 1 of the R9 method

2. Create a spline to shape your chain. I used a rectangle one with these settings :

4. Place the "longspline" expression on your spline (rectangle) to measure it and then let's do a little calculation: links number = spline length / link length

2. Repeat step 2 of the R9 method 3. Edit the spline

Width : 3000 Height : 1000 Rounding : 500

In my case, the spline length is 7139 and the link length from the provided file is 180 (you need to center the links together, so measure from the parts that will link with Tip : If the links do not point in the right direction, you can adjust your spline orientation or the align parameter in the duplicate attribute panel.

I used the "+Z" orientation to

the other chain links. That would give us: 7139/180 = 40 links needed. (See next picture) 5. Open the chainspline2 expression , double-click on the C.O.F.F.E.E expression to modify the number

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Motorcycle Chain

By Antonin

of objects and check "tangent à la spline" (tangent to spline).

6. An important thing for a good alignment is to make sure the axis of both the spline and the link points in the same direction

Tutorial

7. Place now the chain link null as child of the spline, then place the script on the spline.Sometimes, the instances created don't have any reference object.

Just select them all and place the chain link null object (it will go along with its hierarchy) in the "reference object" panel of the attribute manager.

Antonin - a Bubbles4D member.

27

Storm Tracer goes nature...

By Pascal

Although, it’s obvious that storm tracer can’t compete with real 3D plants. It’s extremely useful to fill space.

This tutorial teaches you how to create a flowery meadow.

(pic_003)

modified, as we’ll see later.

In the «Basic» panel, click «cloning». (pic_006)

Part 1: a little bit of grass. (pic_006)

Modeling stage : Let’s start with a simple polygon. (pic_001)

Switch to the « cloning panel » and set the “clone mode” to “organic clone” . (pic_007)

(pic_001) (pic_004)

Tutorial

“surface” and set “Count” to 1. (pic_004) Remains only one storm which is randomly fixed on the surface. This has no importance since we’ll clone it later. What you can see here is a sprite, that is an elementary particle of storm tracer. (pic_005)

(pic_007)

Proceed to a short rendering to check the evolution. You now have a kind of basic stem, but it’s just the beginning. (pic_008) (pic_008)

You can leave the object in parametric mode. The Modeling stage is now finished !

Sprite stage : We don't use storm tracer preset.

Avoid using presets which may be misleading, having too many parameters. It’s better to start from scratch in the creation of a storm. (pic_002)

(pic_005)

We are still far from our blade of grass, but improving on it. Some data needs to be explained first.

You need several particles to create a stem, a leaf or any other long item. You’ll now use the cloning function.

In the « basic » section of the “cloning” panel, set « steps » to 6, for instance. (pic_009)

Clones (pic_002)

A first rendering shows us how the sprites work. (pic_003) First, let’s try with a single blade of grass. Change the following settings: - Replace “Placement” by

Clones are like the instance objects you can find in C4D. They are based on a model - our sprite – whose settings can be modified with the exception of the basic settings which are common to all sprites.

However, the basic settings can be

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(pic_009)

This shows the importance of this setting.(pic_010) It’s now time to give our blade a more usual shape.

Go to the “opacity” panel to set “Falloff” to “dot”. (pic_011)

Storm Tracer goes nature...

By Pascal

It now looks like a blade of grass.

You can now add a touch of color before passing on to dynamics.

(pic_010)

Color and shape.

About the color, you can simply choose a basic green in the « color » panel. (pic_017) (pic_013) (pic_014)

Tutorial

(pic_017)

(pic_011)

The opacity panel is similar to the alpha channel in C4D. In this panel you can change the basic shape of the sprites while the shape of the stem can be changed in the cloning panel. A short rendering: you now have a better shape. (pic_012)

Our leaf is somewhat sharp so you need to customize its shape. (pic_015 & 016)

In order to see the progress in this work, let’s add some elements to the scene : floor, sky and environment ( set to 25 percent) as well as a round spot (change “shadow map” size to 1000*1000). This is just an example. (pic_018)

(pic_015)

(pic_012)

(pic_018) (pic_016)

Since sprites don’t cast shadows, you have to add the “storm shadow” tag to the light. It’ll copy its parameters automatically. (pic_019) (pic_019)

Then you’ll see that tag is not always necessary. Ok, launch a short rendering to check what you’ve done so far. You should obtain the following result: (pic_020)

Set « steps » to 20 and tick « branch shape ». (pic_013 & 014)

29

Storm Tracer goes nature...

