Cinema.4D.3D

Volume 01 Issue 02 JUNE 2004 THE

FORUM

IN

PRINT

The Omega-Project

The “Omega-Project”. Check out Universal Heads Game Project and have a look behind the scenes.

Bodypaint Tutorial

A great tutorial on how to do a UVWSetup for your model. Texturing objects will be easier for you after doing this Tutorial!

DEM in Cinema

In this Tutorial we are going to create a DEM (Digital Elevation Model).

Cinema gives us some nice options to create those maps.

Read the Interview with the founder of 3dAttack

Board news!

Welcome to our second edition of the 3dAttack e-zine. Our first issue was a great success and we got alot of response on it. We hope this second edition will beat the first one.

We worked hard on this and we hope you enjoy it as much as we do. Please let us know what you like or dislike about the e-zine or what you would like to see in the next edition. Well in case you missed something on the board we put some links together for you.

We have a short movie project running right now.You may want to check it out. If you have something to contribute then please feel free to model with us! http://3dattack.net/3dAttack/viewforum.php?f=6 In case you have questions about Cinema and you don’t know where to put it then please go ahead and post it in here: http://3dattack.net/3dAttack/viewforum.php?f=32 There is always space for your animation in our “animation box” so make sure you post your work there for all of us to see! We already have some interesting animations in there so check it out and let us know what you think! http://3dattack.net/3dAttack/viewforum.php?f=20 Right now we have our new contest running: Water/Nature Contest and in case you want to win a cool prize then just follow the link and check it out! Make sure you read the rules carefully. Join the challenge and fun here:

http://3dattack.net/3dAttack/viewforum.php?f=33 For all of you who missed the first issue, check the board and download the first magazine. There are lots of good things in the first issue so make sure you don’t miss it! http://3dattack.net/3dAttack/viewforum.php?f=31 If you need some really cool looking textures then please check Jeso’s “Leaf texture pack”. You might find this useful: http://3dattack.net/3dAttack/viewtopic.php?t=891 We also want to encourage you to post comments under pictures or help whenever you can. If you see a user having a problem and you know the solution then please make sure you take a couple minutes to help. If you are in a situation where you need help the best way to get it is by being active on the board.

Post comments and questions and you will get the help you need.

The 3dAttack team is surely there when you need help, but we also need you to help. The more you interact with others the more we learn and the more information we have on the board for others.

If you have WIP’s or Final renderings then please do on and post them on the board for others to view and critisize. There is always someone to help you with your problems and the more people you get to look at your work the more you learn!

You can also come into the 3dAttack chatroom and ask for assistance or help with any kind of problem. We are trying to make this board a real 2

place to share ideas, art and knowledge. We think that we are on the right way. Thanks again to all of you for the help and time you put in to helping others!

Well for all of you who didn’t know yet, we have integrated an upload function for you. This way you can upload your pictures without the need of webspace. Just attach your picture and that’s it. If you have trouble uploading your pictures then please feel free to contact one of our Admins or Moderators for assistance.

3dattack has a new Showcase and Gallery. You can find in on the forum header, first button on the left.

Register here with your 3dattack nick, and pass. Create your album and upload your pics for rating and comments. Feel free to rate and comments on all the artists work.

Remember this area is for finished artwork only. NO WIPS! http://www.3dattack.net/Showcase/

We hope you enjoy reading the magazine and we also hope to get lots of response from you. Let us know what you think!

The 3dAttack Team

3D ATTACK QUICK INDEX Click on the red or white cube to directly jump to the topic

Golden Rods with PlaceOnPoints Plugin Page 4 to 5 Creative Lighting with BhodiNut Page 6 Lighting your Scene Page 7 DEM in Cinema Page 8 to 9 Bodypaint Workshop Page 10 to 14 NBO - The short movie Page 15 The Omega Stone Page 16 to 17 Attack in 3 Dimensions (Interview) Page 18-20 Spotlight on “C4D-Cafe” Page 21 Last Words Page 22

Golden Rods with PlaceOnPoints Plugin

Crew Reynolds

Goldenrods: Animating with the PlaceOnPoints plugin By: Crew Reynolds Credits: Ian Gorse for the PlaceOnPoints plugin Some of my best animations start out with a need to learn something new. Very often the results are unexpected. In spite of my apparent lack of direction, I do manage to always learn something new and I generally get some sort of interesting clip out of it to show around.

This month’s “hey, that’s cool!” animation experiment is called “Goldenrods”.

“Goldenrods” started out as an experiment with the free PlaceOnPoints plugin by Ian Gorse.

You can download this either from http://www.c4dcafe.com or at Ian’s site over at http://www.spot4d.co.uk.

My (unattained) goal was to build one of those metal pin sculptures.

You know, the ones they sell in novelty shops that have the array of chrome pins? You can stick it on your face and make a cool pin sculpture.

However, before you do, you might want to consider the fact that 1-in-3 people that saw it sitting on the demo shelf tried this same thing on that same pin sculpture. Given that bit of info, I prefer to use my (left) hand instead. Or, better yet, I figured I could do this in a completely antiseptic environment like Cinema4D. I never did reach that goal of making an animated pin sculpture but I did learn how to make a rather cool effect using the plugin. Start with a new Cinema4D scene. With the plugin installed, create a new PlaceOnPoints (POP)

object, a default size plane, and a six sided cylinder. I made my cylinder 0.3m deep, 0.3m wide, and 1.0m high. I like to bevel the top and then remove the phong tag to display the hexagon’s angular look.

