C4D Live SIGGRAPH 2018 Rewind – Round 3

This is the third installment of the C4D Live SIGGRAPH 2018. Links to all presentations are at the bottom of this page.

C4D Live SIGGRAPH 2018: GSG-Live: AskGSG LIVE with Greyscalegorilla

Nick Campbell, Chad Ashley and Chris Schmidt of GreyscaleGorilla.com answer audience questions about Cinema 4D, just as they do each week in their AskGSG livestream. In this edition, the trio focuses on questions about the newly-announced Cinema 4D R20 features. They’ll start by showing how to smooth OpenVDB Volume Meshes, then show how to create chiseled type using Volumes and Fields. They’ll demonstrate the new gradient control in R20 and the Bake As Alembic Command. They talk about some of the advantages of VDB modeling and show how to mesh shaders and noises using the Volume Builder. Finally, you’ll see how Fields can be used to create Vertex Maps and texture elements based on proximity, and how Fields work in MoGraph effectors.

02:40 VDB Meshing and Smoothing
08:39 Chiseled Type using OpenVDB Volumes and Fields
16:40 Cinematic Titles in the Viewport
19:12 R20 Gradient
23:19 Bake As Alembic
26:04 Polygon vs VDB Modeling
27:00 Meshing Shaders with OpenVDB Volume Builder
33:16 Texturing VDBs
35:10 Fields with Vertex Maps
43:52 Fields in MoGraph

C4D Live SIGGRAPH 2018: Matthäus Niedoba: Behind the Voxels: Bringing Volumes to Cinema 4D

Matthäus Niedoba is a UX designer for MAXON who worked on the implementation of OpenVDB-based Volumes in Cinema 4D R20. In this live Siggraph 2018 presentation, Matthäus offers behind-the-scenes insight into the design and development process for Volumes and also shows some great examples of Volumes in multiple projects. You’ll see how Volumes can be used to easily model threads or a screwdriver, or even ice cream and cookies. Matthäus also shows how Volumes can be used in abstract designs – combining Voronoi Fracture and multiple Volume objects to create intertwined volumes, and using Fields to dissolve objects. You’ll also see how Volumes and C4D’s MoGraph toolset can easily create condensation drops on a soda or beer can.

01:47 Modeling Threads with OpenVDB Volumens
05:11 Modeling a Screwdriver with Volumes
12:51 Creating a Cookie
17:34 Design and Development of OpenVDB Volumes
23:50 SDF vs Fog Volumes
27:00 Volume Mesh Command / Retopo during Sculpting
29:07 Volumes in Illustration – Ice Cream
31:46 Combining Volumes in Abstract Designs
38:23 Meshing and Dissolving Fields
40:48 Dissolve Effect on Imported CAD model
42:35 Condensation Drops on a Soda or Beer Can

C4D Live SIGGRAPH 2018: Marc Potocnik: Procedural Landscaping with Cinema 4D

Marc Potocnik of Renderbaron Studios offers a master class in Cinema 4D’s procedural noises, explaining which noises to use and how to layer them to create dramatic procedural landscapes. Marc outlines the two families of Noise – Perlin, and Voronoi, and explains how each noise type relates to these families. Then he shows how various noise types work in displacement in order to create landscapes and rocks. You’ll see how noises can be layered both in C4D’s classic material and in Node-Based Materials in Cinema 4D R20, in order to create and shade landscapes. You’ll also see how the multi-instances in Cinema 4D R20 make it possible to populate a large amount of vegetation in a landscape without hitting memory limits. Finally, you’ll see some tricks for lighting the scene and a comparison of the strengths & weaknesses of C4D’s Standard and Physical render engines.

10:12 Introduction to Procedural Noise
14:19 Creating Rocks from Procedural Noise
17:18 Node-Based Approach to Procedural Rocks
19:37 Noise Types for Landscapes and Rock Formations
24:57 Modeling a Mountain with Procedural Noise
26:50 Mountain Shading
33:30 Mountains and Valleys
35:08 Multi-Instances
40:43 Lighting and Rendering

Thanks to Maxon US and Cineversity.com, for recording and publishing the 2018 Siggraph Live Cinema 4D Presentations.

Some new features in R20:

• MoGraph Fields – Offer unprecedented content creation possibilities to the procedural animation toolset in MoGraph. The Fields feature in Cinema 4D R20 makes it possible to efficiently control the strength of the effect using any combination of falloffs – from simple geometric shapes to shaders and sounds to objects and mathematical formulas. Fields can be mixed and combined with one another in a layer list. Effects can be re-mapped and grouped in multiple Fields to control Effectors, Deformers, weights and more.
• Volume-based modeling – The OpenVDB-based Volume Builder and Mesher in Cinema 4D R20 offer an entirely new procedural modeling workflow. Any primitive or polygon object (including the new Fields objects) can be combined to create complex objects using Boolean operations. Volumes created in R20 can be exported sequentially in OpenVDB format and can be used in any application or render engine that supports OpenVDB.
• Node-based material system – More than 150 different node-based shaders offer customers a new and streamlined workflow to quickly and conveniently create shading effects from simple reference materials to highly complex shaders. The existing standard material system’s interface can be used to get started with the new node-based workflow. Node-based materials can be made available as parametric assets with a reduced interface.
• CAD Import – Cinema 4D R20 offers seamless drag and drop import for common CAD file formats such as Solidworks, STEP, Catia, JT, and IGES. The scale-based tessellation feature of the import function offers individual control of the level of detail for impressive visualizations.
• ProRender improvements – The GPU-based ProRender in Cinema 4D lets customers utilize the power of the GPU to create physically accurate renders. In R20, key features such as Subsurface Scattering, motion blur, and multi-passes are now available. Other enhancements in ProRender include updated code, support for Apple’s Metal2 graphics technology and the use of out-of-core textures.
• Core Modernization – The modernization efforts of the Cinema 4D core architecture and foundational technologies MAXON announced in 2017 are now more tangible and mature in Release 20. This is marked by a series of significant API adaptations, the new node system, and the modeling and UI framework.

Learn More

C4D Live SIGGRAPH 2018 All Presentations

• C4D Live SIGGRAPH 2018 Rewind – Round 1
• C4D Live SIGGRAPH 2018 Rewind – Round 2
• C4D Live SIGGRAPH 2018 Rewind – Round 3
• C4D Live SIGGRAPH 2018 Rewind – Round 4
• C4D Live SIGGRAPH 2018 Rewind – Round 5
• C4D Live SIGGRAPH 2018 Rewind – Round 6
• C4D Live SIGGRAPH 2018 Rewind – Round 7