By Pascal

(pic_020)

Let’s now see how to add leaves.

Branching

It’s already better. We can now set « angle variation » to 5% and « branch thickness » to 25% to obtain thinner blades. (pic_029 & 030)

A blade of grass seldom sprouts on its own. It’s in fact a plant with several leaves. In order to understand your work, deactivate the gravity parameter in the « dynamics » panel. (pic_025) A few more parameters need to be set; set “steps” to 30 and tick ‘link spacing to branch shape” to reduce aliasing. (pic_021) (pic_025)

(pic_021)

Tutorial

Replace “Falloff” by “Round”. (pic_022)

Set “branches count” to 7, “angle of branch to stem” to 1° and « angle variation” to 50%. These settings can be found in the “branching” panel. (pic_026)

(pic_029)

(pic_022)

Eventually, stretch the basic sprite ; in the « basic » panel, set the Y axis to 100% and 50% for the X axis. (pic_023) (pic_023)

(pic_026)

We have set a high value to the angle to highlight the fact that the sprites stand bolt upright. (pic_027) (pic_027)

Turn down the shadow density in order to see it more clearly. Here is our blade of grass !! (pic_024)

(pic_030)

The dynamics will make it appear more real.

(pic_024)

Go back to the « basic » panel and choose « heading » so that the sprites can follow the branch. (pic_028) (pic_028)

30

Dynamics We want the blades to be slightly bent. Reactivate « gravity » in the « dynamics » panel. Activate « turbulence » as well. Set « gravity » to 10 and « turbulence » according to the following parameters. (pic_031) From there on, it depends on what you need, just test the changes that

Storm Tracer goes nature...

By Pascal

(pic_031)

Tutorial

each option brings. You can play on “turbulence”, on the size ( as you would do with a 3D noise). For the moment, “animation speed” is still set to zero. « Local space » gives each blade of grass its own turbulence setting. (pic_032)

(pic_032)

You can now multiply the blades by increasing the value of the « count » settings in the « basic » panel. (pic_033)

(pic_033)

You can now test other options such as « growth » and the « variation » panel.

Thanks for your attention…

Tutorial by Pascal translated by Nikolas – Bubbles4D members.

31

Modeling a Tree

By Xander

Here is a simple tutorial on how to make a tree. Follow the guide.

The plugins used are free and are available here: Extrude along a spline: http://home.arcor.de/m1.haller/ Dup on poly: http://web.tiscali.it/imago3d/downloa dIdx.html

(pic_002)

(pic_005)

(pic_003)

(pic_006)

Chestnut: http://homepage2.nifty.com/aquawav e/cafeteria/chestnuts.html

Tutorial

Mess: http://www.the3ddesigner.de/download.html The following tutorial is only a quick description of the process. It will be up to you to detail as needed.

First, create a cube with the following parameters: (Zoom in) [pic001]

At this stage, we will lengthen the size of the trunk, and move some points to give it an organic feeling.

- here is how it should look like : [pic004] [pic005] [pic006]

use the plugin. First, create a spline using the more convenient point of view and draw the shape of the branch you would like (don't hesitate to create enough point to make the extrusion look nice). Then use either the Move tool or Magnet tool to shape the branch nicely. Once the basic shape of the branch is done, place the tip of the spline near the polygon you want to extrude: [pic007]

(pic_001)

Then extrude some faces and make it look like this one: [pic002] We will need to adjust the shape to make it look less angular, otherwise it will look unnatural.

Select some of the points at the bottom and scale the selection down using the scale tool. [pic003]

(pic_004)

The trunk is done, now is the time to model the branches. We will use the plugin "extrude along spline" to ease the process, as this freeware allows for an extrusion of a face to follow the shape of a spline. You could do it by hand, but it's much faster to

32

(pic_007)

Modeling a Tree

By Xander

We are now going to use the "Extrude Along Spline" plugin, by selecting first the polygon to extrude and applying the plugin. [pic009]

(pic_012)

(pic_009)

The next step will be the creation of the smaller branches that are positioned on the big one. Just use the Extrude tool and move your points as needed until satisfied with the shape. We will then place some leaves on the branches using the plugin "Dup on Poly". [pic013]

Tutorial

Here is the result: [pic010]

(pic_014)

(pic_015)

duplicate. You can create instances if you want. [pic016]

(pic_010)

We can make some corrections then scale down the tip of the branch. [pic011]

(pic_013)

But first let's place our branch in a hypernurb using 1 or 2 subdivisions and edit the hypernurb using the "C" shortcut (keep the original branch).