Make the plane editable and set the viewport to wireframe. Your setup should look similar to figure 1.

points around on the plane’s mesh in order to make the hexagons align naturally. The way I did this was to remove the plane from the POP object. Make sure the plane is editable. In point selection mode, highlight every other row of points. When you’ve got that done, move them all along the xaxis ½ the distance from point-topoint.

[Figure 1]

First, let’s take a look at what POP is good at. This plugin was designed to take object B and place it on every point within object A. To illustrate this, drag the plane into the POP object followed by the cylinder.

Toss in a render and you should get

[Figure 2]

something like figure 2.

A copy of the cylinder is placed on each point of the plane’s mesh. The origin of the cylinder’s axis is used to align the cylinder to the plane’s points. Therefore, the plane should be visible cutting through the center of the resulting object. If you wanted to, you could pull the cylinder out from under the POP object, move its axis to the bottom, and then re-POP the object to get the cylinders to start at the plane’s level and grow upward.

We’ll leave the axis as-is for this tutorial but we need to move some 4

[Figure 3]

You’ll also need to rotate your cylinder 30 degrees to make the hexagon’s line up correctly. Just select the cylinder and set the H rotation to 30 degrees. Putting the modified plane and the cylinder back under the POP object and it should look something like figure 4. You’ll need to scale the plane so that the hexagons fit nicely together without overlapping.

[Figure 4]

Note how the POP object repositions the objects on the points even as you scale the plane. To me, this is the coolest part. To see why, let’s complete the tutorial by adding a flag deformer to the plane.

Golden Rods with PlaceOnPoints Plugin

Crew Reynolds

Make sure the flag deformer is a child of the plane and not the POP object to see the desired effect. Add a material of your choice to the cylinder, drop in a sky, and render.

As you can see, the deformer is moving the points of the plane up and down. The POP object repositions the cylinders accordingly

3Dcrew

[Figure 5]

giving us a rather cool effect.

POP will place any object on the points of any other object.

Experiment away! I found that hiding the placement object (the plane in this example) leaving only the array of placed object produces a cool effect. If anyone figures out to attach an animated texture to a relief object, I want to know about it! That’s the bit I need to make my pin cushion sculpture movie. I can do stills of a face ok but I want to animate it!

I hope you’ve enjoyed this tutorial.

Please stop by http://www.c4dcafe.com for a visit. We have many more tutorials to share. Also, make sure you stop over at Ian’s site http://www.spot4d.co.uk and tell him how cool his plugin is. As you’re reading this, POP2 is nearly completed. Ian has made several very cool additions that give the CG artist a great deal more control than POP1. When it’s out, grab a copy and show us your animations!

5

Creative Lighting

by Tank

Welcome to the Bhodi-Nut Light Tutorial In this Tutorial we are going to create a nice looking Light-Effect with just one Lightsource and Bhodi-Nut. Create a light and a Cam (optional) to start your scene. We will start now to create the texture that you can see in the image below.

Your Mask-Channel should look like this. Well you can of course use whatever you want and do some experiments.

Create a new Texture and activate the Transparency channel. Use the BhodiNUT Fusion Shader and hit the EDIT button.

In the Base-Channel we use a Gradiant like shown in the next picture.

Well that wasn’t that hard to do right? Let’s go on to the fun stuff of this Tutorial. We are going to do the settings for our Material in the very next step.

Next you will change the BlendChannel as shown below. Change it to “BhodiNUT 3DNoise” and hit the Interpolation Button and enter the settings.

Make sure you activate “Use Mask” and “Invert Mask” like you can see in the next picture.

That’s it! Put that Shader on your Light and don’t forget to set your visible light to “Volumetric”. Hope you have fun!

6

Lighting your scene Creating an aproppriate lighting for a landscape is an important area that everybody should put his focus on it because it distinguishes a well made lighting from a really good one.

The picture Fallen was rendered with the standard renderer of Cinema4D and many lights with a linear falloff. The linear falloff allows you to perfectly control your light sources because light will not affect the scene after the falloff values. It fades the strength of the source to zero.

The statue in this picture was lit with an array of lights that also had some frequency so the area will not be lit to evenly but with some variance.

Because an array creates sort of instances of the original light source it is necessary to adjust the brightness to quite a low value. It of course depends on the number of lights the array produces. In this picture I used two arrays. One for a more or less radiosity fake lighting on the statue and one for the diffuse shadow on the floor. The 1st one creates 25 lights based on a light source with a brightness of 13. The lesser aims for the shadow below of the statue. It produces 9 instances with a brightness of 19 and a hsv value of v=64. Since we have no direct sunlight from above there is no shadow of the statue to be seen.

In this scene I used the floor object for the ground and the sky. There are just simple noises in the color channel. Well, they aren't really simple but the creation of those would need much explanation but that isn't the topic of this article.

Although the scene consists of 155 additional lights, rendering time is not very high. These lights do not cast shadows. The scene has a

by Sad

really huge extent. Therewith it gains the impression of a big and very wide landscape. The 150 instances of a light with a brightness of 32 were randomly scattered all over an area which is 17000x13000 units wide. All instances take in the same y-value and its falloff it’s 1400 units long. Due to this fact the floor gets lit as well as the sky which actually is a floor object too.

Pic: 1

To achieve better fog results I made use of the well known PelhamShaders, a little package of shaders that allow the creation of different falloff-types for fog, haze, and smoke. You can download the shaders at http://www.pelhamdesign.com/ they are easy to use and definitely worth a try.

As you can imagine there exists many other ways to create a nice lighting. This was just an example to extend your toolset a little bit. If you have questions, just ask on our board or send a private mail via the board, please.

The images 0 - no lights 1 - the radiosity fake array added 2 - the diffuse shadow added 3 - the 150 scattered lights added 4 - 5 more lights to enhance statues lighting

Pic: 2

Pic: 3

Pic: 4

Pic: 0

7

DEM in Cinema Hello 3dAttack users. In this Tutorial we are going to create a DEM Map in Cinema4D. “Cragin”, a user on our board came to me and asked how to create a DigitalElevationMap in Cinema. First he tried using the high-Res models by opening them in Cinema. Well unforntunaly those files are hard to handle because of the high amount of polygons. Trying to reduce the model with the “polygone reducer” tool in Cinema didn’t do any good and everything is just way too slow so we had to think about a different solution.

by Tank

You can download some DEM’s to test and play around here: http://edcsgs9.cr.usgs.gov/glis/hyper /guide/1_dgr_demfig/states/MI.html

Well, after saving the Grayscale picture as a JPG-File we are going to switch to Cinema. Create a “relief” object and choose the Grayscale file. It will create the Landscape.

After you downloaded the file you need to open it in Microdem.

Good thing that we have the “relief” object in Cinema. By using a greyscale picture and the “relief” object we are going to create the landscape (Digital Elevation Map) in Cinema. This way you are able to rotate or do changes on the map without slowing Cinema down. You are also able to change the amount of polygons.

Next thing to do would be changing the color information into a Grayscale picture. To do so go to “Modify” “Elevations” - “Colors” and pick Gray Scale. Hit the “OK” button and your DEM will change into Grayscale.

I used “Microdem” to convert the DEM files into greyscale pictures.

It’s a nice little programm and easy to use. “Microdem” offers lots of cool and interesting options. It might take you a while to figure out all the options but once you did, it’s a great programm and gives you lots of options and there is always something new to find out. Get the programm and find out yourself. Using the programm to convert your DEM’s into greyscale isn’t that hard to do.

Cinema uses the the Grayscale information from the JPG-File to create the highs and lows of the landscape. You could also create any kind of of Grayscale picture in Photoshop to build your own “fantasy” landscape in Cinema.

Let’s go on with adding some “color” to that map. Switch back to Microdem and go back to the Elevation settings (Modify - Elevation - Colors).

Choose one of the “colored” settings and hit “OK”. Save your file as a JPG again and switch back to Cinema to put this color map on your existing relief model. Create a new “Material” and choose the file you just created in Microdem.

8

DEM in Cinema

by Tank

produce any kind of terrain that way.

Or even cloth. Just give it a try.

If you have any questions or prob-

Drag your new material onto the relief object. What we got now is a nice looking colored relief map ready to animate or render. You can also change the amount of polygons for your relief map. Just hit the relief object and change it’s “Attributes”.

By changing the “width” and “depth segments” you add more or less details to your relief map.

Well that’s it folks. As mentioned before, you can also create a relief map in Photoshop to create a “fantasy map”. Just create a new file and start using the airbrush tool to create your landscape. It’s easy to

You can see the changes directly in Cinema. A higher amount of segments gives you are more detailed and more accurate view of your DEM. Just play around with those settings and you will find out what it does to your model.

9

lems creating or fallowing the Tutorial then please feel free to ask us on the board!

Thomas P. Tank

Bodypaint Workshop

by Macling

Create a new material (Ctrl-N) in the material editor and assign this material to your model. Double Click the material tag. Now your UV Mesh is visible in the Texture window.

BODYPAINT WORKSHOP – PART 1 UVW SETUP “…I just want to learn how to texture a complicated mesh with multiple textures and all that...”

Lot’s of people have trouble unwrapping the UV’s of their modells in order to use the powerfull tools of Bodypaint to paint them in multiple texture channels.

The main UV setup that is needed to get rid of the UV-overlapping that’s is given by default UV Projection are quite simple, but it lacks at distribution via internet. Maybe I can fix this problem a little bit by sharing my try-and-error experiences.

material with all channels we want to paint in bodypaint and the default UVW-Tag given by boxmodelling will not work properly after extrusions and stuff like that. (If you did patch modelling you got no UVW-Tag- …that’s fine:) Furthermore you should delete the symetry of your model by making your symetry object editable if you haven’t already, because symetrical textures are not quite natural.

Now open your model in Bodypaint 2 and switch to the UV Editing Layout. (This workshop will also work in Bodypaint 1 because no new features are required and it should also work for newbies in Bodypaint)

First of all you can delete the UVW Tag that is attached to the geometry you want to model and the material you maybe applied during modelling process, because we will add a new <#> 10

With your material tag still active go to Attributes and choose Projection: Cylindrical. Now your UV Mesh changes. I use to choose the cylindrical projection when texturing character heads, but feel free to check the other options.