That way, we will have more material and places where to put our leaves.

Make sure that the axis is placed at the basis of your leaves and branches. [pic014] (pic_011)

Use the same technic to create the other branches. [pic012]

Let's select a few polygons that we will use as starting points for the leaves. [pic015] Launch the "Dup on Poly" plugin and enter a reference object to

33

(pic_016)

Once this done, we can delete our subdivided branch, because we won't need it anymore. Place the trunk into a hypernurb object with a low subdivision value and edit it too.

In point mode, select a few vertexes to pinpoint where you want the wholes branches to be placed. The point selection will be used by the plugin Chestnut. [pic017]

Modeling a Tree

By Xander

branches: [pic019] You can use the Mess plugin to

(pic_017)

Tutorial

Before showing you the result, let's make some lianas. Choose the top view projection and draw a spline from this view that will represent how you want the lianas to be placed.

Make sure you place a few points on top of each intersection with the branches, as it will bend much more nicely.

(pic_020) (pic_019)

thicken the splines using the "Sweep it" function.

Choose the radius and click on Sweep it. [pic020] And here is a final render using the

Create a floor using a simple plane and right-click in the view, in point mode and choose 'project".

Use "view" mode projection (you should be in top view), and make sure you are not using the Cinema 4D parametric Floor object as floor, because it won't work. [pic018] Here is how it should look once pro-

(pic_018)

jected and tweaked a little where the spline intersects too much with the

34

same technic and a bit more patience.

Enjoy Xander - A Bubbles4D member.

Making Gears Mesh with XPresso

By Crew Reynolds

I’ve always been fascinated with mechanics, especially where gears are involved. Being able to have a master gear’s powered rotation, fuels the kind of intricate coordinated movements that you find in a fine pocket watch, is something beautiful to behold. For this tutorial, I thought it might be fun to take a look at how to create gears and then animate them flawlessly using Cinema 4D’s XPresso feature.

Tutorial

The Gears Cinema 4D comes with a very handy gear spline tool. This tool is great for making precise gears that we can use as a starting point.

Create a scene and drop in a gear spline. Rotate it 90 degrees in the P direction so it lies flat on the construction plane. Chose a top-down view. Note that there is an outer radius, middle, and inner radius.

These properties, along with the bevel, control the roundness and length of the teeth. Set up this gear with 40 teeth, an inner radius of 240, a middle radius of 250, and an outer radius of 260. This gives us a natural looking gear with teeth that are 20 units long. When we create the next larger gear, we will make sure that the teeth are the same length.

Make your gear editable so we can do some work on the resulting spline. We’re going to punch some holes in the gear to give it “arms” that connect the center pole to the outer ring. To do this, we need to draw them on top of the gear spline.

Create a b-spline and drop in four points roughly in the upper righthand quadrant of your gear. Close the spline. Move the points to give a nice rounded pie shape as in the following illustration. (Pic01)

Name this gear gear1. If you are in shaded mode, your view should look

(pic_01)

Check the distance between the side of your cutout and the X and Z axis (assuming you’re working from a top view). The goal is to leave just enough space so that when you copy the cutout into the three remaining quadrants, there is some space left to define the arms and the cutouts don’t overlap.

You should be able to copy/paste the first cutout and rotate it 90 deg. using the coordinate manager.

Paste again and rotate that to 180 deg. and repeat again for 270 deg.

Select all five splines and connect them. Right-click>connect works or use the menu and look under functions menu for the connect command. Delete the original parts leaving only the one connected spline.

You will likely be looking at a slight problem at this point. The original gear spline was a bezier type. The cutouts were a b-spline type. When you connected them into one, the resulting spline became bezier type which may cause you trouble with the cutouts.

What I did was to change the spline type to b-spline to make the cutouts work. The only problem being that the teeth will be rounded off. That will work fine for this tutorial.

Drop this into an extrude object and raise it 20 units along the Z-axis.

35

(pic_02)

something like the following (Pic02).

A machine isn’t much good with just one gear so let’s create another one to mesh with this one. To keep the match simple, we are going to create a gear ratio of 2:1 where the slave gear is 2x the size of the master gear.

In this case, we double the number of teeth and double the inner radius.

Move your first gear off to the side so we can work again on the central axis.