The next step is to adjust the choosen projection to the geometry of our model.Activate the Texture tool and adjust the mapping with the common C4D Commands (Scale[T] and Move[E]). The whole geometry should be inside the texture cage.

Then rotate[R] the texture cage in order to move the front of the characters face in the middle of the unwrapped texture.

When you are satisfied with the

Bodypaint Workshop

by Macling

mapping go to the object manager (with your material tag still active) and choose: Texture – Assign UVW Coordinates. This makes your UV mesh is editable. We are able to activate the UV Point Edit Tool or the UV Polygon Edit Tool. Now we

dedicate ourselves to the most time spending process before we start painting. It’s time to delete the Overlaps in our unwrapped UV mesh.

In this case I modelled a character with a big inner mouth area that is

overlapping nearly the half of our texture window. To get rid of these overlaps we select the inner mouth polygons in the 3D-View with the Live selection Tool. (I use to save selection sets of these areas during the modelling process- this makes me able to select these heavily accesible areas with one click.)

With the UV Polygon Edit Tool active you see the selected poly-

gons in the texture view. Because we won’t focus our animation on the selected area we move [E] these polygons down to the free area in our Texture view and scale [T] them smaller with the common C4D Shortcuts or the Move-, Rotate- and Scale- Active Tools.

The next part is deleting the overlaps in the eye and nose area.

Zoom this area in your Texture View and activate the UV Point Edit Tool.

We have to adjust these Points by hand now. So move [E] the inner eye points closely together, don’t try to place them absolutely symetrical, when you do this for the second eye. (Keep in mind that no perfection is needed because no natural thing is 100 percent symetrical.)Do the same with the noseholes.

OK. It’s time to delete overlaps in the ear area. In this case I modeled a very simple ear, we could adjust 11

this by hand, but as I know ears are often the most complex geometries in characters heads. So I show you a way wich works even with more natural/detailled ears: Select the right ear polygons in the 3D view. Be generous and select one row of polygons more than the actual ear geometry is. Activate the UV Mapping Editor and go to Relax UV: Keep Fix borders checked (wich means the notselected polygons won’t be affected) and click apply with ear polygons still selected.-The ear polys are relaxed, no big deal in this case but it still works with high detailed geometry. Do the same with the left ear. There is still manipulation by hand needed but we are able to major show the poly chaos that is given by high detailled geometry. Manipulate the ear-UV points by hand in UV Point Edit Tool mode.

Bodypaint Workshop

by Macling

We do the same once again for the bump channel: Texture – Texture Channel – Bump. Like before we accept the default settings including the color wich is set to 50 percent black wich means the geometry is not affected at the moment.

Indeed a much timespending process, but the more time you spent on UV tweaking the more easy and fun the painting will be. (I use do this UV Tweaking Stuff while watchin’ TV) As you see my UV’s are not symetrical but 100 percent symetry are not needed in this case.

OK here we are done with the UV Setup. It’s time to begin painting: We still got some overlaps in the mouth and neck area. Just go on and move these overlapping guys inwards by hand in the UV Point Edit Tool mode.

At this point you’ve to decide wich areas of your model wich zones should include the highest detail wealth. The bigger the UV Polygon is the finer the brush stroke you are going to paint will be. This means blow up the UV’s that have to include fine details. (This is most important for bump channel painting). We’ll do this with the UV magnet tool, wich requires point selections of the areas you want to affect with the magnet.

In my case I want high detail level in the mouth/lip area and in the nose environment. So I select the Live Selection and blow up the areas I want much detail in by moving away the other parts. Play around with the active Tool Settings to get appropriate results.

BODYPAINT WORKSHOP – PART 2 - PAINTING

The third channel we add is a displacement channel: Texture – Texture Channel – Displacement.

Like before we accept the default settings including the color wich is set to 100 percent black wich means the geometry is not affected at the moment.

And the last channel is a specular channel Texture - Texture Channel – Specular Color to create a specular color channel. In the appearing dialog we can keep the default settings but select 100 percent black color, wich means our model would look totally dry a when we do a render at this point. Our first task is to paint the inner mouth area with a dark

In the material manager select Texture – Texture Channel – Color to create a color channel. In the appearing dialog we can keep the default settings but select our main skin color.

As you see the color of your model changes after clicking OK. The default texture size is set to 1024 x 1024 pixels, this is enough for my requirements. If you want to render really near closeups you should increase the texture size.

12

red. Activate the color channel ( C), click the rectangle selection tool and roughely select the inner mouth area polygons we placed at the bottom in the very beginning.

(If your UV mesh disappears when you click the rectangle selection tool go to the texture view - UV Mesh – and enable Show UV Mesh) Fill the selection with the dark red color using the Fill Bitmap with current color Tool.

Bodypaint Workshop

Go to the color bar and select a deep red color. Then choose the Fill bitmap with current color Tool and click inside the active selection.

Now activate the specular color channel (S) and choose a middle grey color and once again use the Fill bitmap with current color Tool to fill the still activated selection with

by Macling

Here go to Filter – Blur –Gaussian Blur and apply a high blur radius to this layer.

Now activate the bump channel and go to Filter – Noise –Noise… choose monochromatic and apply a small percentage noise to the layer.

Now the skin has an orange-style texture. Now you will see how good your UV –Tweaking was when you do some renderings. (Maybe you

the texture view (in an area without freckles) – go to Select – Invert all.

A selection of your freckles is active.

Activate the bump channel and with rightclick on the bumplayer add a new layer. Choose a light dark grey

and fill the selection with the Fill with current color tool. Deselect and add some gaussian blur. the choosen grey color. The inner mouth area has a deep red color and specular now.

Now we could add some red to the cheeks. Choose a light red color and with the color channel active click the +Icon in the material manager and the little rectangle at the color channel to show the texture icon. Right click on the texture icon – new layer. With this layer active choose the brush tool. Increase the brush size in the Active tool settings and roughely paint two circles on the cheek area in the 3D view. At this point we should switch to the BP 3D Paint mode.

have to relax some UV points once again to maintain continuity of the skin noise. In this case switch back to UV-Edit mode).

Next we will add some freckles to the checks and nose area. Choose a brownish color, add one more layer to the color channel and draw some freckles in the face using the brush tool. (You’re lucky if you are owner of a tablet to do this, but in this cartoony case it is possible without it.)

Now click the magic Wand Selection Tool and click in your freckel layer in 13

In the next steps I added some light red color above the nose in and some darker red in the ear area and the inner eyelid parts, I painted dark color in the nose holes and the inner ear zone and of course the light red lips. I always create new layers when I do this because you can adjust the opacity and blendmodes at any time furthermore I use to blur mousepainted parts and do color corrections via filters. You should collapse not before you’re 100 percent satisfied with the test renders.

The next task will be adding bump to the lips. Activate the bump channel. Add a new layer and pick white

Bodypaint Workshop

by Macling

as color. And draw white lines on to the lip area. Then pick black and do the same, fill the area between the lips(the one without UV’s) with black and add black lines as you did with white in the lip area using the brush tool.

In this process you won’t miss your Wacom. If you haven’t you could use one of the default Organic Brushes of the BP Package (Window – Painter –Brush Presets – Multibrushes – Organic - …) These brushes are Multibrushes wich means you paint in as much layers you want with different settings at once. Maybe next time we could do a tutorial about creating your own multibrushes.

Now pick the Smear Tool and in the active Tool settings select a small size. We’re going to smooth the lip wrinckles now. Now penetrate the lip wrinckles you painted with the smear Tool in the 3D View. Notice that BP supports painting in the rendered 3D View, which means what you see is what you get. I did the same steps for some eyebrow bump and added a little brownish color here by creating new layers in these channels.

When you’re satisfied add some specular to the lips. Click the Magic Wand selection tool and select the lip color area in the color channel.

Activate the specular color channel, add a new layer and fill the selected

area with white, after that do some renders shrink the opacity till you’re satisfied and maybe add a little blur if you like.

(To maintain detail continuity I moved some lip UV’s around in order to give them nearly similar sizes.)

Because I’m not really satisfied with the main lip surface I’ll add some sil-

me.) I also add little botox-details to the nose and eyebrow area in this way.

The final steps should be playing around with the opacity or blend modes of all the layers and then collapsing them to lower the file size when you’re going to animate them back in Cinema. Here you can adjust your displacement height or bump intensity for example. At least you should keep one version including all layers. Maybe you want to make changes.

I hope this was a help and fixes the lack of distribution of this topic. If you have some question don’t hesitate to post in the Bodypaint thread of 3dattack.net.

icone blobs to the lips via the displacement channel. I activate the displacement channel add a new layer and with a quite big white brush with low hardness (active tool settings) I paint some big dots in the lip area in the rendered 3D View. Note that the displacement will not be updated in the renderview so you have to penetrate the Render active View button and rerender till you’re satisfied.

(I use to soft up with gaussian blur many times and paint with black against the white areas, while creating always new layers and collapsing them when the shape is ok for 14

See you on board!;)

NBO - The short movie

Well, how can we start this topic?

NBO - Natural Born Oliphant is actually a fun project.

Everybody can join in and work on models or even the story. NBO started in the 3dAttack chat. Sad, James, Tavy and I (Tank) were sitting there chatting around and all of a sudden we had this idea to make a little short movie. The story was done quick and we had alot of fun that night.

That was when Oliphant was born.

We are not trying to do some Walt Disney movie. This movie is meant to be “short” and simple. The models are simple and we encourage every member to work with us on this project.We don’t know yet when we are going to finish this project but it is just fun to work on every once in a while.

The animation won’t be that long and we are trying to keep it simple.

We will have something like a police-chase scene. The Main Character won’t have any bone setups. We are trying to keep it as simple as possible so please don’t be afraid to join in.

We also don’t have a deadline for this short movie, so whenever you feel like modeling, then please do so. We are not trying to push anybody with this, but it is still fun to have a little project going on.

Keep on modeling and let us know what you think, but remember - it’s just for fun and nothing should be taken too serious!

See you guys on the board!

The 3d Attack Team

15

The “Omega Stone”

by Peter Gifford (Universal Head)

equinoxes. Plus I got in a little scuba diving in the flooded underground caverns famous in the area, an experience that I managed to recreate in part of the game.