Create a new gear and give it 80 teeth, an inner radius of 520, the middle radius is 10+ the inner so use 530, and the outer radius is 10+ that so use 540. I’ll leave it up to you if you want to try your hand at adding some internal cutouts. I had a little fun with two sets of complimentary cutouts at 72deg intervals to get a set of 5 instead of the standard 4.

The cool part of producing internal designs like this is that you end up with a boolean-like effect without using booleans. Try it with booleans and see which method you like better.

After completing the internal cutouts, connecting them into one spline, setting that to b-spline type, extrud-

Making Gears Mesh with XPresso

By Crew Reynolds

ing, and moving the master gear into place, I got the following image.

I chose to make my slave gear a little thicker (30). Name this object

Tutorial

(pic_03)

gear2. (Pic03) The Movement Now that we’ve got our two gears, we need to look at animating them so that they mesh correctly. Enter XPresso. To prep for this, I added two cylinders for axles and moved those into place. I then packaged gear1 and it’s axle into a null object called master. I did the same for gear2 and called its null slave.

Using a null in this case makes sure that everything rotates together when the null is rotated. It also ensures that the axis of rotation is clean. Start by making sure the teeth on your gears mesh visually.

Use a top down view for this. Add an XPresso tag to the master gear and drag into it the two gear objects.

It really doesn’t matter if the XPresso tag is on the master or the slave gear. In the work area, drag in the master and slave nulls, add in a negate node (new node>Xpresso>calculate>negate) and a math node (new node>Xpresso>calculate>math).

Let’s hook everything up first and then I will explain what each node is doing. On the master gear, create a rotation.h output port. This is done by clicking on the outgoing (red) side of the node and finding coordinates>rotation>rotation.h in the popup menu. Create a link between this rotation.h node and the input side of the negate node.

Create a link from the output of the negate node into the first input of the math node. Check the attributes manager for the math node and set the data type to real and the function to divide. Set input 2’s value to 2. Finally, take the output from the math node and pipe that into the slave gear’s rotation.h port. (Pic04) What this does is take the rotation (H=heading) of the slave gear, invert it, divide it by 2, and use that as the rotation for the slave gear.

The slave gear being the larger of the two will rotate once for each 2 full revolutions of the master gear.

At this point you should be able to

36

(pic_04)

rotate the master gear and have the slave object rotation in the opposite direction and perfectly in sync.

Make sure the teeth line up where they sync up and they should stay that way as you rotate the master null. By simply key framing the rotation of the master null, you can keep the gears spinning and in sync.

Extending the gear train is easily done. Add more gears of the correct ratio and teeth count and then use XPresso to handle the rotation.

I wanted to keep this simple so I kept with the 2:1 ratio. There is no reason why you couldn’t do the math to handle any gear ratio you need. Finally, I used the wonderful Symbiont shaders to finish out my gears. Since I’m bad about taking care of my equipment at home, a rust shader seemed appropriate.

Have fun! Crew Reynolds

Necklace In Motion

By Georg Niedermeier

In this tutorial we will create a necklace that follows a moving character by making use of Clothilde's easy to control collisions.

Create a new document and a cylinder with the settings shown at picture 01.

(Pic03)

ond extrusion needs to be a bit longer. Picture 3b shows what happens with the C-Nurbs-object (we

(Pic04)

red triangle. Picture 05 and 06.

(Pic03b)

Tutorial

(Pic01)

Convert into a polygon-object by hitting the 'c'-key. The pearls on our necklace will be made by extrusions of polygon rings. Please select every third polygon ring using the ring selection tool. You can add selections to already existing ones by pressing the shift key.

01b, 02

will need that later on) if we don't do that. Deactivate the C-Nurbs object by clicking the green checkmark (a red X will appear) points. After you have finished the extrusion use grow selection as seen in picture 03c.

(Pic05)

(Pic01b)

(Pic06)

(Pic03c)

(Pic02)

Now make some extrusions as shown in picture 03. The first one has to be very short while the sec-

This function grows the existing selection by adding any polygon in the direct neighborhood of the existing selection. The result has to look like picture 04. Use save selection to be prepared for a texturing job.

A saved selection is shown with the

37

We can use the selection that we have made to create a vertex map which will be useful for a more accurate control of the Clothilde tool. Set Vertex Weight is to be found in the selection menu (Picture 07). If you click that selection tool a new window will appear. Please use the settings that you can see in picture 08 and click OK.