As director of design studio Universal Head, I've worked for many years as a designer, but I first worked professionally in 3D using Strata StudioPro, creating graphics for the official websites for computer games Myst III www.myst3.com) and realMyst (www.realmyst.com). I then used Lightwave for a little while but found the interface unintuitive and the workflow difficult. I suppose I was forced into using Cinema4D originally but I've since fallen in love with it.

In November of 2001 Jeff and Karen Tobler of Omni Adventures, based in St Louis, Missouri USA, saw my work on one of my personal project sites, The World of Tékumel (www.tekumel.com) and asked me to work on the the sequel to their first game, Riddle of the Sphinx. ROTS had been a bestseller in the adventure game genre, but the sequel was to be bigger and better. Omni tested other packages but decided on Cinema4D, so I found myself learning the program 'on the job'. The

Omega Stone features beautiful prerendered visuals in the tradition of worldwide hits Myst and Riven. The player explores archaeological sites throughout the world-including Chichen Itza, Easter Island, Stonehenge, the Devil's Triangle, the Sphinx and finally Atlantis-discovering hidden locations and solving puzzles in an attempt to avert a long-prophesied apocalypse. Being an old archaeology fan myself, it was just the kind of thing I wanted to work on.

Off to Mexico My main task was to recreate in 3D the ancient Mayan ruins of Chichen Itza (and design and create some extensive 'imaginary' areas as well), so Omni flew me to Mexico for a research trip and to meet them. At the site we took thousands of digital photos and hours of video, and I had the opportunity to witness the appearance of the 'sun serpent' down the side of the pyramid-which happens only twice a year at the 16

Rebuilding Chichen Itza On return to my Sydney studio I began the challenging task of recreating the huge site in scale, constantly referring to the photographs and my own research. At the same time I had to learn C4D from scratch, and this when I first became really grateful for its welldesigned workflow and stability.

Unlike other programs, things just work, leaving you time to be creative - not struggle with the program.

I used the entire C4D toolbox depending on the object, but often

used lofted splines to make basic architectural shapes. Repeating elements like the stairs that lead to the Sun Pyramid's top were created using the Duplicate and Instancing tools. C4D's Boolean tools made the structures appear as ruined as they are in reality. In some cases, espe-

The “Omega Stone”

cially for organic shapes, I created objects from scratch, polygon by polygon, and then placed the object in a HyperNURBS cage to smooth out the mesh. Throughout, the Object Manager was used to group and organise the huge models efficently.

When texturing, I used the hundreds of photographs of the actual textures from the site, and this really gave me the realism I was after. After modify-

ing and making them 'tileable' in Photoshop, they were mapped onto the models. I used the Bodypaint module a few times to paint textures onto organic shapes in real time.

Often textures were layered, as when a procedural texture of 'stone grit' was placed on a wall in order to make it more realistic from close up.

While working I placed numerous cameras so the environments could be quickly checked and test renders made from all angles. Lighting setups were next. For the outdoor environments a plugin called SkyShader was used in combination with a complex sun and shadows setup. The underground areas originally used a set of

by Peter Gifford (Universal Head)

volumetric lights to give the illusion the player was carrying a lantern, but this approach was eventually abandoned in favour of carefully composed feature lighting. I worked on a Apple Mac Dual 1Ghz with 1Gb RAM and OSX, and C4D remained responsive and stable throughout the project. By the time I was finished a year later, I'd created the site of Chichen Itza, an extensive underground area beneath it including flooded caverns and kilometres of corridors and chambers, and large areas of the Easter island section of the game as well, not to mention modelling and texturing a variety of objects used in other parts of the game.

Putting the Game Together Once the environments were finished I used a plugin programmed by Omni in the C4D language C.O.F.F.E.E. to render six views from each 'null' that I placed in the environment. These views were then uploaded to Omni, where programmers put them into the game engine. The final game allows the player to look around at a full 360 degrees from every location.

Creating a C4D Website I was good friends with the Australian distributor of C4D so found myself using my expertise to sell the program. An extension of that was to create a resources site for Cinema4D users, as I was a bit disappointed by the range of sites available to C4D compared to, for example, users of Lightwave. So I recently designed and launchedwww.cinema4duser.com to cater to English-speaking C4D users worldwide. The site has received a lot of press and positive reaction.

It's early days yet, but with the help of C4D users I hope to keep steadily adding to the content. So go and visit the site and see if you'd like to contribute something to the effort.Right 17

now you'll find some interviews with C4D professionals, some high-quality textures (including some used in 'The Omega Stone'), a round up of C4D plugins, and some fantastic art from C4D users worldwide. The Omega Stone, by Omni Adventures and distributed by DreamCatcher, is now available for PC and MacOSX. For more information visit www.theomegastone.com.

Universal Head, located in Sydney Australia, is a small, creative design firm that blends traditional design craftsmanship, the latest graphics technology and a strong understanding of visual communications.

Since 1994 Universal Head has created work in the fields of print, motion, web and 3D design for clients as diverse as Telstra, the Australian Tourist Commission, Australia Post, major Australian television networks and international games distributors Ubisoft and Dreamcatcher. For more information visit www.universalhead.com or call Peter Gifford on (02) 9517 1466.

Attack in 3 Dimensions (Interview)

by Tavy

Tavy: Many years ago, while working for the advertising agency, you first started exploring 3D Art. What first peaked your interest in it?

Thomas: Well what first picked my interest was Product Design. For instance, Frico Cheese or GE. They wanted something substantial and quick in print before we had the product, or something we needed in front of us. What we were to do, model something out of plastic and take a picture? NO! 3D was the obvious way to go.

Tavy: So did you personally take the initiative in the agency to learn 3D and implement it into the advertising company?

[The Choice]

Thomas Pasieka (Tank), born in Duesseldorf-Germany-1972 possesses a deep love and passion for 3D Art. Thomas, has worked professionally as a 3D/Motion Graphics artist for five years now. Before this, he worked as a junior art director at a Duesseldorf

based Advertising agency. This is where his love of 3D Art grew and developed.

Throughout his career, Thomas has had the opportunity to work for many well known companies and individuals. Frico Cheese, Helena Rubinstein, G.E (General Electric), John McLoughlin, Daimler Chrysler and Maybach, to name a few.

The work he has done professionally from DVD interface, Product and Package Design, architecture and prototype design, is quality work and deserves viewing, but the work he has produced on a personal level is awesome and thought provoking.

Thomas has the creativity and heart of a true artist.

In June of 2003, Thomas made a huge life decision and moved to the United States of America. He is currently developing his privately owned and operated 3D Art business -3D Attack. Please join me as I explore his vision for 3DAttack. Enjoy!

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Thomas: I got a demo of C4D and started to learn it. I actually inhaled it.

I worked on it at home. The way the interface is set up in Cinema, the easy handling of it, I was able to learn quickly. The boss loved what I was able to produce and bought a copy.

When the airbrush guy and a photographer saw what I was doing they implemented C4D into their work process also.

Tavy: Ok, you then left the Advertising Agency, as a junior art director, and moved on to Sprint Film.

What did you do there?

Thomas: It was much different than product design. I did more architectural visualization, interface design, and a lot of scientific work for Sprint Film. A lot of the work was very experimental and problem solving.

We did lots of artsy stuff for the media. Such as, light walls, etc. I did a really big project for Maybach.

Getting the light and texture settings right was really difficult. The walls of the Maybach Sales Center were black

Attack in 3 Dimensions (Interview)

by Tavy

glass. There were 60 lights in the ceiling. This project took many months to complete. Everything had to be perfect. This way Maybach! It had to be done right! It was probably one of the most difficult, yet rewarding, jobs I’ve had in my professional career.

Tavy: I’ve seen examples of your professional work, and I must say, I’m impressed, but what really impresses me is your personal art. I say “art”, because that’s just what it is. Your pictures are very creative, technically well done, and have deep meanings.

What is the motivation behind your artsy side?

Thomas: I wouldn’t call it motivation.

I call in inspiration, and it comes from God. Sometimes it comes out of no where, and other times it takes weeks. Just by looking at nature or driving around it comes. Or sometimes while sitting in church or reading the bible. BOOM! Tavy: Ok, you say it come from God. What exactly do you mean by this?

Thomas: It’s like pouring water into an empty glass. He is actually the only creator, and he fills me with the creative inspiration and ability.

Tavy: There’s no doubt most of your art is very spiritual in nature. Take the piece “Daddy”. What is the story behind this one?

Thomas: Daddy is actually a piece of my childhood. My dad died when I was 3 1/2 years old. It’s hard when you’ve been raised without a father. I went through many depressions. I had a constant pain inside me. There was always a fight between good and evil battling within me. Good won, but it took 30 years. There was just

[Hopeless?]

this awful evil inside me. I was angry and wanted to see the world destroyed.

I wanted it washed clean. I thought the only way my pain would go would be if the world was gone.

Tavy: What was it that changed you?

What took away the pain?

Thomas: I was always battling good and evil. I was always searching for good, but couldn’t find it. I always denied God and believed there was only evil. If there was a God, why would He let evil reign? I needed answers to my questions, so I picked up the bible and found what I had been searching for my entire life.

Tavy: Can I assume that your art brings a kind of release, or healing to you? I mean, when you are in the creative process, do you find freedom.

Thomas: Yeah! You can say I find freedom and satisfaction. Most of the time my art is provoking. It 19

makes people think. It makes them discuss good and evil. Some are offended by it, while others are enlightend. It’s kind of like opening a book about yourself. As a Christian I find most of the time, in the art world, I’m not very well liked. I’m not trying to make anyone believe the way I do, I’m just expressing my heart and thoughts. If it provokes one to think and have a look inside themselves, sobeit! I believe for me there is only one way, and that is Him. My art represents the age old fight of good and evil. And good will win!

Tavy: Yes, your art always has a message of good verses evil. I find the images you use also to be very heart and thought provoking. What about “Hopeless”? This piece is nothing short of WOW! Not only does it provoke one to think, but the lighting is spectacular. As is the lighting in “The Choice”. Were there any special lighting techniques you used that you can share with our readers?

Attack in 3 Dimensions (Interview)

by Tavy

Tavy: You said professional 3D Artists run the board with you.

Anyone specific you would like to mention?