Necklace In Motion

By Georg Niedermeier

do that we have to invert the polygon selection. If you have changed the GUI of Cinema 4d you probably have put the Invert Selection icon into your tool set. if not, just use the Invert tool of your selection menu (Picture 11).

(Pic14)

Excursion:

Tutorial

I believe it is a good thing to have some training on using the Set Vertex Weight tool. Let's make another vertex map with the same settings, but the other way around.

Double click the red triangle that you can see on the right side of your torus. If you do that the saved selection will be activated again (Picture 14b).

(Pic11) (Pic07)

Picture 12 shows you that the selection of the polygons has changed.

(Pic14b) (Pic08)

This will result in an interesting appearance of the viewport. The vertexes weighted with 100 % are yellow while those with a setting of zero appear in red. Cinema 4d makes a gradient between two different vertex weightings within one map (Picture 09).

(Pic12)

Repeat the set vertex weight step that we have done before. Use a Value of 100% in the Set modes.

(Picture 13).

Use Set Vertex Weight again, but give it a value of zero now. This will result in a completely red object.

Red indicates a vertex weighting of zero. Invert the polygon selection and use set vertex weight again. At this time we need a value of 100 % (Picture 14f).

(Pic13)

(Pic09)

Now we have to use this function on the other polygons, too. In order to

Please notice that the gradient of our vertex map happens in the very narrow polygon-ring that we have created at the beginning of the tutorial by extruding two times (Picture 14).

38

(Pic14f)

End of excursion.

In picture 14g you can see the ver-

Necklace In Motion

By Georg Niedermeier

tex map tag (the red - yellow point pattern). In order to maintain some order within our tags, we will rename both vertex maps. Click at the tag and type a name in the Basic Properties of the Attribute Manager. The first one will be called 'chain', the second one we will call 'pearl' (Picture 14g and 14h).

(Pic18)

In order to play around with Clothilde´s collision we need to create a collider object. Create a plane that is 150 meters wide and 750 meters high and give it width and height of 1, the orientation has to be +Y, move it slightly down and along the z-axis as shown in picture 19.

Tutorial

(Pic14g)

(Pic20d)

Select the upper polygon and use the Extrude Inner tool with an offset of 260 meters (Picture 20e).

(Pic20e) (Pic14h)

Activate the C-Nurbs object by clicking the red X behind it. Picture 15 shows the result.

(Pic19)

Select the lower edge in with Live Selection (picture 20b) and make an extrusion (picture 20c).

This will be the neck for our tutorial.

Move the extruded polygon approximately -250 meters on the z-axis because it must be positioned within the necklace (Picture 20f).

(Pic15)

Click the torus in the Object Manager and assign the Clothilde Tag 'Cloth'. You will find in the File Menu of the Object Manager (Picture 17). The Cloth tag looks like a blue curtain (Picture 18).

(Pic20b)

(Pic20c) (Pic17)

Move the newly created edge downward as shown in picture 20d.

39

(Pic20f)

Bevel the extrusion as shown in (Picture 20g).

Necklace In Motion

By Georg Niedermeier

(Pic20g)

Tutorial

Extrude the polygon with an offset of 350 meters and give it a Collider Clothilde Tag found in the file menu of the Object Manager (Picture 21).

called Cloth Engine. If you uncheck this box Clothilde just doesn't work, which is a good thing if you want to make a test animation without the time-consuming Clothilde calculation. Don't worry, if you have several cloth objects unchecking the Cloth Engine checkbox only affects that particular object. Any other cloth objects that have a checked Cloth Engine checkbox will be calculated.

Unchecking the checkbox will result in a grey cloth tag (of the formerly blue curtain). Please use the setting shown in (Picture 23). The checkbox

and the very interesting Wind Lift Factor with which you should play around someday. It controls whether a cloth object will start to float due to wind or not. At the moment we will not use it.

Use the settings of (Picture 24).

(Pic21)

The Collider Tag (Pic24)

(Pic23)

Cache Mode is very practical because with that you can precalculate the cloth simulation and keep the solution and RAM to provide a smooth playback.

(Pic22)

Double click the Collider Tag and take a look at the attribute manager.

The attribute manager shows six different menus called Basic, Type, Forces, Dresser, Effects, Expert.

Basic contains just the tag name.

Tag contains some very basic settings and a very important checkbox

This can be very memory consuming depending on your simulation object. You can empty the cache as well. Precalculating can be stopped by pressing the escape key. You can recognize a cached Cloth Tag by a little chip icon in the cloth tag.

Forces offers the possibly to tweak physical forces like gravity, wind direction, strength, wind turbulence

40

Dresser is not needed in this tutorial except in the init state. This function is necessary for us because it allows us to set an initial state of our cloth object. After all the tweaking is done, nobody wants the cloth simulation to start from its standard position because waiting for the calculation to reach a certain position can be time-consuming. Once the required starting position is at hand just click Init State Set and Cinema4d will start calculating the simulation from this point but at Frame 0 (Picture 25).

Effects is a set of characteristics that can be controlled via vertex maps. This allows several methods of physical behavior on a single cloth object.

Necklace In Motion

By Georg Niedermeier

Tag, a vertex value of 50% makes a stiffness of 500%.The Expert settings offers the possibility to increase or decrease the distance between a collider and a collision object. Drag-and-drop both vertex maps from the Object Manager into the drop boxes of the Effects panel as seen in (Picture 26).

(Pic25)

Tutorial

Any values that have been set within the Tag and Forces menus of the cloth tag are affected by the values of the vertex maps that have been dragged into the Dropboxes.

If you have set a stiffness of 100% in the Tag Properties of the Cloth Tag, the vertex map with the values between 0 and 100 controls the exact value given in the vertex map.

If you have set a stiffness of 1000% in the Tag Properties of the Cloth

You can see the name of the vertex map tag by simply moving the mouse over it and reading the name that is shown in the status bar. We want the pearls to be very stiff, but the chain/cord should be very flexible.

Switch back to the Tag Properties of the Tag panel in your Cloth Tag (the blue curtain-like symbol). Activate the perspective view and move your editor camera to an interesting view.

Now click the calculate cache button and wait until it is finished. Now the cache mode checkbox should be active. Click the play button and enjoy the result of this tutorial.

41

(Pic26)

Questions about this tutorial can be asked in the MOCCA/Clothilde forum at www.3dattack.net

Best of CINEMA 4D

Some of the best artists around the world using CINEMA 4D

Image: Dark Wizard Artist: Gianluca Mattia Country: Italy Website: www.studioideabari.it/gianlucamattia Date created: Software: CINEMA 4D XL and BodyPaint 3d

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Image: Great Green Bush Cricket Artist: Raymond Salter Country: United Kingdom Website: Date created: 28 Aug 2004 Software: CINEMA 4D R8.1

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Image: Little Pigs Artist: Kurosawa Website: http://www.the-saurus.net/ Country: Japan Date created: 2003/4/9 Software: CINEMA 4D ART R7

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Image: Sherlock Holmes Artist: MacAndre Country: Germany Website: Date created: 19.10.2004 Software: CINEMA 4D 8.5 and R9 Demo for cloth

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Image: Eurocopter EC130(B4) Artist: Florian Teubner Country: Germany Website: Date created: 14.11.04 Software: CINEMA 4D 8.2

3

Editors Notes...

Hello there Readers and Attackers!

2004 is rapidly coming to its end and 3D Attack has had a GREAT first year. We thank you all for your support. We couldn’t have done it without you and are looking forward to bringing you the best in 2005.

The 3D Attack family wish you all a safe and happy holiday season.

May 2005 bring you all your hearts desires!

Merry (Happy) Christmas, Happy Holidays, Happy New Year, and all that good stuff!

The 3D Attack Team!

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47

HAPPY HOLIDAYS From 3D Attack HAPPY HOLIDAYS

HAPPY HOLIDAYS

The 3D Attack Team would like to wish all of our readers a wonderful holiday season. Back in September we decided to run a little holiday contest on our forum at www.3dattack.net.

The theme of the contest was to design a Christmas or winter scene in CINEMA 4D. The scene had to include the 3D Attack and CINEMA 4D logos. Watching the entrant’s developing their work was both entertaining and inspiring. We invite you to have a look at some of the creative work produced during our little challenge.

Happy Holidays, The 3D Attack Team Elf: Janice Chapman Car:Tommyru Bear: Chris Boyd Pig: Antoine Aurety Fisher: Rubberfish

48

The 3D Attack Team

3D Attack Team

Want to contact us? Need help? Got questions? Ask us!

CEO - Writer Thomas Pasieka - Tank tom@3dattack.net

VEO - Chief Editor Tavy Ann tavy@3dattack.net

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Writer Poserpro

49

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