[Daddy]

Tavy: Ok, now I want to move in a different direction. Let’s talk about 3DATTACK. Your C4D forum is growing at a rapid rate. I’m sure this must make you very proud and pleased, but there are many C4D boards on the Web. What makes yours different? Why did you decide to produce one of your own?

Thomas: Actually I used a mixture of global illumination and spotlights.

There is really nothing special about it. I always go for the realistic light look. It really doesn’t matter to me what kind of technique I use as long as I get the result I want. It doesn’t matter if I use HDR lighting, radiosity, or plain light sources, or any combination of these as long as the light is realistic. They’re all acceptable if the end result is realism. Just a lot of tweaking till I get what I want. I spend most of my time on light.

Sometimes it’s frustrating, but it’s still fun.

Thomas: You see the thing is, most of the C4D boards are German. I don’t have a problem with this, I am German, but there is a lack of English C4D boards. I wanted a more international flavor. And let’s face it, English is rapidly becoming an international language. I also wanted to have a serious, professional, yet fun board. So many times you find what you think is a pro board, but you can’t get serious, professional feed back on your work or questions. I wanted to provide a place for the serious professional or novice. A place were professional 3D Artists run the board and are willing to give their time and skill to all. Thus far I think I’ve done that.

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Thomas: My right hand man, Georg Niedermeier, aka “sad”. I love to work with Georg. We really have the same pattern of thinking. He’s very hard, yet fair in what he’s doing. I really couldn’t do it without him. All of my mod’s and admin’s are great.

Sion, Lenno, Peety, Jeso, and Overdos are all wonderful guys. They’re always there to offer their help and skill on the board when they have the time. And they are all great artists to boot. I’m really proud of the 3DATTACK team. All of my guys have work posted on the board. I encourage everyone to check them out.

Tavy: What do you see in the future for 3DATTACK? Thomas: I see a great community of artists that have fun, get answers to their questions, talk about their work, and share their knowledge and skill.

Tavy: Do you have any last words for our readers?

Thomas: May your souls find peace and safety, and keep on ATTACKING!

Spotlight on “C4D Cafe” only will you find a friendly community of like-minded C4D'ers there, but you will also see their works and tutorials along with explanations of "how'd they do that?"

Our goal is to focus our resources primarily in support of C4D animators and their projects. There is just a different way of thinking about a C4D project when animation is the final goal. The lighting is generally less complex, the rigged models are often more complex, and the Out there in the dark recesses of the net there lies a disconnected but powerful legion of animators just looking for a home. Wandering aimlessly trough the labyrinth that is Cinema4d, each one searching for a place to live and grow. Alas, the search thus far has been in vain.

The unsettled feeling that "I've been here before" was overwhelming.

Hope slowly dwindled into the darkness.

High in the blue-black western sky, a light appears shining intensely above the labyrinth walls. At first, the animators had to shield their unbelieving eyes. Slowly, the brightly lit labyrinth came into sharp focus.

The harsh shadows cast on the labyrinth walls each pointed to the source of their eventual demise. The

labyrinth was no longer as scary ... as dominating. The animators' revitalized hope finally has a home.

On May 1st, the C4Dcafe.com web site went online. It was built to be a gathering place for Cinema4d animators, literally, the "Cinema4d

patience required in all CG projects is focused differently in animated works vs. stills. Come by and share in a community of animators, learn what you can, and teach us what you know.

Animator's Home Page". This is where 3DKiwi (Nigel/NZ) and 3DCrew (Crew/TX) make available everything they've learned to date on how to animate in Cinema4d. Not 21

www.c4dcafe.com

Last words...

ChristianDesigns.org: Serving God through Designing Art ------------------------------------------------Throughout history, art has been defined as a talent derived from mental thought and constant determination to create the perfect piece.

L

Artists have tried creating that single masterpiece, propelling their life to ultimate satisfaction.

Please make sure you check www.c4dcafe.com and www.christiandesigns.org you might find interesting articles/tutorials and a great hosting service. C4DCafe is running it’s website on the same server as 3dAttack and we are more than happy with the service on ChristianDesigns.org

At ChristianDesigns.org we understand an artists' life, and believe your art is precious, and deserves great care. Frank Lloyd Wright said it best: "I know the price of success: dedication, hard work and an unremitting devotion to the things you want to see happen."

An image is the completed work through many building blocks for any artist, and we are providing you a chance to host your artistic abilities on our dedicated servers. This is a chance for you to satisfy yourself with a quality service, and be managed by a determined staff.

ChristianDesigns.org has been in business for approximately ten months, and has proved to its' customers the truth about its services.

Honesty is the driving force behind any business transaction.

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Well we made our second issue and we are really happy whith what we have done. We all hope that you enjoyed reading the tutorials and articles in the magazine.

If you have any problems with the tutorials or animations then please contact us on the board or ask our friends on C4DCafe!

Let us know what you think about this issue! Every response is helpful and we will listen to our members and readers of our magazine to create a even better magazine the next time!

Happy rendering and may the poly’s be with all of you!

The 3d Attack Team

3dAttack.net is a true graphics community dependent on honest actions, and that's why we have alligned our company with its excellent member base.

Sincerely, John Napuunoa ChristianDesigns.org CEO/WebMaster

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